Dean and Cas were both born right before the Great Depression but on opposite sides of the country.
They met during the war. Neither of them wanted to be there.
Cas went to school after, Dean worked on cars. They lived in a cramped, two-bedroom apartment together that turned into a cramped, one-bedroom apartment by the time Cas graduated.
They went to the same diner every Thursday, and although they were both too terrified to do anything in public, they’re pretty sure the waitress who always served them just knew.
During the ‘60s people asked a lot of questions about why they weren’t married. Single women practically threw themselves at them for the chance of marrying somebody older, somebody who already had a career and a life figured out. They worked on opposite sides of town, and nobody but their closest neighbors knew they lived together.
The year 1977 was when they walked down the street holding hands and sharing shy smiles for the first time. The second time they did it, a man spit on them. They stopped after that.
They buried almost every one of the few friends they had made in the ‘80s. And some who weren’t even friends. They held tightly to one another in the darkness of their bedroom and cried until they fell asleep every night. They heeded the warnings and didn’t have sex for a long time.
Sam’s kids grew up and promised Dean and Cas that times were changing, that people were becoming more tolerant, that they didn’t have to hide so much anymore, that just a few more years was all it would take for things to be right…
But Dean and Cas were old. They were tired. And they were content to sit on their front porch and wave at kids passing by and never worry too much about what people thought.
In the year 2015, at the ages of 87 and 88, Dean and Cas went to the courthouse and got married.
Then they went home and sat on their front porch and waved their wedding rings to the kids passing by.
They were never afraid again.
