Who: David & Hannah Ryan What: A very Winchester Christmas Where: The Men of Letters bunker in Kansas When: Saturday early evening, December 24th, 2016 Warnings: Nothing major, probably.
Most people seemed to like Christmas Day over Christmas Eve, but David was strictly an Eve guy. Maybe it sounded crazy, but he liked the way everything smelled. Even in parts of the states where it wasn't snowing during December, the cold night air on Christmas Eve still smelled like snow. David had never shared that thought with anyone, but he didn't think he was imagining things. It was a weird sort of comfort to him that didn't really stem from anything significant, no one memory attached to the smell of snow in the air, David just really liked it. It made everything seem a little bit more like Christmas to him, with the sights and smells of snow in the air, and since they were living mostly in Kansas these days, snow was something that actually happened here.
David wasn't usually a sap about things, but when it came to Christmas, he was privately pretty sentimental about it. He could blame Dean for that, except that David had sort of always been that way about the holiday, even though he and Hannah's childhood had sucked, including on Christmas. Maybe that's why he liked the holiday so much, because he'd always kind of had to make it special for him and his sister when their dad was already passed out drunk by noon. Half the time their dad didn't even remember things like presents, or even a tree, so growing up David had gotten in the habit of decorating and providing presents himself. They were never exactly extravagant, considering he was a kid who couldn't afford much, but they got by, and he was pretty good at improvising.
Their Christmases as kids were still usually better than Sam and Dean's pathetic, makeshift roadside Christmases with presents bought at the local gas station and drinking in crappy motel rooms, and now that he and Hannah were out of the house, they definitely weren't as lame as the Christmases they'd had growing up. David still liked to make the place he was staying in festive every year, and now that he and Hannah were both living in the bunker, he'd done his best to out do himself this year. There was an actual tree in the big communal area of the bunker, none of those fake plastic trees from Walmart, with plenty of ornaments on it and Christmas lights strung throughout the room. Not too shabby, if he did say so himself. Not that he ever said as much out loud, David usually pretended that it wasn't a big deal, just something he always did every year out of habit.
Honestly, subconsciously he'd maybe gone a little bit harder this year than he meant to in comparison to other years. Maybe because, just over a year ago, he thought two years ago would have been the last Christmas he'd ever have with Hannah. David couldn't even remember Christmas from two years ago, or anything significant that they'd done to celebrate it, and then last November Hannah had died. Only for a few minutes, but that had been enough of a scare to get David to start prioritizing the more important things. Yeah, they were reincarnates now, and had pretty much embraced Sam and Dean's calling as hunters by this point, but David was still damn well going to make sure he and Hannah had a good Christmas if it killed him. ... That wasn't an invitation for anyone to try, for the record.
Leaving Finley's that morning, before David went back to the bunker he set out to get some last minute provisions. Mostly food and beer, those were the most important things when it came to a Christmas meal. The food wasn't exactly homemade, but decent for take out, and anything beat gas station snacks. He had Hannah's presents tucked away in his inside jacket pocket, loaded everything into Baby outside of the MTN checkpoint in Kansas and drove back to the bunker with his spoils. "Hannah? You here?" David called out as he walked in, dumping everything but her gift on the big table in the middle of the common room. "I've got dinner."