Chapter Five, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"

"JARVIS, time/date, please?"

"It is 10:34pm on December 24, 2008, Sir."

Taking a sip of his scotch, Tony sat down on a workbench and surveyed his workshop. Although time had passed, he could still feel the emptiness of it, without Dean's presence.

He took a much larger sip this time.

"Play, 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,' by Judy Garland, JARVIS. And put it on repeat."

"Yes, Sir," JARVIS replied, disapprovingly.

Pushing his scotch aside, Tony pillowed his head on his arms, resting on the table, and allowed Judy to let him wade through his Christmas Eve sorrow.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light...

Tony Stark had never been a religious man. While his madre had dragged him to mass each Sunday and with a steely glare made him go through communion and confirmation, Tony never remembered a time where he actually believed in God. How could a God exist that allowed his father to turn into a demon when drunk? Mamma would hold him close when they hid and tell him that angels watched over him; and even at four, he knew she was lying. Mamma protected him. Jarvis protected him. Not angels.

As he grew older, he learned there was a fellowship out there of non-believers: atheists. People who believed in hard science over mysticism, evolution over creationism, the might and wisdom of men above a supposed omniscient God. Out of respect for his madre – his beautiful, naïve madre – he still went along with her mistaken rituals and kept his mouth mostly shut on the preposterousness of it all. The one time Tony made her cry was the only time: he would never do that to her again.

The last time he was in the cathedral was for her and Howard's funerals. With devotion, Tony recited all the prayers, signed of the cross, knelt, and took communion. His devotion was not to some fictitious being in the sky but rather as a good son to his beloved madre, and he mourned that upon her death she ceased to be and that the eternal life she had dedicated her entire life to in anticipation of heaven was a fantasy.

But after that day, Anthony Edward Stark became an official lapsed Catholic and hardened atheist. He devoted himself to science and engineering and enjoyed his life with excess, knowing that he only had one life to live.

And then Dean arrived in his life, bringing along tales of demons and monsters.

Dean wasn't religious and didn't believe in God as far as Tony could tell. They never had really discussed it. There were some religious hunters, even some priests and pastors, but one did not have to believe in God to believe in demons, etc. as far as Tony could tell.

When he was young, his catechism teacher, an old nun with more lines on her face than Tony could count – and you bet he tried – had warned them of Doubt. "Doubt," she said, brown eyes piercing every since one of the preteens in the room, "is the greatest enemy of the righteous. It forms cracks in your wall of belief until it comes crumbling down like the towers of Babel. Mark my words; you will all face this great beast one day. It is Satan's work, to create non-believers." And Tony had sat there, creeped out by her but still feeling smug on the inside. He had never felt doubt, and never would, because there was nothing for him to doubt. God didn't exist. Satan wasn't real. Angels were not in the outfield.

After Dean revealed the supernatural, Tony remembered those words, and he gradually realized the reality of them, although not the way the nun had intended.

He Doubted – he Doubted his atheism.

If demons and Hell existed, then logically, the opposite must be true? Angels and Heaven and – and God?

Dean dying had sent Tony into a spiral, and there was one point that Tony nearly – intentionally – took his own life, in order to join Dean. With the palladium poisoning, he was dying anyway, so why not speed up the process?

But he didn't.

Because, whoa. It was official now: Tony had crossed the road from atheism to agnosticism. He didn't know what was out there, just that something was.

And he didn't know what God's laws were.

He had grown up being told of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Sins varied in their punishment, but there was one that he knew was unforgivable: suicide.

His Great-Uncle Giovanni had committed suicide. He would now be diagnosed with PTSD from his experience in the war, but before, it was just considered shell shock. He came home from war, tried to move on and become a husband and father as he was expected to, and ended up putting a bullet through his skull.

Tony's madre had found him.

The church refused to perform a funeral mass or allow him to buried in the graveyard. In the end, he had a pauper's funeral in the county cemetery. The family never spoke of him or to his wife and child. The shame was tremendous, having a suicide in the family; because everyone knew the eternal sentence for that crime was damnation.

When Tony had gone through depressive episodes when he was younger, he never contemplated suicide, except in abstract terms. But, his madre feared that one day she would find his body, too. So, she told him the story of her Zio Gio and to come to her before he thought of doing anything like that. Of course, being a snot-nosed asshole of a teenage boy, Tony had focused on the supposed damnation of Giovanni, and countered it with the fact that no, Mamma, he wasn't in hell or heaven, because they don't exist –

His madre's tears caused him to shut up and rein in his assholery.

Mostly. At least with Mamma.

But now he Doubted. What if suicide does lead straight to damnation? If he took his own life to be with Dean – how can he be sure they would be in the same place?

Because, Dean just couldn't be sent to Hell. He was the best man that Tony knew, the brightest soul.

Tony wouldn't fuck up their potential afterlife together by being impatient.

So, his plan of driving his car off a cliff was crossed off the list.

But then, that led to a theological and philosophical debate: was lack of action considered suicide? If he decided to let the palladium run it's course and not look for alternatives, would that be considered suicide? Would he be sent to Hell and therefore separated from Dean forever - literally?

In the end, Tony decided he would hedge his bets: he would do his best to find a substitute, and que sera sera.

What will be, will be.

But after several years, with no success, it looked like he would be meeting Dean again soon.

JARVIS had projected he had until his birthday.

What a birthday present that would be.

At least he would go out with a bang. Not only the Expo, oh no: his birthday party would be a blast!

...Someday soon, we all will be together,
If the fates allow.
Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow.
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Tony lifted his head and grabbed his glass, holding it up in a toast to what will be forever Dean's side of the workshop.

"One more Christmas, Dean," Tony toasted. "I'll muddle through. Next one, we'll be together, my love, my Sunshine."

AN: So, this was the last fic that I needed to crosspost from AO3 to here. The next fic and sixth installment of the Supernatural Husbands series is outlined but not yet written. I can't promise when it will be up, but early 2016 is a what I have planned. We'll see, though. Since fanfic dot net still does not allow fics to be linked together, your best bet for being notified of when the next fic is up is to set up an author alert for me.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas (and/or festive season) my lovelies, and I will see you next time in "Of Expos and Ectoplasm" when - YES - our boys will finally be reunited! Love, Insie