A Very Prompty Christmas Day 3: Ribbon
When Dean entered the kitchen the next morning, he found another door on the advent calendar was open.
This time it was a window to the left of the front door: inside the cubby sat a spool of thread. Carefully, Dean wedged his fingers into the tiny space and managed to get hold of it, taking it out and dropping it into the palm of his hand. Not thread, he realised, examining it closely. Ribbon, like the kind of ribbon used to decorate presents. It was wide and a deep, rich green.
Dean tucked the spool back into its little hidey-hole and poured himself a cup of coffee. It was too early to contemplate the meaning of the creepy advent calendar. First, coffee. Then, take Miracle for his morning walk. Only then would Dean be able to focus on anything.
He vaguely hoped that he wasn’t going to get attacked by any rogue ribbon today.
He enjoyed taking Miracle for walks. Miracle enjoyed the exercise, diving into snow drifts and chasing after the odd squirrel or rabbit that dared to show its face, always racing back to Dean’s side before barreling off again, and Dean enjoyed the solitude. The woods surrounding the Bunker were quiet, far enough from the town centre that Dean didn’t have to worry about coming across other people, but the knowledge that they were there, that there were people down in the town and people waiting for him in the Bunker comforted him. The illusion of being the only person around was nice, especially when your space was often unavoidably full, but Dean didn’t want a repeat of the reality.
He stomped through the snow after Miracle, occasionally picking up a stick and lobbing it over the dog’s head, watching as Miracle bounded after it, and sighed.
A crack echoed through the cold air, the sound as loud as a gunshot, and Dean reacted instinctively, hand flying to the small of his back, pulling out the gun that he had automatically shoved there before leaving the Bunker and taking aim, scanning the woods. There came a crashing sound, and Dean whipped around in the direction he thought the sound had come from, gun steady in his hands, only to see a large snow-covered branch on the ground, the thin twigs still bouncing up and down in reaction to their fall.
“Shit,” Dean swore, laughing at himself. The branch had broken under the weight of the snow piled on top of it. That was all.
“I’m getting too old for this, Miracle,” he called to the dog, tucking the gun away. When there was no immediate response, no fluffy ears appearing from behind the bank of Snow that Miracle was hiding behind, no blur of fur racing towards him, Dean frowned.
“Miracle?” he called. “Here, boy!”
“MIRACLE?” Dean yelled, startling a flock of birds out of the tree they had settled in after the falling branch had scared them. “MIRACLE!”
He turned in a circle, eyes scanning the woods desperately. No, no, this couldn’t be happening, he couldn’t lose…
But Miracle didn’t return.
-------------------------------------
“He’ll be fine, Dean,” Sam said reassuringly. “We’ll find him.”
“He hasn’t been here that long, he won’t know the way home,” Dean fretted anxiously. “And the road, he doesn’t have any road sense, what it—“
“I sent a group out to look for him,” Sam said soothingly. “And I’ll go into town myself, put out the word in case anyone sees him. Don’t worry, Dean.” He reached out and laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder, and Dean shrugged him off, pushing to his feet and stalking out to the library, ignoring Sam’s anxious “Dean!” and headed resolutely to the garage.
He had to find Miracle. It was his fault the dog was gone, he was supposed to take care of him, and he hadn’t even noticed he was gone. He’d been right under Dean’s nose and Dean hadn’t seen him, hadn’t cared enough to pay attention, if only he’d pulled his head out of his ass long enough—
Dean spent the rest of the day driving around the surrounds of Lebanon, calling Miracle’s name out the window of the Impala. He hailed every car he saw, pulled up to every person and asked them if they’d seen Miracle, gave out one of his non-emergency numbers and made them promise to call him if they saw anything. Maybe he should’ve made flyers to give out, too, Dean though. Shit, he didn’t even have a photo of Miracle. What kind of person doesn’t even have a decent photo of their dog? He should’ve taken a photo, should’ve taken so many photos, his wallet should have been filled with photos of Miracle, and Sam and Mom and Jack and….
When Dean’s vision started to blur, he pulled the Impala off the road and put her into park, punching at the steering wheel in frustration.
“Dammit, Cas,” he choked, his voice breaking.
Because it wasn’t about the fucking dog at all, was it? The dog was just the final straw on a giant fucking pile of everyone that Dean had lost. Mom, Dad, Sam, Bobby, Cas, Charlie, Cas (again), Mom (again), Jack…everyone that Dean had loved and had to say goodbye to. He’d barely been able to drag himself up off the dungeon floor after Cas had…and now Miracle. The bestest boy in the whole world who needed a home and someone to take care of him and who wouldn’t let Dean out of his sight and watched over Dean while he slept and while the dog would never, could never replace…anybody, he gave Dean a reason to get up in the morning, a structure to his day.
Something to focus on so he didn’t think about…other things.
But once again, he’d let someone he…cared about slip through his fingers.
Dean wasn’t sure how long he’d sat in the car, alternatively crying and cursing, swearing he was sorry, pleading for Cas to forgive him, begging for Miracle to come back, but by the time he had run out of steam and tears, the woods around him were dark, he was shivering from the cold and the screen of his phone was filled with missed call notifications.
Scrubbing at his cheeks with the heels of his hands, Dean took a deep breath and started the Impala up, carefully turning her around and steering her back towards the Bunker.
Baby carefully tucked away in the garage, Dean slowly made his way up the stairs and along the long hallways towards his room. He knew he should head to the War Room, find Sam and check in, but he looked a mess and wanted to splash some water on his face before he had to face other people. But one of the younger refugees—Todd? Tom?—was walking down the hall and before Dean could duck into the bathroom called out an excited “Dean!” so loudly that Dean knew he would have no chance of pretending he hadn’t seen or heard him.
“Hey, Dean’s back!” Tim called over his shoulder, hurrying forward to grab Dean by the arm. “C’mon, we’ve been waiting for you, you gotta see this!”
Confused, and a little amused at Tad’s audacity to grab him, Dean allowed the young man to drag Dean towards the War Room, where he could hear excited voices chattering and—was that a bark?
Dean broke into a run, skidding slightly as he turned sharply at the door to the War Room and then came to a shocked halt.
Sitting up on the Map Table, a jaunty green ribbon tied around his neck, was Miracle, fur fluffed like he’d just been washed and blow dried, tail sweeping back and forth behind him with happiness at all the attention.
“Miracle,” Dean croaked, falling to his knees as the dog barked and leapt off the table, racing across the floor and launching himself into Dean’s arms.
“Oh, boy, I missed you! Where were you? Missed you so much, you stupid dog, don’t you ever run away like that again, you hear me?” Dean buried his face into the fur of Miracle’s neck, hugging the wriggling dog tightly, not fighting the tears that started flowing again.
He looked up at the touch of a hand on his shoulder and saw Sam crouched down next to him. “Where was he?” Dean demanded, and Sam shook his head.
“No idea. One of the teams came back and found him sitting at Bunker door with the ribbon around his neck. No note, nobody with him. But there’s this.”
Sam tugged at the ribbon, lifting it up to show Dean the brown leather collar that had been fastened around Miracle’s neck. Hanging from the collar was a silver tag, and when Dean reached for the tag and flipped it over, he found that it had been inscribed, My name is Miracle! If you find me, please call Dean Campbell 555-0165.
“He didn’t have a collar, oh my God, Sam, we didn’t get him a collar,” Dean realised, and pulled the dog back against his chest. Miracle wriggled in his arms and licked at Dean’s face.
“He has one now,” Sam said, stating the fucking obvious.
“It’s cats that have nine lives, not dogs,” Dean murmured to Miracle. “One of these days you’re gonna run out of luck.”
Miracle whined in agreement.
“Okay. You hungry? You want some food? Yeah? Food?” Dean said letting go of Miracle, who danced at the mention of the ‘food’, and stood up. “C’mon, boy, let’s get you some food.”
The sharpness in Sam’s voice stopped him in his tracks, and Dean sighed and turned to face his brother. “Yeah, I know.”
“Where were you?” Sam asked, sounding upset. “Dean, you can’t do that, you can’t just disappear and---and not answer your phone and—“
Dean took a closer look at Sam, and then closed the distance between them, wrapping his brother in a tight hug. Because everyone that Dean had lost? Sam had lost them too, and more, and Dean should’ve thought about that before he disappeared without a trace.
“I’m sorry, Sammy,” he muttered, and felt Sam’s chest hitch as though he was holding back tears of his own. “I just…I couldn’t just leave him out there, I had to find him, had to—“
“I know,” Sam said, his voice choked up.
An impatient bark from Miracle—the word ‘food’ had been said and yet no food had been forthcoming, Dean guessed—broke them apart, and Dean chuckled.
“Yeah, yeah, c’mon then,” he told Miracle, heading for the door.
Dean looked through the door at Sam, still standing where Dean had left him.
“You good?” Sam asked, face screwed up in worry.
Dean looked down at the expectant Miracle at his feet, jaunty green ribbon gleaming in the artificial light, and back up to Sam.
“I will be,” he said, and led Miracle towards the kitchen.
Come back tomorrow for Day Four: Shopping
Day One: Advent Calendar
Day Two: Tinsel
