#dean had never wished he was an anvil more in his life

[angel-fruitcake]

this was so sexy and for what

[dothwrites]

97, maybe? For the prompts? :)

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#97--When you smile, I fall apart

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Dean watches silently as Cas rolls yet another t-shirt before putting it into his suitcase. Neither of them have spoken in what feels like days but has only been several hours. Their silence isn’t angry, nor is it comfortable. Dean doesn’t bother to pretend like he isn’t watching Cas’ every move as he carefully removes every part of himself from their dorm room. 

His posters have already been taken down and rolled carefully. Cas told Dean he could sell them or throw them away, and Dean had nodded like he was agreeing, but Cas’ posters are currently taking up some prime real estate in the back of his closet, where they’ll stay for damn near forever. Cas’ pens, pencils, and other various supplies are carefully hidden in his desk, while his furniture sits, forlorn, on his side of the room. His mattress is stripped bare. The only thing which remains is for Cas to empty his drawers, which is a task becoming shorter with each shirt that disappears into his suitcase. 

With a sensation like feeling his chest rip in half, Dean watches Cas examine each drawer. He closes them with a sense of finality before he turns to his suitcase. Tight lines of tension hold his shoulders in a defensive posture as he zips the case closed. Afterward, he continues facing away from Dean, his gaze fixed on the blank wall. His fingers curl into the stiff fabric of his suitcase, but he doesn’t speak. 

That task falls to Dean. 

“So, I guess this is it, huh?” Dean’s voice is too loud even to his ears, harsh and discordant in the silence of the room. “E.T. goes home.”

“Not particularly,” Cas answers. He keeps his face turned away, giving no indication to his mood. “It’s not home. Not really.” 

“It’s not stopping you from going back.” Dean knows his voice is surly and hurt, but he can’t stop himself. Maybe if he hadn’t held all of this in, Cas wouldn’t be leaving. 

“We’ve talked about this. I have to.” 

Dean clenches his jaw and says nothing. All of his arguments--Your parents never cared about you, what difference does it make whether you go home or not, you shouldn’t throw away your future for people who don’t give a shit about you--have already fallen on deaf ears. 

What tortures him are the unspoken arguments, the ones that have never been spoken aloud except to an empty room. 

Please don’t leave me. 

I love you. 

Dean bites his lower lip to keep those words stoppered within him. He won’t say it, not now. Those words are like blackmail. If he said then, then he’d be no better than Cas’ shitty family, using ties of loyalty and obligation to force him into a decision. If Cas doesn’t decide to stay on his own merits, then Dean doesn’t want it at all. And Cas hasn’t decided to stay. 

Three years, two of them as unlikely roommates, countless all-nighters and drunken binges, several extremely dicey situations, some of which made Dean think that maybe his interest in Castiel wasn’t as unrequited as he originally thought, and it all ends here. On an unremarkable Wednesday afternoon, with Cas’ bags packed and them waiting for the Uber that will take Cas away to the airport and out of Dean’s life. 

“It’s not forever,” Cas finally says. “I’ll be back.” 

“To visit,” Dean says, unwilling to be bought with pretty lies. 

“To stay,” Cas insists. Dean wishes he would turn around. Cas is a difficult guy to read on the best of days, harder when all Dean has to go on is the shift of his shoulders. 

“Yeah. Whatever.” 

The second Cas got the call from his brother, Dean knew it was over. Cas’ father was dying and Cas’ presence was expected. He wouldn’t be able to finish the semester and would be forced to take an incomplete. His scholarships were in jeopardy, his re-admission status in peril. Cas had told him all of this and somehow managed to sound hopeful about this whole thing, but Dean had heard the unspoken truth underneath the words.

It was over. Cas wasn’t coming back.  

“Dean.” 

Dean looks up and meets brilliant blue eyes. Now, as always, he’s taken aback by their hue and the emotion which shines out of them. For all the times he’s accused Cas of being a robot, when you get down to it, Cas doesn’t have a damn poker face. He can keep his expression as stoic as he wants, but those baby blues betray him every single time. Right now, his eyes are welling over with an overabundance of emotion. 

Dean’s breath catches in his throat with a painful hitch. He can’t do this right now. Not when his heart is ripping in two and Cas is standing less than an inch away from him. “Cas,” he says, trying for jovial and failing miserably, “your Uber is gonna be here soon, man.” 

“That’s why I have to do this now.” 

Dean opens his mouth and closes it, like a particularly stupid goldfish. For all of his reticence and silence, Cas has a habit of dropping hard truths right out of the blue, like the time they were in sophomore year and a little bit drunk and Cas grabbed his shoulder and stared him down with all the intensity of a slightly tipsy robot. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” Cas had said, his normally rough voice gone subsonic. “We share a profound bond,” he continued, over Dean’s protests. 

So Dean’s a little leery now that Cas is looking at him like he hears the ticking clock and that he realizes this is very much a go big or go home moment. 

“I know that you don’t believe me, but I will be back.” Dean opens his mouth to argue, but Cas steamrollers directly over his objections by cupping Dean’s cheek. His hands are huge against Dean’s face, sturdy and warm. They’re hands Dean could trust, hands Dean wants to catch him every time he stumbles. 

“This isn’t what I want. Dean, I know...” Cas falters, his thumb rubbing at the soft skin underneath Dean’s eye. “I know it’s a shitty time to do it, and I would understand if you tell me to leave and don’t want to talk to me anymore, but I...” 

Dean can’t ever recall a time when Castiel had to grope for words. It’s happened twice in the past thirty seconds. Then Cas looks at him, his eyes like blue steel, and Dean gets ready for some hard truths to be dropped on him like an anvil on Wil. E. Coyote. 

“You are the best person I’ve ever met. Everything about you--your kindness, your humor, your generosity--Dean, you’re my best friend.” 

Dean’s heart sinks at that, but apparently Cas isn’t done dropping anvils. “And it’s stupid to want anything more, but I do, Dean. Dean, I want...” 

Three times now that he’s rendered Cas speechless, but Cas has never been one to lose gracefully. Cas renders him speechless, thoughtless, weightless, and dozens of other ‘lesses’ as he leans forward and presses his lips gently to Dean’s. 

It isn’t until Cas starts to pull away that Dean regains any semblance of rational thought. The thought of Cas leaving him is incomprehensible, unthinkable. Dean curls his fingers in Cas’ shirt and pulls him closer. 

Cas’ lips are just as stupidly chapped and rough as he thought they would be, but he never could have imagined how soft they would feel underneath his. Even in his wildest fantasies, he never could have conjured up the rough, needy sound rumbling up from Cas’ throat as Dean licks across the seam of his lips. Cas opens his mouth and deepens their kiss, his fingers pushing into Dean’s hair as he pulls them closer. 

“Oh, Dean,” Cas whispers. He doesn’t move from where he’s perched atop Dean, his forehead pressing into Dean’s. “I’m so sorry it took me this long to pull my head out of my ass. If I’d been thinking correctly, I would have told you how I felt years ago.” He tilts his head to kiss Dean’s cheek.

Dean’s heart cracks. 

“You stupid idiot,” Dean says, before he takes Cas’ lips in an almost brutal kiss. “You could get so much better than me.” 

“Impossible,” Cas tells him. “I could never want anyone else other than you.” He places a soft kiss at the corner of Dean’s lips. “Every time you smile, I fall apart.” 

Dean lunges forward, wrapping Cas in a tight embrace. He wants to pull Cas into him, wants to wrap himself around Cas in such irreparable ways that Cas will never be able to scrub himself clean of Dean’s influence. 

Dean’s arms wrap around Cas’ shoulders, as he grabs at the short hair at the back of Cas’ head. He licks into Cas’ mouth, determined to get to the root of him. He’s just pushing forward, Cas softening to accept him, when Cas’ phone rings. 

It’s like someone dumped a bucket of cold water over his head. Dean pulls back, staring in muted horror at Castiel’s pocket. 

His phone is ringing. Cas’ Uber is here. 

“Cas,” Dean says helplessly, pulling Cas towards him. Their kiss is messy and desperate, teeth and tongues clashing as their fingers yank and tug. “Cas, don’t go, please don’t go--” 

Cas’ hands frame Dean’s face, forcing Dean to look at him. “I’m coming back,” Cas promises. He grips Dean’s hair almost to the point of pain, but it keeps Dean’s mind from shattering. “Dean, you have to believe me. I’m coming back.” 

He stares at Dean for one long, eternal moment, before he kisses him. Dean melts into Cas, clutching him so tightly that it’s a mystery as to how Cas winds up at the door, but he does. Dean leans towards him, feeling empty and cold. 

Cas turns and looks at him. A dozen expressions cross his face as he allows his eyes to roam over Dean one last time. A thousand words swell in Dean’s chest--Don’t go, come back, don’t forget me, I love you, I love you, I LOVE YOU--

But then the door closes and Cas is gone. 

Dean collapses back on Cas’ bed, its mattress scratchy and uncomfortable without a covering or sheets. He curls into himself, knees pressed to his chest, and settles in to wait. 

---

Three months later, Dean is awoken by the sound of the door creaking. He groans and shoves his face deeper into his pillow. “Benny, if you need your shit, it can wait until tomorrow. For now, I am asleep.” He drags his comforter up over his shoulder to punctuate the statement. 

He thinks that is the end of it. That should be the end of it. Benny, while occasionally wildly inappropriate, will usually fuck off when told to fuck off. However, his hypothesis is shattered when his bed dips at the middle with the weight of someone settling onto his mattress. 

“Benny, what the fuck--” He rolls over, freezing when he sees the silhouette of the person sitting on his bed. 

Benny doesn’t have that particular level of messy bedhead. Or those shoulders, tapering down into strong arms, almost delicate wrists, and elegant fingers. Benny certainly doesn’t have a thousand yard stare that manages to pierce through him even when the lights are off and the only available source of illumination are the faint lights from the sidewalk three floors below. 

Dean chokes on nothing but air and scrambles to sit up. His heart is beating a million miles a minute as it tries to crawl through his chest and out of his mouth. 

“Cas?” he finally chokes, clutching his comforter to his chest like a quivering Victorian heroine. 

A flash of white, a grin in the darkness. A strong warm hand, a hand that Dean can trust to catch him and lead him through the world, rests on his bicep. Dean feels the heat of it through his t-shirt. 

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says. 

[dancing-the-hellfire-rumba]

Dear Hannah,

Pairing: technically Destiel, but that’s not what this is about Word Count: 4.9k (wow wtf) Warnings: mentions of self-harm, cancer, shitty father John (as per usual), angst and angst and father-daughter love and angst. Summary: When Dean, strapped to a bed, coughing up a storm, catches sight of his newly-adopted baby girl, he decides that, if he is to leave this world, he has to leave something behind for his favorite person. So he writes a booklet, trying to tell her all the things he would’ve if he was alive. Author’s note: This was originally done for @welldonebeca​ ‘s 2019 Song Challenge but I fucked up thinking the deadline was the 31st of October instead of the 15th. Whatever the case, my prompt was movement, by Hozier, which I interpreted as Dean being fascinated by his daughter enough that he’s inspired to write a letter book to her. Of course this wouldn’t be the entire thing, but I had to keep it under wraps.

Feedback is always welcome! No beta, all mistakes are my own.

~~~~

Hannah,

Christ, it’s the third time I’m starting this. The truth is, I’m coming up with blanks as to how to actually start. This has got to be the best I’ve got.

I’ll tell you the moral of this story, my story,  from the get-go. Life’s a fucking bitch, okay? I want you to know that from now. I’d try to hold back on my swearing, but I want you to know me as the person I am, the person I’ve always been. I know what having an absent, terrible father’s like, as you’ll soon see, and I don’t want that for you. I wish I could tell you all this up close, give you advice, tell you all my crazy-ass stories as the dumbass of the teenager I was, and all the shenanigans your uncle (wow, Sam really is a friggin’ uncle!), by a campfire, while you drink your first beer.

Sadly, my odds aren’t looking so great, honey. So this is all I got. I know it’ll never be enough but something is better than nothing.

Enough with the chick flick introduction, though. Let’s start.

The pen’s heavy in his hand, and it’s equal parts the mental heaviness, the weight of the task, as it is his fatigue. Dean’s really just started this. He can’t believe it. The heaviness of uncertainty, of whether or not he’ll get enough time to finish it settles on his chest like an anvil. There’s a solid chance he doesn’t make it before his time comes.

Hannah’s sitting right there, carelessly looking at the plastic, grinning stars above her crib. She’s so innocent, skin creamy, chocolaty and bright, a young, fearsome woman that’s gonna turn out to be so incredible, he’s certain. A small baby who’s soon to walk.

Dean already knows, this kid is destined for great things.

She’s gonna grow up, past the tutus and the miniature racing-car collections, she’s gonna have a movie she’ll play on repeat for ever and ever, with a song that he’ll learn by heart after having heard it so many times. She’s gonna go to high school and she’ll be bullied but she’ll learn to kick some serious ass. She’ll develop interests, she’ll have mediocre grades but a fiery passion and a love for anything alive.

She’ll, then, go to college. She’ll fall in love, with people and life itself. She’ll do what she loves most and she’ll be so damn good at it, she’ll excel.

And Dean… Dean will be nowhere near her to see all of it.

The bitterness… it makes his eyebrows stitch together, his lip curl in clear frustration and sadness. After everything he’s been through, finally finding the person he loves most and creating a full-ass apple pie life, and it’s all gonna be gone as soon as it started. Because, as he told his favorite Hannah, life’s a fucking bitch, and there’s no denying it.

As he lays there in his bed, pale as a sheet, watching her giggle for a while, reaching for the stars, soon yawning, small eyelids shutting softly and rocking just slightly, he… he falls in love with her. This tiny, tiny happy-beyond-words creature that could ask anything of him, and he’d do it, god damn it. He really would.

A giant bubble grows in his chest, a bubble that makes him feel like he’ll protect her at absolute all costs. He’ll grab the moon and fucking move it if that’s what she needs. And all she has to do is yawn and fall asleep.

A tear appears in the corner of his eye, lingering and falling down his ashy cheek. He can’t believe he brought this bright ray of sunshine to this world, and he’s about to make her live with an absent father. That he won’t get any memories with her at all. It’s torture. All of it.

He doesn’t know what else to do, so he grabs his pen with more determination. If he’s to leave her with something, it’ll be a part of him and that is that.

~~~~~

I was born on January 24th, 1979, the first son of a, dare I say, colossally unlucky family. Your uncle, Sam, my brother, is four years younger and will ALWAYS be a wimp, don’t let the height fool you. He always had terrible, shaggy hair and was always the sharpest tool in the box. Hell, the boy went to freaking LAW SCHOOL of all places! That’s kinda crazy!

My parents, your grandparents, were Mary and John.

Mary was a sweet, incredible, fearsome blonde woman, kindest of them all. She’d cut the crusts off my toast, sing Hey, Jude to me before bed and tell me angels were watching over me. (While we’re on the topic of the Beatles, make a note to listen to them. “Hey, Jude” must be your first song, but beyond the classics [Let it Be, Hard Day’s Night, I Saw Her Standing There, I Wanna Hold your hand etc] I hope “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” will hold a special spot in your heart, much like me.)

So, Mary. Sweet Mary. She was a real badass, you know. This one time, Sammy was hungry, so I decided to make, get this, French fries. I think I was seven. She caught me getting ready to pour oil in a very hot pan. When I say she swooped in, I mean it, quite literally. I think she saved me a hand that day.

Now, about John…You’ll have to forgive the mess that I’m about to make with this, but John was a fucking sorry excuse of a father, alright? He got piss-drunk every night after Mom died, and naturally, Sam and I were the punching bags, sometimes literally. The best nights were the ones he wasn’t home.

For years, the house was silent. Sam and I tried to keep everything clean, stock up on canned food, because at times we would only have ten bucks to hold us for over two weeks. I took him to school, fed him, made sure he studied –not that I really had to- and kept John of his hair. At sixteen I picked up a shift at Bobby Singer’s garage, a man that, at this point, deserves the Dad title significantly more than John.

Whenever Sammy was sick, it was my fault. Was anyone loud? Dean’s fault. House dirty? Dean’s fault. Did we wake him up? …Let’s just say we learned not to do that.

I tried to put myself before Sam, did anything I could to protect him. There were times when that wasn’t even enough.

I dropped out of high school at seventeen. The second I saved up enough money, I rented a hole of an apartment at the other side of town, in an attempt to help Sam have a normal life, and we hauled ass out of there.

Before I tell you about our shitty apartment, let me tell you about the highlights of my high school career. Starting off with me “unintentionally” kicking a ball at my least favorite teacher’s face (and hitting him) ((Don’t take your father’s example, kid, violence isn’t the answer.)) (Did feel pretty good at the time though), making out with Jenny in the Janitor’s closet and with Arthur at the locker rooms afterhours (I don’t know what age you’re reading this at, but I sure hope it’s over 16). Also, that one time I pulled a prank at my friend, Cole. I spray painted his entire locker. He didn’t like me very much, to be honest…

~~~~~

An important story I feel inclined to share with you, would be the fact that I was once a bully.

Kids are just mean, but also, I couldn’t understand that troubles at home, traumatic pasts and anger are not to be taken out on other people who are not at fault. Instead of finding a healthy way to deal with everything that was happening at home, I decided that every happy person that was weak enough to meddle with, didn’t deserve any happiness.

I picked on a couple of people, but I think the one I will always regret will be Kevin Tran.

Kevin was a freshman when I was in junior year. He was in the Math club, the Science club and the Robotics club. He had maybe two friends, he was skinny, short, shy as hell, he drowned himself in oversized clothes and always carried a neon green book bag around, that worked on me like red cloth to a bull.

Every time I spotted the bag in the hallway, the drill would start. Shoving the poor kid against the locker, calling him names and laughing at his face for no apparent reason. I’d steal his calculators when I found out he had chemistry tests, spray paint the door of his locker and cause rib bruises from my shoving him against walls and furniture.

I soon find out Kevin was severely depressed. In fact, I saw him in the back of the school, where I’d usually go out to smoke because I thought it was cool (it’s not, it makes you light headed, unfocused and struggle to breathe. Just an all-around terrible experience, but this is just a side-note.)

It was a Friday after school. I didn’t wanna go straight home and Sam still had one more period, so I decided to go smoke and listen to some music in the back of the school building. And that’s where I found him.

I don’t know into how much detail I should go here, but Kevin was harming himself. With a small pocket knife, he sat on an old basket and made incisions on his arms, tears running down his face like a faucet. My God, Hannah, I’ve never felt like a bigger piece of shit in my life, because I knew, and I knew very well, that at least part of those incisions were caused by me.

I called out to him, and the look on his face, as he scrambled away from me, made me feel so much worse. I was the scum of the earth at that moment. I was the biggest asshole on the planet.

My initial reaction, I’ll admit, was pretty harsh. I grabbed the pocket knife out of his hands and threw it as far as possible in the grass. I grabbed a small first aid kit I had in my bag (in case anything happens to Sam), made him sit down by force and bandaged him up. He’d been reduced to sniffles by the time I was done.

Somewhere in between, I remember, he asked me why I was doing this. I didn’t answer.

Eventually, when I was done, I sat on the ground in front of him, ripping blades of grass from the ground. I apologized. Something along the lines of “I didn’t know, not that that’s an excuse. What I’m going through is not an excuse, but I hope it makes you understand that it was nothing to do with you. I’ll stop. I’m sorry. Don’t do this to yourself, man.”

That evening, Kevin was one of the very first people who found out about John. His own dad had passed away, and things at home were rough with his mom. That, along with the whole depression thing… it wasn’t a good combo.

After a solid two hours of talking with him, making amends, apologizing profusely and getting my apology accepted (which I absolutely didn’t deserve by the way,) we made it back out front.

From then on, I stopped picking on anyone. Kevin and I actually became really good friends, though we drifted apart eventually. I think he works in Google now.

This is really important. I want you to pay attention and take heed of my words. There are a couple lessons in this story.

One, be kind. Always  be kind. To everyone. It doesn’t matter if they’re going through a rough time or not, the same way it didn’t matter that Kevin’s father was dead. You don’t know the other person. There’s never a reason to not be kind, if the person has done nothing to you. A smile can make somebody’s day, a compliment can go a long way, and being open and honest and kind will make people who are looking for help find you, it will make other’s lives better, and if you’ve helped even a single person, your life has been successful.

Two, never, and I mean never take your emotional pain out on yourself, or others. There are healthy ways to deal with ugly emotions. There are people who can help. Find a new hobby, as silly as it sounds. Start doing something creative, something that draws your attention elsewhere, like art of any kind, or, in my case, fixing cars. Something to keep you busy. If you’re in trouble, emotional or otherwise, there are people who love and support you, who will do their mightiest to be by your side, and if those aren’t your friends, they’re definitely your family.

Bottling up emotions, or dealing with them in horrible, unhealthy ways has been my go-to. Don’t be like me. Express yourself in different ways, and don’t keep your feelings shoved under the carpet, because it will, absolutely, unceremoniously explode, and you’ll take people down with you. And that’s when you’ll feel like the worst person in the world. The guilt, the residue of said ugly feelings isn’t worth it. Trust me.

If you make mistakes, if you hurt people who don’t deserve it, learn from it, grow, be better. Do not sink into yourself , don’t hate yourself. Apologize, make amends and move on, try to never do the same thing. It’s okay. We’re all human. The only thing that matters is that you try to be better.

No matter what, remember that I will always love you.              

~~~~

So. Our apartment back in Kansas was, as I told you, a real dump. It had a tiny-ass kitchen with a miniature stove, two mattresses that were creaky and lumpy and were left there by the previous owners, as well as the TINIEST bathroom you’ve ever seen. It didn’t have shower walls, it had a shower head and a drain on the floor and was not in any way separated from the toilet. The walls of the place were peeling, the floor was tiled and cracked in a bunch of places and the humidity must’ve been over 80%.

I fucking loved that place.

On our third day there, I borrowed some spray paints from Cole, carried them in a cardboard box up the claustrophobic, green stairs, and opened the door in absolute triumph. That day, Sam and I opened the two windows, scratched the paint off the walls with two spatulas and went WILD. It must’ve been the only day Sam didn’t study.

Actually, no, now that I think about it, there was another time, when little ol’ ten-year-old Sam fell off a ledge and freakin’ broke his arm. I dumped him on Cole’s bike and pedaled to the hospital like a maniac. That was the first day he didn’t study.

Anyways, that apartment wall made our crappy little living situation a home. Our own sanctuary. We finally got agency over our lives, from staying up late, to choosing which type of dish soap we’d use because it smelled better and didn’t remind us of the terror chores once were. Eventually, we got soft blankets, books, board games, decorations… Finally, after 18 years, we’d started our lives.

I think one of my favorite memories would be coming home from my first date with a guy. I was just 18 and Benny, the dude, kissed me before I left, his fists clutching at my flannel. I was driving home with a giant, dopey-ass smile, stretching from one ear straight to the other. That same night, with new-found confidence, I told Sammy to drop his book, bought ourselves some beers and snacks, and drove to my favorite clearing.

There, right under the stars, with Sammy trying out his first beer, I told him I’m bisexual, and the cute bastard hugged me and told me he loved me no matter what. That same night, he thanked me for everything I did for him while living with John. We talked until the sun was rising.

I’ll tell you this right now, kid, in case you haven’t gotten it yet. I love Sam. Love him to bits. I raised that kid all on my own and will do anything to protect him. I know he cares for me, I know it kills him to see me like this, in a bed, pale, miserable and coughing every three seconds. I just want you to know, honey, that whatever you need, anything at all that, for some reason, you don’t want to tell Dad, you go to Sam, okay? You can trust him to be supportive, loyal, to be there for you when no one else is and to love you like you’re his own daughter and best friend. I promise you, he will always, always be there when I’m not.

That night made us grow so much closer. The lesson here, I’d say, is be bold and confident in what you believe in and who you are. Be your own, unique self, be brave, and love whoever you choose to fully and with your whole heart, without shame, ever. If you are yourself, I promise, you’ll find the people that love you for you, not the person you’re pretending to be. You’ll inspire other to be themselves.

A good example of this would be my best friend, Charlie. When I came out, I was armed to the teeth to deal with whoever wanted to bully me for that part of me. To tell you the truth, my school coming out was a mishap. It takes nothing but a risky make-out session in the janitor’s closet and nosey students that rip doors open far too violently. Nevertheless, I was literally out of the closet, fists up. And that’s exactly when I met Charlie.

With her comic book stories and her books, her bubbly personality and bright smile, she wiggled her way into our lives and permanently stayed there. She was a freshman when I was a senior, but she seemed to find sanctuary by my side, as I did by hers. She was just one of those people who clicked, you know? Far too mature and interesting for her age, with an obsession with computers, even back when they were barely even a thing.

She now lives with her long-term girlfriend, Gilda, who owns the best bakery in the state. Ask for the apple pie, you will not be disappointed.

Charlie demanded of me to tell you, first off, to watch Marvel and screw DC right to hell (with which I have to agree, though Batman still remains one of the coolest Superheroes of my childhood (and Joker, the coolest villain)). She also told me that, if you read this, go ask her for her comics, She’d love to let you borrow them and she’s certain you’ll love them. Second off, she asked of me to tell you the Impala story…

It’s not as grand as she makes it out to be, honestly. However this is the part where you’ll learn all about the one and only Bobby Singer.

Bobby was my boss, an old friend of dad’s John’s and the first person who ever saw the bruises under my sleeves. He gave me a job, a family, and later on… a car.

Bobby owns a scrapyard. He taught me everything I know about cars, including driving, and for my seventeenth birthday, he brought a dusty, beat-up car in my workspace. The hood was bent, the seats were torn, and the engine needed immediate replacing. The customer never paid the price for the compartments the garage had paid, so under store policy, the car was ours.

Hannah, I can’t exactly describe to you how long it took me to repair that car. Buying the spare parts and assembling them would’ve probably taken less time. I built her from the ground up, it took me almost a month and a half of daily, eight-to-six work, but I made it. I fixed her up. She was in prime condition, and I had completely fallen in love with her.

I finished working on her early January, dreading the moment I would see her drive away. Bobby had seen all the effort, by then I’d worked at his place for over a year. So, on the day of my birthday, I opened my locker to put on my jumpsuit, when I saw a box placed on my neatly folded clothes. I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now. Yes. It was the keys to my dream car. A beautiful, sleek, black 1967 Chevrolet Impala, the one I had brought back to life. And it was all mine.

I don’t think I’ve hugged Bobby any tighter since then. Hell, I don’t think I’ve hugged him period.

That car… That car is probably the most stable thing in my life, apart from Sam, obviously. I’ve cried in that car, I’ve escaped from my terrible past, I’ve laughed, I’ve had my first time, I’ve been through breakups and I’ve spent my best days with it. I cherish it more than any other item I know. It’s not even an item, it’s my baby. I love it almost as much as I love you.

I met your dad, and kissed him for the first time in that car.

It’s actually a pretty fucking hilarious story. Cas was on a date with this guy who was completely disgusting and creepy as hell, so in true  movie fashion he decided to, get this, jump out the bathroom window and escape.

Yeah.

So just as he was running out of the bar, the guy must’ve caught wind of him or something, because he stepped outside in order to find Cas. What did your dad decide to do, I hear you ask? He ducked behind a car in the parking lot, opened the first unlocked door he found, and jumped in.

Spoiler alert. It was my car.

I was sitting in the front seat, fighting with Sam through text when the door opened. It was highly comical, watching this guy duck behind the bench seat, mumbling “oh God, oh God, oh God, please don’t see me, oh God.” I cleared my throat.

“Oh, I see you, buddy.” That’s the first thing I told him. The look on his face and the genuine yelp, made me laugh a full belly laugh, and completely forget about my fight with Sam. He apologized profusely, explained panicked what had happened and begged me to stay in my car just for a couple minutes so the guy can lose him.

Long story short, we ended up going out ourselves. I don’t know how to explain it… we just clicked immediately. Like, there was a connection. Him and his big words, his baby blue eyes, his steady, deep and rough voice… I knew right away that all I wanted was to spend time with him, learn everything he was willing to share with me.

I’m so glad to have met your Dad. He was, is and always will be one of the best, kindest, most humble and genuine people on the planet. He sees the world from such a beautiful point of view that contradicts my eternal realism (he enjoys calling me pessimistic.) He’s a genuinely great person, and I can’t wait for you to figure so out yourself, if you haven’t already.

Of course, it wasn’t all fine and dandy. Meeting his parents was hellish. Let’s just say, Chuck and Naomi aren’t… the best people. They tried really, really hard to stop us from seeing each other, and eventually, they completely disowned Cas. He doesn’t like to talk about them much. His brother, Gabriel is an asshole, but a loveable one, while his other brother, Michael, you probably don’t know about. And you shouldn’t. Let’s just leave it at that. If Cas wants to share that story with you, he’ll do it at his own time.

I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned here. Something about, when finding your person, to keep them, fight for them, don’t stop loving them because everyone else is telling you (unless of course that person is toxic). But I don’t think I can give you solid love advice through a dumb book. Every relationship is different, and your Dad’s better at this than me anyways.

--

I don’t know exactly how long this thing is, by this point, but I’ve almost finished the pages of this booklet. I was really, really worried I wouldn’t finish it in time, but here we are. However many thousand words later, and I’m clueless as to how to wrap this up.

My life isn’t over yet, however it looks like it soon will be. I will confess to you, I’m scared, but most of all I’m angry. I’m angry at the world, at life and fate, if that’s even a thing, at God even. I’ve fought my whole life for peace and quiet, and right when I have found it, it’s being ripped from under my feet. Cancer fucking sucks.

No matter, my chin is up, and so are my fists. Winchesters don’t give up easy. I will fight this until my last breath, even if the chance of watching you grow up and being able to tell you everything I’ve written face-to-face, is nothing but a sliver. After all, impossible odds were always my favorite.

Sweetheart… I don’t know what to say. This might be the only thing you have left of me for the rest of your life, and it tears me up inside. Of course, I will not be able to write thirty five years of experience in a small book such as this, but this is a part of me, memories you can keep all to yourself. Ask Dad or Sam about any of it, I’m sure they’ll fill some gaps, tell you things I haven’t written.

I don’t want you to cry much, even though I’m not sure you will at all, given the fact that you’ve never met me. Either way, whether you feel or think anything of me or not, I want you to know that I love you so much. I’ve only known you for a couple of months, and, already, you’re the brightest ray of sunshine in my life.

I promise I will be by your side no matter what happens, through every milestone and hardship, I will love you from wherever I am.

Honey, please stay true to yourself. Never give up, no matter what curveballs life throws at you. There’s always reason to keep going, even if you can’t see it. Always keep fighting, ‘till your last breath, ‘cause you’re a Winchester and you’ve absolutely got this.

If there is something I want you to remember from the scribbly mess I’ve made, it’s this:

I love you. I’m proud of you. I believe in you.

Go get ‘em, tiger.

 Bonus:

Tears streaming down velvety soft cheeks, dainty fingers gripping the book tightly, like her life depends on it, Hannah stares at the ceiling and groans at the mess she is. It’s the second time she read that last bit, and just as she thought she’d gotten over it, here she is, crying just as hard as the first.

She gets off her bed, pulling on her sweater sleeves. Feet in slippers, she makes her way down the corridor, knocking on the door, and opening when she gets an answer. Her fingers grip the doorknob, the other clutching the book, and she stares at the bed, watching as green eyes look up from his laptop.

“Why did you give this to me, you ass, you’re not dead,” she sobs, and Dean pushes his laptop to the side, arms opening wide to invite her in them.

“Aw honey,” he coos, a gentle, loving smile on his face. Hannah climbs on the bed and slides to his side, curling up in his arms. “It’s okay.” Fingers stroking her hair gently, as sobs wrack through the poor girl’s body. Dean almost feels bad.

Just then, Cas appears in the doorway, having heard Hannah’s cries. He sees the booklet clutched in her arms, her face buried in Dean’s neck, hidden behind her spring-curly hair. He makes eye contact with his husband, a knowing half-smile on his lips, as he leans on the doorway.

“I love you,” Hannah says, nose stuffed and running. “Thank you for not giving up on a relationship with me, even when you didn’t think you’ll survive.” Tears wet Dean’s eyes, as he presses a kiss on the crown of her head.

“I love you too.”

[elizabethrobertajones]

In the light of the return of Sam's orange jacket - an spn fashion related question: when and WHY did Dean stop wearing his jewellery and accessoires? did he take a shower one morning and was like "Man, I gotta stop wearing these fake leather bracelets"? and what did he do with it?

Oh gosh I’m so tired I shouldn’t even try to answer this… tl;dr I spent a lot of time dazedly poking around Home of the Nutty collecting bad data and assuming a thing was gone as soon as it stopped showing up the first time.

Superwiki, by the way, is kind of useless for once… it says Dean only wore the bracelets in season 1 and 2 but he blatantly has a bracelet on when he’s resurrected in 4x01 and I remember that without checking.

Dean still wearing them from time to time in at least the first part of season 5 (i.e. I dropped in on 5x04 since I figured they’d be easy to spot in the opening scene). He has uncovered forearms in the open of 5x16 and no bracelet but I was completely un-thorough so I was just grabbing random episodes where I thought I’d probably see his forearms without much clicking, and despite having once written a fic about Dean having a huge elbow fetish which accidentally shaped my entire blog, I don’t have a clue where every example of exposed Winchester arms are :P But some time in that stretch of episodes.

Dean loses the ring between 5x07 and 5x08. On his hand in the last shot of one, not on his hand in the first shot of the next, or when we roll back time to the chronological start of Changing Channels. Concoct whatever elaborate theory you like about them having never left TV land, tbh.

But yeah… Dean gives away the amulet to Cas in 5x02 for plot reasons but also the meta reasons that it was starting to annoy Jensen when he wore it all the time and it got in the way and hit him in the face. By 5x16 he’s lost ALL his major jewellery except for his watch as far as I can tell without doing a proper study on when the bracelets disappeared except that it’s between 5x04 and 5x16. Maybe it is something that they included a little more quietly, that while the amulet is the big example of it, Dean slowly sheds his entire jewellery box over the season.

I think there’s a large element of the whole loss of his sense of identity that goes through that season - that he’s going to be possessed by Michael and stop being Dean any more, to the point that it’s a blatant suicide metaphor/not even metaphor and just directly treated like it in 5x17/18. In 5x18 Dean strips off the rest of his personality, and puts it in a box; his jacket, gun and car keys. 

I and many other sensitive Dean fans over the years have written quite a lot about this entirely depressing collection representing his entire identity and largely being John connected stuff (I’m too tired to delve my tag for this episode but there’s at least a couple of things there >.>), at least in the sense of the jacket he took from John, the car John gave him, and the job Dean inherited as the family business. It’s one of the times Dean packs in the family business, and he only sticks out the rest of the mytharc before going to stay with Lisa for a year. In 6x01 we see the jacket in a box with John’s journal, which he gets back out to help, and of course the jacket then disappeared IRL but with fortuitous timing that Dean gets to shed another part of his identity he made himself. I think it’s good positive stuff in season 6 that he has to start trying to forge ahead and make his own identity. 

I was talking for some reason or other about all the points where you write the story up to a certain point and then you pick it up and turn it around and start writing backwards from it. Dean being possessed by Michael was the “end” of the arc about John’s influence forcing him into his worst self that every previous season had dealt with at least with one episode which made some sort of direct awful comparison to how it had destroyed Dean. (Dean telling Sam in 1x11 he wishes he knew how to think for himself, Dean selling his soul in 2x22, the demon!Dean exchange in 3x10, Alastair telling Dean how John didn’t break in Hell in 4x16, and then this in 5x18, although of course there’s some other pretty awful stuff in all these seasons, I’m just picking the anvil moments that spring straight to mind) 

Anyway now I look at it and see that Dean’s jewellery disappears bit by bit through season 5 culminating in him throwing away the amulet pretty much just tells me now that it was Dean getting rid of some symbolic layer, and all for the worse in this season. In the end he takes the car and jacket to the confrontation in Stull, and then never wears the jacket again (and Baby has become too much his to argue and anyway 4x03 symbolically did sort of give her back to him in a fated way so she’s only loosely thrown in with the rest, because he did already reclaim her completely for himself). Then I think instead of building up to how this destroys Dean, he doesn’t say yes to Michael after all, and he gets an entire new lease on life where he’s freed from the pressure of the apocalypse and he enters the open waters of character development to no particular aim except personal betterment.

I think they could have played it like Dean starts wearing all the jewellery again after season 5, but I think a lot of it was a security blanket - the bracelets are lucky charms, and probably in that universe literal wards against evil, and the amulet turned out not to be lucky in the ‘i like it and wear it because i like it’ definition but actually connected to *god* and all that drama. It had to go because it was a symbol of Dean’s shattered faith in literally everything from Sam through to God (though, and I sort of hate to be That Person, not Cas because they actually bonded over this shared critical hit to their faith and I think 5x16/17 have the strongest forward momentum on the whole original Dean and Cas arc aside from 4x16). And obviously God for Dean also relates right back to John. 

And I think also Dean would have less reason to start wearing all his jewellery that formed part of his skin as a hunter over that year with Lisa because he had put aside that identity - if he kept the bits, they were maybe in the box with the jacket, and I would ASSUME that box is still in some random corner of Lisa’s attic or garage and she has no clue which one of her exes left it there… (ow) or Ben found it and started wearing the jacket because why not (OW). Anyway since things happened this way, it means he left behind a part of his identity but it was an old part of his identity which had ended up linked with the bad stuff, the toxic stuff about John, and I guess for the jewellery just being a protective thing, part of the top layer of Dean. He’s a bit more emotionally naked from Gamble era onwards because she shifted the focus in the way the emotional stuff got told, and that was a sensible idea to shift from plot to character as a main priority of the writing.

Anyway sorry for the super long reply, but thanks for making me notice that Dean has all his standard jewellery at the start of season 5 and then has none of it by 5x16 because that turns out to feel massively important and this is a Huge Thought and not something cracky like I thought I was originally angling at when I saw this question and thought oh I will answer this really quickly after a long day and oops it’s past midnight and this looks like a subject that should have taken some actual work :P 

[allhailthepandicorn]

I love seeing people narrate scenes from supernatural like this. It's just...fabulous.

this was so sexy and for what