#so sorry sam was used as plot device but i assure you--dean just ditched him at the motel with a text saying 'be back later'

[wormstacheangel]

for @one-more-offbeat-anthem follower celebration. day 1 (shh i know i am late)

They drove past it three days ago, and he didn’t think anything of it. Sam mentioned it in passing, but Dean only hummed in response, not caring about a dumb big garden in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t care about the endangered plant life or how beautiful it looked at night; he just wanted to get the hunt over with so they could head back home.

The thing was, Cas cared.

Every free second they weren’t working the case; Cas was on his phone or the laptop looking at pictures or watching videos of the garden close by. Then, he’ll randomly shoot out a random fact about the local wildlife in the area--good to know that they’re some bears stealing picnic baskets around them--before talking about the case again.

And he didn’t mind Cas going off on tangents about invasive plant species; what Dean had a problem with was that Cas wasn’t going on about them to him.

All conversations about the garden were directed at Sam, who admittedly actually looked interested in the subject. Still! He didn’t like feeling like Cas--his best friend with a deep and more profound bond--felt uncomfortable geeking out to him.

By the fourth night, Dean stayed up scrolling through his phone, trying to learn as much as he could about the local garden conservatory so that he could join in on the conversation. Cas was sound asleep beside him--they usually share bed since Sam usually goes full starfish on his--probably dreaming about meadows and...and shit like that.

Cas won’t know what hit him in the morning.

“What are we doing here?”

Dean turned off the car when they were parked outside the botanic garden. He turned his sly proud little grin towards Cas, holding his hand out to motion outside their front window.

“You won’t shut up about it, so here we are.”

Cas didn’t look as excited as Dean pictured in his head, though he doubted he would have been thanked so nicely. Instead, Cas seemed almost suspicious. Eyeing him like he was a shifter instead of the real deal.

“What? You don't wanna go?”

“You let me sleep in.” Sleep in was putting it nicely. It was noon by the time Cas even opened his eyes for the first time today. “You even took me to breakfast and let me order a dumb coffee drink-”

“It’s not coffee.” Dean rolled his eyes while Cas ignored him.

“Without you complaining to me about it. You even tried it.”

“So? What’s your issue?” The coffee was pure sugar, so of course, it tasted good. “Am I being too nice to you?”

“Yes. I find it unsettling.” Cas crossed his arms over his chest, staring daggers into Dean as if that would make him admit things he needed admitting to. As if Cas forgot that he was just as stubborn, maybe even more if he tries hard enough.

“Shut up and get out of the car. We’re going to see the damn birds and the bees.”

At that, Cas raised his eyebrows in surprise before he quickly followed Dean out of the car. They walked with shoulders brushing to the entrance, and before Cas could ask what they should see first, Dean took his hand and expertly took him around the garden.

“You researched this place before we came.” The sun was setting as they walked through the shady forest, fingers now gently intertwined instead of the tight, nervous grip from the beginning. “Why are we here, Dean?”

“I told you.”

“Okay. Then tell me the reason you don’t want to admit.” Cas pulled his hand back and stood in front of Dean, eyes kind but determined. Nowadays, they don't look so sad. “We have spent over two hours here, and you just let me ramble nonstop about stuff you don’t care about. You even held my hand the whole time. It’s...It’s confusing.”

“What’s so confusing?”

“Dean,” Cas sighed as if it was obvious, and it was, but Dean just can’t think of that right now. “I said I would give you space to sort out your feelings, but I do not appreciate being strung up like this. So unless you mean it, then I-I….” Cas trailed off and looked almost disappointed when he reached for Dean’s hand to hold. “Who am I kidding? I take whatever you give me.”

“Cas.”

“Come on. It’s getting dark, and I want to see a few more things in the daylight.” Cas started to tug him along, already talking about the plants they would see next, while Dean looked at the back of his head.

He knew he kept doing this to Cas. Sam and Eileen have lectured him about it since Cas came back, but Dean can’t help it. He wanted Cas’s attention, he craved it, but he can’t seem to admit to wanting more even if he was desperate for it. Something keeps holding him back from just...loving him.

Love.

I love you. Goodbye, Dean.

“I love you.”

Cas dropped Dean’s hand like it stung him but didn’t turn around to face him, so Dean repeated it. Again, feeling the words seep out between his lips, more confident than the first time.

“I’m-I’m sorry, Cas. Sorry I keep messing up and-and fucking up.” Dean walked closer to place a hand on his shoulder. “But don’t go around thinking you deserve this. Cause you deserve so much better, Cas. You do. Deserve a lot better than what I can give you. Deserve someone better.”

Cas tightened up and slowly turned around to face him. Crying. He was crying.

Dean quickly patted his pockets for the tissues he packed just in case his allergies started to act up, but he fumbled, hands shaking, at the sight of the crying man in front of him.

“Wait. I got-I got...shit! Don’t cry, just give me-Here!” Dean held the bundle of tissues he stole from the motel. When Cas didn’t take them, Dean started to press the napkins to his cheek. “Sorry!” He said when Cas winced because he pushed too hard.

Cas shoved his hands away, and before Dean could feel hurt from the gesture, Cas pulled him in for a hug.

“I should take you to the forest more often.” Cas chuckled, and Dean looked around to see they were in the oak area of the garden, branches crowding the sky above them. Cas hid his face into Dean’s shoulder, whispering. “I love you, Dean. So please, stop holding me at arm’s length. I lived long enough to know that I won’t love anyone else this way, so please, give me a chance. No. Give us a chance.”

Dean hesitantly wrapped his arms around Cas, feeling his every breath under his palms. His forehead fell into Cas’s shoulder as his eyes shut, as he finally relaxed into the embrace.

“Okay.”

[bibliophileiz]

Jack bestows faith: A theory (now irrelevant, since Jack has lost his powers.)

Spoilers for Supernatural seasons 12 and 13 below the cut

Like you, I am frustrated that Jack's mind-control/manipulative/what were they anyway? powers are no more -- and without us ever really knowing what those powers were. (Or maybe you're not frustrated that Berens introduced this intriguing plot only for bucklemming and Dabb to ignore it in favor of resurrecting dead stunt angel No. 557 from Season 4 for no goddamn reason, but you definitely should be.) There was a debate about glowy-golden eyes and mind-whammying all last hiatus. There was discussion as to whether Jack was "brainwashing" Cas or just "influencing" him and what the differences between those two things would be. There was suggestion that the yellow eyes proved the Four Princes of Hell had all been nephilims. There was fierce debate as to whether all or any of that made Jack good or evil.

So we were all pretty disappointed that the only person who seemed to even remember that fetus!Jack used some sort of power on Cas to convince Cas to save him and ditch the Winchesters with Kelly was Berens Dean. In fact, Dean seems to have been the only person who ever cared at all.

Dean says near the end of Season 12 that Jack "sock-puppetted" Cas. In Season 13, Episode 3, he explodes at Sam, screaming that Jack "manipulated,” promising him paradise but only getting him killed. Then I think he spoke for most of the fandom when he finished the rant with "You may be able to forget about that, but I can't!"

But was Dean actually right? Did Jack use his powers to "sock-puppet" Cas or Kelly or any other character? We only see Jack use this power on five people. Each time he uses it, it causes the person he's influencing to immediately reverse course and do something that, at first glance, seems out of character, but is actually something that, I think, they really want to do -- or rather, hope is the right thing to do.

In other words, he gives them faith. Or, tunnel vision. Dealer's choice.

Faith vs. tunnel vision

Faith is a major theme in Supernatural, and it's particularly associated with God and angels. So it's natural that Jack, being related to both, could have some natural affinity toward bestowing faith on the people he cares about -- certainly the more his allies see of his powers, the more faith they have in him.

But that's not always a good thing.

In his book "Still Life With Woodpecker," Tom Robbins defined tunnel-vision the following way:

"Tunnel vision is a disease in which perception is restricted by ignorance and distorted by vested interest. Tunnel vision is caused by an optic fungus that multiplies when the brain is less energetic than the ego. It is complicated by exposure to politics. When a good idea is run through the filters and compressors of ordinary tunnel vision, it not only comes out reduced in scale and value but in its new dogmatic configuration produces effects the opposite of those for which it originally was intended." p. 86 (Bold emphasis mine.)

Faith is belief working in tandem with logic and hope. Tunnel vision is when the logic, and sometimes hope, are no longer involved. I explain these to say that when Jack "mind-whammies" someone, he's bestowing faith, but jamming it through so fast that the logic and hope don't have time to catch up before the character has time to do something, well, out of character.

WTF actually happened?

The first time we actually see Jack's powers in the wild (other than the time they set the Gideon Bible on fire, a bucklemming gag that didn't make any sense at the time and makes even less sense now) is in Robert Berens' and Meredith Glynn's episode "The Future..” Kelly has just learned that she will die giving birth to Satan's baby and that she will never be able to influence him to use whatever powers he has for good. Instead, she's afraid he'll be left to the devices of the archangel who raped her and the demon who is currently keeping her chained in a basement -- two sources of extreme evil planning to turn young Skywalker to the Dark Side. When Dagon unchains Kelly so Kelly can take a bath, Kelly fills the tub with water, gets in and slits her wrist.

But instead of dying -- or at least instead of staying dead -- Kelly is healed and/or brought back to life by her child. (I still don't know why he couldn't have done that after he was born, wtf Jack?) This gives her hope that he's actually good, even though Dagon and later Cas try to convince her Jack was acting out of self-interest. Later in the episode, after Cas has captured her and she's trying to convince him her baby can be good, her eyes glow yellow -- the baby's giving her a vision, and maybe adding some brainwashing to go with it.

While Kelly had thus far simply appeared to want to have and raise her baby in peace, she's now a mission to make sure the baby's powers are intact when he's born. Even when Sam and Dean offer to remove the baby's powers, she turns them down, kidnaps Cas and tells him to take her to the gate to Heaven, assuring him that the baby showed her if she just goes with him, everything will turn out okay.

Let's break down Kelly's thought process here. First of all, she gets pregnant with the devil's baby and appears to just want to have it in safety. Not an outlandish or grand goal by any means. And while I don't remember her ever expressly saying it, I think she's reasonably confident the baby won't be born inherently evil, like Cas seems to think. This is an act of faith -- deciding to become a parent is essentially that -- but it's tempered with logic and caution.

When she learns she'll die giving birth and that Dagon will most likely end up with her baby, her faith and hope are gone so suddenly that she tries to end her own and her baby’s lives -- the ultimate act of despair.

She changes her mind after the baby brings her back and gives her a vision telling her to follow Cas to Heaven. And when I say changes her mind, I don't mean, just decides to not attempt suicide again -- she goes from, presumably, wanting to be a single mom to wanting to Make Sure Baby Is Powerful Enough To Save The World. While Sam's plan to strip the baby of his powers has the potential to save her life (and is objectively a good idea anyway), she tells Sam and Dean that the baby being born with powers is "the only thing that matters." It's a complete 180 from that moment of despair when she tried to end her own and her child's lives.

Now let's look at the episode from Cas' point of view. Cas starts out in a pretty dark place. He's been working with Heaven -- always a bummer -- and is now going to have to betray the Winchesters, all to kill someone he doesn't believe deserves death. He steals the Colt from under Dean's pillow and heads to where Dagon is hiding Kelly.

At the critical moment, he can't bring himself to shoot Kelly. Instead, he takes her to a motel, and the rest of their scenes that episode are the debate about whether the baby's powers can be used for good.

You can tell Cas wants to believe Kelly -- he's looking for a reason not to kill her and the baby. I think if all the shit hadn't hit the fan at the end of the episode, Cas would have come around on his own -- certainly he was willing to consider Sam's plan.

Instead, he gets mind-whammied by the baby too, who gives him a "vision" of "paradise" and he does something completely out of character -- puts Sam and Dean to sleep, leaves them unconscious next to the gates of heaven and drives off into the night with a delighted Kelly.

Those are two sudden, bizarre shifts in behavior. Kelly went from suicidal to drank-the-Koolaid hopeful, while Cas' end demeanor is almost robotic. Those are two people who have clearly been affected by some strong BabyGodMagicJuice.

But they don't stay that way. The next time we see them, in the season finale, they're in Parents Preparing for Baby mode, which is to say they're hopeful and happy, but also stressed out, afraid and able to listen to Sam, Dean and Mary when they show up.

We're back to the difference between faith and tunnel-vision. If Jack had given them faith, it would explain why they made sudden course corrections from a point of hopelessness to where they were able to do something they wanted to do anyway -- in Kelly's case, have her baby, and in Cas' case, save the baby (and Kelly. Kelly is the sacrificial lamb in all this. RIP Kelly. I'm so sorry your useless son didn't resurrect you a second time like he did Cas.) But if it's slammed into them quickly by a self-interested, all-powerful fetus of limited understanding and who really, really just wants to not die, the logic and caution don't have time to catch up, so it becomes tunnel vision. Course correction from their path of despair is the only thing they can think of, so Kelly's willing to turn down Sam's plan and Cas is willing to leave the Winchesters unconscious outside Heaven where angels could find them.

It makes what Jack did not evil, as much as just something natural -- again, faith is a theme with God and angels, which Jack is a product of -- without quite having the control to know how much is too much.

It happens to Dean and Kaia too

Dabb may have forgotten about "The Future" but since Berens wrote it, he didn't forget it, and he used that same thing again in "The Bad Place" in Season 13. In that one, Jack uses his powers to show Dean and Sam a vision of Mary in Apocalypse World.

The next thing Dean does is profess he'll "get Mom back, no matter what." And he means it -- when Kaia says she won't help them, he pulls a gun on her and tells her to "get in the damn car." It's a terrifying moment and fabulous acting on Jensen Ackles' part -- I'm legitimately scared of him right there. To be fair, Dean has done similar things -- remember he pulled a gun on a bunch of LARPing nerds when he thought they were refusing to tell him where Charlie was in Season 8 -- but this scene is meant to give the viewer chills.

Again, it's tunnel vision. Dean has spent the entire season telling himself Mary is dead, but we know he doesn't quite believe it -- he tells Sam to keep the faith for both of them and starts to ask Billie if she knows whether Mary's alive. But he can't make himself believe. When Jack gives him the vision, it not only offers Dean proof, it gives him faith. But again, the logic and caution haven't had time to catch up when he pulls the gun on Kaia -- he's like a religious fanatic threatening heretics.

Likewise, Kaia has a change of heart in the episode after Jack shows her a vision. Kaia has spent her life thinking her powers are a curse. While we don't know for sure based on this episode, there's every reason to believe that at one point, she hoped to control her powers. She obviously wanted to know about it enough that she had a relationship with Derek, who loved using his Dreamwalking powers if his art is anything to go by. After Jack shows her a vision, she's willing to help the Winchesters.

Again, they sort of follow the pattern started in "The Future." Characters who start out in a bad place get a vision from Jack and suddenly have faith to do what they said at the beginning of the episode they wouldn't do. 

But as countless historical examples have shown, faith can turn to tunnel vision in a hurry. As Robbins said, a good idea subjected to tunnel vision can have drastic consequences, as these episodes show.

The one that got away

None of this explains Sam.

No, I didn't forget about Sam. Jack showed him the vision of Mary too, and Sam was trying to STOP Dean from forcing Kaia to Dreamwalk at gunpoint. In fact, of these five characters who get a vision from Jack, Sam is the only one who doesn't seem affected by it at all.

You could say it's a by-product of Sam being the Evil Chosen One with some leftover Lucifer grace, but that wouldn't explain how all of Jack's other powers work on Sam. More likely, I think Sam already has faith. Of the three main characters, Sam has always been the most hopeful, the most optimistic. He was the one who believed in faith healers and angels before Season 4, and he was the one who thought God could help fight Amara. And of course, he was the one who thought Mary could still be alive and that Jack could help find her. Sam didn't need Jack's powers -- he's had faith all along.

So what?

I agree. So what? Nobody bothered to explain this and Jack's powers are gone now. We have an hour until the new season airs and I highly doubt even Berens will try to address this again -- there's too many other problems the characters are trying to solve, too many other dropped plots from the mess that was the second half of Season 13.

But it's a good idea if it's what Berens was going for, and another example of this show coming up with intriguing plots that tie so well with theme and character development. Without his powers, Jack may need to find some faith this season, so the potential to continue this theme is definitely there.