babybrotherdean:

Hunting with three makes everything a little bit easier.

It takes some adjusting, sure- Sam and Dean are used to hunting as a pair, so there’s a period of uncertainty as they adjust to the new dynamic of having another set of eyes and ears and opinions- but realistically, it makes them all a little bit safer. Mary already knows what she’s doing, and hunting is something that all three of them are good at, making it a surprisingly effective catalyst for improving their functionality as a family unit.

So things start to change, slowly. Mary spends more and more time in the bunker and less and less time away, until suddenly all her things are in room 15 and she leaves the bed unmade most times when she leaves, acting less like a guest and more like a proper resident. She finds them in the kitchen in the mornings, she curls up in the library to read when they’re not hunting, and she even takes it upon herself to explore past that, visiting the garage and the dungeon and most of the other rooms that Sam and Dean frequent. Conversation starts to flow more easily, and after some time and some long, hard silences, they even start to touch on the tougher subjects- Azazel, John, Hell, and everything else that’s happened since the night she died.

All of them have old wounds, but slowly, together, they’re starting to heal.

Mary still doesn’t cook- she’s decided to spare them all that particular brand of suffering- and she still doesn’t tuck them in at night the way she did when they were small. She doesn’t sing lullabies unless she thinks she’s all alone, and she doesn’t spend every moment of her day fretting over her boys. But more and more often, now, come the little things- the tiny gestures and affections that remind and reassure Sam and Dean that, despite everything they’ve been through, despite how much she’s missed, and despite the long road ahead of them, she is still, and will never stop being, their mother.

“Goodnight,” she’ll tell them, always making sure to track the pair of them down before she heads to bed. They’ll be on the couch, or sitting together in the kitchen, or hunched over their respective laptops in the war room, and Mary will poke her head in and smile all sleepy-soft, robe tucked tightly around her. “I love you both.”

And every time, without fail, Sam and Dean will both get a little choked up, though they get better at hiding it over time. Trying to tone down the reaction to seeing the woman they’d spent so long without, alive and healthy and smiling. “Night, Mom,” and “sleep well,” and she’ll slip away again, and the both of them will be left breathless and smiling for a few extra seconds.

There are the little things, too, the ones she does by accident. The habit of pressing a tiny kiss to bandaged wounds after hunts, the sort of thing she apologized for at first before learning that neither Sam nor Dean seemed to mind the tiny bit of affection. The worrying, sometimes, that they’re not eating or sleeping enough, and the gentle scolding that follows. She still straddles the line between mother and friend, at times, but it’s becoming a little blurrier and none of them particularly mind.

“Y’gotta be more careful, Mom,” Dean tells her quietly after a particularly messy hunt. They’re all in one piece, but Mary got a chunk out of her arm and Dean had pulled her in close, his words muffled in her hair as he held her tight. It’s the Winchester way, to save these moments for near-death experiences, and the good arm that curls around him, gentle and warm, tells him that he isn’t the only one who needs it. “Don’t wanna lose you.” Not again.

Sam does the same thing, too. Gets more open with it over time, and before long, he’ll pull her in for a tight hug just ‘cause, wrap her up real careful in his arms until she feels like it’s never going to end. “Love you,” he’ll whisper, as if he needs to reassure them both of the fact, and Mary certainly doesn’t have a problem with that.

Things are still hard, sometimes. They’re not always great at talking to each other, and miscommunication hurts. There are arguments, and there are days when none of them say a word to each other, and there are messy follow-up fights that usually end in quiet apologies. Despite it all, though, they stay strong, and they stay together. With everything that’s happened, all three of them know better than to let that slip away.

Before anything else, they’re family. They’re Winchesters, and Winchesters will always look out for their own. Nobody else in the world will ever care for them as much as they care for each other.