Low key fluff to celebrate Deanās 40th. No real tags because fluff. Dean/Cas. Sam. Jack. Mary. Gaggle. Better together. Happy Endgame.
If he only knew that in five years he wonāt be sitting in a car alone on his birthday, then perhaps he wouldnāt be gripping the steering wheel quite so tightly, or grinding his teeth, ignoring his favourite song on the radio, staring straight ahead, watching the headlights of Baby chase the shadows along the side of the road.
Always keep moving. Thatās all he can think. Stop and everything stops, and if that happens, then everything ends. Everything.
If he only knew that in five years heāll wake up early, before everyone else. Heāll wake knowing full well that Jack will want to make him breakfast, but this year Deanās decided to cook everyone else breakfast instead. Especially since Christmas was a goddamn bust, everyone having to scatter in different directions due to the monster mashing going on over the holiday season - people gonna eat, so gotta monsters - but thereās calm again. No storm on the horizon because they just weathered one. Itās different lately. Less choppy, more easy sailing, if Dean was to try and put words to it.
So, five years from driving down a pitchblack highway, heāll wake up in his bed and kiss Cas on the cheek, creating a gorgeously sleepy creasing of it, before sliding his arm out from under him.
āHey,ā Cas will say and Dean will hush him fondly, telling him to go back to sleep, Cas opening his eyes stubbornly to look at him. āWhere you going?ā heāll murmur.
āJust follow the smell of bacon,ā Dean will smile mischievously, leaning down on one elbow to steal a proper kiss, his lips gently meeting Casā.
āJack wonāt be happy,ā Cas will warn, eyes closing again.
āIāll let him make the toast,ā Dean will say, gaze on Cas, tracing the already well-known lines of his face, feeling that soft joy of knowing Cas will drift off, safe and warm and comfortable, and that Dean, if he wanted to, could crawl back into bed and wrap his arms around this man and breathe him in and go back to sleep, too.
āQuit staring,ā Cas mutters. āItās just creepy.ā
But a smile is already playing on his mouth and Dean will chuckle, grabbing a pillow and affectionately hitting Cas over the head with it before getting out of bed and heading to the kitchen.Ā
And heāll make breakfast. He often does, but this time itās not rushed. He takes his time. He sets the table. He enjoys Sam being the first in, his little brother giving him a hug and a smack on the side of the head as he calls him an old man, a term of endearment that makes Dean smack him on the ass with the spatchela. Which he then promptly washes in the sink before returning to the stove with it. It makes Sam laugh.
Mary will be next, kissing him on the cheek as the gaggle file into the kitchen: hunters and legacies and people theyāve picked up along the way. Theyāre all gathered here for whatās becoming a bit of a yearly summit, of sorts, where they sit down together at the end of January to review the year prior and go over any old actions that need addressing or new ones that need planning for the year ahead. Itās a good group. Most of them already feeling like family, some of them still earning their place.
When Jack shows, already dressed because he doesnāt often languish in his pajamas, heāll stop in the doorway, staring at all Deanās done, and Dean will tease him and say that heād have sweated through his T-shirt if he had to cook for thirty people, and Jack reluctantly has to agree with that. They share a smile, and a hug, and then Jack happily takes charge of making the toast.
Then Cas will appear, hair on end and Deanās favourite Led Zeppelin T-shirt all enticingly wrinkly from Cas insisting itās the most comfortable thing to sleep in and a big smile on his face as he puts a party hat on Deanās head, brokering no argument, while everyone breaks out in a hearty For Heās a Jolly Good Fellow and Dean laughs and blushes a little with all the attention, and then Cas will kiss him, and everything else will fade for a few seconds.
āHappy Birthday,ā Cas will say, once heās ended the kiss, and their eyes will lock, and Dean will say:
āThanks, babe,ā which will make Cas look at him in that way that makes Deanās knees week, even after four years of sleeping in the same bed, and then heāll declare breakfast served and everyone will cheer and theyāll sit around the library tables shoved into one big long table, and eat and talk and drink copious amounts of coffee all morning.
And that time, five years ago, when they had to defeat an archangel to save the world wonāt even be mentioned.
He might send it a thought. He might send that night, alone in his car, a fleeting thought, and think how slow he was to waking up. Because he sat in that car wondering if he had ever truly lived his life. He was turning forty years old and he was spending it driving through the night and in that moment it felt like a mockery, like he should understand no matter what he did this was where he belonged and where he would always end up and the only difference was that he didnāt have anyone riding shotgun and wasnāt that telling of how things were always meant to be?
Regret and doubt like poison in his veins.
But now, five years after that long night, heāll know how wrong he was in even thinking it, even more so in actually feeling it, and how wrong he was leading straight to him allowing that soft despair to eat away at him, because of what had to be done to defeat Michael.Ā
And, five years after his fortieth birthday, heāll remember how important it was for him to be wrong, how necessary it was for him to let fear take hold and completely rule him. Heāll think back on that despair with pity, but without regret. He had to feel it. He had to feel it to face it.
His eyes will meet Casā over the table and Dean will know exactly why he had to go through it all. Why all of them had to. Because itās brought them right here, to this table. The happiness he feels is bright and shiny and welcome. Heās home, with everyone he cares about around him, wearing a silly, glittery hat and sharing a knowing smile with the man across from him.
āLove you,ā heāll mouth then, Casā expression warming.
āLove you,ā Cas will mouth back, and Dean will feel peace spread through him, the kind of peace that makes you wish it could reach out and touch everyone else in the room, and envelope everyone in the same sense of contentment.
So, in light of all of this, Dean gripping the steering wheel a little too hard, while the worry in his chest gives way to numbness, wouldnāt be all that bad, if he knew. If he could see the future. Because his future is everything heās ever wanted. And perhaps even a little more.Ā