justprompts: Where's your happy place?
Because the song has been playing on my shuffle way too often and the plot bunny wouldn't let go. Sam is winchesterbitch, Cassie is notpenelope, Sarah is wasartstudent. Future AU (Lawns and Carpets).
It was a strange concept for a certain Dean Winchester. Owning a house.
But the damned war was over. Cassie was pregnant, and having a home would definitely be a good idea, and much as he had trouble wrapping his mind around the concept, he couldn't, nor did he want to, argue with that.
A house. With an actual garage for the car. And a room of their own that they wouldn't be leaving behind in the morning, possibly to never see again. A house. With a real kitchen, a small yard, and all the commodities that they should really pay for and such, unlike the places where they squatted at times.
And identities. Ones that they spent days building up... identities that they could stick to. (In a few days he would be starting to look for a job. And not a hunting job...) They had actually spent days planning all of it. In the end, they'd settled on the facts, gotten the documents. And started hunting for the real estate. (Real estate!)
They'd found a couple of possibilities. They wanted two houses; close enough to be convenient, and yet... still separate. Brothers and friends, and yet living in the same house, with ... a child on the way, that could get less than comfortable. So, two houses. When they had the possibilities lined up, then started research. Violent deaths, other strange happenings, digging through the histories of the locations as back as they could.
They wanted a clean place. All four of them. A place where they'd be safe; a place where they wouldn't have to break 'cover' for a long, long time. (No, they had no illusions about stopping hunting to for good. None of the four of them. It still didn't mean that they wanted to play that game on home ground.) And they found it.
The house they got for Sam and Sarah was half a block away; it was the one that needed some more work in repairs and such to become habitable. Which would get taken care of, slowly, while the owners were away - Sam had decided to go back to school and complete his education, just because it was possible now. Sarah would go with him; neither seemed inclined to part ways for a semester's length at a time, which settled that. Sarah had also left extensive instructions about the finishing touches of the house (read, carpeting) which included that she wanted to choose things herself. They'd take care of that when they got to it.
It all seemed so normal. It all seemed so... weird. Just the thought that he was sleeping under a roof that was his own, their own was...
Well. It took him a while to accept it. And even so, it had a faint feel like fitting a square peg into a round hole to it. Still... here he was.
And Cassie... well. Cassie was awesome. Which he had known for a long time, but the... pregnancy had allowed him to reach newer levels of appreciation. She took it in stride.
It still didn't cater to sleeping in, in the morning.
He was blinking muzzily away from his coffee mug when... the outside caught his attention. A slightly unsettling feeling of deja-vu made him sigh; this was real, however, unlike then. The fact that the lawn needed mowing was, also, as inescapable as then. (Different place, different time, different reality, different people, different day. Different Dean. Different world. Grass still needed cutting.) Dean scratched his head. Then slowly smiled.
So be it, then.
A quarter of an hour later, a very sleepy-looking Sam opened the window to the bedroom that he shared with Sarah and stared in disbelief. After a couple of tries, his voice finally carried over the buzz of the lawn mower.
"Dude. What are you doing?"
Dean stopped, leaned on the tool, and squinted up. "What's it look like?"
"It sounds like a very unpleasant wake-up call! Cut it out."
"Too bad. It needs doing."
Sam huffed. "Couldn't you wait till we were all up or something?"
"Oh? ... nah. You've plenty of time to catch up with sleep before you set off for school." Dean grinned brightly up. "Quit the whining, bitch."
His brother stared at him, sleep slowly melting away from his face, and his eyebrows quirking up, taking in... the attitude. Remembering a story of a long time - it seemed - ago. He shook his head, but there was a small smile on his lips, even if the voice was still sufficiently grumpy. "Jerk."
"Hah. Also, you're still not allowed to try making breakfast. I'm sure Sarah may have done something about that by the time you come back, but un--"
"Oh shut up, Dean."
Dean laughed, head thrown back in the sunlight, then turned away and started on the grass again.
Because it did need doing.
And he could. (Take that, djinns, demons, angels, and the whole of the rest of the crowd. He could, and his brother could bitch at him about it. Life... could, apparently work out. Somehow.)
It was a strange concept for a certain Dean Winchester. Owning a house.
But the damned war was over. Cassie was pregnant, and having a home would definitely be a good idea, and much as he had trouble wrapping his mind around the concept, he couldn't, nor did he want to, argue with that.
A house. With an actual garage for the car. And a room of their own that they wouldn't be leaving behind in the morning, possibly to never see again. A house. With a real kitchen, a small yard, and all the commodities that they should really pay for and such, unlike the places where they squatted at times.
And identities. Ones that they spent days building up... identities that they could stick to. (In a few days he would be starting to look for a job. And not a hunting job...) They had actually spent days planning all of it. In the end, they'd settled on the facts, gotten the documents. And started hunting for the real estate. (Real estate!)
They'd found a couple of possibilities. They wanted two houses; close enough to be convenient, and yet... still separate. Brothers and friends, and yet living in the same house, with ... a child on the way, that could get less than comfortable. So, two houses. When they had the possibilities lined up, then started research. Violent deaths, other strange happenings, digging through the histories of the locations as back as they could.
They wanted a clean place. All four of them. A place where they'd be safe; a place where they wouldn't have to break 'cover' for a long, long time. (No, they had no illusions about stopping hunting to for good. None of the four of them. It still didn't mean that they wanted to play that game on home ground.) And they found it.
The house they got for Sam and Sarah was half a block away; it was the one that needed some more work in repairs and such to become habitable. Which would get taken care of, slowly, while the owners were away - Sam had decided to go back to school and complete his education, just because it was possible now. Sarah would go with him; neither seemed inclined to part ways for a semester's length at a time, which settled that. Sarah had also left extensive instructions about the finishing touches of the house (read, carpeting) which included that she wanted to choose things herself. They'd take care of that when they got to it.
It all seemed so normal. It all seemed so... weird. Just the thought that he was sleeping under a roof that was his own, their own was...
Well. It took him a while to accept it. And even so, it had a faint feel like fitting a square peg into a round hole to it. Still... here he was.
And Cassie... well. Cassie was awesome. Which he had known for a long time, but the... pregnancy had allowed him to reach newer levels of appreciation. She took it in stride.
It still didn't cater to sleeping in, in the morning.
He was blinking muzzily away from his coffee mug when... the outside caught his attention. A slightly unsettling feeling of deja-vu made him sigh; this was real, however, unlike then. The fact that the lawn needed mowing was, also, as inescapable as then. (Different place, different time, different reality, different people, different day. Different Dean. Different world. Grass still needed cutting.) Dean scratched his head. Then slowly smiled.
So be it, then.
A quarter of an hour later, a very sleepy-looking Sam opened the window to the bedroom that he shared with Sarah and stared in disbelief. After a couple of tries, his voice finally carried over the buzz of the lawn mower.
"Dude. What are you doing?"
Dean stopped, leaned on the tool, and squinted up. "What's it look like?"
"It sounds like a very unpleasant wake-up call! Cut it out."
"Too bad. It needs doing."
Sam huffed. "Couldn't you wait till we were all up or something?"
"Oh? ... nah. You've plenty of time to catch up with sleep before you set off for school." Dean grinned brightly up. "Quit the whining, bitch."
His brother stared at him, sleep slowly melting away from his face, and his eyebrows quirking up, taking in... the attitude. Remembering a story of a long time - it seemed - ago. He shook his head, but there was a small smile on his lips, even if the voice was still sufficiently grumpy. "Jerk."
"Hah. Also, you're still not allowed to try making breakfast. I'm sure Sarah may have done something about that by the time you come back, but un--"
"Oh shut up, Dean."
Dean laughed, head thrown back in the sunlight, then turned away and started on the grass again.
Because it did need doing.
And he could. (Take that, djinns, demons, angels, and the whole of the rest of the crowd. He could, and his brother could bitch at him about it. Life... could, apparently work out. Somehow.)