#and cas is taking this at face value cause he's really trying hard to accept that unrequited feelings are all he is ever going to get

[petrichoravellichor]

Begin and End There (Part 2)

For Day 6 of the Supernatural Deserved Better Creative Challenge (prompt: Destiel).

Note: This is Chapter 2 of 2; you can find the post with Chapter 1 here, or you can read the entire work on Ao3.

Rating: T

Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, minor Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, minor Castiel & Sam Winchester, background Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester

Warnings: Brief, non-graphic mentions of canon violence; reference to Dean’s suicidal ideation/decision to temporarily kill himself in 13x05; references to repeated major character death that didn’t stick - to be clear, this fic has a happy ending and is basically everything Dean needed to say and Cas needed to hear.

Summary: After the Empty takes him, Castiel wakes up in the last place he expected (Chapter 1), with a second chance at happiness when he reunites with Dean and the latter finally gets to speak his truth (Chapter 2).

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“Love him, and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?” —James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

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“Dean.” Sam’s voice was imploring, gentle, just like it had been the first two times he’d tried. “Come on, sit down.”

Dean ignored him and continued pacing, the cramped stillness of the motel room a vicious sounding board for his thoughts. Among them all, he clung to one thought in particular, the only one keeping him sane: Jack’s gonna get him back. He said he would. He has to...

He could feel Sam’s worried gaze on him from where his brother sat in a chair by the door. It had been Sam who had insisted they grab the motel room after Jack had gone, having intuited, rightly, that Dean was a mess even if he was trying to hide it and that he needed somewhere private where he didn’t have to. The only problem was that, for Dean, privacy in the sense of space to break down meant an audience of zero, not one, and Dean didn’t know how much longer he could hold himself together.

“Damn it, Sam,” he growled a minute later, “don’t you and Eileen have stuff to talk about? You don’t gotta hang around like a damn babysitter.”

If Sam was annoyed by Dean’s tone, he didn’t show it; instead, he just leaned forward, folding his hands in his lap. “We do, but it can wait,” he said calmly. "Besides, you heard her: someone had to go back to the silo and make sure all the Apocalypse-world hunters made it back okay. She said she’d text me when she got there.”

Dean huffed out a sigh. “Yeah, well...Still. You could’ve gone with her, is all I’m sayin’.”

“No. Not until I know you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“Dean, enough.” Sam was frowning now, and there was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “You think I don’t know what Cas means to you?” He scoffed and shook his head. “Because if so, I’m sorry, but you’re not as hard to read as you think you are, not for me.”

Dean stopped dead in his tracks, stunned, and as he wilted under Sam’s knowing gaze, the full force of his exhaustion hit him all at once and damn near brought him to his knees. “I can’t lose him,” he heard himself admit in a hoarse whisper. He swallowed and shook his head. “Not again.”

Sam’s expression softened. “I know. We’ll get him back; if Jack can’t save him, we’ll find another way. We always do.”

Dean sighed, then nodded. Sam was right; of course he was. They’d get Cas back even if Dean had to storm into the Empty and grab him himself, grip Cas’s formerly feathered ass and raise him from perdition for a change. Cas, you idiot, what the hell’s the matter with you? he imagined himself demanding. You don’t think you deserve to be saved?

Suddenly, there was a shuffling sound outside, and before Sam could even begin to stand, Dean had bolted across the room and yanked open the door, determined to hear whatever news Jack was bringing them so that he could actually do something instead of just waiting, only...only it wasn’t Jack standing on the other side of the threshold.

Cas gazed back at him as though in a daze, hand raised in an aborted knock; after a beat, he lowered it and cleared his throat. “I—Hello, Dean.” He nodded past Dean toward the interior of the room. “May I come in?”

Dean nodded wordlessly, feet suddenly like lead as he stepped aside so Cas could brush past him. He closed the door and sank down on the edge of the nearest bed as Sam let out an exclamation of relief and stood to pull Cas into a hug.

“It’s good to have you back, man,” Sam said warmly, clapping Cas on the back. As they drew apart, he added, “How’s Jack? Did you have a chance to talk with him?”

Cas nodded, smiling. “I did. He told me everything that’s happened since…” Cas’s smile faltered, and his eyes darted over to land on Dean, who suddenly felt as though his face were on fire. Before Dean could say anything, though, Cas looked away, as though he were the one who’d been burned. “He told me everything,” he said instead. “He also said that he’ll be home as soon as he’s able, once he and Amara have finished remaking Heaven.”

Sam raised a brow, glancing curiously from Cas to Dean and back again; clearly, he’d clearly picked up on the weirdness between them. For a moment, Dean thought he was going to call them out on it and started casting about for something innocuous to say; however, Sam just smiled and nodded. “That’s great, Cas. Thanks for the update. And for saving Dean. If you hadn’t gone with him…” Sam swallowed, a more sober expression settling on his face. He reached out and clasped Cas’s shoulder. “Just...thank you. For everything.”

The genuineness of Sam’s words seemed to catch Cas off guard; then, after a moment, his lips quirked in a timid sort of smile, and he nodded. “Of course.”

Sam beamed at him, then took a step back and gestured toward the door. “Okay, I’m gonna go grab lunch while I wait to hear from Eileen, so I’ll see you guys later.” Then, with a poorly concealed smirk, he looked over at Dean and added, “Text me if I should steer clear of the Bunker for a few days.”

Dean glared daggers at him. Sammy, I swear to our kid who is now God...“How ’bout you just get a move on before I kick your ass? Bitch.”

But Sam just chuckled. “Good luck, jerk,” he replied, fondly; then, with a wave, he turned and headed for the door.

A moment later, he was gone, and the room was unbearably silent. Dean glanced up at Cas to find the latter regarding him almost shyly, as though any words uttered between them would bring the walls crashing down. For his part, Dean would have almost welcomed it. A quick death sounded pretty good right about now; at the very least, it’d absolve him from having to speak.

In the end, it was Cas who cleared his throat and broke the silence. “Jack said you wanted to see me?”

“Uh.” Dean sucked in a shaky breath, then nodded. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I did.” Then, feeling his face grow warm at Cas’s continued stare, he coughed and looked away. “Cas, have a seat. We, uh, we need to talk.”

He’d expected Cas to sit opposite him, in the chair Sam had vacated; but before he realized what was going on, Cas had crossed over to sit next to him on the edge of the bed, less than a foot of mattress between their thighs. The heat on Dean’s face licked down his neck and back, almost overwhelming him, and if his legs hadn’t suddenly turned to jelly, he probably would have bolted.

Instead, he just blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “So...Jack was able to get you back, huh?” He immediately wanted to kick himself, because of course Jack had been able to get Cas back, that much was obvious. Way to go, dumbass...

Thankfully, Cas just nodded. “He promised the Empty a future of noninterference within Its realm in exchange for my life, and It accepted.”

“Huh.” Dean chewed his tongue thoughtfully. “Sounds like one of us actually made a good deal for a change.”

Cas gave him a tentative smile. “I hope so.” A pause; then: “Dean, I need you to know that I don’t regret my choice, because that’s what it was: my choice; and there’s nothing you could have said or done that would have made me choose differently.” Cas was speaking quickly, urgently, looking at Dean as though afraid Dean would interrupt. “And I also need you to know that I meant every word that I said about how I see you. Now that Chuck is gone, you can finally be happy, and...if it’s possible, I would like to be part of that happiness.” He looked up at Dean sadly, adding, “but if that’s not what you want, if you want me to leave, I promise I understand.”

Dean, who up to this point had only been able to listen in stunned silence, finally managed to unstick his voice. “If that’s not what I...What are you...You think I don’t want you to be a part of it?”

“I...” Cas looked down at his hands. “I’m aware that my connection to Heaven is no longer of particular value, and more than that, I don’t wish the knowledge of what you mean to me to make you uncomfortable.” He smiled sadly. “You don’t owe me anything, Dean; I recognize that. I—”

“Stop,” Dean interrupted, because every word out of Cas’s mouth was landing like a knife in his heart. He reached out and gripped Cas’s shoulder tightly, causing the latter to look up in startled surprise. “Damn it, Cas, stop talking like I’d only want you in my life if you were a goddamn tool I could use. You’re not a hammer, remember? Not mine or anyone else’s.”

Cas’s stunned expression melted into one of soft wonder. He nodded slowly, gazing back at Dean with eyes so earnest and hopeful that Dean had to look away lest he fall right into them. With a nervous swallow, Dean licked his lips and dropped his hand from Cas’s shoulder, determined to keep going now that he’d gotten started. “And..and about me not owing you anything...Cas, I owe you everything.” He made himself meet Cas’s gaze again, because damn it, this was apparently something Cas had doubts on, and Dean needed him to understand. “You pulled me out of Hell, and you helped me and Sam stop the Apocalypse and saved both our asses more times than I can count, and Jack’s alive because of you and so is everyone else in the world. And you think what, that I’m just gonna forget about all that?” he demanded, just barely managing to keep his voice from breaking. He shook his head. “Fuck that, Cas; you’re not disposable.”

Cas, whose expression had become increasingly anguished the longer Dean spoke, now looked dangerously close to tears. “Then what am I, Dean? I...please, I need to know, I need you to tell me, because I don’t...I can’t...”

Everything, Dean thought fiercely; you’re everything. Fuck, he just needed to find some way to actually say it…

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him: maybe, if saying it out loud was too much...He closed his eyes and started praying. Cas?

He felt a slight shift of the mattress as Cas stiffened in attention. “Dean?” he asked, hesitantly.

Yeah. Yeah, I can hear you. Dean kept his eyes closed, responding in his head. Question is, can you hear me?

A beat of silence; then: “Yes. I can hear you.”

Dean let out a steady breath. Okay. Okay, good. ’Cause there’s something I need you know, but...He tried to finish the thought; damn it, he tried, but even like this, he just couldn’t fucking seem to—

Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder; his eyes fluttered open to see Cas leaning forward into his space, looking at him with soft understanding. “There’s something you need me to know,” Cas repeated slowly, “but you’re not sure how to say it.”

Dean blinked in surprise. “You...you got that part, too?”

Cas nodded. “The way it works...It’s difficult to explain in human terms. Prayers are something I hear and see and feel, all at once, and they don’t have to be words. They can be feelings or images or—”

“Memories?” Dean sat up straight, an idea forming. “Does it work with memories?”

Cas’s brow furrowed in apparent confusion, but eventually, he nodded. “Yes. If you show them to me.”

Dean didn’t waste another moment—he couldn’t, or he might lose his nerve. He closed his eyes and resumed his prayer. Okay, Cas, listen up...

He was pulling Cas’s trench coat out of the reservoir after the Leviathans had walked Cas into it, and the feeling in his gut...Dean knew it was grief. He’d lost friends before; hell, he’d lost Sam before, but this...this felt different...

But the Leviathans were on the loose, and the wall blocking out Sam’s Hell trauma had crumbled, and Dean didn’t have time to let himself stop and think. He folded the trench coat and stowed it in Baby’s trunk.

Months later, he was talking to Cas in an abandoned hangar the night before they stormed Sucrocorp and went after Dick Roman. Cas was saying he should stay behind, told Dean he wasn’t good luck and would just get in the way, but Dean wasn't having it. He’d done life without Cas, and it had sucked. Now, he knew he’d rather have him, cursed or not, friend or...He’d rather have him.

He only told Cas the first part, though.

Then, after, when he was tearing through Purgatory for over a year, Dean realized it wasn’t that he’d rather have Cas—it was that he couldn’t imagine not having him. He was going to find Cas no matter the cost, wasn’t leaving Purgatory without him. Cas was...he wasn’t something Dean couldn’t stand to lose.

And then Dean lost him anyway.

Dean was back topside, and Cas was still in Purgatory because Dean had failed to save him. The knowledge haunted Dean; he saw Cas everywhere, was sure he was hallucinating...until it turned out he wasn’t. And then he learned that Cas had made the conscious choice to stay behind, because apparently, Dean was something he could stand to lose, and that knowledge hurt in a way Dean didn’t have words for.

So they didn’t talk about it.

Then Dean was kneeling, bloodied, in Lucifer’s crypt, Cas standing over him with his angel blade raised. And Dean didn’t know what was going on, but he knew, he knew, that this wasn’t his Cas. His Cas. The words were loud in his mind, and he was both awed and terrified of how right they felt. He needed Cas, and he told him so...and Cas’s angel blade fell to the floor.

They didn’t talk about that much, either.

Years went by, and now Dean was the one standing over a bloodied, crumpled Cas, the Mark of Cain burning on his arm and Cas’s stolen blade in hand. He needed to hurt Cas, or for Cas to hurt him, to fight back and end the goddamn constant screaming in Dean’s head that was all blood and rage and hate and—Cas’s hand came up to gently clasp Dean’s wrist. “No, Dean...please.” And for a second, just a second, the hate in Dean’s mind was quiet, and in its place, strong, surging, and undeniable, was—

Dean stabbed the book next to Cas’s head and walked away.

Next, he was standing in a barn with his mom and Sam and Crowley, watching in terrified helplessness as Cas writhed in agony on an old couch. Ramiel could come for them at any moment, and yet all Dean could think about was the intensity in Cas’s eyes as Cas told him, told all of them, that he loved them, and fuck, Dean loved him, too, but not the familial sort of love that Cas seemed to be getting at, no. Dean loved him in a raw, real sense that he felt in his bones and that scared him half out of his mind, and he wanted to say it; but then Cas was convulsing, and it was too late…

Then Crowley snapped Ramiel’s spear, and Cas was saved, and Dean told himself that enough was enough, he needed to get his shit together and find some way to tell Cas what he felt before—

He was kneeling, silent, on the shore of a lake. The sky was starless overhead, and Cas was dead on the ground in front of him, wings scorched against the sand. And Dean was aching and empty, hollowed out by grief and regret, because he’d waited too long, and now it was too late…

And then he was dead, or something like it. He was in Death’s library and Billie was showing him the shelf of books with his name on the cover, detailing all the possible ways he could die, and Dean should have felt fear, should have felt fight, but instead, all he felt was finally. He hadn’t been able to save the people he loved, hadn’t been able to save Cas, so what was the point of going back? Sam would be better off without him, would get a shot at the normal life he’d always wanted. Billie could toss Dean in the Empty; he didn’t care anymore. Hell, he wanted it, anything to end all his goddamn regret—

But Billie sent him back anyway, and later that night, Dean’s phone rang.

Cas was back. He was alive and he was back, and fuck, he was so much more than Dean deserved. And Dean told himself that he was okay with that, with not having Cas in the way that he wanted, as long as he had him in some way, shape, or form. But then Jack killed Mary, and Dean...he was so angry and hurt that he lashed out at Cas, said horrible things he didn’t mean but didn’t know how to take back once they were out, and he couldn’t even look at Cas without wanting to scream and break and beg for forgiveness. He watched as Cas left him after they fought, left him like everyone else did, and Dean let him, because he knew now that needing someone wasn’t the same as deserving them.

Then they were back in Purgatory after a botched attempt at securing a Leviathan Blossom. They’d been ambushed, and Dean had been knocked out, had woken up alone with Cas nowhere in sight and limited time to make it back. And Dean knew he still didn’t deserve Cas, but he prayed to him anyway. He told Cas about the hurt and the anger and the helplessness he felt when it took hold of him, and he was sorry, God, he was so fucking sorry…

When he found Cas at the last moment at the base of a tree, he wanted...he needed to tell Cas what he hadn’t had the nerve to say in his prayer, because it was so much more than of course I forgive you; it was please forgive me, I know I don’t fucking deserve you but I want you, I need you, I love you…

But they had to go, because as always, there was never enough fucking time.

And then they were trapped in the Bunker’s interrogation room as Billie pounded on the door. Cas was going to die, and it was Dean’s fault, again it was his fault, because he’d screwed up, because he’d been stupid and angry and that was all he knew how to be—

But then Cas was talking with tears in his eyes, and each word was its own revelation, because Cas was looking at him the way Dean had never in a million years thought to be worthy of. And Dean forgot how to breathe, because suddenly, Cas was saying it, he said it: “I love you…”

And then the Empty took him, and Billie, and Dean was left alone on the floor. He was dimly aware of the way Sam’s name flashed on his phone, but he couldn’t answer, because then he’d have to explain, and…and...

Dean cradled his head in his hands and sobbed. He felt like his entire soul had been lit on fire and that every word he’d ever known had been ripped out of him by the roots, all except for the two he murmured, strangled and broken, into the silence: “Me too...”

Dean gasped and ended the prayer. He opened his eyes and felt tears roll down his cheeks; he hadn’t noticed them forming while he’d been praying, and he was about to reach up to dash them away when he saw that Cas’s face was wet with tears of his own; he looked more wrecked than Dean had ever seen him, and the hand he’d kept on Dean’s shoulder throughout the prayer had started to tremble. “Dean, I—”

“Look,” Dean said shakily, because if he didn’t say this now, he didn’t know if he ever could. “I...I know you said happiness isn't really in the having and all that, but...well, I think maybe it is. For me, anyway. Because Cas, if there’s one thing I’ve learned after all the crap we’ve been through, it’s that my life ain’t happy if it doesn’t have you in it.” He swallowed a lump in his throat and pushed on: “You said you thought you couldn’t have me, but the thing is, you’ve had me for years. And I just...I need you to hear me, I need you to know…” He almost stopped then, almost couldn’t go on, because the look of absolute love in Cas’s eyes was overwhelming, and Dean could no more deny it than he could give up breathing. He raised his hand, placed it firmly on top of the one on his shoulder, and squeezed. “You changed me too, Cas.”

Then Cas was kissing him, and Dean let out a muffled sob of relief as he felt Cas’s hands wrap around his middle and pull them flush against one another. His grip was hot and desperate on Dean’s back, and the way his mouth moved against Dean’s made Dean feel as though he were going to burst into millions of joyous pieces. He tangled his hands in Cas’s hair and kissed him hard, tugging him backward until Cas was straddling him on the mattress, his solid, unyielding weight a blissful, dizzying contrast to the lightness Dean felt in his mind as Cas’s tongue slid surely over his own, ravishing and reverent and real. They were real, and they always had been.

And Dean would never, ever doubt that again.

#destiel #deancas #spndbcc #spn #spn spoilers #my writing #begin and end there #fanfiction #if the network won't give them this then i will do it myself!

[corancoranthemagicalman]

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Thank you so much 💜 my day was stressful and mentally taxing but overall it was fine :) i am so so flattered/flustered that you want to gift me something in return- i never expect anything when i'm penguin anon. And irl i'm trying to be better at accepting things from people. so if you really would like to gift me something here are some tropes i like: cas gardening (sorry i can't get away from flowers/plants!), dadstiel with baby or toddler jack, general domestic fluff, anything that explores cas & dean healing/character growth 💜 but i honestly don't expect anything in return for my hearts and flowers. They are freely given 💜💜🌻💜💜🌻💜💜

-🐧🌻

I’m sorry to hear it was stressful for you, dear. I’m glad that overall it wasn’t too bad for you, though. I hope this cheers you up? I’m a few hours later with it because I get distracted big time in research. Like figuring out that Dean was 22 when Shrek came out. Which had literally no bearing on this, but was fun to figure out. The hearts and flowers are more than appreciated. 💕🌺🌺💕

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When Dean was four, he watched his mother hold his baby brother to the blooming sunflowers she kept in the backyard. Mom said they were called Sunriches. They were named that because they were like golden suns. Dean thought the sun was golden, but when he tried looking at it, the sun was just a bright, white color. Blinding. Dad said he couldn’t look at the sun without hurting himself, so he stopped trying.

What he could look at was Mom holding Sammy. He was only a couple of months old, but Mom was excitedly talking to him as if he could talk back. Dad said he wouldn’t be able to talk for a while. That didn’t seem to bother Mom. She was content to describe the flowers to Sammy. They were taller than Dean was. Mom said they wouldn’t get any bigger, but one day Dean would be tall enough to hold Sammy up to the flower petals. He looked forward to that.

Mom looked pretty in her dress, from Dean’s memory of the time. Her skirt swayed in the autumn wind in time with the petals dancing in the breeze. It was ethereal, like a princess talking to animals. Except instead of a squirrel on her shoulder there was a baby in her arms. Dean thought it looked like magic.

A few months later, when Dean was finally trusted with holding Sammy in his arms, he was running out of his burning home.

He didn’t think about the sunflowers they left behind.

Read more undercut or check it out on AO3!

Later in life, when Dean was flirting too close to a stable relationship with a reporter, he idly thumbed at the petals of the Suntastic Yellows. He remembered his mom telling him that they were the tiniest sunflowers. The type they used in bouquets. Cassie had a small pot resting on her windowsill.

Cassie’s hands drew around his waist from behind him. Humming into his neck, Cassie drew him backward with her. He thought about it in an absent sense, walking away from the sunflowers.

“You know,” she whispered against the shell of his ear, “they say that sunflowers track the sun all throughout the day.”

“Oh, really?” Dean smirked, taking her lips in his own. She was wonderful, really. Too wonderful. Wonderful enough that Dean thought about confessing everything to her. Cassie would understand. She was clever and understanding. Hell, maybe she’d even accept him.

It was too bad, then, that when Dean told her what he did—what he was—that she didn’t believe him. Dean wouldn’t have believed himself either. Walking away with his keys in his hand and his heart at his feet, Dean wondered if this is what it would always feel like. If he would always have to walk away from the place his heart was trying to make into a home. Maybe it was something about being a sunflower. Always tracking the sun throughout the day.

Too bad Dean couldn’t find the damn sunlight.

“Dude, look!” Dean grinned during another part of his life, pointing at some old lady’s front garden full of Taiyos. “It’s like Shrek.” He teased his brother, elbowing Sam who only rolled his eyes in return.

“Shrek? Really?” Sam scoffed. “How old were you when that even happened?”

Dean huffed a laugh. “What? You’re telling me you didn’t go watch the cinematic masterpiece known as Shrek with all of your college buddies?”

Sam rolled his eyes again, huffing with a shrug of his shoulders. “Sure, Dean. And then we watched Holiday in the Sun right after, too.”

“Never took you for a Mary-Kate and Ashley fan, Sammy.” Dean grinned, watching the sunflowers swaying in the breeze from the corner of his eye.

They looked peaceful in the witness’ front yard. Untouched by the grueling werewolf that was lurking through the small town. Dean could hear Sam’s sharp inhale from beside him.

“I always thought sunflowers were… homey,” Sam confessed, watching the sunflowers dance with a furrowed brow.

Shooting Sam a crooked grin, Dean stepped forward toward the sunflowers but he didn’t dare touch them. “I’m not surprised,” he began. “Mom used to grow them. She started taking you out into the garden as soon as you stopped crying all the time.”

Sam was silent for a moment, causing Dean to look at him with concern. It wasn’t often that Sam was quiet, but when he was it was always a contemplative silence. “I didn’t know that.” He spoke softly.

“You wouldn’t have remembered.” Dean shrugged, stepping onto the witness’ walkway to begin making their way up to the door. “These are a bit taller than hers were. But then again, everything seemed taller then.”

There was another moment of contemplative silence, but it seemed Sam had nothing left to say. He knocked on the witness’ door, taking care not to meet Dean’s eye. Dean wondered what that meant. Wondered if Sam felt the same way when he saw sunflowers.

Then again, Sam had always been larger than life. Tall and proud.

When Dean was on the aching side of forty, he watched Castiel hold their four-year-old son to the blooming sunflowers he kept in the backyard. Cas had been enchanted by the Little Beckas when he had seen them. While they might not have been the tallest—or the smallest—of sunflowers, he had thought they were lovely. Dean had made a quip about their halo and bought Cas seeds the same day.

Watching Cas and Jack reminded Dean of being four and trying to see what color the sun was. It was blinding, something he felt he should look away from lest it hurt him. But he found that he couldn’t look away. He didn’t want to. He just wanted to watch Cas answer every question Jack had.

He was beautiful, Dean often thought, but especially in moments like these. The cuffs of his jeans were muddied and his bare feet were buried in the soil where he sat with Jack in his lap. Dean hated how Cas refused to wear shoes outside, but he had claimed to like being closer to the Earth. Dean couldn’t argue with him. He wouldn’t argue with him; not for what made him happy.

Cas turned to look at him, catching his gaze and drawing him closer with just a look. Dean moved without hesitation, standing beside Cas and kicking at his knee with his booted foot. His approach drew Jack’s attention away from the flowers, who clapped excitedly the closer he got.

“Whaddya think, Jack? Do you like the colors?” Dean hummed, watching Jack’s gummy smile as the kid waved up at him.

“Daddy says that sunflowers face East!” He pointed enthusiastically, laughing and reaching for the blooms in front of him.

Dean frowned, looking from Cas to the flowers. “I thought sunflowers rotated with the sun or whatever.”

Cas hummed, tilting his head with a nod. “They do, in their youth.” He pressed a kiss to the top of Jack’s head. “But when they mature, the sunflowers learn that they get the most light during the morning hours when the sun has just risen from the East.” Bouncing Jack momentarily and causing the boy to giggle, Cas turned to face Dean. “They just learn what’s healthiest for them. It just takes time.”

Inhaling sharply, Dean wondered if this was it. If this was his East. Watching a smiling Jack and Cas whispering about sunflowers that—while not the tallest or the smallest—were a halo of colors. Two colors that came together, that never faded, that bloomed to life in this tiny garden he called home. He was a dark heart and a bright halo, smiling toward the bright, white sunlight of a gummy smile and clapping hands.

With a grunt, Dean lowered himself to the soil, sitting beside Cas and wrapping his arm around Cas’ shoulder. “These little guys are pollen-less,” he spoke to Jack. “That’s why we got the honeysuckles.”

“Honeysuckles stand for devotion.” Cas’ voice rumbled gently. “In the ancient Celtic alphabet, the symbol that the Ogham carved into stone to represent the honeysuckle stood for following one’s path.”

Dean snorted a laugh, shaking his head. “Sort of counterintuitive. Since, yanno, Free Will.” He quipped, raising a curious brow toward Cas.

Bowing his head in concession, Cas continued. “Yes, that is true. The Druids meant it more like… trusting one’s gut. Rather than sticking to the story.” He grinned, rocking with Jack in his arms for a moment. “But the honeysuckle is rather hard to kill. That is why it means everlasting devotion.”

“Deaths don’t stick, huh?” Dean hummed, squeezing Cas closer into his side. “Sounds like someone I know.”

Cas exhaled a laugh, resting his head atop Jack’s. “The Chinese valued the honeysuckle for its healing properties. It can be a cooling herb to remove toxins.”

Dean pressed a kiss to Cas’ cheek, keeping his lips there for a moment longer before pulling away. “Even if the honeysuckle can’t heal ‘em, the sunflowers like the company anyway.” He smiled softly, watching as Cas’ eyes turned dewy toward him. “And ‘sides, the honeysuckle brings all the bees to the yard.”

Snorting laughter that Jack joined in without knowing the cause, Cas shook his head. “I suppose so.” His attempt to suppress a smile made Dean’s own grin widen. “But the sunflower is more than enough company.”

“Damn straight,” Dean whispered against Cas’ lips, kissing him slowly and savoring the moment.

Between them, Jack made exaggerated kissy faces, causing them to pull apart and watch him with amusement. He grinned, reaching up and holding Dean and Cas’ cheeks in his palms.

“Daddy and Poppa sittin’ in a tree!” Jack sang, giggling as he smushed their heads together.

Mocking a frown, Dean held his other hand out behind Jack’s back. His palm felt so large in comparison to how small Jack was. “Did Uncle Sam teach you that?”

“Yup!” Jack nodded enthusiastically, head bobbing as he continued to hum the song under his breath.

Cas gave another chuckle under his breath, looking from Jack to Dean. “I suppose we should head inside. We're still expecting Sam and Eileen for lunch.”

Dean stood with a groan as his knees ached. He reached out a hand to help Cas and Jack up, standing tall with his family in their little garden. Keeping their fingers intertwined, Dean didn’t have to think about the sunflowers they left behind.

They would be there as long as the sun was in the East.

#ask c #anon #🐧🌻 anon #destiel #destiel ficlet #spn #spn ficlet #flower language #sunflowers #dean winchester #character study #meta???? #dunno #im bad at tagging

[whatareyousearchingfordean]

Supernatural Series Finale

It took me a couple days to collect my thoughts on one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to watch in my life. Like I said a few days ago, I cried even harder watching it the second time around. But now that I’ve had a chance to process and also see what other people were saying, I think I can finally put into words my impression of the finale. 

Buckle up, this is a long one....

Let me preface this first off by saying that as an adamant Dean girl that has said numerous times over the years that all I’ve ever wanted was to wrap Dean in a blanket and give him some forehead kisses and tell him everything is going to be fine, this episode gutted me. I fully believe that my boy did not deserve to fight so hard for so long to just die as soon as he was free. He deserved a lifetime of truly enjoying time with his baby brother, the person he loved most in the whole world.

Now with that being said, having watched this series so many numerous times, I truly don’t believe that the show could have ended any other way. It’s something that has been pointed out by the creator, the writers, the actors, and even the characters themselves in the show. Dean never saw anything else for himself than dying doing the one thing he knows best, hunting. I saw a post that discussed how this would have happened numerous times already had Chuck not been interfering in their lives, and I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. 

And Dean had been raised to never think anything of that. It goes back to Cas’ declaration that he is “the most loving human he has ever met”. Dean is and always has been a man of duty. He would gladly die at the end of a blade if it meant he saved someone from the fate his family was ‘destined’ to live. He has always cared more about other people than he ever has himself. It part of the reason that his freak out in 15.17 didn’t throw me because for fuck’s sake wasn’t it his turn to be a little bit selfish for once?

Anyway, I digress. Dean has been fighting for others his whole life. And as stated in 15.19, him and Sam were free to finally write their own story. Is it not 100% on character that Dean would die a hunter’s death? As we see in the beginning of the episode, the Winchesters could have chosen to walk away from the life then. They could have chose the apple pie life, a wife and 2.5 kids. But they didn’t, they chose to continue saving people, hunting things. They were writing their own story, even if it ended tragically. But that’s life, it’s messy and depressing, but it’s also beautiful and even if Dean only got a small taste of that, I can be happy.

I know a lot of people feel like that negates their character growth throughout the seasons, but I disagree. I think that the way this ended shows just how much both of them had grown. Sam very well could have went to Jack and begged him to bring Dean back and Dean could have asked him to. But neither felt that it was necessary any longer. Without Chuck pulling the strings, that scary, neurotic, codependence they used to hold was gone. Dean was okay with dying and Sam let him go. Dean told him how much he loved him and how scared he had been to go get him at school. Dean opened up, something that season 1 Dean never would have done. Just look back at “Faith”, the episode where Dean makes every joke in the book about dying instead of facing the truth that his time was up and Sam refuses to accept it so much that his one source to save him (unwittingly) is black magic. The men I saw in 15.20 were far from the men we met in season one. 

Coming back to finally being free, I have to talk about the dammed paperwork in Dean’s room. I’ve seen the speculation about that. But that’s all it is, speculation. We have no idea what that was supposed to be about. If they had meant for us to see it, they would have shown it to use like they showed us the “Dean’s other other phone” sticker. But they didn’t. So it’s perfectly fine to speculate about it, that all a part of art interpretation, but in my opinion, even if Dean was working on ‘something else’ I don’t think he ever could have fully walked away from hunting. This ending was for all intents and purposes, inevitable. 

For all the rest, as a writer, I fully understand the way that they chose to do this episode. Sure covid played a role but the boys had said that the crux of what the episode was did not change. There is a certain nuance to storytelling, like I posted back on Thursday and something that is probably one of the most famous lines from this show. Endings are hard. Writing is hard. It’s impossible to please everyone and even harder to tie up all loose ends. At the end of the day, the writers had to be satisfied with the story that they put out, irregardless of what you or I think. As Jensen so beautifully puts it, Supernatural is a piece of art, one that has numerous hands in the pot. From writers to actors and directors. And art is always up for interpretation. But that’s the beauty in it. 

I talked to a dear friend, @waywardbeanie after the episode and was like “I want to know x.y.and z” because a part of me wanted all the answers from them. I’ve always been a person so very deeply rooted in canon (I know as a fanfic author that sounds weird but stay with me). I trust the information given to me and take it as face value. I seen my stories as an extension to canon, not trying to rewrite it. So it took me a few days, and more conversations with other fans of the show, like @winchest09 , to understand that the facts left out of the final were most likely intentional. 

This is a show that has such a passionate and loving (mostly) fandom. Together we have done so much good for the world, and that is something even if you hated the finale, you can’t take back. The writers left the ending open for us, to write our own stories, whether it’s just your thoughts or if you actually write a piece of fanfiction. There is so little about what happens after Sam leaves, presumably for Austin (don’t even get me started on the essence of that cause I might cry again), because it’s our job to decide. Did Sam quite hunting all together or was he a pseudo Bobby, manning the phones for other hunters? Did he finally go to law school or end up getting some other mundane job? Who was his wife or girlfriend or baby momma in the background? Was it Eileen? If not did she know about his life? One could drive themselves crazy answering these questions, and it’s your right to do so however it will make you happy. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter to the story. 

At the end of the day, what mattered was the peace that the boys found together, in heaven. Sure Dean missed Sammy when he first got there, but he didn’t fuss, because as Bobby said “he would be along”. So Dean did what he’s always done, he took a drive in Baby, and Sam was there when he finally brought her to a stop. In the end their story ended just as it had started, our boys together. 

And I know a lot of people are angry because one of the big themes this show touched on was that family doesn’t end in blood. And I agree wholeheartedly that I would have loved more familiar faces or even the mention of them (I screamed when Donna was mentioned), but at the end of the day, something Eric Kripke has been saying since season one, this show is and always has been about the brothers and their relationship. I in no way think that this negates the family they found along the way or how they could not have done a lot of it without them but, it’s not their story. I’m sorry but it’s true. 

It’s not about Cas, Jack, Bobby, Crowley, Ellen, Jo, Mary, Eileen, etc. It’s about Sam and Dean and it sucks that people can’t let that go, but I get it. I can’t imagine putting so much time into something to let something like that ruin the whole experience for you. I hope that you can find peace eventually. I guess that’s my blessing, that I never really cared for anyone besides Dean. Which isn’t to say I didn’t like characters but what happened to them never mattered to me, as bitchy as that sounds. 

I’m at peace with this ending, no matter how much it hurts me. And I think it’s just the finality of it that hurts. Jensen and Jared and Kripke are satisfied with their little show that could and that’s what matters most to me. Because those are the real people with real feelings that I care about. 

So there you have it. I have zero tolerance for negativity, so please keep your comments off this posts. You are free to your opinion but I don’t want to see it and put any seed of doubt in my acceptance of this ending. I’ll be the first to admit I’m too easily swayed, ha!

But if you need to talk, my inbox is always open. I’m still coping with the loss of this show and everything that comes with it. I don’t do well with change or facing my own mortality, something that has rattle me these past few days. I feel a million years older and that scares me. So know your feelings are valid and I’m here. 

#supernatural #spoilers #dont spoil the final hunt #spn finale #supernatural finale

[sign-from-god-complex]

A Gift From Me To You - Chapter 6

Chapter Summary: Virgil has a chat with Remy and considers his relationship with Roman.

Warnings: Food mention, some minor negative thinking and mentions of bullying

A/N: Sorry this chapter is a little bit shorter! I was just trying to make sure it was actually finished in time, so I didn’t spend much time fleshing it out the way I usually do.

AO3 Link //  Link to Chapter One! //  And Two! // And Three! // And Four! // And Five!

The sound of the cafeteria was loud in Virgil’s ears as Remy studied him from across the table, their expression blank. Virgil tugged restlessly at the sleeves of his hoodie—despite having already revealed his soulmark to them he wasn’t particularly anxious for it to become common knowledge. He valued his privacy.

He hadn’t even told his moms about it. When Virgil had come down for breakfast—even though, internally, he was still screaming incoherently—he had acted as if nothing was different.

It had been just like every morning.

Bree was in the kitchen dishing up the eggs. Virgil had swung himself down into the chair next to Thomas, ruffling his hair slightly and ignoring his squeaks of protest as he batted his brother’s hands away. Liv had stumbled down the stairs, complaining that it was far too early. She’d kissed her wife, taking a seat opposite her two sons and Virgil had watched her, eyes vacant, as he tried to stop his hands from shaking.

Because it hadn’t been every morning. It had been that morning, and Virgil was panicking.

He knew he had to tell them eventually, but quite honestly, he wasn’t really ready to face the questions he knew they would have. He didn’t know any of the answers!

Something in him doubted he ever would.

“Okay, so lemme check I’ve got this right.” Remy raised an eyebrow, popping a chip into their mouth before continuing. “Roman Prince is your soulmate, he doesn’t know, and you’re worried that you’re not good enough to date him and or Patton. Am I correct?”

Virgil winced slightly, nodding his head. Even after his talk with Patton, Virgil was feeling less than ideal about this situation. He understands that it’s his “responsibility” to let Roman know or whatever, but there were just too many ways it could go wrong.

What if Roman hated him for running into him in the corridor earlier and was just being polite when he offered to help him up? The rumour about his soulmark had probably been going around all day—what if he thought Virgil had faked his soulmark to be with him? What if, when Patton found out, he got that disappointed look in his eye, regretting that he’d ever convinced Virgil to go ahead with it?

What if Virgil ruined their perfect relationship, just by trying to have some happiness of his own?

Remy inhaled sharply. “Okay, well, first of all, you’re an idiot, so jot that down.”

Virgil raised his eyebrows. Not exactly the encouraging piece of advice he had been hoping for.

“Wow, thanks, Rem,” he snarked, “This is really making me feel better.”

He glanced out the window over towards where Roman, Logan and Patton generally sat, trying to catch a glimpse of the three of them, but was greeted only by empty space. That was odd, he could have sworn they were there when he and Remy had walked by on their way to the cafeteria—it was impossible to miss Patton in that skirt. Where could they have gon-

Virgil was jerked out of his confusion by Remy grabbing his hands from across the table, causing him to jump.

“Oh my god! I can’t believe you don’t think you’re good enough for that asshole! Does my opinion mean nothing to you?!” Remy threw their hand onto their chest dramatically. “I have good taste in friends, Virge—the best—and you certainly wouldn’t be my best friend if you weren’t the most awesome person I know.”

Virgil grimaced. “Right, well regardless of whether or not that’s true-”

“Oh, it’s true.”

Remy had a look in their eyes like they were daring Virgil to argue, but he didn’t rise to the bait. It really wasn’t worth his energy to argue with them right now.

“That’s what you think though, Remy,” Virgil sighed, “I don’t know that they’ll think the same.”

Remy popped another chip into their mouth with a smirk. “Well, if they don’t love and respect you for the amazing person you are I’ll beat them with a stick.”

“Remy…”

Virgil rolled his eyes. Remy was… protective is probably the word he’d use. Ever since they were little kids and Virgil would get picked on for not having a soulmate Remy would stand up for him, getting themself in trouble but keeping Virgil out of it at the same time. They insisted it was worth it, no matter how many times Virgil begged them to stop.

The day that Remy got suspended for punching some asshole who’d been calling Virgil names, Virgil had cried into their shoulder for hours. It had felt like it was his fault, like if he’d been better—more likable or more like everyone else—then Remy wouldn’t be in the position they were in. If he’d been different, Remy could have just gone through their schooling being the bossy, slightly disruptive kid that they were, instead of the problem child Virgil had forced them to be painted as.

But as Virgil had wiped away his tears, spilling those thoughts into Remy’s embrace, he had felt his best friend stiffen. They had pulled away, grabbing Virgil’s shoulders so he was looking them directly in the eyes before speaking.

“I would get myself expelled a hundred times over to make sure you never have to suffer again, yeah? You don’t deserve the things that happen to you, Virge. Not by a long shot.”

And to this day Virgil had never seen Remy look so serious. Normally they joked around—always a glint of mischief in their eye from some hilarious story Virgil was undoubtedly going to be hearing—but at that moment Remy had been entirely sincere, begging Virgil to believe them.

So he had.

Or at least he’d tried to. It was still hard for him to believe that he was worth all the energy Remy was freely expending, but he made an effort to accept that it wasn’t going to change any time soon.

Remy waved their hand back and forth dismissively. “I know, I know, not helpful. Look, look at it this way. What have you got to be afraid of?”

Virgil narrowed his eyes. He could give Remy an alphabetised list of what exactly he had to be afraid of here, starting with, “a - agonising pain as his heart was broken by the boy he was in love with,” and ending with “z - zombies.”

You can imagine what the rest of the list was like.

“No, for real!” Remy continued, “You didn’t even have a soulmark yesterday! You were perfectly content to live out the rest of your days finding love on your own. That was your whole thing! Let’s say the universe was wrong—Roman rejects you and is a total asshole and perishes by my hand—then you just live your life the way you always planned to!”

They smiled reassuringly. “If you think about it, Virge, nothing’s really changed. ‘Cept you’ve gotten a little bit more of a push to go after what you want.”

Virgil considered that for a moment, taking a bite of his sandwich. Yeah, it’s true that he had previously been happy to find love without a soulmark, but it wasn’t fair to say nothing had changed. Everything had changed. Because now, instead of Roman being some teenage crush he would get over by the time he’d finished high school, he was apparently the person Virgil was supposed to spend the rest of his life with.

And Virgil just couldn’t imagine that.

It was ridiculous, almost, given the amount of time Virgil had spent fantasising about Roman, but Virgil couldn’t picture growing old with him. He couldn’t really picture quiet moments alone, or Roman coming home from work to greet him with a kiss, or romantic date nights. It just felt wrong. Even throwing Patton into the mix didn’t fix it—didn’t dissolve the feeling of unease that came over Virgil when he tried to imagine this future the universe had so clearly planned out for him.

But Remy was right—and more than that, he was right—when he’d said that he didn’t need a soulmark to find love. If Roman didn’t want him, then he didn’t want him either. And if that strange feeling never left his chest, Virgil didn’t have to stay; he could find a place where he did feel comfortable, he was sure.

He hummed. “I guess you’re right.”

“Of course, I’m right!” Remy beamed, before allowing their tone to grow softer, “And hey, if Roman really does reject you—which I’m sure isn’t going to happen, but if he does—I’m here. You’re never going to be alone. Emile and I would be happy to have you live with us for the rest of your life if you needed to. I promise.”

Virgil would never dream of imposing on them both that way, but he didn’t show it. Instead, he painted on a smile—a small one, didn’t want Remy getting suspicious. “Pinky promise?”

“Pinky promise,” Remy laughed.

Virgil cleared his throat, hoping to steer the conversation away from him for a moment. “So, uh, how’s Emile doing anyway?”

Virgil watched as his best friend’s eyes lit up, almost immediately going on about Emile’s grades and how well he was doing in his classes despite it only being his first year at uni and how much they missed him, blah blah blah. Virgil knew that Remy wouldn’t care if he zoned out a little bit—they’d had their serious talk for the afternoon, and honestly, they were probably perfectly happy to just talk Virgil’s ear off for the rest of lunch.

So he let his mind wander, and truly, where else could it possibly wander to but Roman.

The first time Virgil had seen Roman, he had not liked him.

They’d been in the same gym class their first year of high school and Virgil hadn’t been able to explain what it was, but something about Roman bothered him. It might have been the way he smiled, the way he’d strut around the room like he owned the place, the way he’d talked himself up to anyone who would listen. Virgil hadn’t been sure, but it made something in his chest tighten every time he’d looked at him.

He hadn’t spoken to him; Virgil wasn’t an idiot, Roman was capital-p Popular and he didn’t feel like getting beaten up at high school as well as elementary. Any feelings Virgil had had towards Roman, positive or negative, had stayed firmly between him and Remy.

Remy hadn’t particularly had an opinion of Roman, to begin with. They’d had the chance to be dragged into those friend groups—of course they had, they’d always been a charmer—but they’d declined in favour of staying with Virgil. It was possibly one of the nicest things Remy could have done for him, but naturally, they acted like it was no big deal. To them, there’d really been no other option.

So their interactions with Roman had truly been limited, and despite Virgil spending most of his gym lessons trying not to stare—trying to figure out how one person could be so unbelievably arrogant, or at least that’s what he’d told himself—Roman hadn’t been a common topic of conversation.

That was until Virgil signed up for backstage crew for that year’s musical.

He hadn’t known that Roman did theatre—really, considering how loud he was, Virgil knew surprisingly little about him—but the first time he’d shown up for rehearsals Roman had been there. Virgil later found out that Roman had gotten one of the lead roles, and from that moment when Virgil first saw him, he understood why.

He could still picture it, down to the second.

The backstage crew kept slightly different practice hours to the cast and so when Virgil had arrived at the school hall, their rehearsal was already underway.

Roman had been standing centre stage in the middle of a solo. None of the set had been organised yet, so it was all natural lighting, nothing present on the stage outside of himself and a chair they used as a makeshift prop, but there was something in the way Roman moved that made you forget that.

He commanded the space, every gesture filling up the entire room and every expression cutting directly to your soul. You could feel the energy coming off of him in waves, every inch of passion and power drawing the eyes of every single one of the room’s occupants, forcing their minds to a place far different than the empty stage he stood on.

And his voice.

Virgil wasn’t bad at singing, himself—he was usually in tune and his voice had a recognisable sound. It wasn’t something he’d ever worked at though, far too self-conscious about drawing attention to himself to ever pursue anything so bold.

Roman, however, was absolutely astounding. His voice had been clear, but warm. The emotion had been thick with every single phrase uttered, painting a picture full of reds and yellows and browns and gold, producing a masterpiece of sound. Virgil had been able to hear every word, but more than that: Virgil had been able to feel every word. It was like Roman had been pushing the song deep into his chest, ensuring with every fibre of his being that he was understood and that this story was told.

Virgil had been aware he was essentially standing there slack-jawed in awe, but considering he hadn’t been the only one, he hadn't felt as self-conscious about it as he may have had otherwise. And as Roman had finished his solo, beaming at the thundering applause from his peers, Virgil had had a realisation.

He didn’t hate Roman. He had a crush on him.

He wasn’t going to say it was a welcome realisation. Virgil hadn’t thought of himself as gay, but he hadn’t really thought of himself as straight either. Quite honestly, it just wasn’t something he’d thought that much about. But after that moment, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it.

Couldn’t stop thinking of Roman frantically pressing his lips to Virgil’s for the first time, running off of the adrenaline of his most recent performance. Couldn’t stop thinking about Roman dragging him out for a picnic, the two of them trading lazy kisses in the midday sun. Couldn’t stop thinking about Disney marathons cuddled up on the couch, Roman playing with his hair and singing along to all the songs.

Just… couldn’t stop thinking about Roman.

He’d already paid the fee to be a part of the musical, so Virgil certainly wasn’t going to back out now—even if Roman’s face made him want to turn on his heel and run in the opposite direction every time he saw it. Instead, he’d resigned himself to spending the entire musical avoiding him, but Roman had clearly had other ideas.

Roman had made it a point to thank the crew at any opportunity he had been able to get. Normally Virgil would’ve appreciated that—the crew never gets enough recognition for the work they put in—but the way Roman had been so completely sincere in his congratulations and well done’s had been infuriating. He’d almost wished he could have gone back to hating him.

Roman being a good person had been equally as bad as Roman being a stuck up, self-obsessed asshole because if Virgil hated him for being an asshole he could feel justified in his feelings.

If Roman was an asshole then he deserved Virgil’s ire—deserved the way Virge would rant about him to Remy for what could be considered a socially unacceptable amount of time, complaining about whatever dramatic and disruptive antic Roman had planned that day. If he was an asshole then things were easy; Virgil knew where he stood and he was happy with that.

If he was a good person, however, then he didn’t deserve Virgil’s romantic feelings anywhere near him. If he was a good person the way he seemed to be, giving sincere thank you’s and planning gifts for teachers and running fun warm-up sessions and stealing another piece of Virgil’s heart with every smile he displayed…

Well, Virgil didn’t know what to do with that.

When he found out Roman had started dating Patton Hart, he hadn’t been surprised or upset. He’d never been foolish enough to expect to end up with the high school's resident Prince. He’d been happy for him. Really. After all, Roman had deserved better, and Patton was definitely better.

But maybe Virgil deserved something better too.

————————————————

Chapter 7

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#sanders sides #sanders sides fic #lamp/calm #virgil sanders #roman sanders #ts sleep #remile #prinxiety #I'm so pleased I managed to get this finished #lo can write

[beatlejuice64]

Destiel: Season 7 - A catalog of Supernatural episodes

A catalog of each episode in Supernatural that features scenes related to Destiel. This includes scenes between Dean and Castiel, scenes with other characters that address their relationship with each other, and scenes that allude to Dean’s bisexuality.

Season 7 Summary Analysis

Despite having felt betrayed by his actions in season 6, Dean is devastated by Castiel’s death, spiraling into depression and becoming self-destructive. When Cas returns, Dean is happy he’s alive, but also still upset about Castiel’s previous manipulation and betrayal. Cas takes on Sam’s burden of mental instability to atone for his mistakes, and he avoids conflict out of fear of messing up again. Cas is only able to come out of his funk when Dean tells him he forgives him and still believes in him.

My interpretation: Castiel’s betrayal hits Dean harder than anyone else because Dean trusted him more than he’s trusted anyone else in his life. He feels lost when Cas dies, not knowing who to trust. Dean is able to fully forgive Cas after he saves Sam, and still values his help even though he’s gone a bit wonky. Cas feels utterly appalled at himself for the cataclysmic mistakes he’s made. He reverts to a childlike state in order to cope with the knowledge that he has caused intense suffering. He feels connected to Meg because she is one of the few people with a level of darkness in her comparable to the one he feels within himself. Dean is the only person who can talk Cas into getting back into the fight because he trusts Dean’s judgement above his own—if Dean believes in him, then he can allow himself to believe in himself.

7.01 Meet the New Boss

The Purgatory souls have completely scrambled Castiel’s brain. He turns away from free will ideals and becomes a tyrant, killing many angels and doing lots of damage on Earth. Dean has given up on Cas: “Cas is never coming back. He’s lied to us, he used us, he cracked your gourd like it was nothing. No more talk. We have spent enough on him.”

After his vessel starts falling apart, Cas asks for help returning the souls and feels ashamed: “I feel regret about you and what I did to Sam. If there was time, if I was strong enough, I’d fix him now. I just wanted to make amends before I die.” “Okay.” “Is it working?” “Does it make you feel better?” “No. You?” “Not a bit.”

When Cas falls unconscious after Purgatory has opened, Dean is still concerned for his welfare and upset that he’s (apparently) dead: “Cas, you child. Why didn’t you listen to me?”

Cas desperately wants to redeem himself: “I’ll find some way to redeem myself to you.” “Alright, well, one thing at a time. Come on, let’s get you outta her.” “I mean it, Dean.” “Okay. Alright, but let’s go find Sam, okay?”

7.02 Hello, Cruel World

Dean is devastated when Cas (apparently) dies, and he keeps his trench coat that has washed up on the shore: “Dumb son of a bitch.”

Bobby recognizes the extent of Dean’s loss: “Just lost one of the best friends you ever had, your brother’s in the bell jar, and Purgatory’s most wanted are surfin’ the sewer lines, but yeah, I get it. Right. You’re fine.”

7.07 The Mentalists

Sam calls Dean out for pretending he’s fine when he’s not: “You can’t just look me in the face and tell me you’re fine. I mean, you’re not sleeping, you drink for the record... Just be honest with me, how are those the actions of someone who knows they did the right thing? [in reference to killing Amy]” “I went with my gut, and that felt right. I didn’t trust her, Sam. Of course, ever since Cas, I’m having a hard time trusting anybody. And as far as how I’ve been acting, I don’t know. Maybe it’s ‘cause I don’t like lying to you. You know, it doesn’t feel right. So yeah, you got me there. I been climbing the walls.”

7.09 How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters

Sam talks about Dean‘s struggle with Bobby: “So you don’t worry about him? ...Ever since my head broke, and we lost Cas. I mean, you feel like he’s going through the same motions but he’s not the same Dean, you know?”

Bobby calls Dean out for his despondent behavior: “I’ve seen a lot of hunters live and die. You’re starting to talk like one of the dead ones, Dean.” “No, I’m talking the way a person talks when they’ve had it, when they can’t figure out why they used to think all this mattered.”

7.12 Time After Time

Sam makes a joke about Dean’s sexuality: “Are you gonna look at more anime, or are you strictly into Dick now?”

7.13 The Slice Girls

Sam observes Dean’s distracted behavior again: “You know what? Bobby was right. Your head’s not in it, man. When Cas died, you were wobbly, but now... Look, Dean, the thing is, tonight it almost got you killed. Now I don’t care how you deal. I really, really don’t. But just don’t get killed.”

7.17 The Born-Again Identity

Dean is dumb-founded when he sees that Cas is alive. Even though Cas has no memory of what happened, Dean talks about it with him: “You know, I used to be able to just shake this stuff off. You know, whatever it was, it might take me some time, but I always could. What Cas did, I just can’t. I don’t know why.”

Dean looks uncomfortable when Meg flirts with the amnesiac Cas.

Dean encourages Cas to use his powers: “It’s in there. I’m sure it’s just like riding a bike.”

When Castiel’s memory returns, he feels ashamed for what he did. He tries to run off, but Dean stops him: “If you remember, then you know you did the best you could at the time.” “Don’t defend me. Do you have any idea the death toll in heaven? On Earth? We didn’t part friends, Dean.” “So, what?” “I deserved to die. Now I can’t possibly fix it, so why did I even walk out of that river?” “Maybe TO fix it.”

Dean is able to convince Cas to stay and help after he pulls his trench coat out of the trunk of his car.

To atone for what he did to Sam, Cas shifts Sam’s broken mental state into himself.

7.20 The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo

Dean walks Charlie through flirting with a man, and he tells Sam not to tell anyone about it: “It shows. You look amazing.” “You do anything else with your free time, like take a girl out for a drink?”

7.21 Reading is Fundamental

When Cas wakes up, Dean is happy to see him, but not sure how to handle his wackiness.

Cas exhibits fondness for Meg: “Will you look at her? My caretaker. All of that thorny pain. So beautiful.”

When Dean tries to talk to Cas about what he did, Cas makes him play a game of Sorry!: “We live in a ‘Sorry!’ universe. It’s engineered to create conflict. I mean, why should I prosper from your misfortune? But these are the rules. I didn’t make ‘em.” “You made some of ‘em. When you tried to become God, when you cut that hole into that wall.”

Dean is still furious with Cas: “Forget the game, Cas.” “I’m sorry, Dean.” “No. You’re playing sorry.”

When Dean yells at Cas, he gets upset. He explains that he doesn’t want to get involved: “No, I don’t fight anymore. I watch the bees.”

Dean expresses his frustration with Cas to Kevin: “The angels, they don’t care. I think maybe they just don’t have the equipment to care. It seems like when they try, it just breaks them apart.”

When Hester shows back up again, she mentions Castiel’s deep connection with Dean: “The very touch if you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in hell, he was lost!”

Cas gives his blood for a spell: “Well, you know me. I’m always happy to bleed for the Winchesters.”

7.23 Survival of the Fittest

We learn that Cas apparently showed up naked on Dean’s car: “We can call Castiel again.” “Dude, on my car, he showed up naked, covered in bees.” “Yeah, I’m not really sorry I missed that.”

Meg complains about Cas to Dean: “Go ask him. He was your boyfriend first.”

Dean gets frustrated trying to communicate with Cas, who is still acting wonky, but he tries hard to be patient with him.

Cas makes sandwiches for the Winchesters made with uncontaminated food from out of the country: “Please, accept this sandwich as a gesture of solidarity.”

Cas still feels ashamed for what he did and is afraid of messing up again: “I can’t help. You understand? I can’t. I destroyed everything, and I will destroy everything again. Can we please just leave it at that?”

Dean loses his patience with Cas: “No, we can’t leave it. You let these freakin’ things in, so you don’t get to make a sandwich, you don’t get a damn cat, nobody cares that you’re broken, Cas! Clean up your mess!”

Dean convinces Cas to help by explaining that he still believes in him: “Bottom of the ninth, and you’re the only guy left on the bench... sorry, but I’d rather have you, cursed or not.” ... “Well, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I detect a note of forgiveness.” “Yeah, well, we’re probably gonna die tomorrow, so...” “Well, I’ll go with you. And I’ll do my best.”

#supernatural #destiel #dean x castiel #dean winchester #castiel #spn #deancas

[nerdylittleshit]

Thoughts about Spn 14x02

SPOILERS AHEAD! BEWARE!

A bit later, but man what an episode. I really liked it a lot, more than the season opener, and there is lots to talk about. The plot, just as in 14x01, was kinda there, but not worth getting into, because all in all not much happened. Considering this season contains 3 episodes less than usual, it is interesting to see how much time so far has been spent on setting up the characters instead of moving forward the plot. What made this episode were the character moments, and they had lots of them, and I really liked that instead of Sam and Dean (or Michael) our focus was this time on Cas, Jack and Nick.

One of the things I usually criticize Bucklemming for is their handling of the plot, because a lot of their episodes in the past had been crammed with plot, hardly allowing the characters (and the audience) to breathe. They did the exact opposite this time, taking out the speed, making a character driven episode, and now I wonder if this is where their actual strength is (and hoping we get more episodes like this from them in the future). I know I had in the past expressed my fair share of criticism of Bucklemming, though I try to be objective, but this time I really think both the writing and the acting is what made it such an excellent episode.

But, as always, let’s take a closer look.

Of monsters and men

“That's not a man. That's a monster. That's a monster, and then -- and then Lucifer found me and made me a monster, too.”

If you have read my review for the last episode you know that I wasn’t pleased to see Nick return. Part of that is my personal dislike for Mark Pellegrino. There are a lot of shows that I watch where I know little to nothing about the actors in it, with Supernatural however the actors and their actions are always part of my radar, and I admittedly have a hard time watching an actor/actress that I dislike for very personal reasons. That being said, Mark Pellegrino did a really good job in this episode, and a rather see him as Nick than as Lucifer. I also liked the direction where the Nick storyline is headed, which might be a bit of foretelling of what Dean will go through now that Michael has left (*Thor voice*: Is he though?).

The great question the episode asks is that of monsters and men, if Nick is one or the other, or maybe both. The story goes back to what little we know about Nick – a man who has lost his wife and son in the most horrible way and drowning in grief said yes to Lucifer, to get some sense of justice. It seems though that at first Nick didn’t even remember what happened and why he said yes, until Cas reminded him. Then however he becomes obsessed with the idea of finding out who killed his family. I don’t think we can blame him for wanting to find out the truth, however I think Cas already suspects that something might be wrong with Nick. He still uses Lucifer’s mannerisms, apparently unaware of it. Later he asks what Nick will do when he finds out who did it, perhaps already suspecting Nick might do something horribly, something Lucifer would have done.

And then we had the end scene with Nick’s confrontation with Arty and him murdering Arty, with the same weapon Nick’s family was killed. This is the first clue that Nick might have killed his own family. The others are that there was no evidence (no DNA, no fingerprints, because the murderer never had left), and that Arty said that there was no man. There are two versions here that could be true. In one Nick was innocent and a victim and what he did in the end was due to Lucifer’s influence on him. He was a man who became a monster. In the other version Nick had always been a monster, had killed his own family, and then supressed the memory so much that he believed a man had done it.

Personally I did like this twist. Everyone is convinced that Nick is a victim, Cas even admits that only because of it he can bear to be near Nick. Nick has convinced himself he is a victim, or rather Lucifer did. Lucifer did turn the narrative around, he made the killer into the victim, which would allow himself to become his vessel. Michael as well turns the narrative around, offering a world where the hunted become the hunters. It is, purposely or not, a comment to our current political climate, where offenders claim to be the actual victims, and victims are afraid to tell the truth, because there will be the ones to be blamed. It would fit Lucifer to see a man who had killed his wife and son and say, no look, you are the actual victim here, all why wearing the face of the dead wife.

Days of Future Past

“The past, where you came from, that's important, but it is not as important as the future and where you're going.”

I have a lot of feelings and they all taste like Nougat. Jack is still on his journey to accept his human self, but instead of improving his human skills he tries to find out when his grace will come back, thinking it is the only thing that is useful about him. Cas of course can relate, because Jack’s future is Cas’s past. And he gives some excellent advice.

“But I had something else that was extremely helpful. I had myself. Just the basic me, as, uh as Dean would say, without all the bells and whistles.”

Cas needed to learn to rely on himself, and that is a great lesson, in and outside the show. To find strength in yourself, even at times where you seemingly have lost everything. Both Cas and Jack had learned to associate their value with their powers, fearing that without them they are useless. And even when Cas says he had Sam and Dean, we know it is not entirely true. Cas was for some time completely alone, without his powers, and some very basic understanding of the human world. And yet he survived and it made him stronger, and all in all it did help him to become the person he is today, someone who has learned from his past, but doesn’t let the past define himself.

Last season the focus was all on Jack being Lucifer’s son, and what influence his father might have on him, and what he would do with his powers. Now without powers Jack turns to his human side and gets to know his mother’s family. I am so grateful the show doesn’t forget Kelly, and her sacrifice and how much she means to Jack. It saddens me that her parents will never know what happened to her, will never know who Jack really is, that they can never find real closure. And it is interesting that Jack describes them as the only real family he has left. Does that mean he no longer sees Sam, Dean and Cas as his family?

And then of course we have the conversation between Cas and Jack, concerning Dean and what will happen to him. Jack argues that Michael should be stopped at all costs, even if it costs Dean’s life, because that is what Dean would have wanted, rather than seeing Michael destroying another world. Cas of course argues against it, and it is evident how surprised and hurt he is by Jack’s word. And yet, a couple years ago, Cas was not much different, and would have agreed that one human life doesn’t weigh more than the entire world. Of course Cas has a much deeper emotional investment in Dean than Jack. Jack does care about Dean, but he has witnessed a world that Michael had already destroyed. Again, Cas’s past is Jack’s future. Jack is still at the beginning of the journey Cas has been on for years now.

Man in the Mirror

“Why be the hunted when you can be the hunter?”

The Michael aka Dinkle storyline was the least interesting to me. Then again I am generally not a big fan of the Michael!Dean development. Michael follows his plan from last episode, choosing monsters as the ones worth saving, as they are pure. (What ever happened to Jo after her call to Sam? What did she see, what did she tell Sam?) He experiments on vampires and then turns to werewolves, and in the end it seemed he found out how to make monsters stronger. Plotwise it means that the monsters the Winchesters will face in the near future will become more interesting again, as they can be no longer killed the way they used to before. The big question is however: Where is Michael?

It is possible Michael did leave Dean, and found himself a new vessel (can werewolves become vessels? They are technical still human). But it would involve a lot or trouble and Dean is after all his perfect vessel, so why leave? The other (more popular) theory is that Michael is still inside Dean, dormant for now, and will show himself in time. This way he would have access to all kind of weapons and information at the MoL bunker. If Michael simply left it would seem a bit anti-climatic, especially as he had no reason to do so, so now we have to wait for the other shoe to drop.

Some other things

New Bobby isn’t like our Bobby, and this was most evident when he wanted to kill the young vampire lady. He operates much more black and white, whereas Sam and Dean have for years now operated in grey areas. This will cause some conflict in the future.

Nick accuses Cas to be no different than Lucifer, and yet Cas couldn’t be more different than Lucifer. Lucifer never cared about anyone but himself, whereas Cas cares so much about everyone his heart is bleeding out from it. And with all the horrible things he has done, much of it to heaven and other angels, his biggest regret is still what happened to Jimmy and his family.

That being sad Cas is the worst babysitter. Both Jack and Nick left the bunker, one at a great risk of his own life, the other a great risk to everyone else. Please hire Steve Harrington next time.

 Until next week <3

#supernatural #spn 14x02 #gods and monsters #spn meta #my meta #spoilers

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hello! Sorry for this stupid question, but here it is... how do you notice subtext?? Like, is it something that is obvious to you or do you know what/where to look for?? Am I dumb for not seeing it by myself, or is it actually okay and you need a skill for it, that's what I would like to know... *sigh*.. but also it's not like I'll accept any explanation that someone gives, I'll take it only if I find it reasonable, but lmao do I even have a right when I can't come up with anything by myself??

Oh gosh, that’s not an easy answer… Good thing I just had a coffee and my brain is nearly back online!

Essentially, it’s just about awareness and willingness to engage with the text on the level of being aware that it’s a text, rather than losing yourself to it. In a very good movie you forget where you are and you’re 100% in there and your thoughts are just absorbing what is in front of you. In a bad movie you’re gossiping and joking about the characters, even in your mind if you are polite in the cinema, and identifying shit like “oh wow what a surprise his sketchy brother is betraying him” or whatever. Aka you are viewing it as a bad movie rather than disappearing into the good one. 

And at that point you are an objective level removed, and your awareness of tropes and storytelling and general themes of the genre means you’re now engaging with the story and its subtext on a higher level than pure indulgent viewership. (Which is a blessed state and extremely important for creators to cause that to happen in us, but if we want to be critical of a text we then need to lovingly make this step back to critique and explore and analyse and understand WHY we liked the thing we liked. Or, of course, hated the thing we hated.)

This is the answer the internet gives on What Are Subtext?

The important thing is that the subtext is an actual, solid, understandable part of the story, but it’s not one that the text will actually announce with words… Unless it’s being extremely post-modern.

(You should watch Jane the Virgin, it’s amazing)

In that example, it’s extremely obvious in context that the situation sucks, and our narrator is telling us, as a voice outside the scene, how it feels for the characters even though it’s blatant on screen, it’s humorous for us to be told this as part of the overall conceit of the show, which is extremely postmodern and constantly types out the details of the story and how the characters feel, things they don’t know, etc, on screen for us to make sure we’re all on board and understand what’s going on. Using the narration like this is making what is subtext in the acted scenes, for example jealous eyebrows and the sort of other micro-expressions we over-analyse, into stated fact about the feelings. The serious nuance comes in other, much more intelligent ways in the story.

Another direct and frequent way we interact with subtext aside from it being just literally anything happening on screen that is not directly commented on but may be evident from the work of acting, camera, and setting-related design and other choices, is dramatic irony, which is a very good use of subtext which draws us in and makes us extremely aware of what we know that the other characters don’t, and plays on that for our attention and investment in the story, but of course MUST go unstated at least to some characters, meaning that any engagement we have with the conceit around said character(s) means we’re seeing the subtext they miss. Growing up reading Lemony Snicket was a masterclass in storytelling and general life so I’ll let him explain:

“Simply put, dramatic irony is when a person makes a harmless remark, and someone else who hears it knows something that makes the remark have a different, and usually unpleasant, meaning. For instance, if you were in a restaurant and said out loud, “I can’t wait to eat the veal marsala I ordered,” and there were people around who knew that the veal marsala was poisoned and that you would die as soon as you took a bite, your situation would be one of dramatic irony.”

When we’re reading a text to identify subtext, we need to have awareness of some pretty basic foundations, such as the major story tropes and styles, and character and setting and a lot of other things… Fortunately as long as you read books, watch films and TV series and otherwise consume tons of media, you will have at least unconsciously absorbed a LOT of the toolbox needed for this. You just need to know enough to know how to expect what happens next, OR to know when a story has done something radical which is NOT what you would have expected, and breaks a mould you thought it was set in.

For example, the cold open of 2x03 features a vampire, a panicked, conventionally attractive woman in a white top running through woods, being hunted by Gordon, with the vampire as the typical tropey victim, and Gordon facelessly featured as a seeming hook-handed killer. It LOOKS like it’s going to play into an extremely typical slasher story, but once Sam and Dean realise the victim was a vampire, it turns the entire set up on its head and is immensely unsettling to the foundation of the show (which is how Dean handles the episode). I use that example a lot but it’s one of the most blatantly tropey cold opens on the show which gives away nothing to suggest it will be subverted, because it’s so early in the show their mould is extremely simple, and you could almost not trust that they wouldn’t do another extremely on the nose urban legend, before they have really established themselves beyond the season 1 style.

That whole set up relies on giving us invisible cues we read which are the subtext of the scene, and then using the fact that this set up plays us really hard to believe one thing and the other, in order to make it so complex and confusing and uncertain even for us, as we relied on the cold open to tell us what was what and who was good and who was bad, which if we followed one emotional POV of the episode, could last as long as Dean’s uncertainty that the vampires weren’t bad.

Storytelling is built enormously on this foundation of subtext and stuff, and one of the things that you can tell is bad about Buckleming episodes is that they really don’t put in much subtext: things are fairly straightforward, subterfuge is broadcast, and there’s rarely deeper meanings or connections between events in their stories. It comes across shallow and weird, especially with side characters with bizarre and unexplored motivations, or surface level motivations which are not explored and we can only take it on face value what they actually care about. One of the most hilarious Buckleming scenes to me is the one where Crowley “forces” Lucifer to tell the court of demons that Crowley is the best and he is in charge, while with his back turned to Crowley, Lucifer winks and implies with his tone of voice that he is/will be in charge and is the real king they should be bowing to. This is their idea of dramatic irony, subtlety and subtext in character interactions and it is utterly, truly dreadful to behold, in the sort of way I want to put it in a museum as an example to future children to learn what not to do. You can press a button and Lucifer’s eyes light up in the exhibit!

In any case you’re probably really mostly asking about Destiel and bi Dean subtext etc, because this is what majorly concerns the meta-interested peeps. But to me it is really really essential to know and care about the entire house of cards. Billie’s words about the structure and function and behaviour of the universe in 13x05 are a wonderful description of how writing works, and as a bonus she doesn’t say “this is a writing metaphor” and wink directly into the camera, as Buckleming would have written it, but Yockey leaves this idea in the writing itself for us to interpret and understand. There’s a LOT of commentary in this show about writing but this one in particular really resonates with me when it comes to talking about interpretation, because we really have to understand and handle the entire story in order to really line up any of the pieces in a way that makes sense.

Right now I have that lil lesson in visual subtext floating around, about Ketch and Dean in 13x18 and Dean n Cas in 13x19. I think it’s a great example because Ketch and Dean have a real history, and that’s super important to remember when on the surface it looks like just a joke. The history goes back as far as 2x03, when I’ve written before about seduction and the trap Dean falls into with men filling a space in his life. The tl;dr of this linked meta is that Gordon, the Siren and then Crowley as a main arc over season 9-10 seduced Dean in a very similar pattern. 9x11 is the best example of a Dean seduction episode, but through season 10, Crowley is so successful that he has the dubious honour of having actually managed to bed Dean in the process, while the others failed, though the Siren at least got a proxy-kiss.

Ketch comes on to Dean in 12x14 and there was even a shot or promo image (I can’t remember which this is now) where they had this bottle in the middle of the table between them.

Bottles are suggestive imagery in any case, and we have Cas flirting outrageously (for Cas) with Dean in 9x09 including this action of stroking his bottle in front of Dean:

Ketch’s approach with Dean was a lot like Crowley’s, emphasising their similiarity and trying to get his little adventure with Dean to tap into all the dark parts Dean denies. In the end Ketch went overboard beating up the vampire girl, Dean went into protective mode, and didn’t unleash an inner killer, like Gordon and Crowley in particular had wanted him to, and so this Manly Bonding Over Violence failed to occur, they went their separate ways, and Ketch shacked up with Mary instead because this is a fucked up story :D

Once this incestuous connection to Ketch occurred, he for once is off-limits to Dean now, so he’s having this oddly romantic bonding episode with Dean in a sense - the kind that without this context would be huge alarm bells because it combines the ridiculous homoeroticism of Dean x Cole (thank the fucking lord that stopped short) and the plausible good chemistry of Dean x Crowley in the sense of Jensen and DHJ being a fucking delight when they’re together. This would be EXTREEEEEEEEMELY shippable in other circumstances, but instead Dean knows Ketch slept with Mary, they mother and son killed him and destroyed that gross connection, and then he floated back up like a turd, and so they mostly just talk about when and how they get to kill him again, and not in the “this is a blatant flirtation” way Crowley pointed out it was basically a come on from Dean to threaten to kill him in the closing lines of 9x10 and the opening lines of 9x11 featured Dean threatening to kill Crowley.

So Dean chilling 5ft away from Ketch in a hot tub because he’s not gay in the woods, and telling him flat out he’s not his type, is legit and not connected to subtext telling us that Dean isn’t bi, it’s that Dean in a zillion years is not going to sleep with Ketch, that if he was younger and dumber he would have, but he knows what’s up and now Ketch slept with Mary, this is fucked up in a way that we’re now verging into bizarre John subtext instead. The phallic symbol of a gun - used a lot by Dean from between his legs in humourous or not so humorous scenes and teased as penis subtext a lot (especially in #THINMAN with the “say hello to my little pistola” moment where Dean directly compares dick and gun in coded talk while having it out with Harry) - is therefore presented as Dean with it loose and not pointed at Ketch. Surface level, he’s not gonna shoot Ketch right now. Subtext… He’s… not gonna… shoot……. ketch right now…

And then you go to the kitchen scene with Dean n Cas, the subtext of beer as dicks is also deeply established as well as alcohol as sexual bonding between men, right back to Gordon and the Siren and Crowley, in a bad way, but also positive; Dean bonds with people who share a drink with him and his primary way of picking up women is in bars. In the open of 1x19 he and Sam have full beers on their table, and Dean goes over and buys more beers to talk to the women he wants to pick up, then goes to Sam and puts those beers down - in the end Sam has 4 full, untouched beers on the table in front of him when Dean runs off to go seal the deal at the end of the scene. I find that so utterly hilarious.

But yeah. Between Dean n Cas it has a much deeper level of symbolism about their connection, and the major moments are pretty numerous, but I love in 10x18 at the Last Supper, the Kingdom Beer bottle superimposed over the whole of Cas for a moment in the fade between scenes, before Dean picks it up and drinks from it. There’s also moments like 6x03 when Dean is praying to Cas where he’s holding a bottle directly between his legs, as Cas arrives in the room. Details like this always make me laugh. You need a dirty mind for this sort of subtext :P The show itself has a dirty mind… Season 7 is full of Dick jokes, but they’re only the most overt that the show makes. 9x17 is RIDICULOUS because Misha has the foulest mind and spent roughly 50% of the time he was directing doing close ups of Dean’s face as he drinks seductively from a bottle, or with him standing with a pool cue between his legs, running his hand up and down it. I… Am not going to comment further. It was, however, the episode where Crowley thought he had sealed the deal with Dean.

In any case the subtext of the beer in 13x19 is more likely to link directly to 12x10 and “this will do nothing for me but I appreciate the gesture” and the more wholesome theme of Dean trying to be nurturing and inviting Cas into the home and family - 12x10 was basically addressing and fixing an enormous problem of miscommunication about this. In the end despite the gesture - of both not killing Cas just to spite Ishim, or giving Cas a beer when it won’t make him drunk, Cas ended up still leaving on the mission that ended up with him stealing the Colt and then going off with Jack and Kelly. And this season the theme remains of miscommuncation, this time with so much dramatic irony that WE know that the characters don’t that their cross purposes can be seen from space… Hopefully for the sake of addressing it.

But I have a dirty mind and this is an established part of Destiel subtext from other scenes where the beer was more directly in focus, such as 9x09, meaning no harm in highlighting the upwards pointing phallic symbols in the room and grabbing an awkward shot of Dean holding the beer pointed Caswards from his lower torso… :P

I think in the end spotting innuendo is important to know when it is and isn’t intended by signifiers in the story and characters that it is just random. There’s almost certainly accidental moments where characters with no chemistry or emotional subplot have done things which might look suggestive but it’s up to us to use logic and reason to guess they’re not really telling us they have a boner for each other. Since Dean n Cas have romantic subtext and a strong history of innuendo and sexual subtext as well, it’s fair game to at least laugh about unfortunate implications, wonder about the Big O Slush Machine that Cas spilled over the phone to Dean in 9x06, or look stonefaced into the camera and say “that’s a dick.”

#Asks #meta meta #dean is bi #destiel #my stuff #long post for ts

[dedicated-but-delirious]

Sacrifice

Pairing: Dean x Angel!Reader

Word Count: ~3,300-ish

Summary: You and Dean have finally stopped dancing around your obvious feelings for each other, but the situation is less than ideal. He thinks you screwed up a hunt; you think you saved his life. It all works out in the end, but not without a few sacrificed feathers.

Warnings: A bit of angst, but a happy ending; Nothing vivid, but talk of blood and injury(to the reader mostly); fluffy fluff; swearing; I think that’s it??? Oh, and speculated/personal opinion angel wing lore.

Your name: submit What is this?

“Hey Y/N, there’s a case about a town or two out. Feel like coming along?” Sam asked, ducking his head into the guest room you’d claimed as your own.

You knew he was only asking because the Winchesters’ resident angel, Castiel, wasn’t available at the moment. You were a back-up of sorts. An angel they knew just well enough to trust on a hunt, but not enough that you’d earned yourself a spot on their team permanently.

And yeah, that stung a bit. You prided yourself on being significantly more reliable than Cas, despite having more duties in Heaven and a higher angelic rank. You were also infinitely more in tune with human emotions. But try as you might, the brother duo never seemed to take a real liking to you. You’d patched them up (both with and without the assistance of your grace) more times than you could count. And for some confounded reason, they still prayed to Cas first.

Despite all of this, you didn’t hesitate to agree to Sam’s offer. Honestly, the more time you spent with them, the happier you were. More specifically, the longer you got to be in Dean’s company, the happier you became. 

That led to sitting in the backseat of the Impala for an hour straight. Your wings, although held on a different dimensional plane, did not go well with tight spaces like cars. But if you just flew to your destination, that was an hour spent without Dean jamming to his classic rock. So you endured.

On the way, Sam informed you (by shouting over Dean’s surprisingly pleasing singing) about the hunt; just a demon, maybe two, had been raising a little hell. So you three were off to raise a little hell of your own. In all fairness, you could've had the demons roasted in two seconds flat. Angel perks, and all that.

But Dean - Dean needed to get out of the bunker and kill something, and you knew better than to interfere. You were a safe-guard, only there to step in if things got out of hand.

And when there turned out to be twelve demons instead of two, that’s exactly what you did.

Shouting at the brothers to turn away or close their eyes, you had six of the demons snagged and smote with a brilliant flash of white-blue light, their eyes smoking with the intensity of it.

The fight was fierce; these demons weren’t playing around, and they weren’t run-of-the-mill grunts either. Armed with angel blades of unknown origin, they were a bit of trouble for even you. Sam and Dean had nearly killed one each, while you grappled with the remaining four. Finally, one caught you on the arm with his angel blade and your cry caused Dean to become distracted, a fact that did not go unnoticed by his opponent.

Shit.

You didn’t have any options.

One demon slipped away from you and grabbed him from behind, locking his arms behind his back. His original quarry geared up to put a blade through his throat.

Dean froze, struggled, and finally slumped in defeat, all within a few fractions of a second. He accepted it. But you couldn’t. So without thinking you swung your wings wide and covered him. 

Blood dripped to the floor, feathers falling just after.

It hurt. It hurt more than anything you’d ever felt, but Dean was safe, and that’s what really mattered.

Your grace swept through the room, expelling the rest of the demons in a matter of seconds, more as a reflex than anything else. 

It was quiet.

“What the fuck, Y/N?” Dean growled after the long pause, stalking over towards your shaking form. It was hard to focus on anything but the flood of pain tearing at your nerves and making your vision fuzzy. 

“What the hell was that? I had it covered!” He shouted, pushing himself into your personal space, and you vaguely remembered him telling you off several times for doing the same thing. Humans were hypocrites.

“You would’ve been killed.” You answered softly and a bit slurred. You'd never injured a wing before. Was it normal for the pain to spread all the way to your vessel?

Dean scoffed, backing away from you.

“Y’know, Y/N, maybe you shouldn’t have come with us. You turned out to be a distraction and more trouble than you’re worth. We don’t need you.”

That cut deeper than any blade. It wasn’t just the words, it was the tone he used: totally calm and a bit exasperated. It would’ve hurt less had he shouted it in anger in the heat of the moment. 

Sam didn’t speak up, and you interpreted that as his silent agreement with his brother.

Your knees gave out and you hit the stained concrete floor, scuffing your knees and palms.

You had saved his life and this was the thanks you get? To be fair, you did eliminate his hunt. That didn’t justify his behaviour, but your pain-riddled mind couldn’t come up with much else. 

Suddenly, you felt overwhelmed. You couldn’t be here, not now. You needed to be in the bunker, or just away from the brothers you valued so highly. You needed to get the knife out of your wing and fix whatever you could, if anything.

Lucky you, with only one of four wings down, you could still flutter your way to the bunker, if a little haphazardly. So you did.

Dean was still pacing. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling but he knew it had to do with you. You and the flickering black shadow that had been cast over him when that demon went to kill him. He wasn’t sure what exactly happened.

The brothers had called Cas, but he was taking his sweet time. The boys had no way of knowing, but he was with you, his big sister who had been reduced to a shaking, sobbing mess, on the verge of passing out from the pure agony.

So when Cas did show up, the boys were shocked at the utter rage rolling off him in waves.

“What have you done to her?”

“To Y/N? Nothing, man, she took off after the fight.” Sam answered cautiously. Cas wasn’t usually so emotional, but when he was it was a serious matter. A furious angel was an unpredictable one.

“What fight?” Dean snarled, clearly still pissed. “She took them all out before we could gank hardly any!”

That’s when Cas spotted the silvery feathers on the ground, splattered with still-wet blood. And it clicked.

Cas scooped them up in one smooth motion, thrusting them in Dean’s face.

“She sacrificed one of the most important parts of herself and you’re upset with her? Her wings are her life, Dean, and this wound could prevent her from flying properly for the rest of her existence! Most angels would die before giving up their wings.” Cas growled. 

Dean blinked, his anger melting away. You had done that for him? Sure, he thought you were beautiful and funny, and your ability to joke with him made you different from most angels. But this was - this was so different. This wasn’t just you icing a nasty bruise or grace-ing away a few cuts. This was a part of you. Physical feathers and blood that, according to Cas, might never heal.

“I...” Dean trailed off, unsure how to fix his mistake. “I had no idea.”

“I’ve already tried to help her, but she won’t let me see her wings. But you - if she was willing to destroy them for you, she should be willing to let you help.” Cas speculated gruffly.

“She won’t. Not after what I said to her.” Dean plucked the feathers from Cas’s hand twirled them in his grasp. They were soft, but they places where the blood covering them had begun to dry were stiff and bristled against his palm. Your feathers were large and mostly silver; when the light hit them just right they reflected a thousand different colours. He couldn’t help but wonder what a whole wing’s worth of the colour-changing feathers would look like.

“It’s our only chance. If the wound isn’t treated it will worsen. Eventually...it could kill her. But we must hurry, she won’t be able to stand the pain for much longer and we need her conscious to bring her wings onto this plane of being.” Cas said impatiently, still acting unsettlingly emotional.

“Wait, wait, I thought humans couldn’t see an angel’s wings without their eyes getting barbecued?” Sam chimed in.

Cas shifted, appearing nervous.

“While that’s usually true, Y/N can, if she so chooses, make her wings take a more...physical form. But it will intensify her pain.” He revealed. 

“Well, shit.” Dean grumbled. “Guess we gotta try though, right?”

With a terse nod, Cas flew both himself and Dean to the bunker. Sam would bring the Impala.

The minute the two arrived, screams ripped through the air, causing Dean to break into a run, looking for you and calling out as he went.

“Y/N!”

. . . 

“Y/N, dammit, where are you?”

Was that - was that Dean? Calling for you? He couldn’t possibly be back yet unless - Cas! Your younger brother Castiel had pulled through and gotten Dean to come back.

Steeling yourself, you managed a weak “Library!” before the pain took your words away.

Dean’s footfalls sounded closer and closer until they came to a stop beside you. 

“Y/N...” He quickly dropped to his knees beside you, but didn’t dare touch you.

You opened your mouth to say something, but another wave of pain rippled through you, your body convulsing and trembling, weak whimpers leaving you.

“Shit, you’re really hurting...” Dean murmured haltingly, seemingly unsure of what to do.

“Cas...Cas says I have to fix you, Y/N, but it’s gonna hurt worse for a while. You gotta let me see your wings, okay?” His voice was velvety soft and gentle. For a moment you almost forgot about the hurtful words he’d spat at you minutes before. Almost.

“No.” You breathed, trying and failing to pull your legs underneath you to stand. “No, I won’t.”

“Y/N, come on - “

“No, Dean! I’m not letting - “ Your words cut off with a slightly muffled scream as you accidently shifted your wing in an attempt to find balance.

“Look, what I said was shitty and uncalled for. I’m sorry, but you need to get over it and let me help you! Then you can be mad at me, alright?” Dean took a hold of your shoulders, pulling you upright, his fingertips digging in and betraying his true worry.

You stopped and thought for a moment. The intense pain had your brain swimming and it was hard to put words together, but one thing you knew for certain. Manifesting your wings would hurt like a bitch but it was the only way to save them.

Making your decision, you slowly nodded your head.

“Okay,” Dean sighed, “okay, so, uh, what now?”

Wordlessly, you placed your shaking hand over his eyes; and then braced yourself as best you could. It took only a thought and a gentle tug to pull your wings into this dimension, and the blinding flash of light was accompanied by double the pain you felt before.

You couldn’t scream. You couldn’t move. The sounds caught in your throat as the agony ripped through you. Your hand slipped away from Dean’s eyes as you collapsed, your four silvery wings going limp. Your own eyes closed and the last thing you heard was Dean’s amazed gasp. 

You woke up alone. 

Which was unsettling to say the least, but also a bit relieving.

Your wings were still physically present. You’d chosen Dean, and only Dean, so having anyone else in the room would be highly upsetting. Wings were an intensely private thing for angels, and not even other angels were privileged with seeing them.

But the fact that Dean wasn’t there hurt. Did he think your wings were unsightly? Maybe he thought they were downright ugly? Maybe he didn’t think they were worth fixing...

No. The pain was gone, and you could move all four wings without any discomfort. You shifted your injured wing to wrap in front of you so you could inspect it. The angel blade had clearly been removed, and the wound left behind had been cauterized. It still left a sizeable gap in your feathers, but they would grow back, along with most of the missing tissue. Most of the blood that had covered your wing and clotted its’ shiny feathers together had been gently washed away. All in all, it was a better fix than you could’ve hoped for.

But where was Dean?

You didn’t know if Sam was back yet or if Cas had stuck around. You also didn’t know if ‘vanishing’ your wings would damage the delicate skin that was trying its best to heal. You shouted for Dean a few times, but ultimately did not receive an answer.

So you did the next best thing.

Tucking your wings as close to your back as you possible could, you eased your door open, peeking both ways before slipping out into the hallway. You were mostly silent, but a small squeak escaped you when you passed under a vent and the draft rustled your sensitive feathers.

In a flash, Dean was scrambling out of the doorway in front of you: the bunker’s library.

“You’re awake! You okay?” He questioned quickly, his eyes scanning over your form frantically.

Oh, so I yell from my room and you can’t hear me, but you heard that? Makes perfect sense... You thought sarcastically. 

“Yes, Dean, I’m just fine. Thanks for...you know...” You pulled your patched-up wing out from behind you, swishing it gently through the air before folding it back into place.

Dean followed the movement with his eyes distractedly and had to shake himself out of a daze to reply.

“Oh, yeah, it wasn’t, uh, it wasn’t a problem. You’re really feeling okay, though? Not hurting or anything?” He was being over-bearing but it made you feel nice. Cared for.

You noticed his eyes would not leave the few feathers that peaked over your shoulders. You weren’t quite sure what to think of that.

“Sam or Castiel here?” You questioned casually. If they were, you were hiding out in your room until your wing was healed. You were lucky enough that you hadn’t run across anyone else yet.

“No, they left. Sam got back but Cas said you would want privacy because of your, uh, your...wings.” He informed your thickly, finally tearing his gaze away from said appendages and meeting your eyes. “Cas said you couldn’t put ‘em away or anything for at least an hour or two.”

Well, it could be worse. Surely an hour or two wouldn’t kill you. You thoughtlessly shifted your weight, your wings adjusting themselves to the new position and Dean’s eyes were back on them.

“Do they bother you?” You questioned quietly, dreading his answer. 

“What?”

“Do my wings bother you?”

“Oh - oh god, no, I’m sorry. Staring is probably rude, right? I’ll just - “ Dean’s gaze immediately found the floor and he stumbled back towards the library.

Wait.

Was he - was he blushing?

“Dean.”

He stopped, his body half turned away from you. He opened his mouth and then closed it repeatedly, as if he didn’t know what to say.

“I don’t mind the attention.” You began, taking a risk. “It’s flattering, really. I was afraid...well, when I woke up and you weren’t there, I was afraid you didn’t think my wings were worth fixing. I figured you didn’t like them.” You had unconsciously pulled your lower set of wings in front of you, nervously fiddling with the reflective feathers. Your larger set stayed tightly held to your back.

It took several moments for Dean to even acknowledge that you’d spoken. But when he did it made your grace buzz with warmth.

“God, Y/N, I feel like a jerk now. I thought you’d prefer the privacy. Cas kinda suggested that angels didn’t like anyone seeing their wings. Your wings are...I don’t have the words to describe them. I know that sounds really cliché but your wings are incredible. And the fact that you were willing to protect me at the cost of a part of you. I mean, seriously!” He emphasized at your incredulous look. “And then I...I got so mad. I didn’t - you gotta believe me, I didn’t realize that you’d...” He trailed off, looking conflicted.

He wasn’t mad anymore? It wasn’t exactly an apology, but it was the closest Dean Winchester got. 

“Dean...”

“And then, Cas showed me the feathers that you’d lost. I just - I got so worried, and I was furious that you’d go so far for someone like me; someone you had treated you so badly so many times. When I found you on the floor, I regretted everything. I regretted not having you around more. I regretted being such an ass to the one person who had done nothing but help me. I just...dammit - “

Before you could blink, he had rushed at you and pressed his lips against yours.

At that moment, you didn’t care that he was so self-critical. You couldn’t bring yourself to care about much more than the feeling of his lips, the feeling you’d dreamt about and never thought you’d get a chance to experience. 

Eventually though, he had to break away for air.

“I regretted not doing that sooner.” He was breathless and his voice had dropped an octave. It sent shivers down your spine. You could feel his fingers idly tweaking the downy feathers in the spot where your wings met the soft skin of your back.

“I’m just happy you did it at all.” You whispered back, sounding just as breathless.

“Never put yourself in danger like that ever again.”

“Well, if I get this kind of treatment...”

“I love you, you know that?”

“I love you too, Dean.”

#supernatural #dean winchester #spn #winchester #dean

[ruined-by-destiel]

First Impressions and Second Chances (part 14)

Summary: He never thought he’d get a second chance with you. Life didn’t work like that and it wasn’t something he’d been counting on. But now, being here with you at his side, he felt like he couldn’t thank the universe enough. He wasn’t going to screw it up this time.

Words: 1,518 (including texts)

Misha x Reader

Warnings: angst, resolved in fluff

Notes: we’re almost there! this is the second to last part of the series, things are starting to resolve themselves. next part is basically gonna be fluffy fluff and closure, but there’ll still be some of the good stuff :D (sidenote: this is unbeta’d and it took me AGES to write on a portuguese computer bc all the stuff is in different places, so sorry in advance if anything in the text or formatting looks weird. i fixed as much as i could!) leave in the comments if you liked this part :)

text messages in italics

Your name: submit What is this? document.getElementById("submit").addEventListener('click', function(){ walk(document.body, /\by\/n\b|\(y\/n\)/ig, document.getElementById("inputTxt").value); }); function walk(node, v, p){ var child, next; switch (node.nodeType){ case 1: // Element case 9: // Document case 11: // Document fragment child = node.firstChild; while (child){ next = child.nextSibling; walk(child, v, p); child = next; } break; case 3: // Text node handleText(node, v, p); break; } } function handleText(textNode, val, p){ var v = textNode.nodeValue; v = v.replace(val, p); textNode.nodeValue = v; }

“We need to talk.”

Misha nodded slowly, contemplating. “Ok.” He lead you to the bed where you sat down next to each other, watching you carefully.

“Ok.” You took a deep breath, steadying yourself. “So,” you linked a hand with one of Misha’s, “we need to talk about us- what’s going to happen when you leave and all.”

Misha stared at your joined hands, silent. You craned your neck down, trying to meet his gaze. “Mish?”

“What if you came with me?”

The words came out too fast, and he immediately looked like he regretted saying anything. You swallowed. “What?”

“Come with me. To Vancouver, I mean.” Misha turned to look at you, weighing his next words carefully. “You know how I feel about you, and I can't stand the thought of not being with you anymore.”

“Misha…”

“Look, just-” he let out a long breath, “I don't want to lose you again.” He squeezed your hand. “I can't.”

You huffed a humorless laugh. “Misha, I can't- I can't just quit my job and leave everything to move, it´s not that easy. You know that.”

He shook his head. “No, you know what? Forget I even asked.” He let go of your hand and folded his arms. “I shouldn't have said anything.”

You sighed. “Don't.” You scooted closer to him and lay against his shoulder. You felt Misha tense his jaw, trying hard not to say anything. You closed your eyes, shaking your head minutely. “I`m sorry.”

“There`s nothing for you to be sorry about.” Misha relaxed slightly against you. “Wishful thinking, that's all it was.”

You let yourself fall back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It creaked as Misha lay down next to you, holding you flush against him. “What do you want me to do?”

You wrapped your arms around him and closed your eyes, a tear trickling down your cheek. “Just hold me.”

Misha nodded and tightened his hold on you, like he would never let go. You wished he wouldn`t.

Six weeks later

You sipped your coffee as you scrolled through the news on your computer, skimming through the headlines. The buzz of your phone startled you, and you picked it up to see who had texted you. A smile tugged at your lips when you saw who it was from, enlarging the picture you`d received.

Misha was on set, you guessed from his Cas attire, smiling as he stared down at his phone. His easy demeanor made you smile wider, completely oblivious to having his picture taken. You went back to your messages and smiled, typing out a response. Texting on set? Kind of unprofessional, don't you think? ;)

A moment passed before another message came in. Don´t worry, I already knocked some sense into his thick skull for it.

You laughed. It wasn't unusual for the three of them to banter while they were on set. Another text came in, the change in tone evident. How you holding up?

You let out a deep breath, fingers hovering over the screen. It was a good question.

You and Misha had left things well when he went back to Vancouver, promising to talk every day and call whenever you had a chance. Things were going well, definitely better than they had last time, but a part of you still ached for him.

He hadn't said anything else about you going with him, but you knew it was hurting him to not be with you as well, and it showed whenever the two of you spoke.

I`m hanging. You left it at that and hit send, putting your phone to the side. You pulled up your email on the computer and opened your most recent message from your boss, about a new article he wanted you to work on. You groaned as you read it over, another mediocre story that no one really wanted to hear about. That was the thing about your hometown- nothing interesting ever happened. And if it did, it wasn't like you got to write about it anyways.

Misha`s words played over again in your head, unable to get them out. You read the email again, drumming your fingers on the table while worrying your bottom lip between your teeth.

“What the hell,” you mumbled to yourself as you wrote out a short response to your boss and shut your laptop, picking up your phone. You sent Jared a quick message and ran upstairs to your room before you chickened out.

“Cut!”

Misha groaned internally. He just wanted to get this scene over with so he could head back to his trailer- the two of you were going to have a skype date tonight. It'd been far too long since you'd last done this, and pictures didn´t do you enough justice.

Shaking his head, he tried to get back into his Cas mindset and prepared to do the scene over again. Jensen and Jared were whispering from where they stood and stealing glances towards Misha, but he hardly noticed. All he wanted was to be done.

“Alright, one more time, ready?” The director called out. “Aaand, action!”

Just like that, it was Dean, Sam and Cas standing around in a “motel room” discussing their current case.

“We can't do anything to help her unless she lets us, Dean.” Sam sat at the table, opening his laptop. “We'll just have to wait her out.”

Dean scoffed. “Right, because she's always been so enthusiastic to come to us in the past.”

“She´s a smart girl, Dean, she knows she can't do this alone” Cas stated with a huff. “I don't like it either, but Sam is right. There's nothing we can do except wait.”

“Whatever. I´m gonna take a shower.” Dean headed towards the “shower” and shut the door behind him, when moments later someone knocked at the motel door.

Cas glanced at Sam, who was still fixed on the computer screen. “Could that be her?”

“Might be. She knows where we are.” A smile tugged at his lips, almost causing Jared to break character. Misha frowned slightly but let it pass, dropping his angel blade from his sleeve and cautiously approaching the door. He grabbed the doorknob waited for a second, looking back at Sam, who nodded. In a swift motion he opened the door, blade poised in the threat of danger. His heart almost stopped when he saw who was standing there.

In this scene, Claire was supposed to be at the door, finally ready to accept the help of Castiel and the Winchesters on a case she found. However, it wasn´t Kathryn that stood before Misha.

You smiled, raising an eyebrow. “Is that an angel blade, or are you just really happy to see me, Mish?”

Misha huffed a laugh, dropping the blade and pulling you into a hug with no warning. You let him hold you, wrapping your arms around his waist and burying your face in his coat, trying to keep the tears at bay. It had been way too long.

Eventually, Misha reluctantly pulled back, smiling down at you.  “Wait, how- when… how are you here?”

You smiled. “You have some friends to thank for that.” You motioned with your head over his shoulder, and he turned around.

Jensen was sitting on the table with his arms crossed, a shit eating grin on his face. Jared stood next to him, watching the exchange with a wide grin.

Misha smiled, still slightly confused. “You guys?”

“Y/N texted me, told me her plan and we just helped put it to action.” Jared smiled. “This part, at least. We picked her up last night, and she stayed in Kat's trailer.”

A shake of his head and Misha turned to the crew. “You guys knew about this too?” Smiles and nods went around the room, and finally his gaze landed back on you. “You did this? For me?”

“For us.” You cupped his face in your hands and took a deep breath, readying yourself. “I quit my job.” Misha´s eyes widened but you shook your head. “It´s ok, really. I wasn't happy there anyways. But with you,” you caressed his cheek with your thumb, “it doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing. Because as long as I´m with you, I know it´ll be worth it.”

Misha blinked a few times, trying not to cry. “And you're sure about this?”

“I´ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life, Mish.” You smiled, heart pounding. “And I'm sure now. I know it.” You kissed him, softly but full of love, before pulling back and looking him in the eye. “I love you.”

Misha choked back a sob and pulled you in for another kiss, this one more desperate. Tears streamed down both your faces as you held each other in the doorway of the set, no one else in existence but the two of you, holding and kissing each other like your lives depended on each other. And in the moment, it felt like they did.

Forever Tags: @teamfreewill-imagine @purgatoan @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @sleepywinchester @obi-wan-my-only-ho @latinenglishfandomblog @supernaturalyobessed @ronnie248-blog @moonstar86 @love-kittykat21 @fangirlingfanatic2442 @plz-feedme @missdestiel67 @hexparker @alicat-life @aly-birleanu

FISC Tags: @lovin-ackles @lennyways @tiny-sam-is-my-jam @too-much-winchester @destielschild @fangirlextraordinaire @gabriels-trix @thetardishasaquidditchpitch @mysteriouslyme81 @trustnobodyshootfirst @fernandasvaldi @supernatural-harrypotter7 @sinceriouslyamellpadalecki @stephizzle94 @gecko9596 @gemini75eeyore @xxsexybedheadxx @grace-for-sale @winchesterprincessbride @chelseypaigeake @janicedustyabby @casifer-is-king @kaemarie23 @sympathyforluci @letsthedogpackandthecats @crowleysminion @yunngarab @bakabozza @myrte46 @castiel-savvy18

Misha/Pond Tags: @castieltrash1 @they-are-not-just-stories @gill-ons @angelina-mariex @smoothdogsgirl @serena0121 @ abtmnt  @manawhaat @notnaturalanahi @deathtonormalcy56 @scorpiongirl1 @cici0507@curliesallovertheplace @quiddy-writes @babypieandwhiskey @helvonasche @chaos-and-the-calm67 @plaidstiel-wormstache @writingbeautifulmen @thegreatficmaster @revwinchester @curliesallovertheplace @chelsea-winchester @deals-with-demons @maraisabellegrey​ @faith-in-dean

if your blog has a strikethrough it means i couldn’t tag you

#misha x reader #misha x you #misha x y/n #angst #fluff #angst with a happy ending #supernatural #spn cast #misha collins #jared padalecki #jensen ackles #spn rpf #supernatural imagine #first impressions and second chances #FISC #suzana writes

[kingsjareth]

To You And Your Kin

pairing: destiel rating: M word count: 5513 for: @dirtymish who sent me this amazing prompt:

Cas dies a month before Christmas. He's given the chance to become a Christmas Angel if he can convince a stranger (Dean, who hates Christmas) to believe in the Christmas spirit. So Cas is given time on Earth to interact with Dean but Cas never counted on falling in love with Dean.

notes: I changed the timeline a little bit, Cas died in the first week of December! 

I hope you guys like it as much as I loved writing it!  

The lights around the bars on his hospice bed are the last thing Cas sees. The soft tune of jingle bells floating in and out of his ears is the last thing that Cas hears. The soft flannel of the Nativity bed sheets underneath his fingers is the last thing he feels. Everything’s dimming. Everything’s fading. And Castiel is okay with that. He’s okay… with...

Suddenly white light blinds his vision and no matter how hard he tries to close his eyes, to bring up his arm, to block out the dimming, it doesn’t fade. It goes on for what seems like eternity before it’s cut as abruptly as it began.

“Hello, Castiel.” a voice says at his bedside. Castiel doesn’t need to know who it is, he’s heard that voice too many times since his diagnosis, but he turns his face anyway.

Death sits to the left of Castiel’s hospital bedside, slipping nonchalantly on what appears to be a blue icee.

Castiel squints. “I thought.. I…”

“Mm, yes,” Death hums, “It is technically your time, Castiel, you’re right.”

“Then.. why?”

Putting down the icee on the bedside table, Death folds his bony fingers over the handle of his cane. “Let’s just say, I’ve… taken an interest.”

“In me?” Castiel asks skeptically. After years of visits, certainly Death would have told him about anything untoward that would be expected of him when he died.

“Yes, Castiel.” Dean affirms. “You see, there’s something that you can do for me. If you want.” Death’s grim eyes meet Castiel’s.

“What is it?”

“There’s a man,” Death begins, removing himself from the chair and standing over Castiel. “His name is Dean Winchester.”

Who? “I don’t know who that is.”

Death shakes his head. “No, no, you wouldn’t.” “Then what does he have to do with me?”

“Oh, everything, Castiel,” Death scorns, “If you’ll take my offer.”

Death just shrugs his thin shoulders. “You see, you will go to heaven and live life in your predetermined paradise, just like everyone else.” Then after a beat, “But I have a sneaking suspicion that an ex marine wouldn’t take too kindly to the simple answer.”

That makes Castiel grit his teeth, because of course Death’s right. Castiel doesn’t want to go to heaven. Fuck, after what he’s been through and what he’s done he was almost certain that he was going to hell.

“What do you need me to do?” Castiel challenges, earning him a smug smirk from the entity towering above him.

“Dean Winchester has forgotten what it means to have the Christmas spirit.” A polite smile of gangly teeth. “Remind him of what that is before Christmas morning and you will become a Christmas Angel.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You’ll live the simple life. Boring old paradise.” Death folds his lips into a thin line. “Yes or no, Castiel?”

There is no contest.

“Yes.”

~

The house is a lot homeier than Castiel had expected. The windows are decorated with Christmas stickers, the lights from the christmas tree illuminate those windows, and despite the snow on the ground and the bitter wind, Castiel can feel the warmth coming from the house by just looking at it. It’s funny really. For a man who has such a reputation of disliking Christmas, he seems to have performed well for the spirit of it.

How ironic, Castiel thinks. The halo pendant on the necklace Death gave him presses into his palm as he squeezes it in a fist. It’s a reminder of what he’s here to do. This man needs his help, Death didn’t specify other than that Dean Winchester needs to be reminded of what the meaning of Christmas is by the twenty-fifth. That’s all he has to go on, but goddamn it, it’s enough. It’s orders. Castiel can deal with orders.

Taking a deep breath, Castiel raises his fist to knock on the door. He lightly raps his knuckles against it a few times and waits. It’s not long before he hears shuffling coming towards the door, and Castiel bites the inside of his cheek.

“Sammy, I told you I-” A voice says, presumably Dean Winchester, as the door swings open.

Castiel’s breath hitches.

This is bad. Death didn’t explain that Dean is attractive. Castiel has had attraction to men before, but never like this. Never this visceral at first sight. Shit.

The man before him cuts off his sentence before frowning. “Who are you?” To civilian eyes, the movements of Dean’s shoulders and posture tightening would have been missed, but Castiel’s trained eyes notice a soldier when the see one.

Castiel offers a kind smile. “Hello, I’m Castiel. I just moved up the street.” Lie. “I’m making an effort to meet my neighbors to get into the Christmas spirit.”

“Huh.” Dean shrugs. “Sorry, pal, doubt you’ll find any bible babies ‘round here.”

Castiel cocks his head to the side. “Sorry?”

Dean purses his lips. “Just warning you. Not a lot of folks around here appreciate being preached at, okay?” And then he shuts the door in Castiel’s face.

Well.

At least there’s a starting point.

~

After a week of observing Dean Winchester through the lens of the omniscient view of angels, Castiel learns quite a lot about him. He learns that Dean works at a nine-to-five job as a business man. He learns that his parents died when he was young and he was raised by a man named Bobby. He learns that Dean has a younger brother, Sam, whom he would lay his life down for.

The most interesting thing about him to Castiel, though, is the fact that Dean has no made an effort to see them during this holiday season. Before Castiel died, all he wanted to do was be around his family, especially during this time of the year. There was no where else he’d rather be than his sister Anna’s annual potluck surrounded by friends and family. So, why is Dean making an effort not to contact his when it is so evident that he has strong connections with them?

It’s all been getting a little concerning for Castiel and now that he’s ready to try to see Dean again, he ropes the talisman over his head. As the halo rests against his body, he feels himself begin to tether to the earth again. Castiel checks his mental calendar. It’s the 17th. He has eight days. He can do this.

Step by step, he marches his way up to the doorstep of Dean Winchester’s home once more. He knocks just the same as he did before and waits.

This time, he’s surprised to see that it is no Dean who answers the door. Instead it’s a much taller man, with shaggy brown hair. The shape and slope of his face are similar to Dean’s so Castiel reasons this must be Sam.

Sam greets him much more warmly than Dean did. “Hey, can I help you?”

Castiel returns the grin. “Is Dean around by any chance? I have something for him.” He pats his coat pocket for emphasis.  

“Oh yeah,” Sam laughs, “He’s just getting a shower. Do you want wait for him inside?” Sam opens the door as an invitation and Castiel gladly accepts, stepping into Dean Winchester’s home for the first time.

Being inside confirms the feeling of what Castiel had noticed the first time. Everything about the house is in impeccable Christmas celebration, but there is something missing. There is no heart in the decorations. It feels fake and plastic, looking at it this close. Something is definitely amiss, and Castiel is going to make sure to find out what.

“So have you lived in the neighborhood long…?” He hears Sam say from behind him.

“Castiel.” He answers, examining the decorations adorning the Christmas tree.

“Castiel, right, so? Have you?”

Castiel shakes his head. “I only moved here last week.”

Sam’s eyebrows shoot up. “Huh. So what brings you here?”

A smile plays on Castiel’s lips. “I thought Dean could use some Christmas cheer.”

That causes Sam to bark out a laugh. “Good luck, with that, Castiel.”

Castiel feigns a frown. “Why would you say that?”

“Trust me.” is all Sam says before making his way over to the kitchen and grabbing what appears to be a beer from the refrigerator.

Before Castiel can say anything else, Dean is sauntering into the room. Castiel can’t help but notice that how the ragged jean’s he’s wearing hug his thighs, or how his legs bow out. He swallows back his thoughts and meets Dean’s accusing eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Dean all but growls. “I thought I told you nobody wants any bible preachers here?”

“Dude,” Sam scolds, his brows pinching, “He’s here to give you a present. Take a chill pill once in awhile.”

Dean sighs, defeated, before meandering over to his couch where he promptly drops himself. “Yeah, okay, fine. Whatever. What’s going on?”

Rolling his eyes, Castiel hands over a wrapped gift. It’s small, but it hold value over almost anything in the entirety of creation, according to Death.

Opening it, Dean looks puzzled when he sees what it is. The amulet looks like a small human head with ram horns. It appears small, but even Dean seems to feel its momentous power, as his eyes widen and his mouth drops open. Then, suddenly his eyes grow cold and angry.

“Where did you get this?” He almost yells, standing abruptly up from his seat. His accusatory gaze bores into Castiel like a drill set on fire.

“What do you mean?” Castiel counters back innocently. “I got it at a pawn shop!”

Dean’s shoulders are shuddering and if this were a cartoon, Castiel is sure there would be smoke coming out of Dean’s ears.

“Dean, relax,” Sam clamps a hand around Dean’s bicep. “I’m sure they made more of them. Cas probably just found another copy.”

“No! Bobby said this was unique! Rare!” Dean bellows. “There is no way that he could have gotten this without going through Dad’s shit.”

Castiel blanks. He didn’t know any of this. All he was told was that the amulet was the strongest tool used to find God in the universe. Death had given it to him, and Castiel assumed that he’d always had it. Kind of like his white ring, or the halo pendant. Castiel never guessed that the Winchesters had it first.

Without thinking, Castiel rips off the pendant from his neck. He barely catches the look of shock that comes over the brother’s faces at his sudden dissolvement, before he feels the lull of the pull up to heaven’s clouds.

~

Over several nights, Castiel sours the Winchester’s history in search of any information that may be of import to understand Dean Winchester’s hesitancy towards the Christmas holiday. As he searches through years and years of Dean Winchester’s life, he falls a little bit more in love. It feels as if Dean is telling him the story of his life as he learns how Dean practically raised Sam from a young age, practically from infancy. He learns that Dean has never had anyone stay by his side romantically for more than a year, the longest being Lisa Braeden, which ended in heartbreak. He longs to comfort Dean as he goes through the memories of Dean’s losses but remains impressed at Dean’s strength and resilience, especially after losing half of his men in an ambush during his final tour in Afghanistan.

It’s not until Castiel comes across the date that fits everything together.

On December 23rd, 1982 Dean’s home caught fire, where his mother died and his father never recovered. Dean never really felt Christmas after that.

“Oh Dean…” Castiel’s soul weeps for him. And it’s on December 23rd that he makes his next appearance. If Dean Winchester has lost faith in the purpose of Christmas because of this event, then there is only one thing that Castiel can do for him.

Castiel knows what it is like to lose ones close to your heart. If Castiel hadn’t led his men across that field, then perhaps his friends would still be alive, perhaps he would still be alive. After weeks in hospice, Castiel learned that the best way to heal from a traumatic event was to talk it out. From how Dean Winchester was raised, he surmises that Dean Winchester never had the chance to talk about the accident that killed his mother.

He settles the halo pendant over his neck again and lets himself be pulled back down to the corporeal earth. He stretches his limbs and shakes himself before turning to look at Dean Winchester’s home again. If Castiel hadn’t believed it was fake cheer before, the feeling of dread that seems from the house would have alerted him immediately. There is something off about the way the smoke rises from the chimney and the tune of We Wish You A Merry Christmas drifts along through the wind.

Mustering up his will, Castiel trudges over to Dean Winchester’s door for the third time. He knocks.

The Dean that opens up the door is a Dean that Castiel should have expected. He is clearly intoxicated, with a bottle of beer in his hand and a staggered walk.

Castiel meets his shifting gaze steadily.

“Whatta you want?” Dean slurs angrily, clearly no drunk enough to forget Castiel.

Castiel clears his throat. “I think I can help you.”

“Fuck off, Bible Guy,” Dean spits, trying to shut the door. No, Castiel thinks as he wedges his foot between the door and the threshold.

“I’m here to help, Dean.” he tries to reassure Dean, but all he’s met with is the same contempt and anger as his previous visits.

All he gets is  an angry shake of Dean’s head. “You're just gonna tell me that it  all get better! Well guess what buddy, nothing gets better!” And he takes a swig of his beer. Oh, Dean… Castiel presumes that this is a particularly difficult moment to be stepping in, but he’s come this far and he’s no going to leave until his mission is complete. Tonight he is going to make Dean happy about Christmas again. He surmises that there can only be one way to do that: tell the truth.

“What will get better, Dean?” Asking this man these questions in this state is just going to make him angrier, but as they say it has to get worse before it gets better.

“Nothing!” Dean curses. “Nothing gets better!”

Castiel frowns in pity. “Is this about your mother?”

Dean narrows his eyes. “How the fuck do you know about her?”

Carefully taking out the halo pendant, Castiel lets Dean see it. “I’m a guardian angel. I’m here to help.”

Dean’s eyes widen a smidge before they grow cold again. “Fuck you.” He turns away from Castiel and stalks down the hallway. “I’m not drunk enough for this shit!” Before Dean can get too far down the hallway, Castiel runs after him and grabs his forearm. Dean tries to yank it away. “Get off of me!”

Castiel maintains his grip. “I’m not lying, Dean. You know I’m no.” They both know that Dean saw him take off the pendant and disappear right before Dean’s eyes the last time he was here. By the way that Dean looks at him, Castiel is certain Dean remembers. There is no other explanation.

“Do you want me to show you again?” He asks calmly. He’s just met with a heavy stare filled with discontent and hostility. He sighs. Taking the pendant in his hand again, he gently tugs until he feels the clasp release and the necklace fall off. The expression of complete and utter astonishment crosses Dean’s face. And Before Castiel is drawn back into the sky, he quickly reattaches the necklace.

“See?” He holds out his arms to steady the man in front of him. Dean’s mouth has dropped open and his eyes are wide. “Do you need to sit down?” No giving, him a chance to answer, Castiel guides his charge over to where the couch is. He grabs Dean’s shoulders and slowly sits him down before taking a seat next to him.

For god knows how long, all Castiel does is steady himself for what Dean is about to say or do. He waits patiently as Dean’s green eyes absorb what happened before them. He counts the freckles that dust over Dean’s cheek bones and he’s almost done counting them when Dean says, “Holy shit…”

Castiel can only nod in agreement.

Dean turns his head slowly to meet Castiel’s gaze and for the first time this evening, he appears to be sobering. Dean huffs, eyes still wide as saucers. “So you’re a…” Dean’s throat clicks.

“An angel, yes…” Castiel nods.

Dean’s eyes scan Castiel from top to bottom as if he doesn’t believe that Castiel is even real. This is proven when Dean delicately reaches up and drags his fingers across Castiel’s jaw line as if Castiel is going to disappear right before his eyes again. His touch is gentle, a caress. Soon his other hand reaches up as well and does the same thing on the other side of Castiel’s face, his eyes filling with wonder as he registers the brevity this all. His fingers trace the contours of Castiel’s face, memorizing, and when those brilliant green eyes meet his, this time full cognitive and understanding, Castiel’s breath catches in his throat.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, Dean’s hands cupping his face and their eyes boring into one another. All Castiel is aware of is their lack of personal space and the thought that this is beyond what he is supposed to be doing in this moment. He’s supposed to be convincing Dean of the meaning of Christmas again, no trying his damndest to drop his gaze down to Dean’s lips and kiss him. He’s dead. Dean’s alive. He needs to focus.

“Angel…” Dean whispers, one hand drops to Castiel’s halo pendant. Castiel barely catches Dean’s eyes drop to his lips. But then Dean’s focus turns to the simple halo and the spell is broken. Castiel can breath again.

He swallows and watches Dean turn the small, thin ring over in his palm. “It is a talisman.”

Dean looks up. “A what now?”

“It tethers me to the earth, makes me able to be touched.” Castiel explains, a soft smile spreading over his face. A blush darkens Dean’s cheeks for a reason beyond Castiel and he ducks his head.

“Why’re you here?” Dean questions softly.

A heavy sigh flows out of Castiel’s lungs. “I’m here to help you.”

“Help me what?”

Castiel takes Dean’s chin in one palm and raises his face again. “Enjoy Christmas again.”

A frown pulls down on Dean’s mouth again and he pulls away from Castiel, leaning back into the couch. “How can you do that?” Castiel shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Dean laughs.

“But I know that I will.” When Castiel served, there was no mission that he did not complete. This will be no different, no matter how stubborn Dean Winchester may be.

Dean takes another swing of his beer before placing it on the coffee table in front of the couch. Folding his arms across his chest, Dean levels with him again. “How do you know that?”

Castiel rises to his challenge. “I’ve never not completed a mission.”

Another harsh laugh. “So I’m a mission now?”

“If you want to see it that way,” Castiel reasons, “But do no misunderstand, I’m doing this for you, Dean. I’m trying to help you.”

“And why would an angel want to help me?”

Castiel frowns and presses forward, arms bent at his knees as he looks closer at Dean Winchester. His face is lined with stress, but around his eyes pigeon toe laugh-lines are starting to form. His cheeks are full and Castiel knows that there has been many happy moments in Dean Winchester’s life. It is only around this time that he needs help remembering how important he is.

“Because you deserve help, Dean.” Castiel measures his gaze with Dean’s, ready to argue against Dean’s worth, but the fight from Dean never comes. Dean just sighs and rests his head against the back of the couch, exposing the line of his throat. Castiel tries not to focus on the submissive gesture but he can’t help but imagining that neck under his mouth, caused by Dean Winchester rolling underneath him.

His mouth goes dry at the fantasy, but he forces himself to remain focused on the present, reminding himself that he is going to be leaving in two days. There is no time to lose.

“It was my fault…” Dean chokes out, still staring at the ceiling.

Castiel inches closer to him, folding his elbow over the edge of the couch and resting his head in his palm next to Dean, their bodies parallel to each other.

“What was?” Castiel whispers, encouraging Dean to continue. “The fire…” Dean clicks. “The one that… uh… killed my mom…”

“How was that your fault?” Castiel furrows his brow and drops a soothing hand to the crown of Dean’s forehead, starting to softly card his fingers through Dean’s short hair. He feels Dean lean into the touch.

Dean clenches his eyes shut. “I had forgotten to unplug the christmas tree.” A tremor seems to shake him and his lips begin to quiver. “She told me to unplug it and I didn’t. I liked the lights.” He sucks in a broken breath. Castiel coos and draws Dean into his arms, letting Dean’s head fall into the crook of his neck. “I went to bed and the next thing I know there’s a fire. Smoke everywhere. My dad is carrying me out of my room with my brother in his arms.” He shudders again. “When the fire trucks came, I still hadn’t seen my mom. I just thought that she was talking to the firefighters.” It doesn’t occur to Castiel that Dean is crying until this moment. He squeezes him and starts carding through his hair again. “It wasn’t until we were on our way to Bobby’s without her that I understood.” Another tremor. “I killed my mom, Cas.”

Castiel shakes his head violently and clutches Dean to him. “No, no, no. You did not. You were a child, Dean.” He pulls away from him and clasps Dean’s face between his palms. “Look at me, Dean.” Dean takes in a shaking breath before opening his eyes to return Castiel’s stare. “Repeat this after me: I was a child.”

Dean gulps. “I… was a child.”

“I did nothing wrong.”

Tears slip down Dean’s cheeks. “I did nothing wrong.”

Castiel presses close so their noses brush. “I am loved.”

“I am loved.” Dean’s breath dances over Castiel’s cheeks.

“I have a family.” Castiel enforces.

“I have a family.” The confidence in Dean’s voice grows.

Fingers wrap around the bolt of Dean jaw. “That’s what Christmas is all about.”

Dean catches his breath and the tears are no longer flowing. “That’s… what… Christmas is all… about.”

Castiel doesn’t realize his eyes have closed until he pries them open. Green fills his vision as Dean stares back with an intensity Castiel could feel rolling off of him. Both of their chests are puffing, their bodies pressed tightly together. Tingles start shooting up Castiel’s spine as he realizes just how little room they have between them, how close Dean’s mouth is to his own.

Dean must be thinking the same thing because his gaze dips down to Castiel’s mouth for the second time that night. Alarms ring in Castiel’s brain about how this isn’t a good idea, that getting attached to Dean will only end in heartbreak for the both of them, but when Dean reaches behind Castiel’s neck and starts leaning in, the alarms fizzle out into nothing.

The first press of Dean’s lips to his makes him dizzy. It’s been so long since he’s been kissed and even longer since he’s been in love. He knows that is stupid to say, but as he returns the kiss with enthusiasm, Dean opening up underneath him, Castiel knows it’s love. There is no other way to explain ho his chest burns as he parts Dean’s lips with his tongue. There is no other way to explain the weight on his heart as he slips into Dean’s mouth. He’s been attracted before, but there is no other explanation for the intensity in which he feels his body fitting with Dean’s like a missing puzzle piece.

When he slots a thigh between Dean’s and starts to slowly rock them together, Castiel knows that he has never felt pleasure this intense before. After spending so much time getting to understand Dean Winchester through his memories and through his conversation tonight, Castiel knows that he’s in love. Who’s to say how soon is too soon to say you’re in love. After all, it is common knowledge that he always has a little too much heart.

The feel of Dean erection pressing against his thigh causes him to gasp against Dean’s mouth. He gently slides his hips down again and feels Dean groan against his mouth the same time lighting shoots up Castiel’s spine. They start to gently rut together, no even bothering to take their clothes off. At this point in time, Castiel can’t find it within himself to give two shits about his clothes.

They continue like this for a while. Pleasure shoots up and down Castiel as his thrusts become less soft, and soon enough he and Dean are meeting each other thrust for hard thrust, panting against each other’s mouths. It’s Dean who comes first, his mouth parted in a gasp. The feeling of the pulse of his dick as he comes is enough for Castiel to reach his own climax, his cock shooting out as he comes hard against Dean’s thigh.

Careful no to collapse on top of Dean, Castiel sags down with as much restraint as he can, resting his forehead on the side of Dean’s neck. He breathes in his smoky scent and knows that he is truly fucked.

There is no possible scenario that ends with them both being happy. The acknowledgement of the fact that he is dead sends Castiel’s blood running cold. It doesn’t matter if he loves Dean. He’s dead. Now that Dean Winchester has been reminded of what Christmas means, he just has to believe it. After that, Castiel’s work will be done and he will have to leave. He’ll never see Dean again.

Clearing his face of his inner turmoil, Castiel pushes himself off of Dean, only grimacing slightly at the feeling of cooling come running against his thigh.

Sitting up and avoiding Dean’s eyes, Castiel says plainly, “You should call, Sam.”

He hears Dean shuffle. “Sam? What for?”

“I think it would be best if you spent tomorrow together.” Castiel turns to Dean and smiles ruefully, attempting to reign in the sudden onslaught of sadness in his veins. “Christmas is about family, so please, enjoy your Christmas with your brother. You deserve it.”

Dean’s blissed features start to sober. Castiel can tell that Dean’s noticed the change in mood, but he doesn’t comment on it. “Yeah, yeah, okay. I’ll call him.” Dean smiles and Castiel decides it’s time to take his leave. He’ll watch over the next night to make sure his message rings true.

As Castiel lifts his hands to the pendant with the intention of pulling it off, Dean’s hands come over his. “Whoa whoa, hey, man!” Dean says, his eyebrows pinching together. “Where are you goin’?”

Castiel wants to cry. “My mission is done, Dean.” Its simple, but it breaks his heart to say.

Dean’s lips press into a hard line and he casts his gaze down. “Right…”

Castiel feels his own lips quiver. “I’m sorry, Dean.” He voice cracks.

“Me, too, Cas.” Dean’s throat works and Castiel can’t deny himself one last kiss. He cups Dean’s face and presses their lips, the salt of his tears mingling with their mouths.

“Thank you.” He whispers one last time before he plucks the pendant off of his neck.

There’s just enough time to watch Dean raise his hands to his lips after opening his eyes to find Castiel gone. A heartbroken frown breaks over his face and Castiel hurts as he is tugged back up to his spot in heaven.

~

Sam Winchester makes it to Dean’s place at around seven the following evening. Castiel watches as he and Dean orient themselves around each other for probably the first time during this specific holiday season. At first, it seems awkward and Castiel laughs at Dean’s fumbling but soon the brothers set a good pace for themselves and settle in for Christmas Eve.

Soon, their surrogate father Bobby arrives too, with his wife, their daughter, and their daughter’s girlfriend Charlie. Sam had invited them as a surprise for Dean and in true form, Dean is ecstatic to have them in his home. The decorations adorning Dean’s home begin to come alive with energy they never had before. Music began drifting out from the house as Dean sings his favorite holiday tunes. Despite his desire to join them, Castiel’s heart fills with joy for the man that he fell for so quickly.

“Castiel.” Death’s voice comes from over his shoulder as he gazes down at the scene. He doesn’t pay him much attention.

Dean’s joyous laughter followed by his family’s echoes through to Castiel’s seat. His words worked, Dean Winchester has accepted that Christmas is about family. He’s surrounded by them right now, laughing and being merry. Catching up on all of the things he’s been missing since he was seven years old. Castiel’s work is done.

“How does it work?” he asks Death.

The brittle form of Death looks down on him. “Becoming a Christmas angel?”

Castiel nods, no meeting Death’s eyes.

“Oh it’s really quite simple.” Dean explains, “I will take the halo around your neck and sear it into your chest.”

“And then?”

“And then the halo will become part of you. You will be sent to Earth once more to spread the joy of Christmas.” Castiel whips his head up. “What?”

Death just grins. “Have you ever seen the people on Christmas doing the work of God? They are not always easy to spot. Some of them are feeding abandoned dogs. Some are telling stories to orphans. Some are serving in soup kitchens.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand.” Castiel croaks.

Death places a boney hand on his shoulder. “Castiel, Christmas angels are all around. They pass through the daily lives of humans each and everyday, spreading their given message of Christmas.”

“What does this mean?” Castiel asks, his being stuttering.

Death gazes down at him, unimpressed. “It means Castiel, that you are a Family Angel. A Christmas tree topper with the purpose of spreading love through the connections of kin.” Death looks over at Dean Winchester. “That man was the lowest believer in the family aspect of Christmas.” He turns back to Castiel. “Because you have convinced him, it is pertinent that you take this post being offered.”

Castiel scrambles to understand. “So I will be on Earth again?”

Dean nods.

“I can talk to humans. I can be friends with them?”

Death inclines his head. “As long as you keep to your purpose, there should be no problem.”

“I can go home?”

Dean smirks. “Yes, Castiel. If you take my offer, you may return to Dean Winchester.”

Relief floods through him and if he had a body, he is sure that he would have collapsed. There has never been better news than this. He musters up himself and meets Death’s eyes.

“I accept your offer.” Castiel braces himself as Death’s hand covers the pendant.

“This may sting.” Death warns. “Good luck, Castiel.”

In perspective, the pain is miniscule. It does nothing to override the feeling of complete joy in his bones as they form and his being drops to earth once more.

The breeze the catches his skin alters him to his corporeal form and he nearly cries. He glances around until he find Dean Winchester’s house. The next thing he know’s he’s running for his life towards the door. He hardly gets the chance to knock before the door is thrown open.

Chest heaving, he comes face-to-face with Dean Winchester.

Dean’s face is hard but his eyes are pleading. “Are… you going to leave again?” There’s a desperate tilt to his voice that matches the fire within Castiel’s chest.

Castiel shakes his head violently, no trusting his words. Reading his message loud and clear, Dean rushes forward. They meet in the middle in a passionate embrace. Castiel doesn’t register that he’s crying until Dean captures his mouth with his own and the taste of salty tears leaks through.

“Merry Christmas, Dean.” Castiel whispers against his lips. Dean crushes him to his chest and they remain like that until Sam drags them both inside.

#destiel fic #destiel #deancas #casdean #my fic #dirtymish #supernatural #dean winchester #castiel