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A long time ago, Dean Winchester lived in a house with four wheels and an engine. He hunted things and saved people; he traveled the country a hundred times over with his brother in the passenger seat, always harping on about his loud music. He’s been a son and a guardian; a vessel and a righteous man; he’s been an FBI agent, a gym teacher, and even a vampire. He’s also the only man on Earth who can boast having been to Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and back, and made it out in one piece. He’s saved this world more times than he can remember, and its people will never even know that they can sleep at night, due in part, because of him. He was a hunter, and a damn fine one at that.
But things are different now.
When he looks in the mirror, he sees an old man looking back. He’s got wrinkles and age spots and his hair is gray.
He still cleans his pistols and there’s an unopened bag of rock salt stashed in the basement that he bought some twenty years ago, but if anybody asks him, he’s only on vacation.
These days, however, he spends most of his time in the rocking chair out on the front porch overlooking sun-kissed fields of grass as far as the eye can see. He feels blessed just to call this place his home; his own. It used to be gorgeous, but like him, it’s getting older.
Every summer, he and Cas would dutifully repaint the yellow siding and the white picket fence. They’d alternate every other week between mowing the lawn and taming the wild rose bushes on either side of the front steps. If they were feeling particularly inspired, they even caulked up the unsightly cracks in the pavement leading up from the road.
Once, they tried to plant a garden in the back yard, but between arguing over what seeds to plant and how best to grow tomatoes, all that remains is a four by six uneven patch of dirt and grass. Dean found out the hard way that they were equally bull-headed, but he never considered himself a gardener anyway.
He and Cas make an interesting pair and they’ve been together for a very long time. To this day, however, people don’t know what to make of them. Are they brothers? Close friends?
They aren’t particularly affectionate with each other in public, choosing instead to stand in the cereal aisle of the local supermarket and argue over which flavor of oatmeal is better. When they go to IHOP for their Sunday breakfast, Cas is mostly quiet while Dean chatters on about what movie they should see later or reads him the good bits from the funny pages. After they wait in line for popcorn and Raisinets at the movies, they choose their seats close to the front to get what Dean dubs as “the full experience”; and it’s dark in the theater. No one can see that, although Dean stuffs his mouth with candy, his other hand rests gently on top of Cas’s; no one sees that their fingers are linked or how Dean squeezes when the on-screen couple finally kisses.
No one knows that Dean has been living out his own romantic-comedy for the last few decades, because watching an angel adjust himself to the oddities and intricacies of human life is actually pretty freaking funny. No one knows that Cas is still just as strong and fierce as he was all those years ago. They don’t know that his aging appearance is a side-effect of being in love; that he allows for his vessel’s hair to lose its dark pigmentation and for his skin to wrinkle because it makes Dean feel better that they’re aging side by side.
Once a year for as long as they’ve been together, they go back to the place where it all began; where they kissed for the first time after the sky whited out when the Gates of Heaven were finally closed for good. When Dean had thought he’d lost everything and nothing all at once because he hadn’t yet told Cas how he felt; and he blamed himself for not figuring it out sooner. How he swore to whoever was out there listening that if he could just have one last chance, he wouldn’t screw it up this time. How he cried when nobody was looking and how he would’ve cried even if they were because he couldn’t imagine his life without Cas in it.
Sacrificing Cas for the greater good had seemed like the right thing to do at the time; hell, Dean had allowed for the same thing to happen to his own brother just a few short years prior when Sam said yes to Lucifer and threw himself into the archangel’s cage.
But hindsight is always twenty-twenty; and when Cas appeared on the ground later, free from Heaven, free of his programming, once again himself, he was met eagerly with a lapful of Dean and warm, soft kisses on his lips.
The rest, of course, is history still in the making; and there are still some things that Dean hasn’t tried yet.
It’s been many years that he and Cas have shared their lives together and when people ask who Cas is to him, Dean says, “He’s just Cas.” He thinks, perhaps, that its time they both took on a different label.
Today, he and Cas eat bacon, eggs, and toast in the breakfast nook as the morning sun washes warmly over them. As usual, Cas reads the Health & Science section of the newspaper while the Funny Pages is neatly folded beside Dean’s plate, untouched. He doesn’t think he’ll be reading Calvin and Hobbes out loud though and instead, reaches out to lower Cas’s paper.
Curious blue eyes meet probing green ones and there’s a moment of comfortable silence.
“I fully intend to eat this bacon, Dean.”
“I don’t want your bacon, Cas.”
“Do you need more juice?”
“Here,” Dean exerts himself a little as he tugs his mother’s wedding ring off his finger. His hand feels naked without it; he’s worn it for as long as he can remember, but it’s about time he gave it away.
Cas reaches out and lets Dean place the band in his palm, then holds it up to his face to examine it.
“Is it broken?”
“No. It’s good. Try it on.”
“Why?” Cas furrows his brow.
“Just try it on, would you?”
Cas attempts to slide it onto his left index finger before Dean’s had enough and reaches out to stop him.
“Dude, come on,” he slips it correctly onto Cas’s ring finger, then sits back and stuffs a piece of bacon into his mouth.
“It’s a little tight,” Cas laments, using his own brand of angel mojo to make the necessary adjustments.
“No, it’s fine. See? You fixed it,” Dean reaches for his glass of orange juice but Cas catches his wrist midway.
“Do you want to have a ceremony?”
“What, and invite the kid who bags our groceries? No thanks.”
“Well, there’s Garth and Charlie. You could ask Amelia if she’d like to—”
“Nah. Nobody’s interested in seeing a couple of old dudes suck face at a wedding that’s forty years overdue.”
“I don’t suck your face, Dean—”
“Besides. Who would I ask to be my best man?” He looks up at Cas and instantly, the topic is dropped as Cas takes Dean’s hand between both of his own and squeezes gently.
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
“Don’t be,” Dean finds himself smiling. “Sam’s up there makin’ fun of us right now for being saps.”
“I’m sure he is,” Cas returns Dean’s smile and they stay like that, holding hands and picking at their food amiably.
After the dishes are done (Dean washes, Cas dries), and the fish tank is cleaned, they go into town and pick up the week’s groceries, argue over whether or not they need to get light bulbs, and stop at a Pep Boys because the Impala needs some oil.
That night, they lie in bed listening to the crickets chirp outside the open window as the white curtains billow. Cas curls his body tighter around Dean, as if to keep him warm despite the summer breeze. He presses a tender kiss to the side of Dean’s neck, relishing the chuckle he gets in reply.
“You feel like a Brillo Pad,” Dean says, settling back against him comfortably. He takes Cas’s silence as an indicator that he’s begun to meditate, since angels still don’t sleep, and jolts when he feels a cool piece of metal slide onto his own left ring finger.
“I got this for you,” Cas says gruffly against Dean’s ear, “while you were at Pep Boys.”
“Smooth,” Dean holds his hand up to see a plain silver band.
It’ll be another several years before Dean has to fish his ring out of the sink, finally notices the inscription on the inside, and smiles.