this year, dean gets his first birthday card since 1992 (when sam turned nine). it's from jack — that much is obvious because it sort of apparates on the dining table when he's on his second slice of birthday pie (courtesy of cas and sam, bless their chickflick-saturated souls) in a little bit of a godly way. but the card in itself would also have been enough to trace back to its maker. 'happy birthday dean', in sentence case, and yellow sketchpen on the front page. inside, there's a drawing that is almost certainly him, driving the impala, hand rested on shotgun's seat. and he's driving towards a giant banner that says 'dean's happy birthday party' and a lot of stick figures. why he gets the privilege of non-stick limbs can only be explained by birthday privileges, he guesses. but there's one stick figure particularly tall, and one in a brown box that's probably supposed to be a trenchcoat, and one that's distinctly smaller than those two, but stood between them, with his stick-arms spread. that one's jack, if dean knows anything about the kid at all. and when he flips to the last page, there's an 'i love you' on an (artistically accurate) grilled cheese, one of jack's best works yet, and yes, that is the reason dean's sniffling. he's proud, is all. at the bottom of the last page are two hearts, individually housing the words 'from' and 'jack', and dean swallows, maybe just a little overwhelmed. sam notices it first because cas is on smite-stare at the coffeemaker duty, and realizes what's up when he scans the item in dean's hand. "you okay?" he mouths, smile small but happy, in complete contrast to cas's concentrated frown at the lazy machine, either trusting in dean's claims that those lessen the damn thing's inefficiency, or willing to go with it because he's a friggin' sap like that, and dean thinks his heart might just burst with how much he loves, and is grateful for his family. "yeah." he whispers back, blinking fast, shoving another spoonful into his mouth. "yeah, i really am."