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Pie crust doesn't smell as sweet as the cookies Dean usually bakes for them, but the scent is buttery and light and it carries through the kitchen all the same, lighting up his senses with a pleasant sense of warmth.
He looks out the kitchen window to see Cas outside. He's wearing those worn down sweatpants he'd nondiscretely stolen from Dean's side of the wardrobe and they hang tantalizingly low on his hips, revealing a sliver of Cas's sun kissed skin. He's refilling the humming bird feeder, 'cause that was something they did now.
This wasn't the bunker, with its endless maze of hallways and rooms, empty and barren of any signs that someone was making them home. No.
After Chuck, after the empty, after everything, Cas is sitting in an armchair in the bunker, a sigh resting between his shoulder blades. Dean sits across from him, reading a worn, well loved paperback for the eighth time. Another H.G. Wells.
"What's wrong, Cas?" He asks.
It's a question with a thousand heavy answers. But he wants to hear them all the same.
"Jack turns four soon."
Oh.
"Yeah," Dean murmurs against his gently closed hand. The kid. Their kid. As weird as it still is to say it, it's the truth. "He's gonna have one helluva growth spurt soon."
Cas hums, mind still caught on whatever it is he doesn't wanna spit out.
"What're you thinking?"
Cas exhales and looks away, pensive.
"Cas. I can't read your mind."
"Do you think the bunker's a good place to raise a child?"
Oh .
Dean doesn't say anything, opening his expression and setting the book down on the armrest, creasing the spine further.
Cas continues, a nervous inflection in his voice. "I'm not… exactly proficient with caring for human children but I've been reading," Dean's heart flutters in his chest at the thought of Cas reading parenting books. His lip twitches up, a smile still hidden so Cas doesn't clam up, thinking Dean's making fun of him. "and there seems to be several fairly common agreements. Kids need space, they need to play outdoors, and they need somewhere they can feel safe and happy."
Dean nods, just once. Cas isn't wrong. "So…" Dean gives Cas his opening, and the butterflies fluttering around only get worse.
"Eileen and Sam, what they're doing here is good. It's needed. Turning it into a rehab for species capable of change. A hunter network. All the research they're doing. It's all I could've hoped for your brother after everything he's been through. But I worry that it won't be a good place to raise Jack."
Cas closes his eyes, and his lashes catch the yellow light, looking golden.
"I've been looking— there's a small house by a lake, a state over. It's small, but I've been keeping tabs on it the past year. No one lives there. I think it's available."
"Cas—"
"I wouldn't ask you to leave here. I know this is the closest thing you've had to a home since you were four yourself but I hoped— I hope you— "
"Cas."
"Yes?" Cas looks seconds from vanishing down the hall, like he's putting everything on the line.
"Of course." Dean stands and this is still new to him, foreign. But he wants to try. God damn him, he wants to try so badly his heart is fit to burst. "If," Dean takes a breath. Then another. His eyes close. He hopes Cas has opened his. "If you'll have me?"
There's the shuffle of fabric and the faintest sound of the pads of Cas's bare feet touching the ground as he stands and then there's a palm, warm, dry, so fucking gentle against his cheek.
"Dean Winchester, I want nothing more in this world."
He chokes on an inhale. "You mean that?" He's pushing his luck. This is a dream. He's going to wake up.
It's the first time they've broached the words said that day, that evil day seven months ago, when Dean's heart had shattered out of his chest onto the floor, and he'd dug his palms into his eyes so hard it bruised and his sobs hadn't been loud enough to pull Cas back. To bring him home. So he could hold him. So he could tell him- me too. With all his heart, the happiness was in the being. Being with him.
Cas's thumb rubs gently along the sharpness of his cheekbone, where it had used to be soft and he'd hated the roundness of his face. He's older now. So much older. But there's Cas, anyways. The god damn angel. The one who got away. Again and again. It's just his imagination but he can feel the hilt of that demon blade in his hand, where he'd buried it right into Castiel’s heart. He has the thought now, 12 years later, that he's so earnestly grateful that it hadn't killed him. Now his hands are for something else. He's learning that. He's a slow learner, but he is. He's gonna.
"Yes." Cas says, and Dean opens his eyes just to see the smile he can hear on Cas's voice. It's lopsided and toothy. "We need you."
The oven alarm goes off and Dean barely hears it over the sound of the TV. Jack's got his wooden blocks out, and there are Legos literally covering the floor. Dean suspects that Jack is building an entire city grid in front of the couch. His feet already hurt, and he hasn't even stepped on any of those little plastic bits yet.
He shoves his hand into an oven mitt: the tacky one covered in roses and sunflowers, except it reeks of the bad part of the seventies (Cas's favorite- he'd found it at the thrift store for two bucks), and pulls the pie out. The crust is golden. A slight burn around the edges but he's proud. He's getting better at it.
Jack smells it immediately and jumps onto the couch, draping himself, boneless, along the back of it. He's upside down until he's turning red in the face.
Dean squints at him. "No," he says, because patience is a virtue and he can remind him again. "Pie comes after dinner, Jack'o."
Jack's four and a half now, and three of his teeth are missing. Dean eyes the peanut butter jar opened on the coffee table, and the spoon sitting right next to the coaster. Theres a patch trail of peanut butter where Jack has been setting the spoon down between bites. Jack slithers back over the couch and disappears. Sesame Street comes on and he loses all interest in the pie.
The front door opens and Cas pulls off his rain boots. The sweatpants are still hanging low and Dean waits for Cas to wander into the kitchen, following his nose before he slides a hand along his back. His skin is warm like embers, as always.
Cas leans into the touch, and cranes his neck to look around Dean. "Cherry?"
"Apple."
He hums his approval, grazing his hand up Dean's left arm until it rests on the round of his shoulder. The same palm that burned into his arm fits ontop of the mark like a puzzle piece and Dean wonders why he ever waited for this. "Baby," Jack is fixated on the screen. Elmo's always been his favorite. "Later?"
"Fine." Cas is only an inch shorter, so when Dean turns his head to look at him again he only has to angle his jaw down a centimeter before Cas's mouth is warm against his. It's soft, achingly sweet, and Dean melts into it, tumbling down and down and down and up and up and up. He always wants more. There's never enough. He pulls away.
"I love you." Dean whispers, nose pressed against Cas's. It still feels like a secret. He's said it a thousand times now but this is the thing that belongs to them. He doesn't want to say it so loud it breaks.
"I know." Cas whispers back and Dean grins, giddy.
"Never shoulda shown you that one."
"Han Solo is a very compelling character. Though I myself," Arm snaking around Dean's waist, Cas pulls Dean impossibly closer until their stomachs touch, his fingers weaving between Dean's, his other hand wandering from the muscle of his bicep down to the small of his back. He takes a step, and Dean realizes they're swaying. "am very fond of Leia."
Dean brings his forehead to rest against the crook of Castiel’s neck, and a dark curl of hair tickles against his cheek. He mouths a kiss there. They sway.
"She reminds me of someone very dear to me."
"Cas, you sap." Dean's breath is hot against Cas's neck. A decade ago Dean would've taken offense to that. Now though… well.
"Momma?" Jack's voice carries. He still stumbles every few syllables and frankly, a part of Dean hopes he never stops. He wishes he could keep him like this, just a while longer. Dean pulls his head away from Cas. Sesame Street is still playing and two familiar characters are on screen.
"Yeah, Pumpkin?" He calls curious as to what caught his attention.
"You and Dada are just like Bert and Ernie."
Dean stills in Cas's arms.
Cas presses his hand to Dean's cheek. The wedding band is the only cold part. "Dean?"
Dean manages to meet his eyes, his throat is thick, the words like syrup caught there, and there he is. His head tilted a fraction to one side. There are deep crows feet next to his eyes, still blue, still searching. Dean hadn't ever thought Cas would smile enough for crows feet. And oh, oh .
That's his husband.
That angel in the barn and he married him. They have a home. They have a kid together. And he watches Sesame Street in the living room after school. And they didn't drive off that cliff like Thelma and Louise, even though they were Themla and Louise.
And he'd know something then: Bert and Ernie were gay. And there was one thing he hadn't known: it was always gonna be Cas.