Chapter Text
It’s a testament, Dean thinks, to how comfortable he has grown with this life of settling down, that he’s almost embarrassingly grumpy to be woken up after just a few short hours of sleep. Life on the road meant he was lucky to catch four or five hours while hunting, and very occasionally a twelve hour nap that was mainly just the result of getting thrown into walls so hard his body was exhausted.
Still, there are some things that stuck to Dean even though he left the life. He slept with a gun under his pillow for weeks, only stopping when Claire and Cas moved in and everything got locked away. He still wakes up anytime the floorboards creak, adrenaline spiking even if he knows it’s just Cas going downstairs to brew the cup of tea he favors at two in the morning. And he still sleeps best, he realized last night, when there’s someone else in the room and he can count their breaths.
Dean wakes up groggily, then, when he feels Cas stirring and slowly moving out of Dean’s arms. When he squints his eyes open, he can only just make out the silhouette of Cas as he shrugs into a hoodie he’d grabbed off the floor and pulls himself out of bed.
“Cas,” he mumbles. His eyes close again without him meaning to.
“Go back to sleep,” Cas whispers, voice unreasonably soft. The floorboards creak underneath him as he comes to Dean’s side of the bed. Dean tenses when he feels Cas lean over him, but soon softens into the brush of Cas’s lips against his cheek. “I’ll be right back.”
Blindly, Dean reaches out until he finds Cas’s wrist and can tug him closer, pulling him back towards Dean in a way that almost seems like they’re orbiting each other. In the quietness of the early dawn, Cas’s exasperated huff of laughter feels like a miracle. Dean whispers, “C’mon, get back in bed. Five more minutes.”
With another huff and a halfhearted tug, Cas tells him, “You can have five more minutes, Dean. I have to go get—”
“Claire,” Dean realizes. He lets go of Cas so he can sit up, stumbling and still a little sleep as he tries to get his ass out of bed. He’s already starting to wake up more. It doesn’t matter how much he wants to sleep. He wants to see Claire again more.
“You’ve hardly slept the last two days,” Cas protests. He puts both his hands on Dean’s shoulders to stop him from standing up. His touch is warm. “You need to get some rest.”
Dean wants to scowl. He wants to argue and shove Cas’s hands off of him and he wants to stomp around to prove his point and he hates being babied and he always will, but. This is friggin’ Cas he’s talking about. And even though Cas has always pushed back where Dean has pulled, he deserves better than the guy who pours gasoline on fires instead of water. Dean’s gotta be that guy for him. He wants to be. So he swallows the anger that rises in him like an instinct and he looks Cas in the eye and says, imploringly, “Dude. I’m not gonna let her go to school, where she’s gonna be all day, without telling her I’m back. I gotta see her before that. C’mon, man. Please.”
Cas looks at Dean sometimes like he’s still able to dig and find his soul. He can’t, of course. Not with the being human and all. But Dean can’t help but wonder if Cas still sees it, anyway. The memory of what it was. Dean wonders if Cas misses it. Whatever Cas sees, today, makes his expression turn soft. He lets go of Dean’s shoulders. Gently, he cradles Dean’s jaw in one of his hands instead, and tugs him up for a kiss.
“Okay,” Cas tells him first, right before his mouth presses firmly to Dean’s. And again, a moment later, into the kiss. He murmurs, “Okay.”
They lean slowly into one another, like they’ve got all the time in the world for this unhurried, easy kiss. Dean can barely remember the last time he was kissed like this. A soft and unbidden kind of thing that he almost thinks he hasn’t earned yet—the kind that comes after years of familiarity and togetherness and a somewhat unintrusive reassurance that they’ll have plenty more of this in years to come.
Dean’s greedy for it. For this, for more, for all of it. There’s a part of him that’s thrumming under the skin, that wants to tug Cas back into bed or into the shower or wherever they can manage to sneak away. And there’s a part of him that’s rooted where he stands, clinging to this moment and unwilling to let it go.
This is a whole part of them that Dean hasn’t even begun to get the chance to enjoy yet.
Cas sighs into the kiss, and Dean pulls him impossibly closer. Outside, the sun barely starts to rise over the mountains.
It’s an ironic constant of Dean’s life, that he never seems to have time. That things only seem to happen for him when the world is about to end or someone’s in the hospital or someone’s just come back from the dead. He doesn’t have time, right now, as much as he wishes for it. There’s a kid who needs to be taken to school and a brother that needs answers and a father-figure who will grumble and bitch about breakfast even if it’s waiting on the table. Dean knows all of that.
But he also knows that he needs this—just one moment where the world isn’t burning and he can kiss Cas and hold him close by clinging to his shirt. He knows that Cas needs this—just one second where this is just another normal day for them and it feels like something they’ll have together for decades.
“I’ll start a pot of coffee,” Cas murmurs, finally, when they break apart. “You can wake her up.”
“Yeah,” Dean agrees. It takes a great deal of strength to let go of Cas and pull himself away. “Yeah, that’s good. Hey, keep it down though, will you? Wanna let Sam and Bobby sleep in as much as they can.”
Cas rolls his eyes, like there isn’t still a big smile on his face. He sounds annoyed when he says, “Yes, Dean, I’m sure I can handle that,” and it sounds more like I love you to Dean’s ears than anything ever has. God, Dean loves him so friggin’ bad. It’s staggering. It’s the simplest thing in the world.
Dean kisses him again. Just a short one, this time, with his best intentions to keep it that way. He leans into it just a little bit more, anyway. And Dean trips over his own two feet, when Cas pushes him back, but it’s damn sure worth it for the way they grin at each other afterwards.
They stumble as quietly as they can out of the bedroom and down the hall, Cas not trying very hard to keep his hands to himself and Dean too pleased about it to do anything stupid like stop it. Cas reels Dean in again, in front of Claire’s door, for a quiet and quick thing that barely counts as a kiss. Dean’s already reaching for more when Cas pulls himself out of his grasp and moves quickly down the stairs.
“Asshole,” Dean mutters after him.
“We’re going to be late,” Cas whispers back. He doesn’t even try to hide his smugness.
For as long as Claire’s lived here, Dean’s only been the one to wake her up a few times. It’s typically a task that Cas takes on, as it ensures that he’ll get out of bed, too, and once they decided that he was probably a little kinder about it than Dean. Still, Dean thinks, as he pushes the door open, there may come a time where he’s gonna miss being able to do this. He tries not to think about that too much.
Claire’s room is nearly pitch-black, courtesy of the fancy-ass curtains she’d bought herself after insisting the brightness outside was keeping her up. The only light comes from a small nightlight plugged in near the floor of the opposite wall. Some misshapen thing that Dean thinks is supposed to be an angel, because Claire's got a sense of humor that’s almost as weird as his.
He trips over something on his way to her window, probably one of her shoes, and swears under his breath as he stumbles. The Claire-shaped lump that’s buried underneath an unreasonable amount of blankets groans and burrows deeper into the bed. Dean huffs around a laugh as he pulls the curtains open. The sun is barely rising, but the room fills with early light anyway.
“Jesus, Dad,” Claire snaps grumpily, muffled by all her blankets. A tuft of blonde hair breaks free when she sticks her head out, still facing the wall. “I’m up!”
“Yeah, I can really tell that,” Dean says dryly.
There’s a moment of pause while the wheels in Claire’s brain turn, until she turns her head and opens one eye to peek at him curiously. Even in the barely lit room, she can tell it’s Dean, and she dumps a bunch of blankets off as she sits up and stares at him eyes wide. “Dean!”
“Hey, kiddo,” Dean murmurs. He sits down on a spot near the foot of her bed, but he barely gets a second to settle in before she surprises him by lurching forward and throwing her arms around him. She holds him as tight as any fourteen-year-old would be able to manage. He’s a little bit more than choked up as he returns the embrace. “Jeez. Miss me or something?”
“No,” Claire lies, with her arms still around him.
Dean snorts. He ruffles the top of her head, which doesn’t do much since most of her hair is in a braid that she must have left in overnight, but it does make her huff at him in her typical teenager way, which, if Dean’s being honest, had been exactly the response he’d been looking for. “Yeah, well. That’s pretty lame. ‘Cause I missed you.”
“You did?” Claire asks, pulling away so she can look at him.
“Of course I did, dumbass.”
Claire makes a face at him. “Pretty sure dads aren’t supposed to call their kids dumbasses.”
“Pretty sure kids shouldn’t say dumbass at all,” Dean counters back. He pauses for a moment, lingering on what she’d said and turning the phrase over in his head. “So we’re keeping that, then? The whole dad thing?”
“I think the whole dad thing is a global phenomenon, Dean, so,” Claire tells him flatly. “It would probably be difficult to get rid of it.”
Dean gives her a fake, over-dramatic laugh.
“Ha, ha ha,” she mimics back, grinning at him like this is the best conversation she could imagine having before seven in the morning. Her smile fades though, slowly, and she drops her gaze. Quietly, Claire says, “I mean, everyone thinks it already, you know? And, like. I feel like you are. Unless you don’t want to be, I guess.”
“You kidding me?” Dean asks. “It’d be a friggin’ honor to be your dad.”
Claire smiles at him again. That sweet, crooked smile that Dean never thought he’d be lucky enough to earn. “It’s pretty cool, you know,” she tells him. “Having more dads than most. Usually I feel pretty lucky for it.”
“I’m gonna remember you said that the next time you argue with me,” Dean promises. She kicks halfheartedly at him, with another signature roll of her eyes, but it was the response she needed and they both know it. It’s what Dean would have needed when he was her age. “Alright, we gotta get a move on or you’re gonna be late.”
Scowling, Claire asks, “Do I have to go to school today? I don’t have any tests or anything, they’re probably just doing like, review stuff, so I wouldn’t even miss anything important.”
“Nice try, but Cas already told me you’re doing pass-offs in PE today, and you aren’t getting out of that.”
“Nobody wants to run a mile first thing in the morning, Dean!” Claire insists.
That draws a laugh out of Dean that he doesn’t bother trying to stop. “Tell me about it. Though I know a few people who’d probably disagree with you. Seriously though, think you can be ready to hit the road in twenty minutes?”
“Probably,” Claire says unconvincingly. Dean nods, deciding that’s good enough, and he pushes himself back up to his feet. He nudges Claire’s shoe out of the way so he doesn’t trip over it again on his way out. “Hey, Dean? Is your brother okay?”
Dean pauses at the doorway, looking back at her. Not for the first time, he wonders how kids always manage to ask the questions that seem simple enough but are impossible to answer. “He’s sleeping right now,” Dean says instead. He doesn’t want to tell her the truth of it all but even more than that he doesn’t want to lie to her. “Brought him back here. You’ll meet him when you get home from school. My uncle Bobby, too.”
Claire picks at the polish on her nails. A nervous habit that she either taught Cas or picked up from him. “Is he nice? Your brother?”
“Biggest little shit I’ve ever met in my whole life,” Dean tells her honestly. “Way nicer than me, though. And he’s so damn smart, seriously. You’ll have to ask him to help you with your homework from now on. He’s gonna love you, promise. But you’re not allowed to listen to him if he starts telling you stories about me, alright?”
“Yeah, okay,” Claire says. She’s smiling again, though it almost seems like she’s a million miles away. Thinking of times before she lived here, Dean’s sure. “I used to wonder what it would be like to have a little brother.”
“Yeah, okay,” Dean echoes, laughing to himself. “Don’t get your hopes up, kid, this house is full enough as it is. Now get a move on, will you? Before Cas comes up here to drag us both downstairs. Oh, and we got guests, so. Keep it down.”
“You keep it down,” Claire shoots back, and Dean stifles his laugh so he can head downstairs quietly.
Bobby’s still dead to the world, passed out on the air mattress that held surprisingly well throughout the night. He snores loud enough to shake the foundation of the house. There’s a light on in the kitchen, just the one in the small fixture they put over the sink. Dean finds Cas there. Standing by the sink and staring absently at the stained glass window. Dean wraps his arms around Cas from behind, burrowing his cold nose into Cas’s neck, and takes a deep breath. Cas leans back into him like this is something they’ve done a thousand times before.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Dean asks. Cas doesn’t complain when Dean swipes the mug of steaming coffee out of his hands, stealing a sip for himself.
“Claire’s birthday,” Cas tells him. Dean hums in acknowledgement. “She and her friends want to go roller skating. I was trying to figure out whether we could afford to reserve a party block, or if we should just take the girls to the rink and hope for the best.”
Dean drinks a bit more coffee before handing it back to Cas, lingering for a moment too long so their fingers brush as they hold the cup together. “We can make it work. You thinking of that place a few towns over?”
“Yes, they also have arcade games and would allow us to bring outside food and drink in,” Cas answers. “Do you think they’d let us reserve something this close to the date?”
“Probably, yeah,” Dean tells him, shrugging without breaking his embrace. He presses a kiss to Cas’s jawline, still a bit giddy about the fact that he gets to at all. “I doubt they’re all that busy. You want me to make her dessert or something, or should we buy a cake?”
Cas hums thoughtfully. “She likes your food best, but I’ll ask her what she wants.”
Upstairs, the bathroom door slams shut, not even a little bit quiet, and Dean sighs. “Well. At least she’s up.”
“She’ll try to be quieter when she’s done, she probably just forgot,” Cas reassures him. He sets his mug down on the counter and turns in Dean’s arms so that they face one another in a loose hug. “Hello, Dean.”
“Hey, angel,” Dean says back, and Cas kisses him.
“I put your coffee in a thermos so you can take it with us when we take Claire to school,” Cas tells him, a moment later. Dean glances to the counter where his travel thermos sits, ready to go and almost certainly prepared just the way Dean likes it.
“God, I love you,” Dean confesses.
Cas beams at him. Bright and brilliant and haloed by the soft light behind him. “The coffee?’
“What else?” Dean asks sarcastically, but Cas doesn’t stop looking at him like it’s the greatest sight he’s ever seen.
“Me?” Cas suggests.
Dean reaches up, then, pausing for a moment to take this in. He brushes Cas’s hair back off his forehead. It’s getting long, he notes absently, but it isn’t what matters here. Cas waits patiently for Dean to get there. He always does.
“Yeah,” Dean agrees finally. “Definitely you.”
“That’s good,” Cas murmurs, pleased as punch. “How fortunate for me.”
Dean smiles. “Yeah?”
“Yes,” Cas says seriously. His hand is loosely holding Dean’s hip. It’s a steadying touch Dean never realized he was missing, and it’s exhilarating. “Considering that I love you, too.”
“Oh, how very fortunate for you,” Dean agrees. “I’m quite a catch, you know.”
Cas rolls his eyes, like there isn’t fondness written over his entire expression that contradicts all of his faked annoyance. “Yes, I’m quite aware.”
They pull apart when they hear the bathroom door open, this time a lot quieter than it had been when Claire’d gone in. Cas looks at Dean with a smug look that says, I told you so, and Dean just rolls his eyes. He makes a few slices of toast while they wait for Claire to come down, and grabs some granola bars out of the cabinet for Claire to eat on the way. They’re running enough behind that they’ll have to leave as soon as she’s downstairs and ready.
Cas eyes the pieces of toast unsubtly, the fiend. Dean pulls them away from him and instead hands him the slice with honey and peanut butter that he had known Cas would want. Cas beams at him again and kisses his cheek as a thank you. It’s sticky and perfect.
Claire comes downstairs before Dean has to holler at her that they have to go, a record for her that she rolls her eyes at when Dean points it out. She glances at Bobby, asleep in the living room, and tells Dean with a smirk, “Man, is that your brother? I can see the family resemblance.”
“Someone call Comedy Central, we’ve got a funnyman in the house,” Dean mutters, grabbing a jacket for her off the hook and shuffling her towards the garage door.
They take the Impala, since it’s parked in front of the garage, but no one complains even as they hustle through the cold to climb inside. Dean cranks the heat once the car starts and turns to glance at Claire. “Don’t make a mess back there, you hear me? Careful with that food.”
She sticks her tongue out at him and mimes wiping her hands on the leather, and Dean just rolls his eyes and looks away before she can see how fond he feels of the whole thing and get embarrassed by it.
“Find a station, will you, Cas?” Dean asks, once they’re on the road. He looks at Cas out of the corner of his eye, just in time to see Cas staring back at him, surprised and pleased.
“Of course,” Cas says. He fiddles with the dial, passing a few staticky stations and hesitating for a few seconds on someone singing in Spanish before he moves on again.
There are times where Cas is content to listen to anything that he thinks sounds good and other times where he feels very particular about what he’ll choose, so inconsistently that Dean has yet to see a pattern in it. Eventually Cas settles on some oldies station playing an Etta James song, and settles back into his seat with a smile on his face.
Claire huffs in the backseat. “Really?”
Cas and Dean both just glance back at her. She stares at Dean like she’s expecting him to throw a fit and change it, but if Dean’s being honest, he can’t really be bothered. This song makes Cas happy, apparently, so it’s good enough for him right now. He shrugs and turns his focus back to the road.
In the review mirror, Dean watches as Claire’s jaw drops. She leans forward, looking between them, before realization floods her expression. Her voice is equal parts incredulous and hopeful when she says again, “Wait. Really?!”
“Gonna need more than that if you’re expecting some kind of answer, dude,” Dean tells her.
“Oh, my god,” Claire mutters, disbelieving. She slumps back in her seat, grinning from ear to ear. Etta James crones over the radio, I found a dream that I could speak to, and Claire just beams at them like she’s gotten the greatest news of her life. “You guys figured it out. Awesome. This is awesome.”
Dean pretends he isn’t turning bright red. Whatever. It’s not like Claire wasn’t gonna find out eventually, and he wasn’t even thinking about hiding it, anyway. He and Cas didn’t get a change to talk about how they would tell her, whenever they chose to, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever! He’s not blushing.
Cas puts his hand on Dean’s knee and squeezes, smiling at him brightly. “Yes,” Cas agrees. “It is quite awesome.”
“Gross,” Claire says, still sounding thrilled.
And Dean, horrifyingly, turns an even brighter shade of red.
They manage to get there before the school’s first bell rings, pulling the Impala into the lot with just a few minutes to spare. Cas promises Claire that he’ll come pick her up before lunch. “They’re just your elective classes,” Dean joins them in reasoning. “And it’s practically the weekend anyway.”
“What’s a little truancy in the face of spending time with family?” Cas asks, and neither Dean nor Claire have any reason to argue with him on that.
“Cool,” Claire says, and she grabs her jacket and her backpack and her granola bars and starts to climb out of the car. There’s a moment where she hesitates, looking back at Cas and Dean who are looking right back at her, and they can both see the moment she makes a decision. Claire leans forward, pressing a kiss to Cas’s cheek then mirroring it on Dean’s. Then she shoves the car door open rather unceremoniously, hurrying out and calling over her shoulder, “Bye, dads, love you!”
“Love you, kid,” Dean echoes, at the same time Cas calls after her, “I love you too, Claire. Have a good day.”
“Dads,” Cas muses, as they watch her hurry towards the school doors and disappear inside. “I think I like the sound of that.”
Dean just hums in response. He reaches until he can tug Cas forward by a handful of his hoodie, kissing him like it’s the easiest thing he’s ever done, right there in the middle of their daughter’s high school parking lot. Cas sighs and leans into it. His hand is still on Dean’s knee, and he squeezes reassuringly.
The car behind them honks. Dean’s laughing before he even breaks the kiss, but he puts the car back into drive and peels out of the parking lot, covering Cas’s hand with his own.
The house is still quiet, when they get back, which is all the justification Dean needs to crawl back into bed and catch a few more hours of sleep. He convinces Cas to come with him, reminding him that he’d stayed up just as late as everyone else last night, so together they return back under the covers and doze off. Dean gets up once, to close the curtains now that the sun is shining right into the room, and to take a quick piss before returning to the warmth of his blankets and Cas’s friggin’ space-heater arms. Cas sleeps through it all, but sighs happily when Dean wraps his arms around him and passes right back out.
It’s nearly noon by the time Dean opens his eyes for real. Cas has pulled himself out of bed again. For some reason, he’s changing into jeans and a clean t-shirt. Dean’s, by the look of it, though he won’t register that for a few more minutes. “Why,” Dean says groggily.
“I have to go get Claire,” Cas says. Dean shuffles halfheartedly to get out of bed, fully intending to go with Cas again, before Cas starts talking again and tells him, “Bobby and Sam are up. You might want to go make sure they haven’t raided your kitchen for scraps of food.”
“Monsters,” Dean grunts. He throws an arm dramatically over his eyes. “We let monsters into our house, Cas.”
“Guess we better try stronger warding,” Cas deadpans. But his voice is a lot softer when he checks, “Did you get enough sleep?”
Dean forces himself to sit up, scrubbing tiredly at his face to wipe away the lingering sleep. He shrugs. “Yeah, I’m good. Just. I don’t know, emotional. A lot’s happened in the past few days, you know?”
“I do know,” Cas murmurs. He crosses the room to Dean again, just like he did this morning, and this time he cradles Dean’s head with one hand and presses a kiss to his forehead. Somewhere along the way, Cas picked this up as a way to comfort the people he loves, and Dean didn’t understand it until the first time Cas did it to him. Cas runs his fingers gently through the short hairs at the back of Dean’s neck. “We’ll figure it all out.”
“Yeah, I’m with you there,” Dean agrees tiredly. He leans into Cas’s touch. “I mean it, Cas. I’m with you, alright? Whatever we gotta figure out. I’m gonna stick by your side.”
Cas just smiles at him. “I know. I love you.”
Dean turns his head until he can kiss the soft skin of Cas’s wrist. “Ditto.”
They go downstairs together, hands brushing, and Dean kisses Cas goodbye even though Sam and Bobby are sitting right at his kitchen table pretending they aren’t watching. Sammy tries to hide his grin behind a mug that’s too small for his stupid giant hands. Assholes. Him and Bobby are gonna tease Dean to hell about this.
“I want chicken salad sandwiches for lunch,” Cas announces, pausing at the door and fixing Dean with an expectant look. Sam laughs and pitifully masks it behind a fake cough. “I bought grapes yesterday, so you can use those. And Pete dropped off some bread that he and Thersa made for us. It has sunflower seeds in it.”
“Okay,” Dean says with a sigh. “C’mon, go get the kid. Food’ll be ready when you guys get back.”
Bobby and Sam grin at him once Cas has left and Dean turns back around to face them, somehow looking innocent and devious all at the same time. Dean narrows his eyes.
“Mornin’, Dean,” Bobby drawls.
“Shut up,” Dean warns.
“Nice track pants,” Sam says with a shit-eating grin. He’s no longer pretending to hold back his laughter, now that Cas is gone. Bastard.
“I said shut up, Samsquatch,” Dean snaps. He does not stomp childishly to the refrigerator. “Nice gym shorts.”
Sam shrugs, completely unaffected by Dean’s half-assed attempt to rally back a retort of his own. Apparently he thinks he’s on a roll or something, because he asks, “Do we all get chicken salad sandwiches for lunch, Dean?”
Dean pulls the dish towel off of the oven door handle and chucks it with startling precision at Sam’s big dumb head. Sam and Bobby burst into laughter.
“Fuck both of you, get out of my house,” Dean grumbles. “You don’t get to meet Claire, you’re gonna be terrible examples for her.”
“Oh, come on, Dean,” Sam says with another laugh. It’s the most reaction Dean’s seen from Sam since yesterday, and Sam’s friggin’ laughing. Dean decides that he doesn’t care if it’s because Sammy is making fun of him for trading in a leather jacket for an apron. As long as it means he gets to look like he’s happy. “We’re gonna give you shit because we’re family, but you gotta know we’re proud of you, too.”
Dean finishes pulling all the shit he needs out of the fridge then pauses, looking back at them sheepishly. He has to drop his gaze, though, before he can mutter, “I know it’s not really what either of you expected for me, probably, but, uh. It’s. It’s pretty good here. And I’m real glad I have it.”
“Boy, it don’t matter what we expected of you,” Bobby retorts. “It ain’t us that’s gonna be livin’ your life for you. All that matters is that you’re happy. The shit that gets you there, that’s up to you. Whatever you need.”
“Even if that means I never hunt another monster?” Dean blurts out. “Even if that means I stay in this house ‘til the day I die? Because seriously, you guys, I honestly don’t… I don’t know if I can leave. This house, or this. This town. Claire. Cas. I don’t think I can leave it all.”
“I wouldn’t let you even if you tried,” Bobby snaps, voice sharp as a tack. “You got outta that life, and that’s all I ever wanted for you boys as soon as I knew your dad had put you in it. Plus, you got a kid under your roof now, Dean, and she looks up to you in ways you ain’t even gonna see until you’re my age. That little girl needs you stayin’ for her.”
“Claire ain’t little,” Dean mumbles. “And she’d tell you to your face if she ever heard you say that. She’s fourteen. She ain’t little.”
Bobby’s face softens, in a way that Dean hasn’t seen on Bobby’s face in a long time. But he knows that look, now. He feels it when he thinks about Claire. “Your kids are always little, Dean. Even when they get older. Take it from someone who knows a thing or two about raisin’ some boys that weren’t even his own.”
Dean looks down again. Some day he’s gonna have to find the words to thank Bobby for everything he gave to Sam and Dean. If he can ever find something that could even come close to being the thanks that Bobby deserved.
“You talked about it before, remember?” Sam adds. “Getting out of the life. I know you used to say that this kind of life it wasn’t in the cards for you, but. Look around, Dean. I think it’s pretty obvious that it is.”
Dean huffs and shakes his head. “Y’know, Sammy. It’s been pretty good to me so far. But I missed you like hell. No matter what, I always felt like I was making room for my obnoxious little brother to fit right in if he ever came back. And shit, Sam, I do, I do want you here, I think it could work out for both of us if we quit the life and just tried to be normal. How friggin’ selfish is that?”
“Ain’t selfish to want your family with you,” Bobby points out.
“It’s a good life here, Dean,” Sam agrees.
“Yeah,” Dean says. “Better with more family, right?”
“Yeah,” Sam tells him, voice soft. “Definitely.”
It falls quiet between them after that, everyone evidently satisfied for where the conversation ended. Dean focuses on making lunch. Cas will be back pretty quick, and with him will come the teenaged terror that’s practically guaranteed to run inside the house already looking for something to eat. While Dean cooks, Bobby flips through some lore book he’d brought with him from his place, and Sam scrolls quietly through whatever he’s looking up on Dean’s laptop.
It’ll be perfect, honestly, as soon as Cas and Claire get back. Dean’s family all under one roof, safe and alive and eating his food. There’s a weight on his shoulders that’s been lifted now that he almost feels like he’s allowed to keep this.
They hear the Impala roaring down the road before the garage door even opens, and Sam raises an eyebrow at that. Dean keeps piling sandwiches onto a plate and pretends he can’t see Sam’s incredulous look. “You let Cas drive the Impala?”
“It was blocking his truck in,” Dean says defensively, as if that’s the only reason. Belatedly, he adds, “And Cas is a good driver.”
Sam lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Man. You really love him, huh?”
It makes Dean pause, even though he doesn’t think he should. The garage door finishes rumbling open, and outside he can hear a car door slam shut. Claire yells something about leaving her jacket in the car. Finally, Dean admits, “Yeah. I really do.”
The door swings open, finally, and Claire sweeps in like the tornado she always is after school. It’s more than usual today, with her more excitable than usual at getting checked out of classes early and the promise of getting to meet new people. She forgoes all of that, though, when she sees the open bag of chips on the counter.
“Sweet,” she says, dropping her backpack on the ground and diving into the chips.
“Hey,” Dean snaps, pointing a butter knife at her. Claire pauses with a chip halfway to her mouth. “Nuh uh. Backpack upstairs, wash your hands, then we’re all eating together.”
Claire scowls at him. “I’m starving!”
“Backpack,” Dean repeats. “Hands. Together.”
“Ugh,” Claire mutters. She shoves the chip in her mouth, chewing loudly, before picking her backpack up off the ground and stomping upstairs to her room.
“Still glad I’m home?” Dean calls up after her.
“Oh my god, Dean, obviously!” she shouts back. Her bedroom door closes with a resounding thud.
Cas finally shuffles inside, eyebrow raised. He shrugs out of his jacket with slow, practiced ease. Nearly a year human now and sometimes so comfortable in it that it still surprises Dean, sometimes. “Tormenting the teenager already?”
“I would argue that she started it, but I don’t think that would help my case,” Dean tells him.
“It would not,” Cas agrees. He kisses Dean’s cheek. “Lunch looks great. Is it ready?”
Dean picks up the platter of sandwiches with one hand and the paper plates he’d pulled out for them to eat off of with the other, nodding towards the table. “Sammy, come grab these chips, wouldya? Yeah, we’re good to go soon as you and Claire are ready. She’s starving, apparently, so she should be back down soon.”
Cas nods. “Let me go wash up, then.”
Sam and Dean lay out the plate of sandwiches and bags of chips on the table, and Bobby grabs them all some drinks out of the fridge. Sodas and a couple bottles of water, since it’s barely the afternoon and Dean’s trying to be better about when he starts drinking. It’s a pretty nice set up, all things considered.
Claire comes bounding back down the stairs first. She hesitates once she reaches the floor.
“Here, c’mon,” Dean tells her, pulling out a chair for her. “Claire, I want to re-introduce you to my little brother, Sammy. Sam, this is Claire.”
Claire eyes Sam warily as she comes closer, but she blinks in surprise when he stands up to properly greet her. “You’re tall,” she tells him matter-of-factly. “I don’t remember you being this tall.”
“Uh,” Sam responds. “Yeah. I’ve… been this tall for a while, I think.”
Then Sam sticks a hand out like he’s in a fucking business meeting. Claire glances down at it incredulously, and looks back up at him. “Dude,” she tells him. “I’m fifteen.”
“Fourteen,” Dean corrects.
“My birthday is like next week!” Claire argues, and she must be satisfied with her reintroduction of Sam because she bustles past him to sit down in the seat Dean had pulled out for her. “That basically means I’m fifteen.”
Awkwardly, Sam drops his hand and shuffles back into his seat. Dean resists the urge to laugh at him, because he’s a good brother who doesn’t do shit like that. To Claire, he says, “Your birthday isn’t for another ten days, so that basically means you’re still fourteen. For another ten days.”
Grumpily, Claire mutters, “You’re just upset because you’re gonna have to teach me how to drive soon.”
“God,” Dean sighs, scrubbing at his face. “Don’t remind me.”
Across the table, finally piping up, Bobby says, “You sure she ain’t biologically yours? She’s got the same sass and attitude you had at her age.”
“Claire, that old grump is Bobby,” Dean says. “Bobby, Claire. Great. Now the whole family is introduced. Where the hell is Cas? Are we eating soon or what?”
“So are you like, technically my grandpa, then, or what?” Claire asks, and Dean chokes on air. Bobby just sighs. “What? I’m just asking. Like, I’m used to it now, but you gotta admit that my whole family situation thing is a bit weird, right? Like, am I supposed to call you Uncle Sam?”
“No,” Dean says, at the same time Sam says, “Absolutely, yes.”
Cas, the traitor, chooses that exact moment to join them, unhelpfully chiming in, “You can call them whatever you feel comfortable with calling them, Claire, as long as they’re comfortable with it, too.”
“Traitor,” Dean mutters under his breath. Cas sits down in the empty chair on the other side of him and squeezes his arm, like that will make Dean feel better.
“Well,” Cas says. He beams at his family. “Shall we eat?”
Everything is almost boringly normal after that, in a way that they’ve only seemed to be for Dean since moving to Bennett, Colorado.
Dean shows Sam the house. He talks about paint and cabinets and new furniture and the window Cas made for them. They go through before and after pictures of the whole thing. In the backyard, Dean talks about the garden that Cas wants that he’s going to get ready next weekend, and he talks about the porch he wants to build and the smoker he wants to get. He tells Sam about his hope to build Cas a work shed, in their backyard, where he can work on stained glass or pottery or restoring furniture or any other hobby he takes up that he wants to put to use out there. Something he wants to surprise Cas with, if he can figure out how to get the whole thing up in less than a day while Cas is out for a few hours.
Bobby stays for a few more days, before eventually he swears off air mattresses for life and says it’s time for him to go flip through books back at home to try and find something about what broke Sam out. Dean grills steaks for their last dinner together, and sends Bobby off with a tupperware full of pie and long hugs goodbye from everyone.
“You better keep in contact better this time, boy,” Bobby warns him gruffly, before pulling Dean into a bone crushing hug and patting his back. “I’m damn proud of you, you know. For all of this. You saved a lot of sons of bitches, but this is still the best thing you’ve ever done.”
“Tell me about it,” Dean agrees. There are tears in his eyes that he tries his damnedest not to let go. “You can come visit whenever, alright? See me, and Cas. And Claire.”
Behind them, Claire says, “Yeah, come visit us. Grandpa.”
Bobby laughs and tries, badly, to cover it with a grunt. They all watch him as he drives away.
Claire shows Sam around Bennett and tells him all about anything she can think of, and Sam and Cas go shopping together for clothes and books and knickknacks that start to make their way into Dean’s room, and Dean brings Sam to Woody’s with him the first day he goes back to work. It’s a fumbly and awkward explanation to Theresa and Pete about how his previously-mentioned dead brother is back now and hanging around for a bit, but either they don’t pay close enough attention to notice how odd the whole thing is or they just pretend they don’t care so they can focus on Dean bringing more people into the family.
Five nights after returning to Bennett, Dean wakes up to Sam screaming in his sleep.
It doesn’t surprise anyone that Sam’s been having nightmares, but it tears Dean up inside as he tries to figure out a way that he can help Sam. Eventually it’s Cas who comes up with the solution of dragging his twin-sized mattress into the master bedroom, reasoning that Sam might sleep better if he knows there are people with him. Just like Dean.
“Thank you,” Dean whispers later, once Sam has fallen asleep again. Cas nods sleepily, and his hair tickles Dean’s neck. “Seriously. You knew exactly what he needed.”
He can feel it when Cas smiles. “I believe I know you Winchesters fairly well.”
“Yeah,” Dean agrees, and he twines his fingers with Cas’s. “You really do. And, uh. I know it ain’t really romantic to share a bed when my kid brother is having a sleepover on the floor next to us, but. You did it anyway. So thanks for that, too.”
“I don’t need romance, Dean,” Cas murmurs. He’s more than halfway asleep. “I already love you. Whatever comes next for us, I’m happy to experience when it happens.”
They all sleep a little bit better that night, or so Dean believes. No one tells him otherwise.
The weekend before Claire’s birthday, they host a small party for her at the roller rink with a few of her friends. She’d asked for two cakes, one that they could actually eat, and one that she planned to smash in Sam’s face. They learn pretty quickly that Sam’s more clumsy on rollerskates than anyone else, so Claire’s plan is thwarted when he loses his balance and bumps into her, knocking her face into the cake instead. Dean takes so many pictures of the whole thing that he’s pretty sure he’ll run out of room before the night is over. And Claire had asked if they could go to the cabin again, on her actual birthday. No one was too broken up about her missing school, so they leave on the 29th after her school got out, to spend the whole day up there celebrating.
Dean makes waffles for breakfast and cinnamon rolls for lunch, and Sam drives into the small town not far from the cabin to pick up pizza for dinner. They sing a horribly off-key rendition of Happy Birthday, which Claire desperately tries to ignore, and she makes a wish on the candles stuck in the pie Dean had made before they came up. They let her watch movies until she starts to doze off, then load up the car to head home, so she can get to school tomorrow. She curls up against Cas in the backseat, asleep on his shoulder with his coat draped over her like a blanket, and it’s not long before Cas dozes off, too. Dean takes a picture of that, just because.
It’s a long drive, prettier when it’s light outside, but Dean doesn’t mind driving in the dark. He likes being able to take care of his people.
“You alright, man?” Dean asks quietly, halfway through the drive, after looking over and noticing Sam wasn’t asleep like he’d originally assumed.
Sam startles, pulled out of his reverie. He glances at Dean. “Hm? Yeah. Just focused, I guess.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Same thing I’m always thinking about,” Sam murmurs. “How I got out. How I’m alive, and back on Earth. The Cage.”
They pass two mile markers before Dean finally summons the courage to speak. He tightens his grip on the steering wheel, hoping it will ground him, and he says. “Sammy, I know it’s not the same, but—”
“I know, Dean,” Sam interrupts. He keeps his voice soft, glancing in the backseat, but no one back there stirs at all. Tiredly, Sam scrubs at his face. “And if I knew how to talk about it with you, I would. I swear.”
“But you don’t trust me,” Dean summarizes, stomach souring.
For some reason, Sam finds that funny. He laughs, keeping it a small thing, and he shakes his head. “No, dude, you don’t—you don’t get it, that’s not it at all. You’re my big brother, Dean, of course I trust you. I trust you more than anyone else on this planet. But. The stuff I went through? The things that I… let happen to me? Dean, I don’t… I can’t tell you about that because I don’t want you to think I’m weak.”
“Sam,” Dean breathes out, feeling like he’s been punched in the gut. “Weak? Sammy, are you kidding me? You fought off the literal Devil long enough to toss his ass back into the pit, and after all that, you think there’s still any way I’d think you were weak? Man, I. You. You’ve always been the stronger one outta the two of us. The brains and the brawn.”
“Come on, dude,” Sam sighs.
“No, you come on,” Dean interrupts. “And—Sam, Jesus, I mean, the things you ‘let happen to you’? That wasn’t your friggin’ fault, man, seriously. Do you blame me for when I jumped off the rack when I was in Hell?”
Immediately, Sam says, “No.”
“See, exactly. And I know it ain’t the exact same thing, but if what happened for me wasn’t my fault, whatever happened down there wasn’t your fault, either, alright?” Dean presses. He glances at Sam again, until Sam finally meets his gaze. “So. Uh. Alright, you don’t ever have to tell me anything, right? It’s your shit. Hell, I wasn’t exactly forthcoming when I became topside, either. But if you ever find you do wanna talk to me, and the thing holding you back is the idea that I’m gonna think you’re weak, I’m telling you right now there’s nothing that could ever make me think that about you. Okay?”
“Dean,” Say sighs again.
“Sammy, I swear to god.”
That, finally, draws a smile out of the kid. Sam may not believe him yet, and that’s fine. Dean can say it ‘til he’s blue in the face. But at least Sammy’s smiling again. That’s enough for at least this moment.
“Fine, alright,” Sam allows. “Thanks, Dean.”
“Whatever,” Dean says back. He glances at Sam again. “Bitch.”
That earns him an eye roll. Still, Sam dutifully finishes, “Jerk,” before closing his eyes and dozing the rest of the drive home.
The first few days of April, Sam and Cas spend nearly all of their time out in Cas’s garden together, planting seeds and pulling weeds and talking shop about techniques that supposedly promote plant growth. They always come back inside, dirty and sweaty and grinning from ear to ear. Dean doesn’t mind that they track mud in the house, for the first few days. He cleans it up quietly and is just glad they’ve both got something to smile about.
Dean takes Claire driving for the first time in Cas’s truck, since it’s an automatic and a bit easier to learn on. She’s surprisingly good, even after a bumpy start involving a curb, and she preens until the praise when Dean tells her as such.
Cas gets asked to teach a summer class at the rec center, and since the only qualifications he needs is knowledge of the subject and an enjoyment for creating, he takes it. Dean takes him out to celebrate in a nicer restaurant outside of Bennett, and they take advantage of the short time they have alone together. It’s a nice night, even when Cas gets a little bit wine-drunk, but in Dean’s book it’s not a bad thing to have Cas feeling a little extra handsy and a bit more giggly than usual.
The rest of April passes by uneventfully. Dean’s damn near giddy with it.
The night before Sam’s birthday, Dean grabs two beers out of the fridge and joins Sam on the front porch. He and Cas had bought new chairs for the porch a few weeks ago, and they’ve been used practically every night since. It’s a nice night, warming up with the first day of May, and the sun hasn’t quite set yet. They clink their bottles together and take a few sips, sitting in silence.
Cas is washing the dishes inside. It was supposed to be Dean’s job, but Cas had waved him away so Dean had gone outside. He can hear the sink running as Cas works. Somewhere upstairs, Claire’s supposed to be working on homework. Dean suspects she’s watching Netflix, instead, but whatever. He knows she’ll get her shit done in time anyway.
Sam takes another sip, bringing Dean right back to this chair, in this moment. He’s still quiet in the way he’s only gotten since coming back. It’s not the only thing that’s changed about Sam, but it’s the one Dean’s seen the most. He notices, too, that Sam flinches sometimes at loud noises. But he’d found a therapist through Missouri, someone who knew about their world, and Dean thinks she’s been helping. Most of the time, Sammy seems like he’s starting to do better.
Which leads Dean to the conversation he’s been avoiding. It ain’t doing either of them any good to keep pretending it won’t come up.
“You aren’t staying, are you?” Dean asks quietly. He picks at the label of his beer bottle instead of looking at Sam.
Sam just sighs. He doesn’t look at him either. “I’m not leaving,” Sam tells him, and he sounds like he means it. But then his voice grows apologetic. “But I do have to go for a little bit.”
Dean forces out a laugh. “What’s the difference?”
“You keep a room for me, and I come back home as often as I can,” Sam answers.
“Sammy,” Dean starts, leaning back in his seat.
Finally, Sam turns in his seat, looking right at Dean until Dean looks back, too. “Dean, you gotta understand. I have to, okay? There are answers out there, and I. I’m not gonna be able to find them from your living room. Someone broke me out of the Cage, and someone brought Bobby back with his soul, and someone brought Cas back without his powers. Whatever it is, that thing is powerful. And I feel like. Something bad is out there. Not the thing that freed me, though, I don’t think. I don’t know how to explain it. And maybe I’m wrong. But I won’t know until I find it.”
Dean swallows around the lump in his throat. “Sammy, I can’t… I can’t go with you.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Sam tells him, and Dean laughs again before he makes some dumb sound like a choked sob. He looks down. “Dean, I’m not. I don’t really want to leave. I feel really happy here. So yeah, I’ve gotta go, because I need to figure some stuff out, but I don’t want to be gone. Does that make any sense?”
“Doesn’t have to make sense for me to know what you mean,” Dean says honestly.
That makes Sam grin.
“It just,” Dean starts. He takes a deep breath. “Don’t take this the wrong way, man, because I know you’re your own person and that you ain’t a kid anymore but. I don’t know. It feels like you saying you don’t need me anymore again, and. That sucks.”
“I’m always gonna need you, idiot,” Sam says. “Even if you aren’t babysitting me every day.”
Dean can’t help but laugh at that.
Still smiling, Sam knocks his beer bottle against Dean’s again, and they look up at one another. “Hey. I mean it, alright? You better keep a spare room for me, because I’m gonna come back all the time. And eventually it’s gonna be permanent. So don’t go picking up any more stray kids, alright? That’s my room.”
“It’s Cas’s room,” Dean shoots back. Because this is familiar territory, at least. Because this is something he knows he can do.
“Is it really, though?”
“Fuck you,” Dean mutters, but they’re both laughing again. “You’ll stay for your birthday, at least, won’t you? Claire got you a gift, and I know she’s gonna want to give it to you even if we don’t do anything else to celebrate it.”
“Yeah, I’m not leaving tomorrow,” Sam promises. That’s enough for now.
On May 2, 2011, a small remodeled house in Bennett, Colorado, hosts a birthday party for the man who saved the world last year. His niece gives him a new jacket for his gift, complete with a small stuffed animal tucked into the pocket that he won’t find until much later, when he’s on the road. His best friend gives him a photo album, filled with pictures of the time he’d spent in Bennett with this family and a few added pictures of his family from many years before. And his brother gives him a car, recently restored at the auto shop where he works.
Dean tries, first, to give Sam the keys to the Impala. Says it’s only right that the Winchester that’s hunting gets to keep Baby. But Sam won’t take it, no matter how much Dean insists. The car only feels like home when his brother’s there with him, anyway.
On May 13, 2011, the man who saved the world last year drives to Stull Cemetery with his brother following in a car behind him, and they visit the spot that had been marked as his grave. They pour whiskey on the ground and toast even though there’s no one to mourn in this spot anymore. Instead they pay their respects to others that they’ve lost. They knock down the makeshift cross and smooth over the dirt, so that by this time next year, there will be no sign of what happened here at all.
Before Sam takes off on his own, Dean opens the driver’s side door of Sam’s car, and carefully carves their initials onto the top of Sam’s dashboard. Even without the Impala, Dean thinks there are ways to take parts of home with him wherever he travels. Sam doesn’t even blink at it. He just waits until Dean is done, then he adds a few more names. Cas. Bobby. Claire. Just to keep everyone close.
Claire had cried when they took off, something that had surprised Sam, but she asked him to promise he’d stay safe and he didn’t hesitate to give her that. Cas had hugged Sam for a long time before they broke apart. Whatever they said to one another stayed secret.
So now, miles away from that house, it’s Dean’s turn to say goodbye. They didn’t get a real one of these, the last time they were here, so they’re careful not to let that happen again. Dean holds Sam tight and tells him to watch his back.
This time, at least, they’re both reassured by the knowledge that they’ll see each other again. Soon enough.
Cas is waiting for him on the front porch, when Dean gets back to Bennett. He parks the Impala in the driveway and sits for a moment, staring at Castiel on the steps of the house they fixed together, and he thinks for a second that he might actually be the luckiest guy on earth. Cas just waits patiently, holding his gaze as Dean sits in the car, smiling like they’ve got all the time in the world.
Maybe they do. Maybe that’s the point.
“Hey, handsome,” Dean says, climbing out of the car. “Come here often?”
“Every night,” Cas tells him, very seriously.
Dean grins. “You took it to heart when I said don’t ever change, didn’t you?”
“You liked me, then,” Cas says with a shrug. “What else was I supposed to do?”
“Yeah, well,” Dean says, and when he opens his arms to pull Cas into a hug, Cas doesn’t even hesitate, tucking himself into Dean’s hold like he’s been there his whole life. “Could you believe it if I said I love you, now?”
Cas hums. He presses his mouth to Dean’s jawline, a pressure that only just counts as a kiss. “I might need to hear it a few more times, just to be sure I believe it.”
Dean laughs and pulls him closer. “I guess I could be bothered to say it a few more times, if that’s what it takes.”
“My hero,” Cas says dryly, and Dean shuts him up with a real kiss. “Is Sam doing alright?”
“Best as he can, I think,” Dean mumbles. “I connected him with CJ Barrett, she and her new hunting friend just took a case nearby and they were happy to let Sammy tag along. I dunno where he’ll head after that.”
Cas hums. “He’ll be back this weekend for family dinner.”
“He better,” Dean says. “What’s Claire doing?”
“She’s at a friend’s for the night,” Cas sighs. “Apparently it was the series finale of some television program tonight, and they absolutely had to watch it together.”
Dean laughs at that. “Sounds about right. I’m sure we’ll hear all about it when she gets home.”
“Absolutely,” Cas agrees. He reaches up to brush his fingers gently along Dean’s cheek. “It seems as though you and I have some alone time, now. I suppose this means we’ll have to find some way to spend it.”
“Oh, I’m sure we can find one or two things to do,” Dean says. He pulls Cas closer, reeling him in, and Cas wraps his arms around Dean’s neck.
“Maybe even three,” Cas suggests, tone indifferent, even as he’s leaning in.
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Three, huh? Now ain’t that ambitious.”
“We have plenty of time,” Cas reminds him, and they’re both grinning when then finally kiss.
“I do love you, you know,” Dean reminds him, later, when they curl into a chair on the front porch together, Cas practically laying on Dean with the limited space.
“I love you so fucking bad, Cas,” Dean says again, when Cas pulls him into their bed and kisses him until they’re both breathless.
“Love you,” Dean murmurs, more than halfway asleep and held tightly in Cas’s arms. Cas traces small patterns into Dean’s back, as Dean drifts off to sleep. Dean will learn much later that Cas has been writing his own confessions in Enochian into Dean’s skin.
Right now, Cas just kisses him again. His voice is full of wonder when he tells Dean, “I love you, too.”
And ain’t that something? There’s no more running. There’s no bodies for them to pull out of the ground. There is just this house, their daughter, and their neighbors, and his brother that’ll come back home soon. A handmade window in their kitchen and home-cooked meals in their fridge and a song playing through a radio somewhere inside. All this, and love.
Dean hopes they never get used to it.