#cas is a girl-dad too if you consider claire

[afeelingsosweet]

UNPER!!! I hope you're feeling a little better!!! Sending you lots of hugs and kisses <33333.

To distract you from the horrors, consider the following: If you could take one supernatural character and make a spin-off series about them, who would it be and why?

Thank you!!! I'm 10 hours in and doing way, way better. My back had the decency to give out right when I was about to leave the house this morning so I at least had my backpack with a nice bottle of water, a packed lunch, and my phone with me. Can't ask for more y'know? 😆

Oh that's a great question 👀

Gotta be the LOML Claire. She's just theeeeee most interesting character ever! A bigger person than I could ever be. I understand her intentions (in theory) but I could never forgive Cas (and Dean and Sam) the way she did. A celestial being stole your dad and tore your family apart and your mom hasn't been the same since. Your dad comes back but he isn't the same and he leaves again and this time it's forever. The monster goes on wearing his face and gets to have a life and live and breathe while looking like the man who raised you and then this angel has the audacity to ask about you? To pretend to care about what you're doing to survive? The angels took your dad but now your mom is lost too, you're all alone and both your parents chose to leave you. You're so alone and all you want is to be left alone but the angel keeps coming back and he wants to make things right and his isn't the love or the care you wanted and it can never be the same as your actual dad's but he's still there and you open up and begin to care.

You are a lesbian from a religious family. Your parents may have loved you but they wouldn't have accepted you. You try not to think about that because you miss them more than you love yourself. When you kiss a girl for the first time, you realise that you don't have to worry about what your mother would say because she's gone and then you spend the rest of the night hating yourself for even thinking that way. You can't talk about this to anyone but you look for a purpose in the world because if you can help everyone else, maybe you can stop thinking about the guilt and loneliness that haunts every single family memory.

Time goes by, you're able to look at him and not see your dad but a person of his own and you begin to begrudgingly take his advice and stay in contact and one day after the apocalypse you try to find out if everyone you love is okay but something's wrong and no one is telling you what it is, that's when you find out that the angel took a deal and sacrificed himself and he's gone. He's not your dad but he's done what your dad did. He said he'd stay and that he wanted to make things right but he's betrayed you. You learn that he did this to save his child and you've lost him all over again. Would you even forgive him if he came back?

The amount of love and loss she carries in her heart, it's frightening.

I know that some of her plotlines were introduced to have her as a dean-mirror but the levels to it. It makes my head hurt.

She's a kid who lost one parent and could've had a halfway-decent life but the surviving parent was blinded by the loss and abandoned her. Her own lineage makes her an angelic vessel but she feels profoundly unholy. She becomes a hunter who just wants her family to be safe but everyone she loves leaves her.

She's angry and afraid and manages to forgive, time after time and finds her purpose outside of the shitty hand she's been dealt in life.

[astudyinfreewill]

“it all comes down to the soul(s) in the end”: or, characters make the story work, and not the other way around

outing myself yet again as a dabb era critical blog here but. i just think the difference between carver era and dabb era is that carver era was character-arc driven while dabb era was overarching-main-plot driven with some good character moments thrown in (which may be to do with the fact that - iirc - during carver era for a while they didn’t know if they’d get renewed so they couldn’t plan too far ahead and just progressed the story by increments, as opposed to dabb era knowing they had a longer time frame to work with and deciding the plot beforehand). 

the thing is, i think most of us can agree that after the kripke era - which, for all its flaws and setbacks (hello writers’ strike), had a self-contained myth arc involving both an internally coherent narrative and certain well-defined character beats - and going into the gamble “hot girl summer but make it angst” era, the appeal of supernatural relies largely on the characters. it has to, because for a show to keep running after 6-7 seasons, you have to be invested not just in the story/stories being told, but in the people driving the story forward. it simply won’t work otherwise.

and - to my perception at least - the carver era (perhaps largely due to ben edlund’s imprint in s8, lbr) knew that. some examples of what i mean:

it gave dean an arc about dealing with the toxicity of his upbringing and his unhealthy attachment to sam, as well as starting to explore other meaningful relationships for himself (benny, charlie, and of course him continuously reaching out to cas) - essentially it allowed dean to confront that he wanted things. 

it gave sam an arc about dealing with his trauma re: demon blood, and having to confront what it means to be good, how he always felt impure through no fault of his own - and it shifted him over into accepting that his calling in life is as a keeper of lore and mentor to other people, by contrasting the failure of the sam/amelia relationship with him finding the bunker and discovering a different part of the hunting world

it forced cas to confront what he wants for himself, by making him deal with his own changing nature (being human, then an angel again, and the whole arc about living on borrowed grace), and with the other angels falling and what that meant for him; he got the chance to be on his own and be with the winchesters, to both make mistakes and be a leader to other angels - and then give up that leadership by choice because he prioritised his human family to his reputation in heaven (which should have been a clear indication of endgame human cas but i digress)

it brought in compelling new characters - primarily charlie and kevin, though they were both horrendously mistreated by bucklemming writing them off - claire novak as an angry teenager, aaron and his golem, metatron as a fascinatingly meta (ha) antagonist, rowena as a frenemy, and gave old characters compelling story beats (crowley and his “humanity addiction”). also, it had writers like robbie thompson who were attuned to the fan community in an unprecedented way.

with the dabb era, i feel like because they’d set their mind on where the story was going (e.g.: killing dean, having a new and “better” god in place, giving sam a white picket fence ending) they didn’t really care if they had to break the protagonists’ characterisation to get us there. we still had moments of great characterisation - steve yockey episodes first and foremost, and of course robert berens carrying the dean/castiel beats - but mostly, characterisation came second to what the story would need. this is how we get dean winchester, friend and protector to kids everywhere, being A-Okay with sacrificing a kid he supposedly cares about, not once but several times over, because the plot needed Emotional Stakes™️.

(and this, by and large, is my issue with jack as a character too, because he spends so much of his time on the show so clearly being a plot device - a literal deus ex machina - that he ends up being not very compelling to me. “but baby jack!” i hear you say. and yes, yes, he’s cute and i like him, but listen -- his characterisation reads as a blank slate because ultimately that’s what the narrative needs from him - and there’s a whole separate post i could make on that, really). 

but i think the main problem is that the endgame the dabb era had in mind conflicted openly with the stakes they had set up in the carver era - and that the most attuned writers kept up with even in seasons 12-15, which is why the finale felt as stridently wrong as it did (other than being ridiculously badly written). by which i mean:

dean was set up as wanting something more for himself, more than hunting and violence, and we see that in moments - but it’s not what he ends up getting. additionally, he spends so much of seasons 8-10 breaking down his toxic traits, and then bam - suddenly, he’s turned into john 2.0, because the story demands it. 

sam was set up to become a new kind of hunter, one with a men of letters background, and find happiness in the life - so you get a side plot where he successfully organises and leads a group of hunters - but ultimately he leaves all that behind and abandons the bunker (and eileen, his natural companion going forward). 

cas was set up as choosing humanity over heaven because that’s where he wants to be, and choosing to become a hunter because he wants to be useful and do good - but that gets boiled down to “cas is still an angel but now he’s Also A Dad and that’s his one purpose in life now” (i’m sorry, i am not here for the hot take of “jack is good for cas because he can’t just revolve around dean”. first of all, that’s a disservice to cas’s character over the seasons, and second of all-- oh but it’s ok for cas to just revolve around jack? it don’t make no cents luv!)

i don’t think story-driven eras are inherently bad. i enjoyed seasons 1-5, but they take place when we’re still getting to know the characters; and there is a certain evolution for them there that you may like or dislike, but it makes narrative sense for them. but if you decide to go forward into a new era with well-established and beloved characters, you have to know who the characters are and what they want or your story will always ring hollow. the main problem i have with the dabb era is that it decided the story it wanted to tell - and didn’t stop to consider whether the characters living it out would actually organically fit into it. and isn’t that chuck’s whole mistake?

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

So I watched 10.09 recently, and it has that part where Dean tells a story about him basically being almost roofied as a teen, but somehow it ends up framed as the funny joke and yet another proof that John "did what he could", and I kind of hate this? And it's the same episode in which MoC!Dean killed guys that kidnapped and tried to rape Claire, and you'd think writers would've addressed the parallels and acknowledge that Dean could've been triggered by this situation. 1/2

2/2 But in the end, it's never addressed, and the whole situation is framed as the proof that Dean is evil now. And I'm not even sure what I am trying to say, but with that being the show's approach back in s10, I'm not surprised about the finale anymore. Guess we should've known?

That’s an excellent angle to look at the issue because the Mark of Cain arc is a clear example of how people with different experiences will see the same thing in wildly different ways. There’s this phase of season 10 where everyone is like “oh no Dean is Getting Worse” and when you look at what Dean is doing... you actually go “...good for him”.

Let’s give Caesar what belongs to Caesar. It’s not “the writers” in this case, it’s Dabb. Plenty of other writers don’t fall into this John apologism thing. Just look at how the episode before Lebanon, written by Buckner and Ross Leming, says that sometimes John would temporarily kick Dean out because he was “pissed at him” despite Dean always taking his side to mantain the peace. It almost seems like a statement to sprinkle some salt given what Dabb does in Lebanon, you know? Maybe not, but there is a tension between “John was shitty” writers and “John did his best” writers.

In hindsight, we gave Dabb too much of the benefit of the doubt. We were like, weeell, that’s supposed to be way the characters perceive the truth, which is distorted by the trauma... But now it’s obvious that he truly believed in the John-did-his-best version. He brought him back and got Mary back with him. No matter what happened to the finale, the network didn’t print those pictures of John and Mary to hang on Sam’s wall. He never took Dean’s abuse seriously and it shows.

The “anedocte” of Dean getting drugged and “saved” by John from being raped is obviously there to parallel him with Claire. Which works! It’s so weird because it’s like. You are soooo close to getting the point. Younger Dean was assaulted just like this teenage girl is assaulted and Dean saves her... but apparently John yelling at those people is a good way of dealing with the issue, while murdering child traffickers is an overraction thus bad.

That’s the problem, isn’t it? That Dean’s murder spree is framed as an overreaction. Sam is like “tell me you had to do this! tell me it was you or them!” - the answer to which (by the narrative) is obviously no, it wasn’t self defense, he just killed them because he could. He just murdered those men for no reason except he felt like being murdery. And the audience is supposed to be like “oh no! Dean is murdery for no reason except for murderiness! That’s bad!”.

But it’s a power fantasy, isn’t it? Going on a murder spree on rapists and traffickers. I bet any people who’s been violated like that has fantasized of doing the exact thing Dean does here. Killing them all.

Dean had the physical strength and skill to kill them all, why shouldn’t he kill them? (I mean, in real life I’m against private justice because I’m a fan of the state of law, but the Supernatural universe obviously works on different principles than the state of law. Again, it’s a fictional narrative that plays out as a fantasy for the audience, so.)

So what was Dabb’s intention? I’m afraid it’s the worst one. “John Winchester’s not going to win any Number One Dad awards, you know? But, you know, damn if he wasn’t there when we needed him”. What the fuck, Dabb? It’s been established since season 1 that John WASN’T there when they needed him. Which... I’m afraid... leads us to the Cas-Claire plot in the episode. Cas has fucked off with Jimmy’s body leaving Claire on her own. Parallels how John wasn’t going to win wny Number One Dad awards. But! Cas is there when Claire Really Needs Him i.e. when she’s about to be raped by older men. Parallels how John was there when Dean Really Needed Him i.e. when he was about to be raped by older men.

I think the point is to say, Cas kinda sucked because he took Claire’s dad away but hey! He’s actually a good figure for Claire because he gets there in time to prevent her from being raped. Just like (ew) John kinda sucked as a father because hunting and stuff, but hey! He’s actually a good figure for Dean because he got there in time to prevent him from being raped.

It’s pretty yucky. Literally NOBODY wanted a parallel between Cas and John. But he made one. And he made one to absolve Cas from the guilt he carried for what he did to Claire (Claire’s mother is a mother so who fucking cares about her. She’s basically a Blurry Wife(TM), she’s only a tool for Claire’s arc, Cas apparently only cares about the harm he did the child, not the wife, for some reason.) and to absolve Cas from his guilt it absolves John too. Don’t worry, being a parent is hard. You often screw up. But you can *looks at smudged writing on hand* prevent the kid from being raped by predatory adults and everything’s fine now.

It’s not really important if the child suffered hunger or whatever, the only important thing is that they don’t get raped, because that’s bad, everything else is just a little detail.

All Dabb got with that scene was to paint Sam as extremely unsympathetic because he’s no longer a child, he’s a full adult now and still thinks of that episode at the CBGB as a funny story. That’s not a good look. It almost makes you think that the writer himself saw it as a funny story. Lol teenage boy biting more than he can chew. But then why the Claire parallel? The Claire scene onviously is not supposed to be anything but horrific. I'll give Dabb the benefit of the doubt on this specific thing.

It’s weird, yes, because Dabb wrote Dark Side of the Moon where he establishes that John was a bad husband/father even before tragedy hit the family. But apparently that’s the “not going to win any Number One Dad awards” part, I suppose? I guess he intended to write John as this flawed, ~complex~ figure who was imperfect but still brave and whatever blah blah did his best blah blah. I’m all for flawed complicated characters but a horrible father is a horrible father. A rose by any other name... parental abuse is still parental abuse even if the poor guy was complicated and traumatized and did what he thought he had to do to prepare his sons for a violent world.

Also, the story frames Dean’s escapade as a teenager being stupid. “You know what he got for that? Me whining about how much he embarrassed me. Me telling him that I hated him. But then he stopped and turned around looked at me and said, Son, you don’t like me? That’s fine. It’s not my job to be liked.” “It’s my job to raise you right.” This seems straight from a novel about teenagers doing something stupid that they’re too young to realize that their parents are right to be against them doing. But this isn’t just... a parent walking into a bar to stop their child to drink alcohol. Dean literally describes feeling sick from something that was inside the alcohol.

Sure, it makes sense that he’d lash out to John because of the shame and shock. But the scene is... off. Are we supposed to see this as a typical teenage mistake? Are we supposed to read it as something as horrific as what happened to Claire, literally sold into rape? Or, worse, are we supposed to see what happened to Claire as a teenage mistake, ah silly teenager, blindly trusting shady people, no wonder you end up in a situation where you’d get raped if a father figure didn’t sweep in and save you. I hope that wasn’t the intent.

To get back to Dean’s Mark-of-Cain violence, the writers clearly didn’t intend it to come from the Darkness up to a certain point. It was supposed to an arc about your own inner darkness (consider the Charlie episode, a couple episodes later). Then they came up with the idea of The(TM) Darkness, the suppressed cosmic feminine. While it caused a bit of dissonance in the subtext, it doesn’t really change Dean’s narrative, because his inner darkness is the trauma, and his trauma is inherebtly tied to the “feminine” i.e. the parts of him that don’t fit seamlessly into the scheme of toxic masculinity values. That the violence that comes from the Mark of Cain comes from Dean himself and that’s it, or is connected to the Darkness, it doesn’t change what it means for Dean. Dean and Amara have parallel histories, the feminine principle locked away, the trauma the anger stems from.

In 10x09 we’re still in the Before The (TM) Darkness era, before the suppressed cosmic feminine. The Mark of Cain arc is still about... well, Cain. But the shift is the signal that someone looked at Dean’s arc and said... you know what? “Lucifer gave me this curse so now I’m demonic and murdery” is meh. “Toxic masculinity suppresses the feminine and it creates trauma which rage and violence comes from” is more interesting. I don’t know whose idea it was, but it was a good idea, and surely the idea came from seeing how Dean’s MoC narrative was unfolding.

Dean’s MoC narrative was unfolding in a certain way, in fact, because of a pretty simple reason. There’s a fundamental tension in Dean’s MoC arc. We want him to go murdery, but it’s also our main character, so we don’t want him to do really horrible things because he still needs to be relatable. The audience cannot hate him, so he must NOT do something entirely unforgivable. He still needs to be somewhat relatable, even when demonic or demonic-adjacent.

So he goes on a murder spree... but it’s rapists and child traffickers. He’s demon, but he kills a misogynistic dude that wanted his wife dead for cheating on him. He’s a demon, but beats up dudes that harass women. He does a slaughter, but they’re nazi. He’s off the deep end, but works a case of kidnapped and abused young women...

Speaking of which. 10x23, written by Jeremy Carver. Dean works a case where a girl was killed while dressed scantily and Dean makes some slut-shaming remarks, and we’re supposed to think “whoa Dean, that’s bad”. But later he confronts the girl’s father and what does he say?

I’m just doing my job, Mr. McKinley.

By suggesting my daughter was a slut?

I’ll admit that thought crossed my mind. Then I came here, and I smelled the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervade this home.

You shut your face right now.

And you know what? I don’t blame Rose anymore. No wonder she put on that skank outfit and went out there looking for validation, right into the arms of the monster that killed her.

Back then the episode was super controversial and everyone hated the case because of the apparent slut-shaming but I loved it! Because it’s not about the girl. It’s about Dean. Dean doesn’t think that a girl gets killed because she dresses in a miniskirt so it’s her fault. Dean is projecting on himself and he’s not actually victim blaming the girl, he’s victim blaming himself. And when he absolves the girl by putting the blame on the father... well, subtextually he’s absolving himself by putting the blame on his father. On the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervaded his own home. He’s textually not ready to absolve himself, of course, he summons Death to ask him to kill him later, but subtextually he’s on the right path.

Rose McKinley basically did the same mistake Dean did at the CBGB when he trusted some older people who offered him drinks and the same mistake Claire did when she trusted a man who sold her for money because he offered him a place and stability. She trusted the wrong people (in this case, vampires, which adds the whole subtext of vampires and sexuality) who took advantage of her. Except Rose had no one to save her. (Her friend, Crystal, gets rescued by Dean, even if he causes the other hunter Rudy to die in the process.)

Carver’s writing is pretty brutal. The girl made that mistake because was abused at home, so she was desperate for validation and that desperation drove her into the wrong hands. (Rose even has a brother who blames himself for bringing her sister to her future murderers, destructive sibling relationship check.) It doesn’t actually even matter if Dean guessed right about Rose’s family situation, because what matters is what it tells us about Dean. He basically relates to a dead abused girl. Actually all through the season Dean is paralleled to “skanks” “sluts” and sex workers. Obviously this happens kinda all through the show, the whole “the business is based on absent fathers” thing happened much earlier in the story, so it’s not new. But s10 draws a picture of female suffering - abuse, manipulation and death. Season 10 was difficult to go through. In hindsight, it was probably on purpose because it was supposed to be darkest hour of the feminine. Summed with some good old fashioned misogyny, but hey.

The Carver era was wonky but Carver wanted to free the feminine. (I believe that Mary’s comeback, while written by Dabb because of the showrunner shift, was planned before the showrunner shift.) We thought the Dabb era wanted the same, with Mary choosing life and Amara being independent and so on, but it evidently wasn’t the case. Not a single woman arrives at end of the story. It’s hardly ~Bucklemming or ~the network or ~covid because it starts before the very end.

I’m not saying that dead sluts are more feminist than living women, but if the women die or disappear anyway (and they did) I’d rather have an exploration of trauma than nothing. And I definitely prefer a dead slut narrative that calls out parental abuse than a narrative where women live but abuse gets the you-did-your-best treatment.

Whoops! I digressed! But feel free to ask for any clarification or send me any observation or thought.

[ender-baggins]

Just watched 14x13 Lebanon.

Will preface with the fact that this was a bit of my commentary on the previous episode, and that I do think John Winchester was a crap parent

Lebanon was a pretty good episode, actually. I know some people hate it, and I started off prepared to seethe every moment that John was on screen. but then I managed to get one foot out of the John-crit zone and put it in Sam and Dean’s shoes, and looking at it from both perspectives? The episode has a lot of nuance to it.

Spoilers for this 14x13 Lebanon (obviously)

Overall I think the most important thing to remember about this episode: the theme is that some things are too good to be true.

I knew which episode it was, but I was surprised because I thought it has been in season 15, and then John didn’t show up for a while, so I thought I was wrong until the Pearl came up.

I gotta hand it to Jensen. When John appeared, there were so many emotions packed into Dean’s face in that first short scene, I had to rewatch it several times to get them. Part of it was simple shock, but I could also see… something a little like panic in his face, along with Waay too many emotions for me to name.

The conversation between Sam and John was… I started off mad and then focused more on Sam’s perspective and realized that… yeah, Sam isn’t the same person he was last time he saw his dad. And he didn’t get closure. He never got a chance to get real closure on it, and then here, he did, at least in some form.

Also, interesting thing I noticed- I could see the beginnings of how it could turn into another argument, and John said something that seemed a little accusatory, “you didn’t have a problem talking about it before you left,” and then Sam was like “nope, not gonna argue, not gonna do it, REDIRECTING-“ Which, after what Dean said in the scene before—

—Sam doesn’t want to mess this up for Dean. No way is he gonna start a fight, not now, not when they just got their dad back.

I don’t like the last line of Sam and John’s conversation: “But you did your best, dad. You – you fought for us, and you loved us, and… that’s enough.” Because honestly- it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t. And… dammit he could have done better. But then again, that’s Sam’s dad, and he’s been dead for over a decade, and sometimes people tend to put rose-colored glasses on over the past. So I’ll still happily condemn John’s parenting but I won’t condemn Sam just because he’s unable to see things for what they are in this case.

Now- my absolute favorite part of this entire episode is the section of Sam and Dean going to get groceries and noticing things are changed, and realizing “oh shit, what else is different?”

One, gotta love Dean for implying that Sam being a kale nut is a worse thing than Dean being considered a serial killer by society (which, it’s not like society is wrong??). Like, ah yes, wonderful priorities there, Dean. You’re a wanted killer with your face up in the town, but clearly Sam giving a lecture about the wonders of kale is a much worse thing. (If you can’t tell, I’m being incredibly sarcastic here)

And then here. Castiel’s appearance. I was screeching watching this. Completely freaking out- so much adrenaline. I bet if I’d taken my pulse it would have been skyrocketing-

This was followed by the scene of Castiel and Zachariah in the restaurant, which was Awesome, very clearly highlighting the difference that Dean and the Winchesters made in Cas’s life (later this will be relevant in the Confession - “You changed me, Dean”).

*cue me posting an unnecessary amount of screenshots*

Castiel unfurls his wings—

(Note the messy hair from flying around everywhere. Not the same as his old haircut, but they did what they could with Misha’s hair at the time)

Notice that Dean’s got the angel blade point down, and when he attacks Castiel, he’s using the blunt end to hit him, not the sharp end

(On the other hand, Sam uses the sharp end of the blade to swipe at Castiel. No judgement from me here, Sam sees this as “not our Cas” while Dean still sees this as “my Cas, I can talk him away from Heaven again.”)

Then, the most interesting thing here- when Cas pins Dean agains the wall, Dean’s not even trying to fight Cas here.

See how his hand settles on Castiel’s chest? Not really pressing, just touching. His other hand is gripping Castiel’s wrist, I imagine to try to remove enough pressure from his neck that he can speak. Trying to use his connection to Cas to get Castiel to stop hurting him. And it doesn’t work. Castiel stares him the eyes, not even a flicker of doubt or questioning.

You’ll note that I referred to alternate Castiel in this episode as exclusively “Castiel” and not “Cas.” Because it’s not Cas. Cas is the angel that saved Dean from Hell, and the angel that’s been by Dean’s side for 11 years (at this point in time). And this Castiel has not done that. So he is not Cas.

I’m reminded of the scene wayy back in season 5 where Cas beats Dean up in the alley for trying to give up and give in to Michael. There, Dean actually encouraged Cas to kill him, at the end, and Cas softens. Can’t exactly parse out the parallels there because my brain isn’t working, but there you go.

Now, probably my favorite conversation with John is this one, with Dean.

Right here. The way that Dean says “I have a family.”

It feels almost defiant. “I do have a family. I have Sam, Cas, Mom, Jack. My mother, my brother, my best friend… and I have a son, we all have a son. And beyond that, I’ve got Jody and Donna and Claire and the girls. I do have a family. Yeah, it doesn’t look like the apple pie life, the white picket fence, wife and kids, and yeah, our son is the child of Lucifer, and yeah, I’m in love with my best friend who’s an angel in a man’s body, and I wouldn’t trade him for any woman, and you’d hate that. But they’re my family. And I’m good with that.”

It’s proud, it’s a little defiant, it’s also a little bit of a reassurance, as we see from John’s smile afterward. I don’t think John caught the hint of a challenge in there.

I loved that moment. That might be my favorite line in the entire episode. “I have a family.”

I also like… Dean’s acceptance, “I’m good with who I am.” Part of that… I think it’s both a good thing and a sad thing and also a half lie at the same time. I think he’s good with who he is, in the sense that he’s accepted that he and Sam are the people that have to fill this role in the world, y’know, saving everyone. I think he loves the people he’s with, he loves his family and wouldn’t trade them for anything, not even having John back. No way would he ever trade Cas or Jack or Sam, or Mary, for anything else, ever.

It’s sad, though, because it’s like… he can’t imagine who he’d be if he had a different life. Yes, he’s had a few runs at an apple-pie life, but they weren’t happy, there was always something wrong nagging at him. He… I think he believes there’s no way for him to be happy, and that this is the best he could have.

I’m not even sure how to analyze the goodbye scene. I mean, the clearest thing here is just so much grief from everyone. They got a taste of their father back, and now he has to go back to being dead. There’s so many complicated feelings for both of the brothers, because of the complicated relationship with John, but in the end? They can’t help but love him, and they can’t help but feel grief at losing him. I won’t fault them for that.

In short, I wanna give Dean a gigantic hug and also give him therapy-

And then Cas coming back to the bunker when he did. I bet he sensed something and headed back to the bunker as fast as he could. Also, no clue what he experienced during the whole “Castiel and Zachariah are alive” thing. I imagine it’s possible there were two Cas’s running around for a bit? Because Mary didn’t get affected by the pearl. And Sam was there with his own memories, despite there being videos up of him doing things in the parallel universe. As for Cas, he’s part of Dean’s group of “people” so my guess is two Castiels running around for a little bit.

I like how Dean looks at Cas at the end. He’s relieved to have his angel back.

In summary-

The theme of this episode is “some things are too good to be true.” John came back, the four of them got their moment together, but John couldn’t stay. Things were good for that single afternoon, because everyone was just happy to see each other again, but it sent so much stuff into chaos that it couldn’t last, it had to be undone. And even then, if they’d tried to keep going with it, I know it would have degraded, the illusion of perfection would shatter, and they’d fall into old habits, old arguments and new ones.

And so it had to end.

[interrogatethecat]

four is a magic number

wc— about 1.6k

jack, my beloved 4 year old. happy birthday!!

On any given day, Jack was a bundle of energy. He was almost constantly brimming with excitement, pulling whoever was nearby off for some escapade or another. Hence why Cas wasn’t surprised when he woke up to a small body jostling the bed and small hands shaking his shoulder.

“Daddy! Dad, guess what?”

Cas grumbled something into his pillow. He loved Jack, but it was far too early to be awake.

“It’s my birthday!” Jack declared.

Next to him, Cas felt the bed shift as Dean sat up.

“It sure is, kid,” Dean said. “How old are you again?”

“Four!” Jack said.

“Four, huh? You’re getting old,” Dean teased, then added, “How do you feel about birthday pancakes?”

Jack’s grin widened. “Yeah!” Then, he started shaking Cas’ shoulder again with renewed importance. “C’mon, Daddy! Dad’s gonna make birthday pancakes!”

Cas mumbled something into his pillow along the lines of, “That’s great, Jack.”

Dean huffed a laugh. “I think Daddy needs a little more sleep.”

The shaking stopped. “But isn’t he excited?” Jack asked, a little more subdued. “It’s my birthday and you’re making birthday pancakes.”

“He’s very excited,” Dean said, “He just needs his coffee.”

“Oh,” Jack said, nodding seriously. “If we make him his coffee will he come in for birthday pancakes?”

“Yup,” Dean said. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of Cas’ head before pulling back to stand up.

“Can I give Daddy a kiss, too?”

There was a small, soft smile on Dean’s face. “Sure.”

Jack pecked the same spot on Cas’ head where Dean had kissed him. “There’s your kiss, Daddy.”

“Alright,” Dean said. “Let’s let Daddy sleep now. You ready for those pancakes?”

Jack cheered and scrambled off the bed. He grabbed Dean’s hand and dragged him out of the room, presumably in the direction of the kitten.

on ao3 here, or continued under the cut.

Cas took another fifteen minutes or so before following them.

Jack was propped up on the kitchen counter, legs swinging as he watched Dean mix the batter. When he caught sight of Cas, he beamed.

“‘Morning, Daddy!” He pointed towards the coffee machine. “I helped Dad make you your coffee. He let me sit on the counter!”

“I see that,” Cas said, moving towards the coffee, but not before giving Jack a small smile and saying, “Happy Birthday.” He was in the midst of pouring himself a mug when two arms wrapped around his waist.

“Sleep well, Sunshine?” Dean pressed a kiss to the side of his neck.

“I did.” Cas put down the coffee to turn around and peck Dean on the lips.

Jack giggled from his perch.

Dean rolled his eyes. “What is it, Jack?”

“You an’ Daddy are being cute,” Jack said. “Claire says it’s gross.”

“Don’t listen to Claire,” Dean said, moving back towards the stove. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Dean,” Cas scolded lightly, taking a sip of his coffee.

“But she’s older than me,” Jack reasoned.

“Yeah, but I’m older than her.” Dean began to pour batter onto the griddle.

“And I’m much older than both of you,” Cas reminded Dean, “and Jack can listen to Claire.”

Dean grumbled, but didn’t argue.

“Can I tell you a secret, though, Jack?”

Jack leaned forward eagerly. “Uh-huh!”

“Claire is cute with Kaia a lot,” Cas said, winking conspiratorially.

That set off another fit of giggles.

Dean shook his head fondly. “You’re a dork, Cas.”

Cas took another drink, smiling. “You love me for it.”

“True.” Dean flipped the pancakes, offered Cas a grin, then turned to Jack. “So, birthday boy, what do you wanna do today?”

It was all incredibly domestic and Cas could hardly believe it. There they were, him, Dean, and Jack, celebrating a birthday. Sam, Eileen, Garth, Bess, Jody, Donna, and the girls were all set to come over in a few short hours. A year ago, they had been, yet again, trying to prevent an apocalypse, but now…

“Cake!” Jack said.

“I think cake sounds like a good idea,” Cas agreed.

Now, it was nice to see them all so happy. Not quite carefree, but not constantly looking over their shoulders. Getting to have— getting to enjoy— these little moments.

“And presents,” Jack added.

“We can do that after everyone else gets here,” Cas promised.

“Actually,” Dean said, piling a stack of pancakes onto a plate, “I have one present that you can open before everyone shows up.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “Really?”

Cas squinted at Dean. “You do?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. There was a satisfied shine to his eyes. “But first… birthday pancakes!” He set the plate on the table with a flourish.

Cas set down his mug and moved to help Jack off the counter.

The moment Jack’s feet touched the floor, he was racing over to the table, taking in the stack of pancakes, topped with a generous amount of whipped cream and four brightly colored candles.

“What do you say to your dad, Jack?” Cas prompted gently.

“Thank you, Dad!” Jack looked at them hopefully. “Can I blow out the candles?”

Dean ruffled his hair. “Go ahead, kid. Make a wish.”

Jack grinned. He blew out the candles without hesitation, then started on the pancakes.

Cas turned to Dean curiously. “What did you get him?”

Dean winked at him. “You’ll see.”

With Dean, that could mean any number of things. Before Cas was able to wonder and figure out what, Dean was back at the stove and calling over his shoulder, “I’ll have your breakfast ready next, angel.”

Between forkfuls, Jack launched into a story about how yesterday at school, they found a frog under the slide and named it Toad. Apparently, their teacher let them bring the frog inside to keep as a class pet.

The story went on until after they were all finished eating and Jack hopped up from the table. Bouncing with excitement, he asked, “Can I open my present now?”

Dean stood. “Follow me. You too, Cas.”

Jack was right on Dean’s heels as he led them back to his and Cas’ room.

Cas’ confusion only grew. They weren’t keeping Jack’s presents in here— they had stashed them in the laundry room; Jack never went in there. While Jack wasn’t in here consistently, he would likely notice if they tried hiding them here.

Dean put a hand on the knob of the closet door before pausing. “Alright. Both of you, eyes closed.”

Jack perked up. “Are you giving Daddy a present, too?”

“I am,” Dean said, “but not until both of you close your eyes.”

Jack screwed his eyes shut. “They’re closed!”

Cas looked Dean over suspiciously. “Dean—“

“Just close ‘em, Cas.”

“Yeah!” Jack agreed. “Close ‘em!”

They were both excited— Jack was hardly able to stand still, and Dean just barely refraining from opening the closet.

With one last squint in Dean’s direction, Cas complied.

The door creaked quietly as it opened. There was some rustling as Dean shifted through its contents, then—

“Open!”

Dean stood in front of them grinning widely, a cowboy hat in each hand, as well as one on his head.

Jack rushed over, grinning just as radiantly when Dean put the smaller of the two hats on him.

“I get to be a cowboy!” he exclaimed.

“We all get to be cowboys,” Dean corrected. He held up the other hat. “Well, oh-partner-of-mine, what do you say?”

Cas sighed. He recognized it from a case years ago, where Dean had claimed it would help them “blend in with the locals.” Despite his reasoning, Cas still had a strong suspicion that that hadn’t been the real reason Dean had convinced him to dress up.

“You’re ridiculous,” Cas told him, eyes crinkling fondly.

“No, he’s a cowboy,” Jack corrected.

Dean dropped the hat onto Cas’ head. “The birthday boy is right,” he said, evidently pleased. “Now we’ve gotta get a picture.”

Cas felt just as absurd in his hat, sweatpants, and t-shirt as he had on that case wearing the hat and his trench coat. Same as on the case, he couldn’t refuse.

After Dean had fished his phone out of his nightstand and crowded the three of them together for the picture, Cas moved to pull the hat off.

Jack shook his head vehemently. “No! You hafta keep it on so we can show Uncle Sammy!”

Dean poorly attempted to conceal a laugh when Cas accepted defeat and replied, “Of course, Jack.”

“Awesome!” Jack said. “Can we have cake now?”

“Later, buddy,” Dean assured him. He slung an arm around Cas’ shoulders. “Let’s wait for everyone else before that.”

Jack frowned, then perked back up. “Can we go outside and look for frogs? Toad is probably lonely without a friend.”

“I’m sure he is,” Cas said. “We can go look for frogs.”

Jack grinned. “Race you!” He took off, cowboy hat falling over his face as he ran. He pushed it back up as he hurried out of sight.

Cas looked over at Dean. “Did you get him that for him or for you?”

“For him,” Dean insisted. “We’re starting his education early.”

Cas wasn’t quite sure if he believed him, but he nodded. “I can see that.”

“Dad! Daddy! Are you coming?” Jack poked his head around the doorframe.

“We’re coming,” Cas said. “We were just talking.”

“Okay,” Jack said, grabbing their hands. “Now let’s go!”

As Jack pulled them along, Cas turned to Dean to ask, “Did you make the cake?”

Dean froze. “Shi— shoot.” He tugged on Jack’s hand to get him to stop and crouched down so they were level. “Hey, kid. I’ve gotta make your cake real quick. Can I come join you and Daddy outside in a little bit?”

The four year old considered it, then decided, “No.”

Dean and Cas shared a confused look.

“Why not?” Dean asked.

“I’m gonna help you make the cake!” Jack announced. “Then we can all go outside together.”

An hour and a half later, Cas felt even more ridiculous, covered from head to toe in flour, cowboy hat included.

Jack’s smile was infectious and worth it.

tags: @epizkey-saltnpepperdean @earthboundangel @top13zepptraxx @destiel-is-canon-i-guess @fellshish @gayhuckleberryinatrenchcoat @https-castiel @holmesemrys @linaraiscorner @castielsbeeslippers

[big-wet-cas-eyes]

Peppermint

Day 7(?) of @jellydeans and @galaxycastiel‘s Destiel December 2020

it’s just a lot of fluff. again | ao3

Dean wakes up and reaches out next to him for Cas, but Cas isn't there. Panic starts to set in until he smells bacon. He lets out a sigh of relief and relaxes. Cas is just making them breakfast.

Dean gets out of bed, splashes some water on his face to wake himself up, and brushes his teeth. He finds a sweatshirt on the ground and pulls it on to make sure he's prepared for the cold of the hallway. He walks into the kitchen to see Cas standing at the stove. He looks up and smiles when he hears Dean come into the room.

"Mornin'," Dean says sleepily, giving Cas a kiss that's almost too gentle to even consider a kiss. "Coffee?" he asks hopefully.

"I went out and got some," Cas says, pointing to a red cup on the counter. "I told the girl working that my fiancé would want something Christmas-y and she suggested this."

Dean pats over to the cup and pours it into the mug sitting next to it on the counter. "When did we get this mug?" Dean asks, taking in the "I LOVE MY GAY DADS" written on the side.

"An engagement gift from Claire," Cas explains as he gets back to cooking.

Dean chuckles. He takes a sip of the coffee and immediately spits it back into the mug. "Ugh! I should've drunk some water after I brushed my teeth. It tastes like mint now."

"It's a peppermint mocha, Dean."

"Oh… well, peppermint mochas taste like toothpaste."

"We use the same toothpaste, Dean," Cas says, eying Dean curiously. "I had one too and it did not taste like our toothpaste."

Dean looks into the mug and sniffs it again. It definitely smells like toothpaste. He wrinkles his nose a bit.

"You don't have to drink it," Cas says with a sigh. "I can just make a pot of coffee when I'm done here." He gestures to the pan of eggs.

"No, no, I want it," Dean says. He walks over to Cas and kisses him on the forehead. "Thank you. I love it and I love you."

"I love you too," Cas says before reaching over and pulling the mug from Dean's hands. "And this is mine now. Go start a pot of coffee."

"Fine," Dean says as he busies himself with the coffee pot. "What's the occasion anyway? Why are you making breakfast?"

"For Claire."

"Claire? Is she coming to visit?" Dean asks, confused.

Cas looks at him curiously for a moment. "You haven't checked your phone yet."

"Uh, no?"

"Claire is upstairs taking a shower. She texted us last night that she would be stopping by on her way home from a hunt. I figured you would have seen when you woke up."

"She's here now? Why didn't you say anything?" Dean asks, too tired to properly process Cas's explanation.

"I just told you that she gave us an engagement gift. Where did you think it came from?"

"Oh, uh, I didn't think about that. Still need to caffeinate, you know." He gestures at the coffee pot that's sputtering to life. "How long is she staying?"

"Just through breakfast, I think. She wants to get back to Kaia."

Dean smiles. He's glad Claire is happy. "So we're just a substitute for a motel then?"

"Perhaps, but she did say something about being excited to see her dads when she got here."

Dean considers this for a moment and then asks, "Do you ever think about it?"

"Think about what?" He does the little head tilt as he asks the question.

"Kids. Being dads," Dean says, voice slightly hushed. He's not exactly sure where the question came from. 

"We are dads."

"I meant to a baby. Not to a blonde tornado and God himself." He loves Claire and Jack, but his mind is suddenly filled up with a vision of himself holding a baby with Cas's blue eyes. "I love them, but we didn't really know them until they were nearly adults. I always kind of assumed I'd have a baby someday," he adds.

Another head tilt from Cas. "You want a baby?"

"I don't know. Maybe?" He sighs. "Yes, I think I do."

"We can talk about it. I'm not opposed." Cas shrugs lightly, but there's the beginning of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

Dean breaks into a huge grin. "Really? Do you want to talk about it now or —"

He's cut off when a flash of blonde hair and flannel sweeps into the kitchen and wraps Dean up into a hug. "Hey, old man!" Claire says brightly, head pressed against his chest.

"Hey there, kid. It's nice to see you. How'd the hunt go?" He puts his hands on her shoulders and pushes her back to get a good look at her. She looks like Cas, but she's dressed like Dean. She really is their kid.

"It was easy, just a run of the mill vengeful spirit. Only took a day to handle, and an extra day in town just to make sure everything was fine," she says proudly.

Dean beams with pride. "That's my girl." He wraps his arms around her into another hug. He looks over to Cas and mouths, "we'll talk later." Cas gives him and Claire a fond smile and nods in agreement.

Dean is happy with their little family the way it is, but he can't help but think about how this morning could be improved by the addition of a baby.

-----

~*tags*~

@pixelhanzo @vaxilddan @nguyenxtrang

[adhdeancas]

For @theangelwiththewormstache, I kind of went all out and searched through your blog to see what you like and headcanon, sent a few sneaky asks to find out more, and wrote in all the things I wanted for everyone’s happy ending. it got... unbelievably long.

Merry Christmas and enjoy :) 

Love, Cas over at @let-me-live-in-peace and @samwinchestersleftshoe

PS: thanks to @destielsecretsanta2020 for organizing this!

Click.

Dean sighed and nodded, pulling the phone away from his ear so he could stare at it expectantly. Right about…

It rang. 

“Cas,” Dean said languidly, like an asshole who didn’t know why his boyfriend was calling him back.

“Sorry. I forgot again.” 

“I know.” Dean couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice if he tried. And he tried.

“I love you.” 

“I know.” 

“Dean.” A hint of well-earned annoyance. 

“I love you too, Cas.” 

“Bye.” And another click. Dean grinned and pocketed his phone. The dumbass was still too impatient to wait for an answering goodbye. Guess they’d never be the couple to argue about who should hang up first. Then again, Dean kinda liked it this way. It was just a few more seconds of teasing and a special call to say I love you, that was kind of nice, right? Jesus he was a sap.

“Earth to Dean? Wanna stop daydreaming about your boyfriend for a sec and get back on task?” Claire was standing there waving a hand in his face, bitchface firmly planted. Dean gave her one back.

“Don’t be homophobic.” 

She rolled her eyes. “I’m gay.” 

“Yeah.” Dean kept walking, looking around at the rows on rows of Christmas trees. He stole a glance back at her. “Where is Kaia anyway?”                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Claire blushed and crossed her arms over her chest. She would never tell him, but Kaia had hung back to give her some alone time with Dean. “She wanted to hang out with Jack. Guess she didn’t want to stare at your ugly mug all day.” A grin then, as Dean laughed at her joke.

“Fine, fine, guess you’re stuck with me.” 

They roamed around a bit, both insisting on cutting down their tree themselves, Claire winning the fight to get to carry the ax. (Yes, Sam had suggested they bring a chainsaw. They had both refused because they needed to “earn the Christmas tree.”)

“Cas wanted a fraser fir.” Dean remembered, pointing to the section marked for them. 

He felt, rather than saw, Claire roll her eyes, which, that’s exactly what Dean had done when Cas first told him. “Dork. Do you always do what your boyfriend tells you?” 

Dean shrugged. “Pretty much. You?”

“Yeah.” They shared a soft smile before going back to their regular shit-talking. It was just The Dynamic. They searched a little bit more before they found one, the perfect tree that was big enough to make them both giggle over what Sam’s reaction would be when they brought it home.

It… takes longer to cut down a tree than you would think. Than either of them thought. Especially when you bring an ax and especially when you choose an obnoxiously large tree. They took a break about halfway through, sitting down in the snow and passing the thermos of hot chocolate Jack made them take back and forth (Claire spiked it with Bailey’s, which Dean chose not to comment on but was grateful for).

“Hey Claire… is it weird? Seeing me and Cas,” 

Claire looked at him warily, seeming to consider what possible ulterior motives he had. Then, figuring she was the one with the ax, she answered. “A little. But I never saw my dad this old. Or this gay.” She gave him a grin and Dean flipped her off, taking the ax out of her hands to get back to the tree. “It’s good.”

Dean paused. “What is?” 

“You and him. You’re good for each other, you can tell. Don’t overthink it.”

Dean’s lips curled up. “Sounds like something Cas would say.” 

“Yeah, well, sometimes the dork is right. Don’t be an idiot.” She shook her head at him. “Jody had to remind me all the time at first.” 

“What?”

“That I… y’know. Deserve it. Her. To be happy.” She put the last bit in quotes, saying it sarcastically, but Dean could see the truth of it in her eyes.

“Yeah, well, Jody’s smart like that.” He took another swing at the ax and tried to believe it for himself. It got easier every day.

------

Cas was left at home with Kaia and Jack while Dean and Claire got the tree and Sam and Eileen got food supplies. (Dean had protested, but Sam had -correctly- said that if given free rein, he wouldn’t get any vegetarian options and would get 10x more junk than they needed.) Jody, Donna, Alex, Bobby, Charlie, and the rest wouldn’t be here until the next afternoon. Christmas afternoon.

“So what should we do first?” He was a little bit nervous, being once again put in charge of the kids. 

“Paper snowflakes?” Jack suggested, his excitement all too obvious from the smile on his face. Kaia glanced at him, amused by his obvious enthusiasm. Claire had braided his hair before she left while Kaia painted his nails (black, because they don’t own any other color of nail polish). It was clear they were pretty bonded.

“Sounds good to me.”

Kaia had to teach both of them how to make paper snowflakes. Cas tried to make perfectly symmetrical snowflakes; Jack kept cutting his in half on accident which made a bunch of smaller snowflakes. Hey, it worked.

“So… what’s the deal with you and Dean?”

“Deal?” Cas flushed a little. Everytime someone asked it thrilled him all over again. He was dating Dean. Dean. Was his. Had told him so, straight to his face. And he got to kiss Dean whenever, and sleep with him, and make him make noises only he got to hear, and listen to all his worries and weird fears and recaps on the latest episodes of Dr. Sexy.

“Cas?” Jack was knocking on the table lightly. Kaia had two raised eyebrows and a little smile. 

“That good, huh?” She could relate. Everytime she thought about Claire she felt all warm inside, and going home to her at the end of the day was like a dream, especially after being apart for so long. 

Cas looked down, called out. “That good.” he agreed.

“How disgusting are they, Jack, on a scale of cute to rip your own face off cute?” Kaia leaned over the table now, shit-eating grin plastered firmly on her face. Jack looked delighted to be in on the joke, which made Cas happy in spite of himself. Jack really needed this time with kids his own age. (Well, kind of. He was technically three.)

“Well, they do cook together…” 

“Do they do that thing where one of them comes up from behind and puts their head on the other’s shoulder?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Dean or Cas?”

“Cas watches. He can’t cook.”

“Hey!” It was true. Cas was just arguing for the principle of it.

“But the movie nights are the cutest. One of them always falls asleep on top of the other one.”

“Probably at like 10 o’clock. You guys are so old.” Kaia teased, shifting her attention back to Cas. 

Cas shook his head and pointed his finger at the two of them. “I never should have had children.” Kaia stuck her tongue out and Jack followed suit. Proving his point. Kids.

---------

“Hey, you dorks just gonna let us do all the work, huh?” Dean shouted from the garage.

“Yeah motherfuckers, get in here!” 

Cas let out a half-hearted “Language!” before following Kaia and Jack through the halls. Claire pulled Jack into a side hug first before tugging Kaia in for a kiss. Dean would’ve followed suit, except Claire had actually left him to carry the whole fucking tree himself, which Dean, like an idiot, had actually attempted. Cas hurried over to help him, which earned him a glare lined with gratefulness. 

“Oh yeah, have a happy little reunion over there, don’t mind me or this giant tree!” Dean griped at the kids. “Let the old men handle it!”

“Hey, you said it first.” Claire raised an eyebrow at Dean and pulled Kaia and Jack off into the bunker, probably to go find Miracle. Dean sighed heavily, muttering under his breath.

“You brought that on yourself.” Cas informed him, grunting under the effort of holding up half the tree. 

“Thank you, babe. Very helpful.” Dean rolled his eyes. Cas pretended he didn’t feel a jolt of happiness at the most sarcastic ‘babe’ he’d ever heard.

-----

They managed to haul the giant-ass tree into the library and set it up, barely. It did almost crush Cas, but Dean tugged it upright at the last moment, prompting a joke about Cas dying again. (“Hey, you’re not allowed to make those anymore, you’re human now, dick.”) And a kiss that all the kids whooped and hollered at.

Then Cas showed Dean and Claire around the decorations they’d made while they were out. The greatest hits included paper snowflakes, ornaments, and a Christmas tree on the wall made out of old license plates. Dean clapped Jack on the shoulder to congratulate him on his crafts while Kaia held Claire’s hand and pretended not to be affected by the praise sent her way. 

By the time Sam and Eileen got back, they’d decorated the tree, all the chairs in the bunker, and the stair-rail with lights and tinsel. Sam let out a whistle when he came back in, which brought Miracle, Jack, and Cas to greet them. (Claire and Kaia were busy telling Dean all about their local gay bar. Which, considering they lived in South Dakota, was quite the story.) 

Dean’s eyes lit up as soon as he saw his brother and Eileen come in the kitchen with their bags. “Okay Dean, before you ask, we went with apple, pecan, pumpkin, and cherry.” Sam looked at Dean warily, who stared back at him over the girls’ heads with narrowed eyes, deciding whether or not to fight. The amount of pie ingredients he’d put on the list had been truly outrageous.

“Would like to remind you that the kids are making cookies and cheesecake too.” Eileen reminded him. Dean continued to look around suspiciously until Cas sat down on his lap.

That’s great, Eileen. Cas signed to her. He will be fine.

Eileen rolled her eyes. Whiner. Sam let out a snort and Cas grinned at her. Dean glared. 

“What’re you saying?” 

“Learn to sign better and you’d know.” Sam smirked.

“I’m working on it!” Dean protested and wrapped his arms around Cas’s waist, tugging him in possessively. He was going to try to sign something else but settled for a middle finger pointed straight at his brother. Hey, it was sign language.

Cas leaned back and kissed him on the cheek for his efforts. His memory landed on one particularly frustrating night for Dean when they’d been practicing his ASL (Cas knew every language of course) and Dean just couldn’t remember the most basic of things. Lamp, field, tree. The more frustrated he got, the more words started to leave him. He’d started swearing under his breath and stomped out to the porch to cool off, followed by Cas a few minutes later. Cas still remembered the drained look in his eyes as he looked at Cas. 

“I feel like such a fucking dumbass, Cas. I know it’s not that hard, it shouldn’t be that hard, Sam makes it seem so easy…”

“Dean, you are learning. It’s okay if it takes you a little time. Sam has experience with ASL, doesn’t he?”

Dean had sighed and conceded this. “Yeah, he took some in college I think. I just… I never took any language, you know? Didn’t seem as important as woodshop or sex ed.” He grinned half-heartedly at his own joke.

Cas smiled back and pointed at him, signing o and k. You’re okay.

He repeated the signs, nodding. I’m okay.

I love you.

I love you too.

-----

After the pies were made and chicken noodle soup in the crock pot, Cas and Dean relinquished the kitchen to the kids and retired to the Dean cave. Sam and Eileen were cooped up in their room until they were allowed back into the living quarters by the kids. They didn’t want their creations critiqued or tasted before they were ready.

Cas waited patiently while Dean typed away on his phone, eyes narrowed to see the text. He refused to get reading glasses or enlarge the print on his phone, even though he sorely needed it. Cas kept his complaining about it to a minimum though because he liked the wrinkles around Dean’s eyes when he squinted. It reminded him that he got to grow old with Dean.

Dean looked up finally to see the fond look on his lover’s face and blushed, guilty. “Sorry, just checking with Kara.”

Cas nodded understandingly. As always. “The bar will survive without us for a few days.”

“I know.” Dean looked down, a little pleased he could admit it. “I just miss it.” Wow, to have a life he could miss, and to miss it from a peaceful holiday vacation surrounded by his family. It was… surreal. 

“What do you want to watch?” 

Dean sank back into the cushions, thinking. “Die Hard?” 

Cas smiled at him. “Is that what you want to watch?” 

Dean rolled his eyes and flipped around so he could lay his head in Cas’s lap. “No.” He admitted it grudgingly. Cas could read him like a book. It was inconvenient sometimes and other times, like now, it was nice. “Just seems like the thing to watch. Y’know, Christmas Eve.” 

Cas shrugged. He put a hand in Dean’s hair, just like he liked it. Dean closed his eyes almost at his touch; he’d gotten much more comfortable letting his guard down like that lately. It had taken a while though, months of Dean staying rigid in his arms before he could relax quicker. “There are other things to watch.”

Dean reached a hand up and cupped Cas’s jaw with his hand. “Whaddyou wanna watch, sweetheart?” 

Cas couldn’t help but turn his head to kiss Dean’s hand. Dean only called him sweetheart when he was feeling particularly tender, usually a few whiskeys in. This time he happened to be both. Cas loved it. “What about a double feature?”

“Hm,” Dean scrubbed his hand along Cas’s stubble and thought. Cas’s stubble was one his favorite physical things about him; sometimes Cas accused him of petting him like a cat. “What ones?” 

“First… It’s a Wonderful Life.” 

Dean cracked a grin and opened his eyes. “Clarence?” 

Cas blushed. “I miss her sometimes.” 

“Should I be worried?” 

Cas tilted his head, pretending to consider it. “Considering she’s a demon? Probably.” Meg was banished to hell with the rest of the demons that had gotten out of the Empty, but given their old friendship with the Queen of Hell, that didn’t mean much for them.

“Psh, demon-shmemon. Been there, done that.” Dean pulled Cas down into a kiss, making him bend over into an awkward position that made Cas giggle. “Being a human is much sexier.” 

“I agree.” 

Dean waggled his eyebrows at him suggestively. “Wanna make it a triple feature? Little hanky panky for intermission?” Cas rolled his eyes, which Dean interpreted as a solid yes. “What is our second movie, anyway?” 

“Huh.” Cas booped Dean on the nose. “Love Actually.”

A slow, dopey smile spread over Dean’s face. “Okay.” He paused, thinking about it. He’d pushed Cas into watching it years ago, when they were still just friends, by ‘accidentally’ adding it to his Netflix Queue and then letting Cas loose for movie night. He’d watched Cas for his reactions the whole time (and only gotten distracted by looking At Cas a few times). It had been a couple months ago when he told Cas about that. “Second favorite thing about being queer is being able to watch sappy shit like that.” 

Cas rolled his eyes. “You were able to before, Dean.”

Dean ignored him. “Ask me what my favorite thing is,” 

“What’s your favorite thing?”

“This.” He burrowed into Cas’s lap. A sap and a flirt.

“I thought you were gonna say Taylor Swift.” A dry witted old queen.

Dean snorted into his stomach. “That’s my third favorite.”

----

“Alright, gang, what do we say? Same place tomorrow morning, let’s say… 5?” He spun around to look at everyone, a wide smile on his face. Everyone seemed less enthused than him, although Sam seemed to think his situation was amusing.

“Dude, I’m not twelve, I’m not waking up at 5 am to open a few presents.” 

“Like hell you aren’t!” Dean was smiling but it was less of a happy smile and more of a disbelieving one. Cas squeezed his arm then, stopped him from continuing his argument. Dean glanced at him and he just stared and gave him another squeeze. 

Dean knew what that look meant. It meant ‘Dean, you’re overreacting again, calm down and think about it’ and also ‘stop being such an asshole’ and probably also ‘wow you’re eyes are really pretty’ knowing Cas.

He took a deep breath and pecked Cas on the lips. “Alright, princess, what time are you willing to drag your lazy ass out of bed?”

Claire smirked and sent a look at Kaia before leveling back at Dean. “Eleven.”

“Eight.”

“Ten. Final offer.”

Dean considered a moment then extended a hand. And shook. “You have yourself a deal.”

----

After they went to bed, they talked about it. These days, they always talked about it. It was one of the things Cas had brought home from his shrink appointments, and, as much as Dean hated to admit it, it worked. Helped.

Cas changed into pajamas and stretched, sending a look back at Dean. Dean rolled his eyes and started before Cas could prod him to. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Cas raised an eyebrow at him. “You hate the morning.” 

Dean pursed his lips and shook his head, then pulled down his pants, because you should never have a conversation with your boyfriend with pants when you could have one without pants. These things he was learning. “Yeah, I do, it’s just… it’s Christmas.”

“Yes, it is. Isn’t it supposed to be a day of relaxation and fun?”

“Yeah, but it’s supposed to be exciting! Kids jumping on their parents bed at the asscrack of dawn to go to the tree, that kinda shit!” He shrugged, getting stupid worked up over it, he knew. He knew. Cas pulled him in by the hand and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Come on, tell me how I’m being an asshole.”

Cas rolled his eyes. “What part of ‘you do everything for love’ do you not understand?” 

“How is me freaking out over Christmas morning ‘for love’?”

Cas didn’t flinch away from the self-deprecation. “You want them to have the Christmas you never got.”

Dean sank his head onto Cas’s shoulder, thinking about it. He was right, of course he was, he’s always right. Cas can read him like a book, even when Dean himself didn’t know what he was doing. “I guess so, yeah.”

“That’s admirable. But the Christmas they deserve, same as you did, is the one they want. Which might not be the one you wanted.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right.” he sighed heavily. More than he wanted his kids to have a motherfucking Christmas-card Christmas, he just didn’t want to be the ruin of it. Didn’t want to be John. “Sorry you have to shrink my head all the time.” Dean muttered softly. Cas pulled him away and kissed him, slow and soft. 

“You pay me back tenfold.”

“You’ve got a shrink.”

“I meant with sex.” Cas met his eyes, face stoic as always. He would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for the glint in his eyes. It gave him away.

Dean threw back his head and laughed.

“Motherfucker.”

“I don’t have a mother.” 

Dean shook his head, grin splitting open his face. Cas himself was trying to hold it together; he kept having to push down the corners of his mouth so he wouldn't break. Dean crowded closer, determined to ruin that composure. He walked his face right into Cas’s, only reaching for his lips once they were already bumping together. Then he fell into it, pulled Cas toward him to get more, settled into the easy mesh of their bodies until Cas ended up knocking his knee against the bedframe with a loud thump.

They dissolved into a pile of breathy giggles, too giddy and soft to work up the energy to get frisky. Dean just shrugged off his shirt and pulled Cas closer to him. “You know you’re the best thing to ever happen to me.” Dean told him seriously. He didn’t know where it came from; it was way too mushy to even possibly be from his mind. Maybe it was something about the holiday, and the family, and the safety that all of it brought. 

“And so are you.” Cas replied simply, eyes glinting. 

“Even though I’m an asshole sometimes?” He had to ruin it. Had to put in that little bit of doubt, of insecurity. But it wouldn’t be truthful if he just swallowed it, so he let it be said.

Cas kissed his nose, which made Dean feel like a child but also like something so special and precious he didn’t complain. “Even though you’re an asshole sometimes.”

Dean snorted out a laugh and chased Cas’s lips, nipping at him in offense. He sank onto the pillow and stared at Cas where he sat up. Cas just looked down at him, adopting that alien-like quality he could still summon. “Marry me.” 

“What?”

Dean smiled fondly at him, for once not at all concerned. “I dunno, dunnit ‘boyfriends’ sound way too young to you? I mean you’re practically 5 million years old, you can’t have a boyfriend.”

Cas pursed his lips, seemingly deciding between protesting his age or agreeing to his proposal. He laid next to Dean during his decision, letting Dean watch him consider. “Suppose you’re right.” He shrugged, offering up a tiny grin. 

“Yeah?”

“Yes, Dean.”

“No, you’re supposed to say ‘Yes, yes, a thousand times yes’ and then burst into tears.” 

“Dean.”

“Hey, I don’t make the rules, that’s just how humans do it!”

“Okay, I take it back.” 

Dean laughed and pulled him into a giddy kiss. “I love you.”

“I hope so, you’re marrying me.” Cas couldn’t contain his smile anymore; he stopped trying and just stared at Dean with the kind of wonder that used to make Dean feel uncomfortable. Now, it just made him feel lucky. “I love you too.”

---

A phone rang, a bizarre ringtone Dean didn’t recognize. Sam jumped up and ran off to the map room, apologizing quickly. “What the hell, man!” Dean yelled after him and sent a look at Eileen.

Hunter call, probably. She signed. Sure enough, Sam was in the other room picking up a landline with an annoyed tone. 

He listened for a few minutes, asking follow-up questions before Dean heard him say, “Rugaru, yeah, that’s what it sounds like. Yeah, you gotta burn ‘em. Nasty, sorry. Yeah, no problem. Good luck.” He hung up and headed back into the room, signing and talking. “Sorry, hunting doesn’t care about holidays.”

“So glad we’re not doing that anymore.” Dean sighed happily, wrapping an arm around Cas. Sam smiled at him and nodded.

“Me too. I had to burn those clothes after the Rugaru thing.” He shuddered, the memory of the stench enough to make him happy for an empty stomach.

Eileen shrugged. Never had to deal with one of those. 

“Lucky.” Dean promised her. Cas nudged him, nodding toward Jack. He was shaking a wrapped box with his name on it, a look of deep concentration on his face. 

“Whaddya think it is, kid?” 

Jack shook his head. “No idea. Can I open it?” 

“Go for it.”Jack tore into it, no regard for the painted newspaper (yes, it was recycled, Cas and Sam both agreed) as he got to the box underneath. “Open the card first, heathen!” Dean joked, pointing out the card tucked onto the bottom of the thing. Jack scowled but complied, opening the card to find a nice note from him and Cas and a key taped in. 

“What’s it for?” 

Dean leaned forward, elbows on his knees, excited about this part. He had been the one who came up with it, after all. “Our place. We wanted to make it official, since you been, you know, visiting around a lot lately.” Dean turned a little pink in the cheeks. Jack had indeed been drifting between Sam and Eileen’s, Jody’s, his and Cas’s, Donna’s, and Claire and Kaia’s. But he always spent the most time at his and Cas’s house, trying to copy Dean and always ending up enjoying Cas’s hobbies more. Sam had told him a while back that Jack confided he wasn’t sure he was welcome there, not for the long term. So Dean wanted to let him know he was welcome. Except now, looking at the uncertainty on Jack’s face, he wasn’t so sure that’s what the kid wanted. “Uh, you know, you can just spend however much you want with us, but… you know.” He poked Cas desperately in the side, trying to get him to save the sentence.

“We’d like you to have a ‘home base’ with us, Jack. However often you are willing to stay.” Cas said simply. He squeezed Dean’s knee to reassure him.

Jack looked up at them with a stunned expression. “Does this mean I can take out the trash? And do the dishes?” He looked thrilled at the idea. 

Dean chuckled. “We never would’ve stopped you before, kid. But yeah, sure.” 

Sam cleared his throat, offering a smile to Jack. “That better not mean you stop coming around here though, Jack.” When Dean had called and told him his idea for the present, he’d almost teared up. His brother had come a long way with Jack. Still, he wanted to reassure his kid that he always had a home with him and Eileen too, no matter how busy he was. (And nowadays, between online classes, cataloguing lore onto an online database, and being the New Bobby, he was really busy.)

Jack jumped up, clearly about to go for a round of hugs, but Dean waved him off. “Keep going, you haven’t even gotten through one present yet.” 

Jack grinned and complied, taking a bit more time with the box. He pulled out a Scooby Doo phone case, marked for Extra Protection, with Scooby and Shaggy on the back.

“That one was my idea.” Cas told him proudly.

“I helped.” Dean piped up.

“You did not.”

“I helped you pick which case!”

“You wanted to get one with Fred and Daphne.”

“Well, yeah-”

“Not everyone has a crush on them like you do, Dean.” 

Dean flushed scarlet and went silent, pouting. Jack ignored their bickering and beamed up at Castiel. “I love it, dad. Thank you.” 

Cas looked like he could’ve gone for round 4 with the Empty with how happy he was, but he just nodded. “Of course.” 

The rest of the gifts went by with lots of shouting, laughing, smiling, and hugging. And a few tears all around. Dean got Claire a flamethrower without consulting anyone, and Cas got Kaia a rose and lavender scented pillow fragrance (“It helps ensure good dreams.”), which prompted a comment from Claire (“How’d he know you’re a pillow princess?”) that everyone pretended not to hear. Dean got Eileen a Woojer, a wearable speaker that lets you feel music’s vibrations in your body (“Because no one should have to live without Zepp available to them 24/7. Also, now you can cry with me when the sad music cues come on Dr. Sexy,” - one of their favorite activities together). 

Dean jerked a head at Sam to get him out of the room, so Sam snatched his gift while Dean detached himself from Cas. They went to the kitchen, sending a couple soft looks back at their family gathered around the tree with all their new possessions. It was nice, and they both felt it.

“So, uh, Sammy, I been thinking a lot about what to get you for Christmas and everything. I didn’t want to go with the classic-”

“Skin mag and candy bar?” 

“Yeah.”

“Well, damn, now I feel bad.” Sam mimed hiding his present (obviously bigger than a skin mag) behind his back, and Dean rolled his eyes.

“I finally got money, you know? Not a lot of it, but… I got a house and fucking, Cas, and… anyway. We’re finally doing Christmas and I wanted to do it right. And I want you to be as off-the-wall happy as I am, dude.”

Sam smiled widely, not even able to come up with a little-brother bitchy comment to that. “Thanks, Dean, that means a lot.” 

Dean cleared his throat and nodded. “Yeah, so, I, um, I wanna pay for your school.” Sam opened his mouth to protest but Dean held up a hand. “No, listen, I know you’ve been stressed about it, and I know you’ve been working really hard on the hunting catalogue stuff. That shit’s important. And I can pay for some crappy internet school classes. No offense.” 

Sam laughed and pulled his brother into a hug. “Thank you, man.” He said, muffled into Dean’s shoulder. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

Dean patted Sam on the back, expecting Sam to pull away, but he didn’t. “Uh, Sammy.” Sam ignored him. “Sam. Dude, get off me. I want my present.” 

Sam snorted and finally pulled away. Dean tactfully ignored the wetness of his eyes in favor of snatching the gift from Sam’s hands. He tore it open with all the grace of a rabid dog, unveiling a thick, leather bound scrapbook. “A scrapbook? Really?” Dean raised his eyebrows. “That’s gay, even for you.” 

Sam pulled a bitchface. “Who sucks their boyfriend’s dick every chance he gets?” 

Dean flipped him off. No need to argue, Sam would see right through him. It was true though. Not that he would know. Dean flipped open the cover and grinned immediately. It was Sam and Dean as kids, in a mall photo booth, being dumbasses with their tongues stuck out and their faces all crazy. Dean mooned the camera in one, and you could see the psychological scarring on Sam’s face in the next picture. A little note slapped on the page next to it said “I have more nightmares about this than about hell”. Dean laughed, glancing up at Sam before he continued. Sam’s eyes were hopeful with a glint of mischief. That was never good.

Dean flipped through the next pages. It showed them through the years, all with little notes of Sam’s internal monologue. “Grumpy because he hasn’t gotten his coffee this morning” “That’s for the itching powder incident, asshole” and more and more. There were even some pictures in there of just him that Sam had obviously taken without Dean’s knowledge, pictures of him sleeping with comments about his snoring, pictures of him singing obnoxiously in the car with jokes about ear damage. Pictures of him and Bobby shooting the shit with notes about the pair of “old men.”

Then the pictures started to change. There started to be pictures of him and Cas. Mostly just him and Cas. Standing, talking, watching TV together (this one says “angel’s first porno!” with a bunch of hearts next to it). Comments talking about personal space (“he never stands that close to ME”) and the like. One of Dean in Bobby’s panic room where Dean has a speech bubble drawn on his serious face that says “Cas, not for nothing, but the last person who looked at me like that, I got laid” and then just a selfie of Sam pulling his bitchiest bitch face. 

Dean turned a little red at that, recognizing his complete obliviousness at the time, and kept going. The pictures continue, lots of fun-loving pictures of them on the road and the occasional movie or bar night, Charlie and Kevin and even Crowley and Rowena. But without fail, there is picture after picture of him and Cas sharing a publicly private moment, all with little snippy comments from his little brother. More than three of those comments are “Just kiss already!!!” Dean finally looks up to see Sam crossing his arms and staring at him with a smug, self-satisfied smile. 

“When the hell did you make this?” Dean sputtered. These are a lot of pictures, Sam must’ve kept them on his crappy cell phones for years. 

Sam blinked. “I started it in 2006.” 

“No, I mean, when did you go back and add all these bitchy little comments?” 

Sam raised an eyebrow. “2006.” 

Dean blinked right back. “But you… you’ve got all these dumbass comments about me and Cas.”

His smartass little brother started to smile then, a big shit-eating grin he wanted to smack off his dumb face. “Yeah, man, you weren’t exactly smooth about it.”

“Hey, fuck you, what does that mean?” It was said in jest, but Dean’s volume control went out the window.

“Dean? Sam? Everything okay?” Cas’s voice reached them from the other room. Dean sent an offended glance back at Sam before answering.

“Yeah babe, I’m just finding out how much I wanna punch my brother in here,” 

“Okay, well, leave it till tomorrow, it’s Christmas.” 

“Nah, isn’t fighting with your family a holiday tradition?” 

“I think you’re right. Okay, continue.” 

Now Sam was just watching him with such a knowing expression it made him annoyed. He was watching him flirt with his boyfriend- no, technically, husband. Oh yeah. He lowered his voice back down to a reasonable volume to talk to just his brother again.

“Yeah, so, I should also tell you-” He closed the book and set it on the counter. “We uh… Cas and I, we’re gonna get married.” He looked down at his feet and blushed a bit, could feel the rising heat in his cheeks. Honestly, he couldn’t believe he was saying that. He was getting married. To Cas. “Obviously, you know, we can’t really, with one of us being a legally dead terrorist and the other a former angel in the body of a missing family man,” Dean and Sam both  laughed at that. “But I asked him and he said yes.” 

“You asked him?” Sam seemed more surprised by that than the actual news. Dean shrugged and nodded. “Wow. Congrats, Dean, really.” Sam pulled him in for another hug, which Dean happily returned. “Can I walk you down the aisle?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “If anyone’s getting walked down the aisle, it’s Cas. He might get distracted by a butterfly halfway down, he’ll need the guide.” 

Sam grinned. “Come on, it’s not like you weren’t always gonna give me away.” 

Dean frowned at him. “Me? Why?” 

“Dean, you’re the closest thing to a parent I ever had.” Sam says it like it’s obvious, like he isn’t forgetting about-

“You had Dad.” 

Sam raised his eyebrows and laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder, making his big brother look him in the eyes as he repeated it. “You’re the closest thing to a parent I ever had.” 

Dean wasn’t gonna get choked up. No, he wasn’t, damn it. He’d made it this far in the visit without getting choked up, he could- 

“Sam?”

Eileen appeared around the corner, making them both realize how long they’d been away from the rest. Sam looked at her apologetically, signing Sorry. Dean was just telling me he and Cas are getting married! 

Eileen turned to Dean, barely giving Dean time to process a quick congratulations sign before she enveloped him in a hug. Dean laughed and hugged her back, pulling away to sign thank you. At least he knew how to do that. 

Big church wedding? Eileen teased. 

“Only if Cas wears a poofy dress,” Dean joked back. He only knew the signs for Cas and dress, but between that and lip-reading, Eileen got it. She shook her head with a grin and grabbed Sam’s hand. They all went back into the living room and to the rest for another round of hot chocolate and a marathon of all the Home Alone movies, per request. 

------

Dean snuggled into Cas’s side and ruffled a hand through Jack’s hair and he tried to think of something more perfect than having his family all together for Christmas. He couldn’t.

[jonbernthalslut]

some destiel and general spn headcanons for ya

dean listens to katy perry. one day he’s got teenage dream blasting in the kitchen while he’s cooking and he’s singing ‘put your hands on me in my skin tight jeans’ and cas just taps his shoulder and goes. ‘dean. you don’t wear skinny jeans.’

they don’t talk about crowley. not any of them. he was confusing and murderous and a little evil and for some reason they considered him family for a long time. they don’t talk about how he died for them but there’s a note in a drawer somewhere that just says ‘goodbye boys’ with a little heart

cas and deans wedding rings are simple. deans just a silver band and castiels a simple black one

claire and jack argue over who gets to be the flower girl

dean says he likes black coffee and forces himself to drink it most of the time out of necessity but cas and sam know he likes a lot of cream and sugar and cas makes it for him every morning

it takes longer this time for castiel to get out of the empty. almost an entire year to the day (and no there’s no stupid fucking rusty nail) but the only way he gets out this time is bargaining. he plays the only chip he’s got left, mortality. castiel goes home human. when the deal is struck the empty only says oke thing before sending him back. ‘you are never to return to this place’

cas gets an anti possession tattoo

jack is still god so they don’t see him as much but he comes home for birthdays and holidays and sometimes just when he misses his dads and uncle

when castiel comes back it resembles the last time a lot. he calls dean from the closest pay phone to the bunker after hitch hiking his way there and dean goes alone this time.

dean just puts his hands on castiels face and just soaks him in for a second. this time he doesn’t question that it’s him he just knows. he knows is his angel. ‘dean,’ castiel starts and dean just smiles and shushes him. ‘i love you too.’ is all dean says and he really always that he would be the one to kiss cas first but he was wrong. because his love being returned was the only thing cas needed and dean is being pulled in and kissed.

they stop hunting. they help train some new recruits and they come when claire or jody calls them but they stop.

sam wears a man bun when he works out don’t let him lie to u he does it

jack slips a few months before he becomes god and calls dean dad and dean just freezes for a second. it’s just them in the kitchen and jack has a bowl of cereal but he’s too tired to get the milk so he goes ‘dad can you give me the milk?’ and dean freezes for a second and gets the milk and pours it and kisses his hair. ‘thank you’ ‘anytime kiddo’

cas likes to steal deans t shirts. like. it’s all he wears when he gets back and dean even buys him new ones and cas jus goes ‘i like yours better’

when sam sees castiel and dean walk into the bunker after cas comes back he doesn’t even notice they’re holding hands. well. he does but it just seems so natural he doesn’t blink twice and just pulls cas into a hug ‘good to have you back man’

claire likes to come over with kaia and alex and jody sometimes and have big slumber parties with her weird kind of dads

castiel watches crime shows and literally always figures out who the killer is before the cops do and dean finds it so funny

castiel has scars on his back where his wings wouldve joined his vessel and they hurt like a bitch so dean just rubs aspercreme on them and gives him ibuprofen and cuddles with him till he feels better

the trench coat is really just a beloved memory hanging in castiels closet

when cas first came back they didn’t share a room immediately instead castiel moves in across the hall but he finds its reallt hard to sleep alone so he just ventured to deans room and hears him snoring aand just gets in bed

dean calls castiel angel, darling, baby, babe and a million other pet names

castiel trting to prank sam on april fools is like. literally so dumb he draws the shittiest possible clown on a napkin and gives it to sam in an envelope and sam jumps anyways and dean DIES laughing

cas watched broke back mountain

cas brings in any and every stray animal he can possibly find and he doesn’t even mean to find them they just come up to him

rowena sends weird little gifts on the boys birthdays and literally who does she know their birthdays

she sends a letter on the anniversary of crowleys death. it says ‘thank you for taking care of my ferguson. he loved you boys and you gave him the family i never could. much love my boys. stay safe.’ with a little heart

castiel heads the john winchester hate squad

eileen and sam get married and they have this big sweet white wedding and move into this big house and have two kids and absolutely don’t name any of them dean

one day jody is on a case and a vampire kills the parents of this little baby girl and she just. cant fathom putting this poor girl into the foster system so she reports the baby dead and drives to the bunker

dean opens the door with sleep ruffled hair and sleep pants with one leg hiked up because it’s three in the goddamn morning and why does jody have a baby

dean doesn’t want to at first. he never saw himself as a dad but jack changed that. thing is he doesn’t know what to do with a baby. but cas gives him that look he gives him when he finds a stray and now they have five cats and three dogs so he knows how this will go

they name her charlie and buy about a million parenting books that only cas reads and spoil her rotten

[chipper9906]

Bound To You - Chapter 13: Reunions

< - - - Previous Chapter

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SEASON 15

NOTE: Pairings and Ratings Will Change As Story Is Updated

Pairings: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester

Rating: General Audiences

Chapter Word Count: 11,456

Overall Word Count: 105,524

Status: Multi Chapter Fic - In Progress (13/15)

Chapter Preview:

To his right is a building. It’s an old building, but not in that desolate, crumbling way an abandoned building would be. It’s well-loved, with many pairs of feet having walked through its front doors. Its aged wooden exterior has stood the test of time, the weathered appearance only adding to its charm. However, the strange thing about this building is… that it shouldn’t exist. It had burned down, years ago now, taking a beloved friend of the Winchesters with it. And yet, the switched-off neon sign situated above the bar’s awning proudly displayed ‘Harvelle’s Roadhouse’ as if that horrid event had never happened.

Castiel doesn’t have too much time to ponder on that, however, as the third thing he takes in is… himself. Sat upon a less than stable looking wooden chair under the Roadhouse’s awning is the spitting image of himself, although this version of him has forgone his usual trench coat attire, instead opting for a simple pair of well-worn jeans and a button-up shirt. The man waves him over and, without really knowing why, Castiel finds himself walking over.

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Character Key For Telepathic Conversations

'Italic Text' - Castiel

'Bold Text' - Dean

 * * *

Castiel opens his eyes.

Which, in itself, is unexpected. His last experience in the Empty was one of… nothingness. He had only awoken once he had heard Dean calling to him, but before that… he was lost in a deep, deep sleep. He had assumed that meant the Empty had decided it was better to just throw him as far into the Empty as possible to sleep through his worst nightmares, allowing the Empty to finally go back to sleep itself.

Perhaps this time was different. Perhaps he had escaped the Empty’s clutches one time too many, woken it up from its slumber for the last time, and will now be subjected to the worst torture imaginable by this very ancient, and very pissed off being.

Either way, the sight that greets him when his eyes open is not of the Empty’s infinite stretches of darkness. He is also not greeted to the sight of the bunker’s ceiling, with the worried faces of the Winchester brothers and Eileen leaning over his freshly made body.

The first sight he sees is the sky; Rich blue in color that he’s sure no type of man-made paint would ever be able to match in even the most magnificent of paintings, dotted with beautifully crafted pillow-like clouds which floated lazily over his head. The gentle warmth of the sun above kissed his skin; not that searing heat that has your skin feeling raw and tight, but that perfectly comfortable temperature that can only be made better by – oh, and there it was: a gentle warm breeze that was cool enough to take off the edge of the sun’s rays, but also warm enough that it doesn’t leave him shivering under his trench-coat.

All of this information comes together in one big conclusion: wherever he had ended up…

He was no longer an Angel.

The surface under his back is hard enough that his shoulder blades have begun to ache, a consistent and uncomfortable pressure that forces him up to his feet. Once his body listens to his commands and has him taking in his surroundings, he’s able to take in the sight of the smooth, tarred road he had been laid out on, stretching out in front of him before bending around a corner and out of sight. Most of the road was surrounded by dense forest on either side, the few rays of light breaking through the tangled branches of the treetops shining down on the sun-bleached grass.

To his right is a building. It’s an old building, but not in that desolate, crumbling way an abandoned building would be. It’s well-loved, with many pairs of feet having walked through its front doors. Its aged wooden exterior has stood the test of time, the weathered appearance only adding to its charm. However, the strange thing about this building is… that it shouldn’t exist. It had burned down, years ago now, taking a beloved friend of the Winchesters with it. And yet, the switched-off neon sign situated above the bar’s awning proudly displayed ‘Harvelle’s Roadhouse’ as if that horrid event had never happened.

Castiel doesn’t have too much time to ponder on that, however, as the third thing he takes in is… himself. Sat upon a less than stable looking wooden chair under the Roadhouse’s awning is the spitting image of himself, although this version of him has forgone his usual trench coat attire, instead opting for a simple pair of well-worn jeans and a button-up shirt. The man waves him over and, without really knowing why, Castiel finds himself walking over.

“Hello, Castiel,” The man greets him with a welcoming smile as he stands from the chair. His voice is similar to his own, though not of the same grumbly, rough pitch.

“Is this supposed to be some sort of trick?” Castiel asks the thing wearing his skin, unsure whether to keep his eyes focused on his double, or the strange world he had woken up in.

The man’s smile turns almost sad in nature, seeing the expression on his own face rather… jarring to see. “Ah… you think I’m the Empty, don’t you?”

“I’m dead, am I not?” Castiel answers his question with another question. “Where else would I go?”

“Well, I doubt I could convince you you’re not in that place,” The man places a hand on his own chest as he speaks. “But there is someone waiting to talk you in there that might. A few, actually. We’ve been keeping a close eye on you guys; it’s been both stressful and amusing to watch everything unfold, I can tell you that.”

Castiel’s eyes briefly flicker to the closed door of the Roadhouse at the man’s jab of a thumb behind himself, his new ears picking up the sound of soft music, chatter, and laughter emitting from within. “This… this isn’t the Empty?”

“Nope.”

“And… you’re not the Empty?”

“Also no.”

“Then… who are you?”

The man laughs kindly at that – not a mocking laugh, almost more… that he had been expecting for that question. “I was chosen to be the guy that welcomes you up here. Thought it would be nice for you to see a familiar face when you woke up - even if it’s only familiar because you’re borrowing it from me.”

It took an embarrassingly long time for Castiel to connect the dots. To be fair, he had just died, so everything was a little disorienting right now. “…James?”

James’s face twisted in discomfort at the name. “I prefer Jimmy, to be honest with you. ‘James’ feels weird…”

Castiel could only gawp at his vessel; both because of how friendly he was being towards him (especially considering they hadn’t left each other on the best of terms), and because, if he was talking to Jimmy right now, in front of the Roadhouse, basking in the most perfect weather he’s ever experienced, then…

“This… is Heaven?” Castiel finally gets out. “I’m in Heaven?”

“You are,” Jimmy confirms.

“I don’t understand…” Castiel mumbles, placing a hand on his chest as if he would be able to feel the one thing he shouldn’t have. “I… I don’t have a soul?”

“You didn’t have a soul. You do now.” Jimmy corrects him. “One of the few perks to being human.”

Before Castiel could say anything in response to this revelation, Jimmy was patting him on the back with a sympathetic smile. “Look, I know this is all… a lot. First time I woke up here was weird, too. One second I’m watching you throw a Molotov at Lucifer himself, the next I’m being ripped into atoms, and… here I am.”

“Ah…yes…” Castiel ducks his head in shame. “I'm sorry for-,”

“Sorry?” Jimmy cuts him off with a laugh. “Castiel… I had accepted to being chained to you for eternity, remember? Trust me, coming up here was the best thing that could have happened to me.”

“But…” Castiel begins with a frown. “What about Claire? I took you away from her. I made you miss watching her grow up, I-,”

“You did what you had to do to save the world. Which you and those guys down there did. Many times. Because of you, my girl gets to keep on living. I'm proud to have been the one that helped you to do that, Castiel. Even if it’s only by lending you my body.”

“That doesn’t excuse me of depriving her of a father.”

Jimmy sighs deeply at Castiel's insistence on kicking himself while he’s down. “She still had a father, Castiel. Sure, it took you a while, but you got there eventually. Buying her embarrassing birthday presents that she secretly loves? That's what a dad does. But most of all? You protected her, Castiel. You made sure to look out for her. Now, she has a home. And I know that Sheriff will be as protective over my girl as Amelia was, along with all those other girls shacked up in that house. She's safe. She has a chance to live her life. And one day… I'll get to see her again. I can’t ask for much more, Cas.”

Castiel smiled gratefully at his former vessel, diverting his gaze to the ground. “And… how are you, Jimmy? You and Amelia?”

“Never better,” Jimmy assured him, placing a hand on his back and diverting him towards the Roadhouse’s entrance. “Felt like a blink an eye before Amelia was up here with me. Things are even better with the change-,”

“The what?” Castiel planted his feet firmly, coming to a stop in front of the door. “What change?”

“Heaven, Castiel. Recently, there’s been some uh… well, let’s just say it’s not the Heaven you remember. Trust me - you’ll see what I mean when you get inside.”

Castiel’s gaze was drawn towards Jimmy’s hand gesturing towards the door in front of them, watching Castiel expectantly with a raised eyebrow. Castiel cast Jimmy one last look, praying quietly to himself that this wasn’t some sort of trick as he pushed open the door to the Roadhouse.

The interior of the Roadhouse is bathed with warm light, and filled with people milling about the bar, chatting happily to one another with drinks in hands. Who exactly these people are, Castiel does not know, for he only has a few seconds to take everything in before-

“There he is!” The excited yell comes from somewhere to his left, and he’s only just about able to turn his head towards the person yelling before his vision is overtaken by a small red-headed woman wrapping herself around him, nearly sending him stumbling back out of the Roadhouse.

“Charlie?” Castiel is just about able to get out, having all the air squeezed out of his new lungs by the arms locked around his ribs.

Charlie is beaming up at him just as brightly as the first time they had met, giving Cas an enthusiastic punch to the shoulder that was, honestly, borderline painful. “It’s good to see you, dude! Well, not good in the way that you’re dead, but, uh… you know, it’s just good to see you!”

“It’s good to see you too,” Castiel said, able to hear Jimmy’s amused chuckles at their reunion as he squeezes past the two.

“Told Charlie I had a feeling I’d be seeing one of you guys here, soon,” Another familiar voice appears at Cas’s side, glancing over to see the amused smile of Kevin Tran. “Perhaps not a few minutes after I got up here, but… should I ever be surprised?”

“Kevin…” Castiel breaths out in disbelief. “You… you made it into Heaven?”

Kevin shoots him a strained smile. “Third time’s the charm, right?”

“But… you were sent to Hell…” Castiel recalls, wincing at the reminder of what Chuck had cruelly done. “Damned souls aren’t permitted into Heaven.”

“Yeah… but that was Chuck’s rules,” Kevin said. “New boss in town has made some changes to the rules. No more worrying about going back to Hell, or potentially going crazy wandering around Earth in ghost form… Feels like it’s the first time I’ve been able to relax in… forever.”

“It’s… it’s been some time,” Castiel says awkwardly.

“Yeah, for you,” Charlie jumps in. “Time is funky up here, feels like it’s been… a few hours? For me, at first, I was just at my old home, back when I was a kid. Just me, my mom, and my dad, like the good old times. But something felt… weird.”

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know, it was like… it was like I wasn’t myself, not completely. Heaven felt like… like someone telling me what my Heaven should be. I don’t know if that really makes sense, but it wasn’t exactly bad, you know? But it also didn’t feel real. Like I was in some sort of play. And then, it felt like the walls came down. We were free to go where we want, see who we want. It feels like we’re back on Earth, but… if Earth was paradise, you know? No monsters, no worry about money. You have everything you want, the people you love, it’s just… it’s everything we were missing, and we didn’t even know we were missing it.”

Castiel huffs out a breathy laugh of realization. “Paradise on Earth… I thought I had been shown Earth, but it’s not…”

“We’ve been playing catch up, finding out what you guys have been up to down there,” Charlie tells him, giving him a sly grin. “I can’t believe Dean finally told you! It had been killing me to see you guys in person, pretty much a couple already but never crossing over the line. I mean it was bad enough reading about the eye-fucking in the Carver Edland books, but to see it in person-,”

“Chuck’s books?” Castiel interrupted her in horror. “God wrote about me and Dean… like that?”

“I mean… he was just writing what he saw,” Charlie’s knowing look made Castiel want to run away and hide. “Dean might just be the biggest disaster of a closeted Bi I had ever met…”

“Good to know I wasn’t the only one being subjected to that,” Kevin interjects with a shake of his head.

Castiel continues to look on in horror. “You knew that…?”

“One of Dean and mine’s first interactions was of Dean guiding me through step by step on how to flirt with a guy,” Charlie told him with a snort of laughter. “Kinda had an inkling that something was up after that. And then when I saw you guys together during that pizza night… I’ve never found something so adorable and yet so infuriating at the same time.”

“I’m… sorry?” Castiel offered.

Charlie grinned at his unsure-sounding apology, shaking her head at him. “You got nothing to be sorry for, Cas; Wouldn’t exactly expect an angel to be the most skilled in the art of seduction – and Dean was as blind as a bat to miss all the obvious signal you were sending his way. But seems like he got there eventually, right?”

“Yes, he did. Not that I ever expected it, but…” Castiel’s sentence hangs in the air, his warm smile at the memories of the past few weeks fading. “I… I left him again. I’m… I’m dead, and Dean-,”

“Hey,” Charlie stops him from going too far into such thoughts. “You can’t get caught up on that kind of stuff, okay? Trust me, it does you no good. Just… go around, say ‘Hi’ to everyone, catch up with all these guys and… try to enjoy your ticket into Heaven, huh?”

Castiel tried to smile at Charlie’s attempt at comforting him, but it comes out a bit more strained than he intended. “I never even thought I’d be returning to Heaven, but…”

Charlie’s able to read the expression on his face, almost able to feel the pain radiating off of Castiel herself. “It’s not Heaven without Dean.”

“No,” Castiel agreed quietly. “Dean was so desperate not to lose me again… he didn’t want to… to live without me, and I – it’s… that’s not a love I’ve ever known.”

“You’ll see him again one day,” Kevin assured him. “He’ll be up here. All of them will be.”

Charlie’s eyes drifted off to somewhere behind him. The frown that twists across her features helps to distract Castiel momentarily, his head tilting to the side as he asks, “What is it?”

“Surprised you couldn’t feel the eyes burning into your back,” Charlie answers, gesturing with a flick of her chin behind him. “Think he might be sizing you up…”

Castiel turns around, eyes scanning across the room in the direction Charlie had gestured to. There, sat upon a table, was where Castiel’s eyes met the searching stare of John Winchester. He didn’t exactly look upset to see Castiel – but he didn’t look particularly happy, either. This was quite the contrast to the smiling figure of Mary Winchester sat opposite him, whose smile held the same warmth she would direct towards her sons.

Castiel barely feels Charlie’s encouraging pat on his back as he strides over to the Winchester’s table, his gaze fixed on John as he stood from his chair, placing the brown-bottled beer in his hands atop the table, holding his head high as Castiel gets closer.

“So, you must be the guy who-,” Is as far as John gets before Castiel’s fist connects with John’s jaw, sending the older man sprawling back onto the ground. Mary seemed to have been expecting this at least somewhat, jumping up from her chair and racing around to her husband’s side, ready to get involved in case things get too out of hand.

“That was on behalf of Dean – seeing as he could never bring himself to do it,” Castiel spits coldly, glowering down at John.

John spends a few moments on the ground with a hand held against his split and already bruising lip (though that would heal away in mere minutes), looking up at Castiel in genuine shock before the rage kicks in. The fury seems to burn through the hazel ring of his eyes, circles of fire shining around the pitch black of his pupils as he glares up at him from the ground. Despite the fact that John had a good few inches of height over him, he still seemed to show some wariness alongside his obvious desire to jump up and sock Castiel in return. After all, Castiel was a solider of God that has millennia’s worth of battles under his belt; it's not too unlikely that Castiel would lay out this human flat in a fight.

“Who the hell do you-,” John is interrupted once more as, to his surprise, Castiel’s hand appears in his field of vision, held out in offering. It perplexes him enough that his anger subsides momentarily, gaze flicking between the hand in front of him, and the unreadable expression of blankness on Castiel’s face.

“The only reason I have a smidgen of respect for you is because of your son's love for you, and for your sacrifice for him,” Castiel hisses down at him.  John nearly has enough pride to shove away the hand in front of his face and stand up on his own two feet, but the warning look his wife is sending his way is enough for him to reluctantly grab hold of the former angel's hand.

Castiel drags him up to his feet, keeping a firm grip on John’s hand as he speaks. “But for the years of abuse to your sons? Of the neglect, of the nights leaving your son to raise his brother whilst you lost yourself to drink? Of sending your children off to hunt monsters when they should have been studying for their SATs, and trying to mold your son into the man you think he should be, forcing your ideals onto him until he became the good soldier you could order around…”

Castiel shakes his head in disgust at John, who looks torn between keeping up his mask of rage or cowering away from the centuries-old being so fervently defending his own son. “For all of that? You deserve much worse than a single punch, John Winchester.”

“Castiel, it’s okay,” Mary assures him, placing a calming hand on his arm - that of which was still wound up tight with his fist clenched. “We had a long talk when I got back up here. Trust me.”

Castiel’s eyes dart between John and Mary, taking a single step back from John – only if to soothe Mary’s nerves somewhat.

“I know what I did to my sons was a crappy thing,” John’s confession takes Castiel by surprise. “I didn’t see it back then. Refused to see it the way it was. In my mind, I thought… I thought I was doing the right thing. That I had to raise my boys as tough as I could because that was the only way they could handle the real, shitty world out there. I was raising them with survival in mind, but I… I never once stopped to consider if they were actually living.”

“It was… a messy situation,” Mary adds in. “It’s not like all is suddenly forgiven. When our boys get up here, it’ll…” Mary paused, casting John a look that had him averting his gaze – probably the one person in his life that could get him to do that. “Some wounds will take time to heal. And some of those scars will always remain.”

“But I’m gonna try,” John insisted. “I’m gonna try and be the father they never had.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes at John, wishing there was still enough grace left inside him to track John’s pulse and see if he was lying or not. “Good…” Castiel finally breaks the silence the three were in. “Because I intend to be by Dean’s side every second he’s here to make sure you do, indeed, try.”

“I fully expect you to,” John replied. “As I was saying - you must be the guy who’s been looking after my boys?”

“We look after each other,” Castiel corrected him. “That’s what family does.”

John cleared his throat awkwardly, looking desperate to return to his seat and continue drinking to get away from the situation he was in. “Uh, yeah… and, from what I hear, you and Dean are… uh… good friends?”

Castiel’s narrow-eyed glare returns in full force, straightening his spine as he leveled his gaze on John’s apprehensive one. “Yes. Dean and I are ‘friends’-,”

“Alright, look, it’s just… it’s weird for me. Back then-,”

“We’re not ‘back then’ anymore,” Castiel cuts him off. “And such discrimination was wrong ‘back then’ too, but you all followed poisoned words and ideals to force people into hiding, and into living unhappy lives where they were unable to be their true selves.”

“I’m just telling you how it was, okay?” John tried defending himself. “We were taught that there were cures for such things and-,”

“-And I’m telling you you’re wrong,” Castiel stepped forward once more, somehow appearing more intimidating when John was the one who stood taller than him. “There is no cure because there’s nothing to cure.”

“John, drop it,” Mary snapped at her husband. “Our son is happy with Castiel. You know that, you saw that. I don’t even want to think about what Dean must be going through right now, and you should know full well what that’s like seeing as you had to go through it with me.”

The fight seemed to drain out of John at that. He looked to Castiel like he was truly seeing him for the first time; seeing in him a different light, Mary’s comparison helping to see something in the former angel that he wouldn’t let himself see.

“You love my son?”

Castiel shouldn’t have to grace such a stupid question with an answer, but he does. “More than you could ever know. And I’ll never stop loving him. Dean Winchester is my soul.”

John’s gaze searched over him one more time before he finally nodded his head in what Castiel could only assume was the best form of acceptance that he would ever get from John – not that he cares for it either way. “Can’t say you’re what I envisioned my son ending up with, but… he found someone who makes him happy, so…”

Castiel chose to ignore the ‘what’ part of John’s sentence, accepting Mary’s apologetic frown with an understanding smile as John plops back down onto his seat. It’s only as Castiel turns away from the table that he hears them enter a heated, whispered argument that Castiel only feels slightly guilty about – and that’s only on Mary’s behalf.

There are six people huddled around the wooden bar that Castiel heads for - two of them with drinks in their hands and engaged in light conversation with the other three behind the bar. Castiel’s tense posture relaxes as he’s met with the motherly smile of the Roadhouse’s owners, taking a seat on the stool she gestures him for him to sit on

“Good to see you, son,” Is how Bobby Singer greets him for the first time in five years, along with a single solid pat to the back that has Castiel jolting forward in his seat. “At least you got to walk into heaven this time instead of sliding in on your back.”

Castiel ducked his head with quiet laughter, glancing back up when a bottle of cold beer is plonked down on the bar in front of him.

“Oh, that’s okay-,”

“Don’t make me force it down you, Castiel,” Ellen warned him, “You’re in Heaven – you can have one drink at least.”

Castiel listened to the warning tone Ellen was sending his way, picking up the bottle of beer from the bartop and taking a swig of the bitter liquid, savoring the way the carbonated bubbles tickled his mouth.

“What happened to the guy who could down five shots of whiskey like it was nothing?” Jo slid up to her mother’s side behind the bar, tempted to go and grab a bottle behind her to see if Castiel could still pull such a feat.

“Really?” Comes a sultry voice from beside Bobby. “Shame I never got to saw that – then again, I didn’t get to see much of anything after I got a glimpse of you.”

Castiel practically shrinks into his seat at Pamela’s words, wincing at the memories that flooded back. “Ah, yes, that… um…”

Pamela’s pearls of laughter broke through Castiel’s embarrassed stammers. “Relax, angel. You gave me fair warning, but I kept poking.” Pamela leaned past Bobby, sticking out a hand for Castiel to shake. “Nice to finally get a good look at ‘ya without seeing nothing but burning white light. Gotta say… I get why Dean wants to tap that.”

“Oh, um… thank you?”

“Technically, that compliment is for me!” Jimmy calls over from his own table, getting a disappointed smack to the arm from his wife next to him.

“Still can’t believe Dean finally made a move,” Jo brings Cas’s attention back to the patrons at the bar. “You guys were the big gossip circulating around the angel radio that Ash hooked us up to,” Jo jabs a thumb towards the mullet-wearing man sat at the end of the bar, tapping away at the keyboard on his laptop with one hand whilst giving Castiel a wave in greeting with the other.

“Sup, man,” Ash looks up from his laptop long enough to take in the sight of Castiel for the first time.

“You… managed to access Heaven’s radio?” Castiel asked.

“Yep,” Ash answered proudly. “Didn’t take me long to tap into Heaven’s systems. At first, it was only radio and then… I had eyes on footage of you guys. Picture ain't great, but… better than just a bunch of angels blabbering away. And, uh… let's just say there aren’t too many angels that can talk nowadays, you get me?”

“But… how did you get any information from angel radio? My siblings would only transfer in Enochian to one another.”

“Balit qaa ol om Enochian,” Ash replies simply with a knowing smile before his attention is diverted back to the computer in front of him. “Oh, and the stuff you were saying to Dean in that beach dream? Raunchy stuff, dude.”

His embarrassment at being heard aside, that was something that Castiel didn’t understand; how exactly was it that they had managed to get access to Dean’s dreams? Multiple people had now told him they had seen his and Dean’s… change in relationship, but he wasn’t exactly sure how.

“How did you see that?” Castiel doesn’t just direct the question at Ash, eyes flickering between those at the bar. “-All of you, in fact.”

“We saw everything go down through your eyes, dude,” Ash answered for them. “Your grace sort of acts like a, uh… an Enochian broadcast. I just had to find the right channel to tune into and bam; angel vision up on display.”

“We weren’t watching all the time if that makes your privacy feel any less violated,” Jo adds.

“It was mostly to check up and see what ya idjits were getting up to,” Bobby said, accepting the fresh beer that Ellen passed over to him. “Make sure you weren’t getting involved in another apocalypse.”

“Nice surprise to see the only big news was you and Dean deciding to pull your heads out of your assess,” Jo tells him with a grin, receiving a smack to the back of her head from the towel in her mother’s hand.

“Joanna Beth!” Ellen pulled out the full name. “There was a million different ways you could have said that.”

“I know – I went the direct route,” Jo replied, rubbing at the sore spot on the back of her head.

“What my daughter means to say…” Ellen says with a side glance at the woman in question. “Is that the last time we met, you were…”

“A dick?” Castiel offers. “I’ve been called that in the past.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Ellen said. “You were… starting to come into yourself a little more. Dean was starting to bring you out of whatever shell angel life had forced you into, and we were only just starting to get to know you. Then… well, the Hell Hounds happened, and then ten years later I can barely recognize the angel I once met.”

“I’m not sure if you mean that a compliment, or an insult,” Castiel admits.

“Oh, it’s a compliment,” Ellen assures him. “You’ve changed for the better, Castiel. It’s not that we’re surprised Dean fell for you - we’re surprised how long it took.”

Ellen’s eyes glance over to someone behind him, and Castiel glances over his shoulder to see Jimmy approaching the bar from his table. Although, instead of sitting down on an empty stool, he stands next to Castiel, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt the reunion, but… it’s time.”

“Damn, time really does fly by in Heaven,” Bobby curses, sliding the half-drunken beer out of Castiel’s hand and giving him another encouraging pat on the back. “It was good seeing you again, Castiel.”

Castiel was… still rather unsure what exactly was going on. Everyone else at the bar seemed to know, which was frustrating in of itself, and Castiel could only switch his confused frown from the hand on his shoulder to the arm’s owner. “It’s time for what?”

“You’ll see,” Jimmy answers unhelpfully, gesturing with a flick of his head for Castiel to stand and follow.

Seeing as there’s not much else for him to do but follow the instructions given to him, Castiel finds himself standing up from the bar, casting one last look to past friends. They all give him reassuring smiles as he follows Jimmy – even getting an encouraging nod from John, much to Cas’s bewilderment. Jimmy leads him towards the kitchen of the Roadhouse, leading him through past the well-loved ovens, stoves, and cooking utensils before arriving at the back door to the Roadhouse, leading to an outside Castiel has never seen.

“I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again,” Are Jimmy’s final parting words, gesturing with an open hand towards the door before he’s heading back towards the warm-sounding conversation within the bar. Castiel glances over his back to watch him go, a part of him drawn back to the bar, back to the people he knows.

But there’s something else on the other side of that door. Something else that’s calling to him, its pull much stronger than the Roadhouse. Without much of a second thought, Castiel pushes down on the bar across the heavy metal door, swinging it open and stepping out into the comfortably cool afternoon’s air.

* * *

 It felt like a bomb had gone off.

It might as well have. The explosion of Cas’s grace – or… Cas himself, Sam supposed – had left them in this state of… numbness. For the first ten minutes or so, ten agonizing minutes, Sam could only stand shocked still where he was, watching as his brother cradles Cas in his laps, calling for him to come back.

After the bargaining came the screams.

That’s the only word he had for them, really. These gut-wrenching, pain-filled cries as the reality of the situation begun to sink in for his older brother. Sam had tried to step around the table in front of him, walk over to his brother, and…

And do what? What could he possibly do to make this situation any better? Cas was gone, and nothing he could say or do would help to ease his brother’s grief. He had only made it around the table when he caught sight of Castiel’s face resting on Dean’s lap, and that was as far as he could go. He slid down onto the floor, resting his head against the table leg behind him, and just… stared. Even when Eileen came around to his side; when she had dropped down next to him, rest her head on his shoulder, and held his hand tightly in her own… he couldn’t tear his eyes away from his brother and his once best friend.

Sam didn’t think there would be anything worst than the screams. The non-stop sobs that had his older brother gasping for air. But, as it turns out, the silence was the worst. When the tears stopped flowing and ran dry, his brother's back no longer shaking with his ragged breaths, there was nothing but silence and stillness. Dean still had Cas in his lap – and Sam didn’t dare try to move Cas from him.

He knew they would have to, eventually. Dean couldn’t stay like this forever… neither of them could. Eventually, Sam would have to pry Dean off of Cas. He would have to drag him, kicking and screaming away from Cas’s body whilst Eileen wrapped him up – because if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t think he could do this all over again.

Wrap up Cas, again. Build a pyre for him, again. Say their goodbyes as they watch his body go up in flames, again.

He was tired of losing friends. He thought it would be over by now, that this time would be different.

Wherever the hell Chuck ended up, Sam knows he’s laughing at them right now.

Somehow, from beyond the grave…

The bastard still won.

* * *

The sight that greets Castiel as he steps out from the Roadhouse is confusing, to say the least. The back of the Roadhouse should have been nothing more than an empty field and a wall of trees. Instead, Castiel takes in the beauty of the Washington mountains, sat pretty in the distance and reflected in the calm surface of the lake stretched out in front of him. Just off the shore of the lake is a cabin that Castiel is very familiar with, having once rented it not too many years ago.

It’s only then that Castiel realizes how strangely quiet it had become; gone was the quiet laughter and muted conversations of the Roadhouse, replaced by the water’s edge gently lapping at the shore and the birds singing as they flew overhead. When Castiel turns around, he’s met with empty space where the Roadhouse had once been.

“It was a beautiful spot, wasn’t it?”

Castiel freezes in place at the voice he hears behind him.

“Tainted by death, but still… beautiful.”

He’s not too sure how he manages to spin around on such shaky legs, but he does. And when he does, he’s met with the calming, grateful smiles of Kelly, sat on a wooden bench that seemed to have been created out of thin air.

“Hello, Castiel,” Kelly greets him, the tears shining in her eyes as she looks up to her son’s father-figure the same as the ones in Castiel’s. There’s nothing he can even say before Kelly has her arms wrapped around him, holding him tight. “You did it, Cas… You really did it. Jack, he’s-,”

“I know,” Castiel tells her – and he really does know. Pride didn’t even fit the description of what Cas felt for how far Jack had come.

Kelly untangles her arms from around his neck, quickly wiping the tears off her face as she does. “You’ve given so much for him, I… I don’t even know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say,” Castiel assured her.

“That’s not true,” Kelly said with a shake of her head. “You stuck by him through everything. Even in the times you thought you would lose your friends, your family…”

“Because I knew it would all work out in the end. No matter what Chuck threw our way… I believed in the vision Jack showed me.”

The puff of wings behind him is a sound he hasn’t heard in quite some time. And, judging by the loving smile that instantly graced Kelly's face, he knew exactly who it was that was stood behind him.

Castiel gave himself a few seconds to take in the beaming smile that always seemed to be plastered on Jacks face before he's wrapping the boy up tight in his arms, letting out a breath of relief as Jacks's arms squeeze him just as tight; part of him having wondered if the acquisition of God’s powers may have altered him somewhat.

It seemed he had nothing to worry about.

Kelly smiled sweetly at the two’s reunion, looking over to Jack as she asks, “It’s time, huh?”

“Time for what?” Castiel asked the two of them, the question eerily similar to Jimmy’s cryptic wording back in the Roadhouse.

“I wanted to talk to you for a bit, if you don’t mind. Just me and you,” Jack answered. Kelly stepped forward, giving Castiel’s hand one big squeeze of goodbye before she was heading back towards the cabin, disappearing through its door and out of sight.

Jack began walking towards the shoreline of the lake, keeping his pace slow as he waits for Cas to begin following him. The two walk side by side along the edge of the lake, moving under the cover of the dense forest that surrounded the cabin. It really was a beautiful place – more beautiful than the other places he’s died in, anyway.

“Does your mother live here now? In Heaven?” Castiel asks Jack as they walk, enjoying the leisurely pace they were set in.

“She does,” Jack confirms. “I come and visit her here when I can, which… isn’t often.”

“…Why isn’t it often?”

The smile Jack gives him in return looks much too old for the boy wearing it. “Being God has its responsibilities. I’ve been trying, but… it's been hard work.”

“I can imagine,” Castiel glances around the world they were in – not really a world, yet also more real than Heaven ever was. “Jack, what you've done here…”

“Do you like it?” Jack asked brightly, still searching for the approval of those he looks up to despite now being God. “I always thought the old Heaven seemed… lonely. When I was in my heaven, I had you, and Sam, and Dean, but… I could always tell something was off. It wasn’t the real you.”

“So you decided to break down Heaven's walls?”

“It was a bit more complicated than that, but…” Jack seems almost frustrated for a moment – not at Castiel, no, but at Chuck's design of Heaven. “Heaven is filled with people; it didn’t seem right that people were left only with their soul mates - if they're lucky enough to have them – and only illusions of the people they loved just as much when they were alive.”

“I… I suppose I didn’t consider it in that way,” Castiel confessed. “The souls in Heaven seemed happy. Content.”

“I think they were. But… that doesn’t mean Heaven couldn’t be made better.”

“So this is what you’ve been working on this whole time?” Castiel asks, gesturing to the beautiful scenery they were walking in. “Opening up Heaven?”

“Partly, yes,” Jack leads Castiel over to a small clearing in the forest where the lake is practically lapping at the trees that sit by the shore’s edge, giving them a beautiful view of the mountains in the distance. “I’ve been doing other work too, though.”

Castiel reaches Jack's side, staring out at the view in front of him. “On Earth?”

“Not our Earth,” Jack answers. “I will, eventually. But, for now, this Earth is at least intact. Sustainable. But… there’s all those other Earth’s out there. The other universes that Chuck destroyed.”

“You’re… rebuilding them?”

“It’s… kind of draining,” Jack admits, although the captivating smile on his face does not give away the tiredness he must be feeling. “Amara’s been helping me.”

That was news to Castiel. “She has?”

“She was quiet at first. Despite everything Chuck had done, I think she still loved him. Still does love him. She started opening up once I got to work on the other Universes, giving what recommendations she can, what she thinks Chuck would have done; I’m trying to recreate them as best as I could in his image.”

“What for?”

“So that the people of those Earth’s come back to the world they remember,” Jack turns away from the mountain view, facing Cas. “Don’t they deserve the same as the people on this Earth? Shouldn’t they be able to return to the homes they know, the families they know?”

Jack’s brow furrows when, for a while after the end of his sentence, Cas is just looking down at him with this small, subtle smile that only begins to display the warmth his eyes are holding towards the boy – this God – he still considers to be his own.

“What?” Jack asks, voice rising in pitch in what was a mix of both amusement and wonder.

“Nothing, just…” Castiel trails off, placing a heavy hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I’m so proud of you… All of us are. I hope you know that.”

“I know,” Jack said. His face shifted then, the gentle smile on his face sliding away, his eyes dripping down to his feet as he takes in a deep breath of fresh mountain air. “Cas, there’s… there’s a reason I needed to talk to you.”

Castiel tries to catch Jack’s gaze, but the Nephilim’s eyes were firmly fixed on the ground, his sneakers kicking up small twigs as he gouges a small hole into the dirt. “Jack?”

“I need you to know that I wasn’t ignoring you,” Jack says, bending down to pick up one of the tiny pieces of wood he had kicked up. “Any of you. I knew what was happening. With you, and with Dean. His accident and then… what’s been happening to you.”

Castiel didn’t know what to say to that. It was something he already knew – well, maybe not knew, but… assumed, he supposed.

“I wanted to step in,” Jack continues, twirling around the twig that he had pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “Every day, I wanted to leave my work and just… fix everything. I wanted to pull you out when you were in the Empty. I wanted to heal the hole in Dean’s back when he saw dying on that pole. I wanted to heal his severed spine after, re-create your vessel and place you back inside.”

Even though he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to hear the answer, Castiel had to ask. “Why didn’t you?”

Jack releases the twig from between his fingers, finally lifting his gaze back up to meet Castiel’s. “The Empty is… not happy. I tried to get you back, Cas. When Chuck brought back my father, the Empty… It… It made threats.”

“What kind of threats?”

“The world-ending kind of ones,” Jack answers somberly. “It told Chuck that, if he tried to take a creature from the Empty… it would storm across Earth and destroy all those in its wake so that it could finally sleep. No one left to wake it up. Chuck, he… he just laughed. Told the Empty to ‘go ahead’, grabbed my father, and was just… gone.”

“That seems risky for Chuck… I would have thought he’d worry about the Empty interfering with his script?”

“I think it was too late for him to care at that point,” Jack replied. “All that was left was to kill you, me, Sam, and Dean. You were… you were already gone at that point, and after Chuck killed the rest of us…”

“Chuck would have wiped out Earth anyway…”

Jack nodded. “Chuck had already killed everyone on Earth. He just… didn’t care anymore. When the Empty made the same threat to me, I just…”

Jack looked away then, tears of frustration brimming in his eyes. “It tore me apart, Cas. I wanted you back, I just… I wanted to be selfish. But I couldn’t doom the world like that… doom Dean and Sam like that, and… I had to leave you… I left you…”

“It’s okay…” Cas stepped forward, placing both hands on Jack’s shoulders and giving them a comforting squeeze. “You did exactly what you were supposed to. If that would have been the price of bringing me back, then it wouldn’t have been worth it,”

Jack shook his head fervently. “It would have been worth it. You would have been worth it, Cas. But it wouldn’t have been right… I wouldn’t be a very good God if I wiped out Earth my first day.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” Cas agreed with a breathy chuckle.

“It wasn’t until I saw what happened to Dean, saw you rip yourself out of the Empty that I realized… I didn’t need to do anything. I didn’t intervene because… I needed you to see.”

“See… what?”

“What you’ve always refused to accept,” Jack answered. “Dean and Sam – they tried so hard to bring you back, didn’t they?”

Castiel could only frown at that, trying to figure out what Jack was trying to get across. “Yes, they did.”

“And when they found out your grace was diminishing, that you would eventually lose your powers and become human; when they found out that you could no longer heal, no longer provide your powers to then… they still tried everything they could to bring you back. Everything they did … was for you, Cas. Not for what you can do for them, but because they love you. That’s what I needed you to see, Cas. We don’t love you for your powers. Me, Sam, Dean, Eileen, and everyone that knows you loves you because you’re you.”

It was only once the breeze blew through the trees and into their little clearing that Cas could feel the wetness on his face, a few stray tears having escaped his eyes and slipped down his cheeks without him even noticing.

“I tried to help where I could,” Jack continued, his admission sounding almost guilty, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  “I… I wasn’t sure whether to bring back Eileen, at first. She had already been dead before, and I… I wasn’t sure whether she would have wanted to rest in Heaven or be returned, but then… then I saw how sad Sam was and… I couldn’t take them away from each other.”

“I think you made the right choice,” Cas tells him, still wiping away the tears that were clung to his face. “And my trench-coat? Was that you as well?”

“And the spell,” Jack said with a slight smile. “I was getting worried you guys weren’t going to find it by yourselves so I, um… I kind of ‘placed’ it where Eileen would take notice.”

Cas let out another breathy laugh at that. Staring out to the mountains, he stepped forward towards the lake, crouching down by the shore and running his fingers through the shore’s sand. It was clumpy, sticking to his hand in a mixture of lake-bed soil and grains wettened by the murky water. It was nothing like the soft sands of Dean’s…

The pain’s too much. He can’t think about him. Can’t think about the suffering he knows Dean is going through.

“So… what now?” Castiel asks Jack, glancing over his shoulder to where Jack was stood, watching him.

“That’s up to you.”

Castiel blinked up at Jack in surprise, slowly standing back up from his crouch as he takes in Jack’s pleased smile. “What do you mean?”

“I wanted to give you the option to choose,” Jack continues. “I know that, for most of your life… all you’ve ever done is follow orders, Cas. Then, once you broke free and chose to live a life of free will… the choices you made still weren’t entirely your own. Every single choice you’ve made… none of them were ever truly for yourself, were they? They were always for the greater good. For someone’s else behalf. Making a deal to save my life… sacrificing yourself to keep Dean safe…”

“They were still choices I wanted to make, Jack.”

“Choices that cost you too much,” Jack argues back. “Now, for once… I want you to choose for you, Cas. Not because you think it’s best for me, or for Dean, or for anyone else. For you.”

Castiel could hear his own blood rushing through his ears, his heart up in his throat as it pounded relentlessly. These weren’t nerves. They were… anticipation. Hope.

“If you want to… you can finally rest. You can stay here, in Heaven. Live in peace, with no pain and no worries, surrounded by those you love. And… if you wanted to, you could help me.”

“Help you? With… rebuilding Heaven?”

“And everything else,” Jack confirmed. “You would have your grace back, of course. It would be nice to have you with me as I rebuild all that Chuck has destroyed.”

Castiel nodded slowly, letting Jack’s offer mill about in his mind. If there was one thing life on Earth had taught him… it was that he liked to help in any way he could. If there was a way for him to make life better for the less unfortunate, to correct the damage his father had inflicted upon billions upon billions of innocents…

It felt like what he was made for.

“And… what’s the other option?”

Jack answered Cas’s question by raising a hand up and tapping his fingers to Cas’s forehead. Castiel felt that familiar rush of the Universe rushing past him as the two moved at immeasurable speeds in the blink of an eye.

The sight that greets him upon landing is one he never wants to see.

“…Dean?” Castiel knows Dean won’t be able to hear him, but he can’t stop himself from uttering his name at the sight of Dean collapsed on the floor of the bunker, cradling him in his lap as his body shakes with silent sobs that had long since dried out. Though they no longer exist, Cas can feel his back muscles twitch as if his wings were still there, instinctively trying to wrap themselves around the grieving body of the man he loves.

“He’ll be okay,” Jack’s words almost escape Cas’s notice, so focused on the heart-broken figure of Dean Winchester. “He won’t be at first, and it won’t be easy, but he’ll heal. Your death will always leave a part of him empty, but… he will carry on, Cas. Dean will live out the rest of his life, and he will one day pass and reunite with you in Heaven.”

Cas barely registers as Jack steps up to his side, barely feels the steady weight of Jack’s palm pressed soothingly into his back. “I’ll be okay too, Cas. Okay? Don’t choose to come up to Heaven and help me if you feel like it’s what’s right, or that you’re worried I’ll need you. I can do this, okay? I can. All of us will be okay. You choose for you, Cas.”

Castiel dragged his tear-filled eyes away from Dean’s form, meeting Jack’s understanding ones. There was no judgment behind Jack’s eyes, no secret hope that he would choose to return to Heaven and continue his work for Heaven.

The truth was that, the second he laid eyes on Dean, he knew what his choice was going to be.

Jack knew, too.

“Dean,” Castiel answered in a hoarse whisper, and the knowing look on Jack’s face grew all the more stronger. “What I want… it’s always been Dean.”

It was a relief to see the beaming smile that spread across Jack's face at his answer. There was no hint of disappointment on his face, only genuine happiness that Castiel has chosen his own happiness. For once, Castiel had gone for what he wants.

“Live a long, happy life Cas,” Jack said what he intended to be his parting words, raising his hand once more to tap his fingers against Castiel's head.

Before he could so, Cas caught Jack’s hand midair and pulled him into what he hoped wouldn’t be one last hug between father and son, holding him tight as he buried his head into Jack’s shoulder. “Will… Will I see you again?”

Jack pulled away from Castiel's embrace, keeping a hand on his shoulder. “I'll be around, Cas.”

Castiel shifted his gaze over to Dean, still collapsed on the floor staring numbly at his body, when an idea struck him. “Wait… what about Dean?”

“What about him?”

“His spine…” Castiel answered, turning on the begging eyes that Dean once told him he's sure he learned from Sam. “You've already done so much for us, but… do you think you could heal him?”

Jack only smiled at that, an odd reaction to Castiel's request, and then his last words were left to echo around Cas's head as his fingers once again brushed against his forehead and plunged the world into darkness.

“There's nothing for me to heal, Cas. You’ve already taken care of that.”

* * *

Dean wasn’t sure how long he'd been sat on the floor now. Did it even matter how long? And why should he care?

Cas was gone.

That's all his mind could produce. The only thoughts his treacherous brain graced him with. Cas is dead. Cas is dead. Cas is dead. Cas is dead.

Over and over again, on a loop. He doesn’t even feel the deep aching pain of his loss anymore. There’s nothing. His body has just… shut off. No more emotions. No more caring about anything.

Cas was dead. That's all there was.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice is hesitant, unsure. Dean can barely hear it. Sam had, eventually, managed to get his feet under him. He had walked over to Dean, but wasn’t stood by his side. There was a few awkward meters of space between them, an invisible line that Sam couldn’t bring himself to cross.

Dean knew what Sam's next words were going to be before Sam said them. “Dean, we need to…”

It was as far as Sam could get. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought Dean was dead, too. His face was just… blank. Unmoving as be stared down at Cas's still form. Sam braves one look at Castiel's face cradled on Dean's lap, sees the pale color of skin without a supply of blood, sees the closed eyes of his best friend he'll never get to see again and-

“Sam?” Eileen's voice is like an anchor, bringing him back to reality.

Sam clears his throat, looking away and up to the ceiling to try and blink away the tears that were burning in the corner of his eyes. “I can't, I-,”

“Yes, we can.”

Sam looks down at Dean in surprise. He was still just as frozen in place, face still just as empty, and for a moment Sam wondered if he had actually heard Dean speak at all.

“We'll do it for him,” Dean croaked out, raising a hand that wouldn’t stop trembling and placing it down on Cas's chest. “We can’t give him much, but… the least we can do is give him a proper fucking goodbye this time.”

Sam miraculously managed to crouch down next to his brother without his legs giving away, placing his hand atop his brother’s back. “Yeah… yeah, we can uh… I'll go and see what we have to wrap him up in. Maybe… maybe the sheets from his bed? Or we could-"

Dean was listening to Sam anymore. Because there, underneath his hand, he could feel Cas's heart beating steadily in his chest. It had started out of nowhere, one big ‘thump’ that he put down to his grief-riddled mind. The second one he thought that perhaps the injury to his spine had worsened when he fell from his chair, and was starting to get false sensations in his hands.

But then the third pump of Cas's heart came. Then the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and the back of Dean's head nearly collided with Sam’s face hovering over his shoulder as his head reared back.

“Sam, there's a pulse.”

“He…what?!” Sam exclaimed. He desperately wanted to believe his brother, but… “Are you sure?”

“Am I-,” Dean huffed in irritation, reaching around to grab his brothers’ hand and place it against Cas's neck.

Sam’s furrowed brow straightened out to an expression of slack-jawed dumbfounded as he felt the rapid flutter of Cas's pulse against his fingertips. “Oh my God… Oh my God, he's alive!”

Eileen dropped down on her knees next to them, picking up on their sudden fanatic movements but unable to hear or read the brother's panicked words. “What?! What is it?!”

“Cas is alive,” Sam told her breathlessly as Dean bent over to place an ear against Cas's chest, able to hear the rapid thuds of his heartbeat. Except… Cas's chest didn’t move under his head.

“Sam, he’s not breathing,” Dean got out in a panic, framing the sides of Cas's face with his hands. “Cas? Cas, can you hear me? C'mon man, I need you to say something.”

Dean whipped his head back around to face Sam and Eileen. “What the hell do we do? Do we give him CPR?”

“I-I- I don’t know,” Sam blurted out. “His heart is beating fine, right? Is there something blocking his airway or-,”

Then it happened. Cas's chest inflated with one big inhale of air, catching all three of their attention just in time to see his eyes snap open, greeted by crystal blue eyes that never seemed quite so human in their dazed and panicked blown-out appearance.

As it turns out, having your lungs inflate for the first time as you take your first breath is quite uncomfortable. Cas's lungs were racked with harsh-sounding coughs as they tried to adjust to the sudden change. Dean jumped into action and helped pull him up into a sitting position, Dean's hand tight around his arm like he might drop back to the floor in a lifeless heap if he let go.

“Cas?” Dean leans his head down as Cas folds over himself, trying to catch his breath after his coughing fit. “You okay?”

Castiel pulled himself back up, placing a hand on his chest as he took another deep breath in, this one – thankfully – not sending him into another round of coughs. “I… I think so.”

Castiel’s eyes swiveled around to meet Dean’s, then over to Sam and Eileen’s bewildered faces, then settled back on Dean again. Dean's eyes were about as wide as they can go, watching Cas warily both in fear that Cas might drop down dead again and second, and that this could all be one cruel trick… Another lazy laugh from Chuck perhaps, some asshole demon jumping into the free body like Belphagor did with Jack, hiding its true identity until the moment it-

“Hello, Dean.”

Nope, never mind. That was his angel, alright.

“Hello-?” Dean cuts himself off with a huff of laughter that sounded more like a sob of relief than anything, pulling Cas into him and grabbing hold of the trench-coat wrapped around him so tightly that it seemed moments away from ripping.

“You're alive… Oh, you’re alive, you're okay… You're here…”

“I’m okay,” Castiel speaks softly into the crook of Dean’s neck.

“You've gotta stop dying on me, Cas,” Dean tried to joke, but the tears brimming his eyes gave away the illusion of a care-free attitude. “I don’t know how much more of you dying I can handle.”

“I'll promise if you promise,” Cas replies, and that at the very least gets a laugh out of Dean.

“Hey-,” Is all Sam says before he’s moving towards Cas, wrapping him up in one of his signature bear-hugs at a very awkward angle, considering Castiel was still mostly seated on Dean’s lap. “You have no idea how good it is to see you, man.”

“I can assure you, the feeling is mutual,” Castiel replies, releasing his grip on Sam only to have his arms filled seconds later by Eileen, who squeezed up beside Sam to get her own hug in.

“Please don’t do that again,” Eileen said, pushing away from the hug to give Castiel a stern look. “I don’t know how you guys handle this…”

“We don’t,” Dean answers. “We make stupid deals that get us or the world into trouble.”

“Speaking of…” Sam mumbled, the change on his face from relief to an analyzing and calculating look aimed at Castiel making Dean’s stomach drop. “Cas… how is it that you’re here? You were dead. For a while. Then… you were alive again. Did you… did you make another deal with the Empty?”

“I didn’t even go to the Empty,” Castiel answered, one of those rare gummy smiles breaking out across his face. “It was Jack.”

“Jack?” Dean said. “Jack saved you?”

“He gave me a choice,” Cas replied. “I didn’t go to the Empty, because… Jack had permitted me entry into Heaven, instead. When my grace was destroyed during the spell, there was a short time that I was human. And in that time… Jack had gifted me a soul.”

“Huh… well I’ll be damned,” Dean mumbled under his breath. “All this time, huh? He was helping us the whole time?”

“Where he could, yes,” Castiel said. “Dean, Sam… I wish you could have seen him. He’s… he’s everything Chuck should have been. He’s still him, he’s still the boy we knew, and… he cares so much. All he wants is to make the world a better place. The world, the other worlds, Heaven… he’s already done so much work.”

“Way to go, kid,” Dean spoke up towards the ceiling, voice beaming with pride. He turned his proud smile back down to Cas, glancing down from the tender smile Cas was giving him in return to Cas’s current choice of wardrobe – or, more accurately, the lack thereof. “C’mon, Cas. Let’s, uh… let’s go get you some clothes.”

“Oh,” Cas said in surprise, looking down at himself as if he hadn’t realized he had been sat here stark naked for the past few minutes. “Yes, that would probably be for the best…”

“I think I got some spare sweats you could borrow,” Dean mumbles as he pushes himself up to his feet, bending down to offer a hand to Cas.

Cas doesn’t take his hand. He remains seated on the floor, eyes wide as they can go and mouth dropped open nearly to the floor. Dean frowns at the astonished look Cas was giving him, glancing over to Sam and Eileen only to find they two were staring bug-eyed at him.

“What?” Dean asked. “Why are you all-,”

He was standing.

Holy Fuck, he was standing!

How the hell had it taken him this long to realize? How the hell had he not realized that he was able to feel the warm weight of Castiel on his lap? He had gotten back up to his feet without a second thought, so focused on helping Cas up that it just… hadn’t occurred to him that it was something he shouldn’t be able to do anymore.

“Dean, you’re arm-,” Sam manages to get out through his mask of shock, pointing to Dean’s arm. “It’s… it’s glowing.”

Dean looks down to his left shoulder where Sam was pointing, already able to see the faint blue glow under the sleeve of his shirt. Dean makes quick work of pushing the sleeve up, seeing the last few glowing pulses of Cas’s handprint on his arm before it reverted back to its usual faint red color.

“You’ve already taken care of it…” Castiel mumbles to himself, the realization hitting him like a bag of bricks. “My grace…”

Castiel’s eyes snap to the mark on Dean’s arm, jumping up to his wobbly feet and very nearly falling straight back down again. Dean shoots out an arm to catch Cas before he can fall, wrapping his hands around Cas’s biceps to steady him in place.

“Cas… how am I standing?” Dean asks.

“My grace,” Castiel repeats himself. “I asked Jack if he could heal you, Dean. But he told me there was nothing for him to heal, and that… that I had already healed you. I just… I hadn’t even realized I had done it.”

“But… how?” Sam asks. “I thought you used the last of your grace in the transfer over to your body?”

“I did,” Castiel confirms. “You have to remember that Grace is nothing but pure energy. Volatile energy. When the spell failed, the last of my grace, myself, I… there was a release of power. An explosion of my grace. I think that when this occurred…”

Castiel trailed off, tearing his gaze away from the expectant faces around him back to the scar of his handprint on Dean’s shoulder. “The sudden surge of my grace caused a reaction within the ebb of grace inside the mark. It would have momentarily powered up the last of my grace, and…”

“And it healed me…” Dean finished what Cas was leading to. He looked from the mark on his shoulder over to Cas, a sharp burst of delirious laughter escaping him as he pulled Cas into what felt like the hundredth hug of that evening -not that he was complaining. “Remind me to tell you how amazing you are, Cas. Every day if you have to. I don’t say it enough, you magnificent bastard.”

Cas’s light chuckles next to his ear only made Dean’s smile grow wider. Cas pulled away from their embrace, and then right there, his soft eyes looking to Dean like everything had fallen into place was when it sunk in for Dean.

Cas was alive. Right here in front of him, alive and warm under his hands. His future was back, looking right at him, and for once in his damned life it felt like everything was going to be okay.

He didn’t care that Eileen and Sammy were right there next to them, didn’t care if they knew or not. He was done with the hiding, the pretending, the worry over what others would think of him. All that mattered was he had Cas back, the had another chance to do this right.

So, right in front of his brother, he kisses Cas for all he's worth. He kisses him like it might be the last time he’d ever get the privilege, like one of them were going to die at any second – which, with them, is a very real possibility.

“That was real…” Dean whispers against Castiel’s lips. “Not a dream… not in my head… you’re real.”

“I’m real,” Castiel mimicked Dean’s words. “And you kissed me.”

“And I kissed you,” Dean agrees, his breathy laughter brushing across Castiel’s face. “Uh… I think we might have an audience.”

Dean peeled himself away from Cas, glancing anxiously over to his brother.  Not that he had anything to worry about, of course. Sam didn’t even blink at the two of them, too wrapped up in the euphoria and relief of getting his best friend back that he could only stand back with Eileen, watching their well-earned reunion with a smile of pure relief.

Eileen nudges Sam’s arm, gesturing to the two in front of them. “How about a new bet?”

Sam grins down at her, making sure Dean and Cas were otherwise distracted; not that it took long -the two always seemed to have their attention drawn to one another – before signing, “Is that even a question? What you got?”

“I’d give it six months before we’re stood at their wedding.”

Sam takes the bet.

He gives it three months.

Next Chapter - - - >

[shardminds]

okay i know in the grand scheme of things it’s been about 5 minutes since i got into spn and about 4.5 seconds since i started following spn blogs on tumblr but i just want 2 share some stuff re: what i would have liked to happen in my ideal ending. spoilers below.

number 1, sam and eileen endgame. after losing her in 15x18 and trying so hard to hold it together, sam’s quite obviously devvo’d. man’s a mess but he can’t let himself fall apart. 15x19 happens and everyone chuck disintegrated faster than communion wafers comes back and the FIRST thing sam does? calls eileen. high tails it out of there. speed limits who? there’s a heartwarming moment. maybe an ‘i love you’ or maybe not but it’s touching and heart wrenching and everyone cries and it’s nice. there you go, sam winchester. not only did you help save the world, but you got a happy ending in the process. eileen moves into the mol bunker. don’t @ me. she’s also great with miracle. and, in the long run, kids.  

number 2, deancas. my whole thing is, if they didn’t want canon deancas ending, why have cas confess? like i get the empty deal and i understand ‘happiness isn’t in the having, it’s in just being. it’s in just saying it’ but... if u didn’t want people to swarm on the possibility of deancas... why include it at all? especially for it to never be mentioned again. for cas, a man/angel/being of celestial intent that had spent like... 12(?) years at this point in sam and dean’s lives. you’re gonna tell me they just... let him sacrifice himself and then dip? ok. seems we have been watching different shows. or the same show from different perspectives. so, hear me out. dean says it back. maybe not in as many words or he pulls a hans solo ‘i know’. okay so they beat the shit out of The Literal Abrahamic God later to supercharge jack faster than shotgunning three monster energy mango locos ever could and leave chuck belly up in the mud like the invertebrate he proved himself to be and jack is Thee God now and dean just straight up asks. give that to me. give me the “please, jack.” and dean, so close to breaking, holding himself together with nothing but pure strength of will and residual adrenaline. give me jack’s reluctance, give me his admission of not wanting to mutate into the same megalomaniac chuck proved himself to be,using the winchesters as chess pieces in his own game. give me his humanity. the parts he inherited from kelly. give me his humanity and his grief and his loss and—castiel was his father, for fucks sake! he lost a father and a mother and he’s about to lose the only family he ever had. yes, he’ll be omnipresent—a perk of the job—but he’ll never be there in the way they want. so let him do this. there’s like a whole genesis parallel, you know all ‘the lord said let there be light, and there was light’ only not as on the nose as that. jack’s one selfish act before he himself, combined with amara, ascends. he does his whole speech. i’ll be in every drop of falling rain etc etc and then he dips. only, he’s gone and when dean turns around. cas is there. boom. 

there’s no kiss. no explicit ‘hello look at this confirmed gay angel and his human hunter ??sexual friend making out’ because that too much too fast. dean has spent the past 15 seasons trying to unfuck himself from the damage john winchester left behind (the nun hunt on his 17th birthday? lebanon? i will meet john winchester in the pit.) and as close as he is to finally just allowing himself to be himself, he’s not quite there yet. but the relief on his face. the—i’m gonna say it—love in his expression. cas’s confession clearly affected him, just look at 15x18. maybe dean doesn’t know what that means yet. maybe he does. but there’s a hug. an embrace. one of those that says ‘i don’t know why or how i like you, fruity little angel man, but i do and i’m not letting go’. it lasts a beat too long. maybe there’s tears. i’ll leave that up to jackles jacting joices.

number 3, michael sacrifices himself to save adam. OKAY SO THE WHOLE MICHAEL STORYLINE IN 15x19? BULLSHIT. especially with the adamichael scene in 15x08? where it is canonically confirmed that, after spending a real life decade (which is OVER ONE THOUSAND YEARS in hell time. 4 months = 40 years so 10 years or 120 months = 1200 years) trapped in the cage together, they became friends and shared control of the vessel. michael considered adam his guide on earth. michael. MICHAEL. M I C H A E L. seeing how spn painted him as one of, if not, THE most powerful and fearsome angel? man’s whipped. and then he loses adam when chuck has his thanos snap moment. imagine sharing a vessel with someone for twelve. hundred. years. and then being completely alone in a world you don’t know. how maddening for there to be only silence in your head. the fact that they then rammed this bs of him being jealous of lucifer for being ‘daddy’s favourite’ was exactly that. bullshit. no no no, my friends. michael was playing his own game; crossing the winchesters for chuck but actually, crossing chuck for his own gain. he learns of the winchesters plan to utilise the fact that jack is the power hungry equivalent of a shamwow and uses that to his own gain. i haven’t figured out the particulars but when chuck beats the shit out of michael, he kills the angel but leaves the vessel (think like jack at the end of s14). michael the winchesters think michael died a snivelling god fearing soldier. and then, when jack does his whole thing, up wakes adam. the winchesters take him in and explain what went down when he, you know. and adam lets them know that no, michaels not like that etc etc he did it for me etc he did it to save me. michael’s fall was imperative to the destruction of god. and, for that, he will always be remembered. adam’s not a hunter, but he stays at the bunker anyway. he has nowhere else to go. 

number 4, episode 15x20. what do you mean dean and sam both die? not in this universe i carry inside my head they don’t! this episode is just a bunch of scenes from throughout the years. you might think it boring but i think it’s great and this is my post so u can’t tell me what 2 do. dean opens up a bar for hunters a la 14x10 and has pictures on all the walls of all the fallen hunters and friends that have helped them throughout the years. you want a picture on the wall for a friend you lost? sure! just bring a photo and tack it on up there. out of sight, kept to the wall of the office, they keep pictures of the non-humans that helped. it’s private. a reminder. sam and eileen stop by a couple times a week if they can. jody and donna make the rounds with the girls too if work allows. or they come on their own. the girls are old enough to take care of themselves now. claire pops in when she can, always bringing a present for cas (despite him reprimanding her for doing so) and dean is always happy to see her. she doesn’t text enough. 

sam sets up the bunker as a base for hunters again, trying to get a system up and running like before where hunters can check in and get help and use the weapons and resources they have for cases. 

they don’t deal with heaven anymore. they haven’t seen jack since he disappeared but they also haven’t had any angel troubles either. maybe it’s because there are so few. castiel helps a lot as he still has his grace—although he’s still unable to teleport and he seems to be aging, trapped in some kind of space between. not angel and not human and definitely not nephilim. he’s powerful and powerless at the same time. he doesn’t complain about this, knowing what it means. it’s a kindness. 

rowena is also on side, mostly, although she has her own gain in mind always. they have the stray demon that pops up every now and again but she– uh... prefers to make an example of them using her own methods. sam has learned not to question it. she teases him incessantly, as usual. 

also, stay at home dad sam. eileen jumps back into hunting. they’ve had conversations—arguments—about it before. he doesn’t want to turn into his father, driven mad chasing mary’s ghost if something were to happen. she refuses to even entertain the thought of that. yelling “you are a lot of things, sam winchester. your father is not one of them.” and at the end of the day, there’s a mutual trust there and he knows she won’t put herself in unnecessary risk, and he 100% roped dean in to jumping on as backup if and when she needs it. the kid(s) are raised love and cherished and surrounded by family. sam also learns how to sign one handed with a baby on his hip. it’s adorable.

anyway we never have to find out about heaven because no one dies thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[fic-ya-later]

Not Gonna Die: Chapter 1

Summary: Castiel is depressed, however he has to return to work even if he doesn’t want too. 

Warnings: Mentions of death and depression. 

A/N: Hey guys! I am so excited to post this here! If you like what you see send me a message; I’d love to hear your thoughts! My request and taglist are OPEN so let me know if you’d like to join it or like something written! I’m working on honing my writing process and style to work on an original piece I’ve had ideas for so if you are a fellow writer send me a message and we can chat about ideas and processes! I hope you enjoy this work!

Series Masterlist

Chapter One | Chapter Two 

Castiel couldn’t tell how many times he had played Clair de Lune, but it was more than the number of whiskey tumblers he had drained in the last two hours of playing. He couldn’t seem to find the end; cadence would lead to cadence and he’d find himself resolving back to the beginning of the piece each time. Each pass through the melody something was different, Castiel’s fingers hesitated on a note, or he dampered a run’s end to cause the chord to linger in his ears. No, Castiel did not like endings. In his small apartment the baby grand echoed with grace. The rain on the glass wall of his apartment created a soft backdrop for the otherwise barren expanse of the room. 

A pause in the music filled the air as Castiel reached for the fifth to refill his tumbler, only to find it, to his surprise, empty. What time was it? 11? 12? He couldn't tell any more. He set the bottle on the floor and looked up, running his hands down his face when he saw it. The only picture in the whole house sat on the small table in the corner. The soft hazel eyes smiled at him, and Castiel started another melody as tears swelled in his. This time the melancholy was more than a subtext to the music. He let his fingers linger on each note, the vibrations filling him as Gymnopedie No. 1 filled the room. He would’ve continued like this for hours just as he did the last night, and the night before last, and the one before that, but the vibrating of his phone across the room put an end to his thoughts. 

GABE CALLING

With a sigh Castiel silenced the phone. He didn’t need yet another worried sibling bothering him during his self-loathing sabbatical. Not that it mattered. Most of them didn’t care what he was doing, as long as he wasn’t tarnishing the family’s name. Novak. He cursed his father’s last name for the weight it carried. So many knew the Novak technology empire that when they found out Castiel was a part of the family there was a look people would give him which accompanied the customary “why didn’t you follow your dad’s footsteps”. Castiel hated that question. At first he tried explaining that humans are just so interesting, and he felt it was his mission to protect and save them. After he changed his last name people asked why he didn’t capitalise on the familial fortune; he grew tired of explaining that he had all he needed and then some. After he moved away from Boston they would ask what he was running from. Now he had no answer. The past? The future? His family? He didn’t know, but there was something about the beauty of Colorado that just drew him in. There is a real connection to the Earth here. Castiel knew it was where he needed to be the first time he flew out to interview for Boulder City General; if he hadn’t been welcomed to their surgical team, well, he would have flown out to this very house no matter what and become a hermit. 

GABE CALLING

Again his brother tried and failed to reach Castiel. The ringtone fell on deaf ears as Castiel was asleep on his sofa, completely dead to the world. 

Most of Castiel’s dreams held little power over him. There was the odd dream of his mother which gifted him with comfort and peace. The dreams of wings that left him feeling assured and powerful. Then there were the dreams of forests, forests filled with green which left him waking with the constant uneasy edge of something invisible being out of place. These were the only dreams he cared for; the rest of them he chalked them up to subconscious ramblings of an overworked surgeon. These were the dreams of before. Now mostly he dreamed of red and the whine of equipment. 

Blue eyes snapped open. Another of those dreams. With a groan Castiel rolled to his side. 4:12 flashed too brightly into his eyes. He blinked and refocused. May 12. With a sigh Castiel decided the best thing he could do would be to roll himself out of bed and clean up. He returned to work today and the scruff growing down his face and neck simply wouldn’t do. “What have I become?” Steam filled the room and doubt filled his head. “She was just a child.” “You did everything you could” “There had to be something you missed.” Thoughts spiralled through his head as he showered. 

Two weeks ago Castiel met a new patient. A girl of only 12 named Claire. One week ago she went into the OR for a routine valve transplant. One week ago Claire died as Castiel stood over her with his decades, it seemed like centuries actually, of knowledge failing him. The operation was supposed to be straightforward, Castiel had accomplished successful surgeries in far worse circumstances, but when she flatlined he was completely at a loss. Nothing in his past hurt worse that the look on her mother’s face as he walked solemnly into the waiting room. Castiel walked out of the hospital that day fully intending on never walking back in. A stranger was the one who convinced him to take a sabbatical rather than retire a whole career early. 

GABE CALLING

“Gabe.”

“Hello to you too Castiel.” The silence between the two stretched through the room. “You know what day it is today, right Cassy?” 

“Yes. The days don’t change each week Gabriel. I know when Monday is.”

“And we know what happens today. Right?”

“You don’t need to talk to me like I'm a child. I'm trying not to think about it.”

“You’re going to do amazing!”

“Will you bring me lunch?”

“Of course. The usual right?” Cas smiles and hums in response. “Thought so. Don’t stress too much Cassie, I’ll be right down stairs if you need anything.”

“You can do so much better than janitor Gabriel if you ju-”

“Don’t start with me. I’ll work on my life as soon as I can stop worrying about yours little brother. Now get dressed, give Chevy a kiss for me and get your perky ass to the hospital before I have to drag it there myself.” 

Gabe hung up before Cas could even retort by inquiring how his older brother knew the shape and lift of his rear, but he did leave a smile on the surgeon's face. As if on cue, knowing her being was mentioned, a meow cut through the empty apartment and the ashen coloured creature wrapped herself around Cas’s legs, her otherworldly eyes staring up at her human with mild disdain. Chevy was a rescue, Castiel took her in after she was dropped off at the clinic Gabe was working at at the time. They all assumed she was blind, her eyes wouldn’t open for weeks, and that she had been hit by a car. The gruff older man who dropped her off had said he would come back for her if she improved, a gift for a family member he said, but then he never came. So Chevy became Castiel’s. After weeks of nursing her wounds and staying up all night to ensure her health, she finally opened her eyes and looked at her new human with mild affection. Upon seeing her eyes Castiel knew she was meant for him, one stark, pure blue eye, and one warm, deep green eye had blinked at him and she decided that he’d do. 

“I see you little lady. Let’s get you some food before dad goes to work.” While Castiel was never fond of people in general, he had a soft spot for animals and especially for Chevy. She always was so intune with him, and he wanted the best for her. After her water was freshened and a delicate mix of chicken and cat food mix was placed in her dish up on the counter in the bathroom, Castiel continued to ready himself for work. He showered and shaved quickly, trying not to glance at the scars on his back or on his wrists before dressing in freshly pressed trousers and a white button up.

“You get a kiss from Uncle Gabe this morning.” He scratches the cat’s chin before looking in the mirror one last time, face solemn and firm. “You can do this.”

-------

The hospital was as busy as ever, it was like Castiel had never left, that is until director of surgery Zachariah Adler made himself known. The snivelling man was everything that Castiel considered himself not to be: slimy, greedy, an overall pushover if it meant keeping his image and status, and worst of all he had very little regard for others or the lives that fell into his care--just as long as his numbers look good at the end of the quarter. 

“Good to see you back Dr. Allen. I trust your week was...productive?” The director’s tone signalled to Castiel that he had to tread very carefully within the brief conversation.

“Yes Director, very productive. I spent much time focusing on updating my reading on surgical advancements made in the treatment of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms. It proved quite provoking and has led me to belie…” 

“Yes, yes. Very good. I trust we won’t have any more issues then?”

“No sir.”

“Very good.” The director turned on his heel and left as swiftly as he came, and with not so much a nod in Castiel’s direction. 

“Good morning to you too.” Cas grumbled as he made his way to his office. Not much had changed, but there was a small layer of dust coating most surfaces he would have to wipe off on his lunch today. The tiny office was perfect for the surgeon’s needs. The north and east walls were adorned with meticulously organised and cared for bookshelves. The south wall held a bulletin board next to the door, and the west wall was nothing but glass. That overlooked Boulder City and the mountain range beyond. His desk was always kept neat, the only clutter taking the form of an organiser for his active case files and his in/out box, which had far more in it that he would’ve liked at this point, but that is the life of a surgeon. 

Just as he’d settled in there was a tap on the door.

“Come in.” Cas absentmindedly called out as he remained buried in a case file that required some attention. 

“Dr. Allen?”

“Mhhh.”

“Doctor Bradbury needs you for a consultation.” The voice was firm but cautious.

“Is it urgent or shall I schedule her in?” Castiel still had yet to look up from his case file, consultations were often needed when a surgery or procedure could potentially have adverse effects on a patient beyond the single issue.

“She already has requested you for a 10 am. If that’s amenable of course.”

“Mhhhm. That will do, please tell her I will be in my office Dr….” Blue eyes meet deep green.

“Nurse. Uh, Winchester.” 

“Yes, thank you Winchester. Have you worked for Dr. Bradbury long?” The tanned face was not among the carefully catalogued members of staff within Castiel’s brain. 

“First day. I will let her know you’re available. Thank you Dr. Allen.” As quickly as he came he was gone and Cas was left staring blankly at the empty doorway, wondering why those eyes captivated him so. There was a faint smell of leather lingering throughout the room that continued to mildly distract him for the remainder of his boring morning of answering emails and setting up appointments for referred clients. Just before he had his meeting with Dr. Bradbury, he was tempted to look up the new nurse in the directory, but stopped himself out of habit. New people often intrigued him, and he knew he could come on quite strong to the ‘uninitiated’ as Gabe called it. Perhaps he would be able to run into him at some point, it would seem those green eyes captivated Cas in a way he was unfamiliar with.

Another knock on the door. This one he was expecting, so he rose and greeted his friend and colleague warmly. 

“Cas!” Once the door was shut OBGYN and friend Charlie Bradbury has her arms wrapped snuggly around Cas’s shoulders, he could feel the grin through his lab coat.

“Hello Charlie, it’s good to see you.”

“You too! How are you doing? You cant just ignore me like this; I didn’t know where you were for a whole week! You even missed theme night at the Roadhouse!” The bubbling redhead would go on forever if he let her.

“Charlie.” She quiets. “I’m okay, and yes I will be going to the Roadhouse tonight, and yes I know it’s cowboy night” --- “and girl” --- “Cowperson night. And I wasn't ignoring you, I was taking a brief leave of absence to deal with personal matters. If you wish, we can arrange lunch this week and I can fill you in.” She eagerly nods. “What did you need to see me for?”

“There's the Dr. Castiel Novak I know.” The resulting glare from the blue eyes makes her shiver. “Sorry Castiel. It's a habit. I’ve known you too long.”

“I know, please just be careful. I do not wish for certain members of faculty to know my upbringing or history. I've been passing as human for this long; I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Of course,” She nods sympathetically. While most people were open and accepting to the supernatural since the fall of heaven and closing of hell, many people were still quite superstitious and prejudiced against any nonhumans. “Well, to business. I've got a case that's really troubling me. It’s quite delicate, as the case is slightly personal to one of my staff members. I have a patient. Jessica Moore. She just came in for her routine prenatal and I discovered a heart murmur. I think we might have a tricuspid atresia. To make matters worse Ms Moore is having a difficult pregnancy to say the least. Her attachment is weak and she’s beginning to show signs of preeclampsia.” 

“That is quite a combination.”

“Yes it seems that childbearing does not become her. She's the girlfriend of the brother of one of my nurses. I was hoping I could get you in for her next scan, she's due to have another ultrasound at 26 weeks. I’m worried we are going to end up having to either induce her or order a cesarean to maintain both of their healths.” Charlie’s face contorted with sadness at that. Castiel always admired the care she had for her patients. 

“When would this be?” He opened his diary.

“Two weeks, Monday.”

“Yes I can be there. Have someone drop by the details later in the week so I can ensure I am up to date on the case.”

“I’ll have Dean drop them off to you tomorrow them.” 

“Dean... that’s not a name you’ve used before.”

Charlie smiled at Cas cheekily. “Nothing gets by you Cas. Dean is a new midwife in my department. Came to me straight from the military believe it or not. He’s well over qualified for working with me, but I’m not complaining that I have the most capable, attractive, nerdiest midwife in the west at my fingertips.” She flashed a grin.

“How do those last two make him an effective nurse?” 

“They don’t but I wanted to see your reaction. You met him this morning right?”

“Ah so that was the mystery nurse.”

“Yes. Now you can’t go scaring him away. He's already been invited to join the Roadhouse gang. Garth asked him this morning. The two are becoming rather fast friends I’d like to think. I’ll see you tonight?”

“Yes Charlie, I’ll be there with spurs on.”

“Kinky…” She winks as she leaves the room, and leaves Castiel to his thoughts.

As the day drug on, Castiel became so busy he barely noticed when his lunch hour came up. Jumping out of his chair he swapped his lab coat for a cardigan and went to meet his brother for the lunch he was promised.

[destiel-love-forever]

15.3 CODA: Part 2

Read part one [HERE]

Castiel wakes just as the sun is rising. Despite not getting much sleep, he feels rested and ready to take on the day. As rested and ready as possible under the circumstances, anyway. The coffee pot is full of dark liquid that’s still warm. A yellow sticky note is stuck to the front of the machine, neat writing informing him that Jody had to go into work early, and telling him to help himself to anything he needs until she’s back at four P.M.

After pouring himself a cup of coffee, Castiel walks over to the two large sliding glass doors by the kitchen table and heads outside. The air is cool and crisp, but it feels nice. Refreshing. Castiel leans on the railing of the wooden deck and looks out at the brilliant colors of the back yard. The leaves are breathtaking.

“It’s freezing out here,” Castiel hears from the sliding doors. He glances over his shoulder and forces a smile when he sees Claire standing there.

“I don’t mind.”

She gives him a critical look before stepping out onto the porch and offering him a blanket, hat, scarf, and mittens. When he stares at them instead of taking them from her, she rolls her eyes. “You’re such a doof. Come here.”

When Castiel approaches her, she tugs the burgundy hat over his head, then winds the scarf around his neck. He gets with the program and gives her his coffee so she can hold it while he puts the mittens on as well. After, she wraps the flannel blanket around his shoulders and pats him on the shoulder.

“Much better,” Claire declares. Castiel just now notices that she’s dressed similarly, her black jacket matched with a black hat, a gray scarf, and a pair of mittens that are black with white and gray polka dots. She gives him his coffee back and smiles. “Now, you go ahead and do your weird staring off into space thing that you were just doing, but when you’re done, come inside. We have a long day ahead of us.”

“We do?”

“Yup. All sorts of plans.”

“We have plans? You and I?” Castiel asks, trying to clarify.

She rolls her eyes. “And Alex, too, yup. Chop chop.”

With two claps of her mitted hands, she heads back inside. He stares at the sliding door for another moment before turning his focus back to the trees.

“What in the world could they have planned with me?” he asks the myriad of red, yellow, and orange.

The trees don’t answer.

Just another reason to hate Chuck.

----

The first stop on their schedule is to a bakery. Castiel, Alex, and Claire all get something to drink and eat before hopping back in the car. As they drive, Claire and Alex talk to each other in a constant babble, letting Castiel be as he enjoys his hot cocoa and blueberry muffin. He's feeling much better now that his stomach is full and he's decently rested. Claire must be able to sense this, because she broaches the subject they've all clearly been avoiding as Alex pulls the car into a store parking lot.

"How are you, Cas? Jody said it was a rough night?"

"Rough few days," Castiel says quietly, looking down at his empty to-go cup. "I'll be fine, though. I am always fine."

There's a pause long enough for him to glance up. He finds that both girls are now frowning at him. "What?"

"Well, you're talking to two experts on pretending to be fine when you're really a fucking mess, so don't bullshit us," Claire says matter-of-factly.

"What Claire meant to say in a much kinder way, I'm sure," Alex says with an eye roll, "Is that you don't have to pretend with us. We don't have to talk about it, but feel free to do so. Or to just be sad or whatever else you feel like being. Okay?"

Castiel nods, understanding. "Okay."

"Great. Now, let's fix your coat."

Looking down at his trench coat, Castiel asks, “What’s wrong with my coat?”

“First of all, it’s thin, and you’re clearly more human now considering the way you scarfed down that muffin, so you need something warmer,” Alex explains. “It’s nearly winter now. You’re going to be too cold in that, Cas.”

“Oh.”

“Plus, that thing is atrocious, and old. My dad got that for Christmas when I was like… five. Time for a change, dude.”

Castiel doesn’t like change. He’s had enough damn change in his life recently. Eleven years ago, he commanded a garrison. He was one of Michael’s chosen few. Was given the privilege to save the righteous man. Michael’s true vessel. It was one of the highest honors.

He was respected.

He was feared.

Then he fell in love with humanity. With Dean, if we’re being honest. Those freckles that were like a galaxy on pale skin. Those green eyes that held so many questions and even more answers.

Castiel lost it all.

But he’ll tell ya what - he still has this trench coat. It’s been to hell and back - more than once. It’s all he has left.

That’s why, even though he’s shown multiple options, given at least a dozen eye rolls, and told twice that he’s a doof, Castiel walks out of the coat store with something very similar to his trusty trench coat, just made of wool instead so it’s warmer.

----  

Pumpkin patches are wondrous places. Castiel had assumed it'd be a small farm with pumpkins everywhere, but that's not the case. At least not here. Yes, there are pumpkins. Many, many pumpkins, all of different shapes, sizes, and even colors. But there are also apples - an entire orchard of gorgeous red apples. There’s a corn maze, which Castiel finds both entertaining and frustrating. He gets lost so many times before a five or six year old child takes pity on him by leading him out. It was still a lot of fun, even if Alex and Claire teased him for being terrible at it.

They went for a hayride, too. The farm provided them with big flannel blankets and hot cocoa as they rode in the back, brought around the entire farm, the man driving telling them fascinating information on the crops and harvest, as well as the history of the area and the farm. Then they got to pet the farm animals. Castiel became fond of a horse that enjoyed licking his face. He even giggled, which felt very good to be honest.

Of course, Castiel’s favorite part of their day at the farm was the Bakery & Farm Store. He’s never tasted anything so delicious. They sat at a little table for over an hour, stuffing their faces until Castiel nearly got sick. Between the three of them sharing their treats, they all tried apple cider donuts, cinnamon rolls, strawberry crepes, apple pie, strawberry cream cheese danish, chocolate covered croissants, strawberry rhubarb pie, blueberry muffins, and caramel apple pie. The little old lady running the place liked them so much, she shared her pumpkin pie recipe with Castiel, who promised he’d go home and make it that night.

They left the farm with seven pumpkins, two bags of apples, a dozen apple cider donuts - which were Castiel’s favorite - and caramel apples to-go. By the time Castiel got to the car, he was full, happy, and exhausted. It was the perfect combo to curl up in the backseat and take a little snooze during their long ride home.

He fell asleep smiling.

----

Dean is wide awake despite it being the middle of the night. He's been stalking Castiel's Instagram. Yes. Instagram. Apparently Claire and Alex thought he needed one. Dean only has the damn thing to stalk Dr. Sexy MD actors, but now he's using it to stalk a certain falling angel he can't stop thinking about.

Since he saw the first picture, Dean has been refreshing the page every other minute. It had been a picture taken by Claire, which is how Dean originally came across it, with Castiel tagged in it. He was standing outside, wrapped in a flannel blanket and drinking something from a mug as he stared off at the colorful backyard. Claire's caption had been: Finally finding his peace.

That was at 4:07 P.M, though clearly it had been taken much earlier in the day.

Suffice to say, Dean has gotten nothing accomplished tonight. He hasn't even eaten dinner. All he's done is sit in his room, drink whiskey, and refresh the page.

At 4:37 P.M, there had been the first two photos uploaded by Castiel himself. One was of him reaching up to pluck a leaf off of a tree. The other was just his mitted hand holding the same leaf. The caption for the two was a simple: My favorite.

Dean ached at the fact he wasn't there. He wondered what Castiel's face looked like when he caught sight off this one perfect leaf. Wondered if he had smiled when he finally got it in his hands. Wondered if Castiel still had the leaf, or if he had easily tossed it onto the ground after the photo, just like Dean had done to him.

At 4:42 P.M, Claire uploaded a few photos. One was of Castiel in his new coat and winter gear Dean noticed in the previous photos. He was smiling at something off to the side, a pumpkin patch lined by colorful trees behind him. The next was of Castiel's mittens holding a blue travel coffee mug. Then a photo of Castiel's torso as he holds a pumpkin. Dean knew it was Castiel because of the tiny scar on his thumb. It was from nicking himself with an angel blade last week. With his lowered grace, it hasn't healed properly. Dean had to choke down a new wave of guilt at that reminder before he could look at the final photo. It was of the girls and Castiel around a table where they seemed to be carving pumpkins. They were laughing.

Castiel was wearing a new sweater.

At 5:13 P.M, Castiel posted a photo of a carved pumpkin. It was quite awful. The eyes were different sizes, the nose was partially cut out, but the piece of pumpkin was still stuck inside of it for some reason, and the smile was… unique. The caption was: Claire said I 'nailed it.'

Dean had to wait two hours for another photo. And that's what he did. He waited. Did nothing but drink and hate himself. And, of course, refresh the page.

At 7:22 P.M, Castiel finally posted another photo. It made Dean's heart skip. Well… the caption had, anyway. The pumpkin pie itself was a bit shaky, considering the darker-than-they-should-be edges. But the caption had brought tears to Dean's eyes. It would have tasted better with you.

Dean had tried calling Claire after that. Then Alex. Then Claire again. They ignored him. When he tried calling Jody, she sent a text back saying she was at work, asking if it was an emergency.

With a fresh glass of whiskey, he had waited.

At 8:36 P.M, Castiel posted two more pictures. One of someone making a s'more, a bonfire in the background. The other, two pairs of feet wearing wool socks as they rest up against the side of the fire pit. To the right were blue socks with little snowflakes on them. To the left were bright yellow socks covered in bumble bees.

Dean knew which one was Castiel.

The caption was a simple: Happy.

It made Dean curl into his pillow and cry.

The last one that Dean saw was at 11:57 P.M. It showed Castiel sitting on a bed, holding a purple mug with Witch Please written on it in one hand, and holding an open book in the other. He was in a gray hooded sweater, his legs covered with a blanket the same color as his gorgeous eyes. It was captioned: "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

It's at 3:09 A.M. that Dean realizes Castiel must have fallen asleep.

He crawls under the covers and closes his eyes after, heart racing even though it has no reason to be. It takes a while for the whiskey soaked exhaustion to win over his mind, but eventually Dean slips into a dream.

Castiel is there. In a pumpkin patch. He looks at Dean with a smile and hands him a beautiful leaf. "My favorite for my favorite."

And Dean kisses him.

He kisses him like his life depends on it.

He kisses him like he knows, deep down, that he'll soon have to wake up.

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[themoonandotherslikeit]

What the Rain Can’t Wash Away- Chapter 8

*FINAL PIECE IN THE LOOK IN HER EYES TRILOGY*

Sixteen years after Lucifer rose, and Dean lost his wife he finds himself with a teenager, a Nephilim, an angel, and his brother living out a Full House rerun with some seriously dark undertones. How will he be able to raise his daughter, fight monsters, and deal with the loss of the love of his life? Sometimes moving on is the hardest part, but with the Winchester’s there’s always something harder around the corner. Isn’t there?

Chapter Eight, You’re the One

Ella 

Seeing my mother standing in front of me, living and breathing was keeping me awake. I rolled over in bed to stare at the ceiling. "You're restless," Claire said with a yawn. "Turn out the light, babe." She reached over and ran her finger along the bridge of my nose.

"I can't."

"What's on your mind?"

"Other than the obvious?" I laughed dryly.

"More like, what’s on your mind specifically."

Clementine groaned in her sleep between us, and I reached down and scratched between her ears. She purred happily in response and cuddled closer to me. "More specifically... I have so many things bouncing around inside of my head." I rolled onto my side to look at Claire in the darkness. Her blue eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. "My Mom is back."

"She is."

"It's all I've wanted my whole life. I've wanted to know her."

"Now you get the chance,” she said quietly, pushing my hair behind my ear. "So what's really bothering you?"

"Things are never easy for us, Claire. Never. We don't get to just have happy endings. Micheal is still inside of Dad, and honestly, I don't know anything about Mom. What if she's a nightmare? You remember what it was like when Grandma Mary came back... How disappointed Dad was."

"You're worried she won't live up?"

"Kind of. Or that I won't live up won't live up to what she expected me to be."

"You're the best person I know, Ella. You don't need to worry about that."

"But I do," I said quietly, my voice breaking. "This has been my birthday wish my whole life. To see my Dad happy. To have a Mom, and fuck... what if it doesn't fix everything?"

"She's just a person, El. You can't put that much pressure on her. She probably won't fix everything, but that doesn't mean that you can't have the things you want. Plus, I know she will love you. If not, she's probably missing her soul."

"You're a pretty big softie, for a badass hunter."

"Yeah, yeah. You do that to people." She smiled widely. "It's hard not to be all gooey around Eleanor Winchester."

"Gross don't say my full name. I feel like I'm in trouble."

"Oh, sweetie, you are in trouble." Claire grinned, wrapping her arms around me. She pulled me to her, taking my lips against hers in an urgent kiss. She was warm, and soft. She was present. It was hard to feel like anything could be wrong in the world when I was this close to Claire. Her lips were still minty from brushing her teeth, and I breathed her in. My fingers tangled in her curls as I ran my tongue along her bottom lip.

"Mmmm. Punish me then."

"I wonder if this is what your parents are doing," Claire mumbled against my mouth, causing me to yank away from her.

"What? Gross! I can't believe you. Just said that!"

She busted up into laughter. "What did you expect to happen, Nel? You thought they were just going to hold hands? I'm sure that's why they're locked in that bedroom. What did you think they were doing?"

"Honestly? I don't know... talking. Figuring their shit out. God, you think they just jumped into bed?" I didn't know why the thought was so disturbing to me. Claire was right, it was what I wanted. I wanted my Dad to be happy, but more than anything I wanted him to have the love of his life back. I wanted him to have what I had with Claire. I just hadn't considered sex, not really.

"I don't know," she admitted, opening her arms back. "Don't think too hard about it."

"It's all I'm going to think about now," I complained. "You planted a seed."

"Aw, stop, you little perv." She smiled and wiggled her fingers in a come here way.

I rolled my eyes and cuddled back into her arms, back where I felt safe. "God, I can't believe you brought up my parents having sex."

Claire shrugged. "I don't know. I think it's kind of sweet."

"Maybe, but still really fucking gross."

  Dean

I wanted to kiss her. Fuck. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to take her into my arms like she never left, and memorize her body all over again. I wanted to kiss her, but it wasn't about what I wanted. The playing field wasn't level. It was like we were meeting for the first time all over again. She was Ava. She was a fucking angel, beautiful, perfect, and I was a fuck up. I was some old guy that'd been through his fair share of shit storms in the last decade and a half. She deserved to know it all before she was back back.

"I...I've missed you, Ave. More than I thought I could ever miss another person, but I think you deserve all of the facts before you decide."

"Decide? What is there to decide?"

"If this is what you want. If I...fuck, I'm not the same Dean Winchester you left. I don't even know that guy anymore," I admitted through clenched teeth. "I just don't want you to feel obligated. To me, I mean. You have to see Nel... she's a fucking gift. Best thing I've ever done, Ave. You're gonna love her."

"So, what? You're going to lay out all the cards and then we just decide if we are going to stay married or get a divorce?"

"We've both been legally dead a few times over, Sweetheart, I don't think a divorce will be necessary."

"What do you want, Dean?" She asked me seriously.

"It doesn't matter."

She smiled slightly and rolled her eyes. "You say you're different, but you seem the same to me." She took my hand in hers. "It matters. If I want to stay and you don't want me to then I won't. You're not obligated to me, either."

My eyes met hers. A sea of blue. An endless sky. Looking at her was a fucking summer's day at the lake with Nel. Sammy teaching her to catch fish while I finish of a twelve pack by myself. It was s'mores in the night and stories dancing around the fire. Castiel telling us about the creation of the fucking world. Her eyes were home.

"I'm not obligated to you, Ava, I'm in love with you."

"After all this time?"

"What time?" I reached forward and brushed her cheek. "Time stopped when I lost you."

"It didn't stop, Dean. No time has passed for me," she murmured, her lips barely moving. "But for you... you've had an entire life without me. I want to know all about it."

"Okay." I ran my thumb across her cheekbone. "Fuck I don't even know where to start."

I caught a tear as it escaped her eye. "Start with Nel."

I smiled widely. "That's a pretty damn good place to start." I pressed my forehead to hers. "Come to my room?"

"Dean Winchester, are you trying to seduce me?"

"Actually, no." I smiled a bit. "I just have some things I think you'd like to see."

"Okay," she murmured, putting her hand in mine. I lead her through the hallway and opened my bedroom door.

"Welcome to my humble abode."

"It's..." She ran her fingers along my plain red comforter. "It needs a woman's touch." She turned and smiled at me. "Its very Dean."

"Thank you?" I raised an eyebrow.

She lowered herself onto my bed in a seated position. "What did you want to show me?"

I crouched down in front of the book shelf against the back wall and pulled out the baby books. "I tried my hand at scrapbooking," I explained with a dry laugh. "I sucked, but Cas was weirdly good at it. So... well we got this." I handed her one of the books and sat down next to her.

 Ava

I couldn't say the words out loud. It was like I blinked. I blinked into another world. There I was, running my fingers over the front of a scrapbook that Dean Winchester put together. I wondered if the monsters knew that he cut letters out of patterned paper. I opened the book and sucked in my breath. "Oh, Dean."

Photos of me and Sam the day Eleanor was born.

Every page tore at my heart a little more. Hand written scribbles next to photographs of Dean holding a toddler Eleanor with teeth poking through her pink gums. Tiny pigtails and perfect braids. Bows in her hair.

"Is this the bunker?" I asked, looking at a picture of Eleanor sitting on Sam's shoulders with her arms in the air in front of a weird building that was half under ground.

"Yeah," he said quietly, his thigh brushing mine. "It's weird, but it's home."

"How did you find it?"

"It's a weird story, actually." He laughed dryly. "We came across a demon... a Knight of Hell actually and along with her came my Grandfather. Like through a portal." He raised an eyebrow.

"Weird, but not that weird for us. Go on."

He nodded. "Apparently back in the day there was a group of guys called The Men of Letters, kind of like hunters, but instead they read a lot of books. Kind of like Sammy."

"And this was, what? Their headquarters?"

"Basically."

"So you thought you'd move in?"

Dean shrugged. "Seems like as good of a place as any. It's safe, full of lore, in a good school district." He offered a bright smile.

He looked so good.

"What else?" I smiled, peeling my eyes away from him and back to the book. I flipped the pages. Stickers of angel babies, ketchup stains, Eleanor's kindergarten graduation. "What do the pictures not say?"

"She has a girlfriend."

I raised my eyebrows and met his bright eyes. "A... girlfriend?"

"Yeah. Cute little blonde."

"Huh. Is she nice?"

"She's great. Strong. A little edgy. She's a hunter."

"Dean Winchester!" I gasped, hitting his arm with an open palm. "You let her date a hunter? Are you fucking bananas?"

"No? Ow. Ave, she is your daughter. I can't stop her from doing anything. She's stubborn."

"She's a Winchester," I agreed with a sigh. "She would always be stubborn."

We looked at each other. There were years worth of pain behind his eyes. Pain that I wasn't sure I could heal. "Our girl is all grown up."

"She's amazing," he said quietly.

I pressed my lips together, trying to find the words. "Lacey was a demon, and I trusted her. It's all my fault that she got that demon blood, Dean. Has it..."

"Yeah. Yeah it has. Just manifested, actually. She's sort of... psychic, I guess. She can read minds sometimes. She pulled me out when I was stuck in a delusion."

"So she isn't..."

"Dark side?" He shook his head. "The exact opposite. She is the light, Ave. She's all light."

I covered my mouth to let out a sob that had been bubbling up inside of me. She's okay.

"Hey, shh." He pulled me against his chest, and I let it all go. Snot and all. "Ave, what's wrong?"

"She's okay... She's healthy, smart, happy. I'm so happy." I was heartbroken for missing her childhood, but Dean was a good father. He was everything I knew he could be. "I'm so glad she has you."

He kissed my hair gently, like he used to. "I was glad to have her. I think I would've lost it if I didn't have her to take care of."

"I know the feeling," I admitted, looking up at him. "You keep saying you've changed. That you aren't the same man I knew, but... But I know you, Dean. You're the same."

"I've just been through some shit, Ave."

"What shit?"

He let go of me and looked away. I could see the muscles in his back tense under his shirt. He was struggling. I reached forward and touched his shoulder, he flinched in response. "You can tell me," I murmured. I already knew what he did in Hell, what could be worse than that?

"The short version? I started the apocalypse, let Lucifer out of his cage, let him posses Sammy... Sam tossed himself into Hell to protect the world from Lucifer. He came back, with his soul gone. Fucking gone, Ave. He wasn't Sammy anymore. Cas went looney tunes a time and again. There were all of these Leviathan creatures that we had to take out. When we cut off the head, metaphorically, Cas and I got blown to Purgatory."

My head was spinning. "The Purgatory?"

"It was awful. I was there for a year, and Sam was here, playing Dad to Nel. That's probably the most normal her life ever was, but she was still pretty young."

I swallowed hard. "Are you okay?"

"It's been awhile,” he said with a smile that told me, no. He was not okay. "Then... then uh..."

There's more?

I tried to hold it together, and wait for him to gather his thoughts. "I got the Mark of Cain. Which made me this horrible killing machine..." His hands curled into fists as he tired to level his breathing. "I did it to kill Abaddon. The demon that came in with my Granadad?"

I nodded slowly and reached my hand out to him.

He took it willingly, and gave it a squeeze. "And then... then I died." His eyes flickered to mine. I didn't move. I remained emotionless. He died, but he was in front of me.

"What was the catch?"

"The catch... I woke up as a demon." He winced.

"You're not... now right?"

"No. Sammy cured me."

"A cure? For demons?"

"That's what you're stuck on?" He laughed and ran his fingers through his hair. "Yeah, theres a cure for a lot of shit that we didn't know about before."

"Okay, we can come back to that later." I exhaled a shaky breath. "Is that... it?"

"No. I got rid of the Mark of Cain, and it let out darkness... which is Gods sister. Oh shit, Ave. You remember Chuck?"

"The guy who wrote the Supernatural books?"

"Yeah, him. Well... funny story... he's God."

I couldn't control my face anymore. "Like God God. The God?"

"Yup."

"What the actual fuck?"

"Yup."

"He was ridiculous! He was wearing a bathrobe when we met him."

"Sure was."

"You weren't kidding." I shook my head. "Wow, So wait. God has a sister?"

"Yup. She was locked away in my arm making me fucking bananas. So when Rowena, this bad ass witch we know, got the mark off of me it sent the darkness out into the world. It was pretty touch and go for awhile, but turns out that her and Chuck just needed some sibling bonding time."

"Okay?" I raised an eyebrow, feeling like he had to be downplaying all of that.

"She had a thing for me."

"The darkness?" I asked, and he nodded with a shrug. "Of course she did."

"So she gave me something when we got her back with Chuck." I watched his Adam's apple bob in his throat as he swallowed. "She brought my mom back."

I stared at him. I tried to take in everything he was saying. His mom. "Mary?"

"Yeah." He smiled wide. "She's staying at Bobby's cabin right now, for some R and R."

"Bobby! How is he?" I asked, brightly. "I bet he's feeling older than ever after all of this..." My eyes landed on Dean's. His jaw was tight and at the mention of Bobby his eyes were red along the edges. I knew that look. "He... he died?"

"I'm so sorry, Ave. During all the Leviathan shit. It's... it's been a long time."

"But your mom is at his cabin?"

"Oh... well shit, there's more."

"More?" I felt sick to my stomach.

"Not much," he promised, quietly. His forehead was wrinkled. He could see right through my skin. Into the cracks that hide below the surface. I feared that he knew I was about to break. "Lucifer had a child. A Nephilim, is what they call them. A half human half angel."

"The antichrist?"

"That's what I thought, but no. The kid is good. He came out as a full grown teenager." He laughed dryly. "Weird little fucker, but we are trying to raise him. Nel is such a good sister to him. It's pretty incredible."

My eyes flickered to him. Another child. "How old is he?"

"Two."

"Hmm."

"When he was born it ripped a hole in our world. Into another version of earth. One that I never existed in... one where Dad died a long time ago. Before he ever met my Mom. Mom got stuck over there with Jack, the kid, and when we got them out a bunch of others came through with them. An alternate Bobby, and a few others that we lost in our world. It's kind of bonkers, but I just didn't want you to be surprised when you saw him. He's not your Bobby."

I nodded and ran my tongue along my bottom lip. "What else?"

"That's it," he said, sucking in his breath. I could tell he was waiting. Waiting for the other shoe. Waiting for me to run, but I think he forgot, after all of this time, that I am a Winchester. We don't run.

"That's a lot," I admitted slowly, my eyes trailing from his lips, nose, eyes. I locked my eyes to his. "I know what I want, Dean."

"And?"

"You. You fucking idiot. It's always been you." I grabbed his face in my hands. The scruff on his cheek scratched against my palm. "You've aged. You have scars that I don't recognize, but I'll learn them. I've memorized your body before. I've memorized your soul. I will memorize it again." I couldn't get enough of him. There was no more childishness in his face. He was a man, and fuck was he beautiful. "Thank you for staying alive. For waiting for me to find you again, because I believe that I will find always find my way back to you. Through distance, and through time. I'm here. I'm back, and nothing can keep us apart. Not anymore."

—————

Chapter Nine, Never Let Me Go

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[saunteredslowlydownward]

Born As the World Burns Episode Headcanons: Season 4

Are You There God, It’s Me Dean Winchester

Has waaaaay too much fun researching angels

What Witness would Emma see?  Dean, maybe?  Would it be Lydia, for having a daughter that betrayed the Sisterhood?  Corbett?  One of her first hunts, where she wasn’t able to save someone in time?

In The Beginning

Wakes up just after Dean is transported to the past by Cas - first one on one meeting with Cas?

Metamorphosis

Emma is torn on the issue of Sam’s powers.  Cause if Dean sees that as Sam being something other than human… what does that mean for her?

Painfully aware that other hunters would consider her something that needed to be hunted.

But very not on board with the blood drinking, obviously.

facepalms whenever Sam and Dean reveal that they’ve been keeping something from one another.

Goes to research with Sam.

Hates the use of the term “long-pig”… cause memories.  Considers going vegetarian after this (tries and fails- Amazons are obligate carnivores)

Silently cringes every time Dean says something about ‘monster’.

Sam: “This is my choice.”  Emma: “Then good for you, Sam.” *proud*

Monster Movie

Emma has a map in her journal where she tracks all the states they go to.

Headdesks about the whole “rehymination” *eye roll*

“…there’s nothing wrong with being a virgin.”

But also, teases Dean by suggesting that she probably ought to be looking to lose hers as soon as possible if that’s how things are meant to be done.

Yellow Fever

Some of Dean’s early fears heavily revolve around Emma and her safety

Or maybe Emma is sick right along with Dean? she does use fear as a weapon

Sees the Amazons coming for her and Dean turning on her and trying to kill her

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester

Emma’s first Halloween!

Sam: “Two words: Jail bait.”  Emma: “Dude, they’re like… my age!” *gag*

Corrects everyone’s pronunciation of Samhain

Cas: “Tell me, Dean, when your father gave you an order, didn’t you obey?” Emma: “When my mother gave me an order, I ran away so I didn’t have to obey.  Orders aren’t always right.”

Wishful Thinking

Disappointed that Bigfoot is a hoax

Tries to actually sit down and talk to the giant teddy bear… cause why the fuck not?

What would Emma wish for?

Discount Rupert Grint was a prime candidate for “Vigilante Feminism” with his shower spying

Damn it, Sammy, maybe he doesn’t fucking want to talk about it cause it’s traumatic! *eye roll*

Gives Wes a kiss on the cheek in thanks (she finds him cute)

Starts to consider sharing some of the details of ‘boot camp’ with Sam and Dean to help Dean feel open to sharing about Hell

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Sam: “Let’s trade stories.  How was Hell?  Don’t spare the details.”  Emma: *glares at him a second and then busts out the story of how they forced her to eat human flesh*

Can Anna see Emma’s ‘face’?

Goes with Ruby and Anna

flashbacks show Sam ditching Emma at Bobby’s, Emma semi catatonic in her grief

Heaven and Hell

Emma is the only one surprised when Uriel announces that Sam’s  been screwing Ruby (cause she wasn’t there for the big heart to heart last episode)

An angel, a demon, and an amazon in the back seat of a car

Family Remains

Having three in the car makes sleeping in it a lot more cramped

Emma always has at least three knives hidden on her at all times, so at least they have some weapons left.

Stays out in the shed with mom and daughter to keep them safe

Criss Angel Is A Douchebag

Emma investigates parallel to the guys, masquerading as an aspiring young magician

After School Special

Emma enrolls in school - that’s an adventure

“Dude, Dad, those girls are my age!  …kind of.” re: legal teenagers

Sex and Violence

Junior Agent Emma ^_^

just rolls her eyes at Dean’s joy over a case with strippers

goes straight to the back room to talk to the girls, who try to be super helpful but can’t actually help much other than give a bit of confirmation to the siren theory

“They’re princesses.  All the girls that the siren is masquerading as have Disney princess names.”

Emma is tricked by the siren’s illusion but it’s venom doesn’t work right on her (weaker, easier to fight off) but still enough to get her for a bit

Follows along with Dean and Nick to the strip club, letting Sam have some alone time with Cara

wanders off, having befriended a few of the dancers who have decided to adopt her

Dean and Nick leave her behind there

Hitches her way back to the hotel just in time to help Bobby break the guys out of it and kill the siren

says nothing about their little ‘we good?  yeah, we’re good” bro moment, but definitely left with the feeling that they are not, in fact, all good

Death Takes a Holiday

Can’t agree more with Pamela on how crazy they are.

Emma can’t do the astral projection thing so she has to stay behind and keep an eye on their bodies and Pamela

kicks some demon ass and keeps Pamela safe, thank you very much

On the Head of a Pin

Emma fights so hard against Uriel and Castiel taking Dean to torture Alastair that they have to literally knock her out.  Probably breaks her hand punching Uriel.

And she doesn’t even make a move to stop Sam from killing Alastair.

Doesn’t leave Dean’s side for one second while he’s in the hospital until after he wakes up, and even then it takes some serious convincing.

It’s a Terrible Life

Emma Browning, recently hired to be Dean Smith’s new personal assistant.

Of course she follows along as the weirdness happens.  Like he could stop her.

There might be a bit of flirting going on between Dean and Emma… and once they remember just exactly who they are, they both agree to never speak of it again.

The Monster at the End of This Book

Can’t stop laughing at the cover art.

Reads through them voraciously.

Skips the sex scenes.

Oh lord, you know that there are Sam/Dean/Emma fans in this verse. *facepalm*

“I mean… are we *sure* that he’s not actually a god?”

Of *course* Emma asks Chuck for an autograph.  Probably hangs out at his place if Chuck and Dean let her, asking all sorts of writing questions.

Jump the Shark

“… it’s a binder, the rings open.  Why the hell did he tear the pages out?”

Gets a weird scent off of Adam, can’t quite place it until they figure out about the ghouls - it’s death.

The Rapture

Emma points out that getting him back to his family might not be the safest of ideas.

I wanna say that Emma catches Jimmy sneaking out and tails him.

“Hey, I’m not gonna stop you from going back to your family, but I *am* going with you.”

Manages to hold the demons off till Sam and Dean get there.

Suggests getting Amelia and Claire some protective sigils maybe?  Or anti-possession tattoos.

"Put pressure on the wound, Jimmy!”

“Uh, Sam, you got a little something… on your face…”

Emma makes an actual attempt to stay in touch with Claire.

When the Levee Breaks

“If you think that Sam is a monster…. then what does that make me?”

Dean: “Then at least he dies human!”  Emma: can’t handle it, leaves the house before Dean sees her cry.

Emma refuses to choose sides between Dean and Sam on the demon blood thing... but she does follow after Ruby when Sam tells her to get out of there.  Ruby manages to slip away from her, though.

Lucifer Rising

Backs Bobby up on Dean being a better man than John was, adds “a better father, too.”

Once again left behind when Dean is taken to the Beautiful room

[some-inconspicuous-human]

Watching Supernatural Season 13 Episode 1 - Lost and Found

I'm still not over Cas' death, and they are showing him holding Sam and Dean's hands with nothing else matters as bgm. Did they think we forgot what they did to us with the last season finale?

Why is he so big? Just a thought - if nephilims are born full sized always, well, no wonder the mother doesn't survive.

Jack to Sam: Father?

No. That's not your Dad. That's just your dad's true vessel. Your dad possessed this guy once. *sighs* good times... Oh no he's standing up SAM RUN!!!!!

I can't bear the look on Dean's face standing near Cas' still body.

I'm not your father? Really Sam? Those were Cas' first words to Claire too...

Don't 😨😨😨😨😨😨😨😨

Mary? 😨

It was a dream?

Is he not wearing clothes?

He's gonna kill those guys He's gonna kill those guys He's gonna WHAT?!!!!! OFCOURSE HIS MOM'S A COP

Dean can't even say what happened to Cas completely

Maybe Sam has a point? Hopefully?

No. He's gonna hurt her? His smile is creepy I don't like it

That's Cas! 💔 She's right. He deserved better. I don't like that guy. How dare he call Kelly that you @#$%^&*!

Finally they got him some clothes!!! They should've got him some plaid shirt or something. You know, to blend in... Your father was supposed to be there? No no no no no.

Why does this guy look so confused? But when he's talking it's creepy. That Sheriff is cool - and nice - she's very careful with Jack. Or he could've hurt her. Ewwww He licked it 😲

He can speak English but he don't know what that means? Why don't I trust him! He's on a CHAIR? He's hungry?

Even heart broken, Dean can talk. Will you look at him!!!! 😢

Creepy Satanic Nudist. Dean!!!!!

That girl's definitely drunk 😁

That's his fingerprint?

What happened to his hand? 😮 Is this Becky Sam's old "soulmate"?

Crackling lights? Ok he killed her son he killed her son. That laugh's creepy. No no no WHAT IN THE WORLD?!!!!! Magic is an understatement!!! NOOOO!!!!! Dean!? Sam? Thank God the Sheriff's ok. They are gonna tell her the truth?!!! Superhero? Dean, you're tooo modest, you guys saved the world. More than once.

Sam can talk, can't he? He would've made a really great lawyer... Jack went from creepy and scary to cute confused kid mode in under a minute! Sam didn't even ask who Jack meant by "them". Good.

You father is WHO???!!!!!!!!! 😱😱😱😱😱

So he was looking for Cas? Poor boy 😢 Now I feel bad for him

That drunk girl is with them? She's an angel? 😨😨😨 You bloody !@#$%^&*

Good job Sam!!! That's my boy!!!

Jack!!!!!!! 😨😨😨😨😨😨

What in the world!!!!! 😮😮😮😮😮😮

Hope the sheriff's son's gonna be ok...

Dean has a point, you know. When did anything work out right for them? Just 2 episodes ago everything was fine. Now look at them.

Oh Chuck! Jack looks like a kid caught doing something wrong, which he probably is considering he's only a day old. I actually forgot that with all that was going on

Dean prayed? Ok. There goes my heart...

Sam took Jack to see his mom 😭😭😭

And Dean's ...... I don't think he looked this bad even when he was in hell...

They're gonna burn them?

Sam's words... 💔💔💔💔

Dean....... No..... Don't...............

There goes my heart. Why do I even watch this show?

MARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Get away from her you.......

Those guys can act, can't they? I mean... Jared and Jensen outdid themselves here. And I thought Jensen's best was 2 episodes ago when Dean was talking to Mary inside her head.

[arcanaenclave]

i-can-see-ur-underwearrrr.mp3.shellyamv.mp4

Francis & Bruno: Mostly go commando, unless it's very cold or they're tasked with wearing something that requires more layers, because that's just who they both are as people. They can hem and haw about having fur that gets hot all they want but other furries get along just fine, such as---

Tom: Wears cotton briefs/more often boxers, usually in whatever colors/packs are cheapest, and doesn't see what the big deal is about wearing them! Growing up in the hot, humid south means he's always favored clothes that breathe as much as possible, and boxers can also double as swimming trunks in a pinch, so, bonus. He's just now really starting to buy clothes for himself in general, underwear included, so he's starting to build a collection of boxers with funny sayings/designs on them.

Finn (formerly Huck): Almost the same as Tom, except he'll also basically wear any underwear regardless of style as long as it fits and doesn't make him too hot. He will also just plain not wear any sometimes because he's a free spirit and counts on his fur to make up for it. Some of that is a holdover from how he was a kid who had to basically learn to dress himself at a very young age, on top of everything else he had to learn more or less on his own. His adoptive dad tried his best, but some things are just beyond his power, especially now that Finn has moved out.

Bianca (who is still in renaming limbo, pardon me): Generally wears light, breathable bras with good underwire support and matching underwear. The matching is key: when her clothes are coordinated, she feels coordinated, and that helps her start her day off right. She tries to get her underwear sets in fun colors when she can (especially pinks and blues and purples), but being a larger cup size means that she's gotta either contend with the Sea Of Beige And White or magically dye each piece herself. So, naturally, she's gotten very good at magically dying things, unless she needs some white bras to match the fur on her chest. She owns a few sets of Very Expensive lingerie, some with camisoles, that she breaks out on special occasions, or when she wants to feel extra fancy.

Davey: Boxers and boxer briefs 4 lyfe. He doesn't have to worry about having fur or only being like 4 feet tall or wanting a bra that has form AND function, so his greatest struggle is just finding underwear in colors he likes, namely dark red, blue, and green. He's not overly fond of underwear with patterns or sayings on them except for gifts from Harold and the like, usually! He'll also wear frilly panties for a joke with zero hesitation, as that one anon found out like 7 years ago, because in any game of chicken Davey will never flinch first.

Ailbhe: Is also part of the big titty committee, and heavy is the chest that wears the boobs. She's less concerned with matching and more worried about comfort and support, which means she's mixing and matching most days even when she originally bought the underwear in a set. She usually goes for light-colored bras and underwear, especially anything light blue, but also has a few sets of lacy lingerie and some sets of very supportive sports bras. Also she steals Boris' boxers from time to time and wears them, as is her god-given girlfriend right.

Yakiv: Oh lord here we gooo. Being as endlessly old-fashioned as Yakiv is, he does wear long underwear sometimes, depending on the weather. Otherwise he'll always be wearing an undershirt of some sort and very plain, sometimes striped, boxer shorts, think maybeee ca. 1920's men's underwear. He considers that all very modern of him.

Lee: Briefs and boxer briefs! As a chronic wearer of skinny jeans, they're just the best suited for the job. You'll find in his underwear drawer just about any color you can think of---he likes having a bit of secret flair, so he loves getting them in bright, saturated colors and with wild patterns and sayings on them.

Crane: Already has to get his pants custom-made for his just-a-little-too-inhuman proportions, and has spent a significant portion of his life flying his transport ship long distances entirely by himself. Basically what I'm saying is he never wears underwear and tries to get by wearing extremely loose pants sometimes and everyone has to be emotionally prepared for the results of that.

Pam: Misses the days when satyrs could all go bottomless, he really, truly does. He makes up for it now by being a wild card. Is he going commando? Is he wearing briefs? Did he break out that pair of bedazzled pink panties he won a bet with 20 years ago? Is tHaT a tHoNg??? Who knows! (It's Bigwig. Bigwig knows.)

Martin: Boxers, briefs, boxer briefs, accidentally wearing a partner's boy shorts because they were the same color as his own underwear, jockstraps and cups, and even the occasional thong, Martin's worn (almost) it all! In his day-to-day he really does prefer boxers for the comfort factor, though sometimes he wears briefs when he feels an outfit calls for more support.

Zahrah: #FreeTheTiddies. Zahrah never wears bras in her day-to-day life, opting instead for a camisole some days or nothing other days, so long as she's not going to be doing anything especially active that will require more support. She finds them incredibly constricting, and has spent a pretty sizable portion of her life not wearing one, and she doesn't much feel like starting now! She also wears plain seamless linen/cotton/other natural fiber panties, because they're comfy! After spending most of her life in desert environments, she values coolness and cover more than anything else, and prefers to keep things simple, usually wearing solid colors like white and red and gold.

Jianyu: Wears white briefs or a fundoshi, usually the latter. As an extremely utilitarian person with more than a few insecurities and issues with his body image, he mostly prefers to forget he even has a physical form and needs to wear clothes, and puts the bare minimum of thought into underwear and the rest of his clothes by extension. As long as they do the job, it's fine! If he could plan his outfits months in advance and then spend the rest of his time focused on other, more important things to him, he would. Zahrah thinks he looks fetching in anything and tells him as such all the time, which he appreciates more than he'll say. 

Vince: Also misses the days when satyrs could run around completely ass-out, and so often compromises by not wearing any underwear. It's like being ass-out but also able to go out in public without getting arrested! He has much thicker, curlier fur than Pam, which makes it harder to fit himself for pants of any kind, and makes him more likely to overheat on especially hot days. When he absolutely has to, he'll wear boxers to give himself as much breathing room as he can. As with Pam, being as long-lived as they are, both have had to also wear the underwear was available during whatever time they lived in, but unlike Pam, Vince has always opted more for wearing nothing when he could manage it.

Drago: Wears black briefs, modified with a clasp at the back to attach the waistband over his tail. In the past what he wore was more dependent on what was available to him in local shops when his dad let him go out and buy some things for himself with his very small allowance. Since he spends the majority of his time in his demon form, which is especially lizard-y, as well as wearing tight leather pants, form-fitting bottoms are best, even if he doesn't actually need much support in that form. 

Claire: Lingerie all day every day, babey! She has some more sporty underwear alternatives in bright neon colors for when she's going to be especially on the move off the clock, usually when working out with others, but on her own time she pretty much always rocks one of her very extensive collection of matching lacy/satiny underwear sets that she's accrued over the years. Her criteria for what she buys usually falls into two categories: lingerie that's especially fancy-looking, regardless of price point or color, or lingerie that's somehow a little wild or different in some way, be it with fabric choices or strap designs or patterns. She wears a matching camisole or a white semi-transparent silk robe over whatever her look for the day is when she's shuffling in white pom-pom slippers around the girl house. 

Zed: Is a pretty committed devotee to the boxers way of life, and doesn't actually go commando all that often, in a shocking turn of events. He's generally more likely to go pants-less than underwear-less! Like the rest of his clothes, most of his underwear is some shade of green, with more than a few weed leaf patterns. He has some assorted weird/funny underthings he's collected over the many years from being friends with Lee and Jude and all of them buying each other dumb shit for various jokes. He keeps them around for a laugh, and for something to wear on laundry days to get a rise out of Dan.

Dr. Yume: Wears simple black bras and underwear, usually t-shirt bras and high-waisted briefs to fit under her usual button-down + pencil skirt/high-waisted slacks work clothes. She also wears them in white, but because of her work schedule and disrupted sleep sometimes she's not able to plan her outfits for the week like she wants to, and ends up with days where she's got a white shirt and black bra. Anyone who dares to comment on how they can see her straps through her clothes will be eviscerated with a 'Thank you, you can see my bra because I am wearing one.' response. She probably owns one (1) set of black lingerie that she bought eons ago on a whim, feeling a little pressured to do so, but she isn't really interested in wearing it at all. 

Sak: Used to rock a loincloth and the precursor to long underwear with the best of them, once upon a time! He'll wear literally anything handed to him if you ask him nicely enough, but his preference is for looser options like boxers since they breathe more and are the closest equivalent to makeshift bottoms he wore pre-iceberg.