Author's notes:
I've been trying to write Destiel fics for a few years now, but don't have enough time to myself to actually ever be able to finish them before I lose my inspiration. Figured it might be easier to start off with very short fics, so here it is: my first ever completed (and short) Destiel fanfic.
Seven years they've lived together in the bunker now, he and Cas, after Sam moved in with Eileen and they started having little brats that Dean loves to death. Dean's pushing fifty, and Cas is pushing… well, Heaven knows how many years.
It's not what Dean used to dream about. It's not being married to a pretty girl, having 2.5 kids and a house with a garden and a picket fence. There's a sense of rightness to it, though – comfortable in a way Dean has never thought things could be with another human (or other) being, apart from his brother.
It's getting up before Cas in the mornings to make coffee and breakfast in his comfy dead guy robe, waiting for Cas to turn up bleary-eyed and gratefully accept his mug with as much of a smile as the early hour allows. It's stealing food from each other's plates because Cas loves pickles and Dean loves fries. It's comfortable silences and standing shoulder against shoulder as they do the dishes together. It's laughing at Cas's weird, understated humour that only Dean gets, and making him laugh in return. It's being perfectly comfortable in each other's personal space, Dean long ago having given up any pretense of still finding it weird when Cas stands too close or looks at him for too long.
Most of all, it's knowing that Cas has already seen the ugliest parts of him, and still chooses to be Dean's friend. To be here. That there's nothing left of him Cas hasn't seen, no part of him that's managed to scare Cas away in all the time that they've known each other, despite everything he is, everything he's done. Dean supposes it goes the other way, too.
It's not planned. Dean doesn't know what makes him do it, only that it feels right. It might not be the conventional way to go about it, but somehow it simply feels like an extension of what they already have. Like it's the natural progression of things, although most people would probably disagree.
Which is why it's a testament to how in tune they are that Cas doesn't even blink when Dean slips his ring off his finger while they're watching Netflix and holds it up between them, asking a question that probably has no place between normal friends. Dean and Cas have never been normal, so Cas just smiles and holds out his hand for Dean to place the ring on his finger, and then they don't let go of each other's hands.
Dean doesn't need sparks. He doesn't need fireworks. All he needs is this simple, but absolute content that he's filled with and sees reflected in Cas's eyes.
Dean shoots off a text to Sam right before they go to bed: "Engaged to Cas." When his phone starts buzzing minutes later, he silences it and ignores Sam in favour of pulling the blanket up around him and Cas and wrapping his arms around his future husband. Cas kisses him, then, for the first time. Dean kisses back, and it's chaste and unhurried, just lips moving against lips, noses touching and warm breaths of air against skin. There will be time for other, more heated kisses – and more – in the future, but right now, this is all they need. With a final kiss, Dean lays his head on Cas's chest, his fingers finding the silver band on Cas's ring finger, and he smiles to himself before he lets the warmth of Cas's body lull him to sleep.