#ive written a couple other things abt s13 dean and jack bc it makes me FURIOUS but

[gooferdusted]

would love to hear you go into more detail about how to fix Dean's characterization in S13 if you're interested in sharing

I AM extremely interested in sharing, lemme just run thru s13 bullet point fic style

• dean made a concious choice to like jack. he was fully prepared not to. the anger burning in his heart over cas and mary and the little shambles of a family he had somehow managed to cobble together being shattered in an instant made him want to shoot something on sight.

• unfortunately the first thing in sight that wasnt sam, was jack.

• (fortunately, sam was there to point the gun away)

• when they find him again, jacks wearing possibly the most ridiculous outfit deans seen since before sam outgrew that purple shirt with the greyhound on it.

• he still listens to that feeling deep in his gut: dont get attatched. it's like when a stray dog follows you home, and you just hope itll go away, because the life itll have with you might be worse than the alley it's been living in

• but he catches a glimpse of jack, asleep in the backseat. his foreheads pressed up against the window, and it's so easy for dean to just let his vision blur a little and pretend its sam back there. before all this, before college. to pretend its cas. (aw, ain't he a little angel?)

• dean steels himself, watches the road ahead, thinks about his mom, and doesnt get attatched for another day

• three days later in a motel room off the coast of nowhere, jack kline is perched on the edge of a magic fingers mattress, watching cartoons for the first time in his life.

• he looks up at dean with stars in his eyes, and says "its wonderful."

• and dean doesnt have the heart to turn it off.

• dean winchester makes a concious choice.

• weeks roll by, and cas and mary are still gone. jack stays holed up in his room most of the time, watching star wars and trying to make a pencil float.

• and when dean walks by, in a vicious bout of insomnia, and hears the unmistakable sound of a blade sinking through flesh, he feels his heart drop straight through the floor when its jacks bedroom light that's still on

• dean prepares himself to fight. he expects (or maybe hopes for) a ghost, or a demon, or just something he can hurt.

• what he doesnt prepare for, is jack, holding a bloody knife in his hands. he turns around to face dean, in tears and asks, begs: "what am I?"

• dean makes hot chocolate. kids like hot chocolate. (jack, thank god, seems to like hot chocolate).

• jack sleeps soundly through the night. dean spends the rest of it locking up every weapon he can find. baby proofing, he thinks humorlessly

• that first hunt, dean does everything he can to put jack out of harm's way. food run? sure. staying in the car while we handle this? even better.

• he realizes very quickly that the pop culture references dont work on this kid. ("mr spock" means nothing. "stay quiet, I'm trying to protect you" does.) nothing but honest, simple communication. god fucking help him.

• dean feels like his hearts pouring out onto the floor when he wakes up to find jack chained to a pole beside him.

• (the kid saves him, saves everyone. but it's a reminder: this is why he doesnt get close to people. it ends bad one way or another. just a matter of time.)

• when cas comes back, theres this weight that just falls off dean. he thought he might explode when he saw cas standing vacantly under the streetlight. like someone could still pull the rug put from under them again. but once the heavy metal door to the bunkers heaves shut, dean feels like he wants to collapse.

• jacks more alive than ever. he still talks about his mother, (and yeah, shit kid, of course. dont forget her. dont ever forget. dont let one thing about her slip away. there was a sick moment last week where dean couldn't remember the color of Mary's eyes.)

• jacks feelings are complicated. sam and cas understand him better than dean could ever hope to. cas gets all the angel stuff, and the kid chose him to be his dad, so of course they understand eachother.

• and sammy, he just knows. knows what it's like to feel like theres something monstrous inside you. something out of your control.

• (dean remembers this too. remembers how he tortured in hell. remembers how the first blade felt in his hand before it was tossed into the ocean. those felt like concious choices, hes convinced himself. so he let's sam talk to the kid, and pretends like he doesnt understand.)

• when jack disappears; that's when dean wishes he had talked more. wishes he had said anything at all to make the kid feel less alone, or take away a shred of the guilt he carried around.

• hes not the same when he comes back. it strikes dean very suddenly that jack has been apart from him for more than half his life now. neither of them will ever get that time back.

• when jack talks about the apocalypse world, dean slips up and says "when you were in palo alto."

• jack asks where palo alto is. dean doesn't tell him.

• the approach of that summer is a blur. weaving in an out of different world. mary comes back just in time for sam to bleed out on a cave floor. the only sense of control dean feels like he has is keeping the kid away from lucifer.

• it's the last thought he has before michael takes over his body.