#dust epilogue

Summary: One year later, Dean’s got some big, big plans.

Pairing: Cowboy!Dean x Reader

Warnings: none I can think of

Word Count: ~2,500?

A/N: I can’t promise it’s any good, friends, but here it is! It’s been awhile, so I’m a little rusty! Hope you enjoy. You guys can thank Chris Lane and his song Big, Big Plans for kickstarting my brain. Because wow, it needed it.

Catch up on the series (or re-read) HERE

You practically bounced in your seat as Sam slowly inched the truck and trailer into place near the barns. He didn’t need to say anything, you knew he was smirking over there at your impatience to get back and see a certain someone.

You wouldn’t outright admit it, but you missed Dean the past few weeks on the road. A busy summer had meant some tough choices at the farm, sending you out to a string of shows with a crew of horses while Dean remained at home. He continued the training schedule as well as he could without you and trucked out to a few nearby shows every now and then.

Riding and training without Dean felt like you were missing a limb, but the runs with your horses had gone well and you’d made some decent money and you were returning home feeling victorious.

Sam had gone along to give you a hand, since moving and showing six horses wasn’t exactly a one person activity. He finally put the truck in park and turned to you with an infuriatingly knowing smile. You flipped him off and shoved out of the cab, Rowan on your heels, silencing his laugh with a slam of the door.

The barn staff was already convening to get the horses unloaded and settled, and you nodded in greeting as you ducked into the barn, mercifully cool even in the summer heat. Rowan dashed off down one of the side aisles, and soon enough Benny’s booming voice greeted the dog.

“Hey, Benny,” you greeted, rounding the corner to find the farrier on the floor with Rowan, both of them grinning.

“Hey cher,” he said, still patting Rowan, “Dean’s in his office.”

“Thanks,” you replied, trying not to be in too much of an obvious hurry as you walked away. The giant fans in the wide open doors created a nice breeze through the barn and muffled most of the noise, so Dean didn’t hear your footsteps as you approached his office. You stopped and leaned in the doorway, and his attention quickly snapped up from the papers on his desk.

“Hey,” you said with a grin. He looked so good it hurt. He was wearing a black Singer Performance Horses t-shirt, his hat abandoned on the hook nearby. He was tanner than usual, the freckles on his face more prominent, his hair cropped short.

Dean stood slowly, his eyes never leaving yours. Then he stepped around his desk, grabbed your hand and pulled you towards him into a kiss. You kissed him back, throwing your arms around his neck as he grabbed your hips.

“Welcome home,” Dean said, pausing briefly and pulling back.

“Thanks,” you laughed, staring up at him in an effort to re-memorize the details of his face. Dean Winchester was a lot to take in.

“I was busy while you were gone,” Dean continued, making you raise an eyebrow. In response, he reached around you to close the door and then turn the lock with a resounding click.

“You put in a lock,” you realized, tilting your head suspiciously.

“Just for this,” he replied, pulling you back to him.

>>>

“Can I open my eyes yet?” you complained for the umpteenth time, slouched dramatically in the passenger seat of the impala. You had tipped your hat down low over your face after Dean had insisted you not look to maintain the surprise he was planning. He considered the request for a moment thoughtfully. It wasn’t like you could know where he was taking you, he was just being dramatic with all the secrecy.

“Yeah alright,” he finally agreed, watching as you ripped your hat off excitedly, only to frown at the endless blank landscape around the highway.

Good. You didn’t have a clue where he was taking you.

“Where are we going?” you asked again, giving him an imploring look. But Dean only smirked, beyond pleased with himself. It had been a year since you came to the farm, since Dean first met you, and he wanted to do something special for it.

Because you changed everything, and Dean had some big, big plans.

You scowled and crossed your arms with a huff, making Dean chuckle.

“Patience…” he advised, already knowing that wouldn’t go over well.

“How much longer?”

“Half an hour.”

“Please tell me where we’re going.”

“Not a chance.”

“Dean…” you whined, dragging out the vowels.

“You’ll like it, just relax,” he insisted, adjusting his grip on the wheel. It wasn’t often that he had an excuse to take baby out for a nice long drive, not when so many aspects of his job demanded the towing capacity or the storage space of a pickup. Thankfully, this trip had allowed him to take his prized possession out for a well-deserved joy-ride, with the added bonus of confusing you even further about the nature of this trip.

“I’m not really dressed for a nice dinner,” you informed him, making Dean chuckle. You were determined to get the answer out of him.

“I told you, we’re not going anywhere to eat,” he said, making you hum thoughtfully.

“Are we going to see your dad?” you asked suddenly, and Dean barked out a laugh.

“Definitely not.”

You huffed in annoyance again, staring out the window at the fields rolling by, eyes flicking to every sign on the side of the road, likely hoping to pick up on some clue. Dean knew there wouldn’t be anything obvious to point out your destination, though. There was a sign, but it was simply for a national park, and those weren’t exactly uncommon out here. You perked up a little when Dean finally turned off the highway, but were silent until he pulled down the driveway.

“Devil’s Garden?” you asked incredulously, reading the sign at the gate, “what the hell is this?”

“You’ll see,” Dean replied, easing the impala down the dirt road. He had been here once before, mostly to do some scouting and get more information. Then he had gone straight to Bobby, who had given him a long, strange look before agreeing that it was a fantastic idea.

“I swear to god if you hauled my ass out of bed for a goddamn auction on our day off, I’ll kill you,” you grumbled as you spotted corrals and holding pens. But there was something different in your voice and you sat up straighter, like you knew there had to be more to this place, more to Dean’s plans. And it didn’t take long. Up ahead there were more gates, more fencing, and at least a few hundred horses. As the impala crept closer, more details made the picture all too clear. The horses were separated into smaller groups, many with brands or paint on their hip indicating age, which ranged from foals to seniors. Some were skinny, bones poking out of their hides where they shouldn’t, and others looked healthy as anything, but they all bore long, tangled manes, and they all were wild.

“Are those…” you breathed, hands gripping the dashboard as you craned your neck to see everything, anything, “mustangs?”

 >>>>

You couldn’t stop staring.

There were so many horses, and it broke your heart.

Wild, majestic and proud - only to be rounded up and confined to holding pens. The mustangs were becoming a controversial problem as their numbers climbed and their habitat shrunk. Farmers put up fences, landowners didn’t want them around, and more and more the mustangs, something you considered a symbol of freedom and strength, were being viewed as a nuisance.

Dean was standing beside you, quiet, as if he knew you needed a moment to sort through your emotions.

“Are they- are they for sale?”

“Adoption,” Dean corrected, “we’re here to pick out two.”

“Two?”

“Well yeah, I want one too.”

You turned to find him smirking at you, which only made you grin.

“Where do we start?”

One of the staff members led you around to a few of the corrals, showing you the different horses, separated into age groups. It was an impossible choice, really, but you were sure that you’d know the right one when you saw it. There were a few that caught your eye, a large grey with a dark mane, a couple paints and bays that tugged at your heartstrings, but you couldn’t make the choice.

Until you spotted them.

A pair of horses stood near the edge of one pen, almost shoulder to shoulder. One had it’s head lowered, eyes half closed in sleep, but the other was alert, ears swiveling to catch sounds from the workers and other horses. They were dark brown bays, solidly built and in apparent good condition, tails swishing idly.

“They’re brothers we think,” the girl said when you asked, “they’re always looking for each other. The bigger one nearly killed us when we separated them for vetting.”

You glanced sidelong at Dean only to find him chuckling, scuffing his boot in the loose red tinted dirt.

“Them, I want them,” you said firmly, and when Dean met your eyes, you saw approval in his gaze.

“We’ll take em,” he agreed.

“Do you want to pick them up when you come for the others?” The woman asked, scribbling down the horses’ hip numbers on her clipboard.

“Others?” You demanded, whipping back around to face Dean, who only gave you a cheeky grin before answering.

“Yeah, but we’ll use a second trailer. Pulling them from this group will be hard enough on them, don’t need to do it again.”

“Fair enough,” she replied, handing her clipboard to Dean for a signature.

“Who are the others?” You hissed as the woman walked away, leaving the two of you leaning against the fence and watching your two new mustangs. They eyed you back suspiciously, the larger one pinning his ears and snapping at a passing chestnut. You knew to be patient with Dean, that pushing for more information too hard wouldn’t get you anywhere, but god was it frustrating.

“When we heard how desperate the mustang problem is,” Dean finally began, eyes trained on the wild horses before you, “Bobby offered to take a herd.”

“A herd,” you repeated, dumbfounded.

"An entire family. So they could stay together, stay wild and unbroken and in their homeland. The back field behind the cabins will be theirs, to live out their days. We won’t ride em, won’t break em, just give them a safe place to live.”

You couldn’t help the tears that sparked in the corners of your eyes, and Dean slid an arm around you, pulling you into his side.

 >>>>

Dean leaned against the rails of the roundpen, his eyes trained on you where you worked with the slightly smaller of the mustangs, who you had named Gunner. The whole taming wild horses thing was going well, he supposed, all things considered. The transition had been hard on everyone, but things had settled down and the horses were starting to respond. Gunner and Zeppelin hadn’t taken kindly to being separated, but everyone agreed that they had to learn to have some independence. For now they lived in adjacent paddocks that Bobby had set up specifically for the mustangs, where they could see each other most of the time.

You’d been brought close to tears by their fear and outrage the first night, slumped, exhausted after a long day on the cabin porch, the horses’ panicked calls audible in the distance. Dean had sat there with you for a long time, one hand running back and forth across your back, until finally the calls stopped. The next morning found both horses calm, crunching contentedly on their hay, but they still fell back into their dramatics every now and then.

The days since had brought bruised egos and limbs, frustration and fury, relief and pride. The process of gentling - not breaking - the wild horses was grueling for everyone. Just getting a halter onto them had been a monumental step, and building from there sometimes felt agonizingly slow. Dean had a slightly different approach than you did, but ultimately your goals were the same: build a partnership based on trust and respect.

More often than not Dean would find you sitting in Gunner’s pen with your phone or a stack of paperwork or even your lunch, offering and asking him only for companionship. Usually the mustang would ignore you, but lately he’d been getting more curious. Dean had taken to using Kaz to help him with Zeppelin, hoping her model behavior would help the horse understand that he was safe to trust.

Dean bit his tongue before he could call out a suggestion, knowing he would only distract Gunner and that you knew well enough to do your own training. As if you’d read his mind, you turned and did exactly what he would have suggested, a wide grin breaking across your face as Gunner responded appropriately. You had ditched your hat in the late-afternoon heat, hair pulled up into a messy bun, a few strands escaping to fall down to your shoulders. With a start, Dean realized your Singer Performance t-shirt was actually his, the extra length tucked into your jeans. Not a huge surprise, considering you and Rowan practically lived with him now, but it was an oddly welcome sight. He liked seeing you in his clothes.

You ended the training session on a good note, patting Gunner on the neck and leading him out of the pen, back towards his paddock and his brother. Zeppelin whinnied as he heard them coming, and Gunner replied with his own nicker, trotting over to check on his brother as soon as you released him.

“He’s looking good,” Dean commented, slinging an arm across your shoulders as you joined him.

“That felt really good. I think we made some progress,” you agreed, hip-checking him playfully as the two of you set off towards the main house for dinner, “think we can start backing them soon?”

“I think so. Need to go slow, but I think they’re ready to try.”

“Zep hasn’t tried to murder you lately for leaning on him, so that’s promising,” you laughed, making Dean smile.

“I’m glad you find the thought of my death so funny,” he said, pulling you closer and kissing the side of your head roughly. Still laughing, you shoved off of him, jogging a few steps towards the house before turning to face him.

“You almost died once on me, Winchester,” you said, smile still on your face but something more serious in your eyes, “no more of that.”

“Cross my heart,” Dean promised, stopping just in front of you.

“The rest of that is ‘hope to die,’ dummy,” you scoffed, scowling up at him.

“Shut up,” he muttered, leaning down and kissing you, long and slow, your arms coming up to circle his neck. He pulled back after a second, staring down into your face and was hit suddenly just how hard he’d been falling. “I ain’t goin anywhere,” he said, “I’ve got plans.”

“Do you, now?” you asked, tilting your head questioningly. Dean only grinned, his mind wandering back to his cabin, to the ring hidden in one of his boots and the three acres he’d bought from Bobby last year. 

Big, big plans alright.

>>>

Devil’s Garden - yes it’s real, and no, I didn’t have to make up something so appropriately named. You can find them on Facebook, too.