#the good post canon that lives in mine and sab's texts

[yorkesteins]

i didn’t finish the post-canon fix it i was working on before dean’s birthday like i’d planned bc of who i am as a person but posting this lil family bit i’m obsessed with because it’s his BIRTHDAY and he is ALIVE AND THRIVING as a HUSBAND AND FATHER:

They usually drive down the mountain a bit to Burnsville on the weekends. It ain’t that big, but it’s novelty enough for a five year old, and they’ve got a hardware store with a garden center. When Sam and Eileen come by, they’ll take a longer drive to Boone or Asheville and do the tourist thing (which apparently means buy Jack a goddamn seven dollar milkshake from that yuppie chocolate place, according to certain semi-fallen angels mooching off Dean’s hard earned fraudulent credit cards, but whatever), but Saturdays in Burnsville are family time all the same. 

They always do the hardware store first, because it takes the longest. Dean has already grabbed the new faucet for the kitchen sink, but Cas is taking his sweet time in the garden center, agonizing over the fertilizer. Jack, in some unholy combination of a kindergartener’s boredom and an ongoing adjustment from the loss of adult coordination when he downsized, has already knocked over three ceramic flower pots and two of those weird little six packs of marigolds. The flowers seem okay, and only one of the pots was a little chipped on the rim, so Dean surreptitiously shoves it behind a couple his kid’s flailing limbs haven’t gotten a hold of yet.

“C’mon, kiddo,” he sighs, holding out his hand. The little bit of irritation that’d been building up slides away as Jack’s palm smacks against his own, automatic and trusting. “Let’s go to the bookstore while your dad finishes up.”

Jack bounces on the balls of his Converse clad feet. Dean hadn’t even known they made Converse that small. Jack’s got them in four colors now, because the kid’s got a killer pout and Cas is a pushover.

“New books?” he asks, hopefully. The edges of that killer pout begin to form. Dean crosses his arms, because he ain’t a pushover. 

“We’ll see.”

“Four? I got four last time.”

“Three,” Cas corrects, idly. Dean turns to look at him; Cas’s brow furrows intensely as he inspects a container of Miracle Grow for Fruits and Vegetables. “He got three last time. But he’s already read them all.”

“You’re a pushover,” Dean says, for the umpteenth time in the past month at least. Cas looks up, finally, and smiles placidly. Dean sighs. “Two, Jack. We can get two, and that’s my final offer.”

“Okay, two!” Jack says, head bobbing in agreement. Dean silently resigns himself to the inevitability of leaving with three new books. 

The bookstore is small, and it smells like a small, used bookstore–undertones of old, musty pages and the warmth of an old heater working against the last of the early spring chill. Jack makes a beeline for the middle of the third aisle and immediately plops his little butt down. From what Dean can tell, he’s meticulously debating the merits of every Magic Treehouse book they’ve got in stock. Like father, like son. 

Dean grins a little to himself as he picks idly through the Staff Recommends section up front.