#dean reciprocating

[drulalovescas]

THINGS JENSEN ROSS ACKLES SAID SINCE SUPERNATURAL ENDED (paraphrasing):

CROSSROADS 6:

The advice season 15 Dean would give season 4 Dean: appreciate Cas more. Because he'd prove to be the best friend and biggest ally.

JIB 11:

I hope we will get a chance to see that [Dean and Cas' reunion]. I think it would look like we all hope it would. There would be an embrace and then Dean would be like: Can we talk about that goodbye for a minute?

SPNVAN 2022:

I didn’t say anything - I didn’t give him anything. And what I had in my head was, I should have said "I love you too” and hugged him.

NASHVILLE 2023:

Dean's biggest regret was that he couldn't save Cas.

[perceiving-misha]

Looks like Destiel is going canon again

[babygirlwolverine]

cas had texted and said he’d be back at the bunker that night, and dean had stayed up until almost 3am waiting for the angel. when cas hadn’t walked through the bunker door, dean had to drag himself to bed before he passed out on the war table.

he didn’t sleep for long though, waking up just after 6am to check his phone. no messages from cas. was it too soon to start worrying?

making his way to the kitchen for a very strong cup of black coffee, dean shuffled past the bag in hallway while he rubbed blearily at his eyes. it took several long seconds before dean realized he’d almost tripped over cas’ overnight bag and he quickly backtracked and made a beeline for cas’ room.

the room was empty, no sign of cas’ current trenchcoat or of the angel anywhere.

frowning, dean wandered the hallways, searching for any signs of cas. but there was nothing. the bunker was quiet. empty. not even sam was awake yet.

convincing himself that the overnight bag had always been there and he’d just forgotten because he was tired, dean trudged back towards the kitchen by cutting through the library.

and he froze, mid-step.

slumped, lying curled up between two of the chairs at the table, was a sleeping angel using his trenchcoat as a pillow against the hard wooden seats.

a sleeping angel who was bundled up under dean’s old hoodie; the clothing item which usually held a permanent place in the backseat of the impala. the same hoodie that had gone missing a week ago.

dean’s heart stuttered in his chest.

his feet carried him gently across the library and he found himself reaching out and brushing a lock of hair off of cas’ forehead. the hood of the jacket was tucked up under cas’ chin, almost as if the angel had been burying his face in the cotton material, but the rest of it was slipping off and threatening to fall onto the floor.

breath catching in his throat, dean softly readjusted the hoodie and wrapped it around cas’ shoulders. cas let out a content sigh in his sleep, and dean suddenly felt weak in the knees.

cas had taken dean’s jacket with him when he’d left the bunker last week. and now, cas was using his hoodie as a blanket. a concept that years ago dean would’ve sworn up and down that cas would never understand because angels didn’t have feelings. yet, here cas was, carrying around dean’s old clothes, wearing his heart on dean’s worn sleeves.

smiling to himself, dean quietly made his way back to the kitchen to make honey tea for cas and a pot of coffee. he was going to need the caffeine courage to show cas that this was mutual.

as the coffee brewed and the tea steeped, dean snuck back into cas’ room and collected the one thing he was missing. wrapping one of cas’ old trenchcoats around his shoulders, dean was finally ready to put his own heart onto cas’ sleeve.

[not-fitzwilliam-darcy]

i just realized that making a mixed tape is today's equivalent of making a spotify playlist oh this bugger was in LOVE love

[sailorsally]

mr ackles pls make destiel canon for once and all so I will no longer be resentful towards my tumblrinas for their reciprocated gay ships amen

[blanketforcas]

oh btw when misha said cas saw love in his eyes, he meant he knew there and then that dean wants to fuck him nasty. it's true, alex confirmed it x

[shallowseeker]

I think one of the things that initially attracted Dean to Cas was his manner of speaking.

Dean finds that he likes the straightforwardness and abruptness. Sure there was, "Are you allergic to straight answers, you son of a bitch?" in early days, but then there was also delightfully dry, one-word responses like this:

DEAN: Where've you been? CASTIEL: Jerusalem. DEAN: Oh, how was it? CASTIEL: Arid. CASTIEL sets the jar on the table. DEAN: What's that? CASTIEL: It's oil. It's very special. Very rare.

and

CASTIEL sits down. DEAN: Okay, so we trap Raphael with a nice vinaigrette? CASTIEL: No. DEAN: So this ritual of yours, when does it got to go down? CASTIEL: Sunrise. DEAN: Tell me something. You keep saying we're gonna trap this guy. Isn't that kinda like trapping a hurricane with a butterfly net? CASTIEL: No, it's harder. DEAN: Do we have any chance of surviving this? CASTIEL: You do. DEAN: So odds are you're a dead man tomorrow. CASTIEL: Yes.

Sure, Cas is kind of abrasive, but there's also very little natural subterfuge and artifice in his manner of speaking. He's not like John, passive-aggressive and wrapped with hidden barbed wire. He's not like Sam, overexplaining to the point of obfuscation. And Dean and Bobby are laden with pop culture sarcasm, emotional evasion, and other prickly defense mechanisms. (Dean loves Bobby, but his own style of communication exhausts him. He doesn’t love it when it’s coming from others.)

Cas generally says what he thinks, and he doesn't beat around the bush. And Dean finds Cas's speech pattern disarming...and really, really comforting, even when it's "rude."

It's why Dean's so thrown and hurt when Cas starts acting cagey and evasive in season 6. It's why the lying rips the rug out from underneath him.

///

As for Cas, he's fascinated by Dean's manner of speaking.

Cas is incredibly inquisitive and curious by nature. (The first thing he does on arriving in the barn is to start rifling through books and spells without even making much eye contact with them.)

We can gather that Dean's inexplicably complicated speech patterns are something of a puzzle for Cas. He's always trying to read Dean's body language and put these strange references together with enough context clues to read Dean's meaning. Even more fascinating to Cas is that Dean's words and body language are often in extreme mismatch (especially when he’s posturing).

For a creature that knows so many languages, Cas is frustrated by this as much as he is charmed by it. Cas is enamored by Dean's sometimes volatile emotions and his ability to hold two conflicting viewpoints at the same time. (Hello, "Tender one moment. Tough the next.") Dean's speech reflects his cycling emotions and rapid-fire ability to take in and regurgitate information.

And Cas likes that.

He also likes learning the modern human quirks of language. In seasons 14 and 15, we see Cas practicing and learning human metaphors. He enjoys TV, and he really likes sharing this cultural exploration with Dean.

[cas-is-my-weakness]

I am going to be bitter for one second if Jensen and misha were not allowed to kiss in the homophobic network they could have atleast had this kind of pda or something.

Anyways I feel if dean said "I love you" no one would be questioning the intent (non-platonic period). Actor man Jensen Ackles if you think of doing the spn revival (with your boyfriend misha) you can do over this pda i wouldn't complain anymore after this. Just reciprocate my guy in some way that is all. We are not "sexualising" for gods sake this is justice to us, to cas, to dean, for the greatest love story ever told destiel slowburn plus the homophobia we have constantly faced in cons and everywhere else. Give us this please. Give us peace actor man.

[ananke-xiii]

Cas saying "I wanted to return [the cassette]" and Dean saying "It's a gift, You keep those" is not just a cute, romantic destiel moment, it's Cas wanting out of his bond with Dean (because he's about to betray him again and hypocritically thinks he can get away with that if he just returns that gift) and Dean telling him "no, you stay where you are, I demand reciprocity". The moment Dean says (and probably repeats although we don't see it) that the cassette is a gift and that he has to keep it he is implicitly requiring reciprocity which Cas won't give back.

more on reciprocity here.

[daddario]

it drives me fucking crazy that Dean gets an entire fucking monologue about being possessed by Michael but Sam, a character who has been possessed by at least THREE different beings, one of which he was tricked into by someone he trusts, and one of which was the devil himself, gets one fucking line at the end of s9 that isn’t even about the experience itself but rather a cursory mention of the psychological fallout of his body being used to murder Kevin in a season that otherwise seems to disregard his experience entirely.

[backjustforberena]

MARYLAND 1x01 -  ( footage thanks to @evebestonline​ )   for @rxnefairs, who talks to me about this ship x

[angelsdean]

seeing ppl reblog a “shitpost” where dean homophobically rejects Cas in the confession not realizing it’s literally from w* / destiel haters who think dean doesn’t give af abt Cas and would actually do that. like yea I don’t expect ppl to vet blogs but like, I saw it and immediately got a Vibe from it and was right

[ardentpoop]

he knows him better than anyone else in the world and don't you fucking forget it

[quietwingsinthesky]

I am brought great peace by the fact that “Dean can’t reciprocate” is in the text of the confession scene’s script. He can’t reciprocate <3 Aromantic Dean wins, he can’t tell that angel he loves him because he’s never going to feel that way <3

[sammygender]

don’t crucify me cause i like destiel well enough but some of the fans are letting ur desperation blind you. is it not insanely obvious from jensen’s little speech that he thinks there’s nothing to resolve because everything’s been SAID. him saying it’s all in the text is him saying that cas has confessed his (romantic) love confession and that dean doesn’t need to confess anything back because he doesn’t Have anything (romantic) to say back. i don’t agree w him but that’s what he’s trying to say pls actually listen to the words. if we get s16 destiel is not happening they won’t even talk about the confession it’ll just continue on like nothing happened

[vendettasfanfictioning]

I need more fics framing The Rupture as something necessary for destiel—it hurt like a fucking bitch, sure, and it was a low blow for Dean to hit Cas exactly where he knows Cas hurt most (in being the problem or a burden), but also. Looking at it from Dean's perspective, it really did feel like a move that old, early-seasons Cas would do; withheld information, acted on his own, took risks that could cost others.

And when it all piled up? From Jack's soulless behaviors directly killing Mary, to the deal with Belphegor in hell costing them Rowena. Again, hard agree that it was one of the most painful lines dropped in the show (especially so if you remember that this is post-Empty deal), but context guys, context.

Plus, I believe this separation wasn't only long-time coming but also a pretty important addition because what is destiel if not a pair of stubborn idiots who can't communicate. That's not to say an argument is necessary to talk (it can be, in certain situations, sure) but they've been on different pages since Cas came back in S13.

The center of their disagreement seemed to mostly lie in their belief in Jack. I can't remember a time they really sat down and smoothed things out so much as they avoided talking about what happened during the Widower arc altogether, and that's when the wound really began to fester. (It didn't help that they had to deal with so many problems all at once; the Brits, Asmodeus, Apocalypse World, Lucifer, then AU Michael...)

Here is what we know that Cas believed (from the canon narrative): Jack formed a bond with Cas, even before he was born he somehow showed Cas a possible future; paradise. It's the same power, perhaps a protection mechanism with nephilim seeing as God labeled them as Abominations, that turned Kelly as well. What we know Cas saw (from the deleted scene/script): Cas' paradise consisted of everyone he loved, his family, being safe. This included Sam, Kelly, and Dean on a beach, with more focus on Dean as he tells Cas, "thank you."

From what we could see that Cas did not, Dean had enough resentment against Jack that wasn't going to magically go away overnight. Jack hadn't formed the same bond with Dean that he did with Cas.

What happened before Jack was born: Heaven and Hell both sought out Jack for their respective goals, an innocent woman was going to die from the sheer magnitude of giving birth to a Nephilim, and Cas left by what Dean assumed was delusions and manipulations. What happened when Jack was born: Mary fell into a portal to a different universe—a rift that only opened due to the anomaly and power of Jack's existence—Kelly died, and Cas got stabbed right in front of him.

And this isn't to discredit Dean's love for Jack, when he did allow himself to love him or see him as family, but you can love someone and still resent them or feel bad about them. Moreso during extreme circumstances, however unfair or illogical it may be. Again, did they ever really talk? Maybe my memory is failing me but I'm pretty certain they didn't, or at least never in great detail, or came to an agreement about it.

Dean and Cas... just had so much dirty laundry and Rupture made sure they aired it all out. But I think we, as a society, would benefit greatly from not framing Dean as the big bad villain here or Cas as some poor innocent bean. Supernatural's theme was never about brotherhood or family, it's about how shit could have been so much easier if they just communicated.