AN: This is an epilogue to "The Feeling's Mutual", which is published separately and earlier in this collection.

I honestly wasn't planning on adding anything to this. Like at all. If you don't want an epilogue, don't read this.

But I got a review that really prompted me to write this, and I hope it does what you wanted justice and that you like it.

So yeah, here's an epilogue full of love and fluff and I hope it's well received.

Epilogue

Talking was never really a big priority for them.

Not to say they didn't talk – they did as they recovered in the hospital, and after their release a few months after they'd said their first words to one another – but it was with soft voices, deep and rough from disuse. Every word they said to each other, therefore, was loaded with meaning. The first "I need you", the first "Are you okay?"

The first "I love you."

And the quiet whispers at night as they made love in the small apartment they bought together. All the little moments, all the whispers and words and looks they exchanged, they brought light into their lives and made it beautiful again. They were still visited by Sam and Jess, who made enough noise for the four of them anyway.

Dean and Castiel enjoyed the quiet of each other, but also revelled in the happy noise that their only family brought them.

Castiel found work in a library – the only noise there being the soft rustle as pages were turned – and Dean worked in a music store, stocking records in the back. He did smile at the occasional customer, but never really found anything to say to them.

It was a year after they had left the hospital, two years after they'd met, that Dean crawled into bed before Castiel and slid his hand under the pillow.

Something velvety and cube shaped met his fingers, and he drew out the small box before opening it.

A plain silver ring lay inside, with words engraved on the interior:

You speak louder than words

Dean stared, and then a soft noise made him look up at the doorway. Castiel stood there anxiously, looking at him. Dean beamed through a haze of tears and slipped the ring onto his finger as he nodded.

And that was all that was needed for Castiel to launch himself onto the bed and onto Dean, as they wrapped their arms around each other and kissed soundly through the salty tears that now made themselves known.

The wedding was exactly the way it should have been – small and quiet.

They refused to get married in a church, and nowhere really seemed right. They did consider the hospital where they had met, but that was….a bit much.

So on the outskirts of town, in a small orchard, Sam and Jess watched as Dean and Castiel looked into the other's eyes, and murmured their vows as if they were the only ones there. The officiator, a timid man named Chuck who had (by some miracle) become a priest online and employed Castiel, declared them married, and the two of them kissed as Sam and Jess cheered.

And ten years later, their house was filled with sound as two toddlers chased one another, laughing. Dean and Castiel were still quiet, but it was a different kind of quiet. They basked in the happy noise of their children – a boy named James and a girl named Mary – and their niece, who (to Dean's delight) was named Claire, after Castiel's mother. It was the quiet that comes from contentment and being surrounded by those you love, and Dean loved nothing more than to sit and watch as Castiel played with the twins, singing to them and teaching them how to read in his gravelly, throaty voice. Likewise, Castiel would watch as Dean tucked the two of them into bed, and read them a bedtime story in husky tones.

Their favourite one was "And Tango Makes Three".

AN: "And Tango Makes Three" is an amazing kids book about two penguins in Central Park Zoo if you haven't read it, just look it up and it'll make sense.

I love that book.

So, no plans to come back here, this is me finishing it off.

Reviewer who requested this: I suck at this kind of stuff but this was all for you. Your brother sounds like an amazing person and I also wish he'd had that instead of what he got. But I hope you manage to feel better, because you are a great human being and there needs to be more people like you in the world. I'm not going to keep rambling here and end up sounding like a douche, but I do mean what I say.