#the next step 9x22

[aliferousdreamer]

the last scene of tns 9x22...

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

sunflower, chapter ten

summary: Y/n accidentally left something out on the dish rack that wasn’t kitchenwares…

warnings: references to 9x22, allusion to masturbation, sex toys, kissing, naked female clothed male, oral (fem receiving), fingering, handjob, dirty talk, praise

word count: 2651

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Your breathing was heavy like you’d just finished a marathon. Well, you could call it that. You weren’t running, but we could still call what you just did for the past 1 hour and 28 minutes a marathon. Sure. You’d made yourself cum 3 times, so sure, you’d call that a marathon.

Blinking your eyes open, you toyed with the thought of just falling asleep, taking a nap, but no, you were an adult, you had things to do, people to see.

So, you slowly rolled up to a sitting position. Swinging your legs over the edge of the bed, you picked up your robe that had been lazily tossed on the chair in the corner. Putting it on, you looked back to the mattress and spotted the two toys you’d just been playing with. A curved purple dildo and a little egg-shaped vibrator. You should properly clean them now so that you wouldn’t forget. You lived alone! No secret trips to the sink in the middle of the night were necessary!

Picking them up, you strolled out into the kitchen and turned on the water. Pouring some soap onto the purple shaft, you slowly started to clean it, working it up and down. Letting your mind wander, you couldn’t help but play along. Your breath picked up again, as you traced its realistic texture with your fingertips, remembering how good it had felt, and it took just a few more seconds before you shook the fantasy out of your head and rinsed off the item. Quickly cleaning the other, staying on task, you laid them to dry on the dishrack, right next to your favourite yellow mug.

A few loud knocks caught your attention. Sauntering over to open it, you were surprised to see Spencer standing there. Immediately jumping into his arms, you squealed, “Spencer! You’re home!” raising yourself onto your tiptoes, you gave him a sweet kiss, “when did you get back?”

“Just now,” he smiled, walking you a few steps further into the apartment and swinging the door closed behind him, “I thought I’d surprise you.”

“Well, I usually don’t care for surprises, but I happen to really like this specific one, so I think I’ll let it slide,” you grinned, “so, how was the case? Did you catch the bad guy?”

Chuckling, he pulled back, still holding onto your hands, “yeah, it was fine, we did catch the bad guy,” he then added with a nod towards the kitchen, “mind if I grab a cup of coffee?”

“Sure,” you let go of him, “you know where it is,” then as you saw him disappear around the corner, you asked, “did you read anything good?”

“I reread war and peace at breakfast one of the mornings,” he bellowed from the other room, “I hadn’t read it in the original Russian before.”

“You know Russian?”

“Yeah, I do,” he answered, significantly quieter, “I, um, yes, I do know Russian.”

Amazed, you giggled, “just how many languages do you know?”

“Fluently?” he appeared again, steamy yellow mug in hand, “I’d say it’s 24, but I can get by in about 311,” he informed, looking over you with a smirk.

Your eyebrow shot up, “3-,” breathing out a heavy breath, “okay, uh, wow.”

Running his eyes over your body, he asked, “what about you, what did you get up to while I was in Long Beach?”

“Oh, not much. My life isn’t quite as dramatic as yours.”

“Really?” he gave you a smug smile.

“Yes,” you said quietly, confused as to why he didn’t believe you, then giggled lightly, “why are you looking at me like that?”

“It just seemed like you had fun without me.”

“What do you mean?”

Licking his lips, he looked into your eyes, squinting a bit as if he was trying to decide whether or not he should tell you, “I saw.”

“You saw…?”

“-your toys,” he smirked.

Eyes widening, you stammered, “y-you, um, oh.”

He bit his lip and set down his mug.

“Can you maybe just pretend that you didn’t see that?” you asked, absolutely mortified, “just go into the bathroom and let me hide them?”

“Y/n, I have an eidetic memory, don’t think it will make much of a difference now.”

“Urgh, don’t make it worse,” you whined.

“So,” he started, “did you have fun?”

“I, um,” oh screw it, this man had fingered you in his bathroom, can’t be shy now, “yes.”

Taking a step closer to you, “can I ask you something else?”

Throwing your arms up, you exclaimed, “sure! Can’t get much worse now.”

Looking down at your lips and then up into your eyes, he asked, “do you wanna have some fun right now?”

Was he asking you to… “fun?”

“Yeah,” he breathed out, snaking his hands around your waist.

Giggling, you nodded your head, “mhmm, o-okay.”

He couldn’t help but join in and gave you a giggly kiss. Bringing your hands up around his neck, the laughter quickly died down as you felt his large hands explore your body.

In between kisses, you asked, “so just to clarify, by fun, you mean-“, letting out a tiny moan as he found your ass and gave it a squeeze, his fingertips being dangerously close to something else, “-sex? Are we gonna-“

“No,” he interrupted, “not yet.”

“Then what do you mean? Are you just gonna touch me again?”

“Yeah, I wanna touch you,” he almost growled, “but in a different way this time.”

“How?”

“I wanna play with your toys as well,” he whispered against your lips. You whimpered in response and his fingers moved up under your shirt, softly touching your back. Raising your arms up, he got the message and pulled off your top. You weren’t wearing a bra, so the reveal stunned him slightly. Cursing under his breath, he seemed hypnotized, dropping your shirt on the floor and reaching out to touch your boobs lightly.

“Jesus Christ, you’re perfect,” he exhaled, brushing his thumb over one of your hard nipples, leaned down to give your lips a quick kiss, then whispered against your lips, “take the rest off, I’ll be right back,” and went back into the kitchen.

Obeying his command, you quickly fumbled with your pants, shrugging them off. When he returned, colourful items in hand, you were still in your underwear, thumbs on either side of the elastic waistband. Halting your movements, you decided to slow it down for him, giving him a bit of a show. Keeping your eyes locked on his, you slowly let them fall to the ground.

Your nerves picked up again as he kept looking at you, his mouth slightly agape, “you’re starring.”

“Because you’re beautiful,” he murmured.

Stepping closer to you, he made you jump slightly as you felt a low vibration directly against your clit. Letting out a small gasp, you clutched onto his forearm. Looking down, you saw your little oval vibrator, so tiny in his hand, pressed up against you.

You grinded into the sensation, pulling him down to give you a passionate kiss. Whimpering as he withdrew it, he requested, “get on the bed, Y/n.”

Biting your lip, your eyes never left his as you backed up and crawled onto the mattress. Setting the vibrator down on a table, he followed after you. Tossing the dildo further onto the bed before he joined you.

Sitting beside one another, he grabbed your face with both of his hands. Getting close enough to kiss, he shared your breath, “lay down for me.”

“Okay,” you hummed, pulling him down with you. Using the motion to land yourself another kiss, he didn’t leave it at your lips. First your jaw, then quickly your neck got littered with small pecks. Soon the dance moved down to your boobs, the kisses becoming sloppier and his small sounds becoming more frequent.

Travelling further down, he kissed over your stomach but took a hard turn just before reaching dripping folds, instead moving over the top of your thigh. Turning it slightly, you help by spreading them apart more, giving him better access.

Lifting his head from between your legs, he moved his hands up your torso, caressing your sides, “Is this okay?” he asked.

Raising yourself up on an elbow, you caught one of his hands on your waist and interlocked your fingers with it, “yeah.”

The combination of feeling his hot breath against your pussy and the intense look he gave you was almost enough to make you faint. But when you finally felt more than just his breath on you, you were sure you’d faint. Head spinning, you fell back against the pillows. Your grip on his hand only tightened, clutching both of yours around it, clinging onto it for dear life, but also as a way to stay grounded and not float off to some far off dimension.

“F-fuck, Spencer!” you moaned, sliding one hand down and digging the nails into his forearm. He had started by just giving you a few slow licks, just to let you get used to him being there, touching you like that. But as soon as your hips buckled up, in search of more, he latched himself onto your clit and didn’t let go, “you-, oh my go-, your-, uhh!”

Gibberish kept flowing from your lips, not making any sense, but apparently, Spencer got your message and hummed in response, the vibration adding another layer of pleasure. Tugging his hand up closer to your face, you pressed your cheek against it. You felt his thumb move to your parted lips, brushing over them. Swirling your tongue around it, feeling him pushed it further into your mouth, you closed your lips around it. Hollowing your cheeks, you hummed around the digit.

Your legs tried to close around him, but he pressed his free hand on your thigh, keeping them parted. Dragging his tongue through your folds, his hand came up to join his mouth. As you felt them enter you, you released your lips hold on his thumb and looked down.

Hair a mess, his dilated pupils were locked on you as he sucked hard on your clit again. Pornographic sounds rolled off your tongue when his fingers curled inside of you, hitting your g-spot and making you that much closer to cumming.

When you finally felt the wave hit you, you couldn’t help but close your thighs around his head, but this time he didn’t seem to mind the contact, staying right there until your hips were buckling from the sensitivity.

Giving his hand a few lazy kisses, he came up to join you, the lower half of his face glossy from your juices. The sight of him hovering above you made your recovery quick, and soon your lips were on his again. Bringing your legs around his hips, you tried and failed to flip your bodies over, your own being way too relaxed to get the job done. But luckily, Spencer was Spencer, so he just rolled the two of you over.

Now straddling him, he sat up, taking you with him. Parting from your kiss, a string of saliva still keeping you attached, you whined, “I want more,” sliding your hand down to cup his hardness through his pants, “can I please touch you?”

His eyes fighting to stay open at the feeling of the light pressure you were applying, “I want this to be about you, Y/n, not me.”

“Please, I really really wanna make you cum,” you pleaded, attempting to work at his zipper, “let me touch you.”

“You sure?”

“Yes!” you practically moaned, definitely saying it a bit too loudly. Moving your legs so that only one of his thighs was between them.

Scooting back, he leaned against the headboard and undid his trousers. Biting your lip in excitement, it fell from between your teeth when you saw him pull his hard cock out. Pumping it a few times, you couldn’t help but grind down against his thigh. Keeping your vision locked on his slow, short movements, you whispered, “can I?”

“Yeah,” he breathed out.

Reaching out, you started by just touching your fingertips against the head, playing a bit with the drops of pre-cum. Then wrapping your fingers around it, brushing the pad of your thumb over the tip once more, before moving your fist down to meet his own, still grasping onto the base.

Flickering your eyes up to meet his, “can you… I don’t really…”

Feeling his hand cover yours, you smiled and leaned forward to kiss him. Following his move, you watched in fascination the reaction you gave him. Face flush, you could tell he was trying to keep quiet.

Rolling your hips against his leg, he let go of your hand and let you take control, groaning, “there you go, baby.” Placing his hands on either side of your hips, he lifted them, making you whine at the loss of contact. The whine did soon turn into a moan as you felt his fingers glide into you a couple of times.

“I have an idea,” he said, removing his hands from you and picking up the abandoned purple dildo laying beside you, “how about you sit on this?”

Raising up a bit more, you nodded vigorously.

Bring it down, he brushed the head against you. Moving your hips, you tried to get it closer to your entrance so you could sink down, but when you felt it in the right place he didn’t give you the chance, thrusting the tip of it up into you.

Letting out a gasp, your hand stilled, and he slowly guided the rest in, and when you were completely filled up, your legs twitched slightly from the sensation.

Stocking a hand over your forearm, he said, “you set the pace, baby.”

You didn’t fully get his meaning before you moved your hand again feeling him move the toy at the same pace. “Take your time, Y/n,” he panted, “find what feels good.”

Experimenting a bit, you found one that made your legs tremble. Keeping that up you struggled to stay upright, ending up leaning forward, burring your face in the crook of his neck. Feeling him angle it a bit more, putting the focus on that certain spot that made your toes curl, you found it difficult to keep up the attention on your hand’s movements.

“Jesus, fuck!” you moaned into his skin.

“You’re doing so good,” he cooed, “fuck, I’m close.”

All you could do was whine in agreement and increase your speed. Pumping furiously, it didn’t take long before you felt his fist return to yours, helping you along.

Letting out a low moan, you felt his load shoot all over your hand.

Never halting his movements with the toy, aware of how close you were, he thrusted it into you, keeping up a brutal pace. You just let go and crumbled into him. Repeating his name like a mantra into his shirt as you came.

Breathing heavy, face completely smooched, he slowly removed it from you, making you winch slight at how hard you were clenching down on it. Tossing it aside, he gave your head a kiss and tugged his dick back into his boxers before closing his pants again. Breathing in deeply, you sat up.

Raising your hand up to your lips, you licked a bit of the white cum off, tasting it. Looking up at him, he gave you a small smirk and breathed out slowly, “you…”

Turning your palm, you licked some up before it dripped further down, swallowing it, you asked innocently, “what?”

“You fuckin-,” inhaling sharply, “you know exactly what you’re doing.”

Your hand now clean, you moved closer to him and giggled, “does that mean I did good?”

Joining in on the giggle, “yeah, you did good, you were fucking perfect.”

“You were right,” tugging on his tie, “that was fun.”

next chapter

© 2022 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[cynicalone94]

Choose My Next Story

Alright guys, after two painful years my heart has healed enough to do what I said I would never do. I still think I will never be able to write anything that acknowledges anything that happened in canon after 10x3 but I'm ready to write a season 10 fix-it fic. In fact my muse has latched onto two separate ideas - one diverging immediately following 9x22 and the other at the end of 10x3. I will likely write both at some point but I need all of your help deciding which to write first.

For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I will title the options as simply Bolivia and No Bolivia but if you're interested in more details I'll post a short excerpt from each below the cut.

Thanks for your help!

Bolivia

“Hey.” Adam says as he walks in the door. “Look who it is!”

“How were you in South America for over a year and you’re still as white as ever?” Kevin teases playfully. 

“Kevin.” Kim scolds. “You can’t just ask someone why they’re white.”

Jay chuckles, signaling a bartender. 

“I told them to hold the round until you guys got here so it was still cold.” he tells them, standing up and kissing his wife. “How was work?”

“Closed on the case.” Kim says. “Voight told us to wrap up paperwork tomorrow.”

Hailey steps aside and Kim moves in, wrapping her friend in a hug. 

“Welcome home, Sergeant.” she says happily. “It’s good to have you back.”

“Thanks.” he says quietly, hugging her back. “Sorry I didn’t get a chance to see you guys before I left. Things went pretty quick.”

“You’ve apologized a hundred times.” Adam says. “We get it. That case hit you hard, man.”

“Should have been looking out better.” Kevin says. “Realized how much you were struggling.”

“How are you feeling now?” Kim asks. “Did it help?”

“Yeah.” Jay says, letting Kevin pull him in for a hug as well. “It did. I feel more… centered I guess.”

“Then it’s all good, bro.” Kevin says, moving aside to give Adam his turn. 

When Adam steps back, they all sit down just in time for the bartender to bring over a round of beers. 

Hailey pushes her chair so close to Jay’s that she’s practically sitting in his lap and the three officers don’t even try to conceal their grins. 

“So what’s next?” Adam asks after a minute. “Is the Army sending you back to Bolivia or…”

“Nah.” Jay says. “I signed a short term contract with them for this. Eight months and then the five month extension I agreed to. They’d love it if I signed on for another contract but I’m not planning on it. I got what I needed, did what I wanted down there, I don’t feel a need to go back.”

“What now then?” Kim asks. 

“Continuing the ricochet.” Jay says with a shrug. “Back to the CPD. I talked to Superintendent O’Neil this afternoon and he’s approved it already.”

“Hell yeah.” Adam says. “Did you talk to Voight? Are you coming back to Intelligence?”

“No.” Jay says, shaking his head. 

“Voight said no?” Kevin asks. 

“I didn’t ask.” Jay says. “I can’t just bounce back to where I was before I left. Life doesn’t work that way. And I… I don’t know what it was but I lost myself in Intelligence, I can’t just do what I was doing and hope it doesn’t happen again.”

“Where then?” 

“Area Central Homicide.” Jay says. “Sergeant Wilson is retiring in the next couple of months and O’Neil wants me to take his place. I’ll start next week as a detective, getting my bearings back and learn the nuances of Area Central. Take the Sergeant’s Exam in two months.”

“No way bro.” Kevin says, tilting his head. “That’s awesome.”

“Long overdue.” Adam says. 

“You’re a natural leader, Jay.” Kim agrees. “They’ll be lucky to have you over there.”

“Thanks guys.”

Hailey raises her glass. 

“To Jay.”

“To Jay.” the team choruses. 

No Bolivia

“So.” Adam says. “Not that I’m complaining about you wining us but what’s up?”

“No wait.” Kevin says. “If this is you apologizing for being extra broody lately, you don’t need to. We’re all blaming Voight anyway. Adam even told him so yesterday.”

Jay raises an eyebrow. 

“That’s not the primary reason I asked you guys to join us tonight.” He says. “But before we get to that, I do want to apologize. Regardless of whose fault it is, and however much I appreciate whatever Adam said to Voight, I have been short with you guys lately and you don’t deserve that so I’m sorry.”

“We get it.” Kim says. “We don’t know exactly what happened between the two of you but we’re all in agreement that whatever it was, we’re on your side.”

“You don’t have to tell us.” Adam adds. “Unless you want to.”

“You don’t want to know the details.” Jay says, shaking his head. 

North may have been dealt with but its not impossible for the case to resurface someday with another agent. He doesn’t want the three of them getting drug into the cover up too. 

“I did something I’m not proud of to help him out of a jam.” He offers. “And in return he promised not to put me in that position again. And then he broke that promise during the Los Temidos wrap up.”

Hailey covers his hand with hers, silently reminding him that she’s here. 

“I don’t know if things would have ended any differently if he’d listened to me but I do know that he made me a promise, broke it and the result was someone dying. I’m just… having a hard time letting that go.” He finishes quietly. 

“Sorry man.” Kevin says. 

“Yeah.” Adam agrees. “That’s shitty.”

“No wonder you’ve been brooding.” Kim adds. 

“Yeah.” Jay says with a humorless laugh. “Anyway, the reason we’re here is so that I can tell you that you won’t have to deal with that much longer.”

“Jay, you -”

“The hell does that mean?” Adam cuts Kim off with suspicious eyes. “If Voight is kicking you off the team, I will kick his ass.”

“He’s not.” Jay says, an almost real smile on his face. “I am leaving but it’s my decision. Not his.”

Adam visibly backs down. 

“Makes sense, bro.” Kevin says. “I’d be sick of him too.”

“That’s not –” Jay stops, shaking his head. “Sergeant Wilson over at Area Central Homicide is retiring in a little over a month and a half. Superintendent O’Neil has asked me to take his position. I’ll be moving to Area Central next week to start learning the nuances of the department while I study for the Sergeant’s Exam.”

Three pairs of eyes bug out of their skulls. 

“And I do want, hell need, to get away from Voight. We can’t keep going on like this. It isn’t fair to you guys to have to deal with us sniping at each other and it puts you all in danger.” Jay adds with a sigh. 

“I’m still processing that you’re taking Area Central Homicide’s Sergeant position.” Kim says. “That’s a huge department with an insane caseload. A big ask for a brand new sergeant.”

“Did you hear what he’s just said though?” Adam asks. “He’s not leaving to get himself away from the shit, he’s leaving to protect us.”

“Which already makes him a better Sergeant than Voight.” Kevin says quietly. 

[cpd-55055]

I have a lot of questions and let me know what you think about it 😊

1.have you been a "Linstead" fan?

2. did you find "Linstead" toxic too?

3.what do you think are your 5 reasons why "Upstead" is better than "Linstead"?

4.do you think are "Burzek" endgame?

5.did you find the "final" 9x22 as boring as I did? 😂 and do you think it only served hailey as a "full circle story"?

6. if a pregnant hailey should come 🙏🏻 do you think they will take the same route as kim did in season 7?

7.do you think that jay and hailey heal each other from the trauma of their past and be their medicine for each other so to speak?

8. do you think jay and hailey are stronger together than individually?

9.when are you expecting a pregnant hailey? and do you think there will be a time jump if she should be pregnant or not?

Thank you for your answers 😀

All the juicy questions, I love it! ����

Nope! Never have, never will.

To a certain degree, yes. I never saw Jay and Erin being an endgame couple. Their relationship was really one-sided. We only ever saw Erin's troubles and never saw Jay's. Their relationship was pure lust. There was no communication, no trust/honesty. I could go on and on about why I hate Linstead, but in summary, I never saw Linstead to last, even if Erin stayed.

Top 5 Reasons why Upstead is better than Linstead: 1) They communicate. 2) They are honest. 3) They trust each other more than anything. 4) They never give up on each other and their relationship. 5) They are always a team.

I used to think they were, but now I don't think so. Burzek is so messy and complicated that I have officially hopped off that ship. They eventually will end up together, or else the writers wouldn't keep teasing Burzek. It may take another 10 seasons; it may happen in S10. If they end up together, great, I am happy for them. If they decide to just be friends, that's okay as well.

Lol! Yes, the finale was definitely boring. Compared to the S8 finale, it was disappointing. PD usually delivers an intense, jaw-dropping finale. Don't know what happened this year. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 9x22 felt like any other episode. I need a cliffhanger, some angst, and drama. It was also disappointing how they completely brushed over the explosion. Like seriously, Hailey just got blown up, and now she's back at work??? 🤦🏻‍♀️

Hopefully not. I really hope that if they do introduce a pregnancy story for Hailey, it's one with a happy ending. But knowing the writers and how much they love drama, anything is possible. 🤞🏼

Oooohh...I like this analogy. In some way, yes, they are each other's "medicine". Jay had the most change and growth since Hailey became his partner, so it has to make sense that she has some influence in his life.

Absolutely! 1000% Jay and Hailey have screwed up many times in the past, but it has always been when they are alone. Camilla and Angela West were all mistakes Jay made when he was alone. For Hailey, it was Darius Walker, Gael, and Roy Walton, all mistakes when she was without Jay. They balance each other so well. They keep each other grounded and call each other out on their crap. So yes, I do believe Jay and Hailey are stronger together than alone.

From all the foreshadowing we got from S9, I wouldn't be surprised if we got pregnant Hailey sometime in S10. Logically, kids and starting a family is the next step in their relationship. If we don't see it happen in S10, then definitely in S11.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hello there. I have a question (more like a thesis): What would have happened if Cas told the Truth anywhere between season 7 and 15? Do you think it would have had the same impact on Dean? Logically speaking Cas could have told him anytime.

Oh gosh, yes. I mean Dean’s reaction in season 15 is still the best it could have been really :P He was in the best place and most accepting of himself and he still had a BSOD for a moment and then Cas had to shove him away so he could go die... (Assuming you take the on screen boring presentation of what happened as canon and not throw in the reciprocation, tears, pull in for a kiss, etc that we know exists either in our hearts or on Jackles’ phone.)

I’ve been thinking about this and the parameters we’d have to apply if we were gonna get something like the show being self-healing back to its self as we know it but we were allowed a confession. Also the show has to be as punishing as ever. So these are my personal theses on each season... 

Season 7 the confession would have to be after Cas comes back, and everything in 7x17 that looked like Dean was jealous of Daphne and Meg textually was meant to be read that way in the set up for the confession. To make it the most painful obviously we still get Cas exactly as he was all through to the end of the season and he never really says anything too different but then right when they’re having the “cursed or not” discussion he’d bust out of nowhere that he supposes it is inevitable Dean would talk him into going on this dangerous mission to get Dick because obviously Cas loves him. And Dean, who is in a weirdly zen sort of place in the remaining minutes of season 7 after Bobby’s send off and final words that helped him go make up with Cas, is in a similarly season 15 oddly okay spot, mental health wise. At least. COMPARED TO ALL THE REST OF SEASON 7. But I still personally have always read it as a genuinely good place for him that could have endured much longer if not for *gestures everything that happened after stabbing Dick* and obviously making up with Cas was step one and a huge part of his process. 

(idk if you’ve noticed but 7x23 pretty much has no Sam and Dean interaction after Bobby’s send off, and their last good broments are really scarce; it feels sort of natural for abrupt calamity and no time for teary farewells in a season with a strong commentary on grief, which also hyperfocuses the attention on Dean n Cas there.)

So I think Dean would maybe be stunned but maybe quirk a sceptical smile like “He can’t mean it like that and anyway he’s currently coo-coo, this doesn’t mean anything hahaha oh Cas :)))” and then idk shake his head and move the story on and Cas just turns one longing look after him like “dammit that didn’t work out like planned” 

Anyway then the exact plot beats of 7x23 follow, exactly as seen on your screens, but we’re left going into season 8 and Carver era with Dean far far more messed up about Cas and it can force clarification in 8x02 in Purgatory where Cas is entirely adamant he meant what he meant and furious at Dean for being mad at him and Dean’s mad at Cas for all the season 8 reasons so they continue angsting at each other but Benny’s reaction shots are just 10x funnier. This is followed by Dean’s reciprocation of “I love you” instead of “I need you” in the crypt scene in 8x17 and from there honestly it’s been built up into canon in such a way that the emotional arc of the show has to go off the wheels and I can’t keep to the self-healing model to continue following the “real” plot and contain this much raw power.

Coincidentally, if the first confession is in season 8, it would be “what broke the connection” after a season 8 where nothing was different up until that point. Cas flaps off while Dean is still processing that the answer was “You. I love you.” and Dean is left yelling at the empty crypt like “What the hell, Cas?!” 

Then he’s as mad at him as he was in canon except instead of being borderline a really bad overreaction into his anger phase which we have to weather as miserable fans tethered to this ship who know sometimes Dean gets mad and yells at Cas for no reason, he’s reacting proportionately. It’s always seemed like 8x22 only makes sense if Dean is furious at Cas for confessing and fleeing except, obviously, in our “”real”” canon, it can only be like Cas confessed and Dean took it that way and also felt embarrassed how far he went with his own feelings only for Cas to run. 

This would make the bar scene with the cupids in 8x23 make a lot more sense too, and after they get the cupid bow Dean’s going to turn to Cas and give him a nervous smile, and then - Naomi flaps in like she does and distracts them away from reciprocation. 

I think this one could go long - maybe even season 13 Cas being dead and Dean being like “FUCK I never got a chance to work things out with him” and 13x06 onwards is where we get any actual work on the ship, because Carver era was so determined to be emotionally gruelling and unsatisfying and relentless from one issue to the next. And the confessions are so bound up specifically in the moments of miscommunication or failed attempts, cut off conversations etc that whether Destiel is canon or not, they’re never gonna get to talk it out under those conditions. Cas is only explicitly the grieving wife and jealous ex to Crowley’s smug take over of Dean’s affections rather than subtextually. 

The season 9 confession... I feel like we’d come perilously close to the Monkey Paw curse we once envisioned of Buckleming making it canon because they love jumping the gun on plot points and making them too obvious. So the end of 9x03, Cas is really blatantly angling to come in with a big “Hey I’m human can I live in the Bunker look at me I learned to do The Sex can we do it now” kind of vibe. All the enthusiasm he was giving to eating that burrito in the background while “Zeke” was trying to get him kicked out, but with lusting over Dean :P 

If we avoid that we can leap to Mr Bobo Berens and his first episode, and have this thing handled by a pro, as it’s already very much about Cas as a homeless queer man with a bad ex he still loves rolling into town where he’s just trying to make a new life and play straight - I mean human - for his own survival. I suspect the confrontation with Iphraim would make it really obvious that Cas didn’t just want to live as a human but had an eye for living as a human with Dean, and then he’d attempt a confession right before Dean would accidentally talk over, like, the L in “love” honestly, to tell him that sorry things do still stand that you can’t come back with me. Leaves Cas utterly devastated but Dean is none the wiser and he drives off and Cas pines piningly at the pine trees in his Gas n Sip. 

Again the end of season probably would force the real confession, since there’s a ready made moment in 9x22 where Hannah tries to force Cas to kill Dean and he gives it all up for one man. Cas can just lower that knife and be like, “No, I love him,” talking to his shoes and Hannah rather than meeting Dean’s eyes. Mark of Cain Dean is fuuuucked up at that point but we still get the moment where Dean carries Cas’s bag into the bunker and sits down with him and tries to care about his health and now also this confession. Sussing out what the heck is up with Cas, and maybe he looks like he’s playing it cool and is still so messed up but Cas is vulnerable, and finally Dean starts to reach across the library table for his hand, and it’s a moment where maybe things could have started to go better for them...... Cue Gadreel walking into the library, Dean going feral, blah blah demon!Dean, blah blah explicitly stated Drowley, blah blah muuuch healing and Cas giving Dean a wide berth for a lil while. Though, in this scenario, 10x22 is far worse but has the reverse crypt scene moment, so Dean can be more obviously unable to kill Cas because he loves him, and then he walks out, followed by season 11 and Cas being returned to them. Unfortunately. Yep. Another finger curls on the Monkey Paw... 11x03 by Buckleming would absolutely be where Destiel goes undeniably canon as it is their first real interactions post Mark of Cain. Our only consolation - directed by Jensen Ackles.

Season 10 confession, hm. Poor Cas. He has the option of 10x03, of confessing and then immediately apologising and walking off to handle stuff with Hannah (thanks Buckleming!) or the Burger Date, where Dean may be slightly less stunned stupid but still likely to laugh it off and not believe it. There’s not much heavy tension between them most of the season so it’s possible that the only time Cas would really get is to confess in 10x22 while telling Dean that he would have to watch him murder the world, and that would suck because I love you. At which point the story dictates that Dean beats Cas to paste so it’s a very bad look. Season 10 destiel confession is the worst. 

Season 11 may be better because Cas has options to be jealous of Crowley and Dean’s connection to Amara multiple times and then Casifer happens and that can really play up things in a season where a confession is coming. 

I think the Beer Run in 11x23 might be the only viable place, where Dean grabs Cas and takes him out for that drive for last drinks before the end of the world. Cas gets the “you’re our brother” thing and just lays into Dean with the certainty of someone who knows this is it - now or nothing - with “You know that’s crap, Dean. You wait until the end of the world and you can’t even say it. Well I can; I love you.” 

Cue awkward tension, well-placed interrupting Moose, and then the world very much not ending so that when Dean n Cas hug and kiss in front of Mary in 12x01. Well. There’s even more explaining to do to her. Since we’ve made it to Dabb era, I believe any confessions from this point onwards can just slot into the show as we got it from there since it’s entirely compatible to start season 12 assuming Dean n Cas are literally married and never be contradicted by the text in their behaviour. But since we’ve had canon Destiel since whenever, obviously the final episodes are good instead of. That.

Season 12... Going to have to go with the first sniff of true canon coming in Lily Sunder with just a few lines leaning even further in the Cas’s Angel Family Are Homophobic Assholes metaphor, leaving Cas’s relationship with Dean even more live wire exposed. Followed by The Mixtape Scene where Cas is going to confess to Dean and get him startled up out of his seat, accidentally knocking the mixtape to the floor and for a moment it’s like, did he throw it is he mad? but then he’s smooching Cas, fade to black, return to scheduled programming but the whole line about Cas stealing the Colt from under Dean’s pillow makes fuckin sense, as well as the fall out argument and how mad Dean was at Cas followed by how devastated he was at Cas’s death. This just means Dabb era continues as planned except we get a kiss in 13x06 under that big glowy cross, and some more smooching here and there when things are good from then on. 

Season 13... Hm. Cas has to do the confessing and I don’t think he’d throw that at Dean on return from death so unlike if Dean was the one who was being made to confess obviously the aforementioned glowy cross scene obviously would be it for him... Cas could keep that bottled up much longer, especially as he has so much to do with Jack this season. It’s entirely possible we go through the whole season and then Cas lobs it at Dean as a final card when he’s making his Michael decision and we actually see the scene that we didn’t get, where Cas has to watch Dean getting possessed. Except Dean is like, tearful and furious like why would you tell me that now, and anyway i’m doing this for you as well dumbass but fuck you but also how dare you anyway I need to be an archangel now and save our - your - son, bye. Cue Cas sitting there not just in total horror at what happened but also kicking himself for fucking up the moment :P I guess this way at least we can have that moment where Dean is un-Michaeled and tells Cas he’s going to shower and finger guns at him, and now we can have Cas wordlessly and furiously follow him. 

Season 14, we get Cas at Rocky’s bar confessing to Dean while figment!Pamela cheers the whole thing on. If there was EVER a time to use the power of love to snap Dean out of it, Cas upsetting his cosy routine with “this isn’t real, I’M NOT HERE IN YOUR FANTASY” is absolutely the time to pull a reverse crypt scene which has such low stakes in terms of neither of them needing to punch each other when Michael is an external aggressor.

My ONLY issue with this is that Sam has to witness the whole thing and we would get reaction shots and I am a weak mortal who will start cackling at them when I’m supposed to be having the transcendent moment of canon and the whole thing would be ruined just because of the way Jared gurns when doing reactions to dean n cas interacting. Wow thanks. Thanks a lot. 

[theskyequakess]

oh hey y’all, welcome to that moment in the day where I wished i was completely fluent in english, otherwise known as my rant about HIMYM finale.

Please take a seat.

ohhhh where do i start? because i got too much to say, but i won’t probably said it all because i’m way too biased with Robin that i can’t really put on an objectively rant

but yeah, i’m really pissed. maaaaan, what was that??? were we a joke to them??? I CAN’T BELIEVE IT

First of all, i can’t believe they broke Robin and Barney that way.

After this:

“I love everything about her, and I'm not a guy who says that lightly, I'm a guy who has faked love his entire life, I'm a guy who thought love was just something idiots felt, but this woman has a hold on my heart that I could not break if I wanted to. And there have been times when I wanted to. It has been overwhelming and humbling, and even painful at times, but I could not stop loving her any more than I could stop breathing. I'm hopelessly, irretrievably in love with her. More than she knows.” 

they really want me to believe that Barney was going to give up and let go Robin that easily??? REALLY???

THAT MAN WAS SO WHIPPED FOR ROBIN.

He wanted to change for Robin, and he did it. And even though he changed, he never lost his spirit and his true self. Because Barney wasn’t only a womanizer nor a “sociopath”. He was one of the most loyal and sweetest person ever, he proved it so many times. And the way he loved Robin... there was never a doubt about his love for her.

And although i loved “The Robin” so much, there was a big detail for me that kinda bother me so much. The last step: “hope she says yes”. Again, I LOVED The Robin, but that was so precipitate. Again, i didn’t doubt they love, but asking her for marriage, in that point was to much. Barney didn’t need to ask her to marry him just to prove his love (or commitment) to Robin. THEY NEEDED MORE TIME. THEY NEEDED MORE TIME DATING, HANGING OUT, RECONECTING, etc. Although they did good after that (even with fights and disagreements), but i would’ve liked for them to have more time just being them without rush everything for the wedding. So i really think they did dirty on them in that aspect.

And for Robin...  she estranging from the gang... that shit is what hurts me the most. It truly breaks my heart, because as we knew, she didn’t have other people outside of them, as she was also estranged from her family. It breaks my heart to think that she forced herself to leave the group because it was too much for her having Barney and Ted there. When she tells Lily that all she sees is two happily married couples and her ex-husband banging other girls (i’m sorry i don’t remember the exact words and i refuse to watch it again), it’s so painful to hear that, to know that she needed to leave them for herself...

Also, I do not entirely agree with what they did with Robin and her work. Yes, she loved her work, her dream... but i’m pretty sure she would’ve found a way to make it work with her relationship and Barney. I refuse to believe that they would give up without a fight. (and by that i mean, without trying, not literally... well literally too?)

I don’t want to say more about Ted-Robin’s relationship, because towards the end i was really done with that. For me, Ted was an important person for Robin, but not in a romantically way. She stated that numerous times. She said no to Ted multiple times. She made it clear. While Ted... well.

For me it’s hard to believe that after all this time, Ted is just going to ask Robin out just like nothing happened and this time it will work… it’s been so long, people change, circumstances change, they’re not the same people, they’ve changed…it feels so unreal to me.

Next.

I have to go back with Barney again, after the divorce, they threw away all his development and that pissed me too. But i truly love him having Ellie. And i hate that we didn’t get to see him being a dad, even for a little moment.

In a very unperfect and selfish dream(?) for me, Robin would’ve returned with Barney and Ellie.

I still can’t believe that they killed Tracy, and still can’t believe that in that super short time i loved her. She was delightful.

Almost done with this, but i would’ve liked to see more of Lily and Marshall’s family by the end. To see Marvin, Daisy and the newest -and unnamed- baby all together. And learned more about what happened to them, because yes, we knew that Marshall became a judge and eventually in a judge for the Supreme Court. But what about Lily? 

Well, at least i’m thankful that they didn’t ruin them.

 Anyways, i think the part that most hurt me was to know that eventually they were gonna grow apart because that’s how life works, and that sucks, and that’s real, BUT MY EMOTIONAL UNESTABLE SELF WASN’T PREPARE FOR THAT.

(oh how i want to have a friendship like this)

Anywayssss, how to unsee the last to episodes? for me it all should’ve ended in 9x22. 

Conclusion:

Robin and Barney were endgame. We were robbed.

I need to improve my english.

[supernatural-book]

Born To Be Yours (2/4)

Title: Born To Be Yours (Gadreel x Reader)

Summary: After being sent away from the bunker by Dean, the Reader reflects on her feelings towards Gadreel, while the angel faces a decision as to whether he wants the Reader or his supposed second chance more, and questions what he’s willing to do for it.

A/N: Here’s the second part!!! Once again, all violently based off of the songs on my “Born To Be Yours” playlist (All Imagine Dragons stuff). I changed the times of day when things happen (the ending of 9x22 happening early in the morning instead of however it was in canon), but kept most of it generally canon-friendly (unfortunately). Also it’s 1:51 am omg I was only halfway through 4 hours ago and I just couldn’t go to sleep without finishing this.

Word Count: 5,440

You had always seen the bunker as your home just as much as Sam and Dean had. When Sam and Dean had moved in a year ago, they had promptly called you, knowing the bad situation you were in. Now, you had spent the past year helping them on cases in return to the kindness they’ve shown you giving you a place to call home. You’ve grown to love the boys as if they were your own family, and now look what was happening.

You remembered the first look you had of the bunker. Dean had called you the other day and told you where it was, asking you to come. You knew the very first moment you saw the bunker that you would come to love living with the boys.

“Come on, (Y/N)! You’re a bad ass hunter. We’d love to have you here with us!”

Now, you were taking your last look at the place you called home, the back of your car filled with bags of your belongings. You felt as if, once again, you lived on the road. You reached for your phone blindly and clicked on the name that you knew you may not ever call again. You blinked back the tears as he answered, the same gruff, troubled voice you’ve come to love. But, he made it clear that you weren’t wanted there, so you focused on what you really cared about. “Dean, I’m gone now. When are you letting Gad go?”

“We’re taking him to Meta-douche now. He gave us Cas back, so you can thank him for persuading us to do a fair trade. Why do you even care about him so much?” You thought over what he said. Why did you feel so drawn to this angel? Even before you got to know him, there was something there, you could tell.Whether or not he goes to you after we let him go is up to him. Then you’ll see if you should’ve trusted him or us.” You tried to ignore the bitterness of his voice as you hung up the phone and tossed it to the passenger’s side floor. You couldn’t stop the tears that dropped from your eyes as you pressed the accelerator harder, just trying to get away from there, hoping maybe, just maybe, you could start over. You couldn’t, logically, you knew. You couldn’t stop loving Sam and Dean like family. You’d keep hunting, definitely, not like you wanted to stop anyway. You’d never stop worrying about Castiel, and you would never, ever be able to shake the feeling in your gut when you thought of Gadreel. You thought back to what Dean said “Whether or not he goes to you after we let him go is up to him.” Of course he'd come back to you.

Right?

Soon after you had left, the boys had shackled Gadreel’s wrists together and forced him into the trunk of the Impala. He could have easily tried to fight back, but he was thinking of you. If he didn’t fight back, he’d be free sooner. And the sooner he was free, the sooner he would be able to see you. He didn’t want to do anything to screw that up. Before they took Gadreel, though, Castiel found a moment alone with him. He knew, even if his brother was in the wrong, he was being manipulated by Metatron. He truly wanted Gadreel to come to the right side, for both his sake and yours. It was hard to see an angel so misguided as him being manipulated once again by the same angel who had tricked Castiel himself. “Gadreel.” He looked up from the chair he was still chained to.

“Castiel.” His face darkened. “You are here to sway my loyalties. I-”

“No, brother.” Castiel closed the door to the dungeon, knowing it was only a matter of time before the boys came back to get Gadreel. “I know about you and (Y/N). You feel drawn to her, yes?” Gadreel nodded, his face softening at the sound of your name.

“I do. I can feel the pull whenever I am near her.”

“You understand what it means?”

“Yes.” a somber look over took his face. “For her sake, I wish it were not that. But there is something special about her, brother. She… listens to me. I...” Castiel couldn't help the smile that lifted his face at his naive brother's unknown emotions.

“I understand. She is quite the compassionate being. She cares for you greatly- not simply because of the pull. I would suggest to go and see her after you are freed, seeing as she is one of the few who don’t yet see you as a bad person. She worries for you.” Castiel let his words settle in the fallen angel’s mind before turning towards the door. “I do not say this for your sake, but for hers. I urge you to listen to what Metatron is making you do, and rethink what you’re choosing. For (Y/N).” The boys had come in soon afterwards and taken Gadreel, throwing him into the trunk of the Impala. He couldn’t move, and his broken wings were in pain in the darkness of the small trunk. He couldn’t help his thoughts from travelling to the memories of his time in prison, and he instead forced himself to think of you during that long ride back.

That evening, Gadreel was back in Metatron’s office in Heaven, Castiel’s urging words still hanging over him. Metatron was speaking to him about the war in Heaven, but Gadreel really couldn’t care less. He hadn’t been able to focus for hours, and the last thing he wanted to think about right now was the things he had been doing with Metatron.

“I have one last thing for you to do before we continue.” He handed him a small slip of paper with that terrible smile of his and Gadreel immediately knew what he meant.

“Must I kill another?

“This is the last person. I noticed they've been getting in your way. Coming between you and I. We can't have that.” Gadreel unfolded the small paper and swore his vessels heart stopped for a moment. “Hey, if you want your second chance…” Gadreel ripped his eyes away from the name. “...this is it.”

After driving through sunset and for the next 24 hours with only short stops for gas and bathroom trips, you had finally decided you were far enough away, and settled down in a hotel with your small amount of cash and whatever you had packed into the car with you. With your body begging for sleep and the day’s stale occurrences still on your mind, you climbed into the shower and took a longer time than usual, washing away all the nerves and thoughts of the day. What had happened that let Dean and Cas know where you and Gadreel were? Why were they even that upset? Gadreel was the only one who listened to you. The boys were too caught up in everything else, and you just wanted to help Gadreel to not feel so guilty.

You couldn't help but get worried as the night grew darker and Gadreel still hadn't showed up. He would show up, wouldn't he? You lay sitting on your bed, sipping a cup of coffee that you’d bought on the road, forcing your eyes to stay open just in case of the angel’s return. There was nothing you could do but wait or pray.

“Hey, Gadreel. Are you there? I really do miss you. And I’m sorry about what the boys put you through. Just, don’t be mad at me, please.” Sometimes, you needed to hear yourself in order to see how much you really needed him. Tears blurred your vision, and seeing that the boys were nowhere near here, you let them fall willingly. You cried for everything that happened in the past year with the boys. Everything you had gone through. You cried for them, for you, and for Gadreel.

A knock on your door interrupted your tears. You hesitated, not wanting to get up for room service of any sort. But, feeling a tug in your heart, you suddenly felt that it could be Gadreel. You pushed yourself up off of the bed, not bothering to wipe away the tears as your steps across the room quickened. The doorknob was centimeters from your hand as you felt your heart pound once again, forcing you to throw the door open. You were immediately met by a large figure in the doorway, standing still with a worried look adorning his features. He opened his mouth and spoke with a polite, gentle voice.

“(Y/N).” You didn’t hesitate for a moment as you stepped towards him, wanting to collapse in his arms, tears becoming vehement.

“Gad…” You curled yourself into him, arms snugly around his waist. Your heart seemed to surge towards him, in a way you’d never felt with anyone before. You’ve been in love in the past, but those feelings had nothing on how you felt right now. It was as if your heart wanted to jump out of your chest and couple with his. Gadreel stood, frozen, and though you couldn’t see, his mind was flashing back and forth, considering his options. With your arms still wrapped around him, he stepped into the room, closing the door. Sensing the uncomfort in the room, you looked up to his gentle green eyes. “Is something wrong? Did they do something to you?” He gently removed your arms from around him, shaking his head no.

“Nothing is wrong, (Y/N). Were you worried I would not come?”

“Well, you took your time getting here.” His eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“(Y/N), you know I cannot fly. I had to drive.” Oh. Your cheeks were lit aflame, and you were ashamed you hadn’t thought of that before. You felt so stupid. So caught up in how much you needed him to be here with you, that you didn’t even take the time to realize that he has to drive. “Do not feel unintelligent.”

“Still, Gad. You’re a horrible liar. You’re even more tense than usual. Tell me what’s wrong.” He shifted on his feet, avoiding your red, teary eyes.

“You are correct. I believe in integrity, so I have no choice but to tell you.” Finally taking the time to wipe your tears, you stepped back to sit on the bed, patting the space next to you.  He made his way towards you hesitantly, and sat on the edge of the bed, hands spread on his thighs in a very forced looking way. “Sam and Dean took me back to Metatron.” You frowned. You wanted to stop Gadreel right here and tell him that that man was manipulating him, but you held your tongue. “They had me handcuffed in the trunk of their vehicle. It reminded me of… times I would rather not remember.”

“That’s why you’re all stiff and nervous looking?” He sighed and lifted his gaze to look at you, only to drop it back to his lap a moment later.

“Metatron gave me a task. He says I must complete it in order to be redeemed.” Your fists clenched unconsciously on your lap. So that douche bag was still trying to get Gadreel to kill for him. Still playing him.

“Gad, you know that’s not true, right? You’ve already redeemed yourself. You helped Sam, brought Cas and Charlie back from the dead, and I know you really want to help us! You don’t need to work for Metatron.” Gadreel’s lips tightened into a harsh line.

“I am helping my brothers and sister get back to Heaven. After all the mistakes I have made, this is the least I could do to help them.” You only nodded, not wanting to argue with him right now. A short breath escaped his lips. “But, I am not certain that is what Metatron wants. And I… I don’t think I can do it. That is why I came to you.”

“Well, what is he asking you to do that you started to change your mind?” Once again, Gadreel shifted uncomfortably. “Gad?”

“He’s asked me to kill.”

“Well, you have killed for him before, haven’t you?” He frowned, eyes shadowed by the memories of the ones he’s killed. “Sorry, Gad. But it’s true. He’s a bad guy, and he’s trying to make you a bad guy too.”  

“Metatron said they were preventing us from finding a way to return to our home.”

“What was Kevin doing to prevent that?” Gadreel’s face fell, he glanced around as if trying to think of an answer.

“Metatron told me-”

“No, Gad! Tell me from what you know. Not what Metatron brainwashed you into thinking.” He finally lifted his head and looked at you. The look of worry and tension in his pale green eyes worried you. “What’s wrong? Who did he ask you to kill now?” He didn’t answer, and only reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small yellow slip of paper. You took it between your fingers and unfolded it.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N)”

“What?” It took you a moment to realize that you were the one he was supposed to kill. You stood up from the bed and stepped away from him, gaining distance between the two of you. You could only hope that considering all of the comfort you’d given him, he was going to allow you to live. There was no way you would be able to fight against an angel of the Lord, even if he was still not fully charged. He could kill you with one touch, just like he did to Kevin, and that terrified you. He stood from the bed, holding his hands up in front of him in a surrender.

“Please, believe me. I do not wish to hurt you.” He reached into his pocket and  pulled out a sliver angel blade, causing your heart to stop momentarily. Seeing your panicked look, he tossed the angel blade onto the floor. “(Y/N).”

“You’re not going to listen to him, are you?”

“Of course not. (Y/N), I need you to help me. I don’t want to work with him anymore.” He reached out, as if trying to persuade you to come closer. “Please, (Y/N).” You looked up and caught his even, begging gaze, suddenly not able to look away. The look in his eyes was not deceptive in the least. Where normally he’d guard his emotions and hide behind the tough exterior he needed to have through his torture, he was now letting all his feelings show. You could see everything in his eyes, and something in there pulled you into him. “(Y/N), do you trust me?”

It may have just been the look in his eyes, or maybe you were just tired of not being with him, but you broke down, letting yourself collapse into his arms. You couldn’t stop the tears from falling as you latched yourself onto the angel in front of you. As his arms curled around you gently, pulling you into him and cradling your head to is chest, you knew, from somewhere deep in your soul, Gadreel would never hurt you. Every time you were around him, no matter the circumstances- whether you were in friendly situations or you were helping the boys to capture him, much to your dismay- it all felt so right to be close to him. Your tears seemed to lessen over time as you hid yourself in the warmth of his vessel’s body, finding comfort in the soft fabric of his hoodie.

“(Y/N), can you feel the pull between us?” Gadreel’s low voice vibrated through his chest.

“Yeah.” You nodded, sniffing through the tears. “What is it Gad? It’s so… foreign. It’s like love but stronger. Like… my body relies on you.” Realizing what you had said, you pulled back from him slightly, embarrassed. He caught hold of your wrist before you could back away completely.

“There is nothing to be embarrassed about, (Y/N).” He let out a small huff of air, almost like a laugh. “I find it amusing that you are asking me to explain feelings to you. Often, you are the one to explain human emotions to me. You cannot help what your body feels around me. It is something my Father had written down in your soul.”

“What do you mean?” Something about the way he said God had written something down in you soul. “That sounds a little… scary, to be honest.”

“My dear (Y/N), this feeling is nothing to be afraid of. Shortly after the beginning of time, while I was still protecting the Garden, my Father gave certain human beings angelic counterparts. The angels were meant to watch over their human charges, and the humans are always meant to feel comforted in the presence of their angel’s grace.”

“Like, guardian angels?” A smile lit up Gadreel’s face for the first time all evening.

“I suppose. But it goes much deeper than the human concept of guardian angels.” His fingers trailed gently down your wrist to grasp your hand in his own, and he knelt down before you with a bowed head in a chivalrous and almost knightley way. “We were supposed to see the humans as beings much greater than ourselves, to care for them and worship them more than we’ve worshiped our own Father. And so, he gave a very lucky few angels human mates, with whom they are to combine their grace with.”

“Mates? Soulmates? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“After all my time in Heaven’s prison, I figured that my Father would not allow me to have a mate. And when I first saw you, I knew I was far from worthy of being yours.” You pulled him up off the floor, placing your hands on his jaw to focus his gaze on you.

“Gadreel, please. You are more than worthy of me.” The tips of your fingers danced along his jawline delicately, a soft silence falling between the two of you. Everything that the two of you had gone through in the last two days alone was too much and you had broken down twice already. A day ago, before Dean had found the two of you and thrown you out, you had come so close to kissing Gadreel in a spur of the moment feeling in the garden, surrounded by the delicate scent of roses. But now, with the knowledge that God himself had meant the two of you to be together, you knew in this moment that you wanted to do this. “We’re soulmates.” You fingers tangled together behind his neck, pulling him down to you and lifting yourself as high as you could reach. Your lips melded together in a gentle waltz, heads tilted slightly and noses bumping together in a soft rhythm. In a daring move, you brushed your tongue along his lips, pulling back immediately and sucking in a quick breath as if shocked at what you had done. You took the moment to admire the beauty of Gadreel’s flushed face, counting the soft freckles that were sprinkled like galaxies across his skin.

“Forgive me, I am unsure as to how to perform these activities.” You smiled, laughing at his awkward statement towards the passionate kiss. “I assume by this kiss you mean you accept me as your soulmate.”

“It’s not just the fact that we’re soulmates, Gadreel. I… well, I really care about you, okay? I’ve wanted to do that for a while. I guess I only felt confident know. Even when you spoke to me with Sam as a vessel, there was something about you. You’re… well, an angel.” Gadreel only tilted his head aside in confusion. “Okay, I mean you act how humans think angels would act. Not like the ones that I’ve seen, aside from Cas and some others. You’re… sympathetic. Kindhearted. Patient.”

“I could say the same about you. You spent time listening to me when nobody else would. When even I believed I was not good enough, you showed me the good things. You tried to show me the right things to do. I need to thank you for that.” You looked down, face flushed in modesty.”But I never listened to you. I continued to listen to what Metatron ordered me to. I did bad things for him. It took me until he told me to kill the one I loved the most to realize the fault in his ways. I hope you can find a way to forgive all that I’ve done, and help me to become a better person.”

“Of course, Gad.” Gadreel’s face lit up with a soft smile and you pulled him towards the bed. He sat down gently on the edge, and you promptly climbed up to the pillows and pulled the blankets around you. “Come on, snuggle up in here.”

“I don’t need to sleep.”

“Just because you don’t need to sleep doesn’t mean you can’t cuddle with me.” Gadreel seemed unsure as to what he should do, but promptly lay next to you, fully clothed. You couldn’t help but smile, thinking that was such a “Gad” thing to do. “Hey, hey. At least take your shoes and jacket off.” He nodded quickly, as if worried he had somehow disrespected you, and kicked off his shoes, stripping from his layers of jackets and settling down next to you. You turned onto your side, wanting nothing more than to press yourself into the angel’s warmth. Instead, you kept a respectable distance between your bodies. “You’ve never done this, have you?”

“No. I assume it is a way humans show affection?”

“That’s right. I care about you, alright? I might even... “ You stopped what you were going to say. “Gad, I really like you, alright?”

“It comforts me to know that. It is refreshing to have someone to talk to after all these years.” He shifted slightly, bed creaking under his weight. “I truly believe you are a miracle, (Y/N). In all of my life, I never imagined that all of my suffering would end, and having such a beautiful human as my own was unimaginable. When I first saw you, I knew I couldn’t keep it from you for long, but at the same time, you deserved much more than what I put you through.” He reached a hand up to lay delicately next to your cheek, fingertips stroking the soft skin occasionally. “I feel I am blessed that you were the one created to match my grace.”

“Gadreel…” You could barely form words. “I couldn’t ask for a better angel.”

“I hope I can prove my worth, beginning with my decision about Metatron. I do want redemption, but I realize now that he is not helping me. I will go to Sam and Dean tomorrow and ask for forgiveness. I want to help them. And maybe in the process, I can reclaim my good name.” You smiled and scooted closer to him, starting to feel more confident next to him.

“I’m so happy for you. See, Gad, this is how how you earn your second chance. Think for yourself, don’t let anyone control you.”

“Will you come with me to persuade them?”

“Well… I’m not sure if they’d want to see me yet. And I’m not sure if I really want to see them.” You saw his fall slightly, as if he were worried he wouldn’t be able to persuade them without you. “Hey, you’ll be great. Trust me. Dean may not like you a whole lot, but Cas at least would probably trust you. They’ve all made mistakes, just like you. No matter how dense they can be, they should be able to see that. And if you do start working with them, promise to come back and check in with me tomorrow evening.”

“Of course, my light.” Gadreel nodded softly as your eyes fluttered shut for a moment, shyly accepting the term of endearment.

“Anyway, you should tell me about what it means to be soulmates. I’m really interested.” You could barely keep your voice from failing.

“Another time, I promise. But now, (Y/N), you need to rest. I may already be gone by the time you awake.” Too tired to argue back that you could stay up with him, you nodded and curled into him further, managing one last sentence.

“I’ll pray to you in the morning, Gadreel.”

“And I will hear, (Y/N).”

Gadreel watched over you the entire night, eyes observing the steady rise and fall of your chest as you breathed, unconsciously moving you closer to him in the night, until you were practically on top of him and he could feel the beat of your heart echoing through the room. The morning came all too quickly, and he reluctantly pulled away, slipping his jackets and shoes back on and leaving the hotel room quietly as to not rouse you.

The drive seemed all too short, and before he knew what was happening, he was standing before the boys, asking for forgiveness. He had told them his desire to help, but still they seemed unswayed, so he thought back to the words you had told him the night before, when you were trapped between the soft warmth of blankets and his body heat.

“You don't trust me, fine. I understand. I've...made mistakes. But haven't you? Haven't we all?” He noticed a small change in Sam and Castiel’s moods, but Dean’s face stayed as harsh as it had been. “At least give me a chance.” The boys seemed to exchange glances before Dean stepped forward, left hand out in a seemingly friendly gesture. The next moment, Gadreel was on the floor of the bunker, bleeding out from a large gash in his torso.

It all happened so fast.

It was this time, a few hours away, that you had begun to wake up, still drowsy and hungover with the sweet memories of the night before. The sun was already up and, true to his word, Gadreel was gone. You closed your eyes, still able to detect his scent in the sheets, and let the words flow in your mind.

“Good morning, Gadreel. I hope everything’s going well. I believe in you, Believe in yourself. When you return, we can go back to that Garden I know you love. Or we can find a new one. I miss you. Come back safe, okay?”

With your words in his ears, he picked himself up while Sam and Castiel were gone, taking care of Dean somewhere, and dragged himself out the door of the bunker and into his car. He drove until he was sure he was about to pass out, and saw beautiful green scenery beside the road, flowers and grass that reminded him of his time with you in your garden, and the time he spent in Eden. He fell down in a patch of grass, blood pouring profusely from the wound,

This was it. There was no way he’s getting a second chance, not with the way Dean responded, He may as well accept death with open arms. But that would only bring you sorrow.

He heard Metatron speaking over angel radio, spewing some nonsense about him being the new God, Heaven being temporarily closed, but that it was going to be worth it. It was then that Sam and Castiel arrived. Gadreel knew they must be here to finish him off. Immediately, an image of your warm smile flashed in his eyes. Oh, how he wanted to protect that smile. But instead of dealing him his death, Castiel healed him, and before he knew it, Gadreel was helping the two find Metatron.

He had gotten Castiel  to the door to Heaven, and was about to ask of the plan Castiel said he had, when the other angel spoke up instead.

“Did you meet with (Y/N) last night?” Gadreel could have gotten defensive, said that it was not Castiel’s business, but his brother seemed genuine about it. It was nice to have a brother who didn’t despise him.

“I did. And I told her. She was thoroughly pleased by the news, though quite shocked at first. It makes me happy that she accepts me. Though there seems to be something else besides the bond that I feel towards her.” Castiel only nodded, a smile on his face, as if he knew this was coming.

“I know what you are feeling. Humans call it love. I’m sure you’re familiar with the term?” Gadreel nodded, though unsure as to what his brother meant by it.

“I remember that it set humans apart from other species. The ability to care deeply for one another.” He hesitated. “Castiel, am I in love with (Y/N)?”

“I believe you are, my friend. And she loves you. She is your soulmate, after all. It is to be expected.” Gadreel looked off into nowhere, overwhelmed with his thoughts about you. How fortunate he was to have been able to fall from his prison and meet you in your lifetime, rather than any other century he could have fallen. He craved the human touched he had experienced the night before, and vowed that after this mission, he would go back and hold you again. He cleared his throat and focused his gaze back on Castiel.

“So, you said you had a plan... “

Late that evening, you sat up, awaiting you’re angel’s return. You were giddy with excitement, If he had been gone all day, surely it meant he had helped the boys on their missions. Maybe he wouldn’t even be back tonight, You managed to drift off, only to awake again when you heard shuffling around your room.

“Gadreel?” Suddenly energized, you sprang out of bed, only to see Castiel standing there. “Oh… Cas? What are you doing here?”

“Gadreel came to us and asked to help. He got us into Heaven.”

“Great! So the boys decided to give him a second chance?”

“Well, Dean was… not too excited about it.” Castiel’s face was oddly nervous, and you knew he was hiding something. “Dean cut Gadreel with the Blade.” This caused alarms to go off in your mind.

“Is he okay?”

“I healed him… from that.” There were metaphorical red flags everywhere you looked. Castiel’s face showed unmasked sympathy and slight nervousness, looks that did not comfort you whatsoever. “He got me into Heaven, but they tricked us. We ended up in Heaven’s jail.” You couldn’t help but scowl even deeper in worry. After everything he went through there, there’s no way Gadreel didn’t have some sort of panic attack while he was there.

“How did you get out?” Castiel sighed, lying a hand on your shoulder heavily as if as a gesture of condolences.

“(Y/N), I’m sorry.” You shook you head, not wanting to believe what you thought Castiel was implying. “Gadreel blew himself up to get me out of jail.” You felt your heart drop to your stomach as the truth sunk in. “No.” You shook your head, willing the tears not to fall. You trembled in your spot, mouth open to say something, but words failing you. You knew the sigil angels had been carving into their vessels was irreversible once triggered. “He was a hero, (Y/N).” Something snapped inside of you, as if your soul was ripped from its other half, and you suddenly couldn’t stop the building tears, and crashed to the floor on your knees, a earsplitting cry erupting from your lips as you let the tears fall freely to the cold, hardwood floor of the hotel. Castiel knelt next to you, holding you back from collapsing onto the ground completely. You couldn’t stop the image from playing in your mind- Gadreel, desperate and afraid, running out of time, carving a sigil deep in his flesh with the intention of turning his grace into a bomb for the sake of his brothers and sisters. For the sake of humanity. Out of the corner of your eye, you caught a glimpse of a small sliver of yellow.

“(Y/N), (Y/L/N).”

Another wild cry of desperation broke free from your throat, raspy and pained through the sobbing. He may have spared you last night, but now, your other half was gone.

And you wouldn’t get him back.

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Taglist! (please tell me if there are mistakes, I didn’t edit yet its almost 2 am thanks)

@theredheadedwinchester, @solis200213, @music-lockscreen, @bella-ca, @totally-not-gadreel, @saki-s

[writer-picks-the-music]

A Thousand Years

This is one of the four entries I’m writing for @buckysmetallicstump’s Disney Challenge! My prompt for this entry was #14: “Listen to me. The human world...it’s a mess.” - Sebastian, The Little Mermaid. Quote will be in bold.

Song Inspiration: “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri ft. Steve Kazee (Breaking Dawn Soundtrack Version). Here is a Link if you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpxJGTN3VUw&index=13&list=PLwUW5QOPdB6E3Jlsd4YDDJK8sIFm-kB0i

Summary: The Winchester’s meet an old friend of Castiel’s.

Word Count: 3900-ish

Pairing: Sam x angel!Reader

Warnings: Language, a smidge of violence, MINOR canon divergences, and first time writing Sam x Reader (cuz that should probably be a warning) 

A/N: Part of me feels like I should have done this in five separate drabble posts buuuutttt I didn’t... for reasons unknown even to myself lol. It’s set in Season 9 and is written in five little snapshots of their life. There will be parts that follow the script of actual episodes with a few minor divergences here and there. (Exact episodes: 9x09 9x11 9x13 9x21 and 9x22). Let me know what you think! 

You walked towards the wooden establishment, displeased with the sight of various human officials mulling about. This was angel business. They had no idea what they were dealing with and would only get in the way.

Walking past a shiny black vehicle, you stopped in front of a row of motorcycles. Ever since you had lost your wings in the fall you had been cursed to walk the earth. Never before had you envied the human forms of transportation, but you had to admit, taking one of these would make moving around much faster. And if the angels who had ridden them before were indeed dead, taking one for yourself shouldn’t be a problem. You would just have to figure out how they worked first.

“Cass, slow down!”

You turned towards the voices, watching as a man exited the building, quickly followed by another who was dressed almost identically.

“Castiel?”

Both men stopped abruptly, their eyes locking on to you in an instant. The second man was staring at you cautiously, his hand resting above the weapon he had at his hip. The first, however, eyed you curiously, stepping towards you and putting a hand up when the other man tried to follow.

“Y/N?”

You nodded, walking towards him. “I was hoping I would find you one of these days.”

The green-eyed man was at Castiel’s side in an instant. The weapon now in his hand. “Not so fast, sweetheart.”

You stopped, eyeing him curiously. Everyone knew Castiel had spent the past few years running around with the infamous Winchesters, so if you had to take a guess you figured this man must be one of them.

“It’s alright Dean. She’s an old friend.” Castiel assured him, still looking at you. 

“No offence Cass, but I don’t think any angel is your friend anymore.” Typical human, so quick to pass judgement. 

You stared at the Winchester, unfazed by his words. “My loyalty to Castiel has been unwavering since the day we were created, boy. Can you say the same for yourself?” 

The guilty look on his face and the loosening tension in his shoulders was answer enough and you continued. “Castiel may have caused the fall but I do not believe he did so knowingly, as some of our brothers and sisters have been so quick to believe.”

“Dean where did you-“

You looked towards the building’s entrance as the new voice interrupted, finding yourself staring up at an even taller man who was already staring back at you with wide eyes. The other Winchester you presumed. And since the one standing in front of you was Dean, this one was most likely Sam. You had to admit, they looked less caveman like than you had expected, and definitely less lethal. In fact, this one seemed to look more like an infant dog than a deadly hunter.

You found yourself smiling as you greeted him, “Hello Sam.”

He swallowed, opening his mouth to speak but nothing came out. You might have found his strange behavior endearing had his brother not gone back to his aggressive state, now pointing his gun at your chest.

“How the hell do you know him?” 

“This is completely unnecessary,” Castiel stated, staring disapprovingly at his friend.

You were staring at the hunter as well, silently daring him to pull the trigger. But before either of you could egg the other on further, Sam was there, putting his hand over Dean’s and pushing the gun down. “Dean, stop!”

Your eyes flickered to his face for a moment, surprised that a human would defend you against his own flesh and blood. “I am no threat to you or your brother, Dean. Are you really that surprised that someone knew the infamous Winchesters by name?”

He wasn’t buying it. “Please. You had no idea who I was, sweetheart.”

“I figured you were a Winchester. I just didn’t know which one until Castiel called you by name. By process of elimination that would make him,” you gestured to the taller of the two, “Sam.”

Dean continued to glare at you as you stared him down. All the while you could feel Sam’s gaze flickering back and forth between you before he spoke up.

“Would someone explain to me what is going on?”

“Apparently she’s an old buddy,” Dean muttered, gesturing to you and reluctantly putting his gun away.

“So you’re an angel?” There was no malice in Sam’s voice, only pure curiosity.

You nodded, “It’s nice to meet you, Sam.” You looked to Dean. “You, not so much.”

Sam burst out laughing, and you looked up at him enjoying the sound. Since being on earth, human laughter had become your favorite sound by far. It was so pure and full of life. You enjoyed that you had been able to put a smile on his face, something telling you that the Winchesters didn’t wear them often.

But Castiel cut the happy moment short, getting back to more serious matters.

“Why are you here, Y/N?”

“The angels have fallen into chaos, Castiel. Our brothers and sisters have started a war for power and have taken to murdering each other to get it. I was close by when I heard of the massacre here. I thought it best if I at least attempted to find some answers. Something has to be done.”

He nodded, “I agree.”

Pleased that he seemed to be on the same page you continued. “I believe others will follow you, Castiel, once they know the truth. That you did not mean for this to happen. That Metatron deceived you.”

“We’ll help too.”

You looked up to Sam, giving him a nod. 

“Thank you, Sam. But it will not be easy,” you cautioned.

He didn’t back down, his face only taking on more determination. “It never is, but that hasn’t stopped us yet.”

Castiel started talking then, satisfied that you were all on the same team and began discussing what your next move should be. However, you weren’t paying any attention. You kept your gaze fixed on Sam, trying to figure out what it was about the man that had you so quickly captivated. Maybe you would find in him what you had been searching for since the beginning of your existence. 

“Being a human, means settling your debts. Let’s start balancing the books.”

You stared curiously at the man in front of you. He was so willing to help and to endure the pain it would cause, simply because he felt he had some human obligation. It was fascinating to you, and as he sat down in the medical chair you found yourself admiring his bravery.

Although, he did need to stop blaming himself for the things that happened while he was possessed by Gadreel. He hadn’t known, and once he had he’d wasted no time in expelling the traitor. No one blamed him. No one but himself. 

You stood back as Castiel injected the needle into Sam’s neck, watching as he grimaced in pain. Grace started filling the needle but you could tell Castiel wasn’t getting what he needed, and when he paused and briefly met your stare you knew you were right. He would have to go deeper, and going deeper was dangerous.

Sam must have noticed the hesitation as well because suddenly his eyes were flitting back and forth between the two of you, questioning Castiel. You watched silently as he informed Sam that in order to get enough grace he would have to push the needle deeper, but that it was dangerous. You expected the hunter to call it quits, not thinking the cause worthy enough to risk his own life. But to your surprise he insisted Castiel go through with it.

The angel shared another look with you before reluctantly plunging the needle further in to Sam’s neck. Almost immediately Sam started shaking with the pain, and before you even realized what you were doing you stepped up to the chair and took his left hand in your own, giving him your silent support. You didn’t bother trying to catch his gaze. You knew he was in too much pain to focus but the tightening grip on your hand told you he knew you were there. Instead, you looked up to Castiel to find him already staring at you inquisitively.

After another few moments he stopped, but when Sam realized they still didn’t have enough grace he ordered him to keep going. 

Castiel continued to extract the grace as you held onto Sam’s hand but you soon realized that the hunter was starting to fade.

“Sam?” You squeezed his hand, trying to get him to focus his attention on you but his eyes kept fluttering. 

Castiel noticed as well and tried to stop but again Sam told him to carry on. When Castiel ignored him and attempted to pull the needle free, Sam released your hand and grabbed hold of the syringe. Holding it in place and begging him not to stop. 

You were probably listening more than Sam as Castiel tried to talk him out of it, explaining how precious a human life was. It amazed you how much empathy Castiel had for them, especially, it seemed, the Winchesters in particular. Although, you had to admit that in the short amount of time you had known them they had continually impressed you with their honor and sense of loyalty. 

What amazed you even more were Sam’s next words.

“My life’s not worth anymore than anyone else’s. Not yours, or Dean’s... or Kevin’s...”

For the second time you felt the strange need to comfort the hunter, reaching up and taking his hand back into your own and his gaze was quick to follow.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe your life isn’t worth anymore than anyone else’s. But it isn’t worth any less either.” He looked away, staring up at the ceiling as you continued. “I may not have known you long, Sam Winchester, but you are an honorable man. More so than any other human I have encountered. So I know you feel as if you have to do this, to somehow atone for the mistakes of your past. But I am telling you, for the rest of us, finding Gadreel is not worth losing a life such as yours.”

He blinked a few times, still not looking at you. “You’re right. You haven't known me long. You don’t know the things I’ve done to deserve this.”

You gave his hand a squeeze, causing him to look at you. “I’ve heard stories.”

He stared at you, unable to believe that someone who knew of the things he had done would think he didn’t deserve this, before ultimately turning away and looking back up towards the ceiling. Begging Castiel to continue. You shared a concerned look with your fellow angel but didn’t make any move to stop him as he started again. 

So you sat there. Listening to Sam’s yells and offering him the small comfort of holding his. Amazed that a human was willing to go through so much in order to help the angels. Amazed that a human could be so selfless.

“What is the upside of me being alive.”

The sound of Sam’s voice stopped you in your tracks as you walked down the hallway. You knew he had been having problems with his brother. From the talks the two of you had shared, he definitely had plenty of reasons to be angry at his brother. The one that weighed most heavily on his heart being the loss of their friend Kevin. You knew he felt things would have been better off if Dean would have just let him die, but it still hurt to hear him say it out loud. 

You had grown quite fond of the youngest Winchester, and he continued to amaze you the longer you knew him. He was surprisingly kind for a man who had lived such a dark life. The same could be said for both brothers. They were resilient and had an honor about them you had yet to see rivaled. The world was better off having them in it. You just wished they could see that.

You knew you should have given them space, but you couldn’t stop yourself from listening in. However, the longer you listened, the more your heart broke for the two hunters. They were always so harsh on themselves, and with each other. You felt sorry for them but you didn’t let it worry you. If there was one thing you knew about the Winchesters, even long before you had met them, it was that they would do anything for their family. They were notorious for putting each other first, above all else, so you were confident the brothers would work it out eventually. 

Sam nearly running into you as he rounded the corner pulled you out of your thoughts, and you froze.

“Y/N?” You stared up at him guiltily and could tell he was slightly embarrassed. “So you heard.”

You nodded. “I heard.”

“And?” 

“I think that you’re the Winchesters. You’re family. You’ll work it out.” 

He chuckled, running a hand through his hair. “So quick to put your faith in us.”

Smiling up at him you reached out, giving his arm a reassuring squeeze. “I have faith in you, Sam.”

That caught his attention and he stared down at you in silence. When it didn’t look like he was going to find the words to speak anytime soon you moved past him, your hand lingering for as long as it could. You made it only a few steps before you paused, turning back to look at him.

“And Sam,” He turned towards you, an unreadable expression on his face, even for you. “For the record, whether or not Dean saved you for himself or for you, I’m glad that he did.”

And with that you turned around and continued your way down the hall. His gaze burning into your back as you went.

You knew you should have stayed with Dean. With the Mark growing stronger he needed someone to watch him, to make sure he kept it under control, and with Castiel off with the other angels you should have taken that responsibility. But when Dean suggested you split up and that Sam search the basement, you had chosen to follow the younger brother. Unable to leave his side knowing that Abaddon was nearby.

Your mistake was only made more obvious as you and Sam burst into one of the upstairs room just as Dean willed the First Blade into his hand and broke free of Abaddon’s hold. Yet still your mind was with the younger Winchester, stepping protectively in front of him the moment you saw her. You watched as Dean effortlessly closed the distance between them and plunged the blade into her stomach, a bright light filling the room. Sam averted his eyes but you watched on in horror as Dean unflinchingly stared her down. 

When she fell to the floor it was obvious that she was dead, but that didn’t stop Dean from dropping to his knees and stabbing her over and over again. Sam tried to go to his brother but you held him back, worried that Dean had lost total control and would turn on him if he got to close. So instead, he yelled out to him, begging him to stop. 

Your heart broke for him, and you made a silent promise that once order was restored in Heaven you would do everything in your power to help Sam get his brother back. Because this man sitting in front of you was not him.

The ride back to the bunker was tense, and even from the back seat you could tell that Sam was struggling to keep it together. He was losing his brother to the Mark, and Dean refused to see it. Sam even tried to reason with him, asking him to give up the blade but Dean refused. Claiming that it helped keep him calm. But from what you had witnessed at the hotel, it did anything but.

When you got back to the bunker Dean immediately stormed off, leaving you with Sam. You followed him silently as he walked into the library. Watching as he stopped in front of a table and braced his arms against the edge, putting his head down and breathing heavily. 

You allowed him a moment to himself before walking over and stopping just a few feet behind him.

“Sam?”

He turned, and you weren’t sure what came over you but as soon as his eyes met yours you closed the distance, wrapping your arms around him. It took him a moment to respond, surprised at the sudden affection, and honestly you were too. But you had watched humans do it before, and figured that a hug would be better than any words you could give him. 

Finally, his arms wrapped around you, and when his shoulders began to shake softly you simply pulled him in tighter. Silently letting him know that you were there and that everything would be okay. 

Everything was going to hell. 

Metatron had planted seeds of doubt in the Angels’ heads, and now you found yourself standing next to Castiel as your brothers and sisters demanded proof that he was still loyal to them. When Hannah gestured towards Dean and ordered Castiel to punish him for his crimes, you knew the possibility of a fight was real, and it had you questioning what side you would be on.

But when Sam stepped up to help Dean when an angel stopped him from leaving, only to be grabbed by one himself, your question was answered. As your angel blade dropped into your hand there was not a doubt in your mind of who you would be defending. 

You fixed your glare on Hannah as she continued talking. Out of all the angels you and Castiel had been working with, she was the last one you would have guessed to lead the revolt against you. 

“You gave us order, Castiel. And we gave you our trust. Don’t lose it over one man!”

She held out an angel blade, and when Castiel took it from her hand you shared a concerned glance with the brothers before staring up at him questioningly. The tension was palpable as everyone waited to see what Castiel would do, and when he finally said ‘no’ you found yourself breathing out a small sigh of relief.

Hannah, on the other hand, was not so relieved. She glared disappointedly at Castiel, muttering a goodbye before turning to leave. But when she noticed that you had made no move to follow she stopped.

“Y/N?”

You didn’t respond and she quickly continued. Trying her best to reason with you.

“Listen to me. The human world...it’s a mess. Castiel made his choice but that doesn’t mean you have to make the same mistake. This place,” she gestured around you, “is not worth throwing your life away. Please sister, come home with us.”

You considered her words, letting your gaze drift to Sam for a split second before ultimately stepping back and out of her reach. Giving her your silent answer. However, your glance did not go unnoticed and she took a moment to look between you and the hunter. A wave of understanding crossed her face and she peered at you questioningly. “You too?”

When you only stared back she shook her head in defeat, looking between you and Castiel. “Who are these men, that you would both give up everything for?”

“Goodbye Hannah,” Castiel spoke, leaving no room for argument, and with one last disappointed look she turned away, the others following close behind.

“So what now?” You questioned once they were gone, looking to Castiel for answers.

“For now... I think it's best if we return to the bunker and decide on a plan from there.”

The Winchesters voiced their agreement, and you all followed Castiel towards the door. The curious expression on Sam’s face not going unnoticed as you passed.

When you arrived back at the bunker you could feel a fight brewing between the two brothers and excused yourself, hearing the beginnings of their conversation as you made your way down the hall towards the room they had appointed you during your stay. It had been a rather pointless gesture since you did not possess the need for sleep but you had grown to enjoy the room, and it was your go to escape when you needed to give the brothers some space. 

The minutes alone ticked by, and you were sitting on the bed reading one of the many books you had taken from the library when a knock sounded at your door. Looking up you saw Sam leaning against the frame, and you set the book down giving him a sympathetic look.

“Don’t let him get to you, Sam. You know it’s just the mark talking. Once we put a stop to Metatron we’ll find a way to save Dean.”

He nodded, looking down at his feet as he toed at a scuff mark on the floor. After a few moments of silence he looked up, changing the subject completely. His new choice in topic coming as no surprise.

“Why did you stay? Heaven is open again, you could have gone home.”

“I like it here.” You said simply, holding his gaze with your own. But he didn’t like your answer, shoving away from the frame and walking over to sit next to you on the edge of the bed. 

“I think there’s more to it than that.”

You could have lied to him. Told him that it was really just that simple. But you decided to be honest with him, wanting him to know the truth.

“I’ve been around a long time, Sam.” You started, staring at your hands and examining the lines etched into your skin. Always different from each of your previous vessels. Always unique. “Longer than I would care to admit. And I’ve spent my whole existence trying to understand what the point of this earth was. Why the humans were such a priority. I’ve watched the world change and evolve, I’ve interacted with thousands of beings, yet not one has ever given me reason to believe that there is a shred of worth in humanity.”

You paused, finally looking up to meet his gaze. “Not until you.” 

Sam raised his eyebrows, disbelief clear on his face. “Me? Why?”

You laughed, a strange sensation but something you had found yourself doing a lot more around Sam. He truly didn’t see how incredible he was, and in that moment you decided you would spend the rest of his life showing him. “You are a better man than you give yourself credit for, Sam Winchester.”

He let out a breath and looked down, apparently finding some type of amusement in your words. “Well, I hope whatever you think you’ve found was worth the wait.”

“You were.”

Your simple statement caused him to look up, searching your eyes for an answer to some unknown question. “What made you keep looking?”

You smiled, resting your hand on his knee. “I knew I would find you. I just wasn’t sure how long it would take.” 

A warm smile took over his face as he grasped your hand within his own, beginning to play with your fingers.

“And I would have waited a thousand more if it meant that I would find you in the end.”

“Even if it means losing heaven?”

You reached out, guiding his gaze back to yours and letting your hand rest against the side of his face and neck. “I’ve been waiting for you since the moment I was created, Sam, and now that I’ve found you I’m not about to let you go. Not even heaven is worth that.”

And it truly wasn’t. There was nothing you had been more sure of.

You didn’t know what all that meant for you and the younger Winchester, or what your future held, but as he leaned forward and attached his lips to yours you knew you had finally found the home you had been searching for all along.

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[godshipsit]

ok, so with metatron it was established that cas is in love with dean. but dean?

It was established that also Dean has strong not-so-platonic feelings towards Cas, but it’s less evident. It’s funny, because Metatron uses also Dean’s feelings to outline his story. His plan wouldn’t have worked if Dean didn’t feel strongly towards Cas. 

I’m sure plenty of people have written meta on s9 finale, and I’ve joined the discussion and fandom late, but anyway here’s my personal recap on it. (Mostly Dabb’s episodes, because if he’s going through with what Carver era implied, we’re gonna have tons of fun)

(Also, consider that this “Dean = humanity” theme has never been dropped… we’ve seen it reinforced with Amara, Ishim, in part also with Crowley. Read @tinkdw​ meta, in particular the one regarding Amara) 

(Before I start, I’ve always said I have a love-hate relationship with Carver. Yes, he brought the deancas subtext to the next level, but he also sort of made Dean the object of everyone’s not-so-platonic love, while Dean was completely engrossed in his not so healthy relationship with Sam. But things are moving, and things have already changed a lot. Fun times are coming.) 

WhenMetatron first meets the Winchesters, he pretends he doesn’t know them, that he hasn’t kept up with what happened on Earth. Metatron is a huge liar. As a writer who wants to write a story (andCarver’s avatar), he’s done his research: he knows our heroes’ weaknesses andflaws, and he knows how to move them around like paws. He’s not fighting Cas,he’s playing monopoly and Cas for the most is just a piece he moves around.

Metatronis jealous of Castiel, God’s chosen one, because he was once chosen by Godhimself (just to be abandoned). He also wants revenge against Heaven, so he builds a plan in the onlyway he knows. By outlining a story. His goal? Well, I’ll quote Jim Moriartyhere for reasons: to burn theheart out of Cas.

(Metatronalso wants to be the new God, and writers are Gods of the stories they create…after all, our universe’s God is a writer himself)

When you create stories, you become gods, of tiny, intricate dimensions untothemselves. (Metatron, 8x21)

How doyou destroy someone? You destroy what he or she loves. Metatron knows wellCastiel’s story: he’s seen what happened with the Godstiel fiasco, and since he’sa writer, he understood the subtext. He witnessed the way Dean reacted toCastiel’s betrayal, and more than anything, he saw how hard Dean’s reactioncrushed Cas. He was there when Cas watched Dean rake the leaves, and when hemade a deal with Crowley to let Dean live his life in peace. To protect him.Who knows how long Metatron has waited to rub this fact in Castiel’s face, thathe did everything to save DeanWinchester. He wasn’t talking just about Cas destroying the Angel Tablet, hewas talking about the civil war against Raphael, too.

(That’swhy I always say Ben Edlund was the one to bring Dean and Cas’ relationship toa whole new level. No wonder season twelve is going back to referencing season six again,that’s where it all started and I suspect Dabb is a big fan.)

Metatronknows Cas’ true weakness. The angel who always had too much heart has fallen inlove with one human. And guess what? The human has very strong feelings abouthim, too (season eight docet). Some external factors help Metatron in crafting his story, buttowards 9x18 everything is ready: Castiel has been human, so he’s experiencedhis feelings for Dean at full force and understands them better now; Dean hasbeen lying the entire season and is more reckless since he got the Mark;potentially, Sam is the one who could change most of his plan, but thankfullyDean won’t listen to him. The Mark is enhancing his characteristics, and hisneed to protect Sammy from everything (and control him) is one of them. To beeven more sure (and to play with Cas’ heart a little more), Metatron makesHannah meet Cas, and writes her as a false romantic lead (it’s no coincidence that Dean is immediately in competition with her). The story about love,heartbreak, and love is ready for show time.

My job is to set up interesting characters and see where they lead me. The by-product of having well-drawn characters is…They may surprise you. But I know something they don’t know…the ending. How I get there doesn’t matter as long as everybody plays their part. (Metatron, 9x18)

I’ve alwaysfound Metatron a compelling villain, because he knows his adversaries well, andknows their pressure points. His biggest flaw, though, is his hubris and senseof superiority, which leads him to underestimate Castiel (who ends outsmartinghim). He still manages to hit Cas hard when he kills Dean.

What makes a story work? Is it the plot, thecharacters, the text? The subtext? And who gives a story meaning? Is thewriter? Or you? (Metatron, 9x18)

This isCarver and Robbie Thompson winking at us. They also inform us that Metatron isprobably the most meta character the show has ever had, and that subtext (andfans’ interpretation) will be king.

Anyway, by manipulatingour heroes, Metatron sets up the events of 9x22 and 9x23 perfectly. Castiel hasan army, angels who seem very devoted, in a freaky kind of way, which reminds us (and Dean) of the whole civil war arc in s6, whichended with the betrayal, Godstiel and Cas’ death. No wonder Dabb used 6x20 to buildViolet and David’s romance’s backstory. Somehow, he was telling us to keep those eventsin mind. In 9x22 (another Dabb episode), Dean is clearly uncomfortable with thewhole “angel army” business, because it hits too close home. It digs painfulmemories.

DEAN: Cas, I know you try to be a good guy, okay? Ido. You try. But what you got here, this is a a freakin’ cult.

CASTIEL: Dean.

DEAN: And the last time you had this kind of juice,you did kill humans and angels, and you did nothing but lie to me and Sam aboutit the whole damn time!

There’sno way it could get any clearer than this. Metatron is aware of Dean and Cas’history. Above all, he knows Dean would be subconsciously uncomfortable if hewere forced to relive those memories, which is important, because Metatron hasforeseen what happens next. Dean asks Cas to stand back (when it comes to investigating what’s going on with Josiah missing – another event set up by Metatron), but Cas doesn’t. SoDean sends Sam with Cas, and stays with the angels. This is exactly whatMetatron wanted.

METATRON: Mm. [Josiah] was a loose end. I – I told him where the gate was…Before we moved it. I just wish Cas had walked into one of those traps. Anyway, point is –while everyone else is playing checkers, I’m playing monopoly, and I always build a hotel on Boardwalk. And I always win.

That’salso why Metatron has Gadreel recruit Tessa: she has history with Dean, so he totally expected Dean to be the one who finds her. He knew neither Sam or Cas would be there.

DEAN: Just you and me now. Let’s talk about us. Imean, we got history, yeah? (9x22)

So far,all that has happened was foreseen and planned by Metatron. Remember, eventsmay change, but he knows how the story ends. 

Here’s some points Metatron set up and/or foresaw (wow, casually these are also some of the beats of the episode)

-Dean has brought the First Blade with him, lying toSam. (this foreshadows he’s gonna use it)

- Dean doesn’t like the cult-like situation Casseemingly got himself into (this perception is strengthened by the angelic kamikazesMetatron has recruited), because it reminds him of all that happened by the endof s6, and it still hurts.

- Metatron sets up a trap for Cas with Josiah, a pretext to have himleave his headquarters and leave Dean alone with the angels.

-This brings Dean to instinctly have doubts about this wholething. His excessively protective and controlling behavior (enhanced by theMark) leads him to send Sam with Cas, because he senses Cas may be falling in a trap,while Sam is anyway safer with Cas than with a bunch of fishy angels.

- Of course, Dean and Hannah don’t really like eachother with //no apparent// reason. Once again, the reason is subtextual. They’reboth jealous and fighting for Cas’ attention. Dean has noticed how smitten she looks when she’s around Cas, also makes a remark about how “creepy” is her calling Cas “commander” (funny implication: Dean’s interpretation of the word is sexual)

-Metatron has also Tessa recruited. She has historywith Dean, so of course it would pick his interest once mentioned. Tessa endsup impaling herself on the First Blade, so that Dean looks the one who brokethe rules and killed her. (Which will lead to Hannah asking Cas to punish him)

-Cas comes back, and Metatron goes on with his plan. Hetalks to the Castiel’s army, lies to them, but also tells them some big truths.He undermines the angels’ trust in Castiel and gets away with lying, because healso says the truth. Cas is dying and he will put the Winchesters in front ofeverything.

-Hannah, who of course wants proof of Cas’ loyalty buthas also been jealous of Dean since the first moment she met him, asks Cas tochoose. Us or them. Subtextual implication: me or him.

- Castiel, of course, chooses Dean. Duh.

Metatronwas the one to set up this choice moment, because he knew the outcome. After all, it’s during the crisis that a character’s true motivation comes out. Hannah, feelingcheated on in more than one way, leaves. Suddenly, Cas has no army. Metatron has flippedthe script, and he used Castiel’s true weakness to do it. He’s in love… withhumanity. Except humanity can be narrowed to one human, like Metatron does in9x23, when he can’t help but boast about how he knew Castiel’s true motivations.And he does it so cruelly, almost mocking him, just to drop the bombimmediately after. I’ve always been one step ahead, and no matter how hard youtried to save Dean, I’ve killed him.

Metatron also used Dean’s feelings for Cas to manipulate both of them and push the story where he wanted. If Dean hadn’t felt so strongly about Cas, if he hadn’t still been hurting because of Cas’ betrayal, the plan wouldn’t have worked.

PS. While writing this I forgot that also killing Kevin was meant to strenghten Dean’s desire of revenge against Metatron.

DEAN: I’m blaming you [Metatron] for Kevin! I’m blaming you for taking Cas’ Grace. Hell, I’m blaming you for the Cubs not winning The World Series in the last 100 freaking years. Whatever it is… I’m blaming you.

We know how it ends. We don’t know yet how it ends for Dean and Cas. Guess we’ll see. 

[orionsangel86]

I'm trying to be optimistic but it seems to me that if romantic canonical, textual Destial was going to happen then SOMETHING would have occurred by now. I'm so frustrated!!!

I understand your frustration nonny believe me. I often wish that they would be a bit more obvious about it. 

I think what I am happy with, and what is calming my frustrations for the moment at least, is the fact that they have already laid the foundations for canon destiel, and they are currently building on them. 

Those foundations were removing the “blockers” that stood in the way. Things such as confirming that Jimmy’s soul was in heaven. Confirming that Dean was aware of that, confirming that Dean views Cas’s vessel as his body, and confirming that Cas also views his vessel as his body now. 

Those foundations were also laid via “trial runs” with certain themes and ideas that lets be honest, 10 years ago the show wouldn’t have done. 11x19 is a great example of this. Showing the audience that two rugged macho men can be in a homosexual relationship, married and hunters and that this is normal in the SPN universe was a huge deal. They showed us that having a homosexual relationship in this show would absolutely not change the style of the show. Because those two awesome characters were in no way gay stereotypes, and they didn’t turn the show into a romance either. It was done very subtly and it worked brilliantly.

The fact that we had a whole arc late last season that went out of its way to show how differently the brothers feel about Cas. Sam being objective, logical, worrying about his friend but focusing on how to fix it. Dean was emotional, stressed, not sleeping, not eating, panicking... it was glorious to watch. 11x18 was a freaking gift for that (which I still can’t believe because it was Bucklemming).

Then 12x10 comes along and proves what we already knew from 9x22 and 9x23. That Cas is in love with Dean. It might not have been in your face obvious, but it was still pretty obvious. We also were once again shown just how differently each Winchester interacts with Cas and Dean’s emotional response can only be described as the worrying of a spouse. Not friend. Not brother. Partner/lover/husband. Then we get Sam as the long suffering third wheel all the way through it. It was fanfiction brought to life on the screen and I mean that in the very best of ways.

Take all this and put it alongside 10x16′s confession scene (which was a very subtle coming out speech) and you have pretty obvious textual confirmation of their feelings for each other. They just haven’t confessed to that love yet.

What 12x10 also gave us which was a huge gift for anyone saying why hasn’t it happened yet? Was an answer for that very question. Castiel will not act on his desire for Dean because of some stupid heavenly law against angels being with humans. It is forbidden and Castiel took a sacred oath. When you consider how all the angels have treated him for the past few seasons suddenly this is blatantly clear. 

So we have all of the building blocks right there, laid out in canon. Seemingly in preparation for something. The next BIG step IMO is bringing Dean out of the closet. This will be the final brick before it becomes canon. (A love confession or reveal from Cas would also be nice as his arc seems to be going in a direction where he eventually admits his feelings but this is already made clear in the text). I wrote a while back now how I thought they should bring Dean out of the closet. It wouldn’t take much at all. But once we have that then we are there. 

So whilst I share your frustrations nonny, I am in a good place right now regarding canon destiel. The show has given us so much lately. Every character is only adding to the subtext and the meta. I don’t think I have ever felt as positive as I am right now. 

[elizabethrobertajones]

Not trying to pile on too much, but the anon's comment that Cas "literally became suicidal because" of the events of 9x03--we need to keep in mind that Cas had been suicidal since s7. "I deserved to die. Now I can't possibly fix it, so why did I even walk out of that river?" (7x17) & "If I see what Heaven's become, what I made of it, I'm afraid I might kill myself" (8x08). His depression in s9 wasn't new, and imo if he hadn't had the preexisting Heaven-related disasters weighing him down, (1/2)

(2/2) he’d have been able to cope much better with the loss of his powers and everything else. In fact, finding his sense of “human dignity” (9x06) seemed to help him emotionally (and I’d guess that that’s the type of thing that he was referring to in 14x02 when he spoke of “just myself” being “helpful”). Even though he was still in a LOT of pain, and his depression issues were nowhere near over, 9x06 was still a huge turning point for him: “I want to live!” he said, for the first time. So.

Quick fire round: what else do Cas and Mila Kunis from Jupiter Ascending share in common aside from enjoying cleaning bathrooms?

But yes, Cas’s issues explored from season 7 to present were about Godstiel and the after effects of season 6. They still are. Everything that’s happened to Cas from 7x17 onwards has in some way harked back to that and been a next step in his recovery, self-actualisation, and rebuilding of his trust and friendship with Sam n Dean, who forgave him lightning fast considering their normal stakes for that sort of thing. (Obviously the difference between forgiveness, aka caring about him and accepting him back, vs blindly forgetting, when Dean in 8x22 and 9x22 specifically calls back to season 6 stuff when questioning Cas and pointing out he had what he sees as a good reason to mistrust him or be alarmed by his behaviour considering how messy it got when Cas didn’t trust them before.)

[elizabethrobertajones]

Dabb vs cars

Surprisingly, not the next round in my ongoing, bitter feud about his continuity problems. A "I come in peace" study on parking.

I watched 10x09 today and I did the usual OTP "aw they're so far apart" sad heart feeling at the shot of them all outside Sharkey's.

No, not Dean n Cas.

The Impala and Pimpmobile.

Anyway it got me thinking about in that moment it represented pretty well how Dean and Cas were doing with each other. Of course there isn't room to park beside Cas's car, so Dean goes and parks on the other side of the door, leaving this big gap between them, bigger because there's a parking mark thingy Cas is about to trip over before the shot abruptly ends. (I hope Misha was okay.) The cars have a clear line of sight to each other, but there's just something so unutterably sad about there being no way for them to park side by side, per Cas's parking, and Dean putting that extra space between them. (Also so they can go in the door... I'd say unobstructed but the longer I watch the gif the more I become convinced there's footage out there of Misha ruining the impression of Cas's reserved dignity...)

In the context of season 10, where Destiel was at right then was the first time they'd seen each other since 10x03, when Dean cleared his bed for Cas like, thanks for saving me from myself pls make yourself comfy, and Cas freaked out and gabbled some stuff about work and Hannah and such and told Dean to rest up, then fled the scene. Dean is pissed off Cas called for help over trying to deal with Claire (and it kind of looks like making excuses of busywork to not come home, when you flee with an apparently important mission and it turns out you're wandering around trying to earn back brownie points with your vessel's daughter, having randomly and abruptly swapped onto a personal mission without telling Dean a word of it) and in general the car placement amused me by seeming to echo how they were doing.

Being me, obviously thinking about that made me start thinking about Dabb, cars, and his old Carver era patterns. He got the one per season (two if we were lucky) Deep Emotional DeanCas Talk, to give us a real, solid moment to show how they were truly doing. 8x08, 9x10, 9x22, 10x09, and 11x10 spring to mind though obviously in other episodes he wrote with them they also still shared some pretty epic emotional moments or there were other strong Destiel things. However he is the one who gave us Cas's original car, and two of these instances are directly before the Big Talk to tide things over and give us the emotional background for later. I figured some thoughts about some notable Dabb car stuff would be a nice thing to do. After my amused nostalgia run through Carver era moments, I've included Dabb era in general and picked out some other moments.

9x10 is the start of all this, once Cas finally gets some wheels of his own. The most interesting set piece barely involves any driving, but is the first time the Impala and Continental are parked beside each other. Like, RIGHT beside. Like, Dean n Cas should be this close to each other all the time. Cas's car is a step ahead (I mean, I assume so he could get out the door). All episode Dean n Cas are a beautiful emotionally supportive unit, but Dean can't cope with this, and so he gets in his car and leaves, pulling away from the closeness he's offered from his family, the thing with the cars being exactly what he did when he walked away from them on the bridge too. I mean, that's fairly obvious, I'm just amused after I went back to look, HOW closely the two cars were parked, like they wanted Cas's car in that shot, next to Dean's, and they'd force the most unrealistic parking job ever when there's all that unused space around them, to get all the random details into the shot they needed. As a bonus, Dean had to have been the one to park the Impala so close blocking Cas's car in. Unconscious desire to be so close to him and to keep him? He's still recovering from asking him to leave.

(I know the Impala and Continental shared space in several end of season 9 episodes but not 9x22 as far as I recall in the earlier parts, and the Worst Dabb Vs Cars Fuckery Of Them All occurs in the final driving moment of that episode, just putting Cas IN the Impala for the drive home despite the fact his car ends up the Bunker at the start of 9x23... That's a symbolic gesture of what he was trying to convey in the moment of Cas sitting in the back of the car but for the sake of talking about how they park together, useless. I feel like in 9x18 it's just a reminder Cas HAS the car, and the show doesn't do anything useful with it to represent Cas...)

Onto 11x10, and honestly my favourite of Dabb's Dean n Cas chatting scenes because it's technically pretty superfluous except for the fact he really really wanted a final DeanCas chat before Cas got Casifered, and so he made one heck of a driving continuity snarl to wrangle it. Obviously Cas followed Dean's longing to his spot because how else... Anyway, he parks a long long way off. In season 11 he's feeling very distanced from Dean by his anxiety and trauma. This is the epitome of the "I came as soon as you called" behaviour, with Cas dropping everything to come help Dean, and romantic blurring into focus walk aside, the long shot shows us beautifully that Cas is hesitant to approach, and maintaining the distance with Dean. After all the season 10 and early 11 drama between them, including several rounds of mind controlled punch ups, they're fragile and miserable, and Cas's last interaction with Dean on screen was an angry and frustrating one. Cas himself bridges the distance betwen them but his car waiting off in the background suggests his reservations, and the rest of the episode spells out everything, before he chooses to do something he thinks will help move their cars closer, as it were.

Entering Dabb era proper, in 12x02 we see Cas's new truck (still with hay) and Dean pulling up to it. Obviously they've got their mission to save Sam, the jokes about Mary being brought along to chaperone their date, etc. But since the car conversation in 11x23 the ball has been in Dean's court to approach Cas, and I would assume the mythical instance of mixtape giving is somewhere between 12x01 and 12x19; the point is, here, as the first 2 episodes of season 12 in general showed (and Dean in 12x22 confirmed talking about how happy he was to have Cas and Mary back in the same breath), Dean approaches Cas, parking right behind his truck, as a symbol of the confidence and comfort they have now. They work great as a team in this part of the season, although Cas has been standing around by his lonely parked truck waiting for most of the episode up to that point, and is forced to continue standing by the truck for most of the rest of the episode.

12x12 Cas is still in the "I'll just wait here then" mode, hanging out at their designated meeting place as Sam, Dean, Mary and Wally arrive in a convoy and park on the other side of this parking lot, so he has to come to join them (Dean rotating on the spot as he does so... heh, I love that moment.) By the middle of season 12 Cas has run away to find Lucifer, echoing 10x03's parting, and also killed for them and invited cosmic consequences, and in 12x10 given a firm well-communicated emotional talk to help him feel included and loved, and yet he also leaves to search for Kelly some more, echoing other times he's gone off to do a side project and been very much on the outside. Once again he's waiting for them to catch up, and Dean seems to breeze by him - and there's so many other people with them (and part of why he left in 12x03 was to give Sam and Dean space with Mary, exclusing himself from the family). In the diner scene Cas has the whole waitress thing to deal with, with Dean acting up around so many people with conflicting needs to perform. Cas has been waiting for an incredibly long time, but if you ever needed a more firm "the ball is in your court" it's the "I love you" at the end of the episode.

12x19 also has a important "where the cars are placed" sequence, which you could really do with a whole gifset of, but of course the Impala is there because Kelly stole it, and it's been left off to the side by them; likewise Sam and Dean are left to the side by them as they drive off. Sam and Dean placed the truck before they did that and took it back (and all the stuff about Cas and Dean and fixing the truck in the episode is a whole 'nother thing)... From this angle it looks ominously like the park in which Dean found Mary, with the lights behind the trees going on - of course night has just fallen rather than the sun coming up, and Cas is driving away from the light. As Dean walked Mary into their lives, newly resurrected, Cas drives out of their lives >.> Between all the stealing cars and rushing into save Cas, the gap between them as they're parked is obvious and as a result of the circumstances. They're apart because there's too much going on, Kelly made off with Cas in the car, and Sam and Dean were helpless chasing after them. The distance and swapping around of cars and using them as part of the chaos is very effective. Cas calmly takes possesion of his truck again, freshly fixed by Dean, but drives off with Kelly. In 12x23 they steal some stock Destiel phrases to exchange, and it's touching the truck which opens the rift. I had a nose around the outdoors scenes and couldn't spot Cas's truck and the Impala even on the same side of the building, and honestly am kind of confused about where the truck went. Not, as I said, that I'm trying to continue the feud with this post. But I mean.

*clears throat*

I'm just saying he ruined the continuity in 12x01 for 12x02 by doing the exact same thing as 9x22 by just not using Cas's truck when it would make sense to take as many vehicles as they can get their hands on so they could split up... Obviously all the many set pieces to do with cars worked best/could only work if there was just the Impala but it's all style over function again... So in 12x02 to let Cas split up to help they add an extra day to let him get the truck so he can follow leads and do the legwork, and Mary and Dean end up back at the Bunker, immediately falling back into old static patterns when it would have made so much sense to just have them in a motel NEARBY instead of abandoning their hot trail on finding Sam so Mary could shower... He handed them that excuse on a platter and killed the urgency and Dean n Cas were split up all episode when they could have been at least local-ish to each other and maybe had that phonecall in person and and and... shh Lizzy

[elizabethrobertajones]

9x23 rewatch

This is one of those ones where you can see precisely at what point 12x15 aired in between working on this, so once more Lizzy works through wtf is going on with season 12 via an old episode with uncanny connections, because they ALL have uncanny connections...

This is like, the pinnacle of Carver era as an experimental project about being a really terrible writer... Before that inevitably catches up with the narrative by removing Metatron’s apparent control over it as an excuse, and a chance to try and explain why the writing is terrible, so might as well enjoy it before it’s beset by, like, everything.

This season has too much in it. This is the longest recap. How many plot twists? Remember how Abaddon was the big problem?

The good part is it started with the flying monkey, and the entire recap for Cas being human was “he was naked that one time in the laundromat” like… that’s it :P Sure April is in it like 3 times for plot or being stabbed or throwing Sam through a door stuff, but any emphasis on what CAS was up to with her is being tortured, and the part reminding us how he was human is just him stripping down out of the old trenchcoat. I suppose when you have to compact the entire season, a big emotional arc like that needs one symbolic moment and that would be it. Crowley gets more obvious emotional recapping, and his moping in bed complaining no one knows what it’s like to be human is linked directly to Dean picking up the blade with his mind and Dean’s descent.

The best part is that it flows from 9x22 to 9x23 perfectly with catching us up to that last scene and then Dean stabbing Gadreel and the “NOW” card only gets in the way of the action for a second.

Also nicely ended with the music with just the guitar chord into a ringing silence (shush it’s not quiet but it’s that ringing murder noise the show has that Jeffrey mentioned in 7x15 and they’re using the guitar for it but it represents silence. It’s good, okay??) for the last few seconds of horrified stillness after Dean stabs him and then Cas and Sam lunge at him.

Dean throws Cas off so hard he flies into the bench at the back of the room – this is 1 of 4 times Cas restrains Dean from behind. The first time Dean’s in such a  murder rage he throws Cas off and Cas gets knocked into some furniture, then Cas subdues him again this scene the same way because he will never fight Dean and 9x22 only just made it extremely clear. Then of course, 10x03 where it works again, and 10x22 where again Cas gets thrown off and this time he’s not just accidentally knocked around but Dean turns on him. Kind of ominous here though for 10x22.

[At this point while writing the director’s name had not yet appeared on screen. Insert Dean looking unimpressed but not surprised into the camera.gif]

Sam, meanwhile, tries to use the whole “drop the blade” thing that worked in 9x21, while standing protectively in front of Gadreel, all drama forgotten in favour of being horrified of what Dean’s become – is this the first moment of Sam unifying with the previously thought of enemy for a greater good? In this case because he doesn’t think Gadreel deserves to be murdered on the spot, whatever he put him through, when he has use to them and seemed to be asking for forgiveness… Dean makes him pick a side, accidentally in a way. 

I mean, specifically, Sam working with his past torturers/violators in a way beyond putting up with Meg or gritting his teeth about Crowley or even being prepared to forgive Cas in 7x01, which a lot of people mentioned with Dean telling Sam to pick a side and throwing in a mention of Cas in 12x14, because on what scale was he talking? But in this case, just completely putting it all aside, and putting his body between Dean and Gadreel? And Sam will call Gadreel a real friend in almost the same breath as mentioning he still has nightmares about killing Kevin later in the episode. Possibly Sam’s biggest moment of compartmentalising and forgiving so far (as I said somewhere or other about 12x14, Carver era really crushes Sam in some really specific ways with the kind of trauma he accumulates). 

Except, of course, for working WITH Dean who could hurt him so easily all this long time he’s got the brother killing curse. 9x22 opening with Sam sleeping clothed and armed in his own home and “I nearly shot you!” emphasising how unsafe he really feels around Dean, and tbh that he’s half-prepared to do it if Dean turns on him, though I don’t know how consciously he’s thought that. Hasn’t come to it yet – I think this is all to make US uneasy about it around this point anyway. Sam is compartmentalising the danger and the betrayal over Gadreel but since it’s Dean, the rules for Sam working with him are a bit different than Gadreel as the brother thing is such a motivator to forgive or extend at least partial olive branches…

Anyway, Sam is standing between Dean and Gadreel, who is lying on the floor being used as a reminder of Dean’s rage and inability to put down the blade in a mirrored moment, poses and all, to 7x20 and Bobby’s encounter with Dick, when Charlie has been thrown aside and had her arm broken (ALL the parallels between Cas and Charlie which I guess start here before we know it and carry on until 10x21/10x22 and them dying/nearly being killed for this >.> least favourite set of parallels). This sort of completes the comparison of Dean as a vengeful ghost for this season, anyhow.

Finally, Sam can’t get through to Dean; Cas grapples him again, but Sam has to pry every one of Dean’s fingers off the Blade, and we get our first moment where we don’t see Cas bodily carrying a squirming and furious Dean through the Bunker to the dungeon in his arms and this happens twice in 4 episodes and I’m still kinda mad despite how objectively ridiculous it would have looked :D

Anyway it proves the rest of TFW CAN’T get through to Dean, not when he’s this angry. Cas can hold him back, but Sam can’t talk the blade out of his hand, and it cuts from this struggle without showing the resolution to the actual grappling and yelling, to Dean in the dungeon.

And that’s how you do an opening minute of an episode :P

Full-on symbolism with Dean walking up to the edge of the devil trap and then stepping away from it, like… Not gonna risk it. He hangs in the dungeon for a while and we never see him cross the line, just edging around it.

DEAN And you two are gonna do what? Take on Metatron yourselves? That's smart. Oh, no, wait. No, you -- [motions to CASTIEL] you lost your Angel army. And you -- [motions to SAM] now you're trying to lock up the one guy who has a shot at killing the son of a bitch!

Hell of a plan, fellas!

OH That’s why he says “fellas” in 10x03 right after they revive him. Bookends to them shutting him out, since once they lock him in the dungeon Cas and Sam are finally handling Dean as they have to, instead of tiptoeing around the fact he’s turning into a demon right before their eyes. We officially enter Sam n Cas panic about what to do about Dean territory that lasts until the end of 10x03, and these bookend it nicely. (After much denial, panic resumes after 10x14)

It took maybe 5 minutes actual time in their lives for Dean to go from dewy eyed “you gave up your army for one guy” to yelling at Cas for doing that and weakening himself. Again, using the blade massively hurts Dean’s soul, and I kind of like how being sweet to Cas was the ~last~ thing to go. Dean is demon!Dean now as far as the symbolism is concerned, reeking of sulphur and refusing to go in demon traps. 

His turn around on Cas’s actions reminds me of Leviathan!Dean in 7x06 – he’s pissed off because they’re clever and strong and powerful in their own way and missing out on a perfectly good opportunity to subjugate the weak. Cas had an army and Dean no longer sees the sacrifice Cas made, that 5 minutes ago broke through his shell for what will be his last real smile for months – now it’s that Cas is an idiot who should have prioritised having an army to take on the real evil (and just killed Dean while he was at it, he doesn’t even imply it clearly here, but obviously he means, you should have killed me if you knew what was right… Same sentiment from the end of the episode with “it’s better this way” and the last time we see Dean for 3 episodes…)

Dean thinks he’s stronger than the both of them (though Sam n Cas managed to subdue and disarm him like, a minute ago. Shush Dean), and that their compassionate choices have ruined everything. I think he is genuinely concerned about killing Metatron because he’s next on the list of douchebags Dean wants to kill, and he’s motivated by a very very twisted saving people hunting things of throwing himself at greater evils to take them out to save the world.

And he emphasises that Sam is going to be lacking a Dean on this attempt, which in the show’s rules about having your brother by your side is one of the grave crimes.

Of course in a little bit Dean punches Sam out and goes to take on Metatron alone but shh. He’s not feeling himself at the mo :P And will judge Sam for not doing exactly what he then goes and does, highlighting the depressing part of their relationship where this happens all the time, or of course Dean judging Sam for saying he’d not do what Dean did so hard Sam feels obliged to do it – “I lied” coming up at the end too.

Sam and Cas exchange more worried looks –

CASTIEL Dean...wasn't wrong. My followers have abandoned us. 

SAM Yeah, and Gadreel says he can help us. From where I sit, that's more than an even trade.

Oh Cas I was saying this LAST EPISODE about you feeling certain Dean was judging you about the bombers – maybe you didn’t send them but his judgement was enough to make you doubt :< And he holds Dean’s word in such high esteem that even when he’s like this, it hurts, and now Cas doubts.

Sam on the other hand, also being a pragmatist, in a totally different way, recognises the worth of a defected Gadreel as better than a whole army that Cas suddenly misses right after “are you sure we three will be enough” “always have been” has been kicked out from under him 7 minutes later…

Metatron continues typing away on his magic typewriter. It’s now obvious to HIM everything is going somewhat-to-perfectly to plan – bearing in mind he’s ONLY controlling the angel arc so Cas’s personal crap with Dean is sort of a wild card. He DOES intend to lure Dean out to fight, but even he doesn’t know about the Mark yet, though that just makes him laugh harder at what Dean’s done because if there is one character on the chessboard who knows about the Mark, it’s Metatron. Even Cain doesn’t really appreciate what it is in the grander scheme, and Crowley’s holding out for a miracle. Metatron finding this out doesn’t change his plan, it just means he has an idea of how things will be even WORSE for Cas should he not fall for the plan and survive, demon!Dean will be running loose out there. Like, no win situation there >.>

“Do You Believe In Miracles” comes up on screen over Metatron, and it all seems to be about him and the angel arc, that this is the Big Thing that needs wrapping up, the ultimate threat that he needs to be dealt with… But of course those lines are actually for Crowley. As in season 7 – when will you get it, Crowley’s always the problem, Meg tells them, and here it’s blatantly set up to misdirect us, because these titles about heaven and miracles all seem to tie into the angel plot and are laid over Metatron. No one would think Crowley was after a miracle of his own.

Of course you can apply the title to every part of this episode, from them needing a miracle to pull off their plan to storm the Death Star, to Metatron’s hope to plant himself as the new God, including starting a new Biblical age of miracles on earth, walking among humanity and curing them etc. (In a total perversion of how Cas had his army working at the hospital.) Of course he sours miracles completely, whipping up murderous followers with them. Just the same as Crowley has a terrible miracle he’s hoping for.

(This is also one of those Crowlatron episodes like 8x21 and as my sometimes favourite ship I have to appreciate the scraps I get :P)

NEIL So, uh, Metatron. Metatron.

God?

METATRON Just a second.

(I can’t believe there was an angel called Neil – is this like Flagstaff? Were they starting to run out of angel names?)

Anyway, little detail of Metatron refusing to answer to anything but God… Of course he has a massive god complex and blah blah fairly obvious in context, nothing interesting to say about that HERE, but I like it for 11x20 and fleshing out his actual issues with God, exploring the way he wanted to emulate him and so on, because he’s busy being unrepentantly awful but honestly, he sort of learned from the best? He feels like all his writer’s tricks are stuff he learned from God. He needs a good editor and didn’t get one (I think Cas could have been if Metatron had his shit together and wasn’t awful but a decent angel who asked for help so this is a total AU going back to season 8 :P) and ran amok with the Worst Story Ever, which he thinks is marvellous but of course he’s just using it to make himself look awesome and to establish himself as God.

I suppose the line from 9x18 from Metatron via Gabriel about “you’ve been God more often than dad has” or whatever it was to Cas, is part of why Cas is the rival. He’s been in the same place as Metatron and I guess Metatron can’t trust him, or that the other angels wouldn’t think Cas is a viable alternative leader (especially when he’s seemingly fine until Metatron reveals the stolen grace thing… Cas, would you STOP eating things for power?)

(Yes, I know… I guess it’s like a watered down version of the eating Purgatory thing – Cas is in a similar position but reacts much less drastically, in a sort of “did what I had to do” way where everything is reacting and trying to counter things, and his methods are careful and proportionate. Gadreel said he hadn’t done ANYTHING on the offence to Metatron, but he was organising the angels and still very dangerous to him… Anyway, Cas took enough power to manage that, but not so that he’d get overwhelmed with it like the purgatory souls. Just die as himself, instead of exploding or releasing thousands of leviathan...)

NEIL Is that the new Angel handbook you're working on, or, uh...?

METATRON No, no, this is a story, Neil, a marvelous story, full of love and heartbreak and...love.

NEIL Sort of like "The Notebook."

METATRON Uh...

NEIL I love "The Notebook".

METATRON No.

The fact the angels are hoping Metatron will actually come up with something helpful for them – a book to live by >.> All they want is guidance and Metatron was the Scribe of God, SURELY he should be able to write them up a new way to live???

(*points at Cas living by example since ever*)

Anyway the whole book end-y thing for the season, of love and… love (As Dean said in 9x02 he doesn’t really do those things). Only last episode Metatron said Cas was in love with humanity. Now he suggests 2 kinds of love in his script which is designed to ruin Cas. It’s important to remember he doesn’t know Dean has the Mark and his writing is not fucking with ALL of season 9, ONLY the angel stuff and ONLY has a vendetta against Cas, of which Dean is only an incidental part. Honestly, 9x18 almost feels like the first time Metatron really came up against Cas this way after tricking him back in 8x23, because for a while he’s just an irritating bug Metatron can’t squash when he seems to get involved. I think 9x14 also suggests Metatron subtextually is making a play for Cas for an earlier draft of this same scheme, so ever since Cas got back in the game, Metatron’s had it out for him and everything he does just infuriates Metatron more. If you’ve been following the rewatch, vague ramblings about this all over the place but now it pays off to remember Metatron is writing about CAS.

It’s an authorial comment from Carver, yes, about the entire show, and that’s not half fascinating. He dismisses that it’s like The Notebook but there are still elements, as people have pointed out, the ridiculousness of Dean praying every night to Cas for a year same as whichever one of them wrote the letters (I watched The Notebook for work and I guess it didn’t stick).

But on the level of what Metatron is actually up to it’s suddenly fascinating that this story is all about Cas. And Metatron’s revenge. Cas loves humanity in every way, and Metatron’s about to go after one aspect of it (humanity in general) to catch and destroy one particular aspect of it, the face that Cas represents Humanity with, its noble champion who is already decaying his own humanity – it works on every layer that Metatron is out to get humanity and he kills the last of humanity out of Dean so he can be resurrected a demon, confirming exactly that: Dean is humanity, and then of course Cas is in love with it. Or him. Whichever way you turn it it’s all Dean.

I mean the “heartbreak” is that he’s literally gonna stab Dean in the heart

Blah blah setting up Metatron’s fall with the angel radio thing and how eeeveryone can hear him when this button is pressed. Honestly the fact Cas figured that out is probably book ending his brilliant deduction about seatbelts in 9x01 when he’d previously never encountered them in the wild because although the Impala reportedly might have belts that go across the lap, like hell Sam and Dean use them :P Like, here is a strange piece of human(ish) technology but he works out what it’s for and uses it to save himself and the day :’D

I love Metatron’s boring Heaven offices everyone’s working at. I’m always kind of sad to see Hannah there because I feel she is an office worker angel… One of the most typical water cooler angels there are, who have always been running the bureaucracy in the background all this time and never really fighting on Earth or doing cool shit :P Like, a tiny glimpse of her just doing what she was meant to :<

Although under Metatron’s rule so better she doesn’t stay there I guess >.>

I like the transitions here, that Metatron monologueing obviously is going out to every angel, so we rejoin our current angels.

There is absolutely no explanation for why Sam and Cas are in Cas’s car.

I assume it drove itself to the Bunker.

METATRON I'd like to take a moment to welcome you all back. I want you to know how moved I am that you've accepted me as your new God. My heart, as they say, is full, which is why I want to share some wonderful news with you. I'm going on a short trip. Heaven's door will be temporarily closed pending my return, but rest assured all will be explained. And it will be...Glorious.

Metatron setting out to make himself God with this weird ass plan to get Dean…

Got to wonder if he has to kill Dean because Dean as the centre of the universe and somehow the arbitrator on which way the universe has gone for years, as the firewall between light and dark, needs to be out the way or so dark he can’t object, so Metatron’s ulterior motive to draw him out could just be so he doesn’t have to fight Dean over this later. 

The universe tends to go where Dean says, and Metatron might be over confident and egotistical but he can see when Dean is the home team he’s playing against and better safe than sorry… the fact it’s the same thing as Cas and cutting out his human weakness to destroy him is almost, like, a happy 2 birds with one stone coincidence :P

I like how Gadreel and Cas just *headache* *dying over here but I will still make That Face about it* when Metatron talks.

Oh Gadreel :< Cas approaches him while he’s lying in the grass with an attractive smear of blood on his head, mirroring 9x01 and Cas and Hael. Cas has been on a huge journey since then, and I guess it’s hard to know where to start. Hael was going to go on angel radio and call all the angels down on Cas; they’ve just got an angel radio message to all the angels from Metatron who’s setting the trap FOR Cas to destroy him. 

Cas is now an angel again – ish. 

Gadreel leans away from Cas trying to heal him with a protest of “your grace” showing us how far Cas has gone and how broken he is really. Hael’s broken glass halo seems way more appropriate for him on the inside, or perhaps Gadreel who is now in deep repenting mode, and as a Cas parallel, representing that side of Cas that self-destructs to redeem himself for the angels. I think this is the last time it happens, or rather, the angel fall was and Cas has learned not to do this, because he goes along with Hannah’s mission but his heart isn’t in it and he’s happy to move on to repenting for other stuff, looking at the more human stuff in his life, helping Claire and Dean pretty much exclusively after 10x09. Don’t think we’ve really had any big Cas guilt moments since then in the same way – not with him self-destructing for HEAVEN. He makes a lot of choices this year :P

Anyway at least Cas heals Gadreel instead of having to kill Hael. He has a bit more luxury to help the angels, thankless task though it is. Of course Gadreel represents how Cas went from a villain to the angels to the one who’ll save them, even if this is a really mixed victory for personal reasons, he DID manage to get them all home to a stable-ish Heaven. Stable enough anyway that it’s not been a problem for 3 years.

There’s probably tons more about that one little moment because Gadreel and Cas are so layered but I’m very tired so I hope anyone reading this just muses on the mirrored moments a little while and appreciates the symmetry :P

Meanwhile: Carver’s weird fixation with Crowley. Did he even write him until season 8? I don’t think he did. He was in very very few episodes in season 5 and I think only returned in 5x20 – and Carver’s last episode was 5x18. I think 8x01 actually the first time he writes him… After 11x01 I think it’s best just to side-eye Carver and Crowley and that weird phallic lantern/fountain and move on - quickly.

I sometimes think Carver sort of manages to embody all his major writers in one way or another but in this case we’re getting Buckleming vibes :P

Mood whiplash from Crowley’s odd spa to

DEAN What the hell's happening to me, you son of a bitch?

CROWLEY Liquor before beer, bad taco? How should I know?

DEAN I can't turn it off! Ever since I killed Abaddon, it's -- it's like this whole...other thing. I get this high and I-I-I need to kill. I mean, I really, really need to kill. And if I don't --

Dean KNOWS Crowley knows and did this to him. He’s terrified and angry and reaching out for answers in that sort of desperate way where you only SUMMON Crowley when things are really really bad.

“I can’t turn it off” suggests that Dean has been managing to switch the bloodlust on and off as needed – saying he couldn’t do it “since Abaddon” means that 9x22 and all his stupid decisions are more than explained. This also gives us an insight into this “whole other thing” – a year before we find out about the Darkness, a little suggestion that this isn’t strictly Dean’s darkness overwhelming him. Perhaps an innocent turn of phrase ONCE, but knowing what we know with hindsight, he’s being devoured by Amara’s rage to kill and destroy her brother’s creation. Killing Abaddon was a powerful enough moment to let her in… It could even have been tapping into the powers and all the stuff where the Mark was glowing and he used telekinesis because that seemed to power him up enough to overcome Abaddon – the killing was just the reward for indulging that power and tapping into Amara’s rage.

Now we know the “really really need to kill” is all her influence, and that and demon!Dean’s behaviour are two slightly adjacent things. Crowley actually keeps the Mark well fed while he has him, so at least in 10x01 Dean is pretty much a case study on DEAN as a demon, while perhaps by 10x03 when he’s had a rougher time and been denied regular killing and also has Sam in front of him to rile him up with AMARA’S anger at brothers and stuff, then, yeah. Whole different beastie.

I like how Dean gets locked in the dungeon and literally the next time we see him after the episode starts he’s got the doors open and raided the supply room for summoning stuff. Top security, Sam n Cas. Is it a tiny lesson in not taking the proper precautions when it comes to Dean’s resourcefulness – literally leaving him with a room full of resources in his grasp? Obviously this episode leaves us on the warning that Sam and Cas are going to have to deal with demon!Dean and everything so far has been showing us how emotionally unprepared they are for it.

CROWLEY It wants you to kill. The more you kill, the better you feel. The less you kill, the less better you feel. 

DEAN How much less better? 

CROWLEY One would imagine

the least-best better.

I love when language gets all tied up in knots like this.

Dean looks like he’s about to cry as he has to vocalise for the first time the thought of kill all the time or just die

He mentions Cain and Crowley LIES to him: “Cain was a demon” – swapping the order of events, and of course in a way where we know that from his speech at the end of the episode he knows full well what happened to Cain. He even references this exact exchange. I would call this a lie. >.>

Anyway I guess 12x15 has left me extra attuned to Dean being lied to, and I am feeling like combining sensitive season 12 Dean girl feelings with season 9 and 10 is probably not going to end well :P

Crowley is testing Dean all episode and when Dean brings up getting rid of the Mark but then admits he wants to kill Metatron more, he passes yet another of Crowley’s tests – that the bloodlust will beat out self-preservation instinct.

(At this point and until 10x14 removing the Mark from Dean is a perfectly sensible thing to do >.>)

DEAN But I have to get through that door, and I have to get to the blade. And you're gonna help me.

[Camera switches to SAM, CASTIEL and GADREEL entering the bunker. The box that the Blade was in lays open on the table.]

I love how Dean commands Crowley, and then we switch to Sam LEADING two angels into the Bunker. Winchesters taking charge – their default thing where they end up in control of a room. Sometimes they hang back when they think someone is better equipped or more commanding than them but I think that pretty much always ends up with them running stuff anyway :P 

That was enough of a time skip for Crowley to whisk Dean away, and:

GADREEL What's that smell? 

SAM Sulfur.

To go with Crowley asking it the moment he showed up in the dungeon. There’s the answer to the question… Dean’s turned into a demon enough that like all the others, he reeks of sulphur.

(I’m guessing this is a thing that can be managed either with demon strength deodorant or frequent washing or something because Dean and Crowley could not possibly have pulled triplets while reeking of rotten eggs :P I guess it’s something that manifests when they use their powers and people find it at scenes where demons did crap because it’s a residue from their powers and of course Dean in transformation to a demon is being twisted up by demonic power or something very much like it…)

SAM Who else would he summon? I mean, he and Crowley have been bromancing over the Blade ever since Dean got the mark.

Oh Cas’s FACE. He’s come up against the love triangle briefly in 9x10 where Crowley was just making some little feelers out into where next for him and his plans, Cas just kind of eyerolling at how they have to work with him and so on. 

This is where he first knows that things are wrong. Dean working with Crowley and that he didn’t know, and generally how far out of control things got while he was busy, and how MUCH he blames Crowley, like of course things are so terrible because this has been the next part of his plan. Cas knows what the Mark does, in a very abstract way, the same rumours Crowley knows, if we have to guess from how he asked Sam about Dean last episode and in 9x18 when he told Sam to keep an eye on him, probably fully meaning to hurry things along and fix Dean.

(Also with 12x15 in mind, Cas summoning an army and re-taking Heaven? At this point I think he would still feel like he SHOULD default towards working with Heaven. He resisted it before, for personal reasons, since he got back from Purgatory, only to find out he HAD been working with them via mind control. The fall came too soon after to work out anything about a post-Naomi relationship with Heaven, and all the different factions etc have been the angels trying to work things out. Cas being recognised as a leader for half the season and at least a viable threat by Metatron for most of it, means that he DOES have a place in Heaven if he wants it, recognises that, and I think was hoping he could get everything together, get the angels back, and with order restored, use the resources of Heaven to fix Dean. (See also: not a bad idea to do that until 10x14) It’s not until the middle of season 10 and start of 11 he truly starts to feel UNWELCOME and OUTCAST when he starts making too many decisions in favour of the Winchesters over Heaven (like 10x17) and his criminal status is back. 12x15 he’s potentially reclaiming (or at least exploring doing so) something that he hadn’t QUITE lost here, although of course he gets a taste of it, being led to Metatron in handcuffs, it’s still largely their feud, you could argue, and the angels are going back and forth on leaders so much that of course at the end of this episode he’s free and standing around in Heaven chatting to Hannah. (I think 12x15 is only the second time he’s been to Heaven since 9x23… oh, 10x02, 10x17. Yeah. 3rd time. 3rd and a half if you include 11x22))

Blah blah Sam stands up for Dean with the angels being super practical about his chances of taking out Metatron, eventually signs up for the plan anyway because what other option to they have – Sam and pragmatism again; something that does align him with the way Cas thinks. 11x18 and sticking up for Cas’s choice, after seeing what he said in 11x14? Yeah, he understands.

He does also go for it only after Gadreel and Cas discuss the rest of the plan in which they can help, which honestly doesn’t seem to address Sam’s concerns about Dean being too dangerous himself and TO himself… But at least reduces the chance of Dean being killed and then they can deal with the urgent problem, of Metatron, and buy time to worry about Dean… Which would be great logic if he wasn’t already too far gone :P

CASTIEL Not if we can break the connection between Metatron and the tablet. That would make him just an ordinary Angel.

The whole “what broke the connection” thing with the tablet… Very curious words for Cas to use. 

Of course book ending the tablet being found and the tablet being smashed, in very similar staging of how it’s being dropped. (Take a wild frikkin guess at the director of this episode :P) I guess the fights may be similar with Dean getting thrown around by Metatron – I never analysed them side by side, although of course Metatron as the Worst Cas Mirror also gives us a kind of great non-Destiel reverse crypt scene as the climax of the episode. 

Externalising the trauma of the crypt scene for them I guess – Cas chooses NOT to prioritise the tablet, but to smash it (and it can’t control him to protect it, instead it seems happy to let him break it and end this)… Yeah, important moments for Cas, symbolically managing to give up Heaven’s control. See above: what I was rambling about there about how he’s been away from it for a while. He has to go through some more motions – the Hannah stuff next season – but his heart is no longer in it, and he makes a really hefty choice to break the tablet (I guess which he’s doing here, hence the “break the connection” long before he DOES it)… I remember the action at the end is all blurred together, Cas in Heaven and Dean getting beaten up, so Cas is almost like the Naomi to Metatron’s Cas, except he’s not controlling him and he’s trying to STOP him killing Dean.

… I wonder if anyone’s ever actually paralleled these moments together before. I don’t remember it from the end of season 9, although it’s very possible I read an excellent meta arguing it and have now FORGOTTEN. [insert the usual disclaimer I hope you take for granted about these rewatches that I have soup for brains]

I think also at this point we needed at LEAST 10x22 to realise how dedicated Thomas J. Wright is to his crypt scene parallels. At this point it’s like, blah blah here’s his next episode, where’s the crypt scene (*stares at 12x10 which I wrote about as ENDING this but have some feeling that it’s never over as long as he’s around*) but understandably at this point people might not have noticed TJW was so obsessed with this :P

SAM If Metatron's number two shows up with heaven's most wanted, [motioning at CASTIEL] the gig is up.

Oooh that Heaven’s most wanted thing was used again in 11x22 wasn’t it?

LADY Damn it, Al, I don't care what you've got going on tonight. He's your kid, too, and I'm telling you he's on drugs.

They were selling the Mark descent as an addiction (and used Dean calling it a “high” just now) – Sam n Cas are the concerned parents in this case, Dean the errant kid, and in the here and now they’re mostly on the same page but I think in say 10x01 or 10x02 when Cas gets all distracted with other things “going on” there’s a sense of this, especially Sam in the line of fire.

On the other hand Cas is the one I think Crowley literally calls roadkill when he catches up to him in 10x03? Crowlatron parallels as he heals Cas! Which I guess would parallel that Cas has been far MORE worried about Dean than Sam has at this point?

Anyway Dean n Crowley on the road together, Dean letting Crowley ride shotgun. Probably a side effect of Cas having his own car and keeping them separate is that Cas never got to ride shotgun with Dean since 9x06 but Crowley’s been there several times since, like 9x11 immediately after all the nonsense about shotgun and its sacred place next to Dean. Since the driver’s seat is set, there’s only room for either an angel or a demon on your shoulder, not the healthy balance they’re supposed to represent :P

Dean walks under a red exit sign just like, one more for the road though he’s way past help now, and orders a coffee black as his eyes are about to be 

Crowley plays at guilt about that and Dean not being considerate of the service industry, which also means he gets to order his infamous uneaten cheeseburger. Considering I’m watching the start of season 8 as well, yeah, those cheeseburgers are all over the place and Dean’s scoffing them down, sometimes 2 at once, glad to be back on earth and among humanity. The sign he’s partaking in society :P Crowley frames ordering enough food to tip properly as a sign of the social contract in play; Dean NOT thinking of it that way and just ordering a coffee as a gesture of interaction is a sign he’s stepped outside of that.

[urgh and in 12x15, Cas and Kelvin seemingly ordering and leaving untouched two large glasses of water at the bar?]

Crowley gets all philosophical about howling at the moon to indirectly seduce Dean by waxing lyrical about what he could offer him if Dean would take him up on this. He eyes up the waitress on Dean’s behalf but Dean isn’t interested. He’s just interested in finding Metatron right now – Crowley is talking at a brick wall that just wants to kill stuff. But when Dean DOES become a demon, his sense of duty and responsibility disappears, and howling at the moon suddenly sounds like a great idea.

CROWLEY You never get tired of the rat race? Never get the urge to just...bugger off and howl at the moon? Never ask yourself, "is this it? Is this all there is?"

Dean and I guess we also (are meant to) initially think that Crowley is mostly talking about himself, especially as he has started to act mid-life crisis-y since this season, and getting his human emotions amped back up. 

Now we know he didn’t necessarily want Hell (thanks, 12x12), or at least hadn’t thought he’d ever get a shot at running it and had it dumped on him, we see that the boring side of running hell is emphasised more and more as time goes on. Season 10 really starts it – once Dean and Crowley run off together we get much more of an inside look at Crowley from then on, even after they go their separate ways. I guess we haven’t really seen his throne room and all that nonsense yet, and his sense of boredom or the outright disrespect or frustration from his minions is also something we don’t really see up to this point – though he’s had demons defect to Abaddon, the ones he keeps around himself have all been presented as loyal and eager as they’re mostly dropping by to move the plot along.

Anyway immediately after this he ducks behind fake protesting too much that he kicked human blood and isn’t being emo, to make Dean think that he IS just being emo because too much human blood, instead of mirroring how in the start of the season he was manipulating Kevin by being really canny about human emotion now and also having (always) been good at really DARK human nature, making it a dangerous combination to give Crowley extra tools for extra emotional manipulation (he manipulates Kevin into torture, which of course is ominous for how he’s taking Dean for his own purposes now).

Slightly wanky side note – I forgot about this lie CONFIRMING that Crowley and the human blood thing was a front for most of the time, so I think Buckleming really over-sold it in 9x16 or weren’t convincing enough or… something. Crowley’s a bit inconsistent and I think they are responsible for the most extreme change in characterisation considering he’s fine when we last see him in 9x11 and playing up the addiction but actually fine in 9x17, so really 9x16 should have started with Crowley trying to play Abaddon and actually treating her as a credible threat… But anyway every few days I find some way or another to write a Buckleming episode better, so I should probably stop…

DEAN Oh, so you're full-metal douche again. Well, that's fantastic. Would you like a stuffed bear?

This is one of the best-delivered lines on the show – he’s brimming with anger and distaste and “would you like a stuffed bear” is the most disgusted, sarcastic line I’ve heard ever. Dang Jensen.

There’s probably some interesting thoughts about Dean’s relation to demonhood here: it’s a mess about not wanting Crowley to be a vampire, because people get hurt, hating Crowley as an apparently fully functioning antagonist with no emotional baggage more and generally being pissed off with his existence… However Crowley’s talking about becoming less human, less emotional, and Dean hardly believes him but considering where HE is right now in relation to humanity… Not good. These words are frightening – that humanity can be so easily gained and lost.

CROWLEY Just trying to make conversation.

DEAN How's hell, Crowley? 

CROWLEY Hell's fine. Hell's like a Swiss watch. Don't worry about hell.

That’s significant, I say like not everything is, because it’s Dean doing that thing where he says/indicates one thing but then does another – like “do you want to talk about it?” “no” *immediately talk about it* - in this case, telling Crowley to shut up but then when he protests he was only trying to make conversation, actually immediately follows up with small talk of his own, sounding grumpily obliged to do it, but STILL DOING IT despite how he seemed to be grumpily blanking Crowley out. Another bad sign that he’s LISTENING and absorbing what Crowley says. Even if he seems to be angry and silent about it.

Crowley brushes off his request as if it were an accusation, but then pauses and admits that

CROWLEY Hell's complicated. 

DEAN "Game of Thrones" is complicated. Shower sex -- that's complicated. Hell ain't complicated. Your problem ain't hell. It's you.

And Dean bites right back, pointing out Crowley was right about Hell being a swiss watch, so if there’s any complication it’s Crowley’s fault (Crowley also uses the phrasing which indicates a relationship – “it’s complicated” and Dean’s response including a mention of shower sex, so their aggressive flirting is going on underneath this)

Mentioning Game of Thrones also ties in a tiny part of 9x04, and that nice family bonding scene with Sam, Charlie and Dean. Bringing it up in this context just shows us how far away Dean is from that.

And his criticism of Crowley –

CROWLEY Fair enough.

Crowley wasn’t designed to run Hell, and Crowley has it as a surprise burden – this is foreshadowing development of REALLY seeing how fed up of Hell Crowley is, as I think 10x02 being the first scene to show Crowley with minions who are boring him to tears in a reflection of how it’s going to be for the next few seasons, to date, since the most recent season 12 episode featured minions boring Crowley to tears :P And that’s on the other side of finding out he never really went all out guns blazing to get the title but had it handed to him in a quirk of fate.

CROWLEY What's your problem, then?

DEAN My problem is Metatron.

Again, Crowley bounces back to Dean – keeping up the conversation, and again showing them as equals with problems that can be compared this way, as if they’re just gossiping. 

Dean obviously has much bigger personal problems but they’re all being channelled into Metatron as an outlet for the feelings, giving his need to kill a big target… Something the Mark is thirsting after, and also the last thing Amara kills in season 11, AND in 10x10 Metatron admits how much the Mark would love to kill him, ranking himself as a bigger target than even regular angels because of his “Scribe of God” thing. Metatron playing God also is dangerously putting himself in the shoes of the exact thing the root cause of the Mark wants to kill most, more than demons, more than angels, more than even regular old Metatron. And certainly trumping Dean’s personal descent relating to Sam for now.

Season 11 hindsight does make this all very interesting. Who knows how much of this was ever Carver’s full plan but now we have all the info it is fun to put pieces together…

The old temptation of working with someone with much better resources – Dean complains about how there’s no info on Metatron, and immediately demons come through the door with the lead Dean needs…  You could almost say on cue.

Dean touches the blade warily when the demons come in and lets go when they leave. He hates demons and wants to kill them… but Crowley seems to be fine.

The phone they give him is yellow – dunno if they confiscated it off the actual kid involved or if that just happened to be one of the demon’s phones they loaded it up on instead of bothering finding it on youtube for Crowley – considering Dean has a laptop open in front of him and all :P

I suppose in a season with Dean’s pink ipod it’s amusing to look at him holding a yellow phone now. In this episode yellow is very very much about sulphur and hell, which the final confrontation will show with colour beautifully. Which makes the pink ipod a little sign of the layer underneath performing Dean – pink is a warning sign (used a LOT in the start of the season especially 9x06) but also the other level that Dean owns such a thing… Now he’s being handed a yellow phone, which will lead him off onto the next step of his unstoppable transformation… Yellow is not a happy colour here.

CROWLEY Apparently... Your angel has gone viral.

“your angel” – taking Cas’s spot with Metatron as Dean is consumed with revenge and he loses his emotional attachment to Cas.

Also, for what I was saying about the crypt scene repeat, Dean is the one again getting slammed around by an angel who needs the connection broken, and the only one in the original spot from 8x17.

Carver era Carver is… definitely a writer I have issues with and the fact we only get him at the start and end of each season would somewhat obscure it when it comes to… personal flair… Anyway filed under things I just do not know what to make of for his intent:

BOY #1 [following a girls ass down the sidewalk] And that, America, is perfection. 

BOY #2 Yo, dude, that's your sister.

I mean, the show HAS incest subtext, pretty much always as “how you would care to interpret Sam and Dean” and occasional romantic mirrors to their dynamic, and it plays both sides with Sam n Dean and Dean n Cas subtext (and Dean n Crowley right now)… so is this some mirror for the sake of pandering? Random edgy incest stuff because why not, the show is known for it and apparently it’s a draw for some of the audience, so give them what you think they might enjoy? It’s a random little moment and I can’t see any way to connect it to Sam and Dean and their dynamic/where their story is at or ever has been because neither of them ever literally objectifies the other – not that I particularly want to look at their subtext but it’s normally in the stuff that happens between them personally. I mean if it’s saying the show approves of incest – ick – and feels like the end of the episode between Sam and Dean is sort of like a dying declaration sort of thing, then I suppose good for the people who ship it… It baffles me to have this moment here though.

I’d assume rolling back to what a casual viewer might think the point is to recoil with “ugh!” when we find out what the guy’s filming, and has his friend call him out for it. The calling out being the important part. 

Metatron’s interactions with humanity have a whole range of horrible human behaviours almost like he’s got a miasma around him; this guy, the woman who dies arguing with the father of her son who won’t help him when he’s on drugs, then Metatron seeks out the homeless camp and riles them all up to murder in his name. It’s possibly trying to show us the worst of humanity, that people can be awful. Dean “humanity” Winchester is corrupted and broken right now, and almost like with him out of commission, Metatron is happily making a mockery of “humanity” that Cas loves so much by whipping up violence in them… And ACTUALLY making a cult after Dean accused Cas of that in the previous episode.

Still this is a really terrible note in the middle of the episode and I’ve never liked it because it feels completely fake which means the writing is pushing something or other here, and it’s jarring and weird.

Oh yeah Crowley already knows what’s on the video when he hears Metatron’s voice and reacts smugly to Dean’s surprised reaction

*crowlatron intensifies*

[DEAN gathers his stuff and gets up]

CROWLEY Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're not gonna eat your food?

DEAN Not hungry.

Dean’s reaction to Crowley is initially to pull out some cash and pay for the burger or leave the tip that Crowley was aggravating him about earlier. It doesn’t occur to him to think about eating or not eating, until an afterthought. Crowley essentially bothered him into getting the food and Dean possibly is reacting to it as some sort of power play from Crowley, assuming he’s bothering him because he WANTS him to eat or something – his own lack of desire for food and the fact that’s a glaring red light totally missing him. Whoops :P

Aaah no the Heaven playground. Aaaaaaah AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

*enjoy Gadreel’s most excellent stare into the distance with total WTF about “Wookie” while I’m trying not to be overwhelmed by Cas* 

The playground here is full of life in a sense – the angels guarding it are playing, and the sun is out. Compare to 12x15 and it was intentionally made to look empty, bare, and sort of abandoned and dirty on a grey rainy day. They might not have been able to help the weather exactly, but the shift between the first time we see it and the last stand out to me, especially as we were reminded of behind the scenes nonsense of Misha playing on the slide in both episodes :P

Anyway, Gadreel serves as the most angel-y angel ever (as Metatron points out for us last episode with his “ugh you’re such an angel”) and Cas is put in contrast, as an angel who’s been sort of ruined. Yeah Metatron did it to him, by putting all that pop culture in his brain, so again the whole thing is very manufactured to make the point but it DOES show the concept of Cas being altered by humanity and Gadreel as an angel in contrast who has no idea wtf that all is about. Possibly they just wanted Cas to have this moment he’s never had before of being the one making the reference, and it’s a good moment using all the resources of the season… Funny moment, not sure how much I like it going deeper because it’s kind of just there :P I feel like I’m reaching to analyse Cas being anything other than Cas in it… 

And I love him being resourceful an intelligent and using all HIS resources, so it is a good moment for showing him getting on with things I guess.

As I was saying earlier, this scene shows quite clearly Cas is wanted as the “leader of the rebellion” (against Metatron) so the stuff about him and Heaven as a concept or family is still not being developed in the way that it will after leading to 12x15 as, I guess, Cas still seems to have some faith and love for restoring his family and the call of “home” is still a powerful force on him (9x18, 9x22) and he still considers heaven to be home. He’s dealing with the politics, not being emotionally exiled, OR quite yet (like, within this episode) questioning his place among them. Oh, he’s been asked a few times this season, but it’s been much easier to ignore so far…

Dean continues to have Crowley in the front seat – this time a violation showing clearly it’s Sam’s place when they pull up at the end of the clue trail to find Sam there, who then points out he didn’t need a demon to do the work for him.

Dean thinks that Sam’s about to stage an intervention (I wonder if Sam was waiting, KNOWING Dean would come, or he heard the sound of the Impala and hurried the woman away and is covering her escape at the same time as confronting Dean). Sam just wants Dean to work with them on this –

SAM Yeah, I sort of got that. I just thought you might like to know that while you two have been playing, uh, odd couple, 

And points out that Dean’s actively been making it HARDER for them to solve this (although I don’t know how as they arrive at the same point at roughly the same time – Sam first – off the same clue :P) … He points out that Dean is eloping with Crowley, but I think just jabbing at Dean, because the elopement STILL takes him by surprise…

Sam compartmentalising, Dean holding a grudge and making it personal, the usual:

SAM A fight, I might add, you made that much more complicated when you decided to stab the one angel who could actually get us to Metatron. 

DEAN  You mean the angel that took you for a joy ride? The angel that slaughtered Kevin? That angel?

Dean thinking Sam should be more upset and want Gadreel dead on principle. 

Now this is interesting because Dean has a similar grudge against the BMoL for torturing Sam but of course he’s NOT Marked!Dean any more, and while he’s expressing his dislike of it in sadness and miserable faces, once Sam has this almost exact same conversation with him in 12x15 about how he’s working with someone Dean considers an enemy BECAUSE THEY HURT SAM, Dean has a more reasonable response which is to agree to work with them FOR Sam (and Mary), and openly what we were hoping Sam may have been doing but probably isn’t now with a bit more development, of going along for the ride, judging the operation, and choosing when to pull the plug on their cooperation. 

Dean offering to be a moral compass there obviously is something he CAN’T do here, but this situation is much simpler – Cas and Gadreel are intentionally now beyond his reach, being in Heaven and enacting their part of the plan with no idea what’s happening on Earth until Metatron comes back to tell Cas. Sam hasn’t exactly signed up to work with Gadreel full time – he makes sense as a resource to use in this situation and Sam can put it aside for long enough to deal with their very real terrible problems but again I still see this as early days to what’s being addressed in season 12… So. Moving on…

SAM Who you let in the front door in the first place. You tricked me, Dean. And now I'm the one who wakes up in the middle of the night seeing my hands killing Kevin, not you.

AAAAH

This does feel like something that Sam maybe should have mentioned sooner, such as in the 9x12-15 range of their fight when Dean still had approachable empathy even if it was a bit messed up.

Sam moves right on from dropping his emotional bombshell, and agrees they should carry on disowning each other, and NOW Dean is truly another thing he compartmentalises to work with, when he grudgingly admits that Gadreel was their best hope at info but Dean is the best shot at KILLING Metatron.

Dean says he’s ready to kamikaze himself on that, whatever the consequences, and Sam’s like whatever, while Crowley listens in looking all “aha” – he knows it’s safe to leave. Sam was talking about arming the warhead earlier but it’s Crowley who has actually done that and he now knows that Dean is on the right trajectory to get what HE wants out of him.

This conversation also starts with Sam mentioning the woman as “miracle lady” which is using the keyword from the title – “Do you Believe in Miracles” and this is all about the total non-miracle of Dean becoming a demon, and Crowley’s hope/faith that it will.

Also the way they film Jensen’s face in season - I have no idea how you can transform a face so completely but I guess all the little things like stubble, his current haircut, and the makeup to redden his eyes (and the way he’s narrowing them) turn his into this unrecognisable creature, when you throw in camera angles catching his face in a very certain way. I find it incredible how transformed he is – if you look at all the different shots of him here, compare to, like, the start of the season when he was happy and healthy… Yeah. I can’t even say it’s because they left his skin bare because he’s showing as many freckles here as 9x02 and he looked GREAT there… I also find it crazy how in 10x01 he looks 10 years younger, and once he’s not a demon any more, resumes a completely regular Dean sort of face. Like wtf Jensen.

DEAN Look, I don't know what you expected here, okay. I don't really care, but you wanted off the hamster wheel. Get off.

Something about bringing up hamsters in a Crowley context just makes me itch :P

Anyway. Dean’s “I don’t know what you expected” is very relationship coded. Or, well, “this was just a fling, bugger off” for NOW. More Crowley usurping Sam and Dean stuff –

SAM I know. But if this is it, we're gonna do it together.

I think you could definitely read in Sam self-destructing along with Dean there, that same “I could go with you” Cas offers Dean in 11x23, although this is much grimmer in a way, that what they’re doing is so much more motivated by blood and revenge, and Dean’s not himself, and just – Sam so not dealing well with the Mark, and what it’s done to Dean and what he’s lost because of it. He’s still treating Dean like he’s Dean and that might mean something... 

While Dean punching Sam out in a bit is much more like “let me go Sammy” from Dean’s perspective, because that’s all gone for him and he doesn’t want or need it. (Well, I’d argue he’d never want Sam to come with him because he’d want to protect him, but in this case it’s more about pushing him away emotionally – maybe for his own protection in 9x21 if you don’t think Dean just didn’t want Sam to see him like that, but at this point I wouldn’t like to say Dean feels anything for Sam until he’s stabbed and gets a last little moment of perspective…)

Anyway again I think I’m coming at this from the wrong direction, squinting at what this comparison says, because I’m looking at it knowing Drowley is a done deal for next season and taking it as the main thing instead of the incidental but hilariously episode-reaction-overwhelming thing in 10x01… 

Crowley does make a point of trying to usurp literally every influence on Dean’s life, from parental to brother to romantic interest. He teases the same jealousy in Sam next episode (obviously also Carver), about he and Dean completing each other in a way that pisses Sam off… I may just be grumpy with Carver for the incest thing earlier, but obviously even ignoring that Drowey is at least initially in season 9 a love triangle (or whatever shape) involving prying Dean away from Sam too (“you’re lying to him like he’s your wife, which makes me your mistress” or whatever Crowley said along those lines), with the obvious take that I personally would always read that as usurping the brother dynamic in the way that the new relationship snatches Dean from his old role in the family (and literally, since their relationship is dead in the water with the Mark poisoning Dean right now).

Carver era is strewn with misunderstandings about feelings and different forms of affection being blurred together – although Dabb took over by then, 11x23 wraps that up thematically with Amara understanding what she’d been feeling for Dean was misapplied yearning for a better SIBLING relationship, and so on… Ugh :P  

Anyway… Metatron’s portal! I’m not laughing that I just stuck a gifset in my queue of Cas going in willingly accompanied by Kelvin and here he goes with Gadreel thinking he has everything under control and – oops they’re in prison.

Poor Gadreel. Back where he started, and ALL his mistakes were made AVOIDING getting back here and trying to do whatever he could or believing anything that would mean Heaven would forgive him and he’d never have to go back. All his work, and he’s locked up for not even the original crime any more, but his latest attempts to make thing right after changing sides for like the 3rd time…

Of course he always was going to end up back here after he killed for this – and killed innocents, and Sam reminded us moments ago that Kevin’s blood was on his hands, never mind all the angels Gadreel killed.

Anyway the angel Ingrid does all the gloating and locking them up – Hannah flounces behind her and looks pleased that this has all been sorted out, but doesn’t actually SAY anything, possibly to save on likeability for later.

Thinking about likeability, here’s Metatron hanging out as Marv, wearing the clothes he thinks make him look the most pathetic, and also the ones he’ll be stuck with for a good chunk of the rest of his appearances, where that gets turned around on him and makes him look genuinely pathetic because he IS. People compared it again to mimicking Cas’s clothes in 9x03 but of course he’s doing it out of cruelty, not necessity… More cosplaying Cas though.

SCARF ANGEL He's a fraud!

Calling him out on his plan; what every writer fears hearing after convincing themselves they’re doing such a great job :P Of course Metatron is plagiarising and writing terribly and has advice like “steal from the best” so he knows that he lacks the originality. It takes until 11x20 to own up to it and be more at peace with himself and his terrible writing. Right here, it’s just a way to anger him.

Oooh the lady that he healed earlier has followed him – I guess she’s one of his disciples now… She’s changed into a plaid shirt, I guess symbolic of all the random humanity he’s been corrupting. Because plaid is humanity. Because Dean.

They really got Scarf Angel to stand at a great angle for the sun to hit his eyes and make them glow gold naturally. I have also been noticing while listening on proper good headphones that many of the angels have their dialogue tweaked to sound a little clearer and echoey compared to others, if they talk in that angel way, all full of conviction and righteousness. I don’t think Metatron or Cas have it, but Cas’s army and Tessa all did last episode.

SCARF ANGEL I am sorry you don't believe me. But I must do what my mission demands. I must protect you.

It’s really really dangerous to try and follow the original mission >.> RIP Scarf Angel.

This is so brutal, and Metatron just loves how much they love him… Being willing to kill in his name (last episode Sam was telling Cas about how people did messed up stuff in God’s name >.>) – I guess in 12x07 Lucifer figures out the same thing about how you can enjoy the devotion of humans, but made them hurt THEMSELVES in his name. Or, Vince’s. Not that doing it for “Marv” is any better :P

Meanwhile Dean is having a weird moment with the Blade. Sam asks Dean if he’s good and Dean’s like yeah I’m good. Sam hands him the First Blade, which considering what Dean’s about to do is just symbolically awful about Sam knowing he has to enable Dean and put that weapon in his hands, because he sure needs some more guilt about that before the end of the episode :P

Dean tries to apologise for the previous months, kind of, and Sam’s like, I know. Because NOW he starts to get that Dean maaaybe hasn’t been himself. Dean’s intending this as last words, scraping up one last shred of himself to say goodbye, and Sam brushes it off, so that Dean doesn’t have to say it. Not sure Dean intended to say anything out loud but WANTED Sam to fill in the gaps for him, that he couldn’t really say.

Anyway night night Sammy. Dean is kind enough not to leave him with his hand in a puddle. He’s not that cruel :P

HANNAH You told us not a single angel more would die in this fight. 

CASTIEL What do you think I have been trying to do?

OW. Whenever Cas gets that urgent gritted teeth anger I just die a bit about how frustrated he is to make his family see…

Never mind having to defend Gadreel and finding that the two of them are not only uniquely placed to fight Metatron but now are uniquely placed not to be trusted and that NOTHING they say will be trusted…

HANNAH Nothing you say matters.

CASTIEL Would you rather I not try at all?

Also that line from Cas is like… the most Cas thing.

Here’s Dean doing his walk to his doom. Aaaand here’s the line that sneakily confirms absolutely everything about Dean “Humanity” Winchester and the multiple layers at work about him representing that and what that MEANS for Cas and what Metatron’s plan was really about…

WOMAN You're Dean Winchester. 

DEAN Now, how did you know that? 

WOMAN He said you were coming.

Dean carries on the walk to his doom. Through the shadows, back-lit, so not scary at ALL, passing through red light with a bar pattern that falls over his face… Yeah he’s fine.

Hannah’s words get to Gadreel about only thinking about himself. Cas calls him “friend” and Gadreel mentions the original mission, which I think is a bingo on “you’re about to die” :P

GADREEL The only thing that matters in the end is the mission -- protecting those who would not and cannot protect themselves --the humans. None of us is bigger than that. And we will not let our fears, our self-absorption prevent us from seeing it through. Not anymore.

I love that he talks for all angels here though, once he puts aside his personal feelings, about wanting to redeem himself. It’s really dark – that he loses his sense of self and puts the “mission” first, for all angels. He wants to give Cas and Hannah a chance and of course next season go off just to round off rogue angels until Hannah belatedly has a realisation in 10x07. The Gadreel Memorial Rubble in 10x02 maybe helped a bit to remind them of his words.

(Also all this fuckery blurring Dean and Humanity gives Cas a pretty fair reason to ditch everything to do with ANGELS and try and help him after he finds out in 10x02, though of course it’s just framed as the Dean/Cas/Hannah love triangle there >.>)

Needless to say I am still distraught about Gadreel doing that :<

Not entirely sure what his plan was – to make a big gesture? Or to free Cas and assume he could take it from there? I mean it WORKS but how was he to know it would work? He had to guess Hannah could be talked around to believing and helping Cas…

Eh, plot convenience.

Metatron sitting with that lurid yellow line behind him. 

Literally like the sulphurous depths of Hell wait below them. And it’s a line that he’ll throw Dean across to kill him – the wall Dean will die against is right there behind him with its crosses. The line behind Metatron though, doesn’t have the bottom bar of the cross. He doesn’t get that framing despite going around casting himself as the messiah and getting followers to repeat it.

DEAN You can save the humble-pie Jesus routine for somebody who gives a damn.

Not on his watch :P

LOL and the red arrow in the background of Dean pointing down… 

And he’s all lit with yellow. I can’t get enough of this set. Or his face. Once you light it from below with yellow with all the aforementioned things that change his face already? He’s not Dean any more. He’s like a caged creature pacing threateningly back and forth in step with Metatron.

METATRON  So I'm a fake. Do you have any idea how much pancake makeup and soft lighting it took to get God to work a rope line? He hated it.

There’s that insider knowledge on how God operated which makes Metatron’s admiration and MIMICKING of him so dark… I think something that just works better once you’ve seen 11x20 and feel at least a little sympathetic towards him or understand why he went so far off the rails. He says people can sense God hated all the effort of being God (and no wonder he left and gives us an early insight into God AVOIDING his responsibilities instead of being ~mysterious~) and Metatron is so bitter about that and about God leaving… 

Again, season 6 and Cas trying to be God (which Metatron reminded him of in 9x18 via Gabriel in an attempt at a friendly way) this intentionally parallels them, by Metatron’s doing, the burden of being God and all the hard work to pull it off… Cas for all the right reasons to the wrong ends, but Metatron just completely wrong >.> And that they do it because they’re bitter God left, because God doesn’t answer – his absence, leaving behind the tablets as the only guidance, is something from season 7-11 that shapes everything, and his absence is in every season from 4. Obviously it’s a thing in 12 in different ways, but basically since Cas said “because God commanded it” in 4x01 God’s actual absence and lack of comment has been powering everything…

METATRON  And all the while, blaming themselves! "Oh, if only I'd been more prayerful, "God would have loved me! God would have saved me!" You know what?! God didn't even know their name! But I do.

LOL Metatron projecting – he probably has a deep down fear he doesn’t even want to express about “just being the angel closest to the door” whose name didn’t matter. The entire time we’ve known him or known OF him he’s had pretensions of grandeur, of styling himself archangel or using the “scribe of god” title and acting like that gives him so much extra power and prestige. That God liked him best and he was special and chosen… God KNEW his name and asked for him by it, kind of thing.

DEAN [starting to unwrap the First Blade in his hand] I'm blaming you for Kevin! I'm blaming you for taking Cas' Grace. Hell, I'm blaming you for the Cubs not winning The World Series in the last 100 freaking years. Whatever it is... I'm blaming you.

Oh yeah that was weird when the show killed off Metatron and then that happened. 

Anyway, Dean listens to all that blah about God and the universe and then brings it right down to the personal level, that Metatron has to be held accountable for Kevin, and what he did to Cas. The two things that have caused the most pain as far as Dean can see as personal injuries to his nearest and dearest – Sam just mentioned how Kevin still, uh, haunts him, and Dean is feeling bad about Cas just on principle without an obvious reminder. I think he is still worried after the reveal in 9x22, never mind the stress it caused him over the year with Cas being human and how much he failed him… Then he moves to blaming Metatron for the sorry state of the world in general, as if covering for Dean caring too much :P

Of course you could say he cares most about Kevin because he feels the responsibility of that, but then Cas is a random point of data between Kevin and baseball stats; how much does he mean? Dean has no guilt for it, but it DID happen to someone he cared about, and Metatron hasn’t caused THAT much personal injury to them, all in all, since he’s mostly dealt with Cas and run an angel war away from them. All very mysterious >.>

Metatron reacts to Dean pulling out the First Blade with a genuine little moment of consternation before he carries on trash talking. I think he knows that he has a danger that he COULD be killed with it if he fucks up, because if he’s masquerading as God, well, the Blade is shaking in Dean’s hand with anticipation and how much is Dean and how much is the Mark screeching for Metatron/God (if it can only sense his power, his power is mostly from the tablet, filled with God’s power that Metatron’s tapped into for himself)… 

He also knows that that power is enough that he IS stronger than Dean as he is… In 10x10 he’s got no cards left and is willing to let Dean kill him just to fuck him up and therefore really ruin Cas’s day too probably :P Here I don’t think he’d let that happen at all, and if Metatron had remained in power, season 10 would have been very different, because he would have been MUCH more motivated not to be God while a powerful unkillable demon was walking around pissed at him on a personal and cosmic level, so probably would have been gunning for Dean. Being in prison is weirdly quite a safe place to be, although in 10x02 didn’t he suggest he was ready to move to another planet and let them have this one? :P puts it in context how scared of Dean he is when he’s powerless…

Metatron looks so small and unassuming and Dean looks so huge and menacing. Not quite as huge as Gadreel-in-Sam standing next to Metatron in that one scene where it’s hilariously different sizes, but still :P

He manages to land a solid punch, after Metatron tells him Cas is locked up and Dean’s all alone with no help coming. (He walked in here after punching Sam out cold but was still relying on Cas, and you can see that on his face when Metatron calls him out that he really was stalling and hoping >.>)

Metatron then implies he has a “big blade” with about the same sort of innuendo as he talked about Cas having the bigger army last episode :D

Metatron throws him over the yellow line, and doesn’t let him back past… This fight is too fast for there to be a full 8x17 parallel, actually, although it does start with Dean getting thrown, and then Metatron punches him in the face a lot. I guess I thought that was always the style of these fights where they get overwhelmed, since Swan Song goes that way too, but this is very obviously not relying on the “breaking through the punching” thing to work that way because what does Metatron care about not hurting Dean? but playing off Cas in Metatron’s office struggling to break the connection… So yeah, we’re a step down the road from 8x17, not Swan Song.

This is cut with flashes to the office in Heaven and with Sam hurrying on his way to… idk shoot Metatron? He has NO plan. Why do the Winchesters run towards death etc.

Dean reaches for the blade and Cas sees the typewriter in the same second of back and forth moments – their two desires at the moment put side by side… Dean doesn’t get to stab Metatron and Cas gets there too late and loses Dean too.

Oh that always hurts to watch.

Also Metatron twisting the knife.

Looking at how squarely in the chest Dean was stabbed, that SHOULD have killed him then and there, and I reckon he does kinda die at the moment the tablet shatters (was I pointlessly keeping count to ramble about it each time he did it? That’s 3/3 for Cas breaking the word of God :P) because it’s just so SYMBOLIC of everything shattering and Metatron’s story ending. Metatron should have realised it was all over then, despite trying to have a go at Cas anyway, because he was off-script, and the regular rules are back in play for him, including dramatic irony now chasing after him catching up after he wrote his way around it for a year. :P

Oh yeah and that great rumble of thunder comes when Dean opens his eyes again (Mittens was talking about how killing Cain had a great rumble of cosmic thunder) – it’s got a time delay from the tablet breaking and maybe that’s just the distance the thunder had to travel from Heaven, but I think Dean reviving because the Mark won’t let him die is much more likely because it ALWAYS bugged me how long it took him to “die” here and that Sam had him up and walking. Not with how squarely Metatron stabbed him in the chest.

Kinda horrible seeing Sam rushing in to tend to Dean just ignoring the murderous angel standing right there… >.> Oh Sam.

I do wonder about Cas sitting in Metatron’s chair because he has the broadcast on… Maybe since he is kinda ill at the moment, he just sat down to recover from all the stress. But, no, I wonder if it’s a strategy thing, to make Metatron not look that direction, but also to put himself in the seat, like, I won, the way Lucifer keeps plonking himself in Crowley’s chair or something. Rile him up to be even more annoyed and baited into perjuring himself. (Oh this is such a fantasy that leaders can be brought down by saying things which obviously show they’re evil and incompetent for all to hear.)

But Metatron doesn’t melt down, he comes at Cas all confidence, because he knows something Cas doesn’t, winning cards to put on the table…

METATRON Ah. So Gadreel bites the dust. And the Angel tablet -- arguably the most powerful instrument in the history of the universe -- is in pieces, and for what again? Oh, that's right -- to save Dean Winchester. That was your goal, right? I mean, you draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right? Well, guess what. He's dead, too.

At least in the emotional war, the battle is won but Metatron won the war. In the Angel war, Metatron wins this little battle of the personal pissing contest but the war is won in Cas’s favour.

Anyway is there even any point in doing more than flailing in the direction of those lines after turning them inside out about what they all mean in context of all the stuff building up to them? Cas’s emotional arc is revealed here – his true weakness.

Loving humanity is DANGEROUS yes, we’ve seen 2 angels in a row make a stand for the mission and die. But it’s not on the same scale as what Cas’s “weakness” is – it’s always “the Winchesters” this and “Dean” that… 12x10 expressly says his “human weakness” and links it to Dean, a couple of episodes before Cas’s love confession. As I said, season 12 picking up where season 9 left off. And Cas finally returning to deal with all this; breaking the Word of God in favour of Dean. A clear message about picking “humanity” over angels and Heaven. Of picking Dean over his duty or even the same original mission that Gadreel just died for. You could say Metatron is just taunting him, but Cas’s loyalty was demonstrated to be to Dean not Heaven JUST last episode and it’s impossible not to see these two things fit together like jigsaw pieces where only we and Metatron know everything. Cas has no idea that Metatron identified his weakness as being in love (with humanity) or that he’s now changed his evaluation of Cas to make it deadly personal about Dean…

But we do :3

[oops, either I have a fucked up gifset somewhere or that’s a reject gif I found on the workbench :P]

Cas can’t even look at Metatron when he says “it was all about saving one human”

I also love Metatron’s reaction to Gadreel’s death, because Gadreel was his main character until he betrayed him – the tablet being broken, the story is over… But his story was failing before Cas even did that because his characters surprised him – by not wanting to go where “the story” took them.

Also, the speech starting with Gadreel’s death and ending in Dean’s – almost like Metatron IS still weaving the story, making things real by saying them… The last parallel between Dean and Gadreel, again tying their journeys and characters together…

DEAN [weakly] Sammy, you got to get out of here before he comes back.

I wonder if he knows he’s turning – he says the Mark’s making him into something he doesn’t want to be. Does he know how literal that is? I mean, probably not, but it’s all really ominous that Sam needs to get away and leave Dean. Sam can’t leave Dean – he hauls him all the way back to the Bunker, and just makes everything that much worse for himself.

Anyway Sam in desperate bargaining mode, having had every single thing kicked out from underneath him since season 8, and in season 9 discovered there were NEW things to kick out from under him.

I think one of the things about Carver era is it wants to explore all this darkness and co-dependency but it has to drive Sam to impossibly hard places before it’s his turn for it, and to torment and trick Dean into all sorts of terrible choices, e.g. trusting Gadreel was a terrible idea and a bad thing to do but the blackmail from Gadreel that endangered Sam’s life came AFTER, yanking control from Dean and tricking him, even if that doesn’t absolve him of the choice, it’s like it escalated 10 steps after Dean took 1. It’s like Metatron and his convoluted stories and set ups, dragging the characters to these places so the stories can be told about them.

I think there IS a natural progression from Sam at the start of season 8 to Sam in 8x23 or from there to here, but the point is they put in so much WORK to grind him down and ruin him and Dean and their relationship (for example using the Mark to accelerate a descent for Dean along with then changing his behaviour), that it’s sort of forcing a situation where it’s exploring things which seem to be deep dark truths about their relationship and how it’s awful and needs to be addressed so they stop sacrificing for each other and doing silly things like releasing the Darkness… but it’s all a shade too manufactured (I mean, the Darkness came out of nowhere as a big escalation from an already bad decision Sam had already made but then it got 10x worse).

And not in the big scale even but the smaller things that add up, like the OTT reactions to lying and betrayal at the start of season 8 or the season long grudge and disowning etc this year. The end of season 10 with Sam frantically telling Cas how much worse Dean has got over and over almost in defiance of how Dean seems to be sort of okay, working himself into such a panic he’ll use the Book of the Damned (and not even ask Rowena nicely but put her in chains to do it for him). After any big thing you can be like, how did we get here, and look back, and the progression is full of things which sort of make you pull a face at how they were pulled off but the overall picture is thematically sound and you know what they’re angling at.

Heck, I AGREE that the co-dependency was a bad thing, but it had been dormant for years when Carver came back, having missed all of Gamble era, so he resurrected it as the thing he wanted to address (the last episode he wrote being 5x18 where Adam takes the brunt of their making huge choices for each other thing and it being heavily romanticised and I think the episode where Zach says they’re codependent and it actually sounds critical in that way where you question if he has a point especially as Adam did pay for it, and THAT was what Carver went and stewed on for 2 years out of the fold… I think I mused on this from the other direction back in the 5x18 rewatch) So the fact it’s not romanticised and is used as the motivating Bad Thing in Carver era which needs to be resolved, still means it needs to go through a couple of rounds of awful to build up and be arguably bad enough to then try and fix. Throw in the plot accordion and Carver losing interest and wandering off before it was done, and… Yeah.

Basically I totally sympathise with Sam in the position he’s in but that doesn’t mean I like the bigger picture very much, now this is setting him up for his season 10 stuff, where he has to bear being the Winchester in the wrong, ethically, even if emotionally he just wants to save his brother and for a vast number of reasons is kind of forced into it.

And then when we get to the big big picture of what was Carver era all about, I DO agree… 11x23 wrapped it up nicely, although it all flowed into DABB’s approach to everything and his choices and approach to cleaning this all up. (And I mean obviously he didn’t solve the co-dependency but he’s now brought it all down to a level where you can work with it – smaller choices and smaller consequences which affect the world in different ways…)

SAM Don't worry about the Mark. We'll figure out the Mark later. Just hold on, okay? Get you some help.

Sam. How many times have I told you to worry about the Mark first?

CASTIEL You will never get away with this.

Cas using clichéd lines from the movies that usually trick the villain into confessing

CASTIEL You give our brothers and sisters far too little credit. They will soon learn that you have been playing them.

I hope the other angels can hear Cas too. Maybe this is why they give him another big chance to be free and work with them after this

METATRON And then? They will do nothing because they are frightened little sheep following my crook wherever it leads. And where I'm taking them, back to our rightful place atop this mountain of human shame and excrement -- when that happens, trust me, they're not gonna care how they got there.

Lol foot in mouth.

Also disrespecting humans – Metatron doesn’t learn, while all the good angels are concerned about the original mission (Gadreel, Scarf Angel, Cas and now Hannah) and anyway, the blatant disrespect for humans AND angels shows he’s not fit to be a leader.

DEAN What happened with you being okay with this? 

SAM I lied. 

DEAN Ain't that a bitch?

I just had a long conversation with Mittens pretty much unrelated to this about Sam and Dean and lying and how that’s changing over time, or not. I think season 9 really did give Dean a problem with lying – whether he was doing it or being lied TO, all his issues come from the deception at the start. In season 12 he’s being positioned as the character being constantly lied to and he wants to tell the truth or thinking lying sucks; generally back to Dean as the moral compass. 

He lies professionally – and even that was challenged in 12x11 with the peek behind performing Dean – but I think in emotional situations, Dean has made a LOT of progress towards telling the truth or reaching out to people (started in his character development season in season 10), along with how he has a lot of perspective on how much lying sucks both for those holding up a lie (he was SO bad at it during the Gadreel possession because he didn’t WANT to lie which I think is much better perspective than lying and getting away with it and not suffering until it’s found out) and being lied to. Sam, though, may not like being lied to (who does) but hasn’t sort of internalised the problem with being the one lying, especially when it’s both a useful tool day to day, but also he can lie to himself about a ton of stuff to get through the day, and is so successful with self-deceiving lies or covering up his feelings in a major way.

I think in these 2 words it’s the really big emotional confession from Sam at the end of the season – same as 8x23 then makes you go back and evaluate Sam all season looking for the root of all that, I’ve had to talk about Sam all through this season knowing he knows that in his heart he probably would do the same for Dean but he was lashing out in the fight and sticking his ground and I think (badly) trying to make the point that it was a really bad thing to do, to keep sacrificing for each other and doing terrible things to keep each other alive. Obviously he has a point, but then because he’s lying he’s not addressing the core issue, which is that this applies to him just as much. Revealing this to Dean then becomes validating to Dean that his actions weren’t so far off base and the principles that Sam was pissed on the behalf of maybe aren’t so important, and so on. To come to a place of truly healing they need NOT to lie and keep things from each other.

(So season 12’s staged reasons to lie to each other, the fact Sam even admits a portion of what he was keeping secret within an episode is a good start. He’s STILL holding back the stuff that in this context would be “I lied” – that is, the important details about what the BMoL are doing and have done so far. Dean hasn’t heard the world without monsters sales pitch, really, not in a meaningful way; he just knows that they’re basically taking over the spot Bobby used to have for example, of dishing out cases to hunters. Working with vs believing in or something. Idk.

I should stop talking about season 12 but honestly I process it through writing about old seasons… I swear I didn’t do a single rewatch during season 11 where I wasn’t dragging in later canon >.>

Anywho. Metatron and Cas. Much more melodramatic :P

METATRON You know, why you could never quite pull it together, Castiel, while you're sitting here with Your Grace slowly burning away and your reputation long extinguished? No curiosity. You didn't read enough. You never learned how to tell a good story.

CASTIEL [looking straight at METATRON] But you did.

Honestly that line seems to refer both to Metatron blabbing everything, and Metatron giving Cas aaall the tools here – I think this is an extension of his “wookie” plan, learning these tricks through stories. At the time of airing I’m pretty sure people came up with several plots foiled in such a way… If nothing else it seems very much like a silly comedy thing where the cartoonish villain accidentally is on loudspeaker and the stakes are only like, say, reputation at school or workplace or something. Tricking confessions onto recording devices rather than broadcasts is also a very common trope in slightly more serious fiction. Anyway because he learned all this about stories and then gave them to Cas, he manufactured his own downfall, through storytelling. Of course. 

And his lack of respect for Cas as a PROTAGONIST not an antagonist. “I didn’t think he’d  be good at it!” Metatron protests, underestimating that the story will support CAS.

Also suggesting he may be wrong in his assessment of Cas here.

The pause after “no curiosity” is also interesting because it gives a good long time to wonder what Cas wasn’t curious about. He has been following his duty quite consistently. It’s why he failed at Metatron’s “find a wife” command among other (gay) reasons. It’s not that he wasn’t doing well at being human, it’s that bigger problems like… Metatron forced him back into the game (also… other reasons. Like helping Dean >.>) so it wasn’t that he was NOT curious about living a human life and slowly starting to pick up human customs (the start of 9x06 shows him curious and mimicking humans at work), he just didn’t have time for it. Anyway. Double meaning on “curious” because of gay stuff. Cas doesn’t actually get blatantly queercoded all that often in comparison to Dean when it comes to language and implications around him, but this season has the bulk of it. Generally he just sort of gets on with things while being Cas.

Would Cas have done better if he’d taken advantage of being human and exercised some curiosity and made out with Dean?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Where did Cas learn to get out of handcuffs like that?

She says, not wanting to even contemplate talking about the tears in Cas’s eyes when he sees Metatron’s angel blade all covered in Dean’s blood.

I mean talk about symbolic if they had both been stabbed through the heart with it

Also Cas is metaphorically stabbed through the heart with it anyway, seeing that, bye

Meanwhile: Dean busy dying. Like, super dead. Bye bye.

(He’ll be fine, oh my god, Sam, stop with the ugly crying)

I mean I’m torn, obviously this is all really emotional but on the other hand he literally is dead for less than 5 minutes screentime. I feel horrible for Sam, who thinks Dean is dead until a quarter of the way through 10x01 (or Cas who doesn’t know until the start of 10x02) but on the other hand as the audience this is a huge sad set up which is then yanked away with horror, not grief, at what’s become of Dean. And Sam, sadly, is in this place where his reactions are much more tinged with irony than Cas’s are, because of the “I lied” thing coming right before Dean’s death. Dean briefly reasserts his normal self to say some sad words about being proud of them and to die good, you know, the last part of his personality that exists before it’s all gone for a while, so we see Dean’s symbolic death of Self after that… Sam has just let this all spin from between his fingers while fighting with Dean and not seeing how bad it was getting… I mean even now he seems to think the worst problem is that Dean was stabbed by Metatron. Dean’s already died of that and come back :P Now his soul is getting all munched up with the effort of keeping him alive, and he’s probably more like, blacked out while passing between states or something.

Anyway Sam saying he lied and Dean’s “ain’t that a bitch” show how the entire conflict that brought them there has been undermined by these actions, for it to all swing around to next season, of Sam steering the latest round of saving each other and bad decisions, presented as a moral decline (to limited success as Buckleming had to deliver the big staged moment, like, for our contemplation on the subject, immediately followed by the formula curse shelving everything to get back to normal in time for the 200th).

So I’ve always struggled with Sam’s grief here because his sadness is very real but it’s always been clear that this swing around was coming and that Sam would have to be the one making bad decisions about what to do about Dean – his next thing is attempting to summon Crowley, showing he’d be exactly where Dean was, as 9x01 and 9x23 mirror each other with a Winchester laid out seemingly dead/dying in bed, and the other bargaining for their life. And in Sam’s case it’s not pure grief motivating it because of everything that was built up – the obligation since 8x01 that they save each other all the time and their rule about not doing that was something they knew they ignored anyway:

DEAN After you looked for me. [SAM says nothing.] Did you look for me, Sam? [SAM looks away.] Good. That's good. Now, we – we... always told each other not to look for each other. That's smart. Good for you. Of course, we always ignored that because of our deep, abiding love for each another, but not this time, right, Sammy?

So Sam’s got a double obligation of failing Dean’s standards last time, owing him one for saving him in 9x01 and having just stated that his stance on the argument about its moral failings was a lie… Like, I don’t wanna judge Sam because obviously Dean’s part in this has very much been beating him into shape to make these choices and Sam’s in a “did what I had to do” lack of choice when it seems like you could choose to just let it go and NOT go down a bad path. It’s a tragedy and they’re both messed up by it.

Still, actually watching Sam sob all over Dean while knowing he’s gonna make terrible choices is harder to watch than Cas on the verge of tears after an entirely blameless season where he’s been shoved around this way and that and only ever tried to help his two families and/or acted out of love for Dean in a pretty pure, unproblematic way.

I don’t really like Carver era Sam. He’s all puppy dog eyes about doing things I seriously don’t agree with. Dean being all conflicted and angsty while doing things I seriously don’t agree with at least makes me feel like Dean feels horrible about it which makes it easier for me to sympathise even while he does immensely silly things, because he seems to know they are too :P

*raises a glass to Sam and his terrible decisions in season 12 which has been making me cheer for Sam being a total badass all the while and I’m totally and utterly turning into a Sam!girl while he’s making all his terrible decisions so clearly it is not about them making terrible decisions but how it comes across when they do*

HANNAH You're doing the right thing -- letting him live.

That’s an abrupt turn around on punishing Dean :P I think she’s realised a lot about Cas and his compassion – she IS learning from him all the time because she admires him (except for in 9x22 briefly when Metatron turns them against him), so I think she’s now rationalising that Cas is trying not to kill people all the time as a good sign of his leadership. I mean, which this is, and I would barely comment if not for how literally last episode she was making him kill Dean over a much smaller thing than Metatron’s crimes. Cas thinking differently from the other angels, making compassionate decisions – yeah, that makes him stand out. The fact he wouldn’t kill Dean SEEMED huge to her, but now she sees he won’t kill even his NEMESIS.

The impact of not killing Dean on a personal level maybe is watered down in Hannah’s estimation for a lil while until she has to give him a pep talk about getting distracted in 10x03 :P I think for us, the fact these things are compared means less because it’s coming from Hannah’s direction. Metatron was also mobbed by angels, paralleling how he incited the mob of humans to kill; Cas in charge now is like, NO don’t do that, that’s barbaric. He chose a better way, that NO more angels die, and he means it. That may be the main contrast here.

HANNAH It's what a leader would do.

CASTIEL I'm no leader, Hannah. I never was. I just want to be an angel.

HANNAH And Your Grace? What will you do about that? You will die if you don't replenish it.

Oh Cas :<

So there’s his “don’t want to be a leader” thing again, on the OTHER side of Metatron. Hannah’s season is telling Cas he should be a leader, getting him to be a leader briefly, abandoning him as a leader, and once again following him and seeing him AS a leader, and like 9x18 when they first meet, Cas has to tell her he’s not a leader. Though he might seem like the obvious choice and the angel with the most – wait a minute :P

Lizzy says, having been typing this whole paragraph thinking about Kelvin and his speech about Cas having more experience than the next 1000 angels combined and so on. As I said, season 12 picking up where season 9 left off.

Cas says he doesn’t want to be a leader and he just wants to be an angel. After being challenged all season about what he wants to be – to live or die, angel or man, earth or heaven, us or them, etc etc, he seems to make a choice; this scene transitions via music that starts over Cas’s anguished face to all these questions, to Dean being dead. He and Cas are linked still, with their dying and fading away, Dean with his humanity, Cas with his grace. Thematically intertwined even when they’re at this point about as far from each other as it’s possible to be.

I think it’s very important Cas ends this season in Heaven saying he wants to be an angel, even if he’s back on Earth (mourning Dean while naked - nope not over it) when we next see him. At this point it seems like all his ties to Earth are gone (well, Sam is still alive, but come on, he loves Sam but DEAN is the much bigger motivator for where Cas goes and stays)… With nothing left to keep him, Cas seems to declare a side, or at least, a wish for a side. Being a simple, uncomplicated angel with someone to tell him what to do, because now he’s going to be forced into like, 2 years of self-reflection to help make this choice clearer. Heaven means a lot to him. It’s his family. When they care, they want him there.

But Cas doesn’t have a sense of belonging with them. He just wants to be an angel. Implying he isn’t, that he’s offset from that, that he already doesn’t belong. And belonging is the keyword because when this arc picks up again in 12x03, it’s Mary asking Cas about belonging, and he’s not sure he does belong or not. By 12x12 he is ready to declare who his family is and that he loves them. Something I don’t think he could say here about them... not because he didn’t feel it but because it was TOO far away and seemingly lost or unattainable, or something Cas couldn’t imagine for himself. At least the years of self-reflection allow Cas a lot more time to ruminate on all this.

I think his decision is coming and in a way 12x15 had to drag him back to this exact point but on the other side of all of that: bringing him back to Heaven and facing him with actually contemplating how he fits in and how he belongs – and what Heaven means to him and how he might be able to make peace with them. And it’s no longer vague or implied about who he considers family and how he feels about them, so that’s good. It’s answering THIS moment where Cas doesn’t really know anything, can barely express it except in a wish that he was just an angel, and if he can barely commit to Heaven, he has lost a huge tether to being human or even sharing in Dean’s human life and picking earth even as an angel still.

(I mean I do think this season by having Cas be human, teases in a huge way that this might be a path he takes willingly. But that’s even more abstract from where we are now because first he has to deal with Heaven and find a way to come to a comfortable place to be able to choose his human family… Before he could ever consider being human WITH them. But this DOES mean it’s on the table as an endgame for him since it’s a path offered to him)

Anyway Sam drops Dean on the wrong side of the bed, and goes to drink and be miserable about things. Sam drinking is neeever a good sign.

Last time to enjoy his hair looking even halfway normal for a year.

Oh no there’s blood on the rusty bacon shirt. I can imagine Dean not wearing that shirt he died in ever again because it’s soaked in blood and probably has a hole through the back. But Sam keeps on wearing this shirt, and ARGH. :P

SAM Damn it, Crowley. You got him into this mess. You will get him out... or so help me, God.

LOL then God ends up helping

I don’t know if Sam was entirely intending to make a deal, or just feeling reckless enough that he might threaten Crowley into helping (i.e. like he did with Rowena next season) … either way, not a good path to go down, and you can definitely see his summoning Crowley as letting him in to completely ignore appearing for him, but going straight to Dean instead. After all… he is saving Dean from being dead…

That one shot of him doing the summoning for Crowley was enough to stoke hope that we’d get witch!Sam over the hiatus since the last thing we see him doing is a summoning.

Basically I’d say we should stop speculating for witch!Sam after being burned so many times but it’s so much fun. And this was one of the few times we knew he was going dark and so could plausibly indulge in a little magic. Except then Rowena came along and instead of teaching him he made her do all the work. Close enough >.>

He’s aligned with Rowena but here’s Crowley looking over Dean lying on the bed. Dean’s hand is already clenched a little as if around the Blade. Crowley is looking over his work, and lurks in the doorway… The next shot, of course, of him coming into the room still in shadow. An image we see a lot in the next couple of episodes, with Sam moping into this room, and then demon!Dean and Sam both coming by during the chase. But the bookend to this is the very similar staging of Dean alive and well and cured, when Cas drops by, again standing in the doorway, framed across Dean’s bed, and being used as the conversation to tie off all the ends, to show that most things are right again, until Cas leaves… Of course, need I say it, also doing a tremendous amount for the Cas/Dean/Crowley love triangle, as it shows Cas has won him back.

But now, Crowley comes to claim him:

CROWLEY Your brother, bless his soul, is summoning me as I speak. Make a deal, bring you back. It's exactly what I was talking about, isn't it? It's all become so... expected. You have to believe me. When I suggested you take on the Mark of Cain, I didn't know this was going to happen. Not really. I mean, I might not have told you the entire truth. But I never lied. I never lied, Dean. That's important. It's fundamental. But...there is one story about Cain that I might have... forgotten to tell you. Apparently, he, too, was willing to accept death, rather than becoming the killer the Mark wanted him to be. So he took his own life with the Blade. He died. Except, as rumor has it, the Mark never quite let go. You can understand why I never spoke of this. Why set hearts aflutter at mere speculation? It wasn't until you summoned me... No, it wasn't truly until you left that cheeseburger uneaten...that I began to let myself believe. Maybe miracles do come true.

[CROWLEY moves to the bed and places the First Blade into DEAN's right hand and lays them both on DEAN's chest.]

Listen to me, Dean Winchester, what you're feeling right now -- it's not death. It's life -- a new kind of life. Open your eyes, Dean. See what I see. Feel what I feel. And let's go take a howl at that moon.

I love how this is cut with shots of Dean’s dead face like he’s got some part in the conversation. In a messed up way it reminds me 8x16, Dean’s prayer in this same room, where the silences and changes in camera angle implied Cas was listening and watching but not answering. I feel like I should make a comment about how only Jensen Ackles can have emotive reaction shots while playing DEAD.

Anyway, now Crowley calls out how boring the cycle of Winchesters saving each other is, once more as a final thought. Like, yeah, they need to change, but this is probably not how to do it healthily :P Though from a writing POV (and Crowley, more than Metatron, actually is the genre savvy character calling this stuff out) it’s like, at least it’s acknowledging that after 9 years certain cycles don’t work anymore. I still think season 6 & 7 are just way too clean of all this sort of specific melodrama so Carver had to conjure it all up anyway, but oh well. :P We’re here now.

Crowley goes on to explain that he hasn’t lied, which obviously parallels to how Sam admits he had lied, so despite Dean’s overall assessment of being proud of them, their fight just resolved with “well ain’t that a bitch” and basically, Dean only NOT being pissy about all that because he was too busy dying which really gives some context on a situation :P But if he’s going to come back, Crowley can now position himself as the one who DOESN’T lie to Dean so the one who should be trusted. He meanders around the truth a bit, but saying that it’s “fundamental” emphasises Crowley’s integrity. Which Dean has reason to believe in despite everything, because of the times Crowley has helped them in the past or stood up for Hell’s integrity, and the natural order. Dean is now aligning himself with the natural order and the way Hell works seems much simpler and plainer to him. Hell’s like a Swiss watch etc. Dean already shows that he gets it?

Then Crowley comes clean with the rumours he (and possibly Cas) knew about Cain and how he came to be a demon. Which implies where Dean’s self-destruction and last moment of clarity after getting stabbed about “it’s better this way” come from. Even, perhaps, Dean’s entire suicidal run at Metatron. Dean overwhelmed with the same thing.

The important phrasing here is “becoming the killer the Mark wanted him to be” because it’s nature vs nurture – the Mark MAKING them into it, vs unlocking some darkness inside them. Word choice deliberate. (every time I say “dark” it is, really :P) The darkness is pushed on them. The Mark not wanting to let go? That’s it having its own will because it’s an outside thing with its own hungers and own tiny bit of consciousness as a way Amara is able to lash out at Creation…

Crowley mentions miracles, finally revealing what the title is really about. Crowley’s definition of miracles. He believed in this. He’s been hoping for one all year it feels like. All his hard work setting it up, and he just has to lurk around the fight, collect the blade, follow them back to the Bunker and see if his gamble paid off and he got his miracle.

Anyway I completely coincidentally watched 8x04 within the last few days and the fact that’s got a “see what I see, feel what I feel”-ish line has me on the side-eyeing everyone borrowing everything from Robbie train again. Especially as the MotW in that part of season 8 set up literally everything from season 9, 10 and 11. Like, just that little cluster of episodes are thematically dense and only get denser. Now Carver era has finished, rewatching 8x03-8x06 is kind of hilarious.

Anyway happy last moment of not realising Drowley was gonna be an actual thing, past!me! The fact this season literally ends on their elopement and Crowley winning Dean over was like… “it’s just subtextual coding” over the summer and lots of clever analysis from the fandom about how suggestive it all was… Ah, simpler times :P Dean’s world is all about to change. I guess the true victim of this season was Dean’s desperate attempts to convince himself of his heterosexuality.

Well played, Crowley.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Do you think Cas would change into another outfit before the end of the show? I miss the old trench coat and want to see Cas wear something new :p

Sheesh he’s already worn a dress this season what more do you want? 

Maybe? He has brand recognition to think of :P 

He changes clothes when he undergoes huge changes in his character. Getting his old get up back to normal in 8x07 is so significant show he’s trying to be back to normal; losing it all when he’s human is an obvious step and dressing up in the next outfit is a sign of how much he’s changed and how he can’t really go back to the original outfit because he’s not the original Cas with the original powers but he has sort of taken it into his own hands, even if it’s an incorrect cosplay of himself… 

I suppose if he was ever a full angel again like he’d been back in the early seasons he could whip up the old costume to wear, although I would find it kind of sad because there’s so much character development shown in his clothes. After he gets the new clothes he shows a lot more awareness of them being clothes, doing things like taking off the trenchcoat in rare relaxed moments, or being flexible enough with if he has a tie or not for that to be a thing that was actually discussed on screen.

I don’t know if he’d have any reason to change at the moment because even Casifer ended up being a thing wherethe show didn’t take an opportunity to dress Misha up, because Lucifer apparently recognised the importance of looking like Cas. I just watched 9x22 this last week or so and Metatron has a spare trenchcoat he’s trying on, trying to work out if it can bestow any magical likeability points onto him. Clearly something about this look works :P At this point it has a kind of power to other people in that world because Cas is a major major player and this seems to be how you recognise him.

Also weighing up the likelihood it’s on Dabb’s List. And we know he has a List, and we know he’s ticked off like, 100 things on it already this season (there’s just so MUCH in this show that needs to addressed or built on from where we last had any focus on it, or tidied up or just like, acknowledged is still a thing :P) … But would a costume change for Cas be on it? MAYBE incidentally as something he knows you do to show dramatic character change. But he is the one who put Cas in that current outfit in the first place AND wrote the episode amending the tie into it, so he’s clearly been in charge of Cas’s style since at least season 9 :P

On the other hand Cas HAS been through some change, and in 9x10 Dabb gave us new and improved Cas, and also his car. This brilliant posts compares in the other direction, why they don’t like the car as a metaphor for Cas changing by swapping to the truck:

http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/158188239932/floralmotif-lostboycas-castiel-with-the

I don’t know if that was just issues with getting the Continental to film with or what, but there’s now symbolism that Cas’s personal stuff is changing again, and since he has so little real personal stuff it’s always interesting what he does have. I don’t know if he’d be due a change in his clothes because that gets into speculating about Cas dramatically changing in some other way, as he’s extremely practical about this - I assume because he’s self-laundering he never needs to get a spare set of clothes so the fact his current ones are working fine for him means he’ll never consider the issue while he’s his current, rational self.

That all said, I’m not even gonna speculate on what fan fic nonsense Dabb era will serve up next. For all I know there’s an episode lurking down the line where for implausible reasons that justify the ends Dean has another moment like 12x07 butting heads with Cas over his outfit, wins this time, and takes him shopping. I mean we were this close already this year but Dean lost the game of chicken, which I appreciate for completely different reasons but don’t get us any closer to Cas in a leather jacket. :P