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“See ya later, boss!” Kevin calls from outside Dean’s office door.
Dean glances up briefly to give the young engineer a wave of his hand before turning his attention back to the two bright computer screens in front of him. He checks the time in the lower corner and curses under his breath. It’s already after 5:30 and he was really hoping to get home before the kids today. If he can finish the roof framing details in the next ten minutes then he can worry about the rest tomorrow and hopefully have the plans out by Friday.
Decision made, Dean focuses all of his attention pulling details from other past projects and marking them accordingly so their drafter can find them easily. Dean already knows there will be a couple details he will have to draw by hand. Every custom home is different and everyone wants something new and unique. It makes Dean’s job harder, but he enjoys the process of puzzling out the best way to connect all of the different members.
The variation in projects is what attracted Dean to residential work after working at a commercial structural engineering firm straight out of college. Commercial projects drag on for years and mostly deal with steel and concrete design. When Dean needed a change of pace and scenery, he took the opportunity to move closer to his brother on the West Coast and start fresh at an engineering firm that specializes in residential work. The first time Dean worked on a custom home he fell in love with the process.
Transitioning to working with mainly wood took a while to learn and even a couple decades later he still feels like there is so much more to learn out there. Dean has seen some pretty crazy houses over the years and loves that he had a part in bringing the owners' vision to life. Everyone has a dream of owning their own custom home someday and Dean does his best to make it happen.
It's not always easy though. Each project requires a lot of back and forth with the architect to find the best way to make the house work. Usually the architect doesn’t like to budge on their design and expects the engineer to find a way. Dean has completely lost track of how many times an architect has driven him to having a few drinks after work just to forget the absurd demands they made.
Fortunately the house Dean is currently working on is a more simple design and only requires a few extra details with the outdoor pergola. Nothing he shouldn’t be able to handle tomorrow unless something else pops up that requires his attention. It's rare that he actually gets to work on engineering a house nowadays. Being a principal engineer and co-owner of the firm most of his time is spent writing proposals and sorting through the projects they have flowing in. The last couple months they have been completely slammed that he has had to step in and do some engineering himself. Dean loves it.
Ding!
Dean drags his attention from the plans he was staring at to the little email notification at the corner of the screen. All of their clients know the office closes at 5:00 even though all their engineers usually stay til at least 5:30, most until 6:00 some nights. With a slight growl for the distraction Dean reads who the email is from, the name causes a slight frown to form on his face in confusion.
He pulls up the email so he can read the whole thing and see what the architect wants. There is nothing in the subject line which adds to Dean’s confusion and it appears there is a set of plans attached to the email. Dean doesn’t remember discussing a new project with this architecture firm and normally they are pretty good about giving him a heads up about the upcoming projects. Communication is key and keeps everyone on schedule. Dean reads on, hoping the body of the email will be able to give him some more information.
Dean,
At your earliest convenience please take a look at the attached plans and let me know your thoughts.
Thank you, Castiel
So absolutely no information whatsoever.
Without even opening the plans Dean grabs his phone and calls the architecture firm.
“Shurley architecture, Castiel speaking.” A gruff voice answers after the first ring.
“Cas.”
“Hello, Dean.”
“Don’t ‘hello, Dean,’ me,” Dean mocks in a too deep voice that hurts his throat. “What the hell are these plans man? You didn’t tell me there was a new project for us.”
“Did you open the plans?” Cas asks, completely ignoring Dean’s spot on impression of him.
“Yes,” Dean responds as he tracks the mouse to the attached plans and waits for them to load.
“Liar,” followed by a soft chuckle, causing the corners of Dean’s lips to tick up slightly. “Let me know when you get them to load and we can walk through them.”
The plans open up in a new Bluebeam window and Dean promptly ignores the site plan sheet and moves on to the sheets that actually concern him. At first glance he can tell it’s another custom home and a pretty nice one at that. Typical L-shaped home with a large two car garage as the short side. A lot of windows, which can be concerning for Dean once he digs into them and runs the numbers. He quickly takes the rest of the house in before directing his next question to the man on the other end of the line.
“Alright, Cas, what am I looking at?” Dean asks as he flips to the next page.
“This is a new home I’ve been working on, a custom residence, however the owners are open to negotiations if something doesn’t work,” Cas answers. Dean’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Usually the owners are dead set on their vision no matter what Dean has to say.
“Well, that's good. There are a lot of windows along that back wall,” Dean observes as he zooms in on the back of the house. “Might need some more wall there, especially in that main room if the walls are as tall as they look.”
“I’m already planning on that area requiring the Simpson strong walls,” Cas explains easily and Dean finds himself nodding along. He moves onto the next page which shows the main floor plan and whistles in appreciation.
“Damn Cas, this is going to be a beautiful home.”
“Thank you, Dean,” Cas replies and Dean can hear the small proud smile in his voice.
Dean takes in the giant open family and entertainment area with the focal point being a large stone fireplace sitting opposite a full wall of windows and a french door leading out the back patio. There is a wall of built-in bookcases on one wall and a TV on the other. Just outside of the living room is the kitchen and it is every wanna-be chef's dream. Big kitchen island with a stove top that makes Dean jealous just looking at it. Not to mention the double oven off to the side and the rest of the giant kitchen. Dean would kill for a kitchen like that.
Focusing on the plans again, Dean sees two good sized bedrooms and a full bath along with an office and half bath on the other side. There is a set of stairs leading to the second floor that catches Dean’s attention. Dread starts to pool in his stomach the more he looks at them. He searches frantically for a section cut through that area and thankfully Cas provided one, he's usually pretty good about getting the views Dean requires to engineer a house.
“Cas,” Dean finally says after a minute of staring at the staircase.
“Yes, Dean?” Cas’ voice answers.
“Please tell me that is not a floating steel staircase.”
“Um…” Dean groans low in his throat, Cas’ hesitation enough of an answer. “It’s between two walls though! You can hide the columns in the wall and it gives off the floating stair effect. Also, there is only one platform so it’ll work.”
Dean listens as Cas defends his (awful) choice in staircases, but does appreciate all the steps Cas took to make Dean’s job easier. Unfortunately, it just makes it easier and not just plain easy. “Cas, you know how much detailing those stairs take and how much time and money to both engineer and install.”
“It’s worth it though,” Cas replies quickly and Dean knows he means it. If this is what the client wants and Cas already put the time into it then who is Dean to deny them that?
Dean flips back to the floor plan page and takes in the rest of the main floor. There is a large office, home to two desks and more built in bookshelves, a laundry room and a half bath. Pretty typical for a home, but Dean loves the rooms the owners chose to focus on, the living room and kitchen. In his personal opinion those are the two most important rooms. Especially with a family as large and as close as his. Three kids require a lot of space and they all seem to take an interest in either cooking or baking which Dean is more than happy to pass along his vast knowledge of each.
After taking in the whole main floor Dean moves to the next page to see what the upper floor looks like. Really, his only hope is that the walls line up with the lower floor. They can avoid using a ton of beams that way and hopefully cut down on some costs. Cas is usually pretty good with his designs, but you never know until you dig into the plans more. Dean remembers a house he worked on where not a single wall lined up with the lower floor and how much of a pain it was to work out the floor framing.
The second floor is home to two more sizable bedrooms, a full bath, and the master suite. Dean pauses as he takes in the master suite. Leading to the room is a walkway open to both the living room and dining room below. Dean loves the concept of open to below which just adds so much more to a home. The room itself is huge and has its own fireplace along with a full wall of windows that lead out to a large deck facing the back of the house. The master bathroom is also much larger than a normal bathroom and when Dean sees the giant shower and separate tub he understands why. He nearly whimpers at the site of his dream bathroom with the double sink and walk in closet.
Dean quickly pages through the rest of the plans, scanning everything and taking it all in. The house is beautiful. Not too big to the point where it's overwhelming and too much, but large enough for a family of five that have frequent guests visit as well. The entertainment spaces are the focal point and have had a lot of thought put into it, but the private spaces like the office and the master suite are so incredibly perfect it's as if someone took Dean’s dream home straight out of his head and put it on paper.
“Cas,” Dean breathes out, unable to form any other words.
“Yes, Dean?” Cas’ voice draws him back and if Dean didn’t know any better he would think the other man sounded nervous.
“Whose house is this?” Dean asks, when he finally finds the words.
“Do you like it?”
“Cas, answer the question.”
There's a heavy pause on the other end of the line. Dean’s heartbeat drowning out all other sounds. Seconds, minutes, hours go by, Dean’s not sure, all he can do is stare at his dream home drawn on paper and wait for Cas to answer his question.
“It’s ours,” Cas finally says. All of Dean’s air leaves him in a rush as reality sets in. His amazing, wonderful, thoughtful husband designed their dream - now future - home for their family and kept it as a surprise for Dean. Now knowing it's their own personal home Dean takes some more time to page through the drawing set taking in more and more details that Cas put into it. The site plan shows a giant backyard with a patio centered around a circle fire pit for entertaining their friends and its own mini bar and barbecue set up. The master suite deck provides coverage for what appears to be a hot tub and Dean is in love. He has always wanted a hot tub.
“Do you like it?” Cas’ voice sounds so small coming through the phone and it almost breaks Dean’s heart that his husband would think that after all the work Cas put into designing their home and Dean wouldn’t love every single square inch of it.
“Cas, it's perfect,” Dean breathes.
His husband chuckles in relief, “Thank you, Dean, but I know you don't really think that.”
Anyone outside of their professions would probably take offense to those words and argue their points but with the relationship between architects and structural engineers nothing is ever perfect. They conflict on almost everything. Too many windows, not enough walls; not enough windows to allow light in. A large beam is required to take the load of the second floor; the beam can’t show below, it’ll ruin the look. There needs to be a column here; there can’t be a column there. No floating staircase; yes floating staircase.
The list goes on and on. Eventually they can come to an agreement and be happy with the final design. That is until the contractors get their hands on the plans and mess up something on site, then it's Dean’s job to fix what they did without changing the design or tearing everything down.
“Okay, you’re not wrong. There are definitely things we are going to need to talk about, but Cas. I love it,” Dean says honestly with a small chuckle of his own.
“I’m not getting rid of the stairs!” Cas protests but Dean can hear the smile in his voice. He can picture his husband sitting in his chair with his feet up resting on the desk and the phone to his ear staring at the same set of plans on his computer that Dean is staring at. Cas’ hair is probably in complete disarray as it always is after a long day at work. He probably has those black thick rimmed glasses on, framing those beautiful blue eyes Dean loves so much. His trench coat and suit jacket most likely lay abandoned on the couch Cas keeps in his office and he probably has the sleeves of his white button down rolled up to his elbows showing off gorgeously tanned olive forearms. Dean knows for a fact his tie is probably flipped backwards by now even though Dean made sure it was tied correctly when he kissed his husband goodbye just that morning.
“We’ll talk about it,” Dean teases, even though he knows he won't be getting rid of the stairs no matter how much extra work it creates for him. “When did you have time to do this?”
“Lunch breaks, a few late nights, basically every spare moment I could,” Cas explains. “We’ve had the land for over four years now, so I thought it was time that we put plans into motion.”
Dean remembers when he discovered the five acre plot of land for sale. It wasn’t the biggest plot that was for sale in the area, but something about it spoke to him and he just knew it had to be theirs. The land is surrounded by trees except the back opens up to more of a meadowy area and on a clear day you can see the mountains which was the selling point for Dean. He showed Cas, and then they showed the kids, and before they knew it, they were proud owners of five acres and a dream to one day build their own home. Apparently Cas decided it was time and got started on making that dream a reality.
“I love you.”
There is really no other response for what his husband has done.
“I love you too, Dean.”
“I’ll see you at home?” Dean asks, already cleaning up his area, so that he can get home to his husband and kids. The rest of the work can wait until tomorrow, he has more important things right now. After one last long look at the plans on his computer screen he shuts that down too.
“Yes, I’ll see you soon. Don’t forget the buns for burgers tonight! Claire requested your burgers tonight,” Cas reminds him. Dean smiles at the thought of having all three of his kids back at home for the next few days. Claire is off at college, luckily only a few hours away, and comes home every now and then to visit. Emma is a senior in high school this year then she’ll join her sister off at college come fall, which Dean is already dreading. And then their youngest, Jack, is only a freshman in high school this year so at least Dean and Cas will still have someone the next few years.
“I won’t forget, hopefully the girls already started on making the patties by the time we get there,” Dean replies, grabbing his jacket from the door and double checking he has his keys before turning the lights off and locking up the office. He walks out to the parking lot and climbs into Baby, the Impala, before relaxing in his seat. “Bye Cas, I’ll see you in a few.”
“Goodbye, Dean,” Cas’ deep gravelly voice never fails to send shivers down his spine, especially when he says his name like that . Dean knows there is a silent promise behind his husband’s words and Dean can’t wait to figure out what it is. In the meantime, Dean has buns to buy and a dinner to make for his family. Also a dream home to engineer and make a reality.
— — —
Weeks go by quicker than either Dean or Castiel would like. Both of their respective firms are staying incredibly busy, which at any other time Dean would be grateful for, but right now all he wants to do is work on his own home, not someone else's. He knows it's selfish, but his dream home is right there and he wants to make it a reality. Dean has a job to do though and they’ve waited this long already, they can wait a little longer. Luckily he is able to find some time in between projects, during his lunch break, or staying late after work when the kids are at their practices anyways. Sometimes he and Cas even bring their project home and sit side by side late into the night with steaming cups of coffee.
The kids have also been quite helpful with providing their own opinions when their dads are working on their home. They each want to design their own rooms which Dean and Cas are more than happy to let them, as long as they don't mess with the walls because that would drive Dean crazy if he had to engineer everything because Emma wants a bigger closet, or Jack wants a giant hole in his ceiling so that he can see the stars at night. To be fair, Dean would love that too, but it's not entirely possible the way Jack wants it to be. Cas is working on something for their son though and Dean hopes he loves it.
Dean remembers the night they told the kids about the house being designed and them moving forward in the process. They waited until Claire was home for spring break so that all five of them were under the same roof when the news broke and could spend a few days talking about it. Jack was excited of course, he's like a little puppy, always excited about anything and everything. Emma was also excited, but in more of a quiet and proud of her dads kind of way. It was Claire’s reaction that really surprised Dean. Claire may be biologically Cas’, but she is the most like Dean when it comes to personality and how they present themselves to the world.
They have a hard exterior, rarely showing their emotions unless something major happens, and they don't let people in often. When they do let someone in though they do everything in their power to provide the world for them. When they love, they love hard and unconditionally. It got Dean in trouble a few times in his past and he remembers when Claire met her first girlfriend back in high school only to lose her a few months later. Claire was left heartbroken and Dean was left heartbroken watching his daughter fall apart. They made it through together and Claire is now happily dating a sweet girl named Kaia, whom she met at college.
When Claire found out about the home moving forward in the design process, she excused herself from the table and walked out to their backyard leaving the door cracked open. Dean watched her go before glancing back at Cas to see a soft smile on his husband's face and with a nod of his head, encouraged Dean to go after their daughter. He found Claire curled up on their porch swing staring out at the darkened yard bathed in soft silvery moonlight. Dean gently sat himself down next to her and stayed silent as he waited for his daughter to be ready to talk. It was only a few minutes later when Claire turned to look at him with tears in her eyes but a smile on her face. All Dean could do was pull her in close and hold her tight as she choked on a sob.
“I’m proud of you two,” she finally whispered into his chest while he was still holding her. “You guys have given up so much for us and it's about freaking time you guys did something for yourselves.”
For as long as she could remember both him and Cas had talked about their dream home, long before they even bought the land. They would tell her and her siblings about the adventures they would have together and how all three kids would always have a home to come back to no matter how old they got. It would be theirs, and only theirs.
Now, Dean sits at his desk, lunch pushed to the side, focused on the set of plans on his screen. It took a few frustrating weeks of back and forth with him and Cas to try and nail down the design. They are both perfectionists and this is their future home so it absolutely needs to be perfect. The problem is, they both have very different ideas of what is perfect. It's just how their brains work, they see things differently. Cas has more of an artistic view of the home and how to make it as physically appealing as possible. Whereas Dean is looking at it with more of a technical viewpoint and how they can make it to avoid certain things, like giant oversized beams that wouldn’t be necessary if Cas would just move the wall over a foot and half to the left.
There are things they both agree on though. They expanded the main living room since they will be spending ninety percent of the time in that room, especially if they have guests. That caused their office to get smaller, but for now that’s okay since they both commute to an office anyways. If the rest of their lives go according to plan though that might change, which is what they are debating about now. Dean thinks there is more than enough room and the walls line up with the top floor enough to not cause a lot of extra work on his end of things. Cas thinks they should move the office to the second floor and move one of the bedrooms down to the first floor.
“Cas, I really think that will cause more issues and the kids have already claimed those rooms,” Dean protests into the phone.
“I know, but I don't think the office is big enough for the both of us,” Cas argues. Dean breathes out a heavy sigh. They’ve been going back and forth on this for at least twenty minutes now. Dean takes another look at the plans to see if there is something he missed that might be able to solve their issues.
“What part of it isn’t big enough?” he asks Cas. “We could do different doors so that they’re like a barn door sliding outside the room which gives us wall space for the built in bookshelves. That way you would have more room by your desk and your drawing table can fit in between our desks in front of the window.”
Silence meets his suggestion, but Dean knows his husband is just rearranging things on his model to see if Dean’s suggestion might actually work. He can hear the clicks of Cas’ mouse and the taping on his keyboard then a long exhale.
“Dean, you’re a genius.”
A big grin breaks out on Dean’s face. “Yeah?”
“Yes!” Cas exclaims. “Moving the bookshelves gave more room on my side which opened up more room for the drawing table. Why didn’t we think of this earlier?”
Dean laughs, “I don’t know, but I’m just glad we don't have to move any more walls around.”
“Moving the living room walls was your idea, Dean,” Cas reminds him and Dean can just picture the smug little smile he loves so much on his husband's face.
“Yeah, yeah whatever,” Dean grumbles. “Alright, what's next on our list?”
“Um, let's see. We fixed the master bath situation since you didn’t want to cantilever it that far out.”
Dean rolls his eyes at those words. “Cas, there was no way cantilevering out that section of ten feet was going to work without requiring giant beams running through those two lower bedrooms.”
“I know, but it was so beautiful Dean!” Cas protests with a small whine to his voice. Dean admits, his husband's original idea for their master bathroom was absolutely breathtaking. Just not plausible.
“Cas, it is still beautiful.”
“Still think my idea was better,” Cas mumbles under his breath causing Dean to grin. He loves his grumpy husband so much. “Alright, did we settle on what kind of columns we want supporting the upper balcony?”
“I think going with the four king posts will look the best and those are easy enough to engineer. We have some typical details already drawn up, they will just need a little tweaking, but that's it.” Dean says, glancing at the plans for the balcony. He can’t wait until he can sit out there with a good book and a hot cup of coffee watching the sun rise or a nice summer thunderstorm.
“Okay, good. I like that idea too,” Cas agrees, tapping away on his side of things. “Do we want a concrete pedestal at all?”
“Yes, for sure. I don't care how tall though, maybe three feet?”
“Sound’s good. I’ll mess around with that and see what looks good.”
Dean pauses his flipping through pages on a section cut through the living room. The walls are tall with a high ceiling, but he feels like something is missing. “Cas, what are we doing for roof framing in the living room? Are we doing exposed trusses or were you thinking stick framing would be better?”
“Would we do collar tie trusses?” Cas asks.
“No, I don’t think we would need them and I would prefer not to.”
“What if we did stick frame, but had decorative beams to add something to the ceiling so it's not so boring?” Cas suggests.
“We could do that, my only concern is the fireplace, but if we connect early with the supplier we could probably solve that pretty easily.” Dean explains.
“Okay good. Is there anything else?”
“What if we added columns to support the walkway?” Dean asks quickly.
“We are not adding columns! I gave you walls to hide the supports so that they’re not in the middle of living areas,” Cas argues clearly exasperated from the ongoing argument. Dean likes columns. They make life easier for an engineer. Beams don't have to span as far, so they don't have to be as big and they look cool!
“But, Cas…”
“Don’t ‘but Cas’ me,” Cas interrupts in his no nonsense voice that never fails to make Dean smile. He likes it when his husband gets all bossy with him. “I will not be adding random columns into our home just because you like them. They just get in the way and cause more problems.”
The smile stays firmly on Dean’s face. He knows he would never win this argument, he has known since before he even brought it up the first time. Cas really did do a good job of providing enough wall in the correct places for Dean to use as supports, something not a lot of architects do. Dean just really likes to rile up his husband whenever he gets the chance.
Taking Dean’s silence as an answer, Cas returns to the actual important question. “Is there anything else we need to discuss?”
Dean glances through the sheets. Takes in all of the little clouded marks that he had comments on, but now all taken care of. Once Cas has everything implemented in his model and gets Dean a new set of plans he can actually start engineering the place. Of course more things will pop up as they go, there might not be enough wall on the back line or an extra beam may be required that they originally weren’t planning on, but those things are easily taken care of. Dean just needs to do it and then they can get it built and have their dream finally a reality.
“I think that’s everything,” Dean breathes. “At least on my end that took care of all of my concerns, what about you?”
“I just need to change the things we talked about, but then I can get these sent over to you,” Cas pauses. “Dean, did we do it?”
Dean can’t help the burst of wet laughter that escapes him. He can feel himself choking up slightly and his vision going blurry from unshed tears.
“We did it, Cas. We designed our dream home.”
“All you have to do now is do your job and actually make it work,” Cas teases. Everyone knows it's the engineers job to just make the design work no matter how crazy and out there the design may be.
“I think I can make that happen,” Dean smiles. “I did have the best architect I know working on it with me and I heard the owners are alright guys, too.”
“Yes, I did hear the dark haired one is quite handsome and a real catch.”
“Oh, shut up!” Dean laughs again feeling lighter than he has in a long time. They’re one step closer to having their custom home built. All Dean has to do now is engineer the place and they’ll be even closer. Just a few more steps to having their dream become a reality.