Chapter 46

"Oh my god, Charlie, this is delicious!" Dean tells her, savoring every bite of the delicious fudge she made.

"Thanks!" she replies with a proud smile. "It was my great, great, great grandmother's recipe."

"Seriously?"

"No, I found it online," she admits. "Well, either way, it's awesome," he gushes. "Like, almost pie-level awesome."

"That's the best compliment I've ever gotten!"

"I think our brownies turned out pretty good," Sam tells his girlfriend as he takes another bite.

"Oh, definitely," she agrees. "These are delicious."

"I heard someone say 'fudge,'" Gabriel announces, suddenly appearing in the war room with them. He looks around at the various sweets laid out in front of him. "Ooh, decisions, decisions..."

He licks his lips as he debates what to take first, then reaches for a sugar cookie, courtesy of Kevin — and, in theory, Samandriel and Adam, but Samandriel, being an angel, had no idea how to cook and Adam is just Adam, so it was basically entirely Kevin's doing.

"Okay, these are amazing," he declares. "If you're all as good as baking as whoever it was that made this, I can guarantee that I won't be disappointed."

"Hey, Gabriel, back off," Dean snaps. "You said you weren't celebrating Christmas, so you ain't celebrating Christmas."

"I know what I said, but I'm bored and I like food, so bite me, Winchester." And, just for that, he takes two pieces of the fudge Dean adores so much.

The hunter death glares him. "You don't take another man's food, Gabriel."

"Yeah? I don't see your name on it," Gabriel replies, taking yet another piece of fudge.

"Can you two stop arguing for just one day?" Bobby asks, exasperated.

"Hey, I haven't had an actual arguement with anyone going on four days now, Bobby," Dean tells him. "I can only take so much of this."

"Argue all you want tomorrow," Ellen replies. "But today's Christmas. Don't go ruining that over a couple pieces of fudge."

"Yeah, Dean," Gabriel says mockingly. "Don't ruin Christmas over a couple pieces of fudge." He pops another in his mouth just to be annoying.

"You son of a —" Dean cuts himself off with a glance at Ellen, and instead takes a piece of fudge before Gabriel eats them all. "Don't you have another archangel to go annoy?"

"I wish," Gabriel replies. "But you don't bug Satan on Christmas. That's just a big no. I'm just kind of drifting around aimlessly for the day," he adds with exaggerated sadness.

Dean rolls his eyes, so Gabriel shoots him a look, so Dean shoots him a look in response, so Gabriel shoots him another look, so Dean shoots him another look, and there's basically a whole rude conversation in facial expressions until Ellen tells them to cut it out.

"Are we doing gifts soon?" Sam asks, just to change the subject.

"Might as well," Bobby replies. "No reason to put it off."

"And that's my cue to leave," Gabriel announces before teleporting out of the room.

Everyone gathers around the Christmas tree that Michael made. He didn't decorate it, of course — that was a group effort among the humans and couple angels who chose to participate in the festivities. "So, how are we going to do this?" Mary asks. "One person receives all their gifts at once, or one person gives all their gifts at once? Or just pull them out from under the tree randomly?"

"I say just pull them all out," Dean replies. "Simple enough, right?"

The rest of them murmur in agreement as they all sit down together around the base of the tree. In order, it's Bobby, Ellen, Mary, John, Adam, Samandriel, Castiel, Dean, Sam, Jess, Kevin, and then Charlie, which was mostly written out like that so the author could remember who's here right now.

Just as Mary crawls towards the tree to pull out the first gift, Gabriel appears in the room again. He looks around, puzzled, and attempts to walk away, but the doorways are sealed by some type of invisible force preventing him from leaving. That can only mean one thing. Chuck.

"So..." Gabriel says awkwardly, walking over to the table and taking a seat. "Guess I'm here to watch. Fun."

Before anyone can process what's happening, Gabriel is suddenly seated next to Charlie, and his expression makes it clear that wasn't his intention. He begins to stand up, then shakes his head to himself and settled down.

"Looks like Chuck's being his usual controlling self," Gabriel observes. "Don't mind me. Enjoy your Christmas or whatever." He gestures for them to continue, but he personally couldn't care less about how they're celebrating today. Granted, there's nothing he'd rather be doing, so it doesn't really matter if he's stuck out here or not. He might as well just play along and see what Chuck has planned for him. Who knows? Maybe it will be something cool and not soul crushing!