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You were hanging up on Sam just as Dean was pulling up to the house.
“We’ll see you when we get back,” Dean was saying into the phone you held between you two.
“Alright,” Sam replied. “Say hi to Garth and Bess for me.”
Ending the call, you put your phone in your back pocket, looked outside at the Fitzgerald house.
“It’s quaint,” you observed. Dean looked out the window too.
“Yeah,” he said, sighing, “can’t wait for our sleep-over with the werewolf family.” You chuckled.
“Beats some seedy motel,” you offered. Dean turned to you, grinning. “I like seedy motels.” You patted his arm, then opened your door.
“I know you do, honey,” you said.
Dean rang the bell, then took a step backwards, briefly running his hand into yours. You squeezed his and then the door was opened by a broadly smiling Garth.
“Hey you guys,” he said, widening his arms. Dean didn’t seem to want to step into them, so you did instead, squeezing the skinny man’s shoulders as you did.
“Good to see you, Garth,” you said, and he let you pass.
“Drive okay?” he asked just as Dean stepped closer, enduring a long hug.
“Yeah, all good,” he said, wrangling himself out of Garth’s arms and throwing you a look.
“Where’s Bess and the kids?” you asked to cover.
“They’re in the living room,” Garth replied. “Go on through.”
The cozy living room was only a few steps away. You had just enough time to see Bess sitting in an armchair, the twins in a little playpen before something grabbed you around the hips.
“BFA!” Gertie squealed, squeezing you. Your arm landed around her shoulders.
“Hey, squirt!” you grinned. Gertie let go of you, her little face beaming up at you.
“I have sooo much stuff to show you,” Gertie started rambling, not letting go of you. “I have a new game where you have to collect cards that are all pictures of boogers and Mom said we can make a cake or if not a cake then cookies.”
It was all one run-on sentence, but you thought you got the gist of it. Booger game. Baking a cake. Maybe cookies.
“That sounds awesome,” you replied, squeezing the little girl again. “I can’t wait.”
“Gertie,” Bess said, standing up and moving towards you, “give our guests a second to arrive, okay?” Gertie let go of you, reluctantly, and you and Bess hugged.
“It’s all good,” you said, pinching some of the girl’s hair between your fingers. “Me and the Gertster just have big plans.”
You heard Dean and Garth walk up behind you. Gertie shyly waved at Dean.
“We have the guest room downstairs made up for you,” Bess said, after also giving Dean a quick hug. “You guys wanna settle in first?” You looked down at Gertie.
“Dean can take the bags,” you said, throwing him a look over your shoulder. “I’m dying to see that booger game.”
Dean was back twenty minutes later while you were just laughing uproariously at one of the cartoon booger pictures Gertie was showing you.
“That is vile,” you said, making a face. Gertie was giggling like crazy and a rush of love for her went through you. Garth was putting the twins down for a nap and Bess was in the kitchen, preparing dinner. You showed Dean the card.
“Look at that,” you said, shaking your head. “Where was this kind of premium entertainment when we were young?” Dean chuckled, sitting down in one of the armchairs.
“No idea,” he said, “but I had an Etch-A-Sketch and I was freakin’ Michelangelo on that thing.” Gertie’s eyes went tide.
“You’re not supposed to say the f-word,” she lectured him. Dean raised his eyebrows.
“Uhm” he said, but Gertie was already distracted. Looking at you, she said: “I’m gonna ask Mom if we can make the cake, okay, BFA?” You nodded.
“You do that, booger,” you said and Gertie ran off.
“BFA?” Dean asked, while you were putting together the game, putting it back into its box. “What does that mean?” You shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal.
“Only means best friend aunt,” you said, throwing Dean a look out of the corner of your eyes.
“Really?” he said, smiling a little.
“Yeah,” you replied, pushing yourself up from where you were squished between the couch and the small table you had been playing on.
“She christened me the last time I was here. But don’t be jealous.” You walked closer to Dean, and as he was raising one of his hands you held it. “I can have two best friends at the same time. I can be your…”
You thought for a second. “BFGF?” you asked. “Best friend girlfriend?” Dean chuckled.
“Sounds like a Bee Gees cover band,” he said and you grinned.
He raised his chin, looking up at you and you leaned down, kissed him.
“Gertie’s crazy about you,” Dean said when you separated. You sat on the arm of the chair, Dean’s arm going around you.
“Can’t say I blame her,” he added, petting your thigh.
“She’s got good taste, is all,” you said, leaning into him.
You were both quiet for a second, simply watching the sunrays falling through the window play across the wall of family photos, the reassuring sound of cars and people somewhere outside, Gertie’s excited voice in the kitchen.
“Would you ever want something like this?” Dean asked, not looking at you. You turned your head to him.
“Like what?” you asked. Dean shrugged, trying to look non-committal but you knew him well enough to recognize the seriousness on his face.
“This,” he said, using the hand that wasn’t around you to motion to the room you were in. “A house, mortgage, couple of kids.” He squeezed your leg where he was holding it.
“A handsome husband who’s an incredible lover,” he added, with a grin. You grimaced.
“Where do I find one of those?” you asked.
“Hey,” Dean said, squeezing again. You chuckled and he finally looked up at you.
“I don’t know,” you said slowly. “I guess I never really thought it would be an option. Not with hunting.”
“Yeah,” Dean said, absentmindedly running his hand over your leg. “We would have to get out of that first.”
You felt yourself tense a little. When had this gone from a would you to a we would?
“Do you want this?” you asked, your voice maybe sounding a little skeptical. “That would mean no more late nights at bars with no responsibility, no driving across the country,” you said. “Well, at least not as much of it. Plus diapers, and stuff.” Dean raised his free hand.
“Babies,” he said, like he was about to start a lecture, “are a lot like cars.”
“Oh, here we go,” you said, unable to suppress a grin.
“I’m just saying,” Dean continued, “there’s a logic, a system to how they work.”
“No,” you snorted, “babies are the exact opposite of that.” Dean shrugged.
“We’d figure it out,” he said and you tried not to get hung up on the we, but then Dean was looking up at you, catching your gaze.
“I could imagine doing it with you,” he said, his voice a little quieter.
You felt a shiver run over you. This was not the direction you had expected this little exchange to go. As if sensing the serious turn the conversation had taken, Gertie burst back into the room.
“We can bake cookies,” she said, a little out of breath and you just wanted to squish her. When she saw Dean’s arm around you, she wrinkled her nose.
“Eeew,” she said, “are you two cuddling?” Dean put his other arm around you too.
“You best believe we are,” he said and then, in a quieter, more theatrical tone: “And I might even kiss her later.”
You started laughing while Gertie ran from the room, screaming to the high heavens.
You were pretty sure you were going to find flour on your clothes and hair for a week when you all finally sat down for dinner, but there was a beautiful batch of rainbow sprinkle cookies cooling in the kitchen. Bess was a great cook, considering she and Garth mostly ate cow hearts, and you were all chatting away, Gertie proudly narrating her baking misadventures while the twins sat in their high chairs.
As you were getting up to collect the empty plates, Garth was just holding baby Sam when baby Cas knocked over his feeding bottle, sending juice flying everywhere.
“Oh muck,” Garth exclaimed. He was standing closest to Dean, so he turned around, quickly depositing the baby in his arms.
“Hold him for a second?” he asked. You pressed your lips together. You’d never seen Dean interact with a baby, but you were pretty sure he would hand the kid back as quickly as possible to Bess or Garth or even Gertie if he had to.
You put the plates in the sink, started running the water but then Bess was shooing you away, telling you no guest of hers would ever be doing the dishes. When you returned to the table you looked back at Dean and the toddler.
Instead of the panic and discomfort you were expecting in his eyes, he was looking down at baby Sam, quietly talking to him while letting him play with his finger. You felt a breath catch in your throat and saw that Dean was gently bouncing him on his leg.
“Wow,” you said, feeling a smile creep to your lips. “You’re good at that.” Dean looked at you, raising his eyebrows and grinning a little.
“I’m full of surprises, darlin’,” he said.
“I’ll say,” you replied, sitting down, Gertie pushing some wax crayons your way to help you with a picture she was drawing, but your eyes were caught on Dean.
“Sammy always got fidgety after dinner,” he said, then added: “The other Sammy, I mean.” You smiled, but you felt a little pinch in your heart.
Of course you always knew that Dean had essentially raised his little brother, their mother being dead and father barely around. You felt a little bad and a little naïve for thinking Dean wouldn’t be good at this.
It broke your heart, the circumstances under which he’d had to learn to be good at it, but it also filled you with love. Dean never gave his sweet, caring side enough credit, like it was something he needed to hide from the world. It had become your life’s mission to show him that he didn’t need to. Maybe it was closer to the surface than you’d thought.
“Alright,” Garth said, coming back from his clean-up mission. “Let me take this little goober off your hands.”
With that, he picked up Sam. You saw Dean looking after the two, father and son, a small smile on his face.
He caught your eye then, and you held his gaze, at least until Gertie tapped on your elbow, asking you to draw a tree.
The kids put to bed, you, Dean, Bess and Garth had sat around, chatting a little, but soon gone to bed. It was earlier than your usually bedtime, and much earlier than Dean’s, but as you climbed onto the creaking basement room pull-out couch, you couldn’t have been happier.
Dean tucked himself in behind you, one arm under your pillow, the other slung tightly around you. You stroked his hand, staring off into the near perfect darkness of the room, listening to the unfamiliar sounds the house was making.
“I could imagine doing it with you, too,” you said, quietly. You couldn’t feel Dean move and you wondered if he had already fallen asleep, but then you heard the rustling of the sheets, felt the movement of his head right behind yours, heard him breathe out of rhythm.
Also, you weren’t sure if he had understood what you meant, if that sentence had stuck as much in his head as it had in yours.
“Really?” he finally asked, also quietly, as if he was worried to say it out loud to the room.
You turned yourself around a little, because although you couldn’t really see him, you wanted to face him.
“Really,” you said. He had raised his head, was looking down at you and you could feel his warm breath on your face, smell his toothpaste.
“What would that mean?” Dean asked. He wasn’t one to get hung up on logistics, but he knew as well as you that you didn’t have the luxury of simply putting a child out into the world without first thinking about exactly what meant for the way you were living. You shrugged.
“I don’t know,” you answered, and it was the truth. You had no idea what that would mean, and it was hurting your head to even think about how much would need to change first for this to make sense.
“We’d figure it out, I guess,” you added. You felt Dean nod in the dark and then you felt him moving closer to you, the arm that had been around you running down over your hips and then to your thighs.
“Maybe we should already get some practice in,” he said, and you knew exactly what that tone he was saying it with meant. You grinned, lifting your head up to catch his lips as you gently kissed.
“I don’t really think that much practice is necessary, it’s pretty basic stuff,” you said, and then cupped Dean’s face, feeling the smile there.
“But better to be safe than sorry,” you continued, as you pulled him in.
The next morning, you were getting ready to leave. You’d volunteered for coffee duty, and were just pouring some into a large thermos when Dean’s arms wrapped around you, his face going to your neck as he hugged you hard. You giggled, trying not to spill any coffee. Dean’s hands were running over you, and stopped at your belly.
“I can already imagine how sexy you'd look pregnant,” he mumbled to you.
“Jesus, Dean,” you giggled, writhing out of his hold to put the thermos on the table together with your other stuff.
“It’s 9 AM, baby,” you said with an unbelieving smile, as you turned around to him. Dean grinned.
“Well,” he said, “it’s the truth.”
Just then the Fitzgeralds, all five of them, came in, there to accompany you both to the front door.
Gertie shed a couple of tears when she finally had to let you go, and you promised that you would call her from the bunker.
She looked up at her father, sadness in her face as Garth laid his hand on her head, and said, with utmost pity: “Do you know that she has to hang out with three boys all the time?”
“That’s why it’s so important for me to have cool friends like you,” you said, leaning down to hug her one more time. “To balance out all the boy stuff.”
After Dean finally escaped Garth’s arms you were both walking down to the Impala. You put your bags in the trunk and then waved again once you were sitting in the front. You took a sip of the coffee as Dean started the car. You were quiet for a few minutes, just looking at the road.
“So was that just momentary madness last night,” you asked after a few miles, “or do you really want to have kids?” Dean looked at you sideways in that playboy way he did.
“I’m pretty sure I counted you having three momentary madnesses,” he said. In response, a loud pfff left you and you slapped his arm, making Dean laugh, but then you laid your hand on his knee.
“I was being serious,” he finally said, concentrating on the road. “Were you being serious?”
You thought for a second, looking at Dean. Imagining what he could be like with his own children. You wondered how that would change him, what it would do to him. You wanted to find out.
“I was,” you replied. Dean let his right hand drop to your one on his leg, holding it.
“Okay,” he said, “then we’ll talk about it.”
“Sounds good,” you said. He looked over at you, and letting go of your hand, waved you over with two fingers. You scooted over while he was looking at the road again, kissed him as much as it was possible with his face turned sideways. Then he held your hand again.
You turned yourself around a little, looking at the backseat.
“Do they do baby seats for Chevys?” you asked, wrinkling your brow. Dean raised his eyebrows, also briefly looking back. He inclined his head when he looked out front again.
“We can get a van,” he said, and then quickly added: “Additionally, of course. This one needs to stay around.” He patted the stirring wheel and nodded. “It’s a good car to learn how to drive in.”
What he said tugged at your heart. The idea was too lovely, too sweet.
Dean looked over, and maybe he saw that your eyes were a little misty.
He let go of your hand again, and instead laid his arm over the back of the bench. You moved closer to him, leaning against his shoulders.
“That sounds really nice,” you said, in a quiet voice, and then you were both looking ahead, at whatever was in front of you.