#.....slowly

Dean wanders through their small Vermont home to their small kitchen and thinks about the bunker. His kitchen here is full, too full, but the one at the bunker had been too empty. This is really a home. Both of them are written all over this kitchen; Dean’s spices threaten to fall out of the spice rack, and their cupboards are full of the honey Cas collects from the bees he keeps in the backyard. He sells it at the farmer’s market in little, hand-labeled jars, mixed with fresh berry syrup when the season is right.

The coffee drips slowly, and Dean occupies himself with watching a sparrow flit around the birdfeeder outside the window, and, for the hundredth time that month, it hits him. He has a little birdfeeder outside his little house in Vermont. He has a little house in Vermont because Cas, who is his husband, apparently really liked the idea when had Dean joked about it nearly a decade ago, and Dean just counts himself lucky he talked him down from a full B&B. They have a guest room instead, and it’s always full with friends and family and friends-of-friends who need a place to stay, and that’s a start.

It’s just the two of them this morning, though, because Sam and Eileen left a few days ago, and Dean likes these days, too. He likes them because he can carry two mugs of coffee through their quiet house without bothering to put sweatpants on over his boxers, and he can whistle as he goes, and he can whisper “morning, sunshine,” as he sets the coffee down on the nightstand and bends down to kiss Cas awake. Cas squints up at him with the same frown he wears every morning, like he’s angry at the sun for rising and forcing him awake, but his expression softens when he sees Dean and he actually smiles when he hands him the warm mug. He shifts over, and Dean climbs back into bed next to him, careful with his own mug, and together they lean against the headboard and drink the coffee in near silence. It’s a comfortable silence, the kind where neither of them need words, because the gentle press of their shoulders together says everything they would want to say.

In a few minutes, Dean will finish his coffee first. He’ll put his mug down on the bedside table and break the silence, declaring “Alright, come on. I’ll make pancakes.” He’ll reach out for Cas’ hand, and Cas will allow himself to be led out of their bedroom and back to their kitchen, where he’ll finish his second cup of coffee while Dean makes breakfast. When Cas’ hair is like this, bedhead wild from sleep, it reminds Dean of when they first met--when Castiel, was still burning with a Holy fire, still brimming with celestial intent. He’ll think about that same being sitting at their kitchen table, crouched over a #1 Dad mug like a dragon guarding his treasure, and he’ll get so distracted by staring at Cas that he’ll burn the first round of pancakes.