#deancas prompt

[dcforts]

god's own country destiel au

all dean has ever known has been the little sheep farm his father owns and he and sam help him take care of - the family business

but their father dies and sam gets accepted into college, and dean is left alone, the weight of the legacy and the feel of abandonment devouring him

he's unhappy, he works all day and goes out at night and drawns himself in alchool and one night stands

sam knows his brother needs help but he's too stubborn to ask for it so he hires someone on trial without telling him

castiel is a man of few words, and dean doesn't want him doesn't want him doesn't want him there, but cas is patient and he's wise and he cares about the animals, and dean doesn't want his eyes on him, doesn't care about his strong hands, doesn't like the way he talks about changes in his farm and takes up space in his house and his mind

cas sees right through him, he knows what he's doing, pushing him away, refusing his help, ignoring him. but he doesn't care, he's been hired for a job, hes' gonna do it, if he's too stubborn to accept it it's not his problem

this, until they realize they make a good team, until they realize they enjoy each other company and understand each other more than they thought they would, and that they could have a future

oh, but the trial period is up - will dean be able to tell cas not to go?

[howsdeanshole]

first kiss, sleepy kiss, worshipful kiss

[szlez]

Restless

drawn for @winchester-reload prompt

[yurideancas]

case fic where dean and cas have to pretend to be married couple with a kid to go to some family therapy meeting and jack is SO excited about it!!!getting into the role a little too easy

[doorbellbitch]

anyway—

dean winchester is the type of guy who does those really shit “loyalty tests” that you see on tiktok sometimes. he doesn’t do them with romantic partners— he doesn’t have those, according to him— no, he does them with his roommate cas and then whines about how cas isn’t loyal to him because he just tilts his head when dean starts trying to subtly hint that he wants an orange in really roundabout ways.

idk, that’s just something i think about sometimes

[thevioletcaptain]

Emoji prompt! 🪼👀🎨

@carnilia Thanks for the prompt, and I'm sorry this fill took so long for me to post! I hope you enjoy the deancas ficlet & the art I ended up making to go with it :)

The Beholder

It doesn’t take long for Dean to learn that Cas is a sweet talker in the bedroom. Sometimes it’s compliments; others, it’s praise. Either way, whether they’re moving together slow beneath the sheets, or hard and fast up against a door after barely making it inside, he’s always gentle with his words.

The first time, Dean figured it was because it was the first time, and he didn’t ask. But they’re far from their first time, now.

They’ve been together almost a month, and though it’s still new in the grand scheme of things, and Dean still feels a little like he’s getting away with something every time Cas kisses him, they’ve settled far enough into something like comfort that he thinks he can bring it up.

“You called me beautiful again,” Dean murmurs against Cas’ skin, trailing the tip of his nose over his arm, and Cas hums in a questioning tone, as if to say — yes, I did, and is that alright? at the same time.

Hooking his knee over Cas’, Dean presses in closer until his belly is warm against Cas’ bare hip, and his cheek is settled against his chest, and Cas has no choice but to shift his arm to wrap around Dean’s shoulders and hold him there.

It’s easier like this. Close enough to feel secure. Close enough to get away with avoiding eye contact.

“I mean, it’s nice. It’s just…”

He trails off. It’s easier, but it’s still not easy.

“Just?” Cas asks, touching Dean’s chin until he has no choice but to tilt his face up to meet his gaze.

When he does, Cas is looking at him so patiently, so softly, that Dean is rendered weak by it. Incapable of resisting the sweetness of him, even if he is still nervous to be talking about this. He catches Cas’ hand in his own, kissing his fingertips before he settles back against his chest and lets go. Speaks.

“Just. Okay, tell me if this is— if I’m overthinking things or whatever. But it kinda… I guess I worry, y’know? That it’s one-sided.”

Underneath Dean’s cheek, Cas’ chest rumbles with a thoughtful sound as he works to understand what Dean means. Evidently, he comes up empty.

“If I didn’t know better, I might think you were saying you find me unattractive.”

Snorting a laugh, Dean shakes his head.

His fingers dance over Cas’ ribs. Smooth over his stomach. He’s so warm, and solid, and Dean’s rarely been closer to him than in moments like this, basking in the afterglow.

He’s also never felt the distance between the way they know one another quite so acutely.

“I can’t see you,” he says on a breath, like saying it quiet will make it less devastating to think about, and Cas links their fingers together on an exhale. Squeezes Dean’s hand in his own.

“Ah,” he says, and Dean’s relieved that he can tell he understands.

“And— yeah, this is your body now, and it has been for a while, and I get that, but I just… man, sometimes I really hate that I never got to see the rest of you, you know?”

“I know,” Cas tells him, and raises Dean’s hand to kiss his knuckles before lowering it back to press against his chest. “I wish I could’ve shown you, but… hm.”

Cas trails off, and Dean twists to look at him again. His brow is creased in thought.

“Hm?” Dean prompts.

“Well… I just had an idea. It’s not quite the same, but there might be a way for me to show you an approximation.”

“How?”

Cas looks down at him and smiles.

“You’ll have to be patient,” he says, which isn’t really an answer, but he pulls Dean fully on top of him as he says it, so Dean’s willing to let it slide. “It might take some time for me to get it right.”

...

It takes a few years, in the end.

More hours than Dean can count spent in a breezy, brightly lit studio next door to the Lebanon Post Office; Cas learning how to paint under the watchful eye of a woman with a seemingly endless collection of flowing, gauzy scarves, while Dean alternately reads thrifted pulp novels and hones his already halfway-decent sketching skills nearby, just because he’d rather spend this time with Cas than without, even if they’re working on independent projects.

Cas doesn’t rush ahead.

He wants to get a solid grasp of the medium, first; wants to learn to paint the physical world before he attempts the metaphysical.

Over time, the bunker fills with his paintings.

First, still life pieces that feature everything from Jack’s collection of interesting rocks, to the mixtape Dean gave him, to an assortment of produce pilfered from the vegetable drawer.

Next, pictures of Dean, of Jack and Sam and Claire, of Miracle running in the woods with her tongue lolling out of her mouth and her tail a golden blur.

Landscapes and seascapes and sprawling open skies. Insects and fish and lights on the highway.

The view from the back seat of the Impala as Dean smiles at him in the rearview mirror; the view from the passenger seat as they link hands between them.

When they eventually leave the bunker behind, handing over the keys to a younger generation and moving into a little house across town from Sam and Eileen two years after they first got together, they take most of Cas’ paintings with them, and their home above-ground becomes a gallery of his artwork.

Dean loves every single one.

He hangs them in every room, interspersed with Jack’s enthusiastic creations and dozens of photos that had, until recently, lived almost exclusively on Dean’s phone.

At Cas’ insistence, he adds a few of his own sketches to the mix. An old one he drew of Charlie — the Charlie he still thinks of as his Charlie — back when they worked that djinn case together in 2013. One of Cas standing at his easel in the studio, lips pursed in concentration. A tiny drawing of his mom not long after Amara had brought her back, scratched out on a post-it note while he’d been talking with her on the phone.

The wall over their bed has been left open, though. Cas has complained that whatever he finally produces won’t be worth such prime real estate, but Dean insists it will be by virtue of featuring the best looking guy he knows.

Cas has given up on debating the flawed logic of Dean’s argument.

It’s almost eight months after they move into the house when Cas announces that he’s ready to attempt the self portrait, and Dean can’t accompany him to the studio anymore.

“I don’t want you to see it before it’s done,” he says, uncharacteristically nervous as he twists his hands in his lap, and Dean reaches out to stop him. Weaves their fingers together.

“So I’ll stay home,” he says.

He tugs Cas’ hand when he still seems worried. Pulls him into a kiss that Cas relaxes into. Breathes into.

“Whatever you need, okay?”

After that, he comes home every day smelling of acrylics, with a kaleidoscope of color under his nails and flecked on his neckline where his smock hangs a little too low.

Some days, he spends hours at the studio, and returns frustrated and tired, and Dean pulls him into the shower to rub his shoulders and remind him that it doesn’t have to be perfect. That he should only do this if he wants to.

“I want to see you, but only if you want me to see,” he says for probably the twentieth time since Cas first offered to paint the self portrait, and just like every time before, Cas’ body goes lax under his hands. Tilts into him.

“I want you to,” he says.

The day he finally brings the painting home, loaded into the back of his truck and wrapped in a canvas sheet, he sits out in the driveway for almost fifteen minutes before Dean heads out to see what’s keeping him.

It takes almost another ten minutes of gentle pressure before Cas admits that it’s not that he’s worried he hasn’t done a good job, but that he’s halfway convinced that Dean will take one look at it — at him — and wish he’d never asked to see.

That he’s too alien. Too inhuman. Too strange.

That it will change things between them, even if Dean doesn’t want it to.

Dean doesn’t know how to comfort him; can’t find a combination of words that will convince him that Dean would love him in any form. Would love him still if he were a monster — has done, back when the Leviathan twisted him into a dark mirror of himself, and Dean had looked at him and thought we can still get through this. I just need him to be okay.

Without the words, he just shuffles across the bench seat of Cas’ truck to press his lips to Cas’ temple. Settles him. Grounds him with one hand on his thigh and the other looped around his shoulders.

“It’s gonna be fine,” he says, because even if he can’t figure out how to put a whole big speech together, he’s gotta say something, and Cas lets out a gusty breath against his neck.

“What if it’s not?”

Tapping his chin, Dean waits until Cas reluctantly turns to look at him.

“I love you,” he says, firm. He repeats it when Cas tries to look away. “Hey— I love you.”

“I know. I love you, too. I’m sorry I’m being—”

“It’s okay. I get it. But—” Dean sucks his lip between his teeth, weighing the odds that his next words will be received in the spirit they’re intended before throwing caution to the wind. “You still think I’m pretty, right?”

“You know I do.”

“Well, I’ve gotta look pretty weird to an angel, right? Four limbs, two eyes, not a feather in sight. All this pesky skin.”

“You’re forgetting that the other angels all thought I was a freak,” Cas says, though he’s starting to calm down, and Dean nudges in to kiss the corner of his mouth.

“Sweetheart, you know I’m a freak, too.”

Huffing a laugh, Cas tilts his head back against the driver’s side window to look at him.

“You’re really sure you won’t regret knowing?”

“I’m really sure.”

Cas pushes out a breath. Nods.

“Okay,” he says, and gives Dean a shaky smile. “Help me carry it inside?”

When Cas pulls the canvas sheet away, it takes Dean a moment to fully absorb what he’s looking at.

He’s seen old engravings of angels; spinning wheels of light and fire, wings and limbs and countless eyes. Looking at this, he can see how the descriptions came about when made by people who had no other frame of reference, but his first thought, of all things, is jellyfish.

Because Cas is glowing. Iridescent.

His feathery limbs float, tendril-like in the darkness, and all of his eyes are trained on Dean. Tender, somehow as they look at him; nude and at peace in the palm of a giant.

It cracks Dean open not only to see Cas, finally, but to instantly recognize such a familiar gaze on his otherworldly face.

This is Cas.

This is Cas.

“The scale isn’t exactly accurate,” Cas says, fidgeting in a way that Dean hasn’t seen him do since he got stoned with Eileen and had to admit to Dean that he’d eaten the last piece of cherry pie. “But I wanted to include you, and if I’d made our relative sizes true to life I would have needed to at least triple the size of the canvas to make you large enough to include enough detail, and—”

“Cas?”

Cas stops talking, swallowing roughly, and Dean drags his gaze away from the painting to look at him. His eyes are wide and blue and shining, and though there’s a world of difference between the figure in the painting and the one Dean’s reaching for and pulling close, he’s the same. He’s exactly the same.

“You’re beautiful,” he says. Breathes against his skin.

Turns out Dean’s been able to see him this whole time. [written for this prompt game] [cas' self portrait is rebloggable here] [posted on ao3 as imogenbynight 💚]

[thebest-medicine]

#5 “No, I’m just- uh- sensitive.” with Dean and Cas?

Prompt 5 - "No, I'm just- uh- sensitive."

A/N: oh man it's a throwback... let's go!!!! to quote @nhasablogg: what in the 2014 is happening here

…

Dean twitched again as Castiel’s hand passed the middle of his back, just between the shoulder blades. Castiel watched him with a twinkle of concern.

He had come in and sat down on the couch at Dean’s invitation earlier, only for Dean to then lounge across the couch and his lap, laying face down on a pillow and popping some reruns on the TV. Cas had taken it upon himself to shower the hunter with a little affection and check to make sure he was uninjured after their last outing. This led to Cas rubbing his back and neck here and there, and some affectionate tracing along his skin (perhaps also a ploy to check for sore muscles or knots) to see if he could help Dean feel a bit better.

“What’s wrong, Dean?”

“Nothin’.” Dean hummed against the pillow on the arm of the couch. “S’fine.”

Cas continued tracing along the muscles of Dean’s shoulders, pushing in when he sensed a knot and massaging here and there. He ran a few fingers along his spine up to his neck and Dean flinched again.

“Dean.” Cas stressed, stopping his ministrations.

“It’s fine, Cas. I’m… it’s just- uh- sensitive there.”

Castiel leaned forward, trying to get a glimpse of the human’s expression to better read him. He seemed content, happy even, he wasn’t getting up or moving away. He wasn’t hiding anything… any injury, right? Cas noticed a rosy coloring on the tip of his ear. He smiled gently.

“Sensitive.?” He inquired softly, starting to curl his fingers again along the back of Dean’s neck and over his shoulder, along his back. The thin t-shirt was soft under his fingertips, and it must have been on Dean’s skin as well. Dean squirmed again, digging himself deeper into the couch and Cas’s lap. Cas caught a strangled bit of a laugh almost made its way through the pillow. He smiled a little as he caught on.

“Sensitive… like you are here?” Cas continued, and suddenly his other hand was scratching at Dean’s ribcage.

Dean squawked at the new, more directly ticklish contact. He curled onto his side. “Hehheehe- wait! Nohohohohohooo!” He laughed, his blushing face now free. Cas caught sight of his delightful smile and felt warm.

“Can I get you to laugh like this if I try tickling back here?” Cas said curiously.

Dean protested through his laughs as he squirmed about, still tired, but didn’t do much to actually stop the ticklish attack. Cas drew both hands back and started to make the same spidering motions along the backs of Dean’s ribs and tracing up and down his spine. He scribbled at Dean’s neck, then at the small of his back. Dean laughed all the same, twitching and twisting until he finally squirmed his way onto his back, facing the angel. He caught Castiel’s hands in his and Cas stopped for a moment, taking in his wild eyes and fierce blush in contrast with his freckles.

“Heh- yeesh. You trying to kill me?” Dean laughed, closing his eyes under the scrutiny.

“You have a very sweet laugh.” Castiel said, smiling as Dean squirmed at the compliment too. “And a very ticklish back.” Another squirm.

“Shut up. You’re probably worse.” Dean scoffed.

“Well, maybe you’ll find out one day.”

Dean looked back up at him, raising an eyebrow with a little smirk. “Wanna find out?”

“Not now.” Cas smirked after he spoke, and Dean gave him a bewildered look before fingers fluttered along his stomach and began pinching his sides, and Dean lost his protests to laughter once again.

…

[more sentence starter fic prompts]

[other sentence starter fics]

[read this & further SPN drabbles on ao3]

[spn-fanfic-reblog-writes]

Destiel prompt

https://x.com/corrupt_touch/status/1784043540676325493?s=46&t=BQmenEkxxKLjBrxpohf-tg

I love you @corrupt-touch and your brain. Just sharing your awesomeness.

[bobwess]

Random SPN prompt 305- “Do you think you’ll ever end up dating my brother?”

“I think we’ve been dating for a long time.” Cas said mildly, looking over his mug. “I think one day Dean will catch on.”

[complete prompt list google doc]

[hells-plaid-angel]

Destiel Pride: Day 3 & 4 - For the First Time I Feel & Devine Purpose

[annmariethrush]

Eventually I’ll write my magnum opus, a 15x18 fix it crack fic where Dean gets ground hog day stuck in the S3 ghostfacers episode immediately after Cas’s death. he has to go through this stupid ghost hunt over and over while he comes to terms with Cas’s confession and tries to ignore his own feelings until he realizes that some cosmic force is trying to show him something. Gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day. Finally, hundreds of ghostfacers! Episodes later he finally, teary eyed and distraught, admits that maybe Ed and Harry, insane and stupid though they are, may be right and that he has to admit his feelings for his poor dead angel to get him back.

This naturally turns out to be an act of Gabriel who is still somehow not dead, and we find out at the end that the real kicker is that time hasn’t actually really been on loop and that Dean has been stuck living that day over and over while Sam thinks that he’s dead as per 15x20 because as much as Gabriel wants to finally see Dean and Cas get together after being around since the beginning of the world’s greatest love story, he also just really fucking HATES Sam for some reason and wants to make him suffer by spending months thinking Dean is dead for real no take backs on a stupid hunt after they defeated god. Ultimately, much like his revival in S13, Dean’s love wakes Cas up in the empty, allowing Jack to free him, which was the plan all along, Gabriel just got to have too much fun with the plan after convincing Jack it wouldn’t work if they just told him

[naughtystiel]

AND I STILL BELIEVE IN ANOTHER LIFE WE WERE MEANT TO BE

♡

today's prompt || MORNING AFTER

[saiyan-druid-art]

destiel - walking in the rain ☔

[szlez]

Watching Over You

Suptober23 – Day 6: Full Spread

Prints and stickers, and other stuff

[envythemouse]

This plot bunny has been hopping around my head for months now

Sam de-ages himself to get Castiel and Dean together but ends up liking being their little Sammy a bit too much.

When they finally get together Sam doesn't really want to change back to his grown-up self, because he's never been so happy before and he loves being close to Cas and Dean.

So basically...

Sam wants his brother and angel to date so both of them can be happy.

He devises a plan to get them together.

De-aging himself is the solution, obviously.

Cas and Dean don't know that Sam has all his adult memories.

Sammy finally gets to be a child and be free all while performing his masterplan.

Dean has always been Sammy's daddy dearest and so when Sammy meets Cas he asks "Are you my new mommy?"

Yes, they're parents now. (Until they find a way to change Sam back of course.)

Even though Sam has his memories, he feels much more sensitive than usual and has difficulties controlling his emotions.

e.g. He starts crying when he trips.

Sammy having a nightmare and asking to sleep in bed with Dean like usual, asking confusingly why Cas isn't going to bed with them -> our little boy deserves to be sandwiched by Destiel <3

Sammy not liking salads anymore and sitting in Dean's or Cas' lap when eating because he can't get high enough to eat properly and needs to be spoonfed.

Dean enjoys spoiling Sammy in ways he couldn't before because they didn't have a lot of money back then or a proper home.

Dean missed seeing his brother so happy and carefree.

Castiel sees Sam's soul getting brighter everyday and finally healing.

Sam gets to ask Cas all the questions he always wanted to ask, but didn't have the courage for: "Dean says you're an angel, does that mean you can fly? Where is heaven? Are your wings white? Can I touch them? Do angels marry? Can you heal people? Does it hurt when you lose feathers??"

Dean calls Sam baby and Sam loves that even though he didn't when he was little the first time, Dean notices and wonders why it doesn't bother Sammy anymore.

Eventually Cas and Dean get together but by then Sammy doesn't really want to be big again because he doesn't want to stop being loved by his parents Cas and Dean.

Dean catches on to what's going on and together they all find a solution everyone is happy with, can be anything: Sammy growing up all over again the normal way, turning him back to his adult self but still caring for him and spending time together, having a magical ring so he can change his age at will in case they're on a hunt or there is an emergency... just anything happy.

Sorry, I have a very soft spot for Cas and Dean being parental towards Sam. You have no idea.

[thevioletcaptain]

😔🧋🤙 for the emoji prompt!

Cas is just leaning in to kiss him, his fingers trailing warm and seductive down the center of Dean’s chest, when there’s a knock on their bedroom door. Three sharp raps in quick succession.

They both freeze, breath caught as they wait, as if silence will convince whoever’s knocking that they aren’t here.

“Dean? Cas?”

No such luck.

“Maybe if we ignore him, he’ll give up and leave,” Dean whispers, but he’s barely finished the sentence when Sam knocks again.

“Uh, guys?” Sam says, voice louder but still muffled through two inches of oak. “You awake in there?”

Cas sighs, slumping back onto his own pillow to give Dean a look that very clearly states; your brother, your problem. Dean sends one back that says, what’s mine is yours, sweetheart, but Cas only glowers in response.

“Guys?” Sam repeats, knocking a third time, and Dean groans as he pushes out of bed.

With one last longing glance at Cas, naked and sleepy and looking decidedly put out about the fact that his plans to continue what they’d started last night had been interrupted before they could even begin, Dean slips into his robe before cracking the door.

“What?”

Sam meets his gaze with a sheepish grimace.

“Hey, sorry,” he says again, wrinkling his nose. “I was gonna let you guys sleep in, but, well… I don’t wanna freak you out or anything, and it might not even be—”

Sam pushes out a breath. Hesitates.

“Dude, just spit it out. It’s early.”

“It’s eleven.”

“Sam—”

“I think there’s something wrong with Jack.”

That gets his attention fast, and Dean pulls the door wide as Cas launches out of bed. Sam averts his eyes when he notices Cas’ distinct lack of pants.

“Uh—”

“Is he sick?”

“What happened?” Cas asks, immediately breathless with worry. “Where is he? Is he hurt?”

“He’s fine, he’s safe, he’s taking Miracle for a walk. But— Cas, can you put some clothes on?”

Dean grabs Cas’ fuzzy cloud-print bathrobe from the back of the door and tosses it over to him before he can start arguing with Sam about the fact that his lack of pants has no bearing on Sam’s ability to explain himself.

“So if he’s fine and safe and walking the dog—what exactly is the problem?” Dean asks.

With an uncertain shrug, Sam nods toward the kitchen, and they follow him down the hall as he explains.

“Okay, so this morning I had to go to up to Hastings for a few things, and I asked if he wanted to come with — he normally does, y’know, because he likes the toffee boba from that place opposite the store where I get my protein powder.”

“Uhuh,” Dean says.

“So, I dropped him off to get his drink, and I went to the health food store, and when I came back to meet him he was just, like. Sitting in the middle of the sidewalk.”

“Sitting, and… doing what?” Cas asks.

“That’s the thing,” Sam says, stepping down into the kitchen. He looks back at them as he pulls out one of the swivel chairs at the table and sits down. Dean and Cas mirror him on the other side. “He was just sitting there, staring at a crack in the pavement with a dandelion growing in it.”

“So…” Dean says, waving a hand for Sam to elaborate.

“I think he’s depressed.”

“Depressed,” Cas repeats with a frown.

“You think he’s depressed because he was sitting on the sidewalk and looking at a flower?” Dean asks, narrowing his eyes. “The kid’s just weird, Sam. He’s always been weird. He gets it from his entire family.”

“That’s not— look, I asked him why he was sitting there instead of on the bench five feet away, and you know what he said to me? He said, what difference does it make? Everything is meaningless.”

“Okay, well that… that does sound kinda concerning,” Dean admits.

“Did he say anything else?”

“No, not really. But when we got back to the car he stuck the dandelion under the windshield wipers to ‘see how long it would hold on’, and… honestly, saying that out loud sounds stupid, but… I don’t know. It worried me.”

As he’s speaking, the distant whine of the main door opening echoes through the bunker, followed by scrambling claws as Miracle launches into his usual post-walk zoomies, and the heavy clang of the door slamming shut.

Miracle bursts into the kitchen a few seconds later, frantically sniffing at all of them — Cas carefully repositions himself to avoid getting a dog snout all up in his business — before sprinting back out, and Jack follows shortly after, slurping away at his boba.

Inexplicably, he’s wearing his Ghostbusters jumpsuit from last Halloween, a pair of teal flip flops, and has Cas’ floppy gardening hat hanging around his neck. Dean looks at him and then back at Sam, wondering how neglected to mention this absolute mess of an outfit as he recounted the reasons for his alarm.

“Hello,” Jack says with a wave, and walks over to the fridge.

Dean, Cas, and Sam all look at one another before Cas clears his throat.

“How are you today, Jack?”

Rifling through the vegetable drawer, Jack lets out a thoughtful hum before extracting a single tomatillo. He sniffs it before biting into it like an apple.

“Snacky. And… contemplative. Have you ever noticed how Miracle just eats whatever he finds no matter what time of day it is? That makes more sense than designated breakfast food, I think.”

“Right,” Dean says carefully, watching as Jack takes another sip from his toffee-flavored milk tea as though he doesn’t still have a mouthful of tomatillo. He’s unsurprised when the flavor combination — and presumably the added texture of a tapioca pearl — makes Jack gag a little, but it’s still gross when he spits it into the sink.

At least he takes the moment to turn on the tap and rinse it down.

“So, uh. What’s the deal with Halloween in July?”

Jack tilts his head for a moment, as though uncertain what Dean is asking, before he seems to remember what he’s wearing. He looks down. Jiggles the buckle of his utility belt.

“Oh, it’s because I realized nothing matters,” Jack says cheerfully, and takes a long, noisy slurp through his straw before wriggling it around the bottom of his cup, where the last tapioca pearl is stubbornly clinging to the plastic. It finally dislodges, and he crushes the cup in his hand, tossing it in the recycling.

“What do you mean nothing matters?”

“There’s no point to anything. It’s all meaningless, so, you know, if something is kind or fun or interesting and it doesn’t hurt anyone…” Jack shrugs. “Hakuna Matata.”

Without waiting for a response, Jack crams the rest of the tomatillo into his mouth and heads for the door.

“Anyway, I’m gonna go up on the roof and read erotica on my phone,” he says, and waves, and then he’s gone before any of them can process that — let alone react to it.

“See what I mean?” Sam says.

“Yeah, uh. He’s definitely being weird, even for Jack, but… I don’t think he’s depressed.”

“So what is it? Teen angst?”

“He’s not a teenager,” Dean points out. “And he’s not exactly angsty.”

“He’s right, Sam. I’m not certain this is even a problem.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Well, I do think one of us should actually take the time to have a frank discussion with him about sex if he’s going to be reading erotica, but other than that, it seems as though he’s just thinking philosophically. Contemplating the nature of his existence in a newly Godless universe.”

“Yeah, and I mean, as far as philosophies go? Nothing matters so just chill out about it seems… refreshingly optimistic. I say we call it a win.”

[written for this prompt game] [find me on ao3 as imogenbynight 💚]

ps: here's a bonus meme to illustrate why my brain went immediately to "optimistic nihilism" after seeing these particular emojis 😅