The house is quiet in that soft, almost sacred way it only ever gets right before the sun fully commits to being awake.

Dean’s been up for a while. He always is—years of hunting, years of early mornings burned into his bones—but today he doesn’t get up right away. He just lies there on his back, one arm slung protectively around you, staring at the ceiling fan.

Your kids are still asleep. He knows this because the house has a sound when they’re awake—doors slamming, feet pounding, voices calling for cereal or shoes or help with something urgent. Right now there’s nothing but your steady breathing against his chest.

Dean turns his head slightly, careful not to wake you. Your hair is spread across the pillow in a messy halo, face relaxed in a way he doesn’t get to see often enough. No tension, no worry— just you.

He smiles without meaning to. Thinking about how he just wants to stay here with you all morning before all the responsibilities and having to be adults again.

This— this— is the stuff he never thought he’d get. Not when his life was motel rooms and bloodstains and that feeling that the world was ending. But here you are. Warm. Real. His wife. The mother of his kids. The best damn thing that ever happened to him.

He presses a kiss to your temple, barely there, making you shift, murmur something unintelligible, and tuck yourself closer to him. Dean’s heart does that stupid, traitorous thing where it swells too big for his chest. He tightens his arm around you just a little, grounding himself in the weight of you.

“Hey,” he whispers, voice rough with sleep and emotion. And the moment you opened your eyes? He wasn’t even thinking about getting up any time soon. “Morning, sweetheart.”