Epilogue

Dean sighed and paused his writing for a moment to look out the window of his shiny new San Francisco apartment. It was mid afternoon, but still fog lingered over the town and Dean couldn't help but smile to himself about how well the weather went with his work today.

Pamela slammed on her breaks and her poor car screeched to a stop less than six inches from the shadowy figure in the road, obscured by the fog. She had known it was probably a bad idea to go out driving with such poor visibility, but luckily enough for her, recklessness was well within her skill set. At least she hadn't actually hit anyone.

With her lights hitting the fog just so, the figure in front of her seemed lit up from within, surrounded by light. An angel.

No. Not an angel. A reaper—Pamela's reaper.

Taking a sip of his coffee, Dean tried to keep himself from grinning like an idiot, but it was hard. What had felt like the end of his series less than a year ago had somehow turned into a completely new twist on things and he knew exactly whom he had to thank for that. It was the same person whom he had to thank for his good mood today—and the blowjob that had woken him up this morning.

That stupid grin that he would never admit to got even bigger and he leaned back in his seat, thinking back on the last year. Their apartment still wasn't totally moved into, as attested by those damn boxes sitting in the living room and judging him for not unpacking them. But it looked like them. It looked like a mixture of his life—the crappy electric guitar his dad had bought him when he was sixteen standing unused in its stand by the television, the pictures of his mom, of Sam in frames on the bookshelf—and Castiel's—the old books on the shelves next to Dean's pictures, the blue tie hanging over the back of the couch. This was their life. Together.

God it made him happy.

Feeling like a total sap, Dean looked back at his computer and tried to channel the mysterious feeling had had going earlier but it wasn't coming. A glance at the time had him wondering where exactly his angel was. He wanted to share his good mood, maybe return that blowjob.

As if in answer to his prayer, the sound of someone fumbling with the key to their apartment broke him from his thoughts. Biting his cheek, he tried to wipe that excited smile off his face, or at the very least make himself look slightly less like an energetic dog. It didn't work. The face that greeted Castiel when he opened the door was a stupidly happy one, and one that made Cas feel pretty stupidly happy back.

It wasn't like they didn't have their moments. Dean was loud and obnoxious. Castiel was awkward and didn't get his jokes half the time. And he snored—Dean didn't think he slept the first few night they were together. Also, there was the whole thing where Dean had never been in a relationship with a man before. Even what he had had with Lisa had been completely different. With Lisa it had been easy to picture, easy to make happy… and then easy to fall apart. Looking back, he realized that maybe he hadn't been as good of a husband to her as he maybe could have.

The thing was… Cas didn't let him get away with the whole fear of commitment/squicky fear of dating guys thing. When he tried to ditch Cas two weeks after the convention, Cas had showed up at his door with flowers—freaking flowers! What was he, a chick?—and announced that they were going on a date. Then when Dean had his inevitable Big Gay Freakout, Castiel had given him a blowjob and told him in that monotone voice of his to kindly get over it and come back to bed.

So maybe Dean had some pretty good reasons to be happy, and maybe Castiel had some pretty good reasons to be too.

At the moment, he had one of those Trader Joe's bags that he insisted on carrying around for groceries (the guy was freaking convinced that he was going to save the world, one grocery bag at a time), with what looked like a champagne bottle.

"We celebratin' something?" he asked, eyebrows raised at the bottle. Castiel's eyes crinkled and his lips twitched.

"As a matter of fact we are," he announced, setting the grocery bag on the entry table and pulling his damp trench coat off. He didn't continue or explain further and Dean had a panicked moment in which he began to wonder what the hell he had missed. Was it some kind of anniversary? His eyes flicked surrepticiously over to the date on his computer. No. Nothing he could think of. Cas's birthday wasn't for a month… Dean's birthday already passed…

"What are we celebrating?" he asked, clearing his throat nervously.

That made Castiel smile and Dean was annoyed to realize that the little bastard had done that on purpose, knowing fully well that Dean's first response was to freak out.

Pulling today's tie (the one that Dean had finally bought him because that blue thing was going to die if Cas insisted on wearing it every time he wore a suit) loose, Castiel took a deep breath and came to sit with Dean.

"I spoke with Ellen today," he informed his boyfriend calmly. Dean licked his lips in anticipation because champagne meant good news, not to mention how long Cas had been gone. Part of the reason they had decided to get an apartment in San Francisco was to be closer to Ellen, which meant they could now go into the office to see her rather than communicating by phone. Castiel said it was better this way because they got to have a real relationship with her now. Dean thought it just made it easier for her to nag them…

Anyway. That's where Castiel had spent a good portion of today if Dean had to guess and that in itself was a good thing. Long meetings usually meant paperwork and paperwork usually meant contracts, contracts meant book deals… It was all good.

So when Castiel finally opened his mouth to tell Dean the news, he already sort of knew what he was going to say. That wasn't a bad thing and that didn't make it any less awesome when he finally said, "They're signing me on for three more books. They think my angels should be an entire series."

Dean hardly waited for Cas to finish before he was throwing his arms around his boyfriend's neck and kissing him.

"I knew they would," he murmured against those chapped lips, smiling that stupid, sappy smile and not caring.

Castiel kissed him back and then pulled away to go get the champagne. He brought it to the kitchen in silence, buzzing with a sort of excitement that Dean knew most people wouldn't be able to see. Pulling out two champagne glasses, Dean pulled him in for another kiss before opening the bottle.

"To your new series," he cheered, pouring the champagne and handing Castiel his glass.

Castiel was quiet for a moment longer and then, looking at Dean from under thick lashes, he said, "To you."

When Dean only stared at him in confusion, that quiet Castiel smile grew and he clarified, "My muse."