#Also if you see the Dark Amulet please don't pay it any mind or try to put it on 'cause it IS glowing and then you'd be able to see the maz

[honeydewcorporation]

Boss, I need to you stay very calm about this, but I broke the thing.

I was wondering why all those alarm bells were going off! And why the prowling beasts were out and about. And why the Dark Amulet seems to be glowing purple. And the... fourth thing.

Gonna have to send you to the dark maze for this one henchman. And no bringing a flashlight/lantern on your trip to the maze, that really took the fun out of it for me last time. 'Cause you could like... see all the puzzles in there. No fun if you can see the maze puzzles in the dark maze.

So just... whenever you're ready. Head on over to the chute. The maze chute.

[staytiny-angel]

Safe Haven 4/?

Rating: E

Pairings: Drew McIntyre/Becky Lynch, Eventually Drew McIntyre/Becky Lynch/Seth Rollins, Jon Moxley/Renee Young, Sasha Banks/Bayley/Charlotte Flair, Mandy Rose/Trent Seven, Jordan Devlin/Millie McKenzie, Ruby Riott/Liv Morgan

Warnings for this Chapter: mentions of violence

Chapter Summary: Drew and Becky get to know their new mate better while meeting members of his unorthodox family, Plans are made to rescue Roman from Heyman's evil clutches.

Taglist:

@hitory--chan @sethsevolution @finnsauroraborealis @the-beastslayers-queen @pikapuff316 @writinglionqueen @writtingrose

"SETHIE!" Seth hadn't even made it back to town before being tackled by a overly hyperactive blonde girl.

"I missed you too Liv" Seth groaned, slightly out of breath.

"You're lucky I'm here and not Rubes, she's very mad at ya"

Seth grimaced at the thought of seeing his older sister.

"Hey! Redhead!" Liv yelled at Becky. "Is this too basic" she gestured at her hair.

"Um-"

"You're right, too boring" Liv pulled out a compact mirror and smiled at it, Becky and Drew staring in shock as her hair turned bubblegum pink.

"How?" Drew asked Seth.

"Liv's a chaos fairy. Hyper 24/7, pranks everybody. C'mon brat" Liv squealed and hopped onto his back..

"Hey Livvie, Mom conjured my clothes..would you mind?" Seth asked his sister's girlfriend

Drew and Becky watched curiously as the unremarkable clothes Seth's mother had put on him morphed into dark-grey skinny jeans and a blood-red t-shirt.

"Hair too?" the fairy asked

"Yes please."

Seth shook his head and a quarter of it immediately went blond "There ya go Sethie! You look like you again, only bigger!" Liv giggles, patting the wolf on the head.

"Thanks Livvy" Seth grinned. "You're still small though"

"I'm still bigger than Millie!" Liv managed to kick Seth in the hip. "Good luck apologizing to everyone. Trent's mad because you made Tyler cry!"

"Tyler always cries!"

"Okay true, but you also made Mandy upset!"

"How long have you been away from home?" Becky asks

"I haven't lived in Haven in 8 years. I lost contact with everyone 18 months ago." Seth explained

"Dude the only reason we didn't completely lose it was because we still felt you through the pack bond" Liv tells him "We knew you weren't dead but...it was hard, anyway so why are you with the newbies?" Liv asked as they made their way to the main house.

"They're my mates." Seth said simply.

"Oooooh, Sethie's got two mates!" Liv said excitedly. Becky looking at her with caution. "I need to see Sarah, you are making me coffee later!" Liv hugged him and skipped off, Becky and Drew watching her.

"I've only heard of chaos fairies, she was...unique" Becky said.

"I need to remind Ceasero she's not allowed any caffeine" Seth said shaking his head

The three mates walked along the path back to the town in silence after Liv left. None of them really knowing what to say.

"So you guys have had this town for a long time?" Becky finally broke the increasingly uncomfortable tension

"My grandparents founded Haven. Grandfather...used to run a circus and all of the acts were different beings. When he retired, everyone just settled here. Haven was these old fairgrounds and some of the woods surrounding it."

"A Circus?" Drew exclaimed

"Grandfather was a warlock, especially skilled in persuasion and he figured it would be a way for him and his friends to not only use their abilities for profit, but to not have to hide as much. Normies will ignore most Supe shit if they think its a trick"

"Absolutely true, they're dense as hell" Becky replied.

"So, you knew Finn?" Seth asked.

"Sort of, his name was Prince back then, always wondered what happened, not surprised that vampires had something to do with it...when they helped save you. I can't believe I just said that" Becky facepalmed, remembering what Mox and Stephanie had said.

Seth smiled and shook his head "I know Haven is an odd case. Weird even amongst the weird. I mean, I'm the Wolf/Warlock hybrid that claims a Lion, a Witch, a Vampire Queen and a Vampire thats the vessel for a literal demon king for parents. Weird is kinda my thing"

"Do you remember that night?" Becky asked. Seth looked down, toying with his amulet before sitting down.

"A little. I remember being in a car with my mommy and daddy" Seth said in a faraway voice "The was a big flash of light and loud noise, and then I was flying through the woods. I had bite marks on the back of my neck. Knowing now what I know about my bio parents, I think my Mom shifted and was carrying me through the woods by the scruff of my neck."

Becky hesitantly reached over and touched the top of Seth's bowed head. Drew looking on silently. It seemed like his spitfire was already growing attached to the younger man, while Drew himself was more hesitant. Seth lived...by Drew's upbringing, an unnatural life. Haven was a lot to get used to and he'd had Becky to himself for so long.

"Do you think it's possible that your mom changed you?" Drew asked. "To protect you?"

"Could be I don't know" Seth pulled his hair. "I don't like thinking about it"

"Hey brat" A girl said, materializing next to the three. She was holding a coffee cup and had red lowlights and was so pale, Drew thought she could be a vampire.

"Hey, Ruby." Seth said quietly, "Guys this is one of my sisters."

"Yo." The girl greeted them easily and handed her brother the Chicago Bears to-go mug "One Double Chocolate Cappuccino, courtesy of Cesaro. Figured you could use it, heard you haven't had coffee in a year or so."

"No espresso?" Seth groaned.

"You know he puts too much in" Ruby said, "Besides I want to be able to sleep tonight. Your howling was obnoxious" she turned to Drew and Becky. "If either of you hurt my little brother, I will rip out your eyes and shove them down your throats"

"Ruby."

"What it's true. We lost you once, brat. Never again" She replied with a smile

"Did anyone mention that Seth is the baby?" Ruby asked

"Millie is younger then me thank you very much" Seth said rolling his eyes and taking a sip of his drink

"Millie hasn't been missing for 18 months, and gone for 7 and a half years before that. So excuse us if we're all a bit concerned about all this" she says waving a hand at Drew and Becky.

"Excuse me, who's Millie?" Becky asked.

"My baby cousin" Seth replied fondly. "She's my Uncle Shawn's kid"

"She's a fire siren, sneezes out fire like crazy" Ruby added, drinking her coffee.

"She doesn't have much in the way of control yet. So she sets shit on fire a lot...luckily her mate is a water sprite. Jordan is really great st putting out flare-ups" Seth explains "Please don't threaten my mates. Honestly, I'm a hot mess. I doubt they even want to be with me anyway"

"Nonsense" Ruby waved her hand. "Mates are mates always. Do you think I would have gotten with Liv by choice?" Seth chuckled and blushed when Becky smiled at him. " Does anyone know about Ro?" He asked.

Ruby's face fell. "Mom is working on a tracking spell, since you don't remember exactly where Heyman's compound is located. Dad is making her rest before she casts it though so that won't be done until tomorrow, the good this is that Heyman can only do his enslaving curse during the full moon...so we have 6 days to find Ro."

"Fuck" Seth pulled at his hair. "None of this would have happened if I hadn't ran away"

"Stop it" Drew said, gently pulling Seth's hands down.

Drew had sat there quietly listening to the exchange between Seth and his sister, trying to learn more about the odd man the fates had bound him and his firecracker to. From what he'd gathered so far Seth was well-loved by his mismatched pack and had been sorely missed while on his journey of self-discovery.

"Don't beat yourself up. You couldn't have known any of this would happen" Drew says softly, still holding Seth's hands in his larger ones. Seth's brother had been right. Seth did look amazingly...like a slightly smaller version of himself, less so now that part of his hair was platinum blonde.

"He's my big brother" Seth whimpered. "He doesn't even know I'm not mad at him anymore, if Paul's spell works on him, he'll be gone for good" Drew unknowingly wiped away a tear that had trailed down Seth's face.

Becky wrapped her arms around Seth's waist "That isn't going to happen, sweetheart. We are going to get your brother back and Heyman will pay for everything he's done to both of you." She says fiercely. To which Seth nodded but said nothing.

"Forgive me for asking but are you his sister from the witch side or vampire side?" Drew asked Ruby.

"Stephanie and Hunter, can't be around Finn and Violet, my blood is toxic and Bálor hates me" Ruby answered

"I only have one sibling from Finn and Violet and that's Jordan. He's the last of Finn's pre vampiric bloodline. His parents died when he was a baby, and an old woman from his clan brought him to Haven shortly after" Seth tells them.

"Is this the same Jordan that's your cousin's mate?" Becky asked. "Yeah, thought my uncle was gonna kill him, then Finn was gonna kill him" Seth shook his head.

"Haven is completely integrated? " Drew asked, he and Becky hadn't realized just how many different species of Supernatural inhabited the small town.

"Unless they can't be around each other for a physiological reason, yep" Ruby answered "One of our cousins is a sun sprite, and she glows with actual sunlight. So she can't be around Finn and Violet."

"No one gets turned away unless you give our father a reason to" Seth said, "The pack is a family"

[elizabethrobertajones]

Whats your take on Cas' arc this season? Cause i don't get it..IMO 1st half was very strong w/ his continued arc about belonging, bonding with Mary etc. But then what happened? Why did his story change to be about religious faith, destiny wanting a world without free will ruled by a supernatural being, why is this this story now when that was relevant for years i mean, we had his FATHER/GOD last season then there was nothing on this theme cause its not his current story so what is this now

I don’t think his overall arc has changed from what it has always been about. He’s always been caught in a balance between Heaven and the Winchesters but “Heaven” is quite an abstract concept for Cas after a while. 

I watched 10x18 last night, and lemme be awful and quote Metatron to start off :P

CASTIELWhat we did back there was unfortunate. No more of our brothers and sisters should die.

METATRONBrothers and sisters? Listen to you. Still spitting out the company line like anyone cares. Like we’re actually a family? When what we really are – are a bunch of glowing lights filled with self-loathing or delusions of grandeur. Or both.

CASTIELYou shut up!

METATRONNo! If I’m gonna die, I want answers. Like, who are you now? Like, you’re obviously not an angel of the Lord. And what about all of this walking the earth like Caine from “Kung Fu” crap? Cleaning up Heaven’s messes. How many more rogue angels are there out there? And, what are you gonna do once you’re done with all that? Go back to Heaven? Please. The angel formerly known as Hannah has restored order up top. Smoothest it’s run since God cut the ribbon on the pearly gates. So tell me, Castiel, truly, what is your mission now?

CASTIELYou shut up and keep looking. [Castiel walks away.]

Essentially, Cas has still been stuck here since 10x07 and Jack’s disrupted him majorly for the first time, but let’s backtrack…

So in season 4, Cas’s conflict is between Heaven and doing what’s he’s told, and listening to Dean and doing what he thinks is right. This conflict is introduced early on with 4x07, where Cas is supposed to follow Dean’s orders by order of Heaven, and Uriel is like fuck that I wanna smite this town just because, but Cas won’t let him. Cas’s conflict with orders turns to be hunted and in the end reprogrammed because he won’t do what he’s supposed to without coercion, showing us that orders (and Heaven) are bad and Cas wanting free will and to do the right thing and align with Dean is right. He does this at the end as his big damn hero moment.

In season 5, Cas’s conflict is more abstract. He wants to go fetch God as a replacement for the vague orders from Heaven which he no longer trusts, and basically the ultimate deferring to a higher power. Dean warily gives him the amulet to start his search, but the end of the search basically results in God telling Cas to naff off and think for himself. Rebuffed from having anyone to take orders from, Cas sulks around the Winchesters for the rest of the season, his faith in everything up to and including Dean shattered. He rebuilds this faith after Dean doesn’t say yes to Michael, and once again follows him to doing the right thing at the end. This whole conflict is overtly about Peace vs Freedom and Cas loses faith in Dean when he picks “Peace” and regains his loyalty to him when he picks “Freedom” - this is how Cas ends the season, pointing out Dean got what he wanted.

In season 6, Cas IS this higher power/Heaven/God/where the orders come from, but he steps into this role because he believes God appointed him the new sheriff in town. Raphael represents the old order/Heaven and wants to be God too. Cas struggles with this power, and maintaining Freedom, and appeals to God at the end when it’s all unravelling into the chaos that Freedom inevitably brings, and his downfall is played as because he doesn’t align with Dean and attempts to be the new order.

In the start of season 7 he acts as God, the higher power order, and eventually basically self-implodes from trying to maintain that. His high-minded ideals to force a sort of peace and happiness on the world are undermined from within by the leviathan, a dark chaotic presence. At the end of the season he falls into denial and running away from his issues, and he and Dean struggle to reconcile, as the main arc which allows the defeating of the leviathan. Heaven barely plays a role but they’re horrified by what he did/became if we take Hester as a representative of how the angels feel in general at their worst opinion of Cas, and he is nostalgically fond of them but doesn’t want anything to do with them and their attempts to restore order.

In season 8 Naomi once again brainwashes him onto their side, using that to get his cooperation to restore order and empower Heaven (and in general I assume she’s been using these tactics to overhaul and repair what she can) and it goes about as well for them as in season 4, when Cas goes chaotic on them, answering to the higher power of the tablet, aka directly from God, before Metatron derails him on the guilt trip to fix Heaven, which is a personal arc for Cas and the remains of his obligation to be an angel/work for Heaven. Once again Dean’s got the sense something is up with Cas all season, and though sometimes misguided about confronting him (grr 8x22) calls him out pretty consistently and generally represents the main character always right about everything pull he’s always done for Cas - Cas’s conflict is finally more obvious about being between Heaven and Dean because even after the crypt scene, he runs away serving the tablet and then is off on his mission with Metatron, giving Dean whiplash on what he’s doing which isn’t just being chill and like 8x08 Cas. (For the most part - 8x08 does have the one private conversation between them reveal Cas’s massive guilt). Edlund hands us back Cas at the end of 8x21 with for the first time since the end of season 6 and lasting until the end of season 12, an un-tampered-with sense of self to have character development and grow and change, in time for him to have things happen like becoming human to REALLY kick off Cas’s self-exploration and personal conflict.

Season 9 manages the conflict more cleanly - Cas is suuuuper guilty about the fall, so his motives are quite plain now. He has to sort out Heaven, struggles with not wanting to be a leader, but the angels all seeing him as a great war hero or important figure or despised but powerful and dangerous enemy, and Cas’s conflict is now getting laid out on screen - human or angel, leader or not… Obligation to repair Heaven and help the angels and his family is a strong motivator, and he does as much as he can for them until it crumbles at the end, and he ends up on a personal mission to save Dean which just follows in the PATH of his angel mission (e.g. he still has to go to Heaven and confront Metatron, but now it’s not because he’s doing it to overthrow him, he’s doing it to help Dean). Cas also is rejected from both angel and human families because of Gadreel asking Cas to leave, and so feeling rejected by Dean, the card is played that Cas falls back on trying to help the angels FIRST and losing out, leaving the Dean card un-played. There’s no peace or freedom imagery really, as it’s all a mad scrabble to sort Heaven out and the angels aren’t paying a great deal of attention to humans and their place in the natural order.

When we get to season 10, it’s a bit more reflective. Cas’s mission with Hannah is now interrupted with trying to save Dean, and there’s finally the reflection on what angels DO and what they’re FOR. Hannah goes back to heaven to preach the original mission, and Cas goes to help Claire after several threads combine to finally get him to remember and care about her. Hannah’s decision emphasises allowing humans free will by not possessing them, and respecting that and leaving them well alone and Heaven begins seriously withdrawing from the narrative. Heaven = meddling with free will, and historically has always wanted peace over freedom, enforcing mind control on it subjects (killing Naomi off, who’d “been in all our heads” was also a start of the angels in general having free will without any compromise so of course they freak out in season 9 :P) Cas is then on two complementary arcs of PERSONAL self-discovery, helping Claire (humanity, freedom, Cas’s guilt focused on a human instead of Heaven) and Dean (Cas’s faith and loyalty and family). He also takes a break to do a me-time episode which is 10x18 where Metatron lays down this challenge about who Cas is, pointing out in case the average viewer didn’t spot it, that Cas is really struggling to have a mission now, because he ALWAYS needs a mission. Being on call to help Sam with Dean or Claire with anything, splits his attention (10x10) but he’s determined to do his best for them (I love him so much). His conflict early in the season was where he wanted to be and what he wanted to be doing, Heaven or Earth, but Heaven tactically retreating (symbolically shown with Hannah, just in general narratively by playing no serious part in the story) but that choice is somewhat made for him by Heaven leaving and Hannah leaving him in the lurch to take Caroline home to her husband, and Cas picking up Earth-based quests to care for important humans. 

His personal story trickles out in season 10 after 10x20 does nice things for the Claire arc and his personal resolution there that he completes his mission in a sense… He spends the rest of the season helping Dean with just a bummer scene in 10x22 to enforce this is the lowest point and he’s being rejected AGAIN from being with Dean, and I would say Rowena’s curse really doesn’t count as interrupting his personhood because in season 11 when he’s not violently attacking, he has a crystal clear sense of who he is, so his conversations with Hannah and the angels in 11x02 and Dean and Sam in 11x03 are still from Cas, just with Rowena’s curse on top. In season 11 they play delay tactics - Cas’s depression is personal and to do with how hurt he’s been in general by everyone, he resolves personal crap with Metatron in 11x06 via punching him so more but doesn’t really have any more answers about who he wants to be and the choices he’s made, and in 11x10 his desire to help and need for a win lead to him being possessed, abruptly ending his role in the season as an active player and therefore giving him no real personal arc to struggle against.

Meanwhile God comes back and Lucifer in Cas gets to swing against the ultimate higher powers. There’s a sense that God can’t intervene because he’s a walking deus ex machina and takes away free will because as the Creator-author, intervening automatically is defining the story… He’s not a powerful ally, it’s literally his whim by which there is and isn’t free will… He told Cas to naff off in 5x16 because if he came to help, it’s no personal victory at all for his creations. (PS: obviously Chuck’s approach is terrible in many ways and the hands off parenting approach is directly paralleled to John, so… Not approving here lol) Amara represents obliteration of the Self, which she offers to Dean and accidentally nearly does to the universe. She treats this as a peace she can offer Dean, so Cas themes are playing out with the other characters and the universe is being re-shuffled a bit. Cas having no freedom turns into Cas being in a “peace” inside his head, watching TV and wanting no part of the fight. He chooses the same thing that in 5x18 he rejected Dean and withdrew his faith and loyalty for - possession by an archangel for the greater good. Yet another lowest point, and yet in 11x23 Dean doesn’t reject Cas for doing it, but says nice things about respecting his decisions etc. Dean firmly establishes that Cas is family to him, leaving it for Cas to accept. And these paragraphs are getting waaay too long as this becomes more relevant, sorry >.>

In season 12, Cas starts off struggling with being accepted into the family. It’s all right there for him to take, but the belonging arc mirrored with Mary, shows he still feels distant from being a part of the family, and that despite Dean’s words, he hasn’t quite had the acceptance he needs, despite all the rejection between him and Heaven one way and the other, and since season 9 his increased dislike and obligation and duty to help them, and their interest in him and activeness in the story dribbling to a stop. Dean has also seemed to reject him, but Cas has never turned away from HIM except reluctantly or being coerced somehow or because he was severely emotionally compromised with guilt or blackmail. When it comes to genuine choices like 8x17 or 9x22 he picks them, but when ASKED about it, can never answer and is interrupted or walks off every time. In this season’s case he has a similar guilt-obligation to season 8, 9, and the first half of 10, about letting Lucifer out, and so he goes to deal with that. Dealing with it leads directly to Sam and Dean being imprisoned, and an abrupt swap to Cas dealing with the family side of things - the obligation Cas feels is no longer strictly between HEAVEN and the Winchesters, but OBLIGATION and GUILT and the Winchesters, his past actions still causing a heaven-level mytharc nonsense but not really being about Heaven wanting him back or him really wanting to be with Heaven. He cuts those ties almost every time he’s confronted. 

So in a way let’s say his distraction to deal with Lucifer leads to Sam and Dean getting locked up and making the deal. He overcompensates to save them, and is thrust into a series of episodes dealing with his position in the family, where he finally gets to see Dean choosing him, and gets to tell them he loves them, and that he truly does consider them a family. In a way he now seems to have achieved something that’s been teased since maybe as far back as season 8 - 8x08 he wanted to join the family business - but definitely became a main conflict for Cas in season 9 (and I think season 12 picked up a LOT of dropped arcs that disappeared with the plot accordion of season 9, Mark of Cain onwards) 

But he still has the guilt-obligation to the Lucifer stuff and even knowing Lucifer is banished safely to the cage, the nephilim is an ongoing part of things Cas is responsible for, and so represents the same place in the narrative as other times Cas has been off doing Heaven things - obligation that takes him away from the family. In 12x19 we literally see that obligation laid out (Cas’s issue going back to 6x20 that he considers himself a guardian angel to the Winchesters, and though he says he’s not doing ANYTHING for Heaven and voices stuff that firmly suggests cut ties emotionally, from Cas’s side, which is HUGE, he will work with them in order to protect the Winchesters - so they don’t have to get involved. Same deal as season 6 - peace or freedom? He picks peace, by going behind the Winchesters’ backs and giving them no choice to help him, shouldering the burden like he’ll be going around behind their backs saving them as necessary, instead of integrating into the family and taking their problems as they come, which is what Dean does all episode. He’s lost the ability to wrangle Cas with loyalty and faith because their relationship is more equal and Cas hasn’t got all his faith invested in Dean, but having this hole in him that faith belongs to is a huge weakness/design flaw in angels, that they need it and go off the rails without it (see also: most angels we encounter after season 5 :P), so Jack, who he ALREADY has an obligation from guilt to deal with, derails Cas yet again BACK onto the obligation train to take him away from the Winchesters, this time using his faith AND his guardian angel need to protect and care for people traits to win over Cas’s absolute loyalty. And to do so, he shows Cas a vision of the Future which is essentially the same wording as the descriptions of paradise the angels fought for and Cas fought against, rejected Dean for accepting, fought again the next year, etc, so Cas’s new lowest point from 11x18 of a PERSONAL surrender to peace over freedom, is an external surrendering to peace over freedom. 

Essentially, 12x19 is fiendishly clever in twisting together every last thing that has defined Cas’s arcs, and mixing them all together. In the first third of the season we see Cas struggle and seemingly overcome one, in the second we see him struggle and seemingly overcome the next, and in the third part because he never truly balanced them, still picked obligation and missions that take him away from home and he’s shouldering a burden to resolve out of guilt that he caused it, or hesitance to join the family unit entirely but carried on treating them as if he was their guardian angel not their close family, these two things plus some other unresolved baggage ALL tie together and pile onto Cas. 

I don’t think it’s really all over the place when the season first established one, then the other, and then used them both to seriously affect Cas’s actions. I don’t think they’ve ever been telling different stories about him, just highlighting different aspects. When he was running off to hunt Lucifer with Crowley, the family stuff still hung around in the background. And when he was dealing with family stuff, he was still hunting the nephilim in the background. And when he was dealing with Heaven it wasn’t because he was mending ties with Heaven, he was protecting his family while dealing with his guilt-caused obligation to the nephilim while exploiting yet rejecting his complicated relationship with Heaven, and it all culminated in him failing a will save against the peace or freedom line that has been the main way to brainwash or control or derail Cas in many instances from Naomi’s forced programming to whatever the tablets did to him, to times like 8x23 where he runs off to fix heaven of his own free will but abandoning Dean in the process, or 10x03 where he walks out on Dean entirely because he’s weighed down with guilt and his fear of belonging. (And it gets more complicated and less epic and black and white each time.)

So, tl;dr I think these are ALL parts of who Cas is and what his conflict is, ALL THE TIME, and have been all the way through - some parts wane while others are waxing depending on the season, but in general they’re still pulling from the same source of character stuff, only with years and years and years of personal development and narrowing down Cas’s choices and trying to point him to what would make him happy and shave off the obligations bit by bit, so that he’s free to choose. And now he keeps ending up in the darkest place, but 12x19 and 12x23 were like a perfect storm of all the WORST bits of Cas’s arc, except that he wasn’t choosing to be an angel, and he did care for his family, just too abstract. And at the end, he died as an angel in a way. I don’t know how he’ll come back but I’m expecting it will not be magically poofing back graced up and a sort of ~regular~ Cas we haven’t seen since season 8, or wingless since 10x18. 

(And of course Metatron was asking that in the context of where Cas gets his grace back and is no longer living day to day about to die but again like at the end of 8x21, is confronted with full freedom and a life to live and choose what to do with it. His response is to go back to the bunker and eat pizza with his family, but that only lasts a day >.> Anyway I assume that’s a moment that’s going to be important when Cas comes back because these choices he’s been looping around were all set out for him more immediately and obviously than ever and all at once as well, so… I think it all works. Since season 9 it’s all essentially been these same challenges to Cas over and over, while Cas does various things that make you yell at the screen that no Cas that’s not what you want, or yelling encouragement that he’s maaaaybe nearly worked it out and is getting so much closer to what he wants. Sort of a game of hot or cold, or something… >.> And when it seems like he’s nearly found it, he veers back into cold territory…)