From the moment Dean and Cas met at age three they were inseparable. John always said they were best friends, but Mary insisted it was more to it than that.
She even remembers the exact moment she knew. It was the boys first day of school, and Dean had been worrying about it for awhile. As far as she could tell, his biggest fear was that Cas wasn’t going to be in his kindergarten class and he wasn’t sure he would make any friends. She of course, had only heard this when she opened the screen door to call the boys for lunch and saw Dean crying into Castiel’s lap while the younger boy stroked her sons hair murmuring something about bees migration patterns. Mary didn’t stay to hear the end of it, because she could see that whatever Castiel was yammering on about was actually helping, So she shut the screen door shut, put their sandwiches in the fridge and resolved to talk to Dean about it later.
But Dean didn’t want to talk about it later. The morning the first day rolled around, Dean was a wreck. His eyes were swollen, and she wasn’t sure if it was from crying that morning, or the night before, but Dean refused to talk about it. He grabbed his cheerios and glared anytime John or Mary tried to assure him school was a good thing.
When they got to school, Naomi and his bitch (excuse Mary’s language) of a mother were there. Castiel ran over to Dean, and when he saw her sons blood shot eyes and frown, an expression passed over his face that Mary would come to see many times over the years. It was then that Mary knew her son was loved. Even at five, the expression Castiel held was one of protectiveness and pure admiration. He whispered something to Dean, and Dean nodded. Before anyone could blink, Cas had leaned in and kissed Dean sweetly. While Naomi was screaming at them that “NO Castiel, boys don’t kiss boys.” Mary quickly got out her camera to take a picture.
From then on Mary started adding Castiel to her scrapbook. If anyone was to open it they would assume he was part of their family with the amount of pictures she included of him. And he was always part of their family. He was the one that taught Sam math when Mary was unable to understand her sons homework anymore. Cas was the one who helped Mary bake pies for every holiday, while the rest of the boys watched sports. John taught Cas how to change a tire. Every holiday, Castiel helped set the table. Every family picture, Cas would share a grateful smile with Mary as everyone else complained about their required outfits. But still, her scrapbook sometimes seemed to hone in on the pictures of just Dean and Cas.
John laughed at her. Told her constantly that most mothers don’t wish their sons to be in a homosexual relationship before puberty. They don’t create scrapbooks in secret. But she knew. She knew that their friendship was never just friendship. Dean and Cas were always just a little too fascinated with one another. In their innocent youth there were many times where she had to end their game of “doctor” or “house” because the two of them enjoyed kissing each others heads and looking at each other too much. She wanted them to be together, but not until they really understood what together meant.
And that look she had seen a young Cas give a young Dean, never stopped being a normal expression he gave her son. In fact Dean, and Cas had a myriad of expressions just for the other. Mary went to bed relieved that she knew Dean had someone to take care of him. And, with the messed up family Cas had, she made sure Cas knew he always had a place in her family. Not that Dean would ever let him forget.
It wasn’t one day that the tides changed and the boys were dating. They just continued to fall into each other at the same speed they always had. They had never stopped holding hands, even when other kids laughed at them for doing so. They started kissing again, at least as far as she knew, when other kids started kissing each other. When all their other friends started pairing off, it was just agreed that the two of them were a pair. Come what may. When the two were seventeen, Mary and John stopped forcing Sam to be at all of their sleepovers. Mary knew all of their firsts were with each other. To them, there was no one else.
And over the years Mary scrapbook grew. It grew through proms, and pranks. It grew through graduations and summers home from college. It grew from that first kiss, to first sleepover, to first apartment, to first dog. And John stopped grumbling about the scrapbook, and started instead grumbling over his lack of pictures in the grandchild section.
So when Castiel proposed to Dean after they graduated from grad school. no one even blinked. And Mary knew she had the perfect wedding present.
I’m a mess.
I. AM. DEAD!! THIS. IS. DEADING!!
I was going to respond oh no keep Live-ing. But then I realized it’s just living. Living is an actual human word.
