Drag Me Down Quick (So they don't notice)

epilogue - cas and dean

Sam won the bet about who would propose first. After Eileen and Jody grudgingly forked over their money, they asked him how he had known. 

"I know my brother." Sam replied simply.

Sam did. Sam knew Dean better than anyone else in the world, or he had. Now someone else knew Dean as well as he did, better in some ways. 

Someone else knew all of Dean's flaws and accepted him, saw the strength in him, the tenacity, and the pure humanity that shone through the cracks of his don't-give-a-fuck attitude. 

Sam had been looking up to Dean since he was four, studying him, trying to be just like his big brother. Then he had been looking down at him, trying to get Dean to see him - or maybe more importantly, to get Dean to see himself. As something more than Sam's protector, as something more than daddy's blunt instrument, or at the very least, as something human. 

Dean had thrown away so much of his life for Sam, including his literal life. Sam had never figured out how to pay him back for that, in fact he had just kept messing up and Dean had had to save him over and over. 

Then Cas happened. Cas had challenged Dean, had learned from Dean, had finally rebelled for Dean, forsaken his entire family and millions of years of habits just for Dean.

And in doing so he had done for Dean what Sam had never been able to- show Dean that he was worth sacrifices too.

Their relationship had not been easy, starting off with a literal trip to hell and fraught with fighting - each other and also heaven and hell -, almost dying, and actually dying. 

There had been a bet about when they would finally kiss, too. Sam had won that one too with, "The next time one of them dies." 

The last time Cas had died; well Dean had pretty much tried his best to kill himself, turned his soul into a bomb and took off to end God's sister and himself once and for all. Then in a turn none of them saw coming, Amara had had a change of heart, thanking Dean for his service by giving him the one thing he desired more than anything. 

Castiel. The angel with a crack in his chassis. 

Alive and with his wings, fully angelic. Sam hadn't seen their first kiss, no one had. 

Dean had tried his best to keep it a secret, Sam knew as soon as they got back to him. He had kept his mouth shut though, just for comedy's sake. 

Dean finally "confessed" two weeks in, after Sam brought up the "broken washing machine" that kept thumping the wall at two in the morning.

"It's me 'n Cas." Dean had muttered under his breath.

"What?" Sam acted confused, hiding his smirk under his hair.

"It's me and Cas." Dean finally spat, glaring at Sam. "Happy? We're never talking about this again."

Sam had laughed so hard he thought he had broken a rib. Afterwards, he told Dean he had known the whole time. 

Dean surprisingly didn't care about the fact the Cas was in a male vessel. He had kept it a secret just because "it's none of your goddamn business, Sammy."

Once Sam knew, it was like a whole other aspect of their relationship bloomed. Sam had never thought Dean was into PDA, at least besides making out with girls in seedy bars. Not the handholding aspect. 

Turns out what Dean was into was making Cas happy, and PDA made Cas happy. Dean tried to act bothered by it, but Sam caught him pulling Cas closer, initiating the hand-holding, rubbing his nose in Cas' hair, and once, memorably, pulling Cas into his lap during movie night.