#WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT OPENING 9.07

[maraczeks]

seinfeld s9 thread pt 3

[mittensmorgul]

9.09, Holy Terror.

Remember, folks. Writers lie.

But Metatron slips back into the story like the proverbial serpent. I mean, that's literally the metaphor that applies, considering he's the one who finally unmasks Gadreel for us-the-audience, despite Dean still being in the dark. But there's far more manipulation going on in this episode...

As Gadreel tightens the screws on Dean, Metatron applies the exact right pressure to Gadreel. It's figworms within figworms, one after the other rotting the apple from the inside out, and everything is about to collapse.

Remember in the 9.06-9.07 post, I described the process through which Dean's lies and half-truths gradually came to light until they were completely out in the open? Well, that's beginning in earnest with his current round of increasingly unsustainable lies, and we begin to really see the toll it's all taking on Dean.

(also need to note one of the angels killed in the opening scene, his vessel was named "Red Dawg," in a season where Dean has both been referred to by the nickname "D-Dog," and also became an actual dog for an episode already... the MoC/demon Dean foreshadowing was pervasive in this season)

We've already seen Sam begin to crack under the weight of it all at the end of 9.08, but now both Dean and Cas will feel that burden, too...

Dean pushes Gadreel for an honest answer about Sam's recovery, pressuring him for a better answer, while Gadreel expresses his concern over working a case that potentially involves angels, but also leaving the entire burden of perpetuating the deception on Dean himself. And he's not doing well with that burden, and Sam's losing faith in himself and trust in Dean's increasingly shady answers...

SAM (getting agitated) No, it's more than Vesta! I mean, this kind of thing's been happening to me. Like, like, there are chunks of time just … missing. Like there are times when I'm... not here. DEAN Well, like I've said— SAM Yes, the trials. I know. I heard you. I heard you when you said it the last week and the week before that and the week before that. DEAN Yeah, because ... damn straight the trials. They whacked you, man. You're not up to warp speed yet, okay? But you will be.  (Smiles at SAM.)  Would I lie?

and

Blue light flashes in SAM’s eyes; EZEKIEL-IN-SAM is back. DEAN (knowing he's about to get more grief from EZEKIEL-IN-SAM) Oh, boy. EZEKIEL-in-SAM Well? What are you going to do about this? DEAN About Cas? EZEKIEL-in-SAM He is a beacon, Dean, pulling every angel for miles down on our heads. DEAN All right, you know what, Zeke? Level with me. What is it that you're so afraid of? EZEKIEL-IN-SAM I told you. When I chose to answer your prayers and heal Sam, I chose sides. That means I'm not in good standing with certain angels. DEAN Okay, well, you know what? Cas isn't in good standing with any angel, all right? But here he is, ass on the line, fighting the fight. So tell me, what makes you so special?

But Dean breaks down again and begins to strategically confess to Cas, still leaving out crucial pieces of information, but giving him enough that Cas does eventually begin to understand the gravity of Dean's situation:

CASTIEL (clears throat) I, um, I noticed you look... kind of uncomfortable whenever Sam mentions my leaving. Doesn't he know that you told me to leave? DEAN Here's the deal. When Sam was doing the trials to seal up Hell, it messed him up. Okay? The third one nearly killed him. If I'd let him finish, it would have. He's still messed up, bad. CASTIEL You said the angel, Ezekiel, helped heal him. DEAN (looks down, avoiding the question) Look, I got to do anything I can to get him back. Now, if that means that we keep our distance from you for a little while, then... Then I don't have a choice. I don't feel good about it, but I don't have a choice. It's great to have your help, Cas. Okay, but we just can't work together. CAS looks sad.

Bolding mine. I DON'T HAVE A CHOICE. I DON'T FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT, BUT I DON'T HAVE A CHOICE.

Cas, being Not A Moron™ now understands that everything that's happened since the angels fell, since Dean went to extraordinary measures to save Sam with "Ezekiel's" help, has put Dean in this impossible position. He might not know the true extent of it, but at the end of the episode when he calls Dean to warn him that "Ezekiel" is not who he's pretending to be, he knows that Dean absolutely NEEDS this information... which he could only have known if he understood that Dean had made some sort of as-yet-still-secret-by-necessity-of-Sam-continuing-to-be-not-dead pact with Fake Ezekiel...

And then, a truly horrible twist of circumstance as Cas searches for answers and is captured by a group of angels and tortured. Everyone is just doing what they have to do...:

CASTIEL Angels butchering angels. Is this what we've become? MALACHI Just following your example, Castiel. How many did you kill in Heaven? How many in the Fall? (off CASTIEL's look)  Oh, you didn't know? A host of angels died when they fell – Azrael, Sophia, Ezekiel (At this last name, CASTIEL turns very thoughtful) ...  "Died" doesn't even describe it. Devastation. Wings shredded, unspeakable agony at your hands. So, I think you would want to provide any information you have, considering... (pause; no response from CASTIEL) All right. I leave you in the hands of an artist. (to THEO) I don't care what's left. THEO Don't ask for mercy. There is none. THEO walks and shuts the door, then returns to CASTIEL, and picks up a drill. THEO I'll give you one last chance for this to end. CASTIEL Give me a quick death. CASTIEL closes his eyes and holds up his face in anticipation of the blow(s). THEO I need you to speak to Metatron. Everyone knows you have influence. CASTIEL now opens his eyes and looks in astonishment at THEO. THEO (continuing) He'll listen to you. Ask him to raise me to Heaven. You can do this, Castiel. I'll be a soldier for Metatron, do anything he wants. CASTIEL You – you serve Malachi. THEO I thought he was the answer, but he's crazy. CASTIEL You're... noticing this now? You were more than willing to do his dirty work. THEO I did what I had to.

So of course Cas does what he has to do, now that he knows what Metatron is up to, that Dean is in danger from the False Ezekiel:

CASTIEL (on the phone) Dean, I don't have a lot of time, so listen. The leader of the opposition is an angel named Malachi. DEAN How do you know that? CASTIEL He had me. I, uh, I was tortured. But I got away. DEAN How? CASTIEL I... I did what I had to. I became what they've become. A barbarian. DEAN What are you – Cas, where are you? CASTIEL It's better I stay away. They're gonna want me even more now. But I'm gonna be all right. I... I got my Grace back. Well, not mine per se, but it'll do. DEAN Wait, you're – you're back? You got your mojo? CASTIEL I'm not sure. But I am an angel. DEAN And you're okay with that? CASTIEL If we're going to war, I need to be ready.

Unfortunately Cas's warning comes too late to save Sam, or Kevin, and Gadreel takes over fully, having been deceived and manipulated into doing Metatron's dirty work, just as Cas had been in 8.22-8.23.

Which is why Cas immediately forgives Dean in the opening scenes of...

9.10, Road Trip.

(meanwhile, the angels all continue to be Terrible™ in the background, proving they were always Terrible™ and are only using Cas as a scapegoat, blaming their troubles on him when honestly they were all always Terrible Manipulative Bastards™ all on their own!)

(also, Andrew "what are cars even anyway" Dabb writing an episode called "Road Trip" makes me cackle)

Watching Dean suffering alone at the bunker (Gadreel even stole the Impala ffs), giving Kevin a hunter's funeral alone... this was hard. And then Cas showed up 100% understanding, and 100% ready to help however he could, back in a new trench now that he had his mojo back. So in that way, Dean had already resigned himself to having An Angel back, and not the same Cas he'd tossed out in his worst moment. It's his fault Cas was forced to go to that measure. Ouch.

I'd also like to point out the similarity between Metatron luring Cas in during s8-- starting by appealing to Cas's desire for atonement, his need for all the angels to stop the infighting and begin working together again, to restore order, and then luring him in to increasingly horrific acts he promised would achieve those ends. When Cas had balked, Metatron had manipulated circumstances to push Cas into doing them anyway. Same with Gadreel.

Metatron used the lure of being able to clear his name, back in 9.09:

METATRON: Relax. I'm not here to out you. But I am curious, why Ezekiel? NOT-EZEKIEL-IN-SAM They say he is a good, and ... honorable angel. METATRON Ahhhh. Everything they say you are not. I see your point... Gadreel. NOT-EZEKIEL-IN-SAM (henceforth to be known as GADREEL-IN-SAM) The stories about me – they are not true! METATRON And yet you spent countless thousands of years locked in Heaven's darkest dungeon. And now you're hiding in this human, posing as Ezekiel. (shakes his head) Tragic. It broke His heart to lock you away, you know? You were God's most trusted. That's why He chose you to protect the garden. Your one task was to keep evil from entering... from befouling His cherished creation, mankind, and you failed Him! GADREEL-IN-SAM Not my doing. METATRON Well, for whatever reason, the serpent entered. The Earth is cursed with evil. Someone had to be blamed.

Gadreel had been duped from the start. And he didn't let evil onto the Earth. Adam and Eve weren't tainted with evil when they ate the apple, they were tained with the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. If knowledge could be considered a "curse" in the first place. And Gadreel just happened to be the one left standing there after the deed had been done, even if he was no more complicit in what resulted that Cas had been in Metatron's spell that made the angels fall. But unlike Cas, Gadreel believes Metatron truly wants to help him clear his name, or at the very least help him build his reputation anew by doing "good" now... and yiiiiiikes....

Gadreel was horrifically okay with killing Kevin on Metatron's orders, because Kevin was helping Dean perform a spell to eject him from Sam, and it was partly (at least he could rationalize it that way) self-defense. And he was all too happy to murder his former jailer who was now envesseled in a Justin Bieber wannabe. I believe we all cheered about that guy getting his comeuppance. But then Metatron orders him to kill the only angel Gadreel had considered a friend, who he'd been imprisoned with, and who'd decided to embrace the human life he'd found himself in, adopting his (previously abusive jerkwad) vessel's family as his own. Abner had been HAPPY with his life, and yet to save his own reputation, and without questioning Metatron's order, Gadreel killed him.

Crowley also played a role in this, using his NSA-infiltrated demon to track the stolen Impala. Crowley praised her for also playing ball with Abaddon (and later Abaddon would kill her for admitting she was also helping Crowley... two very different ruling styles...), and then they'd have to move from Plan A (torturing Gadreel with the Angel Brainwashing Halo Thingie) to Plan B (crowley possessing Sam to convince him to evict Gadreel from the inside).

Gadreel gone back to his previous vessel, Sam feels justifiably violated by his possessions.

Sam: What do you want me to say? I’m pissed? Okay I am, I’m pissed. You lied to me - again. Dean: I didn't have a choice. Sam: I was ready to die Dean. Dean: I know. But I wouldn't let you, because that’s not in me. Sam: So what, you decide to trick me into being possessed by some...psycho angel? Dean: He saved your life. Sam: So what. I was willing to die. And now...Kevin. Dean: No, that is not on you. Kevin’s blood is on my hands. And that ain’t ever getting clean. I’ll burn for that. I will. But I’ll find Gadreel and I will end that son of a bitch. But I’ll do it alone. Sam: What’s that supposed to mean? Dean: Come on man, can’t you see, I’m poison. People get close to me they get killed, or worse. I tell myself I help more people than I hurt and I tell myself that I’m doing it all for the right reasons and I believe that. But I can’t -- I won’t drag anyone anybody into the muck with me - not anymore. Sam: Go. I’m not going to stop you. But don’t go thinking that’s the problem because it’s not. Dean: What’s that supposed to mean? Sam: Just go.

And we're back to not talking to each other. And there's our final "I didn't have a choice." But there's also the fact that Dean DIDN'T trick Sam into letting an angel possess him. The angel did that all on his own. Asking for Dean's permission was entirely besides the point. It was Sam who had to say yes, and it was Gadreel who assumed Dean's likeness inside Sam's mind, using what he'd learned about Sam during his unattended "examination" while Dean had been talking to Cas and blowing away the other angels attacking the hospital to learn what he'd need to manipulate Sam into saying yes. And it's not like Dean intended to lie, that was Gadreel's condition he'd at first told Dean was to prevent Sam from ejecting him and basically dying on the spot before they could explain the plan to Sam. And then over time, as Dean tried to tell Sam the truth before it got to that point, Gadreel actively prevented him from doing so. It was only then that Dean realized just how screwed he was. ALLLLLL the guilt of everything bad that's resulted from Gadreel possessing Sam to this point, Dean blames all of it on himself-- Cas, Kevin, Sam... all of it. Sam's just... still reeling from his own experience that he's unable to see this yet. Unfortunately, he won't see it for a good long while to come, after it's far too late to save Dean from what the mark will do to him.

And another cycle of manipulation, betrayal, and sacrifice begins. Chuck must've been pretty damn proud of this one... all he had to do was sit back and watch Metatron execute the very Him-like plan for him. 

[allhallowsreid]

Aaron Hotchner // Thomas Gibson David Rossi // Joe Mantegna Derek Morgan // Shemar Moore Emily Prentiss // Paget Brewster JJ Jareau // AJ Cook Luke Alvez // Adam Rodriguez Matt Simmons // Daniel Henney Penelope Garcia // Kirsten Vangsness Spencer Reid // Matthew Gray Gubler Tara Lewis // Aisha Tyler

Criminal Minds

Season 1: 1.01 Extreme Aggressor 1.02 Compulsion 1.03 Won't Get Fooled Again 1.04 Plain Sight 1.05 Broken Mirror 1.06 L.D.S.K. 1.07 The Fox 1.08 Natural Born Killer 1.09 Derailed 1.10 The Popular Kids 1.11 Blood Hungry 1.12 What Fresh Hell? 1.13 Poison 1.14 Riding the Lightning 1.15 Unfinished Business 1.16 The Tribe 1.17 A Real Rain 1.18 Somebody's Watching 1.19 Machismo 1.20 Charm and Harm 1.21 Secrets and Lies 1.22 The Fisher King: Part 1

Season 2: 2.01 The Fisher King: Part 2 2.02 P911 2.03 The Perfect Storm 2.04 Psychodrama 2.05 Aftermath 2.06 The Boogeyman 2.07 North Mammon 2.08 Empty Planet 2.09 The Last Word 2.10 Lessons Learned 2.11 Sex, Birth, Death 2.12 Profiler, Profiled 2.13 No Way Out 2.14 The Big Game 2.15 Revelations 2.16 Fear and Loathing 2.17 Distress 2.18 Jones 2.19 Ashes and Dust 2.20 Honor Among Thieves 2.21 Open Season 2.22 Legacy 2.23 No Way Out, Part 2: The Evilution of Frank

Season 3: 3.01 Doubt 3.02 In Name and Blood 3.03 Scared to Death 3.04 Children of the Dark 3.05 Seven Seconds 3.06 About Face 3.07 Identity 3.08 Lucky 3.09 Penelope 3.10 True Night 3.11 Birthright 3.12 3rd Life 3.13 Limelight 3.14 Damaged 3.15 A Higher Power 3.16 Elephant's Memory 3.17 In Heat 3.18 The Crossing 3.19 Tabula Rasa 3.20 Lo-Fi

Season 4: 4.01 Mayhem 4.02 The Angel Maker 4.03 Minimal Loss 4.04 Paradise 4.05 Catching Out 4.06 The Instincts 4.07 Memoriam 4.08 Masterpiece 4.09 52 Pickup 4.10 Brothers in Arms 4.11 Normal 4.12 Soul Mates 4.13 Bloodline 4.14 Cold Comfort 4.15 Zoe's Reprise 4.16 Pleasure Is My Business 4.17 Demonology 4.18 Omnivore 4.19 House on Fire 4.20 Conflicted 4.21 A Shade of Gray 4.22 The Big Wheel 4.23 Roadkill 4.24 Amplification 4.25 To Hell...

4.26 ... And Back

Season 5: 5.01 Faceless, Nameless 5.02 Haunted 5.03 Reckoner 5.04 Hopeless 5.05 Cradle to Grave 5.06 The Eyes Have It 5.07 The Performer 5.08 Outfoxed 5.09 100 5.10 The Slave of Duty 5.11 Retaliation 5.12 The Uncanny Valley 5.13 Risky Business 5.14 Parasite 5.15 Public Enemy 5.16 Mosley Lane 5.17 Solitary Man 5.18 The Fight 5.19 Rite of Passage 5.20 ...A Thousand Words 5.21 Exit Wounds 5.22 The Internet Is Forever 5.23 Our Darkest Hour

Season 6: 6.01 The Longest Night 6.02 JJ 6.03 Remembrance of Things Past 6.04 Compromising Positions 6.05 Safe Haven 6.06 Devil's Night 6.07 Middle Man 6.08 Reflection of Desire 6.09 Into the Woods 6.10 What Happens at Home... 6.11 25 to Life 6.12 Corazon 6.13 The Thirteenth Step 6.14 Sense Memory 6.15 Today I Do 6.16 Coda 6.17 Valhalla 6.18 Lauren 6.19 With Friends Like These 6.20 Hanley Waters 6.21 The Stranger 6.22 Out of the Light 6.23 Big Sea 6.24 Supply and Demand

Season 7: 7.01 It Takes a Village 7.02 Proof 7.03 Dorado Falls 7.04 Painless 7.05 From Childhood's Hour 7.06 Epilogue 7.07 There's No Place Like Home 7.08 Hope 7.09 Self Fulfilling Prophecy 7.10 The Bittersweet Science 7.11 True Genius 7.12 Unknown Subject 7.13 Snake Eyes 7.14 Closing Time 7.15 A Thin Line 7.16 A Family Affair 7.17 I Love You, Tommy Brown 7.18 Foundation 7.19 Heathridge Manor 7.20 The Company 7.21 Divining Rod 7.22 Profiling 101 7.23 Hit 7.24 Run

Season 8: 8.01 The Silencer 8.02 The Pact 8.03 Through the Looking Glass 8.04 God Complex 8.05 The Good Earth 8.06 The Apprenticeship 8.07 The Fallen 8.08 The Wheels on the Bus... 8.09 Magnificent Light 8.10 The Lesson 8.11 Perennials 8.12 Zugzwang 8.13 Magnum Opus 8.14 All That Remains 8.15 Broken 8.16 Carbon Copy 8.17 The Gathering 8.18 Restoration 8.19 Pay It Forward 8.20 Alchemy 8.21 Nanny Dearest 8.22 #6 8.23 Brothers Hotchner 8.24 The Replicator

Season 9: 9.01 The Inspiration Part 1 9.02 The Inspiration Part 2 9.03 Final Shot 9.04 To Bear Witness 9.05 Route 66 9.06 In The Blood 9.07 Gatekeeper 9.08 The Return 9.09 Strange Fruit 9.10 The Caller 9.11 Bully 9.12 The Black Queen 9.13 The Road Home 9.14 200 9.15 Mr. & Mrs. Anderson 9.16 Gabby 9.17 Persuasion 9.18 Rabid 9.19 The Edge of Winter 9.20 Blood Relations 9.21 What Happens in Mecklinburg 9.22 Fatal 9.23 Angels 9.24 Demons

Season 10: 10.01 X 10.02 Burn 10.03 A Thousand Suns 10.04 The Itch 10.05 Boxed In 10.06 If the Shoe Fits 10.07 Hashtag 10.08 The Boys of Sudworth Place 10.09 Fate 10.10 Amelia Porter 10.11 The Forever People 10.12 Anonymous 10.13 Nelson's Sparrow 10.14 Hero Worship 10.15 Scream 10.16 Lockdown 10.17 Breath Play 10.18 Rock Creek Park 10.19 Beyond Borders 10.20 A Place at the Table 10.21 Mr. Scratch 10.22 Protection 10.23 The Hunt

[a-fangirl-stuff]

You’re Not My Brother

WORD COUNT:  2159

CHARACTERS: Reader, Dean, Sam, John, Sonny, Robin, Bobby.

PAIRING: Dean x Sister!Reader, Dean x Robin, Sam x Sister!Reader, John x daughter!reader.

WARNINGS: a little angsty, very slight child abuse, the reader is a little mean to Dean at the end, John being a bad parent.

A/N: This fic takes place in 9.07 ‘Bad Boys’. Feedback is gladly welcome. Hope you enjoy this and thank you for reading.

You can find my Masterlist HERE.

                          - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

The loud groan of the Impala was heard outside the motel room. Sam and you got up from the couch to receive Dean and John and, as always, to offer them whatever they could need after the rough hunt.

The door cracked open, John entered the room and closed it behind him.

You looked over at the door, waiting for it to open again and show you your other brother. Sam’s worried look was pinned on your back, he was as quiet as you. You knew he was thinking the same as you, Dean had been killed.

You watched as John sat on one of the beds of the room and took his boots off. After he saw none of you had said a word he lifted up his head, analyzing you.

“Aren’t any of you asking me if there’s anything I need?” Sam and you exchanged a look as John asked the question. You smiled at your little brother, trying to tell him everything was going to be okay. You were the oldest right now and that’s what you were supposed to do, keep him calm, at least, that’s what Dean would do.

“Where’s Dean?” you shyly asked.

John ignored you and proceeded talking “I’ve told you that whenever I come after a hunt you have to satisfy my needs… haven’t I?”

“Yes, sir.” Sam responded hesitantly.

John nodded at Sam and dropped his sight on you. “I asked you a question, Y/N.”

“I asked you a question too, Dad.” you said as you lifted your chin and straightened your posture.

This sudden courage was new to you. Just as your big brother, you had never confronted your father until now and though you were shitting yourself for it, it also kinda felt good. Sam was trying to keep a straight face either from surprise or laughter. You heard John’s teeth creak and watched his jaw clench.

“Wanna say that again?” your father asked as he got up from the creaky bed, a vein popping from his forehead.

You gulped the big knot that had been forming in your throat. “I said I asked you a question too.” The tension between you and John made Sam take a few steps back. “Where’s Dean?”

John grabbed your cheeks with one hand and squeezed them. “Answer.”

Your breath increased with your father’s closeness. “Y/N.” You heard Sammy’s little voice pleading you to answer before John could hurt you or him, or both.

“Yes, sir.” you finally said. John roughly let go off your cheeks and headed to the bed again. “Where is my brother?”

And as fast as you dropped the question, John turned around and slapped you. “Your brother is lost on a hunt, I’m gonna drop you two at Bobby’s tomorrow and look for him. Now shut up and bring me something to eat.” He told you as he threw some money over the floor.

Sam went down on his knees, grabbed the dollars and took your hand to lead you out of the room.

Once you were far from the motel Sam took your arm and made you look at him. “Okay, I know I always tell you and Dean to face dad but that was not…”

“I don’t believe him.” you interrupted him.

“What?”

“Dean would never leave us just like this, he would at least let us know. He would have called or something, right?”

“You heard dad, he’s going to look for him after he drops us at Uncle Bobby’s.” Sam reassured you.

“Yeah and I heard him tell you the Easter Bunny was real too.” you complained, gaining a bitch face from Sam.

“Come on, let’s go get some burgers.”

You rolled your eyes at your smart yet idiotic brother.

On your way to the diner, you stopped by a library “Hey, Sammy. Would you mind if I go to the library while you order the food?” Sam looked at you with an exasperated look and made a grin, but you answered to yourself before he could complain about it “Yeah? Thank you lil’ bro.”

Then you ran to make a little research.

You rapidly used the computers from the library to search for lost boys or bad behaved boys or guys who had corrupted the law, and printed every single thing that seemed to be useful.

The newspaper didn’t have many things that could help, but you still took one and shoved it in your pants. Outside the library you talked and asked questions to pretty much everyone you crossed paths with before meeting Sammy and the delicious greasy burgers for which you knew, Dean would have died for.

After arriving at the motel and eating, your father passed out on one of the beds and that’s when you began the research to find Dean. The table was full of papers and notes you had written with information you had reunited on the library and the newspaper you stole.

The next day, John took you and Sam to Bobby’s, where you kept your research.

Days passed rapidly and nothing was coming out. You visited the library of Sioux Falls several times, looking for your brother was being harder than you thought it would be, there were no records of Dean and as you didn’t want Bobby to find out and tell your dad, you only worked at night.

The eleventh day you were so tired that you didn’t even notice when you had fallen asleep. A loud snore woke you from your sleep, the clock marked 6:30 a.m. Your eyes looked through the living room, no one was up yet.

Bobby’s duffel bag and a couple of guns were spread over his desk. And right in that moment, you decided on leaving, you would go out and wouldn’t return until you found your brother. You shoved the guns in the duffel bag and placed it on your left shoulder.

You then grabbed the lantern that was beside the nightstand and illuminated your notes. Your hands reunited the most important stuff and shoved them in the duffel bag. You made a quick note for Sammy, telling him you would be looking for Dean and you probably wouldn’t come back soon. You crossed the room and exited it.

Sonny’s Home for Boys, that was the place where every lead told you Dean was.

When you left Bobby’s house, you had walked to the library again and finished connecting the dots but still weren’t sure about anything at all. You were a good researcher but honestly you were way better at fighting. But you owed Dean to at least try at this place.

By the time you stepped on the front porch and knocked the door, it was already past four in the afternoon. A man around your dad’s age with a weird mustache opened the door.

“Hello. Can I help you?” the man nicely asked.

You got inside the house without permission and started looking around. “I came here looking for my brother.”

“May I know who your brother is, miss?”

“Y/N?” you heard from behind.

“Dean.” you said with relief as you ran to his arms and hugged him. “I knew he was lying.”

“What are you doing here?” Dean asked, breaking the hug.

“I could ask you the same question.” You answered smiling. “Come on, let’s go. We gotta get you out of here.” You grabbed him by the hand and pulled at it, obligating him to walk.

Suddenly Dean steps stopped, making you turn around. You looked confused at Dean’s uncomfortable face. A silence followed.

“What?” you asked your brother.

Dean opened and closed his mouth several times and then asked “Did dad send you?”

You laughed. “No he didn’t. He said you were lost or something like that, can you believe it? Cause I did not…”

“Then I’ll stay.” he said, interrupting you.

“Sure, Dean.” you grabbed his hand again and he freed himself from you. “Dean, come on, if Bobby has already realized I’m gone, it won’t be long till he tells dad. He will be so pissed at me for escaping or whatever but the faster we get there the less mad he’ll get.”

Dean didn’t move a finger. “Y/N, you don’t understand, I want to stay here as much as I can.

“Right, Dean.” you mocked. “You want to stay in this crappy house with this funny mustached old man washing clothes and mowing the lawn.”

“Let me explain…”

“Please explain to me, because I don’t understand.” you interrupted him. “You’re telling me you prefer this ball of stranger losers than us. Than Sammy and me, than dad.”

You were stunned, all the research, all the risks, the sleepless nights, the effort and he was telling you he didn’t want to come back, that he was going to stay?

“What the hell is wrong with you, Dean?” you screamed as you saw he didn’t answer back.

“Dean? Sonny? What’s going on?” you heard a girly voice say from a door behind Dean.

A brunette girl around Dean’s age came from the door. “Robin not now, go outside, I’ll be there in a second.”

Dean sounded so different when he said those words, he had this tone in his voice that you somehow knew you had heard before from somewhere but you couldn’t put your finger on it. He looked over his shoulder and pointed the exit to his ‘friend’. Only then you realized he was warning her to step aside, just like he did when he knew something wasn’t safe for you or Sam. A laugh escaped your lips.

“Yeah, Robin. You go and see if the hen has put some eggs.” she stayed in her place. “So that’s it, all this for a stupid girl?”

“I’m not stupid.” she told you.

“Sure you aren’t, hun.” you looked at her with sarcastic eyes.

“Y/N/N.” your eyes were tearful and fists shaking of anger. “I’m really liking it here, everybody is so nice with me and the food, God, it’s delicious.”

“Good, I’m glad you’re liking it here.” you made a pause “Good. It’s good to know at least one of us three is having some fun.”

You turned around and then heard. “Stay for dinner, please.”

“I thought we were going to the school’s dance.” Robin intervened.

“We could stay for dinner and then go, I promise.” He told her.

And ‘boom’ something inside of you exploded after those words came out of your brother’s mouth.

“Okay, I’ve had enough.” you said as turning to face Dean again “You’re going to a school dance? Since when do you date girls? You eat three meals a day, you’re happy, you left without saying anything. It’s been maybe a week and a half and you’ve already made a whole new life, you have a home and worst thing is that you’re looking at me as if you didn’t know me when the last time you saw me you swore you would always be there for me… you’re- you’re not my brother.”

“Don’t say that, Y/N/N.”

“My brother left almost two weeks ago on a hunt and never came back, he’s dead. I don’t know who you are.”

“Don’t you dare to say that.”

“Why not?” you said as tears slipped down your face “My brother would have found a way to come back to us because he knew that we were only eating cheerios once a day, he would’ve known that as there was no much food I would give mine to Sammy and spend three days without eating. He would’ve come back to watch TV with us while our stomachs grunted. And as my brother was there, I wouldn’t have had to ask dad where he was and that would have saved me a slap and a bunch of sleepless nights in which I wondered where he would be or researching. My brother would have come back to us.”

And before you stormed out of the house you saw Dean’s face full of tears.

You arrived at Bobby’s a couple of minutes before midnight and unfortunately John was already there waiting for you. Sam, who was watching cartoons, turned the TV off.

“Did you find Dean?” your dad asked.

You nodded looking at the floor.

“And he didn’t want to come back, did he?” he said as he walked to you.

You shook your head still looking down and preparing yourself emotionally for the beating of your life, but the only thing you got was a hug.

“Did you wanted me to find him?” you asked looking at your dad.

He nodded.

“I wanted to test you.” John saw your sad face and added. “Don’t worry Y/N, he will come back. He will realize he can’t stay around, if you couldn’t make him come back, something else will.”

PART 2!

[jihoonscafe]

❧ p.cy | cherry

college! chanyeol x reader 

word count : 1774 words. genre : fluff (for once) synopsis : who knew a bar of chocolate could lead to a cute boy with blue hair and a sunlit smile? definitely not you. also cherry lip gloss.

✐ sfjjksdahfjaskdhf this one is revenge !!!! dedicated entirely to @fluffyyeollie who is the best person ever :^)))) !!! n who deserves some fluff so even tho ur girl be whipping out that angst like it was her money on svt albums ,,,, she be writing some fluff bcuz if ur angst is hurting me h o n e y , imma pull out the big guns of fluff ! :^))  ,, enjoy n suffer my beautiful stars. also gay bby fuckboy bestfriend! baek is probably my fav character i have ever written bye.

[2017/30/09] 9.01 pm .: new message from byun kid

⇒ oh my god where are you?

⇐ at the party duh

[ read 9.01 pm ]

[2017/30/09] 9.07 .:

⇐ why the hell aren’t you answering bacon?

⇒ sorry i just FACEPALMED for 6 minutes there.

⇐ oh shut up you piece of shit, come by the kitchen, i am trying to steal some of minseok’s chocolate.

⇒ could you have not told me that before? i am coming, give me like a minute.

[ read 9.08 pm ]

Sighing, you put your phone down, knowing that your best friend would probably get here in half an hour than the minute he promised because of something he probably found more delicious than pizza rolls, like a boy’s lips. Problems of befriending the fuckboy, you supposed. A really gay one at that, like that boy could be some good use for spotting hot boys in a crowd but when he left none for you, it didn’t help.

You had come in the full mood to party but the allure of chocolate, something Minseok always kept hidden in his kitchen during parties, was way too much for your empty stomach to not enjoy before you got yourself hooked to the music, dancing away the night which would probably end with a drunk trip to Taco Bell.

As you waited for the chocolate to silently heat up in microwave (so you dont break your teeth trying to bite into it completely frozen), you sat yourself onto the main counter of the kitchenette, helping yourself to some "punch" which you knew was probably the slightest of fruit juice drowned in vodka, all to keep the people "well hydrated".

Your legs crossed over each other, your dress pulling up in the slightest and while you didn’t notice or care at first, the second the first creep of the night showed up in the kitchen, leering too close to you, staring at your thighs like you were a full course meal, you were wholly up out of there, getting off the counter, grabbing your chocolate and nope-ing your way out of there, like nope you ain’t getting ogled by some sexually deprived creep.

It became worse though as the guy began to follow you and you couldn’t help but grow increasingly annoyed, all you wanted was to eat your bloody chocolate in peace but this asshole wouldn’t leave you alone, so you turned as to confront him, maybe reject him so badly he would just leave the party and not go prey on some other poor soul.

That guy, with his way too overgrown beard to be sexy because he looked more like Gandalf than Leonardo Di Caprio, and his beady eyes which made him seem like a perv right from the beginning, along with his shabby clothing and lust-filled eyes, made him the very definition of "stay the hell away from me" types of men.

As he continued to eye you up, even with you straight up looking at him, he made bile rise in your throat, your face twisting into an uncomfortable shell, as you slowly pushed yourself away from him, dropping and losing the chocolate somewhere along the way (which made you incredibly upset), fingers itching to just grab some random boy and pull him into a kiss as to scare the creep away.

So that is what you did, spotting a really tall boy with his bright shaded blue hair amongst the crowd and screaming a loud "Babe!" at his direction before walking to him, his eyes widening as you silently pleaded him to play along with the little roleplay you had suddenly thrusted upon him, eyes shifting to the guy following you, as to indicate the situation.

"Please, that creep has been following me for the whole evening", you whispered, hoping to convince him and he nods before responding with a bright smile, as if you had told him some extremely amazing joke, which had caused that beautiful grin to appear.

"Oh darling, you always know how to make me smile! My precious little baby!", he cooed, leaning down slightly as the creep continued to approach, seemingly unconvinced before the boy’s calloused, probably from a string instrument as your friend Joshua would tell you, hands were cupping your cheeks, and his lips were on yours, every bit as plump as they looked, bringing a natural pink to your cheeks as he gently caressed the side of your face with the pad of his thumb, his tongue slipping between the closures of your lips, before you two were kissing so deeply, it felt as if both of you had forgotten about the creep (who had long left the scene unsatisfied) and had become too lost in each other.

As you broke away from his embrace, not quite slipping out of his grip on your waist, which he shyly removed straight after he realised, you smiled gently, still slightly breathless from that incredible kiss. Damn, if kissing was an art, than this man in front of you was the master.

Clearing your throat, you built up enough confidence to talk with him, as if you both hadn’t just kissed the life out of each other, and soon your awkward conversation led to you both sitting on the floor of the kitchen, chewing on your respective chocolate bars (and some cake which you found in the fridge which you somehow missed during your first haul), talking about the probablity of aliens and your favourite Johnlock fanfictions.

You find him oh so incredibly cute, from his ruffled dyed hair which he and his friends apparently change every month from a huge colour wheel they got in his aunt’s garage sale once upon a time and loved enough to bring to their new college dorms, all the way to his loud laughter when you tell him a joke or when he can’t even cohesively speak his own from laughing too much, with tears falling out of his eyes and his long arms hitting the ground in excitement.

He is like looking at the sun during the day, a whole bright being who shines with everything he does or says, and you for one loved to be in his soft light, which burned away your reluctance to make friends quicker than you could list the names of your favourite band’s members.

Both of you could talk about anything and by the end of the night, you both had been joined by two bottles of vodka, enough to get you tipsy but not puking your guts out on the backyard like usual when you and Baek came to parties, and had shifted into the comfortable position of you slumping against his chest, practically sitting between his long legs.

Your phone pings somewhere deep in your pockets and you shift from his warm embrace enough to pull it out and open its screen, before seeing the messages waiting for you to read them.

Relaxing back into him as he curiously looked over your shoulder to see what was happening, you opened your messages to see two messages from Baekhyun, who by now you had completely forgotten about and who was probably drunk off his ass, sitting on some poor (or not poor, the boy did have a nice ass) boy’s lap.

[2017/01/10] 1.10 pm .: two new messages from byun kid

⇒ bi5ch4 ge t su MM  !

⇐ hey y/n, get your ass here and save me, baek is drunk and he wants to go to the roof and keeps saying something about singing "hit me baby", come quick to the top floor staricase before i push him off the nearest balcony and get rid of his body. - soo

"Oh for fuck sake", you curse, scrambling out of Chanyeol’s embrace, your body almost physically hurting because of the sudden cold which hit you and he chuckled as you whine about how your friends are such horrible pieces of shit and how you kinda wanted Baekhyun to fall into the pool already so he would sober the hell up.

But as Chanyeol pushes you towards the stairs, telling you your friend needed you to help him and how he should probably get going anyways, since he had a class at 7 and he hadn’t realised the time until looking at your phone.

You wave him a goodbye, but realise that even though you had talked your tongues off, you had forgotten to ask him his name. So, you ran behind his not-that-hard-to-find figure, pushing a making out couple on the way as you leaped for him, catching his hand and turning him around.

"Hey, what is your name?"

"Chanyeol, Park Chanyeol", he says smiling widely at you as you continue to hold his hand, your skin heating up as you realised you practically jumped at him from where you were and you retract your hand.

"I-I am Y/N", you say, and he says it once, tasting it on his tongue as if it was his favourite cnady and you almost died when he said it was as sweet as your lips which made you blush all thirty shades of pink.

"If you ever want to taste again, y-you are welcome to see if they are really that sweet or if it was just the lipgloss?", you say, new confidence surging at his compliment, enough to flirt with the absolutely ravishing boy who only smirked before biting at his lip.

"Only after the first date sweetheart.", he said winking as you got out your phone once again, unlocking it and handing it to him, wordlessly as your eyes filled with confidence rather than anxiety.

"Text me the details"

You state, smirk lining your lips still as he punched in his number into your phone and saved it, before typing yours into his own phone, which you noticed had a Pokemon phone cover, this nerd.

He waves you goodbye and you smile at him, a hint of adoration slipping into it, as you realise you scored a date with the cutest boy you had ever met, and you were friends with bloody Do Kyungsoo.

As he opens the door to the frat house, you watch him shift until he turns and with a wink says the one thing that had you blushing beyond belief for the rest of the night, even as you hauled a drunk Baekhyun to his dorm with his poor roommate Jongin, who was way too sober to deal with this shit.

"Hey darling, wear another flavour when you come for the date, cherry got spoiled too quick"

[ohmightydevviepuu]

writer’s month prompts

prompt four:  long-distance relationship (this is a continuation of prompt two)

--

It was mutual. First love wasn’t meant to last forever, they said. He had to leave. She had to stay.

“I’m working my way back to you, babe,” she said.

“Not a day will go by that I won’t think of you,” he promised.

It was only meant to be for a year. But all of these years later, they were still trapped 3191 miles apart.

--

Thursday 

Killian Jones has sent you an image [a bowl, a spoon, half a grapefruit; a french press full of coffee.]

The grapefruit makes her smile. “Staves off the scurvy, Swan,” he used to say as he handed her a cup of coffee. “Staves off my appetite,” she used to say.

Friday

Killian Jones has sent you an image [a coffee mug on a pile of books: The Count of Monte Cristo. The Martian Chronicles. The Tower Treasure.]

“How are you still reading the Hardy Boys? Did you steal this from a library?” “It’s called a used book sale, Swan. Don’t mock a man’s comfort reads.”

Saturday 

Killian Jones has sent you an image [an empty paper cup with a tell-tale ring of coffee dregs; on the old trunk being used as a table, there is a small bowl of sea shells.]

Summer Saturday mornings meant Granny’s coffee to go and a walk on East End Beach. And Keats--always Keats. “Often ’tis in such gentle temper found, / That scarcely will the very smallest shell / Be moved for days from where it sometime fell, / When last the winds of heaven were unbound.”

She closes her eyes and can hear his voice.

It feels like a very long time ago.

(Emma wonders when she will be able to go to the beach again.)

Sunday 

Killian Jones has sent you an image [coffee. milk. sugar.] 

“You should really add some coffee to your sugar, love.” “Don’t mock a girl’s needs, Jones.” “How have you not rotted your teeth out?” “How would you even know? You don’t drink coffee!”

--oh. Oh.

--

Emma [9.04 AM] Is this you trying to bring me coffee?

Killian [9.07 AM] Is it working?

Emma [9.13 AM] Ask me tomorrow.

--

Monday

Killian Jones has sent you an image [two mugs. side-by-side.]

It’s early and the morning sunlight is warming the side of her face as Emma bites her lip.  The mugs are strange and beautiful, hand-painted and mismatched on his wooden dining table.

(It’s even earlier there.  That’s how time zones work.)

With a sigh, Emma holds up her own mug.  It’s the one with bold lettering that says “Maybe today, Satan,” and--yeah. Maybe today.  Her cat, Buttercup, takes it as an invitation and bumps her hand.  The picture she sends back to him is a blur of cat and mug and coffee caught mid-spill.  

--

Emma [8.49 AM] You owe me a refill, Jones.

Killian [8.51 AM] As you wish.

--

The doorbell rings at 9:29 and it’s Ruby Lucas.  She’s wearing a red beret that matches her lipstick that matches her nails and the red streaks in her hair. The mask dangling from her purse is red gingham.  Safer-at-home be damned, Ruby Lucas is dressed to kill.  

Emma had gotten up this morning and put on clean sweatpants and a t-shirt she hadn’t slept in.

“How very on-brand of you,” Emma says through the partially-open door, and Ruby laughs.  It’s full-throated and knowing as she leaves her offerings on the mat.

“It’s not the same as Granny’s,” Ruby says. 

“Granny would never do delivery,” Emma says.

“This was drive-through,” Ruby admits.   “But it’s the thought that counts--and someone has clearly been thinking of you.”

“Good-bye, Ruby,” Emma says.  Ruby mimes a “call me” gesture as the door slams shut.

The coffee is still hot.

The bear claw is delicious.

Emma looks at the phone.  Picks it up, scrolls through to his number.  

Puts it down again.

Buttercup mews.

“Not you, too,” Emma says with a sigh.

--

Emma [10:02 AM] Tomorrow. 9AM.

Killian [10.03 AM] See you then.

--

Tuesday Killian Jones would like to FaceTime

Emma lets it ring.  Just--she--her hair is up in a messy topknot and she’s wearing her glasses, for fuck’s sake, and she had known he would phone on time to the minute and why is she like this?

Why?

(Because she didn’t want to let herself hope, says a voice in her head that sounds annoyingly like her sister-in-law)

With a sigh she swipes and accepts the call, propping the phone up against the napkin holder.  It’s not like he’s never seen her dressed like this, and--

“‘Ello, Swan,” he says.

Emma says nothing.  She’s speechless, and it’s fucking awkward as hell; it’s just that she expected--no, she had no idea what she expected, but it’s not this, this calm, pleasant, familiar-but-not-creepy greeting over the rim of yet another one of his gorgeous coffee mugs and hers today has a line drawing of a cat making a face that just says “I do what I want” and that’s when Buttercup decides to introduce herself.

“Hi,” Emma says and hopes it isn’t muffled by the cat butt currently occupying most of the 7-inch screen.

“Hi,” he repeats.  He smiles and takes another sip.  “Who’s your friend?”

“Buttercup,” Emma groans, shoving all ten pounds of fur and cat off of the table.

“Honored to meet you, Buttercup,” he says, and nothing else.

He’s wearing a black hoodie and a red t-shirt and his hair is a mess and he hasn’t shaved but if Emma has ever had doubts that the years had been kind to Killian Jones--and she hasn’t, she’s seen pictures--they are immediately dispelled because his eyes still crinkle when he smiles, the way he is smiling right now, like he knows a secret, and--yeah.

Yeah.

She smiles, finally.  She has nothing to say and it’s--it’s fine. It should be awkward and unpleasant--and it was, but only for like a second, now it’s neither of those things, and if part of her is itching to look more closely at the background of his kitchen, at the framed prints and kitchenware and the glimpse of a bookshelf hovering over his right shoulder, she suppresses it, ignores the evidence of the life he is living, the life he has been living.  Without her.

In this moment, here and now, it’s just them.

It’s fine.

Killian sips his tea.  Emma sips her coffee. Finally she says, “It’s really nice to see you, Killian.  You look--” He smirks.  “I know.” “--like you haven’t slept in days,” she says with a grin. He laughs.  “It’s only 6 here.” “Yeah,” she says, “I know how time zones work.”  

--

full list of prompts

--

@justanotherwannabeclassic​ @profdanglaisstuff​ @thisonesatellite​ @katie-dub​ @kmomof4​ @captain-emmajones​ @mariakov81​

[mittensmorgul]

Wayward: Supernatural in Parallels (and a parallel universe as well)

aka I have spent the last four hours typing again, so here you go. :P

(at least I managed to keep it under 6k words this time!)

(shut up that’s kinda brief for me... now if only I could write 6k of fic in 4 hours I’d really be on to something...)

Wayward Sisters set itself up admirably as a spinoff, if for no other reason than it’s so deeply rooted in the original series without actually being that series. We already know all six of the main characters (some of them for nearly a decade, like Claire and Jody), and we know at least a little bit about about how they came to be where they are at the start of 13.10. But even more than that, this episode served so many parallels to the entirety of Supernatural’s past canon, but did so in ways that take all of those themes and wove something entirely new out of them.

All the seeds for the spinoff grew from the original, but they’ve been sown in a new field.

I needed to record as many of these as possible for future reference.

(under a cut because as I said, it’s like 5900 words deep and it’s 2:23 am and I am so not up to editing this tonight.)

The little girl Claire saves from the two werewolves in the cold open looked so familiar to me-- because she reminded me of the ghost girl in 2.11 Playthings. Not technically a parallel, but even from the promo clip with her in it my brain insisted that I’d seen her somewhere before.

Mr. Werewolf and his terrible knock knock joke was such a dark mirror to Kate the werewolf in 8.04. If she was the noble version, he’s the grotesque, right down to the way he uses almost the exact same movements to terrify an innocent as Kate used to get revenge on the guy who’d turned her against her will and murdered her boyfriend. The Winchesters rightly let Kate go (TWICE!) but Claire rightly kills this jerk.

Not to mention Claire’s very personal history with werewolves (and being one bite of a heart away from becoming one herself) in 12.16. This case, and rescuing a little curly-haired blonde girl from werewolves is a tidy metaphor for how Claire has developed as a hunter since we’ve seen her last. And she absolutely PROVES that she’s learned. She doesn’t hunt dumb like she did back in 11.12. She does her homework, and knew exactly what she was doing when she approached Mr. Werewolf’s lair. She knew exactly who she was there to save, how to approach the werewolf lair most effectively (DELIVERY! LAND SHARK!), and she kept her cool throughout the entire fight-- for the sake of the little girl.

This entire fight is also reminiscent of 11.17, just for the fact that she’s physically proving herself as capable as Sam and Dean are in a werewolf fight.

Her rescue of Amanda Fitzmartin from werewolves was a direct parallel of 12.06, and Mary Winchester’s rescue of Asa Fox from… you guessed it, a werewolf! Right down to the mother/child reunion scene on the front porch. I can only imagine that Amanda Fitzmartin may be a future generation hunter now, too… Then again, Asa took up hunting because Mary told him she was “retiring,” and he felt obligated to fill her shoes so that someone would be out there saving people. Claire told Amanda that everything would be okay, and then went right on hunting. Claire’s in a very different place than Mary was, despite the similarities.

Jody’s call to Claire-- “It’s Sam and Dean. They’re missing. They were on a hunting trip, and I haven’t heard from them for a few days.” Well, isn’t that just THE iconic line of the entire series? 1.01, top of the script, hello Dean Winchester. Not to mention 12.20 and how Alicia used the same line about her mother to get Sam and Dean’s help in finding her.

What’s DIFFERENT in Jody’s plea to Claire is, “It’s time to come home.” Home has always been such a nebulous concept for the Winchesters. For the longest time, the only home they knew was Baby. Their “apple pie life” was a pipe dream that they wavered on ever really believing they could have it, or if they even really wanted it the few times it seemed like it could be within their reach (Dean with Lisa after s5, Sam with Jess pre-series, Sam with Amelia after s7). It took a while, but they both now identify the Bunker as “home,” despite it not being a home in the traditional sense. And after Dean’s words to Cas in 13.06-- “Welcome home” as he hugged him at some alley payphone-- I believe their concept of “home” is more “the people we care about” rather than a fixed physical point on a map, you know? And after watching Wayward, and oopsie here jumping to the end for just a second, Claire says, “I'm staying because I need them, my family.” In both series, home is where the heart is, if you will.

Of all the hunters Alex could’ve mentioned that she’d tried calling while looking for Sam and Dean, she mentions Donna (who we’ll see in a bit here), and WALT. Aka one of the guys who killed Sam and Dean way back in 5.16, and who returned in 12.22 to help take down the BMoL.

Claire and Alex’s gentle teasing of each other is just… so dang sisterly. In the same way that Sam and Dean’s teasing of each other is just so dang brotherly, you know? “Did you miss me?” “No, not really.” Lines delivered deadpan followed up with the knowing little smiles.

Claire pointing to her cut lip and telling Jody, “It’s just a werewolf, no big deal.” Well, isn’t that exactly what Dean told Sonny in 9.07 when Sonny questioned him on how his wrists were injured? And heck, how many times has Dean diminished the seriousness of an injury with an “I’m fine” or a “no big deal.” To the point where in 12.23 when he meets up with Cas again, Cas doesn’t even bother asking if he’s okay, just rolls his eyes and heals Dean with a lil boop.

“When did we become huggers?” Well, Sam, Dean, and Cas seem to ask this of themselves every time they find themselves hugging… at least they used to. They’ve since become acclimated to the fact that yes, they are huggers.

Claire’s discovered that Jody let patience move into her room, borrow her sweatshirt, while she was away. But she takes the blame for leaving on herself. This calls back to a lot of the emotional baggage between Sam and Dean over the years in a far less toxic fashion (You chose a demon over your own brother? You didn’t look for me in Purgatory? Who are you gonna replace me with next? There’s a lot of that between the brothers.) But Claire lets it go. And they have Business to attend to…

Alex tends Claire’s wounds during their meeting to share what they’ve gathered so far about Sam and Dean’s disappearance, and then Alex gets up to leave for work. She has a job-- a real, regular job as a nurse (how respectable! In Dean’s words from 2.20). Claire is upset, because finding Sam and Dean should come first, but Alex doesn’t even argue about it. The entire dynamic is similar to Sam and Dean’s motivations in 1.01. Sam had a law school interview that he didn’t want to miss (which Dean initially assumed was a job interview), and described as his whole future on a plate. But Dean insisted they already had “the family business.” Just as Claire insisted her own job is hunting. Unlike Sam and Dean, Alex and Claire work this out in their own way, and Alex DOES go off to work. Her job is just as important as hunting to her, and she doesn’t compromise on that.

Patience’s visions in this context are so reminiscent of Sam’s visions back in the early days. She’s still trying to figure out exactly how they work, and exactly what they mean. And in a lot of ways what Clare seems to be feeling is a reflection of Dean in 2.05 when Andy mind-controls him into telling the truth, “He's psychic. Kind of like you. Well, not really like you, but see, he thinks you're a murderer, and he's afraid that he's going to become one himself, 'cause you're all part of something that's terrible. And, I hope to hell that he's wrong, but I'm starting to get a little scared that he might be right.”

It’s not an exact parallel, but the same sort of disbelief and maybe even a little bit (or a lot) of fear over what those visions might mean. And Claire addresses this later in this episode when she’s talking to Kaia while Jody and Donna are investigating the ship. So I’ll get back to that later… I’m finding it’s really difficult to take this scene by scene…

Claire’s difficulty with Jody “smothering” her while hunting reminds me A LOT of both Dean’s difficulty with John (when Dean first began to break away from blind obedience to John’s every order toward the end of s1), as well as Sam’s difficulty with Dean. How many times has Sam pulled the “I’m not a little kid anymore, I can do this” card on Dean? Exactly. This growth process hurts, and it’s terrifying, but it’s a give and take on both sides, and Claire and Jody both grow a lot by it. Because it’s not just Claire wanting to prove she’s capable, it’s also Jody’s abject fear of losing ANOTHER CHILD to the Supernatural. She would give anything not to have to relive what she went through with her son in 5.15. And Claire does begin to understand Jody’s point of view, as Jody begins to understand Claire’s. And after Dean admitted to Mary in 12.22 that he’s been both mother and father to Sam most of his life, this exact same dynamic can be applied to his over-protectiveness of Sam. There’s a balance to be found between Claire’s “run in head first” and Jody’s “find the perfect plan.”

Speaking of balance, Alex seems to have found a balance that works for her. It’s been a long time since 9.19 when Jody gave her a foundation to build a new life on, and as Jody said in 10.08 and we saw first-hand in 11.12, it wasn’t always easy. But Alex found a career that makes her happy, and in return she’s happy to help Jody with whatever she needs, be it housekeeping or monsters. She seems… settled. And she confirms to Claire that Jody (and by extension Alex herself) never stopped worrying (or thinking) about Claire even when she wasn’t around. It was a solid confirmation to Claire that yes, she’s still part of their family, regardless. And wow, how many times has this sentiment been expressed in Supernatural? Too many to count.

And Claire and Alex get their emotional baggage handled and properly stowed, and it’s right back to the Big Issue at hand. Where we discover that despite all their differences, they’re both on exactly the same page. Claire suggests searching the hospital database for “rock star aliases” in case Sam and Dean have been injured, and Alex confirms she already searched for practically every rock musician she could think of, “From metal gods to obscure hair bands.” And of course “obscure hair bands” makes me think of poor old Vince Vincente and Ladyheart back in s12. Their third album wasn’t terrible… :P

Incredibly enough, a new search for Jane Doe leads Claire to find Kaia in that very hospital (and heck, is it Sioux Falls General? Aka where Dr. Monsterface worked back in 7.02?) Claire finds Kaia and confronts her about Sam and Dean, and instead of needing to be broken out of “child prison” (10.09 for Claire) or rehab (13.09 for Kaia), they both walk out of the hospital. Except oops… there’s some Bad Things waiting for Kaia outside. She freezes in fear and Claire comes to the rescue… but Jody also came to the rescue, and only working together did they kill the Bad Thing.

Warning that here the Destiel Parallels become impossible to ignore or avoid. They’re just blatantly there, so freaking deal with it.

In the hospital, the first time Claire and Kaia see on another we get increasing close-ups of their eyes. Like… welcome to intense eye contact city. The scene is punctuated with an eerie swooshing sound effect to make it impossible to ignore as A Significant Thing.

Back at Jody’s while Alex goes from Nurse Mode into Monster Autopsy mode (snapping that glove on like a regular Dana Scully), Claire and Kaia have a Bonding Moment outside-- comparing scars. As we pointed out back in 11.15, Dean did this exact same thing while bonding with his childhood idol Gunner Lawless (and yes, not Destiel per se here, but definitely a queercoding of Dean and the exact nature of his youthful infatuation with this wrestler). And the trope started with a scene from Lethal Weapon 3, where Riggs bonded with his wife-to-be in the exact same fashion. And Claire and Kaia’s bonding over this is again shown to us through significant eye contact and smiles, and then beginning to open up about themselves in ways we’ve been told that Kaia never opens up to anyone. At least based off what we know of her from 13.09. This is Significant for both her and Claire, who’s been hunting alone for at least a year now. (like… all the Destiel parallels intended)

Back to the Monster Autopsy… this is so reminiscent of 7.09 for me, as a lot of this episode is. I was half waiting for the monster to sit up and start fighting again just like the monster formerly known as Gerald Browder did in 7.09. But unlike Gerald who’d been human until the “creatures from another dimension” got hold of him and fed him grey goop and turned him into a monster, the thing on the table in 13.10 is… really not even remotely human (and it wore a strange mask anyway, in a season of “masked things” and misidentified things). I even tweeted at one point while watching the first time that the monster’s blood was even visually reminiscent of the TDK Slammer goo. Which is interesting because in 13.03 when we first met Patience, there was a billboard announcing that the TDK Slammer was back at Biggerson’s for a limited time. And isn’t that just entirely amusing.

(also a depressing but necessary side note about 7.09-- the episode ends with Bobby shot through the head by Dick Roman. Dick was a thing that looked like another thing, a thing from “another reality” aka Purgatory in his case. But something that absolutely was not supposed to be on Earth. And of course 13.10 uses a LOT of parallels between Purgatory and The Bad Place. I’ll get to those soon.)

Claire convinces Kaia to open up about what she knows of this strange monster and where it came from, and therefore what happened to Sam and Dean. Kaia was convinced that if Sam and Dean are in the Bad Place, then they’re already dead. Much like Dean was convinced that Mary must already be dead in 13.01 when she was trapped in the War World. And much like Sam was convinced that Dean was already dead when he was trapped in Purgatory back in 8.01. And yet…

Sam and Dean are just having a lil camping trip. Well, Dean’s adjusted SCARY FAST to the Bad Place. I suppose that compared to Purgatory it’s kind of a garden spot. They say they’ve been there for two days already, and they haven’t seemed to have run into anything that’s threatened them. It’s not the sort of 360 degree combat we saw Dean endure in Purgatory anyway. He’s even bothered to stop for barbecue. Well, he’s bothered to trap a lizard and roast it over a fire he managed to build.

Poor Sam, meanwhile, looks disgusted at the mere thought of eating the monster land lizard, and rather uncomfortable in general. In the face of Sam’s uneasiness and insistence that they continue to look for the door back to their universe, Dean maintains his exceedingly practical outlook. “Eat up.” They’ve been there two days, they have no reason to believe the door is even still open, and nobody knows where to look for them. He’s been in this exact same spot before, in Purgatory, and learned very quickly there that you do or your die. There’s no point wasting energy fretting about it. I think it must be a switch he can just flip at will at this point, into Purgatory!Dean. We saw it in 12.15. We’ve seen it a few times since s8, actually. It’s unsettling, but it’s practical. It’s how you survive.

When the monster closes in on their little campsite, Dean takes his roast lizard on a stick to go. Unbeknownst to Sam and Dean, something human-shaped has been following them. They’ve seen nothing to raise their suspicions that it might even be a possibility that anything human-ish lives in that world, or that anything might pose a threat to them aside from the giant monster they keep hearing. They’ve been there just long enough to shift their priorities on what to keep their attention focused on that just by waiting them out, Darth Kaia is able to sneak right up to these two men who at ANY other time would’ve been on high alert about being followed. Like in 8.13 Dean had his “gay thing” with Aaron following him around, and Sam had “something stuck to my shoe,” aka their code word for “I’m being followed.” They have a LONG history of being hyperaware of their surroundings, so it took some kind of patience for Darth Kaia to wait them out like that.

Patience has a crisis of normality after watching the monster autopsy. She’s not sure she can handle the hunting life, and it’s Alex who convinces her to stay. Which is incredible because this was Alex’s crisis back in 11.12 when her own history caught up with her at a time when all she wanted was to be normal, to go to school and have a boyfriend and maybe go to nursing school. She didn’t want anything to do with monsters or hunting, as she and Claire talked about earlier at the hospital, but she’s found a balance that she can live with. She knows she can truly help Jody by helping with the hunting stuff when she can, and that it doesn’t have to be her entire life like it is for Claire. She can do both! And she also knows her limits. Alex isn’t a fighter for the most part, and Patience doesn’t have to be either. They can each have an important place there, though. “We help in other ways.”

As Patience is packing her car to leave, she has another vision of Jody’s house being overrun by monsters. Claire wants to stay and fight, but Patience argues back that they can’t win. And hooboy this is a fascinating parallel to 3.12, in about six different ways. RIP Victor Henriksen. Patience laying down the truth to Claire, and then using an interesting bit of technology to demonstrate the truth of the situation, much as Dean laid the truth out for Victor and Sam used an interesting bit of technology to trap and exorcise a gaggle of demons all at once.

For Sam and Dean, 3.12 also marked one of the points in the show where they were officially declared legally “dead.” It was a turning point for them, which in a strange way freed them up to do their jobs more effectively with far less concern over interference from human authorities, so they could focus on the monsters. In a way, this moment functions in a similar fashion for Patience, not that she’s going to be cut off from society as drastically as Dean and Sam were, but as a liberation of sorts, and an affirmation to herself that her visions are as important to the group as Claire’s fighting skills or Alex’s nursing skills. They all have a role to play. This just helps her find her way to it.

In some ways it’s also reminiscent of 3.15, and the trap Dean left for Bela at their motel, similar to the trap Aragorn helps the hobbits lay for the Ringwraiths in Bree. These monsters aren’t so much fooled by a trap, or decoy bodies left in beds, but they do arrive to an empty house while their quarry has managed to flee. I think this tactic has been used elsewhere in Supernatural, but since I’m just about at the halfway point of the episode and this essay is already nearing 3500 words, I figure I should probably try to be more concise...

Me… more concise. Talk about your freaky AU scenarios…

Whatever. Claire watches the monsters tear up Jody’s house via webcam, and she gets a sudden, shocking, undeniable lesson in the reliability of Patience’s visions, which brings to bear the full weight of the vision that brought her home in the first place, and the reasons that Jody was so terrified for Claire’s safety. For the first time all day, Claire is rattled. It’s one thing to go through life as a hunter knowing how hunters typically end up (and hello all 39 iterations of Dean’s “point of a blade or barrel of a gun” speech), but to know specifically how you’re going to die is entirely different. This was s3 Dean with the ticking clock to Hellhound Day. This was Sam during the Hell Trials.

And enter the D-Train. The ray of sunshine so chill that butter doesn’t melt in her mouth. And like the monster that signalled her first REAL introduction to the supernatural back in 10.08, Jody introduces her as someone who’s killed a lot of vampires. To think Claire wondered when they all became huggers before… “You too, Rainbow Brite. Come on, bring it in.” Donna brought the hugs. And the angel wing imagery behind her in this scene, combined with her nice tan coat. She’s our angel; our sunshine, as it were. And armed to the teeth (just the basics, because she’s from Minnesota).

Alex proves yet again that she’s an excellent Sam parallel, using the phone and Kaia’s vague clues to find the exact location where the rift opened. Please oh please let Alex have the same sort of Magical Wifi that Sam does. :P

When Jody and Donna leave to investigate the shipyard, Jody has Claire stay behind to protect the other girls, much like John used to do with Dean, ordering him to protect Sam. I mean, it has nowhere NEAR the sort of ick factor to John doing that in the flashback scenes in 1.18, for example, but there has been a consistent implication throughout the series that it was a constant state for Dean, and thank HECK this dynamic between Jody and Claire is shattered by the end of this episode.

Jody’s actually surprised when Claire agrees to stay and protect the other girls without much of a fight, because of what Patience’s vision might mean for her, as I mentioned above.

Donna asking who knows how to use a flamethrower… honestly Dean would be jealous. He and Sam have always had their jury-rigged camping fuel flamethrowers when they’ve needed literal firepower like in 3.02 and 4.05 among others.

Speaking of Sam and Dean, back in the Bad Place, Sam’s finally figuring out that they’re in an entirely different universe, and Dean’s annoyed by how muddy it is. Which was a rather hilarious reversal of Sam’s reaction to stepping in horse poop the moment they landed in Sunrise, Wyoming in 1861 way back in 6.18. Sam complained about the state of his boot, and Dean was all excited because AUTHENTICITY! But he’d been wearing his lil cowboy costume at the time, and we know how much Dean loves cowboys, despite the fact that he was far less enamored with “authenticity” and how much germier it was than he’d been expecting… but once he adapted his expectations back in 6.18, he kinda stepped right into the role of sheriff, just like he’s able to adapt to Purgatory and to eating monster lizard despite the germiness factor. He’s a delightful but thoroughly consistent bundle of contradictions, and I love him.

Enter Darth Kaia, who catches them entirely unaware and off guard. They were entirely convinced that the only potential danger to them in this world was whatever huge thing they kept hearing in the distance. They hadn’t run into any of the creepy Monster Autopsy critters that constantly plagued Kaia in The Bad Place, and after two days, it’s entirely understandable that they would begin to let their guard down at least a little bit. Heck, it’s like Westley and Buttercup in the Fire Swamp, except nobody ever told them about the ROUS’s. When Darth Kaia sprang out of nowhere at them in full-on kung fu attack mode with a spear, they were honestly lucky to survive. They’d been flung as far from the portal into that world as Kaia was flung out to that abandoned roadside where the ambulance found her and had picked a random direction to wander in search of a portal the size of a party streamer in an entirely foreign universe. A portal they weren’t entirely sure was still there to find in the first place. Everything about their situation had them on their heels for once, even more so than Purgatory did for Dean (where he was at least expecting to be attacked from the moment he landed, by a pack of red-eyed monsters he later referred to as “gorilla wolves” in 8.02). And funny that the Big Monster in the Bad Place has a skull that vaguely resembles a gorilla, and the smaller red-eyed monsters were scripted as “Canids,” aka “dog-like monsters.” Again, in so many ways, The Bad Place is similar in design and function to Purgatory.

Back at the abandoned shipyard, Jody and Donna find the Impala and know they’ve found the right place. They find the melted angel blade and scorched angel wings from 13.09, as well as the portal, but encounter a very large pack of the “Canids.”

Claire and Kaia have another heart to heart reminiscent of some of Dean and Cas’s conversations. Claire expresses some of the same sorts of self-doubt and fear that Dean did at the end of 4.16 while lying in the hospital bed, telling Cas it’s too big, and he can’t do it. But Claire feels she can’t stand back and let others handle this alone. Kaia encourages her with, “If you go, I’ll go with you.” And how many times have we heard Dean and Cas offer this to each other? Very recently in Dean’s offer to accompany Cas to his angel meeting in 13.07. But also highly notably in 11.23 when Cas offered to go with Dean to face Amara. In situations large and small, they have offered to go with each other. But unlike the majority of Dean and Cas’s I’ll go with you’s, Claire accepts Kaia’s offer. They DO stand together. They ACCEPT the help and support. (Can we please have this gradually begin to happen with Cas and Dean? I mean, even something small like Dean running out to pick up pizza or something, and Cas offers to go with him, and Dean’s like YES GOOD I WOULD LIKE THAT.)

“Maybe together we can save them.”

Meanwhile at the rift, Donna wants to go back and tell the girls they found it, but Jody is ready to go into the rift alone. “If I don’t, she will.” She knows Claire would run into danger to do what she believed was right. That’s how you save people, after all. But here we see into what’s motivating Jody to protect Claire from danger-- “I can’t lose another child.” And I know I mentioned this about 3k words ago, but the Canids pose an immediate threat and Jody is forced to turn back from running headlong into the rift the way she was trying to prevent Claire from doing. This motivation to self-sacrifice to save someone else-- a child-- is what motivated John’s deal with Azazel in 2.01 in exchange for Dean’s life, and what motivated Dean to sell his own soul in 2.22 in exchange for Sam’s life. Jody’s only saved by circumstance, but it gives her a chance to step back and reevaluate that choice, and to see Claire clearly, to let go of her need to protect Claire at all cost.

Back in the Bad Place, Sam and Dean come to tied to a couple of trees in a foggy forest. I feel like yelling, “I hope your apple pie is freaking worth it!” because this feels just like 1.11. Instead of being sacrificed to the scarecrow, they’re being sacrificed to the Kaiju.

Meanwhile Claire has tried to call Jody, but when Jody doesn’t answer, Claire goes immediately into Concerned Mode. All four girls unite immediately into “Together we can save them” mode. And it’s beautiful.

Donna and Jody take refuge in an abandoned car aboard the ship, lying across the front and back seats in a configuration identical to the way Sam and Dean slept in 11.04-- the Winchester Motel. But instead of a cooler full of beer, Jody and Donna have a swarm of Canids trying to figure out how to get at them.

(wherein we discover that Canids are really not the smartest monsters…)

If they make a run for it, they’re dead, but if they stay put they’re dead too. Kinda feels like a situation typical of Supernatural, yes? What they need is a miraculous intervention.

*enter the flamethrower*

And Claire is so chill and competent with her flamethrower that it brings a smile to Jody’s face. And in that moment she might still hate the whole idea of it, but she knows she’s gonna let Claire go through that portal without too much fuss… especially after she realizes that the portal is shrinking. Claire tries to run through it and Jody holds her back, though not to stop her. To tell her she knows. Jody understands. As much as Claire needed to save Sam and Dean, Jody needed her to know that she understood.

Donna, ray of sunshine and weapons training officer. OKIE DOKE, HERE YA GO. and then “Oh there he is! Hiya, buddy!” When there was just ONE Canid, but Donna absolutely does not lose her cool when she sees it’s a veritable swarm of the things coming at them. Bless. “Okie doke” reminded me so much of that security guard in 2.12 that Dean liked because he said “okie dokie.”

Kaia knows right where Sam and Dean probably are in the Bad Place, just from the sound of the Kaiju monster. Claire shows up and cuts Sam and Dean free in a circumstance reminiscent of Sam showing up to cut Dean and Emily free in 1.11.

At the portal, Kaia shoves Claire out of the way just in time to save her from Darth Kaia’s spear, and instead she takes the spear wound to her own side. Need I even bring up all the Fisher King symbolism here that was so incredibly prominent in s12 surrounding Cas? The comparison has already been made to Ramiel stabbing Cas with the Lance of Michael, but it wasn’t just that one episode that draped Cas in Fisher King/Wounded King parallels. I believe many of those also apply to Kaia…

As she lay there dying, she reaches out and grabs hold of Claire’s hand while Sam and Dean have drawn their angel blades to stand off against the now apparently disarmed Darth Kaia. Except that’s when the Kaiju shows up…

Claire ignores her own safety in the face of that much larger threat, and charges at Darth Kaia in a fit of rage/grief over Kaia’s apparent death, and Dean has to grab her and pull her through the portal just as it snaps closed. Cue the parallel to Dean dragging Sam away from Jess’s burning bedroom ceiling in 1.01, and Sam pulling Dean through this exact same sort of portal in 12.23 when he was struggling to run after Cas.

Meanwhile Patience struggles to understand the vision that brought her to Jody’s in the first place-- Claire’s “death.” The editing of this scene is spectacular-- cuts between Kaia’s body in the Bad Place, Claire in Jody’s arms both in Patience’s vision and in reality, and Patience herself putting all of these pieces together. Death, life, and what she believed was a death was actually profound grief… and again this has been a theme of s13 through Sam refusing to grieve for Mary and his belief that she was not only alive but that they could save her, Dean’s grief over Cas’s death that he believed was permanent, to the point he’d lost all hope for anything and was ready to die in 13.05 until Death herself told him he still had work to do.

Whatever the truth of what’s happened to Kaia, there is absolutely work to do here, as well.

Dean says “I tried talking to her.” Not “we” but “I.” He’s beginning to use the proper words here. This issue has been going on for a loooong time, where Dean phrases things in terms of “we,” such as in 11.23 during the infamous Beer Run, telling Cas he’s like “our brother,” and always couching his feelings as inclusive of Sam as well. This was nicely lampshaded in 12.20 by Max Banes calling Alicia out on her attempt to do the same thing, and in 13.07 Dean FINALLY told Cas “I’ll go with you,” instead of “we’ll go with you.” The fact that Dean is talking about himself like this regarding anything even in the same arena as emotional issues is just… fantastic all around.

Claire feels responsible for Kaia’s death, after promising to protect her. She feels she failed, and that that was the reason Kaia was killed. Jody doesn’t dismiss any of Claire’s feelings or try to talk her out of them (the way Sam and Dean have done for, like, ever), only offers her unconditional support whenever Claire’s ready to accept it.

Cleaning up after the Canids tore up the house, Patience has a lil moment of shock over the fact she killed a monster. Donna smiles knowingly and Alex chuckles and says, “Welcome to the family.” Like Claire said in the cold open, “I kill monsters, that’s who the hell I am.” Well, that’s what this whole family is. They save people and they kill monsters.

Darth Kaia has opened a rift to our world, in the middle of a park reminiscent to the place where Mary turned up in 12.01… opening about a million other mysteries along with that rift.

I know I didn’t cover all the parallels. That probably wouldn’t be possible considering how many times the show has looped back around on itself thematically and narratively, but I think I hit all the big ones here. Now how the hell do I even begin tagging this?

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿ヽ(°□° )ノ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵