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Castiel stares up at the leafy green plant hanging from the top of the door jamb, head tilted to the side and eyebrows squished together. “I do not understand what a parasitical plant has to do with kissing.” In his hand he rolls the small, pearly white berry he gathered from the plant between his fingers, careful not to squish it.
Sam clamps his lips together and swallows the laugh bubbling up in his chest. Making fun of the angel won’t help him understand obscure human holiday traditions any better than he already doesn’t, though the light-hearted teasing would probably sail right over his head and leave him none the wiser.
“It’s just something humans do,” Sam says, tugging on the lapels of Castiel’s trench coat to pull him closer. “Stand under the mistletoe, pull off a berry each time you kiss, and when there’s no more berries, you’re done.” To prove his point, he leans down and gently brushes a kiss against the angel’s chapped pink lips. Castiel hums approvingly, and a warmth that has nothing to do with the heat from the stove where Dean is cooking dinner bursts into his chest.
When they pull apart, Castiel holds the berry out to Sam like a solemn priest bestowing a ritual artifact upon a worshipper. Oooh. That thought gives Sam an idea for roleplay later. “Here is your berry,” Castiel says in that gravelly deep voice of his, “though I don’t think this exchange is very fair to you.”
Smiling, Sam plucks the small white berry from the angel’s palm and tucks it in the left breast pocket of his flannel over shirt. “Why’s that?”
“You gave me a delightful kiss, and I gave you the fruit of a plant that sucks the life and vitality from its host.”
Pressing a hand to his mouth, Sam bites down hard on his lip to hide the grin threatening to bloom across his face. “You sure have a way with words, Cas,” he says in a wheezy voice full of choked back laughter. He kind of wishes he was recording this, because the angel’s earnest inability to understand that it’s just a dumb tradition is too funny.
If he notices that Sam’s on the brink of cackling like a wicked witch, Castiel doesn’t show it. He dips his head and thanks Sam for the compliment. “Now I believe it’s your turn, Sam,” he says, as serious as if he’s reciting wedding vows. And that’s not really a thought Sam needs right now, because it’s a nice thought and he likes it too much, and it seems like everything that he likes ends up crumbling to dust in his hands. Or dying. Besides, this is just supposed to be something silly and fun. And they don’t even know what “they” are, yet.
But what if…? It couldn’t hurt to play a little, right? (Rehearse, a voice at the back of his mind coughs, but he shoves that thought back where it came from.) Straightening to his full height, he schools his features as best he can and gazes down into Castiel’s deep blue eyes. In his little fantasy, Castiel is in a white tux with a black tie, and Sam himself is in a complimenting black tux with a white tie. “Ready when you are,” he murmurs, heart scudding in his chest at the idea of making his daydream real.
He remembers too late that, powered down though he may be, Castiel can still read his mind, especially when his emotions are cranked up to eleven like they are now. Castiel’s eyes widen and his lips part slightly, and Sam knows the angel has caught on to Sam’s pipe dream. A hot flush creeps up the back of his neck and he stares down at his boots. Way to go, Sam. You killed that nice, happy moment like a boss, he mentally grouses at himself.
Cool, slender fingers slide under his chin and tilt it up until he’s staring down into Castiel’s eyes, soft and shining with millennia upon millennia of wisdom and…something else that makes Sam’s breath catch in his throat. “I’m ready,” Castiel says in a rough whisper that sends a shiver down Sam’s spine.
This kiss is different than the one Sam gave Castiel only moments ago. Hell, it’s different than any kiss they’ve shared before. It’s slow and warm and simple, yet so much more than just the pleasure of sensitive skin on skin. Sam has no words to describe it. Sighing, he cups Castiel’s face in his hands and lets himself get lost in the moment, the feeling of warm skin beneath his palms, of Castiel’s body flush to his own, his arms tight around Sam’s waist and shoulders. A scent like night and earth and honeysuckle wafts around them, and it’s the axis on which Sam’s whole world spins.
Rap-rap-rap. “When you two lovebirds are done eating each other’s faces, dinner’s on the table,” Dean says, voice oozing smugness like a parent who just caught two kids acting naughty.
Sam starts. He’d been so caught up in Castiel, he hadn’t even heard Dean approach. Castiel, of course, is the epitome of poise. Completely ignoring Dean, he pulls away from Sam, lips plump and damp, and skims the back of his hand down Sam’s face. “That was wonderful,” he murmurs, the corners of his mouth tugging up at the edges in the closest thing to a genuine smile Sam's ever seen on his stern face.
Sam feels gratified to see a faint blush pinking the angel’s cheeks, because he can feel an identical one warming his own. “Yeah. Yeah it was,” he says, tracing the prominent ridges of the angels’ cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs.
Dean loudly clears his throat. “FYI, me an’ Luce ain’t waiting for you two,” he announces, then heads back to the kitchen and starts good-naturedly razzing Lucifer about piling microwaved veggie patties and actual vegetables onto his hamburger bun instead of the cheese stuffed burgers Dean apparently “slaved” over all afternoon.
Shaking his head at his brother’s antics, Sam squeezes Castiel’s shoulders and then forces himself to pull apart from the angel. Immediately he mourns the loss of warmth and sense of connection. “I guess we better get in there if we want anything to eat. You know how those two get.”
Castiel nods. “Our brothers would put a pack of starving hyenas to shame.”
Sam really does laugh this time, because the mental image of Dean and Lucifer crouched over a fresh kill (or, in Lucifer’s case, a pile of fresh fruit and veggies), growling and snarling at anyone who tries to butt in, is just too funny. “C’mon,” he says, grinning as he turns toward the kitchen and the sound of playfully rude banter and the smell of Dean’s famous burgers.
Before he can get two steps, a hand falls on his shoulder. “Aren’t you forgetting something, Sam?” Castiel asks, looking pointedly up at the mistletoe.
Sam mentally smacks himself in the forehead. The berry. “Oh. Right.” Reaching up, he pulls a berry off the plant and hands it to Castiel with a lopsided smile. “Here you go. Payment for, like, the best kiss I think I’ve ever had.”
Unless Sam is imagining things, and he’s pretty sure he’s not, the blush coloring Castiel’s face deepens. “I will treasure it,” the angel says as he takes the berry from Sam and slips it in one of the pockets of his trench coat.
Sam has no doubt he will.
BONUS SCENE
Dean cackles and takes a swig of his beer as Lucifer pauses the video while Sam and Castiel are mid-kiss. “It’s like watching a friggin’ chick flick, man.”
Lucifer snickers along with him and playfully nudges Dean’s shoulder with his own. “Aren’t they adorable,” he croons, zooming in on their brothers’’ love-struck faces. “I think we just watched them get married.”
Dean shudders and takes a huge gulp. “Dude, don’t say that,” he moans. “I’m not ready to walk my baby brother down the aisle.”
Grinning, Lucifer hits ‘play’ and the video starts up again. The soft little moans their little brothers were making while locking lips would make a porn star proud. He doubts they even knew their desire for each other was so…audible.
Tilting his head back, Dean finishes off his beer and settles the empty bottle on the end table next to the sofa with a muted rattle of glass on wood. “Good enough for blackmail?” he asks, stretching his arms overhead and rolling his neck from side to side to loosen some of the kinks he got slaving all day in the kitchen.
Lucifer can practically feel those proverbial horns sprouting from his head. “Oh Hell yeah.”
Despite the dastardly duo’s intentions, the video ends up being used less as blackmail and more to embarrass the newly married couple at their wedding a year later. Sam berates Dean for projecting it on a screen during cake, but he looks so much like a tomato in a tux that all Dean and Lucifer do is laugh and give each other high fives.
The joke’s on them when Sam and Castiel return the prank on their wedding day only a few months later.