i come alive inside the light of the unexpected
written for @winchester-reload and SPNSummer prompt ‘picnic’ rated 9 | 805 words | no cw | relationships: dean/cas, sam/eileen, jody/donna, claire/kaia | tags: established relationship, found family, fluff, reference to John's A+ parenting,
Dean never thought he'd have this. It felt like something that was left to other families, the kind of run of the mill summer activities he'd always have to watch from afar. It wasn’t a priority growing up, not when they had to be shaped into something more than kids. He used to watch other families have this; summer setting on a fantasy he would never get to have, too scared to even ask for it. Why ask for something you know you’re never going to get? And yet, here he is, with his family at an actual goddamn picnic.
The sun sparkles on the lake in front of them, there’s actual birds flying through the trees and although they’re mostly alone here, he can just about make out other dots of families clustered on the more popular side of the lake. It feels normal, in the kind of unobtainable fantasy way, like a damn dream he never wanted to speak out loud. They’ve made it work. Sure, Claire had come from a hunt and Sam's clearly driven for far too long to meet them out here but still, it's nice.
Claire has Kaia sat between her legs, a beer bottle hung loosely in one hand. It's such a mirror image that his heart clenches but when she raises an eyebrow at him he just toasts her with his own bottle. Maybe later, if she wants, he can help her wash the bloody machetes he knows she's got stowed in her trunk, and can check in properly when it's just them. She's not said anything to him but he saw her eyes widen when she caught a glimpse of the new ring glinting on his left hand and can tell there's more she wants to say.
Maybe she just wants today to be what it is, a hodge podge family affair of sorts, just a breathing space not meant for heavy emotions. He can call her next week if she needs. He’s in no hurry to leave this space, has no need to when there’s a plate of food by his side and his family all around him.
He feels Cas shift before he sees it and leans forward to take on Cas’ weight as he readjusts, kissing the back of his head quickly. No one bats an eye. Kaia does turn to whisper something to Claire but that's about it.
The lack of reaction from literally everyone is reaction enough. Sometimes he thinks maybe they were all waiting for him and Cas to actually open their eyes to what they could already see. It’s weird in a way, technically being the couple that’s been together the shortest amount of time out of any of them and yet feeling like it far exceeds the rest of them. It kind of makes sense, that they’d be the last to figure things out but the important thing is that they all did. It’s another thing that once felt obtainable, the idea of having love they could just hold on to and bask in like the sun. Claire looks at peace with Kaia in her arms in a way that once could have felt impossible, Sam gets to dote on Eileen and love without fear and Jody’s got a partner who she adores.
It’s love in the way Jody brought Donna’s favourite doughnuts even though they came here together, in the way Cas keeps sneakily filling his plate back up for him so he doesn’t have to move Cas to do so, in the way Sam’s strategically set up all the food so Eileen’s shielded from the smells she’s most sensitive to right now. It’s not just the ways love is shown romantically. It’s all the rest of it too.
Jack is reading a book to Eileen's barely showing bump while Alex is talking Sam through her latest hunt and the new lore she learnt. It's nice seeing her be excited about it, not just a killer but just all nerdy and excited, the years of pain melting off in the summer sun. Donna’s forcing Jody to relax and it’s sweet actually to see Jody being bossed around and being not so secretly delighted about.
It's nice to see them all like this actually.
He catches Jody's eye over all of it and she smiles at him in a way he feels in his very soul. It's a little sad at the edges, tinged by loss that still sits in their bones. But more so than that, it's happy. They both thought they'd lost this a long time ago and yet here they are, happy and in love again with kids relaxing around them. Maybe it doesn’t even matter so much that he never got this as a kid. It means so much more to have this now.
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