So this is relatively early considering I usually update every two weeks. It was going to take longer because this is a really long chapter but I cut it in half which I didn't want to do, but it was really long. So here this is. I really like this chapter so I hope everyone else does too

After a moment, he sighed, turning the music on in the car and drowning out everything else.

…

Cas woke up when a strip of sunlight found its way over his eyelids. It was impossible to ignore the light there, so he turned over, eyes still shut, trying to get away from the light. Something was wrong. He wasn't in the right bed. He wondered if he went home with someone the night before. He must've, because this was not his bed at Bobby's and there was a warm body nearby, a man's. Huh. He hadn't gone home with a guy for a while. He didn't dwell on it, trying to drift back to sleep.

The man next to him was waking up, though, so he reluctantly opened his eyes. As soon as he did, he nearly jumped straight out of the bed, eyes wide. "Dean?"

There, in front of him, was Dean, seeming to be frustrated by Cas's sudden jump. He was shirtless, but as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, the blanket slid down and revealed that he was wearing pajama bottoms. Cas realized then that he wasn't shirtless but only had underwear on. He stepped out of bed, fully alert and awake despite being tired just a moment ago. This wouldn't be as freaky as it was if it weren't for the fact that Dean had gone off to not return for a long time recently and the fact that Dean was an angel and didn't require sleep.

"What's going on, Cas?" he got out, voice deep and rough from being asleep, and, Cas admitted, really hot. "Why're you so jumpy?"

"Because… you're not… What's going on? I don't know if this is some dream or if I was really drunk last night or what," he said. He could feel that his eyes were still wide.

Dean looked back at him, wiping at his eyes, a little more awake than before. "What? Last night? You weren't drunk last night, and I promise this isn't a dream." He stood up. "Are you okay?"

"I think I'm forgetting something," he said after a second, stepping away from Dean. He looked older. His face and eyes were aged, still obviously Dean but also obviously older. He looked to be in his late thirties or something probably, and Cas distinctly remembered that Dean's vessel was in his mid twenties.

Dean cocked his head slightly, and despite being apparently human, he seemed to retain some of his angelic quirks. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Uh, we were at Bobby's, just after Meg died or something and I went out to a bar," he said. "And now I'm here."

Dean's eyebrows were raised, which Cas took to be not a good sign. "Meg? Cas, you didn't even know Bobby when Meg died."

"What?" he said, frowning and stepping further away. He saw his phone on the nightstand beside the bed. Grabbing it, he rushed for the door out of the room, leaving Dean standing behind, confused and stuck in that spot.

He searched through the contacts three times before he came to the conclusion that Gabriel and Balthazar weren't in there. Bobby was, though, so he searched for the laundry room to put some pants on and then the keys to the Impala once he'd done that. There were shoes at the door, and Bobby hadn't picked up even though Cas had called twice. He slipped the shoes on and went out to the Impala, getting a few blocks away before pulling over and trying to call Bobby again. He was too worried about what the hell was going on to focus on driving and calling Bobby at the same time.

"Castiel?" Bobby said, after finally answering. "What's going on? Is something wrong with Dean?"

"Um, no, Dean's fine," he said. "I just… don't remember something, I think. And Dean was saying weird things, and I can't find Balthazar or Gabriel in my contacts and I don't know why."

There was a pause, and then finally he said, "Why would they be in your contacts?"

"Why wouldn't they be? They're my brothers," he said, getting more worried and upset.

"Uh, yeah, I guess, but they died a long time ago," Bobby said, fed up with whatever Cas was rambling on about, but Cas was terrified now.

"What? But—how? How did they die?" he asked frantically.

There was another pause, and then finally Bobby said warily, "Lucifer stabbed Gabriel and you stabbed Balthazar. Are you sure you're okay, Cas? Maybe you should just stay with Dean and see if your memories come back. It might be your grace acting up again."

"But—they—I…" He tried to process that for a second, but then the final part of what Bobby said caught up to him. "My… what?"

"Your grace," he said. "Remember? You lost it and it's been making weird things happen. Listen, kid, I really don't think I can help you. Talk to Dean, okay?"

After a second, he said quietly, "Okay," and hung up.

He stared forward for a second, and then his phone started ringing. He looked down and saw Dean's name, so he answered it. This phone was weird and way more advanced than the one he was accustomed to, but he could manage it well enough. The little icons at the bottom were pretty self-explanatory.

"Dean," he said quietly, "something's wrong, and you're going to think I'm crazy because whatever's wrong is wrong with you too. Bobby said I had grace but I've never been an angel, you were an angel, and that I killed Balthy and Lucifer killed Gabe and I—I don't remember any of that, and I don't know why I don't, but I remember they were my brothers and we hunted in the Impala because my dad died and my mom left us to hunt and you were an angel and I liked you a lot but you left so you didn't fall. That's what I remember."

Dean was quiet for his whole speech, and when he was finally sure that Cas was done talking, he said slowly, "It's your grace. This happened before, but I snapped you out of it quickly. You imagined up a different life and you forgot your real one for a second, but I guess this is lasting longer than before. Come home and we can see if your memories come back."

"Okay," he said, his voice small. He hung up quickly and looked up into the mirror at himself. He looked just as old as Dean did, not twenty-three anymore. He drove back until he saw a house with Dean standing out on the porch, waiting for him. He pulled up and went over to him, and allowed himself to be led inside and sat down, coffee in front of him as Dean texted on his phone for a moment, saying a quick "Hang on."

Cas sipped at his coffee until Dean started to talk, and then he looked up at him. "So, uh, I can't really tell you much about before we met, because I really don't know. But you pulled me out of hell, and you were kind of a dick, but you grew on me. We stopped the apocalypse, and yeah, Lucifer killed Gabriel, but you didn't really care for him and didn't mind then. And then there was a lot with souls you were trying to… consume, or something, to kill Raphael, and you went pretty crazy and killed Balthazar. And you sort of became God. And then when you let all the souls go, there were a lot of Leviathans, and they were let free, and you died, and then came back, and you were insane, and we stopped the Leviathan, and then we ended up in Purgatory for a long time, and we came back, and Sam was doing the trials and Naomi was brainwashing you and then you lost your grace and Metatron made all the angels fall, but we helped them and I killed Abaddon and became a demon for a while but you cured me and we got rid of the Mark of Cain, which I had, and then we sort of became a thing and retired from hunting mostly."

Cas was silent, taking all of that in, sipping on his coffee as he listened. "None of that makes sense to me," he said. "I've always been human. I don't even know who Naomi, Abaddon, and Metatron are, or who the Leviathans are. And Raphael was my dad."

"Wow, this is really elaborate. There's a little bit of grace left in you, we think, and it keeps creating, trying to create more grace but just creating different things in your mind, the only thing it's strong enough to do," he said. He sighed. "Which that's about enough crazy for me, but now it's putting bullshit stories in your head that seem really believable."

Cas just shrugged slightly, not sure what to believe.

"I texted Sam," he said. "He's coming over with Elle."

"Who is Sam to you?" he asked, frowning slightly.

"My younger brother," he said patiently, seeming to be taking this in stride now. "Elle is his girlfriend. Fiancée, sorry. They just got engaged."

He nodded slightly, not really wanting to meet his version of Samuel and his fiancée. He sighed slightly and took a longer drink of his coffee.

…

Elle was very nice, as was Sam, and he and Dean seemed very happy, despite the situation. They seemed sure that everything would come back to him eventually, so after a while of trying to prod the memories back, they started to goof off and Dean offered to make hamburgers for everyone.

Sam went to the kitchen while Dean was cooking, so he was left alone with this Elle.

She seemed actually perfect for Balthazar. She was very sweet and polite to him, but as he could tell from her banter with Dean, she was also very independent and strong-willed, though not a hunter. This Sam seemed a lot like Balthazar, so he figured she was perfect for him too.

"You don't remember any of this?" she asked, managing to be sympathetic and not at the same time.

He shook his head and looked down at his lap. He'd been quiet since that morning, figuring when he woke up again, he'd be back in his regular life. This had to be a fucked up dream. If he woke up in this place the next morning, he would start to believe their story about his "grace" conjuring up the life he remembered.

"Well, I'm sure it will come back to you soon," she said. "Do you remember Dean at all?"

He nodded. "Not like he is, though."

"Oh," she said. After a second, she continued, frowning. "Well, at least you remember him at all. He'd probably be devastated if you didn't. He loves you a lot. I don't know what he'd do without you." Her frown morphed into a pretty smile, her eyes bright and sweet. "Honestly, if he actually felt it was worth anything, he'd probably marry you. As it is, the two of you may as well already be married."

He nodded slightly. If he was stuck in this life, being practically married to Dean would be nice. If it weren't for the fact that Gabriel and Balthazar were dead, and apparently douche bag angels when they were alive, he wouldn't mind staying in this place at all. Their death ruined the whole thing though.

They ate hamburgers, and he listened to Sam, Elle, and Dean talk. Nothing came back to him. But when he went to bed, he stayed close to Dean, even if it wasn't his Dean.

…

This went on for a week, and still he remembered nothing of his old life, but he was forced to adjust to it and try to ignore the stabs of pain he got when he forgot and was forced to remember that his little brothers were dead.

Dean was there for him every time he forgot, holding him, hugging him, shhing him. It was weird. At first, although he trusted and cared for this Dean, it wasn't the same as the one that he remembered, but over a week it became natural to be with him. Maybe he was remembering the real world that he was in. He didn't care, though. It was nice to find some kind of rhythm.

It was maybe two weeks after he first remembered waking up there when Elle and Sam came over—although they came over often, but this was obviously some kind of special occasion. Dean cooked hamburgers again, which everyone enjoyed. He was actually a really good cook, Cas had learned. He would have to see if the Dean in his world liked to— He startled himself out of his imaginary life with Dean the Angel. This was the real world, with Dean the Human, who was awesome and he loved him a lot.

After they ate, they went out to the porch. Dean offered him a beer, which he graciously took and sipped out while staring out over the empty country road. There were no streetlights so the world was illuminated by the moon and the stars alone that night, giving off a silvery glow that made everything at least twice as beautiful as it seemed before. The light hit Dean just so, and his face was perfect.

Dean was talking about his car—their car, because although the memories were real, Cas distinctly remembered it being his and was fiercely protective of his part-ownership of it—and Cas joined in here or there. He was sure Sam and Elle weren't actually listening, just sharing idle looks as they all but cuddled on the porch swing that Cas was reluctant to admit was really cute. Their whole house—their whole life—was really, really cute.

After seeming to become bored of their conversations about the Impala in the background, Cas caught Elle giving Sam a look that might've been the "it's time to go" look. They lived just down the road a bit, closer to town but only a couple minutes' drive from them. Dean and Sam were inseparable, but it made things easier. Usually they stayed a lot later than this, drinking and watching sports—per Elle's request, since Dean, Sam, and Cas had never kept up with sports but enjoyed trying to keep up with Elle's love for them.

It was these kinds of things that Cas loved and wished he remembered about the real world. He wished he could discard the memories of the false grace memories and stop hurting because of the loss of his closeness with Bobby and the loss of Balthazar and Gabriel in general.

"So," Elle said, a smile spread across her whole face, not exactly what she usually did when they left. He realized then that she didn't have a beer and wondered if she'd already finished and what she'd done with the bottle. "We have some pretty exciting news." She paused for a moment, for what felt like the purpose of adding a dramatic pause alone.

She and Sam shared a look before he said, "She's pregnant. That's the news, but she insisted on making it a thing."

"It is a thing!" she said, smiling at him.

He grinned at her and kissed her cheek. "We're not 'things' people."

Dean rolled his eyes and went in to hug them both, and said a happy "Congratulations!"

Cas hugged them both, too, smiling and congratulating. They left soon after, glued to each other, fingers laced as they held hands. Dean and Cas went upstairs, and, the whole house to themselves again, they found themselves kissing.

Dean's arms slipped around him and Cas snaked his around him too so they were entwined, pressed together, until they were tired and the kisses turned sleepier and Cas's eyes were drooping as he laughed about Dean poking his nose and saying "Boop" like a fucking five-year-old. They drifted off close together like that, warm with their body heat radiating together.

…

The wedding came and went, and Elle and Sam were incredibly happy throughout it. It was a beautiful outdoor wedding, and their love was so freaking obvious and sweet that it would give a person a toothache.

After it went, Dean and Cas found themselves without the company of Elle and Sam over often as much to watch sports and hang out. It wasn't a big deal; they both knew the newlyweds would want to enjoy their time together while the term "newlyweds" still applied to them. They had a lot of sex over this time period, which was great for both of them, and made them forget entirely about sports with Sam and Elle for those times.

Dean and Cas were baking a pie together one day, about a month after the wedding. It was pecan pie, of course, both of their favorite's. Dean had copious amounts of Hershey's kisses after he'd sneaked them into the cart at the store when Cas wasn't looking. He popped them into his mouth and into Cas's, smiling at him every time and giving him a kiss on the cheek—"a kiss with a kiss" was Dean's cheesy explanation, and then both of them groaned at it and ended up making out until they realized they had a pie to deal with.

They ate the pie with leftover spaghetti and garlic bread. It was a good night.

…

Diana Winchester was born on September 20, 2017. Dean was so flattered that they named her after him—which Sam confirmed, because yes, where else would Diana have come from?—and Cas was so happy when he first got to see her. She was tiny and wailing but magnificent and he could see hope and potential radiating from her as if he was seeing straight down to her soul, and for the first time, he realized, he felt like an angel, like he had supposedly really been.

He waited to tell Dean about it because this was family time, this was Winchester time. He realized that he was the only non-Winchester in the room. It didn't really matter, because he felt like one anyway, but he decided it'd be nice if they were the Winchesters. He was still attached to Novak, but since he knew that that name wasn't real, he had never actually been Castiel Novak—however, his vessel had been Jimmy Novak—he was more okay with discarding it for Winchester, a last name with meaning to him.

Diana was so tiny that it wasn't hard to forget about his tiny revelation for the time being. Her tininess alone distracted him enough, but her existence caught him totally off guard, in a way. Maybe that wasn't the right way to put it, he decided, but—wow. She was going to be so loved, and Sam and Elle were going to leave their impact on the world in this little baby's hands.

He focused again when Dean had to give the tiny baby back over to Sam, who handed her to the doctors. They had things to do with the baby and Elle. Cas wasn't sure if Elle convinced Sam to get something to eat or if he stayed with her or what, but he and Dean went home.

"Call us as soon as the two of you are home," Cas told them.

Dean nodded in agreement. "I want to come over and see the baby."

Sam grinned at him and told them he would, so they left and went back home.

"She's so cute," Dean kept saying on the car ride home.

"She is," Cas agreed, smiling over at him as Dean drove them home. He was so happy that it would've been infectious to him were he not just as happy. He was so handsome when he was this happy, though. The smile lit up his face. The sun was hitting him just right so his eyes looked golden, and it seemed like the sun was shining just to put a spotlight on him. It was sunrise and he could see it between the trees as they headed to their house in the middle of nowhere in Oregon.

"So, hey," he said when they were home, sitting next to Dean on their bed. They were both tired and happy for a chance for a nap. Dean leaned into him, heat radiating off of him.

"Hey," Dean whispered against his ear as he kissed it and his temple and cheek and forehead and nose and the corner of his lips. Cas smiled, turning so he was looking at him and his beautiful eyes and face.

"I think I might be remembering being an angel," he told him.

Dean's eyes lit up even more. "Really?" he asked. "What do you remember?"

"Nothing specifically, but I was just looking at Diana, and… I don't know. I felt… different. Bigger. Like, otherworldly or something. But it faded and I still felt crazy happy and stuff that Diana was there," he clarified, because he knew Dean might think it was just the joy over Diana's birth. "It was like… I don't know. Like I was seeing her soul without seeing it. Like I was… angelic. And understanding her whole existence. It was weird. I don't know how to describe it other than that."

"That's the kind of stuff you'd do as an angel," Dean told him, crawling under the blankets. Cas quickly followed suit and the warmth tripled. He moved closer Dean. He was so comfy and toasty he was surprised he was still awake.

"Maybe I'll remember soon." He yawned slightly and shut his eyes, just feeling and hearing Dean, now, and smelling his familiar scent.

"Hopefully you will," he said, rubbing his back lightly and making it even harder to stay awake. So he didn't anymore.

…

They talked frequently about having kids after that. They babysat Diana often, and the matter first seriously come up when Dean was holding her and she was screaming her head off as Cas scrambled to get diapers and Dean was shhing her and singing, "There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold… Shhh, Di… And she's buying a stairway to heaven…"

After they managed to change her diaper and feed her, Dean cradled her in his arms as they sat on the couch and turned Dr. Sexy back on.

"I want one of these," Dean said after a second, looking over at Cas. He wasn't paying attention to the show playing on Netflix anymore. He was looking between Cas and Diana, and his eyes were so genuine that Cas felt a smile creep to his face.

"Okay."

And that was that.

…

They talked about it again a week later, when neither of them could ignore the temptation to acknowledge what they agreed on but wouldn't speak about again since anymore.

"So, we're thinking about adopting, right?" Cas said as he fried bacon for them for breakfast.

"Well, I'm not planning on finding some creepy gender-switching spell or anything so we can actually conceive, so yeah, let's adopt," he said.

Cas looked back at him and rolled his eyes. "I'm going to throw something at you."

"No, you're not," Dean said, smiling at him as he sipped at his coffee. "So we'd probably need jobs."

Cas nodded. "We need jobs anyway. We can't live illegally like this if we want to stay here forever," he said.

He nodded in agreement and went into thought, probably about what job he'd choose if he had to have one. Sam had a job. He'd been going back to college for his law degree. They needed jobs to be parents, and they really wanted to be parents.

…

Dean wanted to be a mechanic. Cas liked cars kind of, but not like Dean did. Cas liked working on and admiring their car, but Dean really liked working on cars. He was good at it and it relaxed him. So as soon as he decided this was what he wanted to do, he had to face the fact that he needed to finish high school and needed postsecondary training to be qualified enough. He knew how to work on cars, but no one was going to hire the shady new gay guy that no one saw around town much and dropped out of high school. There was too much against him for anyone to consider that.

Cas didn't know what he wanted to do until Dean suggested that he teach.

"What would I even teach?" he said, smiling at him as he sifted through their bills.

"Anything. You're a pretty smart guy," he said.

Cas rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. You forget that I don't remember being an all-knowing angel. I just remember being an idiot. I didn't finish high school, either."

"So what?" he said, going over to him from where he was getting done putting all their dishes in the dishwasher. He sat down next to him and took his hand. Cas looked at his face and decided to listen to whatever he had to say. "We aren't stupid just because we didn't finish school—or, uh, don't remember it or whatever. You're smart, and hell, I'm smart too, even if I usually don't believe it very much. I mean, I'm nowhere near as smart as Sammy or Elle, but you are, even without your angelic memories."

He shook his head slightly and looked down.

"Fine, if you don't teach, why don't you write?" he asked, poking his chest slightly and making him smile and roll his eyes. "You're a good writer, Cas. I know you write little short stories on the laptop."

"That's just when I'm bored or something," he said, shrugging.

"So? I've read them," he said, and Cas had had no idea that Dean had actually found them and read them. He blushed and looked away more. "They're good, and I'm being serious. You can write about Gabriel and Balthazar and stuff."

Cas didn't take Dean up on that, so he turned the attention to their electricity bill, which was higher than normal since they started to run the space heater in their room. It got really chilly in there.

…

Dean absolutely hated taking classes. "I fucking know how to work on cars," he'd mutter, but he did it on his laptop so it wasn't like he actually had to leave the house and take them in person.

Cas got his own laptop eventually since he was actually starting to consider pursuing writing and wanted to practice more and Dean was on his laptop a lot for school.

Sam and Elle were both busy a lot with Diana, and they were busy building lives, so the nights where they sat and watches sports and ate burgers and drank beer were all but over. That wasn't to say that the four of them didn't do things much anymore because they did. They went out to eat and they sat and talked whenever they came to pick up Diana before or after babysitting. Sam, Dean, and Cas even went on a hunt one weekend, a few cities away. It was a run-of-the-mill ghost, but it was nice.

When they came back and dropped Sam back off at his house—"No, we are nottalking your car, Sam; we're taking the Impala"—Elle was waiting on the porch, Diana sleeping in her arms. They had planned to go straight home but of course they got out and went over to the two of them, cooing over the baby who woke up and blinked at them sleepily. The four of them all made various awwing noises and Cas and Dean were invited inside.

Elle had been cooking lunch for her and Sam but she said they'd have enough for all of them. Dean went into the kitchen to help her with that. He was definitely better at cooking than Cas was.

Sam and Cas were left in the living room to watch Diana and talk alone.

"Aww, I missed you, Diana," Sam said, cradling his daughter close and smiling. His long, shaggy hair was hanging down over his face as he watched the little baby and Cas, grinning ear to ear, thought about the fact that he and Dean were going to get one of those. They were going to have a little baby. He was so excited he didn't even know what to do.

When they went home, they started to deal with all the things that needed to happen in order to adopt. This was serious. This was happening. Dean and Cas couldn't be more happy.

…

They were just waiting until the baby was born. They didn't really know much about the mother that was giving the baby to them but they were supposed to meet her soon. They'd all talked on the phone a couple times before she and the agency chose them to receive the baby. That was one of the best phone calls Cas had ever had.

When the mother drove up to see them, Cas and Dean set to work cleaning the house, having some weird desire to impress this lady. They usually didn't care, but this was the biological mother of their child. It was a pretty big deal.

Her name was Talia and she was very nice. She wasn't in the right place to have a baby, no money and a bad job and the dad didn't stick around, something like that. But she really was sweet and seemed smart enough. She just got dealt the wrong cards in life. Cas wished he could help more and decided to ask Dean if there was any way they could.

She drove back home the next day, but she made sure to tell them she loved their pie.

…

Talia had been four months pregnant at that time. Two months came and went. Diana was now six months old, still so small but sitting up on her own and smiling and babbling and laughing her sweet baby laugh. She was also teething, which sucked, but she was such a cute, smart little baby. Dean and Cas loved her more every time they saw her.

Sam and Elle were so freaking happy, too. They weren't newlyweds anymore but they were so adorable it was hard to stand. Little had changed from the day they announced Elle was pregnant, cuddled up on Cas and Dean's cute little porch swing.

That was where they were while they were babysitting, Diana in Dean's arms and Cas with his head on his boyfriend's shoulder.

"I love you," he said idly, because he did, and sometimes he just thought of it at times, just remembered that he could hold Dean's hands and count all the freckles and decide exactly what to call the shade of Dean's eyes or hair. He could listen to the rumble of his voice and hold or be held. He could fuck or be fucked into oblivion and that was all his. That was his life. He was so happy, and it was all because of Dean, all because of their life. He loved him so freaking much.

"I love you too," he said quietly, and that was that, as many things were between the two of them. They had said they loved each other before, obviously, but each time it was like a new agreement. Each time they found something new they loved about each other and were telling each other about that, not about the love as a whole. That, Cas had decided once, was too big to be expressed in words so short as "I love you," even if those three words, when put together, were very powerful, strong, beautiful words. They weren't enough, though, not when describing how much Cas loved Dean and Dean loved Cas.

…

Their baby was born June 17, 2018. They named him Thomas. He was smaller than Diana. He didn't look anything like either of them. Talia was Hispanic with very light, entrancingly gray eyes. Thomas's were just a dull gray, but babies' eyes didn't always stay the same when they got older.

It was so surreal, to hold his son in his arms. He would deny adamantly later that he got teary, but he definitely did. He stroked his son's little head and passed him from Dean, who admired him for a long time before handing the baby down to Talia, who, with tears in her eyes, said, "Oh, gosh. He's so small."

He was. He was tiny. He wasn't too tiny or anything. Maybe it was just the fact that this was his son. This was a Winchester, his Winchester, his little guy to raise and love for the rest of his life. Maybe that was what made him seem so tiny. Whatever it was, he loved him so much.

Talia and Thomas were checked in various ways by the hospital. Cas wanted to hold him again the whole time he was away. He and Dean went out in the waiting room to talk to Sam and Elle. Diana wasn't with them. Sam and Elle were close to their neighbors, the Whitmans, who were honestly the nicest old people ever but also seemed too good to be true to Cas. They probably left Diana with them.

When they got to see Thomas again, Sam and Elle came to see him too and smiled and awwed and took turns holding him.

"He's smaller than Diana was, isn't he?" Sam asked, so fatherly in that one sentence. Cas didn't know why, but just—that one sentence, not particularly fatherly but fatherly enough to Cas, made all of this seem real. He didn't know why, and he was sure later that would all make him feel panicked. But for now, he had a son, and he was holding him now as Elle passed him off to him, and he smiled from ear to ear, looking to Dean. Beautiful, enchanting, aging Dean, with his gray hair that was coming up more and more often, and wrinkles that littered his face and crinkled his smile. Dean, his boyfriend, Thomas's dad just as Cas was his dad.

"He's such a cute little baby," Elle said, but Cas was pretty sure she was the type to think all babies were cute. She was a kindergarten teacher after all.

"He is," Sam agreed, and Dean beamed proudly.

Dean wrapped an arm around Cas's shoulder, peering down at the tiny little soul cradled in his arms. Cas's eyes filled again happily and he smiled, cleared his throat. "God," he whispered quietly, feeling so level with everything, feeling—angelic, like before, when Diana was born.

"Yeah," Dean breathed, the word tickling his ear. "Hey, what's his middle name gonna be?"