#saving Cas over Sam would be “selfish” rather than saving Sam.

[cas-poisoning]

There’s currently a poll going around where about 34% of people voted that Dean WOULN’T kill Cas to save Sam’s life (assuming it’s the only way)… I didn’t want to be mean in the notes but y’all voting no are delusional 😭 another 15% of people are voting other and saying stuff like “it depends on the season”

First of all, early seasons Dean would be 100% instantly on board no matter what. And honestly he wouldn’t even be that sad (maybe guilty, but not that sad). I’m talking like season 4, 5, maybe even 6. Late seasons Dean would be incredibly tortured and devastated but ultimately do it because above all else he NEEDS to protect Sam. That’s one of his defining character traits, and has consistently shown he’d do pretty much anything.

“Oh well Dean would only sacrifice himself he wouldn’t sacrifice anyone else” WRONG! Cas has a martyr complex and would love to die for the winchesters (more specifically, he’d love to die for Dean and he’d love to die for anything Dean needs (aka Sam)). “Always ready to bleed for the Winchesters” Cas would honestly kill himself to save Sam before late seasons Dean even gets the chance to feel conflicted about it. But to keep with the poll and making it about Dean’s choice, assuming Cas doesn’t just kill himself, I think late seasons Deans would be pretty easily convinced by Cas being so willing about it.

I just don’t see a single situation where this is ever a no and not an emphatic, yes Dean would kill Cas to save Sam if it was the only way.

[hexedwinchester]

How come u dont love Sam protecter and older brother Dean🥹

By Sam own words Dean raised him, a-lot of the good qualities that Sam has he got from Dean. Yeah Sam childhood wasn't the best, but he was deeply loved by Dean, i believe this love helped overcome many obstacles in his life.

In fact again by Sam own words, Deans love and protection is the only thing he could always count on.

I am not saying Dean is perfect, but who is ? To say that Sam needed protection from Dean sounds odd, where Dean is literally his home and the only place he feels safe.

hi @rosedark88

Interesting question and perspective you have offered.. this would be fun to analyse 😊

Before I start, let me be honest: I'm not Dean's biggest fan because I find a lot of his actions to be problematic. Please proceed with caution: you may not like the answer but I'll break it down as logically as I can. (Please remember, this is not a hate post)

Yes, I agree Dean has been Sam's protector (but only until early seasons. I'll explain what I mean) and he did raise him but time and again Dean has confessed if not to others, then his own subconscious that he hated having to carry that burden. He has let it slip that he is bitter about having to raise Sam (which I can understand, it wasn't fair) but I've seen him pretends otherwise which is two-faced IMO. (He confesses this in S03E10 Dream A Little Dream of Me when he is facing himself, in case you are looking for a reference.)

He is also a hypocrite with repressed emotions. He says he admires his dad but deep down he too resented him but he still gave Sam shit about him because Sam was just more blunt about his opinion of John unlike Dean. Again, in the same episode he says "my dad was an obsessed bastard. All that crap about keeping Sam safe was his crap." See what I mean?

Continuing on the hypocrisy, his whole agenda of "what's dead should stay dead" is gone for a toss when he makes that deal the first time to save Sam in S2. He gave Sam a lot of shit for trusting Ruby because she's a demon (unfortunate for Sam she had bad intentions) but Dean trusted Benny, Gadreel, Crowley and Cas when all of these guys have broken his trust later. But we don't see Sam bringing that shit up like Dean tends to.

Let's also not forget that Dean berated Sam for getting Charlie killed over the Book of the Damned but apparently no one cares that his manipulation got Kevin killed too? Do you see the double standards here?

Speaking of saving Sam, every single time he has done something apocalyptic to save Sam, it was for selfish reasons. The main reason is because Dean struggles to let go, to move on. He'd rather drag a zombie Sam around than let the man die. Even you have to agree there's some truth in that.

Dean hated that Sam left for college and it wasn't because he was afraid something might get to him. No, it was because he saw that as Sam's betrayal. That Sam picked college over him.

Now, coming to your question about why Sam needs protection from Dean his apparent 'savior'? Yes, Dean is willing to do anything to "save Sam" from every evil thing out there but that's the whole problem. Why even Billie doesn't like the Winchesters because these guys are willing to risk the destruction of the whole world to save each other which isn't right.

let's look at those grave "save Sam" moments and see what's wrong with those pictures:

Sam's first death in S2: Dean bought himself one way ticket to Hell to bring Sam back because he didn't want to keep doing this without Sam (he confesses this in his monologue to Sam's corpse and also in the Croaton episode when he finds out Sam is infected and doesn't leave). Dean is literally nobody without Sam and I'm not saying this. This is who Dean is. Sam is Dean's essence for survival. So Dean saved Sam for himself putting Sam through the same ordeal that John put Dean through. Dean passes on his trauma to Sam like a hand me down.

Sam's detox: Bobby tried to knock sense into him that it's probably the cold turkey thing that's killing Sam. I know Dean was trying to help him but I doubt he knew the right way to do so. Even when he realised his method would kill Sam, he was okay letting him suffer like that until he died (because then at least he dies human). I'm sorry that's not how you deal with someone with addiction problem. Despite everything, Sam is still willing to work with Dean but he can't get over Sam choosing Ruby and calls Sam a monster.

In season 6, the brothers realise something is off about Sam. At the end of the episode 'You Can't Handle the Truth' Sam comes clean that he felt different since he was brought back and he needs help to figure it out and how does Dean help him? By beating him unconscious, tying him to the chair like he is a monster? The way he talks to Sam in that scene: "you better hope he (Cas) can diagnose you. he asks, you answer and then you shut your cakehole". So Sam isn't allowed to talk about his own body? Oh wait I know, he's not, not when Dean said so.

In Season 8, he impersonates Amelia, sending Sam SOS just so he can he rendevous with Benny? Amelia was a shore in his Sam's storm. He loved her and deeply cared for her. To let him think something happened to her was cruel. Especially given how Sam's past relationships ended up his beloveds dying horrifically. Who plays such sick mind games? And to your own brother??!

Season 9, my favourite, the one that completely dissolved the rose tinted glasses that the show created for Dean: Manipulating Sam into saying yes to be possessed by an angel (an angel you know nothing of) knowing Sam's history of possession, that was just sick. Sam wanted to die. He was ready. If Dean wanted to save him, the least he could do was be honest about it. Not manipulate him into saying yes. But he didn't. He resorted to manipulation because he knew Sam would rather die than be possessed. Something that people fail to understand here is 'the idea of possession' is a hard limit for Sam. But Dean has no regard for it because in his head "he did what he had to and he won't even apologize for that". I'm sorry, that's the biggest red flag to me. I don't care if you have raised me, protected me and kept me safe only for you to stab me where I'm the most vulnerable. You are no different than all those evil things out to hurt me. That's why I love Sam for standing his ground and not forgiving Dean for this. He was right to say he didn't want to be brothers. If my siblings betrayed me like that, I'd leave too.

And whenn in Season 9 finale, Dean wanted to go off to kill metatron on his own, Sam wanted to tag along but what's dean's response? Punch him into unconsciousness and leave him on the street like that? All vulnerable for any monster to attack him? Really?! How is this protecting? Ya maybe metatron won't kill him but something else still might!

Oh and in Season 15, Dean pulled a gun on Sam and mind you he under no dark influence. This was all him. I'm not even going to elaborate further on this.

I can list at least 10 occasions where Dean has hit, punched, beat up Sam but Sam hasn't fought back. And that's not even what bothers me the most. It's the fact that Sam doesn't look surprised (meaning Dean beaten him before and I so believe he has and it's a frequent, almost business as usual like) or he looks scared (I'll try to find that gif where Sam is on the ground putting his hands before his face to protect himself against Dean). Dean is abusive when he is angry.

Something you said in the ask that struck me odd. What qualities did Sam learn from Dean? Let's see some of Sam's core good qualities:

Emotional intelligence

Forgiving

Compassionate

Empathetic

Selflessness

Determination

Self awareness

Open mindedness

Authencity

Dean is not known for any of the above qualities, so I disagree he learnt his good qualities from Dean. Dean has an emotional intelligence of a wooden plank. He holds grudges and isn't nearly as forgiving as Sam is. Compassion and empathy are not Dean's qualities either. Dean is selfish. His first thought is how to use someone to his advantage. He did that with Cas, Crowley, even Jack. I've seen Dean give up more often. His "I can't keep doing this", "why is it our job to save everyone", "who says I want to do this?" are all indicators of this. Self-awareness tends to dwell in his blindspot. I've said this before, Dean is black and white, Sam is grey area meaning Sam is more open minded than Dean. My favourite: nothing about Dean is original. His leather jacket? John's. His car? John's. His music? John's. His life motto? Also John's. Whereas Sam has been authentic, true to himself than Dean ever could. Did Sam learn hunting from Dean? Yes. Loyalty? Yes. But neither of these are Sam's core qualities. So I disagree that Sam's good qualities come from Dean. If anything, his good qualities are actually him trying not to be like Dean.

Sam can count on Dean's love and protection because he has been conditioned to since he was 6 months old. First by his father and then by Dean himself either through emotional abuse (he keeps reminding him about how his decisions always end up with someone dying or gaslighting him into guilt tripping on things outside his control) or downright physical beatings. The Winchesters have dysfunctional family and relationships. Again, remember Sam is the forgiving one in this relationship. In fact Sam is forgiving to a fault and that's what this is. It doesn't make Dean's actions right just because Sam has been forgiving them.

To summarise, here why I feel Sam needs protection from Dean:

Dean saves Sam only because he doesn't know how to live without him. That's not normal. He has done crazy shit to "save him" resulting in causing Sam more trauma

He quickly lashes out (often resulting in verbal or physical violence) because of his repressed emotions and poor anger management

He has verbally and physically hurt Sam either by calling him a monster or saying he doesn't trust him or by beating him unconscious on multiple occasions

he is controlling, bossy and threatening. "If didn't know you, I'd want to hunt you." Sorry, if I were Sam, I wouldn't feel very safe

Dean doesn't see the wrong in his action or worse, even when he knows he is wrong, he is too stubborn to apologise for that. Everything is shoved under "I did what I had to" or "I'm not apologizing for saving you".

Dean has manipulated Sam and gaslit him

His whole "this is a dictatorship" comes across as a red flag which takes me to my next point:

He never treated Sam as his equal. Don't see how that counts as love

Dean was mad at Sam in DSOTM because Sam's happy memories (that Sam wasn't in control of and the whole situation was probably rigged. I mean, Zachariah cosied up with Mary's image for god's sake) didn't involve Dean. The idea that Sam can have a life outside Dean has never sat well with him

He has locked Sam in the panic room on at least 3 occasions. Sam hasn't done that even once

Sorry, but Dean is not a poster boy for love and protection. When I look at a character, I not only analyse their actions but also try to understand why they acted the way they did. In Dean's case, the why has always been problematic.

Dean's intentions maybe good but his actions don't always align. His philosophy has always been "if the means justify the end" but I don't stand by it. This is what makes room for immoral, tyrant and corrupt actions and an excuse to hide you wrong doings behind those.

These are my views on why I feel Sam needed to be saved from Dean. You may or may not agree and it's fine either ways 😊

Damn! That was lengthy. But thanks for this interesting ask, it was fun! 😇

[restlesshush]

The thing about Jack interiority is that it’s a dots joining exercise the vast majority of the time. He’s not written with a coherent arc of his own in mind, rather he’s written to serve the characterisation of the rest of tfw in various ways, and then the way you get to his interiority is by piecing together what has to be true to make all these moments work taken as a whole. This is why Jack’s s13 arc is kind of really disturbing, but by accident – it seems like the writers just didn’t think about things from his pov enough to realise the result of all the pieces put together. The biggest thing here is that when you get to 13x23, the widower arc still makes up the vast majority of Jack’s interactions with Sam and Dean. Apocalypse world means that he doesn’t see them at all between 13x09 and 13x21, and so on top of everything else this means that by the finale, Jack hasn’t had remotely enough positive interactions with Sam and especially Dean for him calling them ‘family’ and being prepared to sacrifice himself for them to come off as particularly ~meaningful or ~moving rather than just painting a very concerning picture of how he views both the concept of family and himself. But this is because none of what happens is really about Jack – he’s just performing a storytelling function. And it does give you a very interesting (if distressing) character! Just not the character the writers presumably intended, and not really with any help from them to get there, because they weren’t thinking from Jack’s point of view at all, they were just writing typical supernatural fare and (as is the point of side characters) using Jack to help them do it.

There is an exception to this though, and that’s Yockey. You don’t have to join the dots with Yockey – he joins them for you, but working with the same dots, and so while the result is still upsetting, it’s purposefully, satisfyingly upsetting. Nihilism and Ouroboros are THEE Jack episodes – between them Yockey very clearly gives you a story of an individual who sees remaining alive and remaining them as less important than being useful, even when this is clearly to the great distress of their loving parent. The conversation between Cas and Jack over the kitchen table at the end of Nihilism makes this sentiment very explicit and this carries neatly through Ouroboros as well, where Jack burns off what remains of his soul to save the rest of tfw directly after having asked what good the powers that are keeping him alive are if he can’t use them to save the people he loves, that it would be “selfish” not to. With this very well executed little arc, Yockey draws on the low self worth and the weight placed on his own usefulness, which – rather than necessarily being the intended takeaway – was just the only way to account for s13 Jack, and uses it purposefully and to great impact in s14.

All of which is sort of to say that I suppose I understand not all that much thought being given to Jack’s actual character by people a lot of the time, given the show only does so incredibly sporadically (and had so little faith in their ability to do it well during the soulless Jack arc, that they felt the need to conjure up Hallucifer 2.0 instead). But the character you get if you actually dig into what makes him tick is a much more interesting one to explore, and also directly laid out for you by Yockey very deftly. You can join the dots for Jack, and it’s worth it.

[bi-bard]

Never - Winchester Brothers Imagine (Supernatural)

Title: Never

Pairing: Winchester Brothers X Platonic!Reader

Requested: by @shinestuart

Word Count: 1,084 words

Warning(s): torture, injury, cussing

Summary: (Season 11) It was stupid of the boys to believe that Amara was unaware of the one thing that could've killed her. Now, they had to face the consequences of dragging (Y/n) into the hunting world.

Author's Note: I kinda worked with my imagine "Milkshakes" more than anything else. I think it was where I most explicitly noted the reader as a weapon.

Hey! I did a rewrite of the ending of Supernatural. It took a really long time to complete, so it would mean a lot to me if you check it out. Here’s a link! (it’s on my personal account)

------------------------------------

I gasped as I woke up.

I looked around. It was a warehouse or an old factory. It was dark and empty. The windows were too high for me to see out of. I didn't see any light coming through them. It was nighttime.

There were candles surrounding the whole building. I wasn't pegging Amara for the "pay the electrical bill" type. She was definitely more of the, "make sure to set the mood" type.

I was tied to a metal cross. My arms spread out, wrists tied to either end. My legs tied together and to the pole behind me. There was another rope around my waist to hold me still.

Amara stood before me. Grace and power. The two elements that could perfectly instill fear. I pulled on the restraints on my arms.

"Hello," she greeted. "I believe you know my brother."

"Not personally," I bit back. I had only known them for a matter of months, but Sam and Dean had already impacted how I acted.

She chuckled.

I tugged on my restraints again.

"I know about you," she explained. "God's perfect weapon. Probably that only thing that could defeat me."

"You should be scared of me then."

"Oh, no," Amara held and hand out and I felt my throat closing. "I don't need to. First of all, the- admittedly complex- sigil carved into that pole will stop your powers. Second of all... I have an offer. You have two choices, you can die or... you work with me."

She stopped choking me. I coughed as I tried to catch my breath.

I looked her in the eye, "Go to hell."

Suddenly, she was right in front of me, grabbing my jaw so I couldn't move my head.

"What was that," she sneered.

"I said, 'go to hell,'" I replied. She let go of my chin. "I will not help you destroy the world."

"Why because it's so great?"

"Because the people I love are here."

"The people the Winchesters dragged you away from?"

I fell silent, clenching my jaw.

Suddenly, I was choking again.

"You have nothing keeping you here. Join me and I can give you a purpose. Teach you to use your gift."

She released her grip again. I spit in her face.

"No," I said with a shaky voice.

It felt like I took a phantom punch to the gut.

"Oh sweetie," she teased. "You are in for a long night."

--time skip--

She was right.

It felt like days of the same cycle. Hitting, choking, and then negotiating for me to join her.

I always said no.

I held onto my free will and was ready to face death for it.

My body was weaker now. Arms barely holding up, legs weak, my head hanging down.

I yelped when there was a sudden jerk on my hair.

"You could make this all stop," she taunted.

"Go. To. Hell," I repeated like I always had.

She growled at me and used her powers to grab my throat, "You ungrateful, cowardly, selfish little-"

Amara didn't finish her speech before she was thrown into the far wall behind me.

I could barely even process what was happening before Sam was in front of me, untying the ropes.

"Sam," I muttered, voice weak and head spinning.

"We're here, we've got you," he promised.

I reached out and grabbed his shoulders as he worked on the ropes by my legs.

"What's going on," I asked.

"I'll explain in a minute," he said.

Sam was then thrown across the room. I almost collapsed as disappeared.

I was frantic.

I pulled at the ropes around my legs, convinced that I was going to die in a minute. My legs were weak and probably had some blood flow cut off earlier.

"Hey, hey," Dean was at the side of the platform, helping me down carefully. "There you go."

"I got them," Sam promised, running over from wherever he had been thrown. "Go help Cas and Chuck."

Who the hell was Chuck?

He helped me into the backseat, "Are you okay?"

"I feel like one massive bruise," I muttered. He sat next to me, letting me rest on his shoulder. "You should go help them."

Sam shook his head, "No, I was told to protect you."

I nodded against his shoulder. I was getting tired after all that had happened.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "It was my idea to drag you into this world. I knew the risk but I was just so desperate to stop Amara that I... I didn't care."

"I'm okay," I moved so my chin was on his shoulder. "I just need to work more."

"You shouldn't have to carry this weight-"

"I wouldn't have agreed to go with you guys if I thought that," I cut him off. "I'm alright now, Sam. Don't blame yourself for this."

Sam didn't speak. I knew that he didn't believe me. But he didn't speak against me either. He just wrapped his arm around me and held me close to his side.

It was only a minute longer before the others came running out. Dean, Cas, and... that must've been Chuck.

"Who is that," I mumbled to Sam.

"You alright, kid," Dean asked as he got into the driver's seat. Sam didn't have time to answer my question.

"I'm alive," I replied. "Is Amara-"

"She vanished on us," he said. Cas got into the passenger seat and Chuck sat in the back with Sam and me.

"Here, let me," Chuck reached over a touched my forehead.

I took a deep breath as I felt myself healing.

"Better," he asked. I nodded, still tired and not getting off of Sam's shoulder. "I should introduce myself. I'm Chuck... or God."

"What," I asked, now overwhelmed. "You're... You're God?"

"He's telling the truth," Dean promised as he pulled out onto the road quickly.

"Woah," I muttered. "Some of your angels are dicks."

Chuck let out a laugh at my blunt comment. I saw the rest of the car tense up.

"Yeah... that's my fault."

"Oh, I know," I nodded. "Thank you... for helping them save me."

"You're welcome," he grinned at me.

I closed my eyes, relaxing against Sam's shoulder again, wrapping my arms around one of his. I slowly let myself fall asleep.

I knew this life was going to be hard when I first met the boys and I was ready for that. I'd rather it be me suffering than the rest of the world.

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[t4tdeanwinchester]

I think if your best friend and love of your life was dying right in front of you because he was finally happy, you’d probably try your hardest to make him miserable if it would literally save his life. *five minutes after having that thought* okay here’s 1.2k words about it

~~~

Dean thinks, for a moment, that the world is ending. There’s a ringing in his ears and his vision is blurry and his whole body is shaking; he feels like he’s dying. But Cas is still smiling and distantly, Dean can still hear Death at the door. So no, there’s no earthquake and no hurricane. The whole world isn’t ending. Just Dean’s.

“Don’t do this Cas,” he says. Why isn’t he saying anything else? Saying me too, saying you’re beautiful, saying love, I love you, I love you too? He opens his mouth and what comes out instead is, “You selfish asshole. Why are you doing this?”

It occurs to Dean, over the rushing of blood in his ears, what he needs to do. Because it’s always been this, hasn’t it? He’d rather hurt Cas, break his heart, break him apart, then let him go. He’ll hurt him if it’ll make him stay, and he’s the selfish asshole for that. He knows that. He keeps going anyway. It’s like he can’t stop himself. It’s like he doesn’t want to. If he can just make Cas miserable, he won’t die, won’t leave him again.  

“You think you’ve got a monopoly on deathbed confessions?” Dean’s voice is hoarse, but the anger he doesn’t have to fake. “Well you can take your speech and shove it where the sun don’t shine.” Dean’s breathing is getting faster, more frantic, and he’s waiting, waiting, waiting for Cas’ face to shutter, to break, to close off. He’s still smiling, though it’s muted by something somber. Pity, maybe.

“Dean,” he starts, and the way he says Dean’s name, like it’s a blessing to hold the letters in his mouth, like he could make a home out of one single syllable… well, it breaks something in Dean. The ringing stops with a sudden clarity, and then he can hear all of the silence and all of the time escaping the room, and he knows his best friend is going to die.

“Fuck you,” he snarls, and he can’t say the words fast enough. “You’re really so damn stupid. You think this is gonna end with me sweepin’ you off your feet?” Dean’s grasping at straws, and where he tries to put venom into his voice, there’s nothing but heartbreak, deep and sad and– well, heartbreaking. He’s desperate now. He’ll say anything to break Cas’ heart like he’s breaking his own. “What, one last kiss before eternal rest?” Dean’s sneer is broken and ugly, because now all he can think about is kissing Cas, how much he wants to get close to him, feel him warm and solid and alive against him so he can prove he’s still breathing. How he’ll probably never get to. He’s the damn stupid one. “Bet you want to,” he croaks, and oh, he wants. Aches for it, desperately. He realizes now he’s crying. He has been for some time. “Bet you wanna kiss me,” his voice breaks, and finally, Cas is striding forward, arms coming to cradle Dean where he sags like all his strings have been cut.

“I do,” Cas says. Dean clutches at the back of his coat. “I do.” His voice is raw but he’s holding Dean sweetly, like it’s a privilege rather than a burden, like he’s happy to bear him.

Dean feels sick, like the world is a teetering merry-go-round, spinning faster and faster until all the horses come loose. They’d watched Marry Poppins the other night, Dean and Cas and Jack and Sam. Jack had asked if they could get a horse for the bunker after watching the race scene, all the horses coming to life and breaking free from their confines. Dean had smiled at the kid, at how much he looked and sounded and acted like Cas. He can’t think about Jack right now, not least of all because he knows what it’s like to live with one parent missing, to grow up with devastation hanging heavy everywhere you go. He can’t have that happen to his kid.

“You can’t leave, Cas,” he says wretchedly. “I hate you, you can’t leave me.” They both know what Dean’s saying when he says he hates him. One of Cas’ hands comes up to hold Dean at the back of his neck, palm cupped gently around his skull as he clutches him close.

And then, quick like lightning, like getting the rug pulled out from under your feet, quick like the heart monitor going flat: Cas pulls away roughly, creating space between them, holding Dean’s shoulder one last time, body tight with the intent to shove him away.

“Goodbye, Dean,” he says, taking a moment, perhaps indulgently, to bring his unoccupied hand across the void between them to rest lightly on Dean’s cheek, his forehead, his mouth. He’s touching every part of Dean’s face, wiping away his tears in so much as he’s mapping the expanse of him, like he might forget. And all Dean can think is that there’s going to be no more Marry Poppins family movie nights. No more Jack asking for increasingly strange pets and Cas indulging him when Dean refuses. No more singing softly along with Julie Andrews because Mary used to sing those songs to get him to sleep, and sometimes it was the only thing that would get baby Sammy to calm down after a long night on the cold road and it’s still got the only lullabies he can remember – no looking over to see Cas watching him softly, blue and green and purple light from the TV splashed across his face. No more wondering what would happen if he’d reached out to hold Cas’ hand. He should’ve tried. He should’ve held anything Cas would’ve been willing to give him, and even the things he didn’t want to give. He’d hold all of him now, if he could.

“I hate you,” Dean whispers, voice like brittle bone, broken in several places. Cas’ fingers take one last trip to the dip of Dean’s mouth before he pulls his fingers back, tightens the hand holding the shoulder that he’d claimed over a decade ago, holding on tight to the body that’s always been his, even before Dean himself realized it.

With a shuddering smile and a quick shove, Cas has Dean falling against the wall.

The door bangs open.

Black emptiness is starting to ooze in through a rift in reality.

“I hate you,” Dean says, not so much a shout but a sob, “I hate you.” He’s like a broken record, he’s like a sinner in the gallows. This is his Hail Mary. Too bad Cas is fluent in prayer. Too bad he understands what Dean’s really saying. Too bad it isn’t enough to make him stay.

“I know. Dean,” Cas says as the Empty frames him, making him look, for one last time, winged. Ethereal. Something else entirely. “I know. I’m sorry. I love you.” Cas goes on mouthing the words to him, even when he stops being able to talk. There’s empty in his gut and his mouth and his eyes but the shape of him is still smiling. The shape of Cas is still mouthing I love you. And then the blackness surrounds him, consumes him, and Dean tracks the shape of his face until it is nothing but darkness, until nobody is there in the room but himself.

The grief is so thick Dean thinks he’s going to choke on it. He thinks his world is ending. He’s crying again. He thinks maybe he’s the one that died. 

So it goes.

[katsidhe]

could you do 9.10 and 9.13 for episode reviews.

Love your takes btw.

9.10 Final Thoughts

well, well, well, if it isn’t my old friend season 9. God I love season 9. buckle in. 

Plenty of what season 9 tries to do with angel drama falls flat, but plenty of it doesn’t. It’s at its strongest when interrogating the ways that the angels are looking for personal purpose, rather than folding themselves into various suit-clad factions. In this episode, we have Gadreel, Abner, and Thaddeus, all with very different takes.

Thaddeus is the most boring of the three—a straightforward narcissist and sadist. (Lucifer will follow in his rockstar-impersonating footsteps in s12. SPN clearly has a dim view of the music industry.) We don’t care when he dies, and we aren’t meant to.

Abner’s found a family, and he’s let go of revenge. He’s clearly found peace and happiness—but it’s stolen.  I’m ambivalent about this. I guess I could take his word that his vessel was abusive and therefore deserves to have been permanently body-snatched, and I guess I could believe him when he says his new family loves him, even though they clearly don’t know what he is or what he’s done. His regard for humanity as something other than a project is… uncertain. Even if everything is as sunny as he explains to Gadreel, there is fundamental selfishness and short-sightedness here. Get what you want, Abner says, and never let go.

Gadreel asks Abner if his vessel is happy. This reveals both Abner’s scorn for his vessel, and Gadreel’s uncomfortable awareness of and respect for Sam (and his bartender vessel, who Gadreel stares at, and who accepts Gadreel back easily).

Gadreel! OF COURSE Gadreel’s gotta be the scapegoat for Lucifer’s release, HAHAHAH. I love him to pieces, oml. Seriously, the Sam parallels could not BE more blatant. I’ve talked about this before, that it makes the earned antipathy between them all the more alarming, all the more visceral. The big sticking point is that Gadreel’s years of pointless torture came prior to his “redemption” arc, rather than as a consequence of it. Gadreel has all of s5 Sam’s despair and helpless anger and self-loathing, all of his drive to set things right at any price, and all of it is amplified by his trauma.

Sam and Gadreel’s relationship is defined by its liminal spaces. Gadreel threatens to tear Sam apart, but he does not, even when he is tortured. He locks Sam away in a dream rather than force him to watch him kill, or to suffer. But when Sam forces Gadreel out, Gadreel leaps instantly on telling Sam he is weak, reciting back Sam’s fears and Gadreel’s own. This reads like Gadreel is aiming quite a lot of his own self-pity and self-hatred at Sam.

Cas’s murderous rage at Gadreel when his identity is revealed is fun. It shows that Heaven’s PR team did a good job, for one thing. But Cas is furious because it’s specifically Lucifer. And the Apocalypse, and all the attendant suffering, his and Dean’s and Sam’s. It’s a personal wrath.

“Stupid for the right reasons…” oh, Cas, your scarcity of positive human role models is showing. Also, Cas’s particular brand of reassurance here isn’t actually something Dean has a problem with. He expresses regret over having been tricked—he says he’s stupid, he says he got played—but he’s never in doubt that his intentions were good. He’s never in doubt that he did the righteous thing. He’s never in doubt that he’d do it again.

Dean apologizes to Cas for barring him from the bunker. (Sam will not receive an apology.) Cas compares what Dean did to Sam to what Cas did by trusting Naomi. There’s a key difference here. Cas’s moral compass is not the problem; it’s his critical thinking skills.

Crowley, Cas, and Dean are a hilarious trio. (Also, I really hope that Cas’s pimpmobile got to Heaven too, like the Impala.)

Crowley being genuinely sorry that Kevin’s gone and his willingness to risk his life to help Sam are the best two moments of the generally weak Crowley-has-human-blood plot line. They feel earned. [also Crowley’s ‘I told Kevin he should’ve run!’ is both accurate, funny, and sad.]

Let’s talk 4.21 parallels! I mean, first, the glaringly obvious: Sam locked down to be purged of something supernatural; Sam suffering; Dean unable to bear Sam’s tortured screams; a very atmospheric fan. Dean walking away.

and then, of course, there’s “at least he dies human.” Right off the bat, Dean tells Cas he’s going to kill Gadreel. Cas, concerned, says that this will kill Sam too; Dean, sounding tortured, says he knows. Now, obviously, Dean doesn’t kill Sam. He doesn’t even get particularly close. But it’s really interesting that this is the first thing Dean brings up! He declares unprompted that he’s ready to kill Sam rather than leave him possessed. Which is both a recapitulation of the save-him-or-kill-him mantra, and an ironic twist on the decision Dean made in 9.01. Then, Dean knew Sam would rather die than be possessed, but had him possessed anyway. Now, Dean has decided instead that Sam must die because he is possessed. Obviously Dean’s opinion on the possessing entity has changed in the meantime: Sam’s hasn’t, but Sam’s isn’t what matters. 

Dean reaches new levels of PEAK IRONY when he declares that Cas should possess Sam too. Cas has to actually point out that Dean can’t, in fact, volunteer Sam’s permission. Because apparently Dean had forgotten, lmaooo. Crowley, on the other hand, is happy to oblige. Dean directs Cas to burn Sam’s tattoo off.

The language of this entire scene is so sexual. I mean, it’s Crowley, of course it is, double entendre is his first language. But this theme recurs again and again. Here it is just more pointed than usual. It is queasy.

Gadreel has Sam trapped in a Dean-type happy place—a hunt with ghouls and cheerleaders, no organic produce to be found. And I don’t think it’s because Gadreel doesn’t understand what Sam likes. I think it’s because Gadreel’s aim was for Sam to feel comfortable, not blissful. It smacks of Hallucifer, just a bit—using the verisimilitude of Dean’s louder moods rather than trying to appeal directly to Sam’s contentment, because of his always questionable, always a question, sense of reality. If things were too smooth, too cheerful, Sam might just be suspicious. Sam is easier to trick by proxy. 

The HORROR of this episode for Sam: Gadreel washing someone’s blood off of Sam’s hands. Crowley pushing needles into his brain. Sam’s body and life as a bargaining chip as Gadreel threatens to kill him, and then as Dean threatens to kill him right back. The quiet heartbreak as Sam remembers Kevin’s death, as he realizes the magnitude of Dean’s betrayal. But the worst part of it, I think, is somehow still Sam’s face when Crowley comes to get him in the dream where Gadreel stashed him. How his expression just crumples as Crowley tells him he is trapped in a lie, that his mindscape is once again a prison, that he truly cannot trust his reality. The sheer devastation of this on top of Sam’s history, plus the knowledge that Dean did this—and he pulls himself together and puts his foot on Gadreel’s neck and casts him OUT anyway. Sam Fucking Winchester.

and then the Bridge Scene. The lighting, the staging… it’s fucking gorgeous. It’s one of those scenes where I knew as I was watching it for the first time, seven years ago, that it was going to be something. I held my breath and still hold my breath. I can’t take my eyes off the way that Sam is shaking slightly, the entire time. The way he can barely meet Dean’s eyes but he does it anyway. He SAYS HIS PIECE, says it clearly, says it with an even tone despite what he’s gone through, despite the holes in his head that were healed seconds ago.

I love the gentleness between Sam and Cas here. I love knowing that 9.11 follows this. I love that there is no question that Cas will leave with Dean—he is staying with Sam, to heal and support him, even after he spent this episode mostly reassuring Dean.

Dean does not start this conversation to apologize. He starts out with the intent to DELIBERATELY egg Sam on: “come on, let’s hear it.” It’s an incitement, because Dean wants Sam to act angry, so that Dean can feel more justified in leaving. Sam does not rise to the bait.

Dean has an excuse for every point Sam has: I had no choice, you were dying, it’s not in me, he saved your life. He says, “I did a bad thing with bad consequences and I would 100% do it again, anyway, bye.”

And then the most infuriating thing: Dean is in the wrong, so he tells the person he’s wronged, ugh, I’m just such an awful poisonous person, I’m going to burn for this. It’s so clearly wrong-headed. Intentional or not, it’s such an obvious invitation for Sam to comfort him that it might well have been embossed. If this were in e.g. season 15, or if the crime he’d committed had been less awful, I can easily hear Sam’s reassurance: no, Dean, I promise you’re a good person, we all make mistakes. It is the most toxic way possible to frame a potential apology.

The textual theme of Dean-as-poison (and, for that matter, the consequence of Kevin’s death vs. the initial crime of the possession) is an intentional muddying of the waters: Crowley, Cas, and Dean himself all bring it up in some fashion, linking some fundamental aspect of Dean himself rather than Dean’s choices to Kevin’s death. Crowley is trying to be cutting; Cas is trying to be supportive; Dean is both excusing himself and camouflaging that fact in his exhausting self-loathing. There is a complicated interplay of what the text says about Dean’s guilt and what it condemns; this pattern continues throughout s9, and reaches its apex in the next several episodes. Dean’s love as a condemning feature rather than a redeeming one is one of my favorite things about SPN, and s9 has it in HIGH gear.

But, here, at least, Sam doesn’t rise to this bait either. “Don’t go thinking that’s the problem, ‘cause it’s not.” The problem is obviously, achingly, exhaustingly clear. Sam’s spelled it out in this very conversation: you tricked me. You lied to me. You got me possessed when I was willing to die. But Dean, and a fair portion of the audience, can’t hear it. So he doesn’t. And they don’t, and they pretend that this line is some sort of puzzle! a cliffhanger on a conversation unfinished! when it was the conclusion, not the beginning.

image that is now inextricable from 9.10

[jjongleurs]

So, I’m re-watching 4x10 “Heaven and Hell” and... wow. The parallels between Cas and Anna? No wonder Dean fell in love with Cas. Dean just has a thing for rebellious, powerful beings who break ranks because of their love for humanity. 

The difference between Cas and Anna, though? Anna gave up everything so she could become human and experience the world in the way she had observed humanity live through for two-thousand years. It seems she experienced jealousy and longing for humanity because they had free will (or so she thought), so she parted ways with her grace to have a taste of that. 

Cas, on the other hand? We see him go through all the questioning and the rebelling. While Anna had fallen purposefully because of reasons that can be interpreted as selfish (which isn’t a bad thing, she deserved to be her own person rather than a cog in the machine like all angels), Cas became human over time rather than falling (although he did that, too). He learned to love and care for humanity, not envy them or their freedom. The reason his devotion to humanity and determination to save the world time and time again were so selfless and often self-destructive is Dean. Cas learned, for better or worse, how to love and care through Dean, He says so himself in the confession scene.

Loving Dean was making him human. We saw that in his emotions as well as his failing grace. Everything leading up to season 15 and the season itself were pointing to a finale with a human Cas. Whether his grace was going to leave him organically as it had been all that time, or if it was supposed to be surrendered to The Empty so he would be free at the end of the series, it was going to happen one way or another.

Cas was not supposed to be an angel in the same way Dean was not meant to die on the job. Those were realities only possible in the earlier seasons. The end at that point was Sam with the apple pie life, Dean dead with a gun in his hand, and Cas as Heaven’s obedient weapon. Cas and Dean falling in love changed that outcome for them. Cas was supposed to become human, Dean was supposed to live to a ripe old age, and they were supposed to do it all together.

[bonelessbloodfreak]

WILLOW

a destiel fic, 2192 words, T, love confessions, based on Taylor Swift obviously 😌

Summary: Dean and Cas find comfort in each other, finally having the space and time to build their happiness around each other. They’re in love. It’s what they deserve. They just have to figure out how to say it.

Link: ao3

“You’re everywhere Cas.” Dean says, and Cas doesn’t have the energy to try to understand what he means. It sounds an awful lot like a complaint, but Dean wasn’t complaining about Cas. Not really.

“So you want me to leave then?” Cas says, more of a statement then a question, looking up at Dean with a piercing gaze. Although the bite of the question is there, Cas finds that he’s able to keep his expression blank, unwilling to let Dean see the extent of his emotions. He’s not offended though.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Dean grumbles, he crosses the room with a hand running through his hair. Cas tilts his head up like he’s challenging that statement and Dean sighs. “I want you here, Cas. Of course I do.”

“So why don’t you act like it?”

“I’m- Fuck Cas, I’m not good at... at-“

“Wanting something for yourself.” Cas finishes for him. Dean looks scared, but he doesn’t deny it.

“I want you here. And I’m sorry if I made you feel like you didn’t.”

“I understand, Dean. You’re selfless to a fault. You gave everything you had to Sam, you’ve sacrificed your life for strangers even when they don’t deserve your kindness. You deserve some good for yourself. It’s not repayment, it’s not because of anything. It’s just because you’re human, you get to be selfish too sometimes.”

“Cas Im plenty selfish.”

“Not with things like this,”

“What is this?”

“You tell me,” Cas lifts an eyebrow. He’s hesitant too though. He’s nervous. Dean licks his lips and nods to himself before looking right at Cas.

“I want you here Cas. But I want you to want to be here.”

Cas gazes at Dean softly, his smile gentle. Looking at Dean, he has every freckle committed to memory. He has Dean Winchester memorized. He could get lost in looking at Dean. He has many times before.

He looks desperate, his eyes hopeful and scared and a little bit angry. His face is the most open Cas has seen from him in a while, he’s letting himself feel, but even more, he’s letting Cas see. He’s still as beautiful as ever. Still Dean Winchester. Maybe this is his breaking point, and maybe he’s already hit his breaking point. Maybe this is the beginning of rebuilding. That makes Cas heart flutter up in hope.

“I want to be here Dean.” Cas says. Dean nods finally and offers a sincere, but tight smile.

“Good. You’re staying.” So Cas drops his duffel bag back on his bed and nods. He’s still not sure this is the best decision, but he looks at a Dean again and thinks that if Dean never stops looking at him like that, he’ll never try to walk away again. He wants this. Of course he does, but he knows Dean and he knows he’s not going to get it.

Maybe it was selfish of him to want someone who so clearly isn’t ready for this, but Cas is tired of being selfless. Like he told Dean, they could both use some selfishness on the grand scale. Cas thinks Dean is pretty grand. And maybe he’s wrong. Maybe Dean is ready.

He thought leaving, even if only for a few weeks, would save him some hurt. Maybe it would give him the space to get over Dean in his newly human form. It had all hit him at once and it left Cas feeling bare and shaken. Now graceless, he couldn’t control his desires, he couldn’t regulate his body the way he used to be able to. He couldn’t stop his cheeks from flushing when Dean smiled at him. He couldn’t stop his heart from jumping when Dean hugged him. He couldn’t stop goosebumps rising on his arms when Dean let his hand rest on his back.

Then they had fought. It was stupid and petty, but Cas took it as an excuse to get some space. Get ahold of his emotions because he knows getting over Dean is out of the question.

Dean doesn’t let him leave. Cas is glad.

Dean nods, Cas Can see the hesitation and the fear and the hope and guilt and... everything. He can feel the way Dean has been ripped apart countless times, every day since he was four years old. Cas feels like he’s been torn apart as well. They can smooth over their scars together, heaven and hell know they themselves have been the reason for some of them.

The next few days are still tense, but not with anger. Dean seems to have realized that an emotional boundary was crossed and Cas has realized it too. Dean isn’t ignoring him anymore, for which he’s glad, and he values spending time with Dean, even if every glance sets his heart on fire.

Dean teaches Cas to cook and soon enough they’re moving around the kitchen together like they were made for each other. They still haven’t acknowledged it, but Dean puts his hand on Cas’ hip when he goes around him, and Cas lets Dean feed the sauce to him when he taste tests it, rather than simply taking the spoon himself.

Then they’re going on errands together, Dean says he needs to show Cas how they do things, show him which brand of shampoo they like and where to find the good beer. But then Dean continues to accompany Cas, just because it takes half the time with two people and when Cas finds some odd organic snack to try, Dean gets to bicker with him about it.

Dean let’s Cas drive sometimes, and he says not to tell Sam. He also says not to tell Sam that they rotate who chooses the music, and that sometimes on Deans turn, he chooses Taylor Swift.

Cas can only imagine how they must look to the world around them. Like they’re falling apart, crashing and burning, going out in loud explosions of light and dust and fire. Like they’re falling into each other rather than apart. They’re crashing down, but they’re building a new foundation on the debris. They’re communicating for once, and they must look like they’re late to the game, maybe this should have happened years ago, but for once they’re self sacrificial relationship has become healthier.

They’re moving, but they’re moving together, roots strongly woven into the ground, going far deeper than anyone might expect. Or maybe everyone expected it.

Cas has nightmares now that he’s human. He knows Dean does too, but neither of them seek comfort with each other. Another line to cross. Sometimes they talk about it. Dark kitchens and cold coffee and whispered tears with shaking hands. It’s over quick and when they end up in their separate beds, it’s feels even more lonely somehow.

One night Cas has his head on his pillow, eyes closed, he’s on his side facing away from the door, but he hasn’t slept yet. He hears the door open and he can feel the shift of air. He doesn’t need to look to know it’s Dean. He’s about to sit up when the floorboards creak and the door clicks shut again. Then there’s a dip in the bed and Cas rolls over lazily. Dean stands up again and wipes his palms on his pajama pants.

“Sorry.” He whispers. Cas squints up at him in the dark and lifts the blankets for him.

There’s only a moment where Cas can almost hear all of Deans thoughts, if only he were still an angel, before Dean crawls under the covers next to Cas. He keeps space between them, but Cas is too tired for his shit, he throws an arm around Dean’s waist and rubs his hand over Dean’s shoulder.

“Nightmare?”

“Yeah,” he says. Cas knows he doesn’t want to talk about it, so he just nods and pulls Dean closer.

They both fall asleep easier that night.

In the morning, Cas wakes up to a hand in his hair and an arm around his shoulders. Dean is awake and Cas guesses he has been for a little while now.

“Morning.” Cas grumbles and Dean chuckles.

“G’morning,” he whispers.

They go on a hunt that day. A ghoul a few hours away. Sam and Eileen ride in the backseat together so Cas takes shotgun and Dean lets him pick the music. He puts on Dean’s top 13 Zepp traxx.

When they get back it’s past dinner and they all shower and clean up which means it’s late by the time they’re all settled, but Dean cooks a meal anyway, calling Jack from his room and they all eat at ten pm together.

The hunt was tiring, so Sam and Eileen go right to sleep, Jack takes over the Dean-cave and Dean lets him. He isn’t ready to go to bed, so he gets his jacket and goes outside.

He sits in baby for a little while, no planning on going anywhere. Cas joins him, tapping on the window to let Dean know he’s there before he climbs into the passenger seat.

“What are you doing?” Cas asks.

“Sitting.”

“For any reason in particular?”

“Not really.”

So they sit together in silence. It’s not sad, actually they feel happy for the first time in a while. Cas let’s himself think about it, this feeling. Dean makes him happy. Dean has always made him happy. The silence doesn’t last long though, and this time it’s Dean who interrupts it.

“Thank you. For staying. For saving me. And Sam. For... just for everything.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Dean. I’m happy to do all of that.”

“I know. But I don’t want you to, okay? No more ‘happy to bleed for the winchesters’ shit, got it? You don’t deserve that. I’m not gonna ask that of you, not if I don’t need to. You gotta take care of yourself, man. I appreciate it, but I’d rather have you alive, so no more sacrifices.”

“No promises. And you too.”

“Fone.” Dean nods. “No deals, no dying, just... living. Finally, now that we get the chance.”

“I think we deserve this.” Cas nods.

“I hope so. You deserve more than this,”

“I don’t want more than this though.” Cas says. Dean smiles and nods like he knew Cas would say that.

“I’m glad you stayed.”

“I would’ve come back.”

“Still.”

“I’m glad I stayed too.”

They look forward again and there’s not much to see, but the quiet is comforting. Neither of them want to go back inside, it would mean they go to separate beds and separate rooms and Cas thinks he’d rather not sleep at all.

“It’s late.” Cas whispers.

“It is.”

“Do you think you’ll have nightmares again?”

“Probably.” Dean shrugs. They aren’t looking at each other, Dean is picking at his fingernails and Cas is staring down at the dashboard.

“Me too.”

“We could always... I mean... it’s nice to have someone else there sometimes.”

“It is.” Cas agrees.

“I like my memory foam though.”

“I have no attachment to my bed.” Cas shrugs.

“Good.”

“Good.”

Cas looks at Dean who still doesn’t look back, but he’s smiling and blushing and Cas is secretly aching to reach across the seat and hold Dean’s hand. Begging Dean to take his hand. Cas would throw all his plans out the window for Dean. Technically he has before. He’s thrown out a whole army for Dean. He would do it again too. He’d follow Dean to the ends of the Earth.

Cas gets the sense that Dean would do the same for Cas.

Dean looks back at him and neither of them look away. He reaches out and takes his hand. Thumb smoothing over his knuckles.

They head back inside and they don’t talk about it, but Dean loads up the dishes into the dishwasher and Cas wipes down the counters and then Dean turns and leans back against the counter, Cas does the same across from him.

They’re not quite chest to chest, but they’re close enough to touch and Dean looks scared. Cas feels serene, but his heart is wild. Dean swallows.

“Cas, I-“

Cas reaches a hand to Dean’s arm, calming him. Dean smiles shakily.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers. Cas shakes his head and takes Deans hand, bringing it up to his lips and kissing his knuckles gently.

“Don’t be. You’ve always done what you thought was best. As have I. We deserve this.” Dean nods, tears springing to his eyes. He steps closer and hugs Cas, holding him like he’s never been held before. Cas could die happily in Deans arms.

When he pulls away, it’s with hands on the other’s face and lips quickly finding each other, gentle and slow and full of emotion.

“I love you, Dean Winchester”

“I love you too,” Dean says, voice cracking.

They’re both grinning through tears and kissing again. They’re both walking towards Dean’s room.

It’s easy, but Cas isn’t surprised at how easy it is to be with Dean. They’ve fought through life and death and more death to get here. They deserve a little bit of easy.

[gray-is-neutral]

Finale

I posted this on my ao3. I’m super proud of it for the time being. Tell me what y’all think! :) It’s another fix it fic and this is part one.

Pt. 1 The Truth.

Billie was minutes away from breaking through the door. Nothing could stop her. I knew that; Cas knew that too. I felt hopelessness cloud my mind. I thought of all the people I failed. Sam, Charlie, Jack, but most of all, I failed Cas. That was the hardest part of this. I didn’t mind dying, but I didn’t want to drag anyone down with me. Least especially Cas.

“It was Chuck all along,” I said, the realization setting in. My brain was scattered as I panicked. The oxygen wasn’t going to my brain. I could hardly breath. “We should have never left Sam and Jack. We should be with them,” I choked.

I saw the fear and dread in Cas’ eyes. He was panicking himself, trying to find a solution to this when there was none. There was no way out of this. She was going to get through that door. We were going to die. I saw images of what she would do to Cas because she would have to kill him first. He was the angel. I would only be able to watch. We wouldn’t even end up in the same place. He’d go to the Empty and I’d go, who knows where.

“She’s going to break through that door,” I said, unsure how to deal with this sickening reality.

“I know.” Cas’ voice was like a whisper. It was like he was struggling with the words. I understood because I was too. How is one supposed to deal with the idea of imminent death? Death was quite literally knocking at the door.

“And she’s going to kill you, then she is going to kill me.” I was so tired. So so tired, but I still don’t want to die at the hands of Billie or Chuck. That would just give them another win, and I was sick of playing into Chuck’s hand.

“Cas I’m sorry.” And I was. I was sorry for everything. This was my fault. I was sorry for the way I have treated him for the last several years. I was sorry for the times I made him choose. I was sorry for the times he chose me. I was so beyond sorry.

“There is one thing that she is afraid of,” Cas’ voice had a hint of hope. It wasn’t a good feeling though. It was like it was a hope that resides by an unexplainable sorrow.

“There is one thing strong enough to stop her,” he continued, looking me in my eyes, his tears didn’t stop filling his eyes, but his hopelessness was replaced by determination, like he already knew what he was going to do. That scared me more than Billie.

“When Jack was dying, I made a deal to save him. The price was my life. When I experienced a moment of true happiness, the Empty would be summoned, and it would take me forever.”

No no no no. No please not now. Cas please, I prayed.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

I only was able to process bits of what he said.

“I wondered what my true happiness could even look like….. because the one thing I want, I know I can’t have…...happiness isn’t in having, it’s in being, just saying it.”

He was saying too much for me to understand at once. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

“What are you talking about man?”

“I know how you see yourself Dean. You see yourself as our enemies see you…...Daddy’s blunt instrument…..hate and anger, you think that’s what drives you……..”

Cas no. Please don’t. Please.

“Everything you’ve done, good or bad, you did out of love…...that’s who you are……...caring man on Earth…...selfless loving human being…….ever since I pulled you out of Hell…...changed me.”

His tears flowed freely. My head was pounding. I couldn’t breathe.

“Because you cared, I cared……….cared about you…….Sam…..Jack…..the whole world because of you.”

I never thought that my heart could feel this broken. Could be this shattered, but so selfishly hopeful.

“You changed me Dean.”

“Why does this sound like a goodbye?” Please don’t let this be goodbye.

“Because it is.”

No. No. No. No. No.

“I love you.”

There was silence for a minute. I hoped that maybe happiness wasn’t in just saying it. It was selfish, but I hoped and prayed that him just confessing his love to me wouldn’t be enough.

It was wrong, but I hoped this wouldn’t be complete without an, “I love you too.”

“Don’t do this,” I begged.

Please forgive me. Please don’t go. Please don’t please, please no.

Apparently my prayers went ignored because the Empty came any way as Billie burst through. It instantly consumed her.

It started to cover Cas too. Was this really it? Our last goodbye? No it couldn’t be. I still had so much to tell him. So much I wanted to do with him. I wanted to scream. What about Jack? What about Sam? Are you okay with leaving them?

He would be. I knew that. Sam and Jack are strong. They aren’t kids anymore. They don’t need a babysitter. They don’t need Cas. They don’t need me either.

I’m not sure if it was the lack of oxygen, but I had made up my mind. I was not about to let Cas die for me alone again. Never again. I rushed to him and gripped him tightly. I guess the Empty knew I didn’t belong there because it slowed it’s progression.

“Dean!” Cas’ panic grew. “Let go,” he demanded.

“Never. I won’t ever let you go,” I said.

“Please, before the Empty consumes you too.” He was sobbing, trying to push me away, but his angel mojo was gone, the Empty took that to keep him docile. I hung on tight as I could.

“No. I’m not letting you go. I’m going with you. You aren’t dying alone again. I cannot lose you again. Never again, Cas!” My own tears mixed with slowly progressing black goo of death, but I wasn’t afraid. I was with Cas. He has always been my protector. My angel. He deserved a life, if not a life, then I would give him my love instead. He deserved that much at least.

I planted a kiss on his lips, it was hesitant at first. Eventually, his hands pulled my face closer, and he kissed me back. I moved my grip to his waist as the Empty consumed us together.

I couldn’t breath at first, but I didn’t care. I would rather die from suffocating from Cas’ kiss than drowning in the Empty.

When Cas stopped so I could breath. I gasped for air. After I caught my breath, I looked around. Nothing, vast, infinite nothing. The only thing I could see was Cas. It was infinitely dark, and cold, but I didn’t shiver.

I let the weight of what we did settle in my brain. We won. I was with Cas, and not with Sam, playing out Chuck’s Cain and Able fantasy if I’m not with Sam. We finally said the biggest fuck you to Chuck’s plan. We finally had free will.

Once he let me go, he punched me in the gut and sent me three feet in the other direction. I doubled over, unable to breath.

“What have you done?” Cas’ voice was angry. “Do you know that you’re stuck here forever?” his voice boomed in the silence.

“I do, and I don’t care,” I said, slightly drowsy. I struggled to stand, so he came to me. He got on his knees, and I caressed his face.

“You should care!” he cried into the abyss. “What about Jack and Sam? What about the world? What about everyone? Why did you follow me here?”

I was struggling to stand, I was so, so tired. I needed to....tell him.....he deserved an answer. He walked to me. He was still crying. I smiled at him to let him know that I was okay. I was okay with this ending as long as I told him. He spoke his truth, it was my turn now. He looked down at me. He tried to manage a smile.

“Do you know what happens now?” he asked, getting on his knees to meet me.

“No,” I yawned. “Tell me.” My body felt like lead.

“We sleep. Forever.” He looked at me. “No one will come for us. The only way out is if it lets us out, and I don’t think it will this time.” His voice a whisper.

“I figured that much Cas,” I said. “I need to tell you-“

“No,” said Cas. “No. I’m not-” a dramatic yawn cut him off. “-giving up yet. Not when there is still a chance that-”

“Cas. Stop,” I said, words getting harder. I wanted to panic. To tell him to shut the fuck up and listen, but my body wasn’t listening. I was so tired.

“L-listen. About before. I’m sorry,” I said, unable to keep my head up.

“You can’t fight it, can you?” his voice was warm, calming me against my will.

“No,” I confirmed only able to respond in one word sentences.

“I’m. So. I’m. So. So. Sorry,” I was struggling.

He laid my head in his lap. “I’ll watch over you,” he said, removing his trench coat and covering me in it.

No, I prayed. No, Cas I have so much to tell you. No. No .

I was drifting. My breath became deep against my will. My body no longer responded to anything I told it.

“Cas, I-” I couldn’t finish that thought. Cas please. You deserve to know. You deserve love. You deserve. You, I tried to pray but my head was going black.

“I know.” He kissed my ear and whispered something.

I’m sure it was beautiful, but I’ll never know.

[farday-spark]

Season 15 "Carry On” was not as powerful as “Swan Song” Season 5.

In seasons 1- 5 Dean’s fundamental driving foundation is “protect Sam.”

Dean is family oriented and loyal.

He has always wanted a family, whether it was with Sam & John, Sam & Bobby or Lisa & Ben. In his djinn world, his mom, Jessica, Sam and his “girlfriend” Carmen are there. He prioritizes spending time with them and is excited to have dinner together. 

His flaws are low self esteem, self-sacrificial, bossy, controlling, inability to let go and lacking in empathy to understand different perspectives. His inability to save people drives him to despair, rage and prone to suicidal behavior.  In seasons 1-5 he rarely acts in anger unless a loved one is threatened or hurt.  

Sam in contrast to Dean is ideal oriented, academic and self determinate.

He aspires to be a lawyer and live a “safe” “normal” life. 

His flaws are arrogance, anger, revenge and prioritizing himself over family. 

His failure to prioritize Jessica and warn her about his visions leads to her death. Sam running away to Flagstaff and off to Stanford has harmful consequences to his brother Dean. To the point where Dean wasn’t sure what he was going to do if Sam told him to leave in the Pilot episode. Implying Dean was unstable possibly suicidal. Worse he thought Sam didn’t care about him. 

The ending of Swan is perfect because it deals with their fundamental character flaws. Dean’s flaws drive Sam’s flaws. 

Dean has to let go of Sam to save the world. He has to learn to view Sam as the adult he is because if he does that he can let Sam make his own choices. Part of Sam’s flaws result from Dean not giving him freedom of choice. Sam therefore acts on his own whether by leaving Dean, drinking demon blood or not mentioning his visions. 

By letting go of Sam, by letting go of his control, Dean is learning to live without Sam. He is learning to become a more selfish person and how to be independent. He is rewarded with Sam’s blessing to go form a family with Lisa and Ben. He still has self-esteem issues but learns to live without Sam. Given time without Sam coming back I think he would of gone down the route of Sam’s family storyline in “Carry On.”

Sam’s character flaws lead him down a dark path and almost cost him Dean and Bobby and results in the breaking of the final seal. Sam amends his actions by learning to control his addiction, learning to work with Dean and controlling his anger. 

Dean finally getting the family he always wanted and retiring from a life of hunting in which he was “barely holding it together” is a reward for his sacrifices over the years.

Sam grows as a person by moving past himself and finally gains the recognition from Dean that he always wanted. While not a happy ending for Sam it is one where he grew into his ending.

The issue with the way “Carry On” ends is that at this point neither Dean nor Sam believe they can have traditional families and live normal lives. Both have tried and failed multiple times with friendships and romances. 

Dean had to give up Lisa and Ben to keep them safe. He’s watched Castiel, Jack and Sam die multiple times. We learned that on top of giving up his love interest Cassie(S1), he had to give up his childhood romance Robin(S8). He killed his friend Benny to save Sam. As long as Sam is alive Dean will always chose Sam.  

Sam has a similar experience to Dean. Losing both Jessica and Madison.  He also chooses Dean over Amelia much like Dean chose Sam over Lisa. Dean asks Sam if he would ever consider settling down with a hunter. Sam says he hasn’t really thought about it. It also would be hard to consider for him as he loses Eileen. In Season 9 Sam tells Charlie that he used to think that he would go back to his old life, to law school. However he has accepted this is his life now. He doesn’t want to do it without Dean. 

When John Winchester is disappointed that both are still hunting and without traditional families Dean expresses that he’s happy with their found family. I think both Winchesters also recognize their family is always in flux due the nature of being a hunter.

At this point in the story Sam and Dean have repeatedly chosen each other over others.  When Jack seems to be in control of his powers they both contemplate going straight to retirement. They only express going out with a bang whenever a big bad is put in front of them. 

That’s what makes Sam’s end storyline confusing at this point he pretty much settled on die hunting or retire with Dean.  He has never expressed wanting kids or a wife in the way that Dean has. Sam mostly wanted safety and to put down roots. If they wanted to set Sam up for this storyline they should of given Jack a more central role in Sam’s story. Where Sam would be set up to be more fatherly towards Jack and expressing hopes to have kids one day.  Rather than him having a few meaningful conversations with Jack. Give them more bonding time. Or he could of built a relationship with Eileen in which creating a family could of been mentioned. It was quite out of the blue. Particularly since he appeared to have given up on those dreams with Amelia in season 7 and dedicated himself to hunting. Rather I would picture Sam without Dean as an academic being more likely to rebuild the Men of Letters to carry on the Winchester’s legacy.  Or leading and organizing Hunters like Bobby did prior. 

If Dean lost Sam and was told to keep fighting I think he would be the one to create a family.  Dean always wanted a family and has demonstrated an ability to be great with kids. Dean only believed his fate to die young because it’s what he saw happening to other hunters. His wish to go down swinging was always tied to how hopeless he felt. This sentiment was  strongest when he still had the Mark of Cain.  His anger and drive to hunt were driven by the need to protect people from ending up with the same fate as his family. Also being put through Chuck’s multiple storylines he lost hope of ever finding a normal as a new big bad always appeared. 

At the end his adoption of a dog into the bunker and a messy room show him enjoying his life. He’s not acting like a desperate unhappy man anymore.  He was willing to sacrifice Jack so him and Sam would be free. Dean is typically the first one to jump at the self-sacrifice so letting Jack sacrifice himself is a big indicator of how much Dean wanted to be free. Him dying early was not a fitting end. Even worse they revert his character progress by saying to Sam you’re stronger than me and indicating he wouldn’t know how to live without Sam if the roles were reversed. Even when he does figure out how to live without Sam at the end of season 5 or in purgatory with Cas. 

In either case the implication of him dying on a rod is sad. It implies that without Chuck’s protection the Winchesters are not as good of hunters as we thought they were. 

The ending itself is not bad, but I wish their approach to it had been built up over the season rather than a setup in the final episode. As it stood Dean and Sam had both been resolved to not ever being able to achieve normal. 

Sam didn't have a deep yearning for a family that was finally filled. He no longer felt a pull to a normal life. His character flaws from Season 5 were resolved and few new ones were introduced or were long lasting. Sam was already his best self.

Dean died with self-esteem issues, an inability to live without Sam. His anger issues were introduced season 9 yet never resolved. The closet we come is to Dean saying he's not a killer to Chuck. If anything this episode regressed his character by giving him the death Mark of Cain Dean or Michael!Dean would of wanted. Not the one a Dean 15 would of wanted.

[multisuperfandom]

Closure

Pairing: Castiel x reader

Summary: You and Castiel have drifted apart to point where it hurts more to stay than it would to go. Even if it breaks you.

Warnings: ANGST, language, sad reader, break up, angry Castiel

Word count: 1.2 k

A/N: Based off the song Closure by Hayley Warner. Also if anyone wants to request one shots, I’m gonna start posting them on Sundays and maybe Wednesdays.

~~~~~

Italic part are flash backs

Bold parts are the song lyrics

~~~~~

I knew it was over when the fighting stopped. We used to fight over everything. We were both passionate people with our own ways of understanding the world. He believed that everything was black and white, that you can either be good or evil. I lived in the grey areas, where the difference between right and wrong was blurred. Once he referred to something I did on a hunt as ‘something that only the devil would do’. What he doesn’t know is that hunt haunts my dreams and makes me wake up screaming.

“There’s too many of them!” I yelled at Dean. We were hunting a nest of vampires. We knew there were a lot of them but we didn’t know that there were about 3 dozen more than we estimated.

Sam was thrown against a wall about 30 minutes ago and hasn’t moved since. Dean had more cuts than he had skin. And I was fighting with a dislocated shoulder and what I thought was a twisted ankle, I later found out that it was sprained. If we stayed, we were gonna be killed. If we didn’t kill them, they would keep killing innocent people.

I was starting to lose hope until my eyes landed on a gas can that was sitting at the corner of the barn.

“Look, I have an idea but I don’t think it’s very good!”

“What is it?” Dean yelled as he got yet another cut added to his already vast collection.

“Grab Sam and run as fast as you, and don’t look back.” He listened, surprisingly, but that was probably because he could keep fighting. With Dean and Sam gone and a gas can in one hand, a lighter in another, I burned down the barn and every vamp that hurt my friends with it.

Cas came to the motel after hearing my pitiful prayers. I had never seen him so angry. And after he healed us, we had the worst fight in our entire relationship.

“How could you do something like that?!”

“Sam was knocked out, Dean was being turned into a human pin cushion, I had to do something!”

“And burning down a building with a bunch of survivors in it was the right way to go?!” I didn’t know that there were survivors. I didn’t know that you burned the innocent people I wanted to save alive.

“I had no choice,” I whispered, completely devastated but hell-bent on trying to excuse what I did.

“You could’ve just left! You could’ve called me! You could’ve done a hundred things before doing something that only the devil would do!” I could see it in his face that he didn’t mean to say what he did. But the damage was done, and hearing the man I love more than life itself comparing me to Satan was heartbreaking.

“What I did was justified. I tried to save my family,” I said, grabbing my jacket and heading to the door. “But what you said wasn’t.”

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

That was almost a year ago and it still haunts me. But three months ago, he stopped caring, stopped trying to make me good, and in a way, it’s worst than the fights. He gave up on me. He was my conscience, my difference between good and evil. I’ve been with him for so long that I don’t know what kind of person I would be without him. But I guess it’s time to find out.

I drifted towards Castiel and I’s room, knowing he would be in there reading a book, waiting for me to go to bed. Tear already formed in my eyes.

I just stood in the doorway for a couple of seconds. Just watching him read his book and remember all the times when we were happy.

“What are you doing?” Castiel asked, seeing me lean against the doorway of our room.

“Just watching my cute boyfriend.” I smiled, watching him get up and walk over to me.

“Now, why are you watching me?” He tilted his head in the way that I love. With a slight shake of my head and a smile, I lean up and kiss him. “Now, what was that for?’

“Being you,” I replied, grabbing his hand and dragging him to bed. Cuddling him is my favorite thing to do. Well, just anything to do with him is my favorite thing to do.

How can I let him go? How can I let this love that we once had mean nothing to me? No matter what happened between the two of us, I love him, I will always love him.

But he isn’t happy anymore. The light in his eyes, the innocent-ness in his voice is gone. And whether that is because of me or not, I need to let him go and find the happiness that he once had. He wouldn’t if he was with me, the part of him that sees only good and evil would think of searching for his own happiness and leaving me as evil. Even if it is what he needs to do. He won’t. Not without a push.

“I don't wanna say it but somebody's gotta say that it's over.” His head jerks away from the book, and the way he tilts it breaks my heart more.

“What?”

“We’re over, Cas.”

“No, we’re not.” He gets up and I wish that I could kiss like before, but that would only hurt me now.

“I am all out of options,” Tears spill, wetting my cheeks. “I don't wanna say it but somebody's gotta say that it's over.”

“I don’t understand,” He whimpers. “Do you not love me anymore?”

“I do love you. I have loved you since the day I met you and I will love you until my dying breath.” My hand acts on its own, moving its way up to touch Castiel’s cheek like I always do when he’s upset. “The strain of time tore us apart. It's not what we want but it's where we are. And I know the fault is partly mine. I miss those nights that we'd talk for hours. About our dreams and our desires. But all that's gone and all that's left is bitterness.”

“I know that everything hasn’t been the best but you want to give up?”

“If it means that you can be happy, yes.” I cry. “I can hate myself for this. You can say that I'm a selfish bitch. It doesn't change my mind. Someone's gotta take the fall. So I'll be first to cross the line.”

“Please don’t do this, Y/N.” He grabs my arm as I tried to walk away. For a second, I hesitate, I want to turn around say ‘I’m sorry’ and stay but he will just resent me later. So I rather he hate me now.

“Seeing you defeated doesn't bring me any closer to closure, but it’s over.” I walk away from the love of my life, knowing that not in a million years will I not be broken from this.

[bippityboppitybibuck]

Scarred Bark, Broken Heart

15x18 coda/alternate ending of sorts || WC 2580, also read on AO3 here

MCD, depressed Dean, (Tree!Cas ???), brief mention of suicidal tendencies, open but hopeful ending, part one of a two part series, Canon divergence

Dean doesn't know what made him decide on the tree. They didn’t have a body to burn, not this time. They didn’t have a six-foot hole to dig and he felt odd putting a marker over unmarred earth. So when he stumbled upon a tree in the woods surrounding the bunker, one with a beehive tucked nine feet up he didn’t even realize he had popped out his pocket knife and started carving until the first three letters were written in the wet bark.

His throat burned as he worked. The same knife sliced skin wide so that protection could be painted onto a door that was never going to hold. Cas was always ready to bleed for him, always ready to do whatever he needed to keep him safe.

Tears threatened to ruin his work by blocking his field of view but each time he tilted his head to the sky and tried to breathe through it.

The squared-off letters seem to mock him once he finishes, if Cas’d been here the letters would have been beautiful, a burst of power and it could have been script etched into the wood. Instead, it's his blocky ugly writing.

Something hideous rears its head in his chest, and staring at the letters, staring at the name. He always deserved more than Dean could give him, than this world could give him. He deserves more than a scar in some bark in a forest hardly anyone treks into. He deserves more than to die without knowing—to die thinking he wasn’t loved.

Dean doesn't look to the sky as his eyes fill again. Sam always said he needed to let himself feel. That ignoring your trauma isn't the same as dealing with it. But he worries that if he gives into it fully he’ll never resurface. Drowned in his own mind with the pain and regret, the fear and the sadness that washes in like the tide when his guard drops.

So he doesn’t let himself sink, he treads as best he can, hearing Bobby’s gruff voice in his head just like when he was a kid, ‘keep your ears above water son, that’s the only way to make sure you stay alive out there’, it’s like Bobby knew exactly why he needed that information. Like he knew it wasn't about swimming.

He’s not sure how long he spends looking at the carving, or when the wind picks up and shakes shivers through his body. He’s not sure when the tears dry and the wracking sobs take over.

Cas looked at peace when it came for him, and it ruins him to know that. To know that loving him brought him to the one moment of true happiness. Loving a worthless, broken, fucked up killer—no. No, Cas said he wasn’t a killer, he wasn’t a monster or a tool to be used and thrown aside, and yet he killed another hadn’t he? Killed him by doing nothing at all because that's what happens, that’s his legacy, people get close to him and they get killed. They always get killed.

Dean’s not sure when he heads inside again, or how he finds himself at the tree almost every day, week in and week out.

For the longest time he can do nothing but look, words that fight to break free, stay trapped behind the years of burying what he always felt, stay tapped behind the last dam he has standing in his soul the soul Cas saved—a good lot that did. He knows the dam won’t hold forever and all he can do is imagine the damage when it does finally break.

He doesn't always go alone either. Sam takes trips to the tree by himself sometimes but mostly he goes when Dean does. Jack trails after him every once in a while too but they usually let him go alone.

The first snow of the season begins to fall as he stands at the tree, the beehive long since gone dormant, its occupants burrowing in for their months-long sleep. And God how Dean envies their ability to escape reality for longer than it takes to sleep off a hangover.

It’s early for the first snow, weeks too soon but the world has been colder since—well since.

It’s been a while since he last talked while he visited, the dam broke finally or rather the levels grew too high on one side and it began to leak. Still, back then he hadn’t said much of anything.

He tries to talk now, he tries to do the same as what he did at his father's grave all those years ago trapped in a djinn dream, trapped in a world that seemed so perfect until he peeled back its layers. Kinda just like the one he actually lived in.

“Ca-s,” his voice breaks before he manages to speak the single syllable. No one is around to notice though, no matter how much he wishes he was speaking to a person instead of an unfeeling unrelenting piece of wood. Still though, it's easier to talk when no one is there to hear it, he doesn't have to hold as much back.

“Cas, I-,” Dean lets out a rough hum as he collects himself. This speech is going to be different. He can feel it, the emotions within him seem to grow choppy, spilling over the dam wall more and more and he just knows that whatever happens, he won’t be returning to the bunker whole.

“I keep thinking, y’know, back to that night you walked into that barn in Illinois, you told me that good things do happen, and I mean it’s not like I expected you to, but you didn’t believe me when I told you that nothing good happens to me. I don’t know if in the time from then to no—I don’t know if you ever figured out that I was right or not but I think that the one good thing that happened to me was the worst thing to happen to me too.” Dean stares at his name, willing it to actually be him. The cold bites at his fingers and his nose. His toes grow cold in his boots but he doesn’t move to leave he barely even feels it anyways.

“When Chuck told us that you were the one who never listened,” he chokes out a broken laugh, “it honestly made perfect sense, you did always say that it was our story, that we were the thing that was real in a world of manufactured realities. And when he said it I swear it was like I was standing in that ratty kitchen, minutes before Lucifer rose, minutes before you di—died for the first time. And I thought as Chuck went on and on how maybe I wasn’t dreaming it up, maybe it wasn't Chuck’s doing, and I was going to try to talk to you about it, after a shit ton of booze mind you.” He’s quiet for a long time, the snow begins to blanket the space around him and he thinks about how he’ll never get to brush snow off of the lapel of Cas’ stupid trench coat.

Just the thought starts a domino effect, his mind rushing through everything he wanted and everything he’ll never get now and it’s so overwhelming it sends him to his knees. Of course, because he clearly will never be able to catch a break all it does is remind him of the last time they were in purgatory together, the fear and heartbreak that shook him to his core, the devastation of Cas brushing off what he wanted to say because fuck it was so much more than his prayer.

“You beat me to it though, and then—well we both know what happened next.” His fingers are ice when they wipe the tears from his eyes. They jolt him, a shock to his system.

“You never gave me a chance to respond, didn’t even give me a damn moment to process any of it. And you’re a selfish son of a bitch for that because that wasn’t fair, that wasn’t—. I needed you to stay, I needed you to hear it too. I won’t ever be able to stay mad at you because I never have been, not for any of the shit you pulled in the past. But that? That was a new low.” He sniffles from the cold or from his tears he doesn't know but he does it all the same.

“Y’know if you were here right now you’d tell me to go inside because humans catch colds so easily and you don’t know how fucking much I need to hear that now Cas.” His heart plummets in his chest again. He feels sick all over again so he clenches his jaw to keep from heading too far down that road.

“I remember the first time you got sick, god you were a nightmare the entire time and I dealt with Sam getting sick every year since I was old enough to open kids cold medicine,” Dean laughs thickly, tears lodged in his throat. The strain of holding it all back shreds at the muscle and it screams with every breath he manages to shake into his lungs.

“I remember everything Cas, all of it, every fight, every drink, every goddamn time we looked at each other. And yet I can’t recall a fucking thing because I thought I had more time. After everything we’d gone through, I still thought we would have more time. It's all broken and jumbled and set to static and I can’t handle it because it's crystal clear and as muddy as anything because I thought I’d be able to make more, replace what got muddled. I thought you had more time.”

He shuffles around and presses his back against the trunk of the tree. His ass is uncomfortable as hell what with the roots and the wet cold earth below him but his knees appreciate the switch.

“I’m having a hard time this time because a part of me thinks just like it did after the whole leviathan fiasco. I swear you’re going to come back, that this is all a mix-up, that if I wait just a little longer, hold on a little longer, put my gun down just one more night that you’ll be back. But it’s been weeks Cas and nothing’s changed. I wake up and I go to sleep in a world that doesn’t have you in it and I was always okay before because you were just there even if I didn’t have you like I wanted I still got to see you, watch you, lo—be with you. But now it’s all empty, and no matter how ironically appropriate that is given the dumbass move you made a year and a half ago, I’m hanging on by a thread man. And Sam doesn't know how to help, even with all his dead girlfriends as experience to draw from.” He’s quiet for a long time, chewing on his lip, flexing his fingers together as he just sits.

“He says I need to stop making jokes to cover it all up but that's all I know how to do. I mean you can’t mourn your mom if you have a baby brother to take care of so you joke. You can’t talk about what the internet says is PTSD because there are monsters to hunt and people to save so you joke. You can’t let yourself be vulnerable because that means death so you joke. You can't tell your best friend what you need to so you joke. You hide behind something safe because no one wants you to show what's really there.” Dean's mind is a mess right now, jumping from one point to another, skipping ahead and falling behind. He has so much he wants to say and it’s like he’s trying to say it all at once.

He can almost hear Cas’ voice admonishing him for thinking that he didn't have a support system, that he didn't have people who loved him and wanted him to be okay and it strips him raw. Because it’s only been a few months, how could he already be forgetting his voice, or which way he tilted his head when he didn’t understand some random human action, which foot he started with when he stood up from a chair, if he liked smooth or crunchy peanut butter better even if it was all molecules to him, what his arms felt like wrapped around him, how he sighed when Dean was being an idiot, what his smiles looked like as he sat at their kitchen table talking with Jack.

How was he already forgetting all of the little things that made him fall for the fallen angel, heaven's most loved, heaven's most corrupted.

His chest is cracked so wide every part of him falls inside, his very soul falls into the pit, tumbles down and down and down because there are a million things that he and Cas will never get to do but there are a billion things Cas will never do again.

Sure Cas’ll never learn to dance but he’ll never smile again. He’ll never have the chance to memorize the words to the songs Dean showed him but he’ll never feel the sun on his skin again. Or laugh or cry or sleep in late. He’s never going to make another milk run, be it a monster hunt or an actual milk run. He’ll never watch another bee documentary or hug his son again.

Cas lived hundreds of millions of years and yet there was so much he left unfinished, he’s been around for eons and yet he still died too soon.

It takes him a moment to remember that even if Cas had been around since the Cambrian explosion in reality he’d only experienced humanity for eleven years. And all of it was spent fighting, shouldn't he get a fucking chance to just live for a fucking second. Let himself relax, shake the weight off his shoulders, just be finally?

Dean turns and looks from his position at Cas' name, the angle is atrocious so he can barely see the etchings.

There are a billion things he’ll never do again, a million things he’ll never get to experience. And for someone who's given all that Cas has given to this world, that just won’t do.

“You told me love drove me, you said that I fought for everything because of love, that I taught you how to and fuck Cas I don’t know how that's possible. But I’ve fought for nearly forty years because of love and there's no way in hell I am stopping that now. I’m going to fight for you, I’ll fight Chuck for you, I’ll fight against the anger that still lives inside me and dammit I’ll fight to get you back because no fucking way am I losing you forever after that speech. If love drives me Cas then you, you…” Dean takes a deep breath. “Happiness is in just saying it, but I can’t tell a piece of wood, so I’ll wait until you are back, because I will get you back. I don’t care what it takes. You need to hear it, you deserve to hear it. You deserve to know.”

I’m working on a rewritten ending for Supernatural that is set after this little alt ending to 15x18 because the actual ending... left a lot to be desired. Turns out spite was in fact enough to get me writing again! So that’s good right??

[spnsmile]

SPN CODA 15X13

“Hey, what’s going on?” Dean calls when he spots Cas and Jack preoccupied with the table.

“Oh.” the Nephilim flickers dull, soulless eyes over the hunters who just came back from a wild goose chase.

“Jack-” Castiel begins warily but too late.

“Cas was just telling me to eat his heart.”

Absolute silence reigns in the Bunker. A stillness too painful with hiking tension and pounding of hearts.

Jack couldn’t possibly understand it, but the way he saw how Dean had looked at Castiel scared him. Sam’s stare was pure bafflement, but Dean’s?

It was indescribable. The Nephilim couldn’t even put it into words. What was it that made him wary of Dean when he woke him up inside the cowboy room?

That feeling with a gun pointed on his head? It’s the same feeling except… Dean didn’t need his gun to have the same effect. The Nephilim couldn’t help glancing at the angel who tried to keep up with the hunter in a battle of eye contact, but he soon failed. And when Cas fails to have eye contact with Dean? There’s that one word that popped up his head and it spelled one thing.

Disaster.

It’s Sam. It’s always Sam who breaks the ice and for that, Jack will always be grateful.

“Cas, that’s not helping.”

Castiel diverts his eyes to Sam with tightness on his throat. “I know, I just…”

“He did tell me it’s only for the last resort.” Jack pipes up, trying to be helpful. He wondered if it was, but the way Dean’s eyes glints dangerously in his direction has him clamping his mouth. It’s like that gun again, heavy and… Much more. But Dean’s expression closes at once and he is turning away before anyone can speak again.

“Great. Uh, yeah you guys have some good talk. I’m gonna go take a shower.” he waves his hand and goes, leaving Sam sighing heavily while Castiel swallows hard.

Very hard. And then the angel just stands up too and trails after Dean’s footsteps. Jack exhales so loud and leans back on his chair with large eyes at the entrance to the corridor where Castiel’s back disappeared.

He turns to Sam with dry lips.

“That was… Scary.” he shifts on his chair while Sam slowly takes the space Castiel just left. By the looks of his face, Sam has plenty to say and Jack would rather have that than Dean’s whose silence can kill.

“Jack… Let’s talk.”

***

The footsteps in the corridor are heavy. The scurrying footsteps behind him are lighter and barely touching the floor with his pace.

“Dean-”

No answer.

“Dean!”

The hunter doesn’t bother as he turns to the next corridor till he’s in front of his room. He pulls on the doorknob when a hand slams it shut from his back.

Castiel finally catches up behind him.

Dean grits his teeth but he doesn’t turn. He closes his eyes patiently with a throbbing vein at the side of his head. He gotta cool it down.

“Cas, I want to enter my room.”

“Dean, I-” Castiel’s voice is all over the place the way it cracks and hesitates over his words.

That’s unfair. He shouldn’t be the one feeling broken. Dean hates the shaken tone. The way it sounded to him, Cas was certain wit what he wanted to happen.

“Your hand. Take it off, I want in.”

“Dean, you know I only said that as a last consent in case there’s no other choice. And I-”

“It’s okay. I get what you want to do.” Dean opens his eyes.

Clarity is there. Cas is doing, saying what he thinks must be done. And Cas has always been right about stuff, always looking far ahead unlike him who can only see as far as his shoes, only live in the moment and act at the moment.

If it’s being objective compare to being emotionally controlled, then it’s probably Cas who gets the right call.

Dean isn’t good when it comes to his priorities and he thinks he never will be, so he left the table before he could say anything horrible.

He’s done being horrible to Cas.

“Dean, let me at least explain. It’s not anything sacrificial or me throwing myself away-”

“Dean…”

“It’s alright, I just gotta sort stuff.” he can’t look Cas in the eyes. He chews his dried lips and at least gives a side glance to his best friend. “It’s fine, Cas… I’m not…”

“I still want to talk,” Cas says quickly, eagerly.

“Fine. Talk."

Cas seems ready for the crossfire. He never did back down from the hunter.

"Dean, you're angry about the "heart but it isn't what you think it is."

"Oh sure. Because there's a metaphor for offering their hearts to get eaten! Jack said it clear! How else am I supposed to interpret that, Cas!?" Dean bites down his bottom lip tight. The pain doesn't even register, he could make it bleed and it wouldn't make a difference.

What bothers him is the angel still acting like it's no big deal.

"This heart thing isn't a coincidence. Just how many angels do you think are still out there?" Cas doesn't even know any pedal breaks and Dean's just itching to tackle him but at that closed space?

"Yeah, noticed that huh? Good. Spot on."

Castiel frowns while he clasps his hands together.

"I think we would be blinding ourselves at the possibility. But, it's as Jack said... it's a last resort if needed be, Dean and I... I am just as much willing to bet my life on Jack if that's what it takes to win."

A win. Dean hung his head as he remembers. This isn't just about them anymore.

"I know." he just nods again, throat burning like he's just taken the strongest whiskey. A win they needed badly where sacrifices will happen. How could he forget? "I know," he repeats more firmly with heart sinking. 

"If you know..." Cas tilts his head, voice gravelly. "Then why are you still angry?"

"I'm not. I mean... What do you want me to say?" he flickers a lookup, the force in the meeting of their eyes are full static this time, silent with intensity and meaning but its the quiver of resignation in his deep voice that gets Cas leaning forward with all intent to invade space.

"At least don't leave me behind. Stop walking away from me while we're both here." Castiel says behind his ears and the shiver that runs on his spine jolting a reaction over his pants. "I'm trying here, Dean."

Try harder." Dean's voice is rough as he wills calm, summon it with all his heart for his body to stop aching for touch.

"Dean..." Cas's voice now turns resigned and it's unfair. Dean turns his head from the front seat and locks eyes with the angel and just lets him see everything. It's futile to pretend a wall still exists between them. Not with the pooling heat inside his jeans.

Not that he needed Cas to know...

"I'm not angry that you think you have to make that call... Hell, every year I make one single wish you and Sam would kill me."

"Dean-" Cas just looks hurt so Dean finally gives in and raises his body from his chair, feet stepping carefully on the front sear before hooking it on the other side.

Castiel watches him dive on the next empty seat at the far end with his bowlegs making it easier to land. After a few more shifting of legs and ass, Dean sits up beside the angel and sighs.

"S' matter with me saying it? How this ends, its gonna be ugly, you just gave a very good example of one. There's no happy ending here, Cas, and there's no point pretending. We know what's waiting for us there. There's no saving the day without all of us kicking god's bucket list, but..."

But...

He looks up with as much determination enough to gey Cas attention when he adds-

"You will not lose yourself to Jack. Don't make it horrible for him, man. I've been there...me wanting you guys to kill me, I just want it to end." Dean peers at the blue round eyes, initiating the end of distance this time when he slides closer to the angel. Dean nods at the angel seriously.

"Jack may be soulless now, and he got a mission. But you don't let yourself die on his hands because at the end of the day? That blood? It's what will make Jack. You make him promise to do the horrible and he will do just equal horrible to everything. That's what you need to see. You get to die... and you get to destroy Jack at the same time. D'you really want that to happen, Cas?"

Castiel stares at him. Just looks and this time, the blue eyes don't look as confident. Dean blames himself for doing that so he gives him an apologetic look.

At least Cas looks like he will listen now. That's enough for the rocks grinding down Dean's stomach to disappears much to his relief.

He can convince Cas. He can convince his angel to take it all back. Convince Cas there's still a way other than him being another sacrifice. Dean can do all that part later on, but at least, he wants Cas safe. Wants him okay. Just... Wants him.

He wants Cas.

Cas looks soft and lost the way his eyes fall down his hands, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he takes in Dean's words. Out of instinct, Dean caresses his smooth cheeks without thinking. Cas looks broken and maybe Dean feels the same way too because that's how it's always been. They damn broken people together, repairing the other.

His touch lights life back in the blue eyes. Before he knows it, Cas grabs a fistful of his collar but stays an arms-length away, leaving Dean with heart up his throat and butterflies flapping inside his guts.

"Cas-”

"I don't want to... I can't leave Jack..."

"Yeah, sure." Dean feels a tinge of jealousy, but he cannot be selfish now. Cas has found another reason, another being to be faithful to, to be loyal to and Dean's not cutting it with him being at the center of all death and destruction.

He gotta let go of his angel too.

"Stay with Jack. He'll need you when all of this is over. He's already lost his mom and I don't think we need to look up my hand for palm reading, we know I won't make it there,"

Cas grip on his collar tightens.

"I told you to stop saying that," he growls,  pulling Dean even closer enough to leave the hunter crosseyed. "I'm not going to lose you, Dean."

"It's okay. I'll get there in the end anyway."

"I don't want to lose you." Castiel falls silent for a moment.

"You won't." Dean wished he could believe that himself. "It's you I'm worried about."

"Why?" Cas wraps an arm across Dean's chest, head comfortably on top of the man's chest.

"Cas, you basically just told Jack to go all "The Ripper on you. And you know who's the big bad wolf behind my back... Let's not make promises here."

"Dean." Castiel pulls Dean so they're facing each other again. I don't want to lose you."

Dean just kisses his lips in answer. Sweet and very much in need, he lets Cas lead this time until he is breaking away.

"Tell me," Cas says gruffly, letting Dean up a little so their eyes meet again.

"What."

"Tell me to stop wanting to take you away." he confesses, "To bring you somewhere safer where nothing like this can hurt you... Can take you away... Please, Dean."

Dean opens his eyes. He could feel Cas's body tensing. Could feel Castiel's forlorn soul in need of consolation. Half of him wants to tell the angel he can't. Half of him wants to tell Cas there's no escaping their fate this time. No resurrection, no reruns of the show but just...fucking cold-

"Dean..."

It was said with urgency and need that has the hunter reacting on instinct. Dean slinks his hands around the angel's chest  He grazes his forehead past the wet lips and damp cheeks. Cas had been crying.

Pained, Dean reaches and cups Castiel's face like its everything he needs on his hands. The angel looks at him, eyes wet from tears and how could Dean not say it? How could he even doubt it?

"Then we win."

Cas blinks. "What?"

Dean grits his teeth. "We win..we don't let that bastard win. Cause as much as you want to take me away, I wanna do the same thing. But... Our feet wouldn't take us far. Running away will only give us grace time, but it won't solve anything..."

He wipes the tears away, hating the way Castiel is breaking to pieces about something that hasn't passed. Dean decides he doesn't want that. He embraces Cas again.

"We're gonna win this with us both living... All of us... We're gonna win this to live, not to die, you hear me, Cas? Let's not think of dying while living, hear me?"

Castiel nods, burying his face on Dean's neck with fingers holding the man's arm tight and at that moment, Dean's heart swells. He remembers everything he has been fighting for since the beginning. At that moment, he felt like he can protect everything. Protect Cas and his family and they'll be damned if anyone tries and stops him.

The nip on his neck reminds him of another thing. He pulls back to look the angel in the eyes, Castiel who follows his neck with lust dancing in those blue eyes, eager and wanting. In love.

Protect Cas he will. ✨

Aw! I found the keep reading hehe. Also full form on A03 but that's EXPLICIT tag so... ❤ anyways :)

[jadewritings]

The Other Nephilim Part Three

PAIRING: Castiel x Reader

WORD COUNT: 1k+

WARNINGS: Language, Fighting, Forced possession, Some self indulgent angst :)

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Heyo! I just wanted to thank @auriel187 for helping me with this series and figuring out what the sequel will be like!

The boys stopped at a motel for the night. They’d driven farther than they thought as Y/N was quickly moving from town to town. Sam said he would go to the most recently deceased’s house and check things out in the morning. Dean nodded and plopped on his bed after throwing his bag on the small circular table in the corner of the room.

Jack was worried and began biting on his nails.

“Jack,” Cas gained the attention of the nephilim, “we’ll find her. I promise.” He laid his hand reassuringly on Jacks shoulder.

“Yeah, and when we do, what then? Dean wants to kill her. Castiel, I don’t know what to do. I finally have a chance for a family and it’s taken from me again.”

Castiel’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “Jack, we are your family. Me, Dean and Sam. Y/N will make it through this and she’ll be just as much your family. I may not have known her long but she’s strong. That much I know. We’ll get her back.”

Jack sighed and laid back on his bed. They got two rooms, even though Castiel and Jack don’t have to sleep, it’s the thought that counts.

••••

Y/N was breathing heavily as she winced from the slight movements her body made on the floor. Lucifer had had his fun and left a few minutes ago. She didn’t once think he would do this if she disobeyed. Then again, she always went along with what he said, no questions asked.

Then she met Jack, and her once black and white world distorted into shades of grey. Things got confusing, she no longer felt like an empty vessel used for killing. But that all shattered when her father forced a possession on her. How? She didn’t know. Probably because he was hoop but she didn’t care for the details.

All she knew was that she couldn’t control her own body anymore. She could occasionally hear the screams of Lucifer’s killings. Either he had anger issues or he was doing it for fun. Maybe to torture her even more.

Now, she was determined. Determined to gain control and stop his rampage. She sucked in a breath and tried to get up from the ground. Only to fall back in a heap. Everything burned, his touch like acid on her skin. Black residue of goop burned her wounds even more.

Tears stung her eyes. She hated feeling so weak. She hated her father for lying to her. Using her for his own selfish gain. She was nothing. To anyone or anything. Just a tool.

She thought back to the angel her brother called a father. She imagined having a life with him. He would show her the kind of love she’s never felt before. Give her the world like she deserved and she would do the same for him.

Sobs escaped her mouth involuntarily.

She imagined kids and a white picket fence with neighbors that would invite them to cookouts. Her brother and the Winchester’s would even have their own little get togethers.

Jack would have a pregnant girlfriend, if they wanted kids. And they would all be happy. No monsters. No deaths. Just a happy little family, doing normal things that normal people would do.

But this wasn’t a fairytale and they weren’t normal people. Hell, were they even people at all?

Y/N grunted and pushed on her elbows to try to get up again. Her skin screamed in pain at the struggle and she eased herself down again.

No, she’d just rest for now. Save her strength. She’d send Lucifer straight back to where ever the hell will keep him. For good this time.

••••

When Dean woke up the next morning, his brother was already gone. Sam was always the early bird.

He grunted, rolling off the bed and rubbed his face before heading to the shower. He’d go talk to Jack afterwards.

When he was done, he walked out of the steam filled room to see Jack and Castiel already in the room.

“Did you at least bring some pie before we get this party started?” He asked, smirking to himself. He only received confused expressions before dropping the smile and rolling his eyes, towel drying his hair.

“Nevermind.”

“Dean, we need to talk.” Jack spoke, rather quickly.

Dean gave him a side glance, throwing his towel on the sink in the bathroom, “About?”

“Y/N.” He stated.

Dean got ready to argue but snapped his mouth shut when Jack interrupted.

“Just hear me out before you say anything.”

Dean looked to Castiel who only tilted his head and gave him a hard stare.

He sighed and crossed his arms, “Go ahead.”

“Look, I know you aren’t fond of my sister and you have good reason, but all I’m asking is give her a chance before you decide to kill her. I know something isn’t right. She wouldn’t just take off like that just to start killing again.”

“Jack, you said it yourself. She’s killed before. And she even said she enjoys it. That’s a bad guy in my book, and bad guys don’t get to live-”

“If it was Sam what would you do?” Jack interrupted.

“Excuse me?”

“If it was your brother, your family, what would you do?” Jack had hope in his eyes. This would convince Dean.

Dean was silent for a moment. For the paste 14 years, all he did was save Sam, even when his brother was the so called bad guy. When Lucifer possessed him, all he tried to do was save him. When he was addicted to the demon blood, all he did was save him. Every time, he was there for his little brother. Sammy.

Jack had a point and Dean’s momentary silence was all the answer he needed.

“She’s my sister, Dean. If I don’t try and save her, what kind of brother does that make me?”

Dean stared at the boy for a moment. In a way, Dean saw Jack as a little brother too and he’d do anything for him.

He sighed, “Fine. But if she’s back to doing Lucifer’s bidding, then she won’t be able to hide from me much longer, got it? I won’t hesitate.”

Jack nodded, “Thank you, Dean. I appreciate it, I really do.”

Dean waved his hand, dismissing him, “Yeah, yeah. No chick flick moments, remember?”

Jack nodded but smiled, “Right.”

At that moment, Sam barged through the door, in his FBI suit that they usually dawned in on a hunt.

“Ah, Sammy, nice of you to join us this fine afternoon.” Dean grinned.

Sam gave him a bitch face but continued on in his rushed state, “I have a lead. There was another body over at a warehouse on Landers street.”

Everyone got to moving, getting dressed, packing up their things.

Jacks heart sparked with hope but also fear. Maybe he was wrong. But he didn’t really feel that way. He would save Y/N. No matter what it took.

-PART FOUR-

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[amwritingmeta]

15x06: Castiel

Is there anything more beautiful than turning points for a character? I don’t think there is. Cas has had a few of them throughout his journey (of course all of TFW have) but this episode he comes across a most likely enormous one, because this episode actually manifests his self-liberation in no uncertain terms, and given how far along we’ve gotten down the line with his progression, I’m thinking it’s most likely to stick.

It’s all about identity, right? Even this turning point that I’m so mysteriously hinting at. I’ll get to that. 

Let’s take a look at the lay of the land this episode and it’ll bring us to why this turning point feels like it is shaking the very foundations of Cas’ core character traits and, hopefully, bringing about that needed change in the process.

Here’s the thing. When he was cast down from Heaven and turned human by Metatron stealing his grace, Cas was lost and was killed and then he was brought home to the Bunker only to be thrown out again, and so he named himself Steve and took a job at a Gas ‘n Sip because he couldn’t drape himself in the flag of Heaven anymore. 

As a human, adrift and alone, he did the only thing he could think to do: he mimicked human everyday life. Not because he wanted to, but because he had to. He could see no other choice. 

Until he called Dean to tell him about a case in the town where he’d settled (using settled loosely here since Cas was basically squatting at that same Gas ‘n Sip because he didn’t have a home of his own btw) and Dean showed up and reminded Cas what is at his core: to help. And that this desire to help is there even if he’s scared of dying, because that is what gives him a sense of purpose. (which is why he threw himself into that human everyday life to begin with: in search of purpose)

After Dean drove off in 9x06, telling Cas to live his life, Cas made a decision, for himself, to get back into hunting. To insert himself back into TFW, whether Dean wanted him there or not. 

This was an enormous turning point for him, because for the first time he truly considered what he wanted for himself, and he went after it without hesitation.

Which was then promptly followed by Cas seeing no other choice but to swallow Theo’s grace and get his powers back, readying himself for the war that most surely was heading their way, because how could he be of service, of help, to the brothers and to the world without his powers?

Right? Right.

Now then, in 15x06 we get Cas in a deep state of identity confusion.

This is most clearly given to us through the name he chooses for himself.

Firstly, Clarence is a beautiful callback to Meg and perhaps that’s all it’s meant to be, but it’s also tying in with those early days that lay the foundation for the identity confusion Cas is still grappling with. So it’s interesting to me that he’d use it now, when he should be moving on, know what I mean? 

And yeah, that brings us to the second Clarence, which is a character name from True Romance where the character Clarence Worley is played by Christian Slater and Worley is a posturing, bi-coded renegade of a male and has a lot of Dean in him (and I’m headcanoning that Dean has initiated Cas to the wonders of True Romance and done so fairly hardcore) so for Cas to actually, literally, name himself after a Dean-esque character is delightfully poignant.

Because it serves to underline how Cas is still not acting from a place that is based in having enough perspective on himself that he’s aware of what he wants, but rather we’re given to understand, in no uncertain terms, that he left the Bunker, pondered what to do and instead of considering what he’d do, he thought: What would Dean do?

And Dean, to relax and regroup and get away, would go fishing.

So, essentially, Cas is still in mimic mode.

Only this time he wasn’t told he had to leave the Bunker and what he deep down has always thought of as home and family and safety, even if he hasn’t felt like he truly belongs there: this time he chose to go.

And, this time, yes, he goes into mimic mode because he’s at a loss of what exactly he’s supposed to do now, but when a case presents itself, he doesn’t call Dean, he goes into hunter mode and leaves the mimicking behind, leaning on his own knowledge and understanding of what hunting down a monster entails, knowledge and understanding he’s accrued over his years of inadvertent training. 

Granted he’s not human and he’s not risking his life the way he would’ve been back in S9 -- which was the reason (well, one of them, if you want to read the subtext as being that he genuinely wanted to see Dean and he hoped Dean would come look him up) he called Dean -- but he’s not fully fledged, his powers are failing him, and he doesn’t know what that means or what it will mean for him in the long run.

What is evident is that he doesn’t need his powers to do his job and do it well. He correctly identifies the monster as a djinn and locates what is evidently its lair without using anything but power of persuasion and research skills.

I could - over-zealous that I get at the mere prospect - read all this as meaning that we’re getting foreshadowing for how Cas doesn’t need his powers to live his life. Actually, it feels a little more like Cas’ powers are hampering his ability to live his life this episode, as the pastime that relaxes Dean Humanity Winchester does nothing to relax Cas-Still Angelic and thus Tied to Heaven-tiel. But the powers do save him, and they do allow him to do what is at his core: help. He heals Caleb, even though it takes a lot out of him

The taking a lot might be foreshadowing that his powers are diminishing to the point of soon not being there at all, or it might be an underlining of how we should root for him being powered up again, so that the moment he is will feel truly gratifying, because we’ve witnessed the struggle.

The gunshot wounds to his chest might be a highlighter for how he still sees himself as ‘thing’ and always expects to be able to heal himself, which could be a plant for how, if he becomes human, bullets flying at his head will carry a completely different meaning because he’s always been someone who absorbs such situations without even really blinking at them (like how he didn’t even flinch when Ketch blew up that car with the grenade launcher back in S12), or it could be another underlining of Powers=Good because they allow him to do what this entire episode pushes for him to do: stand up to authority.

And so we land in the-->

Turning Point

Which is Cas standing up to authority and, if you look at the subtextual implications, in so doing, breaking away from how he’s related himself to Dean for a whole lot of their joint arc, especially during the latter half of it. 

This turning point is enormous for his individual arc: letting go of his proclivity for making choices based in servitude to the greater good (manifested in God and then in Dean) (his servitude always skewed since he should be making his choices based in his own sense of morality) (not trying to do what he thinks someone else wants him to do) and starting to make choices based in his own knowledge and understanding of himself and his place in the world.

And this newfound self-insight could potentially hopefully have an enormous impact on how he relates himself to Dean moving forward.

Because instead of this -->

Leading to this -->

Ending in this -->

We’ll get Cas behaving based in this -->

And the parallels here are rich as well, btw. They’re not as violent as they look, at least not the way I see it, because not only is the possible S8 callback (it’s what I got in my head anyway) a tie-back to a moment where Cas bowing to authority brought about emotional trauma, which led to him standing up to said authority, but on top of this, Dean as authority figure isn’t working anymore. 

Dean as role model, Dean as compass, Dean as charge and the reason Cas uses for why he’s even on Earth isn’t holding up anymore. It hasn’t for a long time now. And in this moment Cas not only knows it, but I would say he accepts the truth of it. 

The sheriff is a toxic masculinity representative in the most classic sense and it’s beautiful how Cas uses the lines that Miriam threw at Dean in 13x01, almost to underline the parallels here, but also to tell us how little Cas is ready to bow down to this type of power. 

As such, it’s not just a parallel to Dean, but to Chuck as well, which is why the turning point is so layered and carries so much weight: this moment is Cas telling a representative of what God now is in the narrative (and granted always has been) this his sense of entitlement, that his belief that he deserves his position and that he should be worshipped simply because he’s in that position, won’t convince Cas to obey. 

This then morphs from a moment of empowerment to a moment of loss of control as the soldier mode takes over, yeah? The djinn needed killing, but slaughtering? 

There are a myriad of possible implications here, but the sentiment of the scene itself is Cas breaking free and stating unequivocally that he sees through fake points of authority and will not follow blindly anymore. Cas sees through the bullshit now. He’s breaking free of his indoctrination once and for all.

Which is why the episode, for Cas, ends in that absolutely mind-blowing decision to contact Sam, which we’ll be privy to in the next ep, because Cas realises that staying away won’t solve anything and it’s not the way he can actually truly help either. 

He felt he had to cut communication in order to make a statement, but ignoring Sam is neither smart nor does it serve his intention of making Dean understand he’s in the wrong and that he should stop being such a selfish douche. 

Staying in the game, but making certain that Dean acknowledges he’s been entirely unfair and apologises, is more mature than giving everyone the silent treatment and missing out on vital information pertaining to the probable end of the world in the process. 

All of this has me excited for what it means for Dean and Cas, without me expecting that it means anything! Dean shows how he’s ready to let Cas go live his life as best he sees fit, but he’s going to call Cas out for being a dumbass, yeah? Which is well-deserved. Cas is being stupidly stubborn and he really should answer Sam. Dean is letting go (while, you know, being forlorn without Cas but recognising that this forlornness is his own burden to bear) and isn’t going to tell Cas to come back. 

I mean, unless Cas shows he didn’t mean move on as in remove myself forever from your presence and stays in contact with Sam, because then there’s a chance that what Cas wants and needs... is an apology. *slow eyebrow raise*

What it looks like to me is them being placed in a position to choose one another without needing the other to define their identity, or even to assist in providing perspective. They are moving into facing that final fear - their shared fear of happiness - and through facing it, beginning to believe that they deserve to be happy.  

I am just way too curious now to know exactly where it’s all landing! We know Dean will give in, we know he’ll end up reaching out, but omg what will that mean overall? I mean... will Cas hear that prayer, is my foremost question, with his powers dwindling? #wewillknowafterChristmas

[webcricket]

Castiel Imagine

Imagine: Eavesdropping on your beautiful singing - something you do when you think no one else can hear you - is Castiel’s guiltiest pleasure until he gets caught in the act (ft. Dear Abby, aka Dean Winchester).

Requested by: @earl-grey-cafe

“Dean-” Castiel pushes the bedroom door inward; widening the sliver of an inch the hunter left it open, he swings it all the way to the gaping limits of the hinges.

A wall of pepperoni grease, malt hops, and gun oil - none of which he finds alarming or unusual - accosts the angel’s senses; nor does the sight of Dean in boxers and socked feet scrambling to mute the horror film scream of the television whilst simultaneously shoving a half empty pizza box under his pillow and sloshing beer onto the bed sheets while he sits up provoke any special interest beyond the fleeting thought that Dean’s dietary choices, perhaps, are not ideal for his long term cardiovascular health.

Cas pauses after stating his friends name to allow Dean’s threading pulse a moment to recover from the surprise of the sudden intrusion. Not that Dean should be surprised by the suddenness of the intrusion after nearly a decade of friendship spent unsuccessfully trying to teach the celestial being to knock first.

The seraph takes Dean’s grumbling around a mouthful of coagulated cheese and irately glistening green eyes as an invitation, if not into the space itself, as one begging expedience to clarify whatever the hell he wants in order to beat a hasty exit. He speaks both without apology and without further delay, “I need to ask you a question.”

Dean swallows hard to dispatch the gummy wad of pizza. He swipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Do you ever knock?”

Cas ignores the query, determining Dean to be employing sarcasm on account of the obviousness of the answer. He moves on to the matter on his mind; namely, you. He overheard you singing in the shower again last night when you couldn’t sleep, which - the singing and the sleeplessness - happens often enough to pique his concern.

It’s a habit of yours to stretch your voice - a heavenly voice if the angel ever heard one, and he would know - only when you believe no one is listening. “Have you ever heard Y/N sing?”

Dean’s glower wobbles and weakly rolls, his temper consoled and conversely further incensed at the lack of seriousness in the situation. He makes a mental note to have a conversation with his friend about what does and doesn’t warrant the disruption of his preciously rare me time; not - Cas’ idea of urgent often dwelling in the empiric satisfaction of curiosity over the human condition - that it will make any difference.

“Yeah, I’ve caught a couple notes here and there, and-?” Dean’s huff accentuates his annoyance.

You’re talented - talented and shy. You keep your gift to yourself and Dean, having sacrificed much for family, respects the need to shroud some things in a shield of selfish pleasure to preserve the status quo of inner sanity; for example, a double cheese double meat deluxe deep dish Chicago-style pie from Gianni’s in central Lebanon on a Saturday night.

Cas’ gaze narrows; some of his friend’s snark refracts in the brightness of the blue; he feels Dean knows the unspoken remainder given what he knows regarding the angel’s especially interested affections toward you and is playing a game of chicken. In retrospect, he thinks he should have sought out Sam.

Dean sighs, and concedes to the seraph’s silence if only to be quickly rid of him to restore his peaceful pepperoni and slasher movie solitude. “Listen up - some things, people don’t share with anyone. That’s Y/N with singing. Just leave it be.”

Crease of brow softening in comprehension, Cas thoughtfully eyes the corner of the pizza box peeking from beneath the drape of the pillowcase. “So it’s like you wanting to consume copious amounts of artery clogging cholesterol while lying prone and watching Hatchet Man in private.”

Deeply wounded by the angel’s holier-than-thou tone, and a recent brotherly lecture regarding bacon from Sam, Dean scoffs, “Nobody asked you.”

Cas gets it - your singing, however beautiful, is a subject of taboo unless you choose to share. He’s glad he didn’t go directly to you and cause you the discomfort of a compliment and discomfit of a request to hear more without the barrier of a bathroom door or concrete wall between you.

“And shut the door on your way out,” Dean grouses since the angel continues to linger meditating upon this newfound clarification and the sentiment of disappointment stirring in his chest that it means he cannot compliment you or request the favor of a direct audience to your talent.

“Thank you, Dean.” Stepping backward with a grateful bob of the head, Cas does as directed and strides into the hall.

In as much as Dean has his secret enjoyments, and you your solo performances, Cas, too, considers his routine of straining to catch your murmured melodies a guilty pleasure; those sweet reverberant notes caress his ears irresistibly like a siren’s call and nurture a reverence for your singing in his celestial center such that it seems to hum musically in time, delightfully thrumming through his vessels veins, whenever he chances to perceive your sensuously strung voice.

He thinks it not a guilty pleasure in the traditional sense of the phrase, a saying which suggests he finds profound pleasure in a sound which would not inspire general awe in whomever heard it - quite the opposite, there can be no doubt in his mind, or any other, excepting perhaps your own in not sharing, of your talents; nor is it because he feels any guilt in the actual eavesdropping - one hears much, whether one wants to or no, when blessed with the aptitude of angelic perception; rather, he considers it so only because you yourself, seeming not to trust to your gift in a capacity allowing you to openly share it, and it light of Dean’s elucidation, save your songs for a safety inherent in solitude.

Your lips part, tongue plucking strings of air in vibrant tone in moments when you believe you have a motel room or the bunker all to yourself. The oxygen belts from your lungs with force to flood the vaulted heights of the ceiling on those welcome weekends with a buffer of many miles between you and the Winchester brothers.

In the spaces in between, when you aren’t quite as alone as you surmise, Cas cherishes every illicitly captured dulcet lilting of soulful tune.

It’s not that you don’t account for Castiel being around; it’s that he’s so damned quiet padding around the place with divinely dampened footfalls. And it’s not that he’s lurking intentionally long around corners or in shadow before announcing his presence; it’s that he is struck in rapture, determination of direction and intent distracted as he stills to follow a phrase of lyric or two to its mellifluous terminus.

This time though, there’s no sneaking about on the angel’s part to blame. Sat at the kitchen table in the semi-dark, flesh of his forehead folded in a neat stack of seriousness over a knotted brow, Cas sifts through Dean’s box of Krunch Cookie Crunch in search of the cheap plastic trinket promised in colorful graphics to be hidden inside - the absence of which the elder Winchester will hold his brother accountable for whenever their latest adventure permits them to return home; needling his friend’s nerves in this manner is a lesser of the angel’s surreptitious and innocent amusements.

He stops his rustling task at the scuffing approach of your slippers and turns toward the threshold. He thought you were asleep when he arrived back and did not deign to wake you to inform you of his late arrival. His features flatten beneath the involuntary feeling of gladness the promise of your presence fosters; the early assemblage of your name rasps in the back of his graveled throat as he prepares to greet you. There, it husks into unspoken oblivion when the first hum of your voice titillates the air.

Oblivious to the celestial company, you step into the kitchen, swiping the light switch as you skip down the two shallow steps and make for the sink to fill a glass of water. Cushioned toes tapping the concrete floor, the kitchen being one of your acoustically favorite rooms in the bunker, the fullness of your unfettered voice echoes off the walls.

Glass brimming, stopping to wet your palette with a sip of the cool drink, you spin on a heel, snap shut your eyes to isolate yourself from the room and the rigors of this life, and settle your spine to the steel skirt of the sink.

Having no contingency plan that doesn’t involve awkwardly breaking for the door, Cas stares, cereal sugar-dusted palm propped to push himself up from the table, wide-eyed and speechless as you continue the tune.

By gradual degrees in sensing a worshipful sort of warmth washing your cheeks with heat, and then the unmistakable scent of the seraph tickling your nose - that uniquely stormy discharge of revving grace skimming his vessel’s skin in lieu of sweat when his adrenaline rises - you become aware of being watched and listened to.

Tongue skipping mid-note on the back of your teeth, your lashes flare and flash on the seraphim-shaped mass of trench coat seated at the table, his stance somewhere between sitting and standing, and the outline of an apology molding his mouth.

“I’m sorry, I tried-” he stumbles over the words and his feet as he straightens upright and steps into the light and nearer- “I didn’t mean-”

“It’s okay. I didn’t see you.” You soothe his fumbling; your chin drops to your chest, a bashfully-tinted flush unfurls across your face. “I just don’t usually sing in front of anyone.”

Cas cannot help his blunt honesty in reaction to your confession. “Why not? Your voice is exceptional.” His already bass register lowers as he extends his fingers to loop at your jaw, gently lifting your gaze to his. “Beautiful.” He does not add the ‘like you’ that naturally links to the accolade in his thoughts; the impact of that bit of unspoken affection stamps his own cheeks to match your blush.

A smile tugs doubtful at your lips. “You think so?”

His attention flicks from your eyes to your mouth, following the minute movement, and back. “Without a doubt.”

Self-conscious at the magnetism of desire felt to press his pout to yours in physical proclamation of his praise, his fingers falter from your chin and the tenderly glossed blues revolve to study the span of inches set between your beating hearts.

You feel it too, have felt a sentiment stronger than friendship solidifying between you for a while. The seams of your body tremble to contain a soul bursting in song at the suggestion of something more. “I could, I mean, if you wanted me to - if you’d like it-”

“Yes.” The bright shine of his eyes spill unfettered happiness to crinkle the skin surrounding them before the essence of a smile spreads to lighten his entire aspect.

The seraph’s smile - it’s purity, and the adoration reflecting the radiant potential of you as the source of his joyful feelings - is all the ovation your heart needs.

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