#but its fine bc im writing a fic (supposedly) and hopefully if its any good then it'll do a decent job of exploring that

[gayairbud]

i dont wanna say too much bc i wanna explore it more in my fic but like. let me just ramble out some incoherent thoughts for a second here

i really do think its interesting when ppl say cas would like.. willingly give up his grace, completely selflessly, for dean. bc to be honest, i dont think he would! i think if the only way to save dean was to give up his grace, cas would do it in a heartbeat; but i dont think he would do it selflessly. he would struggle with it. he would fail to reconcile the knowledge that he had to save dean, that it was the only way, that he would do anything to save dean and would do it again, with the fact that he very much did not want to lose his grace, to lose what made him him (in his eyes) and what made him useful (again, in his eyes). 

like, theres 3 things i know to be true about cas: hubris is and will forever be his downfall, he desperately wants to be selfless but struggles to be entirely so, and being an angel is incredibly important to him (altho its a point of obvious contention given how much its led him to suffer) 

taking endverse cas as my personal favorite example: hes cas at his absolute lowest, rawest, bad end point. given in wholly to his selfish desires, no hope, no longer an angel. he thinks of himself as worthless and clearly regrets the fact that hes become human. canon cas, who hasnt reached that rock bottom, still has these feelings festering, hes just nowhere near giving in to them (or really even aware of them, in any way he could presumably define). but whenever cas is forced to become human, or when his powers are failing, its something that very clearly upsets him (even when he tries to make his peace with it). i think its pretty fair to say that even if he chose to be in a position of no longer having angelic powers, he would be less than thrilled about it, but would likely feel like he had to give that up because he doesnt see himself as worth anything other than whatever he can sacrifice for others. 

all that to say i think if cas ended up in a position where he sacrificed his grace to save dean, it wouldnt be this grand gesture that ends with cas becoming human and happily living out his days with dean on an “even playing field” or whatever. cas would be resentful about feeling “forced” to give up his grace, but guilty about being resentful because he really chose to do it and it was to save dean, and ashamed to be struggling with reconciling all this in the first place. because to him, the answer should be easy: what reason could i possibly have to not sacrifice every last ounce of myself to save dean winchester?