#but basically: Cas did nothing wrong ever in his life ever* *okay basically with some exemptions but basically

[suncaptor]

I think when people look at Cas's blood on his hands for the most part they... aren't looking at it from unbiased perspective because Cas isn't. He essentially ended a war that was to wipe out billions of humans and destroy the Earth in a renewed apocalypse. The death on his hands is generally always that of a war commander. But the thing is, angels weren't made to fight each other, and the more human he gets the less he becomes a warrior at all. Part of his falling is that: he is introduced as a warrior of God, that's what the angels are. So the more he becomes human, the more he shifts the view of blood on his hands. He's not equipped. Which skews everyone else's perspectives too, especially since at one point he was essentially possessed by evil entities from another dimension and the consequence of his battle moves left new siege upon Earth. But the real war isn't Cas's fault. It's not his fault the angels wanted to start the apocalyse time again, wanted to fight each other, wanted to fight him. But that doesn't matter when you've killed. He keeps the blood on his hands. The reason why the narrative shifts is because he'd give in the guilt. However, the biggest narrative shift is actually due to the betrayal of Dean Winchester, the entire point in the beginning, another fallacy, another trick by a demon like Sam with Lilith. So the fandom, the narrative, and everyone in the canonical universe shifts to blame Cas more than he ever deserves. Because Dean does, and because he does: because regardless of the reason (what is free will? Intention? He should have trusted Dean), there is blood on his hands. But Cas never started these wars. He was always trying to end them.

#cas #castiel #spn #supernatural #incoherents #I'm basically trying to explain how the narrative shifts with his falling and with Dean's perspective because that's where fault lies #This is glaringly obvious if you compare Cas who is fine killing a child in season 5 to save the world but the idea would appall him later #down the line where he finds significance his Claire's smile. he was built for war and he takes it on with good intent (besides the fact #he is biased towards Dean basically everything he does is with good intent) but the issue is the more human he becomes the less an angelic #warrior he is and he cannot handle the consequences of who he has been all in the name of the same morality he is fighting for. #and he can't forgive it. because he looks at it like: had I trusted Dean above myself (like faith like all he knows) then perhaps this #wouldnt have happened. and yeah I'm focusing on s6 bc I don't know HOW you can blame Cas for the angels falling or all the fighting between #them after but the same concepts still run through hes just more and more ill equipped to handle it because he's fallen so far #when people look at suicidal guilty Cas post s7 and think it's because of how horrific he was.... I mean YES the Leviathans shifted his #power to automatically corrupt whatever he did for guilt. but like.. i think the more honest perspective to see it through ptsd from war #his guilt is... part of it and he tried to punish himself eternally for it and that is before the angels all fall and diminish and #hes tortured by his siblings again and again like that ISN'T something you can Blame him for. #I'm not sure if I'm explaining it right lol. i def don't think he should have broken Sam's wall or killed Balthazar and also godstiel #went a bit off the rails though I liken that more to the sorta ghost possession we see but that might me being theological about souls again #but basically: Cas did nothing wrong ever in his life ever* *okay basically with some exemptions but basically

[bing-bang-bingo]

- 4x3: c. 40:00 Cas comforts Dean after Mary makes a deal w/ Azazel

- 4x7: 15:50 Dean stops Sam from shooting Cas, then Sam mentions that he’s “heard a lot about him”

- 4x7: 39:00 Cas tells Dean he prayed he’d save the town, then he tells him about his doubts and Deans future troubles

- 4x10 & ???: Dean calls “last night on Earth” his best line. He uses this line on Cas

- 4x10: 27:15 “Castiel has this weakness. He likes you.”

- 4x10: 32:50 Cas looking jealous and sad when Dean kisses Anna

- 4x16: 7:30 Cas tells Dean he got in trouble for showing emotion and getting to close to Dean. 8:20 “I would give anything not to have you do this”

- 4x16: 39:00 Cas warns Dean to be careful while Dean is in the hospital, they discuss the first seal and saving Dean from hell

- 4x18: 31:30 Cas tells Dean how to save Sam from Lilith even though he’s not allowed to interfere

- 4x20: 38:00 Deans face when Cas tells him he “learned his lesson when he was in heaven”

- 4x22: 30:40 Cas considers rebelling for Dean. 33:00 He does. 35:20 He fights multiple Archangels for Dean

- 5x1: 5:45 Dean denies Cas’ death 8:25 “I learned that from my friend Cas you son of a bitch”

- 5x1: 31:00 Cas saves Sam and Dean from Zach

- 5x3: 6:10 Cas-“I need your help because your the only one who will help me”

- 5x3: 10:20 Dean fixes Cas’ tie and jacket

- 5x4: 38:50 “Don’t Ever Change”

- 5x8: 38:20 Dean makes Gabriel bring Cas back, then makes sure he’s okay

- 5x13: ?:?? Cas won’t let Dean meet with Anna because it’s not safe

- 5x17: 30:30 Cas and Dean discuss what it’s like to have a deadbeat dad

- 5x18: 25:15 Cas kicks Deans ass for trying to sacrifice himself

- 5x21: 3:50 Cas and Dean bickering like and old married couple then Cas gives Dean a heartfelt apology.

- 6x17: 18:55 “No you’re confusing me with the other angel, the one in the dirty trench coat who is in love with you.”

- 6x17: 38:00 Sam: “So you killed 50,000 people for us?” Cas: *looks at Dean*

- 6x19: 25:20 Bobby reassures Cas that they’ll be back soon, Cas acts like a worried and disappointed wife.

- 6x19: 36:25 Cas yelling “Dean!” when Eve bites him

- 6x19: 40:00 Dean is the only one who doesn’t think Cas is working with Crowley (he’s wrong but it’s sweet)

- 6x20: 4:50 Dean v v worried, “But Cas you’ll call right? If you get into real trouble?”

- 6:30 Crowley implies that Cas is distracted by Dean and tells him he reeks of the Impala.

- 7:20 Cas says that Dean taught him how to care and what to care about. Then Cas saves Sam (for Dean)

- 13:15 Cas says that the worst part of working with Crowley (basically his sworn natural enemy) is that it hurt Dean and that he hated lying to him.

- 25:20 Cas refuses to ask Dean for help because he has “sacrificed too much” even though it means Cas could die.

- 26:00 Crowley tells Cas he has a way for everyone to get a happy ending “with all possible entendres intended” while Cas stares longingly at Dean.

- 33:00 Dean is close to tears when he learns that Cas is working with Crowley, Cas says he did it to protect Dean.

- 35:25 “Dammit Cas we can fix this!” “Dean it’s not broken!” He then tells the boys to run from the demon cloud and Dean gives him the saddest look in the world before being forced to leave him behind.

- 38:00 Cas watches Dean sleep. “I’m doing this for you Dean. I’m doing this because of you!”

- 6x21: 22:40 “I do everything you ask. I always come when you call and I am your friend. Still despite your lack of faith in me and now your threats I’ve just saved you yet again. Has anyone but your closest kin ever done more for you?”

- 6x22: Dean to Cas- “Don’t make me lose you, too.”

- 7x2: 5:35 Dean nearly cries on screen when he thinks Cas is dead

- 7x17: Cas says “I remember ~you~” as soon as he regains his memories.

- 7x17: Cas ask why Dean didn’t tell him all the horrible things Cas did. Parallels the conversation Karen and Dean had about telling Bobby she remembered him killing her and her telling Dean that he had never been on love before.

- 7x21: The face Dean makes when he sees Cas again plus the prolonged eye contact when Cas says Deans name.

- 7x21: Hester telling Dean that when Cas first saved him from Hell he was lost- parallels- Lucifer/Jess saying she was dead the moment she met Sam.

- 7x23: 8:50 “Go ask him. He was your boyfriend first.” Meg to Dean about Cas

- 7x23: 32:45 “I’m sorry but I’d rather have you, cursed or not.”

- 7x23: 36:50 Cas steps in to protect Dean despite spending the whole season avoiding fighting and saying he won’t fight.

- 8x2: 25:00 Cas ran away to keep the Leviathans away from Dean. Dean refuses to leave purgatory without Cas.

- 8x7: 20:30 Deans reaction to seeing Cas all cleaned up.

- 8x7: Dean convinced himself that it was his fault Cas was still in purgatory because he’s a sweet idiot boy who hates himself

- 8x7: 35:00 The whole Dean and Cas conversation about purgatory and Cas doing stuff that puts him in danger.

- 8x8: 12:30 Cas just casually going through Deans stuff and Dean not saying anything.

- 8x8: 13:00 Cas offering to watch over Dean while he slept

- 8x8: 15:15 Dean talks to Cas about feelings and heaven even though Dean hates talking about feelings.

- 8x17: Cas fights Naomi’s mind control for Dean

- 8x23: 22:50 Dean and Cas sadly discuss Cas closing the doors of heaven and say goodbye

- 9x1: Dean prays to Cas and tells him he isn’t mad about the angels falling.

- 9x1: Cas’ first instinct is to explain himself to Dean then to come help him.

- 9x1: Dean begs Cas to “for once, look out for yourself.”

- 9x3: 36:45 Dean to Cas after Cas came back from the dead “Don’t you ever do that again!”

- 9x6: Literally just Dean trying desperately the whole episode to hang out with Cas

- 9x10: 26:00 Dean and Cas talk about how Cas is doing and Dean offers him a rare sincere apology. Plus the “I prefer the term ‘trusting’. Less dumb, less ass.” dialogue

- 9x18: Cas’ little smile when Dean makes a joke about Honor Bars and Cas is just so happy to hear his voice.

- 9x18: Metatron’s illusion of Gabriel calls Cas Dean’s boy-toy

- 9x18: Cas can tell something is wrong with Dean, then Cas yells at Dean about getting the Mark of Cain

- 9x22: Cas chooses Dean over all of Heaven once again

- 9x22: The Cas and Dean conversation about the three of them being enough when an army wasn’t and Cas giving up an army all for Dean

- 9x23: “I’m blaming you for taking Cas’ grace.”

- 10x1: 5:00 Cas about Dean- “I miss him.”

- 10x2: 9:00 Cas’ reaction to learning that Dean is a demon

- 10x3: The conversation between Dean and Cas at the end of the episode. “You look terrible” “You on the other hand, your looking good.”

- 10x5: Deans reaction to Cas and Dean actors hugging and holding hands

- 10x5: “Put as much sub into that text as you possibly can.” *looks directly at fake Cas*

- 10x9: 15:00 Cas tells Dean he’s a good role model. Then asks him if he’s okay and when Dean lies and says he is he pushes it further. Dean makes Cas promise to kill him if he goes Dark

- 10x22: Dean and Cas fight and parallel Cain and his Wife.

- 10x23: Dean sees Cas’ bloody face in the mirror

- 11x1: Cas being more worried about Dean than himself even though Cas is under a spell that will kill him.

- 11x2: Dean calling Cas and stressing out when he doesn’t answer

- 11x3: Dean trying to coax Cas out of the attack dog spell, refusing to fight back when Cas was attacking, freaking out when Cas took a minute to wake up, refusing to let Cas heal him (because he “had it coming”), and refusing to let Cas apologize (because “there’s nothing to apologize for”).

- 11x10: “Dean, I came as soon as you called.” Also: “Stick your tongue out.” Dean-*does*

- 11x11: Dean realizing that something is wrong with Cas (while he is possessed by Lucifer)

- 11x11: Mildred says that Dean is pining for someone else(probably meant to be a reference to Amara, but she told him this after he had seen Cas for the first time in a few days.)

- 11x14: The sadness on Deans face when he realizes Cas is Lucifer and then his determination to save Cas

- 11x15: Dean getting kinda dark when he talks about what he’s willing to do to save Cas and he prioritizes saving Cas over bearing Amara.

- 11x17: Dean once again prioritizing saving Cas over saving the world. Sam reassuring Dean that they’ll save Cas (even though Dean didn’t say anything about what was upsetting him)

- 11x17: The camera zooming in on Dean after Michelle says that there is no normal after losing the man you love.

- 11x18: Dean refuses to put Lucifer in the cage or let him fight Amara while using Cas as his vessel.

- 11x18: The difference in the way Dean looks at Lucifer vs at Cas

- 11x18: Dean about Cas: “Lets go find that idiot and bring him home.”

- 11x19: Dean has been looking for leads non stop for a week since Amara took Cas

- 11x21: Amara uses Cas’s heart to find Dean, then shows Dean images of Cas beaten and bloodied to convince him to turn against Chuck

- 11x23: Dean’s face when he realizes Cas is back and Lucifer is gone.

- 11x23: Dean tells Cas he isn’t stupid and that he always helps

- 11x23: Cas: “Dean are you okay? How do you feel?”

- 11x23: Cas hugging Dean super tight before he goes off to die. Dean entrusting his life’s purpose (look after Sam) then thanking him for everything.

- 12x1: Cas seeing that Dean is alive and hugging him while his voice breaks.

- 12x1: Cas taking the job Dean have him very seriously

- 12x2: Dean adorably venting to Cas about his mommy-issues

- 12x3: Dean- “Morning sunshine want some coffee.” Cas- “No thank you.”

- 12x7: “Well at least I don’t look like a lumberjack.” They are such husbands

- 12x7: “Engaged in what Cas? killing you?”

- 12x8: Cas being so worried about what happened to Sam and DEAN that Kelly escaped.

- 12x9: Mary-“You left them!” Cas- *voice breaking* “Dean told me to go!” Also, just Cas looking so hard for them.

- 12x9: Cas blaming himself for Sam and Dean being taken

- 12x9 Cas knowing how long the boys have been gone down to the hour.

- 12x9: Cas’s voice and eyes when he hears Dean’s voice on the phone.

- 12x9: Cas killing Billie because “You mean too much to me” and “The world needs as many Winchesters as it can get.”

- 12x10: Poor Sam having to deal with Cas and Dean while they fight like an old married couple.

- 12x10: Dean immediately telling Ishim to go to hell when he insults Cas

- 12x10: Sam telling Dean to go to Cas when Dean thought Cas was in trouble

- 12x10: Cas immediately believing Dean about Ishim even though they’re mad at each other. Dean about to let Ishim kill him to save Cas.

- 12x10: Ishim comparing Dean and Cas’s relationship to Ishims relationship with his human lover, then saying he was going to cut Cas’s human weakness

- 12x11: “And Cas is my best friend.”

- 12x12: Dean about Cas- “My shy but devastatingly handsome friend here...”

- 12x12: Dean stressing out and voice breaking as he tries to comfort poisoned Cas

- 12x12: LITERALLY TOLD DEAN THAT HE LOVED HIM WHILE CAS WAS DYING

- 12x12: *looking at Dean* “I love you.” Then adds “I love all of you”

- 12x12: Cas- “Run.” Dean- “Cas, no.”

- 12x12: The look Dean gives Cas when he won’t stop staring at him after he’s healed.

- 12x14: Dean says some very harsh stuff to Mary after finding out the reason they Cas almost died at the lake house was because Mary was working for the British Men of Letters

- 12x15: Dean could tell something was up with Cas after talking to him for less than a minute, over the phone.

- 12x18: Sam trying to make Dean feel better about not hearing from Cas.

- 12x19: Dean literally always acting like a scorned wife when Cas comes back after long periods of time

- 12x19: Dean made Cas a mixtape

- 12x19: Cas- “I ~needed~ to came back here with a win for you.”

- 12x19: Cas- *gesturing between Dean and himself* “You mean... we?” Dean- “Yes, dumbass, we.”

- 12x23: Dean screaming for Cas when he attacks Lucifer and trying to chase after him forcing Sam to drag Dean back through the rift. A direct parallel to Dean pulling Sam away from Jess and the fire in Pilot

- 12x23: Dean kneeling next to Cas’s dead body looking up at the sky completely devastated.

- 13x1: Dean couldn’t bring himself to say dead when referring to Cas

- 13x1: Dean PRAYED to GOD to bring Cas back

- 13x1: “We just lost ~everything~. And now you’re gonna bring ~him~ back.”

- 13x1: Dean personally wrapping Cas’s body and giving him a hunters funeral.

- 13x1: The look of complete devastation on Dean’s face when he burns Cas’s body.

- 13x3: Dean refusing to help save Jack because he blames him for manipulating Cas and getting him killed.

- 13x4: The Empty to Cas: “I know what you love, what you fear. There is nothing for you back there.” He loves Dean and Cas fears that Dean doesn’t love him back.

- 13x5: Sam being worried about Dean who has given up all hope since Cas died.

- 13x5: Dean being so distressed thinking Cas is gone forever that he tries to kill himself

- 13x5: Dean seeing Cas alive again and they both have tears in their eyes.

- 13x6: Dean hugging Cas and saying he’s been gone for “too damn long”

- 13x6: Dean being immediately happier and nicer to everyone once Cas is back

- 13x6: Cas saying “Yes. Yes, he does” (in response to Jack saying Dean really likes cowboys) with the tone of an exhausted spouse.

- 13x6: “I told you, he’s an angry sleeper. Like a bear.”

- 13x6: Dean made Cas watch Tombstone with him.

- 13x6: Dean and Cas dresses like cowboy husbands.

- 13x6: Cas saying “I’m your huckleberry” to Dean in a deep accent and Dean looking away.

- 13x6: Their undercover names are Russel and Kilmer

- 13x14: The whole scene where Cas and Dean fight Gog/Magog and act like an old married couple.

- 13x14: The angry, dark look Cas gives Donatello when he tries to kill Dean

- 13x16: “Dean has him by the thigh!” Cas, jealously: “He ~what~?”

- 13x16: “and that includes the Cartwright twins.” Cas, again jealously: “what did you do with the Cartwright twins?”

- 13x19: Cas angrily confronting Naomi about forcing him to kill a bunch of Dean clones.

- 13x21: Cas secretly sliding Dean more pizza when Mary and Sam left the room.

- 13x21: Cas having to hold Dean back from going after Sam. Dean would have beat the shit out of anyone else who tried to stop him.

- 13x23: Cas trying to stop Dean from giving himself to Michael even if it meant losing Sam AND Jack

- 13x23: Cas sitting alone in the bum jet with tears in his eyes after Dean left

- 14x1: Demon: “How is it you lost Dean. I thought you two were joined at the... everything.”

- 14x1: Dean trying to save Cas from Lucifer then vs Cas trying to save Dean from Michael now

- 14x3: The look that Dean and Cas give each other when Dean comes home.

- 14x9: Cas almost being happy seeing Dean happy. And then having to force himself to not be happy so he doesn’t die.

- 14x12: Cas being phased at Dean for wanting to put himself in the box with Michael forever

- 14x14: Cas is the only Dean will let talk to him about Michael and be honest about how Dean feels

- 14x14: “No, it’s on us.”

- 14x14: Cas’s voice breaking when he talks about the possibility of Dean dying one day.

- 14x18: The pure self loathing in Cas’s eyes when he feels like he failed Dean by not telling him about Jack’s soul.

- 15x2: “You asked ‘what about all of this is real?’ We are.” THE MOST ROMANTIC LINE EVER. (Plus later Eileen and Sam have the same conversation but they get to kiss because homophobia)

- 15x9- 20:00 Dean said that they lost everyone they cared about, then added Cas specifically. Then he says “I had to bury him” not “we”

- 15x9- 23:00 Dean cries when he can’t find Cas. Then he prays to him and apologizes for letting him go. He falls to his knees praying to him and fully crying

- 15x12: “I created the world.” *shows Destiel*

- 15x15: This time when Dean sees Cas leaving the bunker, he stops him. (In reference to Cas saying “you didn’t stop me” when Dean got mad at him for leaving)

- 15x16: This is the the only version of Cas that rebelled for Dean. This universe is literally being saved repeatedly because of Cas’s love for Dean

- 15x18: CAS CONFESSES HIS LOVE TO DEAN then goes to mega hell for being gay

Anyway, Cas loves Dean and Dean LOVES HIM BACK, OKAY?!?!? Feel free to add more

#spn #castiel #dean winchester #destiel #supernatural #deancas #spn season 15 #spndaily #superwholock #sam winchester #jack kline #jack winchester #carry on #despair #spn 15x19 #spn 15x18 #spn season 4 #spn season 5 #spn season 6 #mega hell #gay #husbands #listen they’re married #they gotta bring my boy back #please #I will fist fight andrew dabb in a Denny’s parking lot

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

#ACLA24 #ACLA24Leaders #youtube #youtube video #climate leaders #climate solutions #climate action #climate and environment #climate #climate change #climate and health #climate blog #climate justice #climate news #weather and climate #environmental news #environment #environmental awareness #environment and health #environmental #environmental issues #environmental justice #environment protection #environmental health #Youtube

[woulddieforgabriel]

Okay but concept: it's a week or so after the 15x19 and Sam and Dean are finally sick of this mini vacation they've been taking ever since they defeated God. Sam finds a case, and they pile into the impala for some good old-fashioned monster hunting.

But then Dean sees Cas walking down the sidewalk. He looks like a hot mess. He's covered head-to-toe in dirt and grime, to the point where his trench coat is barely tan anymore. His beard now puts his Purgatory beard to shame. Even the hair on his head seems to be getting longer — and definitely much messier.

Dean slams on the breaks. It's like 2012 all over again. He'd see Cas, he'd stop, and Cas would be gone. Though he does still seem to be there this time...

But then Sam points him out, and Dean realizes he's not crazy and that Cas really is here. They both hop out of the car — Dean doesn't even take the time to turn it off — and run back to see Cas.

Dean freezes. He has no idea what the fuck he's supposed to do in this situation. It's Cas! He's alive! He's a hot mess, but he's alive! And it's so good to see him again. It really is. But with Cas right in front of him, all he can think about is how they left things. He's gone out of his way not to think about what Cas said to him before he made that sacrifice. In his grief, he found it was just easier to forget. But now he has to face it and he has to try to make sense of it, and he doesn't even know where to begin.

Sam gives Cas a bear hug, bombarding him with questions one after another and not even giving Cas the chance to respond. Dean would tell him off if he thought he could.

And then Cas just ??? collapses??? in Sam's arms, and now neither of the Winchesters really know what to do (though they can both agree this takes priority over the case they were about to head off on).

Cas comes to that night, hours after Sam and Dean dragged him into the bunker. They'd laid him down in a spare bed, and though they'd taken turns watching him for the first hour or two, they'd basically decided staring at him wasn't going to wake him up any faster and decided to go about their lives.

They're in the war room when Castiel walks out, holding onto the wall for balance with every step. They jump to their feet to give him a hand — Sam pulls out a chair and Dean helps him over to it — and they get to talking.

Cas has no idea how he came back, but he did; he was dropped right in the middle of Rossville, Kansas, with nothing but the clothes on his back. He didn't have a phone; he didn't have any money; he had nothing.

And, worst of all, he was human. This entire time he was struggling to find his way home, he was dealing with his newfound humanity as well — mainly, the hunger and the thirst that he couldn't afford to satiate. Finding public drinking fountains became almost as important as finding the bunker over the last few days.

But now he's home. Cas came home. That's all Dean can think about — literally. It doesn't even occur to him to get him something to eat and drink until Sam gets up to do it. He's just so busy thinking about the fact that Cas came home.

And now that they're alone, Dean expects Cas to address the elephant in the room: their last conversation. "I love you," he'd said. What the fuck does that mean?

Except he just... doesn't?

They make small talk instead, and every second of it kills him. Sure, Cas has good reason to ask about what happened with Chuck and whether Billie truly was taken care of and where Jack is, but it doesn't make it any easier for Dean, who really only has one thing on his mind now.

He thinks maybe after Cas eats, he'll be more apt to talk about it.

He's wrong.

But that's okay. Sam's here; it would be awkward anyway. He'll carve out some alone time with Cas that evening, see if it comes up then.

It doesn't.

He's probably tired. Sure, he took an hour-long nap before he even got back to the bunker, but he's also newly-human and newly-alive, and walking for days on end probably didn't help.

Maybe in the morning? Sam is out for a jog when Dean wakes up, and Cas is nowhere to be seen. Dean makes a delicious bacon breakfast for when Cas gets back (and he slips Miracle a piece while no one's around to tell him off for it). Cas has great timing; he comes out right as Dean is finishing up the last few pieces. Maybe a bacon breakfast will put him in the mood to talk.

... Or not.

And this goes on for days. Dean does whatever he can to get Cas alone, trying to get him to initiate that conversation — sometimes half-initiating it himself — and Cas never takes the bait. And, finally, Dean can't take it anymore. He can't keep pretending everything's normal with this eating him up inside. So, out of the blue one afternoon while Cas is reading and Dean is playing tug-of-war with Miracle, he asks.

"What did you mean, you love me?"

And Cas looks up from his book, eyes squinted and head tilted just a little bit to the side in that cute little way he does it, and he says, "I meant just that."

Which, obviously, does not clear anything up. "So you love me."

"Yes."

"Love me how?"

And Cas just stares at him because what the fuck does that mean? And now they're both hopelessly confused and after a minute of terse silence, Cas finally says, "I just do?" and it's more of a question than an answer and it sure as hell doesn't help with Dean's days-long crisis.

And Dean's like, "But what do you mean?" which is quite literally the exact same question he asked the first time and definitely doesn't clean anything up, and the look on the former angel's face says that perfectly well. "You mean you love me as...?" A friend? A brother? A lover? God, why does the English language have so many different definitions of love?

Cas just tilts his head a little more. "I don't think I understand the question."

And Dean can't tell if he's feeling exasperated or if he's feeling desperate what but finally he's just like, "Cas, was that just a heartfelt goodbye or was that a love confession?" and it's crystal clear on Cas's face that he finally understand.

But he still doesn't answer it. "It doesn't matter. I thought I was never going to see you again. I was wrong. Can we focus on that instead?"

And the fact that he didn't answer it almost makes it sound like it was a love confession, but the answer he did give almost makes it sound like it was just a heartfelt goodbye, and now Dean feels like his head is going to explode and what the fuck, Cas, just answer him!

And he might sound a little more upset than he'd anticipated when he says, "No, Cas, we can't!" so he quickly adds a softer, "I just... I need to know," because he does and how does Cas not realize that?

So, after a long pause, Cas says, "It was more than a goodbye, but you don't owe me anything. I truly meant it when I told you that happiness isn't in the having."

This has been plaguing Dean's mind for days but he'd never really thought about what he'd do if it really was a romantic confession, and now he's just??? Not sure??? Where to go from here???

And then Cas has the audacity to just go back to reading his book like nothing happened. Dean is having a whole-ass crisis and Cas is just reading a fucking book. It's unbelievable. How can Cas just drop this on him and then go back to his life like nothing happened?

For some reason, that really sends Dean over the edge, because he walks over and takes the book out of his hands so Cas has to look at him. But what the fuck is he supposed to say? What message is he even trying to get across? What is he —

And before he knows it, he's leaning over and giving Cas a kiss. Cas seems taken aback by it at first — like, really taken aback — but then he kisses back, and it's great; it's something Dean had never fantasized about before and god, he's glad he hadn't because he never could have done it justice in his mind.

It's Cas.

What more does he need?

#destiel #destiel ficlet #ig? #dean winchester #castiel #deancas #casdean #15x19 #15x19 coda #15x18 #15x18 despair #it was supposed to be a fanfic prompt type deal that I was hoping i'd get around to eventually and then it just... #became a lil bit more than that...

[icefire149]

30! Deancas, its cold so cas insists on a scarf instead of his tie

Char I'm so sorry this took a million years to write. Work and life kept me extremely busy, and then this lovely fic kept going in a different direction (which seems like a theme in every prompt I tackled). I really hope you enjoy this one, and have a lovely day :D

#30 - I love you mumbled into a scarf

Dean had his head buried so deep in thought about the impala’s winter maintenance that he almost missed the familiar foot steps breezing past in the garage. His eyebrows pressed together as he pulled his head out of the car. “Cas, buddy, where are you going?”

Cas stopped dead in his tracks, and turned on his heels. “Oh, Dean.” His gaze nervously glanced around the garage. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Are you okay?” Dean leaned against the side of the impala now, and crossed his arms. “You look kinda spooked.”

Cas’ gaze flitted around the car. “Do you happen to have Jack with you?”

“Nah,” Dean answered, scratching the back of his neck. “He went on a grocery run with Sam about a half hour ago.”

“Oh,” Cas exhaled, and visibly relaxed some. “That’s good. He’ll enjoy that greatly.”

“Did you need him?” Dean raised an eyebrow.

“No.”

Dean walked around the car and stopped closer to Cas. “I’m gonna need more than that. What’s up?”

“I need to go Christmas shopping.”

Shaking his head slowly, Dean blinked. “Are….are we celebrating Christmas this year?”

“I’d like to,” Castiel confessed. “I know you and Sam have your own traditions and this is your home, but I’d like to give Jack his first Christmas since….last year he wasn’t here.”

“Oh.” The word tumbled out of Dean’s mouth. He was going to need time to process every verbal hit Cas pummeled him with. In a daze, he pointed at the impala with his thumb. “Do you want a ride?”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” Cas answered genuinely surprised. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He was still sorting Cas’ words when he found himself opening the impala’s door.

The angel slid into the front passenger seat, and they were off in the direction of the nearest shopping mall. It wasn’t until they hit their second red light that something finally clicked into place in his brain. “Is that why you tend to disappear around the holidays?” Turning, he kept his eyes on Cas long enough to see the twist in his expression.

“Maintaining customs, holiday traditions in this case are incredibly important to humans. I didn’t want to overstep or interfere.”

“You do realize I leave probably a dozen voice mails the closer it gets to Christmas, right?”

“Yeah, it’s quite irritating having my phone going off so often when I’m trying not to take from your time with Sam.”

“Cas,” Dean said exasperatedly. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel, but the blaring honk of the car behind him momentarily cut off his train of thought. When traffic settled so did Dean, “I already get enough of Sammy, and I’m sure he’s more than sick of me too, especially around the holidays.”

“Oh.”

“And yeah, I’ve been wanting you to join us….since forever. Seriously.”

“I’m sorry.”

There was a pained tone in his voice that startled Dean down to his core. He shivered involuntarily. Glancing over at Cas, he saw that the angel had his eyes glued out the window. It bothered Dean not being able to pin down what was bothering Cas. It felt like so much more was hidden in that apology.

Turning back to the road, Dean reached a hand out blindly until it connected with the sleeve of Cas’ coat. “There’s nothing to be that upset about, your heart was in the right place.”

Cas didn’t respond, and Dean didn’t loosen his grip. Instead, he tightened it, but spoke with a note of levity. “And how many times do I gotta tell you that the bunker is your home too?”

“Once more, perhaps?”

Dean could feel the constriction in his chest loosen at the faint smile he could hear in Cas’ voice. He shook his head. “Giving Jack a real first Christmas is a great idea. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it months ago.”

“I think we’ve all been a bit too preoccupied.”

“Yeah.” Dean withdrew his hand and turned the car down the nearest exit. “You’re not wrong.” Basically since Jack was born they’ve been non-stop busy. The past few months in particular were miserable, for all of them.

“I know things aren’t one hundred percent safe with Michael still out there,” Cas started. “But I’m glad that you’ll be home for Christmas. I fear I would’ve ruined Jack’s holiday if you weren’t here.”

“Nah,” Dean argued, feeling his eyebrows pinch together. “My presence shouldn’t make that much of a difference.”

“Dean.” He could feel the angel’s stare sliding under his skin. “I left Jack with Sam so I could chase every whisper, blade, bullet, and trap that might lead to you. And from what I’ve gathered, Sam did much of the same passing Jack off on whoever was willing to keep an eye on him. That wasn’t fair to him, and I’m not proud of my behavior.”

“Hey,” Dean tried cutting through Cas’ frustration with himself. “You had no idea what Sam was gonna do.”

“Jack was never meant to be Sam’s responsibility. I-”

“You did the best you could at the time.” Cas didn’t answer, and Dean couldn’t risk taking his eyes off of traffic in that moment. “I mean it, and besides we’re well past that tunnel now. And we’re gonna give Jack a real Christmas.”

“Thank you.”

Dean hummed in response, and spotted what he was looking for: the sign for the mall. “Don’t tell Sammy, but-” He glanced at Cas’ curious expression. “since we found the bunker, I’ve always wanted to make it look like Christmas threw up all over the place.”

And to Dean’s genuine surprise, Cas laughed. It was happy and light, and when Dean turned for a heartbeat, the image of Cas with his head tilted back was branded into his memory. The corner of his mouth curled into a grin. “After growing up watching every Christmas special imaginable as a replacement for actually celebrating the holiday normally...I think it’s like making up for lost time if we go overboard.”

Another hearty laugh rocked Cas. “Makes logical sense to me.”

“Besides the kid will get a massive kick out of it.”

“I hope so,” Cas muttered, as the car came to a stop in the parking space.

“Oh trust me, he will,” Dean said throwing an arm behind the back of his seat and turning to face the angel. “Soooo….where to first?”

Cas observed their surroundings before letting his stare rest on Dean. “I’m not sure.”

“Well we can just check out whichever store is closest and work our way around. Sound good?”

“Yes,” Cas smiled softly.

Dean’s hand rested on the door handle, but the movement next to him made him pause. He watched Cas dig a hand into his jacket pockets until he pulled out a long, dark blue scarf. “Traded the tie out for a new accessory?”

The angel snapped his hands to his chest in order to hold the scarf tightly. “It’s new,” he said defensively.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Dean grinned. “Did you go out of your way to buy something the same exact shade as your favorite tie?”

Cas’ eyes trailed down to the fabric between his fingers. “Maybe,” he answered after a short, meditative pause.

“It’s nice,” Dean said pushing his door open. “I was wondering where the tie was today.” He got out of the car and Cas quickly followed him on the other side.

Cas hooked the scarf behind his neck. “It felt redundant.” His expression quickly twisted in frustration as his hands failed to wrap the scarf in a way that would be comfortable.

“Need some help, buddy?”

The angel’s gaze pierced him like a knife, but that didn’t stop Dean from circling around the impala to stop directly in front of Cas. He held his hands out. “Just let….”

Cas’ hands fell to his sides, and the frustration slowly smoothed out of his face. His gaze locked onto Dean’s.

“-me help.” Dean started wrapping the scarf properly so Cas could duck the lower half of his face out of the chilly, winter air whenever he wanted.

There was something magnetic in Cas’ demeanor. As it circled and grew in his eyes, it filled Dean with a soft warmth that drew him a step closer. His skin burned, but on his brother’s life he couldn’t remember in that moment why he would normally never let himself get this close.

Dean could feel the puffs of Cas’ breath caressing his face, sending goosebumps across every inch of his skin. Despite this, he reached forward and finished laying and puffing the scarf up.

The apples of the angel’s cheek’s appeared pinker when Dean’s gaze slid up from the blue fabric that was still caught between his fingers. Cas’ bottom lip twitched for a second, and then he sunk his face into the scarf.

Thoughts slid back into Dean’s head. Louder than ever. The tips of his fingers clung a little tighter to the scarf. This feeling wasn’t new. Everything that had to do with Castiel, it was like a Gordian Knot. There was too much to sort and untangle. The fragile thing they had was too important to him to destroy completely. The solution was simple and staring him in the face, but he’d been teetering on that decision for a decade now.

Before he could move, a simple vibration resounded up his fingertips. And before Dean could ask what the angel had said, Cas broke the moment.

His hands slowly and shakily unhooked Dean’s grip, lowering them. The scarf slid down Cas’ face as he momentarily glanced around the parking lot. Dean quickly forgot about the brief indescribable look in the angel’s stare, when a glimpse of Cas’ teeth caught his eye.

The tension eased in Cas’ shoulders. He released Dean’s hands with a widening smile. “Let’s go. I’m not sure what would be suitable for a Christmas tree. Any ideas?”

“Yeah,” Dean grinned, losing himself in this new moment. “We’ll have to go elsewhere and grab your truck, but I have several ideas.”

The prompt was from this list. I'm not expecting any more prompts from this one, but if there's one you really want me to try please ask! (and specify the prompt list).

#my writing #spn #this takes place in season 14 and Cas is 100% worrying about the empty deal #especially when he also is getting too wrapped up in the moment and an i love you slipped out

[mittensmorgul]

it’s a bummer to see you can’t enjoy the ending. I hope someday you can come around it it. It wasn’t perfect but it didn’t nuke its integrity. i think the heart of the show really shines through and it’s a shame that it’s not being appreciated bc there’s so much shipping drama 😣

Hi there!

I... first of, I really need people to understand this... the travesty of the finale for me has almost nothing to do with “shipping drama.”

Yes, I see the wild conspiracy theories flying around, and I’m honestly concerned for some of those folks and hope they can find a way to make peace with this in whatever way they can, because we aren’t likely to ever get a better answer than that this is legitimately the ending that Dabb thought was best, despite years of us seeing the best of his writing choices and guiding Sam, Dean, and Cas to grow past the roles that Chuck would’ve forced them to fulfill, and that at the end it fell flat because he couldn’t actually come up with a better ending than “this was always their destiny, free will is a lie, and these characters had nothing outside of the revenge quest they’d been raised for since birth and manipulated into over and over for the entertainment of a vengeful god.”

I can see how “surface level” viewers would feel that this one basic narrative point was satisfying, that Sam and Dean had grown beyond their own hopeless cycle of self-sacrifice that had driven the narrative for so many years. The fact that they both acknowledged that they should allow their stories to end in that way was satisfying... but only in the shallowest and most detached read of the narrative. Like, is this really the ONLY thing these two characters learned in the last 15 years? If so, that is BEYOND depressing af.

And even THAT message lost all narrative weight when the two of them were once again reunited in death, as if nothing else had ever mattered in their lives. As if neither of them had ever outgrown the codependency that had driven so many of those previous self-sacrifices and refusals to let go of each other even in death.

So yeah, in the absolute most basic sense, I suppose I can see how casual viewers or people who aren’t actually invested in these characters could find that at least narratively coming back to a starting point.

But narratives don’t actually work that way, and that’s not the point of watching fifteen years of story develop in between.

This story wasn’t JUST about Sam and Dean needing to accept that death might be okay actually.

This story was also about free will, fighting for humanity as a whole but also their OWN humanity and self-identities. In Dean’s case, the absolutely transformative growth from feeling like nothing but a hammer, a killer, a tool to be used. And then less than an episode and a half later, after finally accepting that truth into his heart and using it to defeat the original creator and reclaim the story of his own life for himself... he gets pied in the face after flippantly talking about his destiny and having no choice, and then three scenes later he literally dies impaled on a great big nail... like a hammer...

So I would kindly ask folks who feel satisfied by that shallowest possible takeaway of this episode, and maybe invite folks to look just under that surface. Try to understand why loads of us will NEVER feel satisfied with this ending, and why it truly does feel like the most hopeless version of the story. Like even in defeating Chuck, they could never be allowed to own their own stories and what happened to them after that point was just a twisted version of the “destiny” that drove Chuck’s entire plotline for them anyway.

Please understand where we’re seeing this as horrifically painful irony rather than some beautiful circular narrative about letting go.

For a lot of us, the shipping stuff would’ve been the cherry on top of the sundae. We would’ve been happy with a scoop of plain vanilla, though. We would’ve been happy for anything that honored the journey to freedom, and the choice at any sort of a different life of their own making than literally falling back on a nail fighting off one of John’s unresolved hunts and a vampire who had literally never been named in canon before, yet who Dean instantly recognized somehow... 

but sure, for those of us who felt that “the heart of the show” was all the stuff that the finale actually erased-- that “family don’t end in blood,” and that this was actually not a show about just two brothers but the love of their found family and coming to terms with the choices they actually HAD made for themselves versus the narrative that Chuck kept centering them in DESPITE what they would choose for themselves, the finale basically told us no, everything you ever found of value in this story actually meant nothing. It told us that Chuck’s story for them was their only truth in the end, and their only freedom was to be found in death.

Please, I am begging people, stop trying to gaslight us that this was some beautiful ending. Maybe think for a second that “your read” of the narrative that allows you to find peace with the ending is not what we saw and loved about this story for the 326 episodes leading up to this finale.

And please try to understand that we were not wrong to see the entire narrative through this lens. Because we were literally validated IN CANON, and told that we understood the depth of the story and the characters just fine, actually. There’s literally ONE episode of the entire series that burns it all down in a bewildering pile of wtf. And that’s #327. That throws that entire read out the window to well actually us all back into Chuck’s literal ending... This was literally the ending Chuck wanted to force them to enact for him, and it’s what ended up happening even after they defeated him-- the ultimate Big Bad of the entire series should’ve been defeated, but instead he pulled off one final victory over the entire story.

Becky: No. You can't-- Chuck: I did. Becky: Y- This is just an ending. Chuck: Yeah. I don't know how I'm gonna get there, but I know where I'm goin'. Becky: B-But it's so... dark. Chuck: But great, right? I can see it now -- "Supernatural: The End". And the cover is just a gravestone that says "Winchester". The fans are gonna love it. Well? Becky: It's awful! Horrible. It's hopeless. You can't do this to the fans. What you did to Dean? What you did to Sam? Chuck: There, see? It's making you feel something. That's good, right?

and

Dean: Well, what now? You're not gonna dust us. Chuck: Oh, yeah? Why not? Dean: Because you're holding out. For your big finish. Yeah, we know about your galaxy-brained idea, how you think this story is gonna go. Sam got a little look into your draft folder. Chuck: Sam's visions -- they weren't drafts. They were memories. My memories. Other Sams and other Deans in other worlds. But guess what. Just like you, they didn't think they'd do it, either. But they did. And you will, too. Dean: No. Not this Sam. And not this Dean. So you go back to Earth 2 and play with your other toys. Because we will never give you the ending that you want. Chuck: We'll see.

And even in DEFEAT Chuck thought he understood these characters, thought that having rendered him powerless they would finally take their revenge and kill him, but they didn’t, because he never actually understood these characters at all. And the story he tried to force them into from day one was never about THEM, it was about HIM. 

And then Dean gets like two whole days of freedom and choice and is apparently incapable of making any of the choices that don’t throw him immediately back into Chuck’s favorite story. Like none of that resolution in the previous episode meant anything at all. He even SAYS it in the finale:

Dean: Yeah, no. I think about 'em, too. You know what? That pain's not gonna go away. Right? But if we don't keep living, then all that sacrifice is gonna be for nothing.

And then two scenes later the show gives us the Nelson Muntz HA HA and Dean is no longer living, and Sam is left to carry on as a shell of himself and wander off into Blurry Wife Land to devote any even remotely content moment of the rest of his years to raising a  Replacement Dean to fill the void, and is never able to pick up the pen to write anything better of his own life than Chuck would’ve dealt him in the first place.

So I’m glad that top-layer takeaway is sustaining and enough for you. It wasn’t, and will never be enough for the rest of us.

What was actually real in all of this? We were.

Until we weren’t.

And that’s honestly a shit message to be pushing on people in the wake of it all. So please stop.

I should actually thank you for the kind intent with which your message is phrased, but that doesn’t make it feel less hilariously awful. Though I chose this one to reply to as the least insulting of all the messages currently in my inbox on this subject. So thanks for that, at least.

#spn 15.20 #aka that one episode of supernatural that doesn't really exist #because you either get to have the first 326 or the finale #they're literally narratively incompatible in all but the shallowest possible takeaway here #i chose the other 326 because those are where the actual heart of the show lies #it was set on fire and buried in 327 #Anonymous

[s11e17]

popping in to say i'm sorry to hear that and also your writing is so, so good. i get chills every time i read your work. got any excerpts or tidbits you'd like to share? anything you're especially proud of in past or current works?

wahh thank you so much anon! <3 <3

right now i'm kind of pleased over this little bit in the big bang fic - dean can't say "i love you" to cas, so instead, he asks him if he's ever been to the grand canyon.

Cas’s mouth tilts up sleepily, would be a smile if half of it wasn’t squashed against the pillow. He’d say it now, if he could, the thing that Cas deserves to hear, the thing Dean has never told anybody in his adult life.

Instead, he asks, “Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?”

also i started writing this like 15k pwp (the plot is basically that dean and cas keep having sex in dreams, aka put up your dukes but not as good) but i feel like it'll be ages before i actually finish it so here are the first two scenes (mostly under the cut bc its like 1600 words lmao):

The few times Castiel has been put under by a djinn, he hasn’t felt particularly disturbed by it. Dean flinches when djinn are mentioned. Sam is deeply distressed when the possibility of unreality is discussed. But Castiel is not so committed to this distinction as the Winchesters are.

Yes, undoubtedly, there are things that are real, and things that are, well, unreal. He likes the prefix un-. It implies a sense of reversal; undoing. Something is real, and then made fiction. Fiction, of the Latin fingo: to make. To invent. To create.

Things are, or they are not. If they are not, then they’re nothing — unless they’re something, in which case, they are. So on and so forth. This is to say, a djinn dream must be as real as Dean’s smile: both created and natural at once. Nature, creation, it is. I am that I am. We are.

This must surely be why Castiel is satisfied with being, when it comes to his love for Dean. Isn’t it enough to create? To speak, and to therefore move from nothing to something? From unformed feeling to articulated truth, Castiel has heaved himself down to Earth from out of the sun more times than he can remember. Dean is his lodestone, and Castiel dreams of him often. It is enough.

Sam’s the one to ask him, in the end. Castiel supposes that makes sense. Dean’s always aimed his comfort at Castiel’s shoulders and his stomach, offering back pats and warm meals, as if even his hands can’t meet Castiel’s gaze.

Sam invites Castiel out to the roof of the bunker to look at the sunset, while Dean is out buying supplies for his tune-ups from the 24 hour mechanic shop he likes to visit when the usual customers aren’t around. Castiel knows this because Dean once told him, once said that he liked to go when the guys were just “shootin’ the shit,” so to speak, liked to roll up with Baby and have them look her over and tell him he’s done a good job. Castiel knows he likes the camaraderie of it, likes having men touch his shoulders and slap his ass the way men do, the way Castiel does not.

So Castiel and Sam are on the roof. “It’s beautiful,” Castiel says.

“It’s real,” Sam says, as if in reply.

“Yes,” Castiel agrees. “It’s that, too.”

Sam sighs. His cheek twitches, and he looks at Castiel. His body is so big— that’s what Castiel thinks, whenever he looks at Sam Winchester. So much goodness, in that broad and wiry body— how could anyone beat him down? Castiel’s heart clenches with love for his brother, because that’s what Sam is to him. “You know— you know this is real, right?” Sam asks. “You know it’s not— you’re not— you’re not in the djinn— in the dream anymore.”

“I know.” Perhaps it’s some angelic power, which makes Castiel so certain of his place. “I know where I am.”

“Good. That’s good.” Sam sits back in his chair, then. “Do you— do you wanna talk about what you saw?”

It’s kind of Sam to phrase it that way. Dean would’ve asked him directly. He would’ve said, What did you see? And Castiel would’ve had to tell him.

Maybe that’s why he didn’t ask. In any case, Castiel says, “I’m happy to tell you if you’re curious.”

Sam huffs out a laugh. “Damn,” he says, “you’re well-adjusted.”

Castiel smiles, too. “I don’t have much to hide from you, Sam,” he says. And he thinks of Dean, who surely must know— who must feel the weight of Castiel’s desire every day. Dean sees how careful Castiel is. He sees Castiel’s hesitance to touch him, sees Castiel’s eyes shining when Dean makes dinner for him, and knows the depth of Castiel’s feeling. The depth of Castiel’s feeling drives Dean to the 24 hour mechanic shop whose men can give Dean what Castiel can’t.

But Dean comes home to Castiel, too.

“Okay,” Sam says, “sure. If you’re really okay with it, then yeah, I’d— I’d love to know what an angel dreams about.”

Castiel wonders how to say it. “We had a house,” Castiel starts, “me and Dean.”

It was a small house. Castiel remembers that vividly. It was tall enough to feel comfortable, but with only a single floor. Two bedrooms— their room, and a guest room. Roof access. It was the kind of house where you could bump shoulders with someone in the kitchen easily, the kind of house that built intimacy. Castiel remembers Dean standing in the back door with his coffee, face turned up to the sun, as he did every morning. He was so beautiful. He’d had a smile on his face, an easy and gentle smile. He’d taken a sip of his coffee, and said, glad we started shellin’ out for the good stuff, Cas, because he knew Castiel was behind him. After so long together, Dean could trust that Castiel would always want to watch him in the morning sunlight, freckles coming in across the bridge of his nose. Some days, Castiel would kiss his shoulder, and say, You are who I cherish most in my life. Do you know that? and every time, Dean would say, Yes, sweetheart. I know.

“We were so happy,” Castiel whispers. It’s all he can think to say. He looks at the sunset. Dean will come home in an hour with new parts for the ‘58 in the garage and a spring in his step, and Castiel will say, Welcome home, Dean, and Dean will say, Thanks, man. They will sleep in separate rooms. Dean has no need for the kind of love Castiel dreams of. Dean is already as happy as he will ever be. In his own way, in the way Dean has outlined with his words and his body, Dean has delineated what it is that he wants and what it is he finds unnecessary. Castiel is honored to fit almost entirely into what Dean wants. The only thing he wishes is that he could jettison the remains.

“Did you— did you know you were in a dream?”

“The whole time.”

“And you—” Sam cuts himself off. “Jesus. That’s— wow. Did it, uh… I mean, what did you feel?”

Castiel considers the question. “I think a better way to phrase it is that I knew it… I knew it wasn’t material. That what I was experiencing was a construction. But it’s not… that distinction isn’t meaningful to me, the way it likely is to humans.”

“No shit,” Sam barks, too aggressive to be a laugh. Castiel looks at him. He’s hunched over, knee wiggling. “It’s— it’s important to me to— to— to know what’s real. That means something to me. Being certain about what the truth is.”

“I understand.”

“But I can’t know,” Sam says, and he looks at Castiel. Half-chuckling still, he says, “I think about it every day, but I can’t know. And you do know, but you don’t care. How fucked is that?”

Castiel’s mouth twitches, but he isn’t happy. He knows Sam isn’t either. “I wish I could give you my certainty,” he says, and Sam looks away. “All I can say is that you are real. I see you. I sense you, in all ways.”

Sam nods. He breathes, deeply, and asks, “Do you miss it?”

Castiel doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. Does he miss his house with Dean, the warm sunlight through the bay windows, the way Dean’s hands would slide over Castiel’s thighs in the front of the Impala? “No,” he says, because he thinks also of Dean’s bunker kitchen chili, and his unfettered delight at cowboy movies. “No, I don’t think so. Once — you remember, with God — once Dean asked me what about all this was real.”

“Yeah. I had the same question.”

“I told him we are.”

Sam exhales. “Oh.”

“Maybe that’s why it doesn’t matter to me,” Castiel realizes. “I know that Dean and I are real, that our friendship is— is a truth which has shaped our paths, in all ways. Whether it’s a djinn dream or a material place, I know the truth.”

Sam nods, considers it. Eventually, he asks, “What made you wake up?”

“I tried the moment I first realized,” Castiel says. “And again, a few— what I perceived as a few weeks later. That was when you found me. The first time I was too weak to escape on my own, and the djinn captured me again.”

“Shit, Cas,” Sam breathes. “You— you— you did it twice?”

“I’ve killed more often for less,” Castiel says. “Killing myself was easy.”

Sam doesn’t ask. Perhaps they’ve all tallied each other’s body counts. Castiel wonders if Sam keeps a list of all the people Castiel has killed.

Instead, Sam says, “Well. Here’s a— okay. The distinction between dreams and real life doesn’t matter to you. I get that. My question is, is it right to say that the material world has— that it’s primary, I guess?”

It’s interesting, to attempt to apply dialectical materialism to an angel. But perhaps faithful to God’s original purpose. “You’ve seen Heaven,” Castiel says, working it out as he says it. “It’s nothing but memories. Consciousness. You’ve seen Hell, too.”

“Yeah.”

“The only way to describe these places is through metaphor. A hallway. A cage. Ripping, tearing. I think that tells us that Earth is where true creation happens. No matter what Chuck says or does, you create your own destiny. Here.”

“Shit.” Sam shakes his head. The sun has gone down; now, Sam and Castiel are accompanied by twilight mosquitoes, by stars coming in up above. “We make our own choices, huh.”

“We have to.” That’s perhaps what was wrong with the djinn dream, the reason why Castiel couldn’t stay there. It had nothing to do with whether it was real or not. It was about choice. That Dean in that back doorway of that sunlit house must have had no choice — because this Dean, his Dean, would’ve chosen otherwise.

#asks #anon #suicide tw #(fictional suicide to get out of a djinn dream) #agoodsoldier fic

[i-am-a-bad-influence-writes]

Pinky promise

Steve Masterlist - Full Masterlist

Summary: After the war, everyone returns home and tries to move on with life. Not you. You’re forced to go back to Brooklyn to take over your uncle’s bar with a constant reminder by your side that the man you loved didn’t come back to you. And her name is Sarah.

Pairing: Steve x Fem!Reader

Word count: 5.2k

Brooklyn. It has been a long time since you’ve been there. Last time you were there Sarah Rogers told you it was too dangerous for a pregnant woman to stay around. She had a point. With most of the good men taken by the war, only the shady types remained. Scum will always find a way to get out of order.

You took Sarah’s advice back then. You left town and moved in with your brother on his farm. He got out of serving under a law that prevented all children from one family to be taken away. Their two older brothers were already fighting in the war so you and your brother were left.

But that didn’t matter, after all, you were carrying a child out of wedlock and you know how that goes. The child’s a bastard and the mother’s a whore but there’s no name for the man that left you like this. Sure, you could call him an asshole or whatever else you could think of but you don’t think of him like that. You could never think of him like that.

He was just a good man with a savior complex and a heart too big for his body. Besides, he didn’t know.

...

Either way, you promised yourself you’d never go back to Brooklyn in fear of bumping into him. What are you supposed to say when you see him? Hi, long time no see, this is your child, now go be a dad. That’d be mental.

But apparently you aren’t in faith’s favor. When your uncle died, you were told that you inherited his bar. The same bar you had spent endless nights at with your friends. The same bar you had gotten your first kiss in. The same bar where he told you he had to go. That thing is a scar and a half but you could never hate it.

You adored going there, working there, drinking there. It was a safe haven but now it’s old columns with bullet holes and blown out windows that need fixing. It ain’t all that bad. Some sanding and a new layer of paint oughta do it. You feel a tug at your hand. As you look down, you meet the most beautiful blue eyes with golden locks of hair. She looks so much like him.

‘Mommy, I don’t like this place.’ Her eyes are wide like a deer in the headlights, scared by all the cars and people on the streets. She’s used to the peace of your brother’s farm and you understand that the pace of the city might scare her. You kneel down next to her and put your hands on her shoulders so that she puts all her attention on you.

‘It’s just the marching band coming to play,’ you tell her in a calming voice with a comforting smile on your lips, ‘it’s just tubas and drums and loud noises. You’ll get used to it. I promise.’ You watch your little girl raise her pinky up to your face. ‘Pinky promise?’ You smile brighter as you hook your own pinky onto hers. ‘Pinky promise.’ She nods proudly as you stand up to take your keys out of your pocket and unlock the door for the both of you.

‘Y/n, is that you?’

‘Bloody hell, it’s her!’ You turn your head towards the commotion and see two girls barreling your way, almost jumping into your arms. ‘Jesus Christ woman, I missed you,’ the blonde one cries out. The brunette lets go first and smiles down at the little girl.

‘Bonnie, watch your language around the kid,’ the brunette snaps at the blonde.

‘Sorry Connie,’ she lets go of you and looks down at the kid. You put your hand on your daughter's shoulder to comfort her in meeting new people. These girls are far from strangers to you but she’s never seen them before.

‘Sweetheart, these are mommy’s friends,’ you explain to her, ‘that’s Bonnie and that’s Connie. Bonnie, Connie, this is my daughter, Sarah.’ Connie squads down to shakre the little girl’s hand with a wide smile on her face.

‘Very nice to meet you Sarah.’ Bonnie follows Connie’s movements and shakes Sarah’s hand next.

‘Yes, nice to meet you Sarah.’

‘Nice to meet you too,’ Sarah says with a shy smile but she quickly hides behind you as soon as the women get back up.

‘Goss, you’ve got your mother’s looks,’ Connie tells her, ‘that’s a good thing.’ Bonnie nods in agreement.

‘You’ve got a point there,’ she says, ‘so who’s the daddy?’ You look down at the ground for a second, feeling your stomach drop. Sarah looks up at you with hopeful eyes but opts to answering herself.

‘Daddy’s fighting bad guys,’ she proudly tells them.

‘That’s right sweetheart,’ you assure her with a weakened smile. You quickly unlock the door to the bar for her and she runs inside, excited to see what it looks like from the inside. ‘We shouldn’t talk about this outside,’ you tell the girls ‘people talk.’ They don’t ask questions about your nervous stature, they just follow.

‘Sweetheart, why don’t you go have a look upstairs,’ you tell Sarah as you hand her the key to the apartment above the bar. The apartment that’s yours now. The girl nods excitedly and runs up the stairs, more than happy to escape the unknown faces of the women that suddenly embraced her mother. A breath of relief escapes your lips as you watch her go.

Connie and Bonnie follow you into the main area of the bar. For a second, just a second, it feels like it used to on those Saturday nights when the boys would take you out dancing but you’d always end up here when the night got colder. Your uncle would always give you the first drink on the house and you’d always cheer him on for doing so. It’s a shame he’s gone so soon.

Without really thinking about it, you venture to the table in the corner where you’d usually sit with Bonnie and Connie and whoever else wanted to join. When you look down at the wood, you can still see your initials carved into it. A faint smile thugs on your lips when you run your fingers over them. It’s been too long.

‘Spill,’ Connie demands when you’re all seated. She sounds rougher than she intended to. You can tell by the way she flinches ever so slightly. She always had a way of sounding a little too harsh at the wrong moments but you know it’s never meant that way. It’s just her tone of voice.

‘I wasn’t going to come back,’ you admit with a meek smile, ‘too many memories.’

‘But you did. Why? It can’t just be the bar.’ She’s right. It never was just the bar. Though coming back might bring shame to you and Sarah, the hope of running into Sarah’s father was still there. Maybe, just maybe, you wanted to see him again.

Bonnie leans her elbows on the table in anticipation, her head resting in her palms. She looks like she’s going to hear the greatest love story ever told. If only it were that way. You hesitate to tell them why. What would they think of you if they knew before? The three of you never really did talk about children or marriage. But the truth will out one way or another and you’d rather have it out on your terms.

‘You know, you’d think with the world changing so much, we would’ve gone past calling a child a bastard but we really haven’t,’ you say as you feel your voice starts to shake, ‘poor girl deserves a dad and the dad deserves to know he’s got a child.’

‘Who is it,’ Bonnie pushes. You look up from the table with teary eyes. ‘Steve.’ It’s like the world stops for a second as the two women give each other a confused look. It’s like they can’t comprehend it. Steve, your best friend, got you pregnant.

‘Wait, skinny Steve or buff Steve,’ Connie asks you. Now it’s your turn to be confused.

‘Wha-what does that even mean? I guess skinny Steve. Was there another Steve around,’ you ask them. They share another look that means nothing to you but there’s concern in their eyes and you don’t know why. It worries you.

‘Did you have a TV on your brother’s farm?’

‘No, just a radio.’ Bonnie runs her hands through her hair and leans back in her chair, astounded by what you just said but it doesn’t give you any clearity.

‘Oh, you have to be joking,’ Connie exclaims, ‘you don’t know?’

‘Don’t know what? What should I know?’

‘Do you know who Captain America is?’

‘Yeah, he’s everywhere. Posters, toys, everything,’ you say as you let out a nervous chuckle, ‘what’s that got to do with Steve?’

‘Steve is Captain America.’

‘Okay, now you’re just talking nonsense,’ you say as you get up from your chair and walk over to the bar, seeing if it’s alright. The two chase after you quickly.

‘We’re not,’ Bonnie claims, ‘the man had some sort of experiment done on him or something.’

‘Steve is Captain America? You mean the man that couldn’t even talk to women properly?’

‘Says the one who got knocked up by him,’ Bonnie comments, earning her a slap on the arm from Connie. ‘Ouch,’ she whines, ‘I was just saying.’

‘Just because you didn’t like him doesn’t mean she didn’t,’ Connie hisses quietly to Bonnie to make her shut up. You can’t help but chuckle at the banter between the two. They basically share one brain cell and it always struck you as adorable when they seemed to be opposite sides of the brain.

‘But why’d you let me go on the double date back then,’ Bonnie asks you, knowing full well that Connie had asked you first because she had already expected something going on between Steve and you.

‘I had nothing to worry about,’ you tell her as a nostalgic grin pulls onto your lips, ‘besides, I didn’t want to have to explain why I wasn’t drinking.’ Bonnie gasps.

‘You already knew back then?’

‘Of course I knew,’ you sigh, ‘but it wasn’t a stable pregnancy yet and I just didn’t know things would change the way they did.’ Connie grabs a barstool off the ground and puts it down, taking a seat on it.

‘So why’d you leave,’ she asks.

‘When Steve left, I was worried I’d have to be on my own raising a child,’ you explain to them, ‘then his mother suggested going to my brother’s farm for a while.’ You hear the stairs creak as Sarah runs downstairs calling out to you. You call back to her to let her know where you are. When she runs into the bar, you can’t help but stare at her adoringly. She’s just so damn stunning. She runs up to you and jumps into your arms.

‘How do you like it,’ you ask her.

‘It’s great,’ she says with glowing eyes, ‘but there’s too much space for the two of us.’ Sarah had only ever lived on your brother’s farm where she had to share a room with you. She had never lived anywhere where she had her own room.

‘We’ll make it work,’ you promise her.

‘Well, we should get going,’ Connie announces, hooking her arm onto Bonnie’s to stop her from protesting, ‘but we’ll come around tomorrow to help you clean this place.

‘That would be wonderful,’ you smile at them as they take their leave. When the door closes, Sarah takes your hand in hers and looks at you with seriousness in her eyes that you had only ever seen before when Steve talked about enlisting and how important it was to him.

‘Mommy, it looks like there’s someone else living upstairs,’ she tells you.

‘Well, that’s because my uncle left his stuff here for us,’ you explain to her as you put her down, ‘let’s go lock the door and then you can show me around. Yeah?’ The girl’s eyes light up again as she nods excitedly. You can barely lock the door with her pulling at your arm.

Before you follow her up the stairs, you take one last look at the bar. The memories you’ve made there are as thick as the layers of dust on the furniture. You don’t like to admit it but you’re glad you’re back and you know now, with your little girl already being so excited, that you two are going to be just fine.

...

‘Y/n! We’re here!’ You jump up from behind the bar, quickly patting down your pants to rid them of dust as you walk towards the front door to greet Bonnie and Connie. Bonnie flies around your neck as she did yesterday.

‘Hi love,’ you greet her with a grin that goes from ear to ear, ‘how are you doing?’

‘We’re alright,’ Bonnie says with a mischievous look on her face as she steps aside to allow Connie to greet you.

‘We found an old friend on the way here,’ Connie tells you as she steps aside to reveal a face you haven’t seen in ages. Gosh, if it were any longer you might’ve not recognized him anymore. He looks withered but the smirk on his face is ever present as well as the cocky look in his eyes and confident stature.

‘Are my eyes deceiving me? James Buchanan Barnes, how are you doing?’ You wrap your arms around his neck to pull him into a close embrace that he accepts gratefully. His arms snake around your waist as he pulls you as close as he possibly can.

‘It’s been too long, doll,’ he says and puts his hands on your hips to distance you from him. Just so he can have a good look at you. ‘Jeez, you haven’t changed since ‘42. You look stunning.’

‘You’ve got a bit more stubble on your chin,’ you tease, ‘and a haircut would do you wonders.’ He snickers as he briefly tickles your sides. You cry out a laugh and take a few steps away, lightly jogging towards the bar knowing he’ll follow.

‘So, I hear you’re the owner of this place now,’ he says as he follows with big strides, walking around like it’s still his go-to bar. You watch him as he has a look around.

‘I am,’ you say with a proud smile, ‘my uncle left it to me.’

‘He couldn’t have left it in better hands,’ he grins at you as he stalks over to the corner table, having a look at the carved initials on it. ‘Wow, they’re still here.’ You walk over to him, watching him drag his fingers over his own initials next to yours and Steve’s.

‘They are.’

‘Where’s the little one,’ Connie asks you. Your eyes shoot over at her right as she realizes what she’s just said. Bucky doesn’t know. Her hands move in front of her mouth.

‘Little one?’ As if on que, you hear the stairs creak under the weight of Sarah’s rushed footsteps. She told you yesterday that she was excited to see your friends again, even if she had been scared of them initially. You let yourself drop into a chair and hide your face in your hands as she steps into the room. You don’t have to see Bucky’s face to know that he looks shocked. Sarah looks exactly like Steve, how could he not be shocked?

‘Mommy, who’s that?’ You look up from your hands and gesture for Sarah to get closer but she looks nervous and stays where she is.

‘It’s okay sweetheart,’ you tell her as you reach out to her. She walks over and takes your hand, hiding behind it slightly at the sight of yet another stranger. ‘Sarah, this is Bucky. Bucky is a friend of mine,’ you explain to her, ‘Connie, Bonnie, Bucky, and I would come here a lot together.’ You look up at Bucky, trying to keep eyes from poking in your eyes and failing terribly. ‘Bucky, this is Sarah. My daughter.’ Bucky nods and makes himself a bit smaller, holding out his hand to shake Sarah’s hand.

‘Nice to meet you Sarah.’

‘Nice to meet you too mister Bucky.’

‘Just Bucky is fine,’ he tells her with a friendly smile.

‘Sweetheart, why don’t you go show Bonnie and Connie where we live now,’ you suggest to her, ‘I’m sure they’d love to see the drawings you put up.’ That’s all it takes for the little girl to grab Bonnie and Connie by their skirts and drag them upstairs, leaving you and Bucky alone for a few minutes.

‘That girl looks exactly like Steve,’ he exclaims. You shoot up from your chair and hurriedly walk over to the bar.

‘Really? I hadn’t noticed.’ You reach for a rag you had been cleaning with before your friends walked in, running it over the bar to take Bucky’s attention off you as your feel a lump form in your throat. However, Bucky doesn’t do well with being avoided. He grabs your wrist and takes the rag out of your hand, throwing it somewhere you can’t just reach.

‘I know you and Steve had a fling back in the day so I’m only going to ask this once. Is she Steve’s?’ He watches as your eyes fill with tears while you try to swallow away the lump in your throat. It’s as if all the hurt and hardships you’ve been through these past years while raising Sarah suddenly wash over you. You feel your shoulders start to shake as you take your bottom lip between your teeth to keep it from quivering. Bucky’s expression softens and he pulls you into a hug, gently rubbing your back until you calm down. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘His mother asked me not to,’ you softly stammer into his ear as a sob slips from your lips, ‘I thought he was going to stay.’

‘So did I doll, so did I.’ You push off him, holding both his shoulders to keep him away from you. There’s a pit in your stomach as you try to speak but the words don’t seem to be coming out quite right. It takes a few seconds before you manage to form a sentence.

‘You can’t tell him. Please don’t tell him,’ you hear yourself beg with a shaky voice. That’s not what you wanted to say. You want Steve to know but why can’t you do it?

‘I won’t, but there’s something you have to know,’ he tells you as he takes your hand and leads you back to the corner table. His hands take yours and his thumb gently drags over the back of your hand to keep you grounded. ‘Steve is seeing someone.’

He expected you to scream, or at least cry. But you just sit there, frozen, nodding ever so slightly to let him know you understand. Your feelings are on overdrive and at this point you’re not quite sure if you’re even feeling anything.

‘Mommy, are you okay?’ Your eyes dart over to Sarah’s. Your hands move to your eyes to wipe away your tears as you see Bonnie and Connie running into the room to grab the girl.

‘Mommy is fine,’ you tell her as she walks over to you. You pick her up and set her on your lap. ‘But sometimes even mommy has to cry.’

‘Please don’t.’ You push a smile onto your face to appease your little girl.

‘I’ll try not to,’ you tell her, ‘can you go upstairs with Bonnie and Connie a little longer? I have some boring adult things to discuss with Bucky.’ She nods and jumps off your lap, dragging Bonnie and Connie along like she had done mere minutes ago.

‘She is so much like Steve,’ you tell Bucky with a small smile on your face as your eyes linger on the empty staircase, ‘you know, on my brother’s farm she used to try to resolve fights between the animals.’

‘That does sound a lot like Steve,’ Bucky chuckles as he takes her hand again, ‘I hope she doesn’t fight as much as he does.’ You shake your head, a nostalgic look in your eyes. Oh how you remember all the times Bucky had to save Steve’s ass when he got into yet another fight. It got even worse when the two of you were fooling around and a man would look at you wrong. However, you did love him for it. Maybe you still do. You’re not sure.

‘I did want to tell him,’ you say, your voice surprisingly steady, ‘I was about to send him a letter when his mother told me it would be better if I left town.’

‘She told you to leave town?’ You nod.

‘Said it would be better for my safety and the baby and she was right,’ you admit, ‘but I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that I was keeping something from him.’

‘Do you want him to know?’ You nod again and look up at him with a smile.

‘You know, we didn’t have a TV so I didn’t know he was Captain America until Bonnie and Connie told me yesterday,’ you tell him, ‘but it makes sense.’

‘It does. He was always the best of us three.’ Bucky sounds proud as he says it, as he should be. Steve has always been a good man who doesn’t let his judgement be clouded by money and power.

‘She makes my life so much more meaningful,‘ you tell Bucky proudly, ‘I know I never wanted to be a mother but she changed everything. It’s like she’s got all Steve’s good parts but it hurts that she has to withstand name calling just because she doesn’t have a dad. She doesn’t deserve that.’ You look past Bucky onto the busy streets, watching as people walk by. Children are playing on the streets, women are going to the shops, men are reading the paper and smoking, and families... Happy, complete, families walk the sidewalks with smiles on their faces. They don’t have to worry about what others think of them. You wish it was like that for Sarah.

‘Do you want them to meet?’

‘I do but it isn’t fair to either of them to just put them in a room together,’ you tell Bucky, ‘I’d have to face Steve on my own first.’

‘That’s fair, do you want me to bring him around sometime?’ You continue to stare out the window as your eye suddenly fall on someone. You feel like all color is draining from your face. No, this can’t be real. Not right now. ‘Doll?’ You nod towards the window. Bucky turns around to see Steve standing right there, looking in with a grin on his face, happily waving at you. Of course, that would just be your luck. Bucky turns back to you.

‘I can send him away if you need more time.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I’ve got to face him sometime,’ you say with a meek smile. It wipes away when you flinch from the loud bang of the front door slamming against the wall. Steve runs into the room, still wearing a grin on his face.

‘Y/n?’ You get up from your chair to greet him.

‘Hi Steve, good to see you.’ In his excitement, he runs up to you and engulfs you in a hug like you’ve never shared before. He’s so much bigger than you now. It’s almost suffocating but that could also be the nerves. However, the feeling is familiar as is his smell. It’s comforting and warm. Your arms wrap around his waist to hold him close. You’re not sure if you ever want him to let you go but he steps back after a hug that lasts a little too long.

’Jeez, you’re still as beautiful as when I left,’ he smiles.

‘And I thought you were done growing when you left,’ you try to joke, pushing your anxiety aside.

‘I thought so too,’ he says and turns to Bucky to quickly shake his hand in greeting. ‘Did you know she was back?’

‘No, I ran into Bonnie and Connie today. They found out she was back yesterday,’ Bucky tells him. ‘They’re around here somewhere to help clean the bar.’ Steve nods at Bucky’s blatant lie but he doesn’t seem to notice.

‘So, you’re running your uncle’s bar now?’ You nod but Steve can tell that you’re nervous. Your eyes are still red and puffy and he saw you cry when he looked through the window. ‘Are you okay?’ You nod, averting your eyes from him.

‘Sit down, we have to talk,’ you say as you sit back down. He looks confused as he sits down next to Bucky in his usual place. It’s a strange sight. He doesn’t fit into the picture anymore. He’s gotten too big.

‘What is it?’ You take a deep breath.

‘Listen, I can keep running around this but that wouldn’t be fair to you-’

‘You’re making me nervous Y/n.’ His eyes shoot to Bucky but he isn’t giving him anything. In fact, he’s leaning back to show to Steve that this is something between the two of you. He’s just there for moral support.

‘You have a child.’ His jaw drops as he scrambles to find the words to say.

‘I’m sorry, I have a what now?’ Bucky leans forward and hits Steve’s arm.

‘You heard her,’ he snaps, ‘Jesus, don’t you see how much this is taking out of her?’

‘It’s fine Bucky,’ you assure him.

‘Did you know,’ Steve asks Bucky and you feel the situation slipping from your fingers.

‘No, I didn’t know but it isn’t my child.’

‘Stop it,’ you snap. The men look back at you and their faces drop as they watch tears slip onto your cheeks. You grab Steve’s hand from the table. ‘Yes, you have a child. Her name is Sarah Josephine Y/l/n. I couldn’t call her Rogers because we’re not married but I thought you’d like that name for her.’

‘I do, but why am I only hearing this now,’ he asks, obviously confused and stressed. Suddenly, there is the weight of being a runaway dad on his shoulders. Even if he didn’t know about the child’s existence up until now, he still doesn’t like it.

‘Your mother asked me to move away from the city for the safety of the child,’ you explain to him, ‘and I didn’t know how to reach you. I mean, damn, I didn’t even know you changed this much.’ Steve stays quiet for a while, looking at his hand in yours as your thumb gently strokes over his skin. Your hands had always been smaller than his and he always liked how they looked next to his but for some reason he feels strange because of your touch.

‘Can I see her?’ You look from Steve to Bucky, your eyes carry worry as you wipe away your tears.

‘I don’t know. She’s already met so many new people today, it might-’ Steve squeezes your hand gently and looks up at you with hopeful eyes. Eyes that she has never been able to say no to.

‘Please?’ You sigh, taking a second to collect yourself. Why did it have to be him?

‘I just need to know one thing,’ you state, not daring to look into his eyes, ‘I know you’re dating someone but if I let you meet her, will you stay in her life? Because I can’t introduce her to her dad and then tell her that she never gets to see him again. It would break her heart.’ His hand gently slips under her chin, pushing her head up slightly so she’s looking at him.

‘I promise.’ You take a deep breath and let go of his hand as you put your pinky up.

‘Pinky promise?’ A smile spreads on his face as he hooks his pinky onto hers like he had done a thousand times before. When he promised to pick her up from somewhere, when he promised he’d stay loyal to her when going out with Bucky, when he promised he’d come back to her after the war. That last one is the only one he hadn’t made true yet.

‘Pinky promise.’ You nod, a small smile on your lips as your pinky slips from his. He watches as you walk over to the staircase and disappear for a little. When you reappear, you’re carrying a little girl. Eyes as blue as his, golden locks draping over her shoulders, and a tiny stature.

‘Sarah, I want you to meet someone,’ you tell your daughter with a gentle smile, ‘this is Steve Rogers.’ You put her down in the middle of the bar, letting her choose what to do. You watch as her eyes widen at the sight of Steve. She knows of Steve Rogers. You told her about him.

As his eyes meet those of Sarah, he gets up from his chair so fast the thing falls onto the floor, scaring Sarah into hiding behind you. His eyes fill with hurt as he watches her hide and he gets on his knees to be more on eye level with Sarah.

‘But mommy, he isn’t scrawny at all.’ You let out a laugh and kneel down next to her, putting your hand on her shoulder.

‘Scrawny? Really?’ Steve bellows a soft laugh as you shrug.

‘He was really scrawny when he was younger,’ you reassure Sarah, ‘he just got bigger.’ She wraps her hands around your arm for security as she looks at him.

‘Are you so big from fighting bad guys?’ You nod vigorously at Steve in hopes that he gets the hints.

‘Yes,’ he says with a gentle smile. That seems to put Sarah’s nerves at ease a little. She takes a step away from her and a step closer to Steve.

‘Are you a soldier?’

‘I’m a captain,’ he tells her proudly. Sarah nods, pretending to understand him as she takes another step closer.

‘Are you going to stay? Because mommy told me you weren’t with us because you had to fight bad guys in the war.’

‘Well, the war is over,’ he tells her as he peeks past Sarah at you, ‘so I think I’ll stick around a while.’ Sarah takes the last few steps towards him and puts her pinky up to him.

‘Pinky promise?’ He smiles at her and hooks her pinky onto hers, marveling at the size difference of their hands. That’s his daughter. His little girl. And just behind her is her mother. You, the amazing woman that he admired from the second he laid eyes on you.

There’s nothing in this wide, wide world that could keep him away from the two of you. And as he looks back at you and watches a tear slip onto your cheek again, he knows you know too.

‘Pinky promise.’

#Steve Rogers #steve rogers fanfic #steve x reader #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers x fem reader #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x you #captain america x you #captain america #captain america fanfic #captain america x reader #cap x reader #captain america x female reader #captain america x y/n #marvel #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #marvel x reader #marvel x y/n

[billiewena]

for the 100k fic celebration, here a portion of the “what if 10x05 had a sastiel agenda?” AKA lil shit sam/jealous dean destiel fic I first shared a while back! been having a lot of fun basically rewriting and expanding on the entire musical episode with new songs (and lots of cute kristen & siobhan moments because OF COURSE they’re still a couple.) it was really encouraging to see the positive response to it back then and it's been taking forever because of work/other writing but I’m so excited to have this one be the first full-length fics I ever post.

It starts with costumed teenagers locked in a tight embrace with absolutely no room for Jesus.

“What are they doing?”

Marie glances over her shoulder for only a brief second.

“Kids these days call it hugging,” she says slowly. Geez, it would’ve been less insulting for her to just outright say Wow, you’re old.

Except it’s not just any of the show’s stars hugging over there. One of them is the “Dean” who’d been mid-rehearsal when they arrived and looked more like Bieber than him with the blonde wig. And the other? Well, he would recognize that Columbo coat anywhere.

“Is that in the show?” he asks, pointing their way.

Marie quickly shakes her head at the accusation. “Oh, no. Siobhan and Kristen are a couple in a real life.”

He nods and lower his hand. Got it. That’s all it was. Everything’s fine. Nothing to worry about—

“No, my play explores the nature of Sastiel.”

“The — wait, what?” he says, confused at once.

“Sastiel?” Marie pauses, giving him a second to figure it out. He doesn’t. “You know, the relationship between Sam and Castiel?”

Dean blinks.

“Sam and…C-Cas?”

“I know, I know. Edlund’s series never finished. I’m lucky I got these drafts. Ugh, it’s Midnight Sun all over again. But the love story is all in the subtext,” she says with confidence. “Can you believe there are people who still think Destiel is endgame? After everything that happened after the angels fell? After Gadreel? Please.”

He silently sounds out the word. Des-tiel? Wait…

“Ever since Cas came back from the dead and took on Sam’s pain, I knew. I just knew. Every one of their arcs had been parallel to each other’s from their fall from grace to the trials. And now with Dean gone, all they have…is each other.”

Marie sighs. “Besides, you can’t spell subtext without S-E-X.”

He coughs and nearly chokes on an asteroid-sized lump in his throat.

“I…uh. Yeah, th-that’s not…you know, I think I’ve seen enough,” Dean says with a forced smile. “Thank you for your, ah, time. I’ll, uh, we’ll follow up if we have questions about the missing persons case. I—alright.”

And with that he purses his lips, turns on his heel and walks away — nearly tripping over one of the stage chords as he does. Why are there are so many of them anyways? This is just some all-girls school production, not the goddamn West End.

He finds Sam in his natural nerd habitat (the tech booth) sifting through all the bins of A/V supplies.

“Yeah, not to interrupt the blast from the past here but it’s time for us to go,” he says, patting the door.

His brother shoots him an annoyed look but packs up and follows him out all the same. Not that Dean bothers to wait for him; no, he makes a beeline for the car as soon as he leaves the booth.

“Hey, what’s with the rush?” Sam calls after him as he runs to catch up with him at the school entrance.

“No rush,” he says shortly. “Just wanted to see what you found out before you got too lost in the nerd sauce over there.”

He doesn’t need to look back to know he’s on the receiving end of a Classic Sam Bitchface right now and continues to stomp his way through the parking lot.

“Well, no EMF, no hex bags. None of their props are remotely hinky. Talked to Maeve and all those extras in the auditorium.” Sam finally catches up and walks side-by-side with him now. “You have any more luck?”

“Nah. Ms. Chandler's office is just a pile of empty bottles and regret. She's probably just face down in a bar somewhere. Or a ditch. I did get to hear all about the director’s, ah, creative vision though,” Dean says, teeth gritted. “Apparently we go into space, I become a woman, and there’s even ninjas and robots!”

“Robots. Huh. Well, that’d definitely be a new one.”

“There’s no robots in Supernatural—”

“I-I know that,” Sam says in exasperation. “I just mean it’s, y’know, innovative. And Dean we’ve fought weirder. Remember the teddy bear? The fairies? The ballet shoes?”

“Well, you just wait until you hear about what she in store for you, Lover Boy,” he says.

And that makes Sam do an instant double-take.

“Uh, Lover Boy?”

“Yeah, your number one fan back there —” he says, gesturing back towards the school, “— was telling me all about the play’s, uh, love story between you and Cas. You got something you’ve been meaning to tell me or what?”

“The love story? Wait, what do you mean me and Cas?”

Dean scoffs, already in utter disbelief of the words he was about to say. “Like you and Cas, together. Together together? Romance of the ages the way she made it sound. Apparently it’s all in her play!”

To his surprise though, Sam just… laughs. “Well, I mean hey, that’s an improvement from the ones who wrote about me and you.”

“You got that right,” he agrees with a shudder. Meeting one Becky the Stalker was bad enough. Knowing she wasn’t alone and that she had an audience made it even worse. “She even had a portmanteau for you, dude. Like you’re some celebrities in a grocery store tabloid. Sass-tiel.”

“Sass-tiel?” He seems to seriously consider it but shrugs. “I don’t know. What about… Samstiel? CasSam? Cam? Mmm, maybe not that…”

Dean groans. “Really? That’s your issue with this?”

“Of course it’s not my issue,” Sam says. He stays pensive for a few more seconds until chuckling again to himself this time, as if he’s the only one in on a private joke. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, Cas is great but…”

“Not your type?”

“Yeah, sure,” Sam says. No, it’s definitely more than that and he’s doing a piss-poor job of hiding his amused expression.

Dean turns and stares him down. “What?”

“I dunno,” he says, his smirk fully visible now. “I just think it’s funny they’re pairing me up with Cas when the one with the ‘profound bond’ with him is right there.”

“Oh, haha. You’re hilarious,” Dean retorts at once.

“Hey man, I’m not the one who stayed in Purgatory for a year to find him.”

His glare takes on a murderous edge.

“Okay. You know what? You’re going to do that thing where you just shut the hell up! Forever!”

Sam holds up his hands in either what’s either a show of innocence or surrender.

“Alright, alright. Well, other than the Charlie Kaufman of it all I got nothing.”

“So…what?” Dean says. “This-this all... This whole musical thing, everything, it's... it's all a coincidence? There is no case?”

“Unless you're seeing something I'm not, no, Dean. There's no case here,” he says sincerely this time.

“Come on. This has classic Trickster vibes all over it.” He almost wants to turn around and start yelling, Come on out Gabriel you bastard!

“Trickster’s dead, man. And he wasn’t just a trickster, he was an archangel. And they’re all gone too.”

“Could be a lower-rank angel?” Dean tries. “I mean, Zachariah pulled off an entire apocalypse world. And that place where we were both corporate drones. Before you know it, this’ll get all Buffy and it’ll be me and you singin’ and dancin’—“

“Dean…I think it’s just fans. Look, as long as they’re not putting another love spell on one of us I couldn’t really care less what they’re doing,” Sam says with some bitterness, clearly not looking back at that particular memory with any fondness. “Just writing some songs? I mean, it’s innocent enough.”

“Oh yeah, so innocent,” he scoffs. “They’re singing about our dead parents, your demon blood bender, the apocalypse, all of it! This is just…it’s make-believe for them! But it’s our lives!”

Sam runs a tired hand through his hair. “Look, I don’t get it either man. I wasn’t exactly thinking about the books’ entertainment value while Chuck was describing my sex life in vivid detail—“

“Don’t remind me,” he says, holding up a hand in disgust.  

“—but I dunno. There’s obviously something about it they connected to, right? Something they related to, something that moved them, inspired them? And I guess…I mean, what’s wrong with that?”

There is so, so much wrong with that.

“I don’t know what story they’re reading and what Sam and Dean they’re ‘connecting’ to here. But it sure as hell ain’t us. I mean…they even made me blonde, dude.”

“It’s a high school play, what can you expect?” Sam laughs. “It was probably the closest wig they could find at Party City.”

Dean ignores him, muttering aloud as he makes his way to the driver’s seat.

“The hair…the singing…the robots… the love story…”

“You really were bothered by that, weren’t you?” Sam gives his brother a curious look.

“SUPERNATURAL ISN’T A ROMANCE!” Dean snaps. “Look, these girls obviously don’t know what they’re talking about—“

“I dunno, Dean,” Sam said in a clearly taunting voice now. “Maybe you’re just jealous of what me and Cas have.”

He flushes. “W-what? I-I’m not—“

“We could give you two a name too, y’know? So you don’t feel left out? What about…Dee-stiel? CasDean?”

And he refuses to entertain this conversation any longer.

“Shut your face! Get in the car!”

Thankfully Sam notices the shift in tone and obliges at once.

Dean, meanwhile, takes a moment outside the car to glance around — almost as if checking to see if anyone overheard that comment. Not that it mattered. Who could overhear? No one even knew they were THE Sam and THE Dean. Who cared? He certainly didn’t care. He didn’t care at all...

(to be continued)

#if you were one of the people who offered to beta read back in march know I WILL be reaching out to because I need it lol #destiel #destiel fanfic #destiel fanfiction #fanfic #spn 10x05 #also this is a given but if you did want to be tagged when this is posted hmu! #been having so much fun with this especially with writing the new songs #also tbh the musical itself is the closet I will get to writing a sam & cas fic so that's been fun too lol #ESPECIALLY because then I can immediately add dean's reaction to it which is typically 'time to walk straight off the stage' #it's also fun to write a s10 fic since I'm a 'dean's been in love since s8 at least' truther #anyways new to this and my untreated adhd means I make a gazillion typos/take forever to work on things/get distracted by new ideas but #literally every positive comment on that first post is the reason why I'm still workin' at it

[finalgirlbrainrot]

I have two unpopular opinions 1) if roles were reversed and Dean was the one drinking blood, Dean stans would have excused the shit out of it and even liked it. 2) if none of Dean's trauma was addressed and ignored (like most of Sam's trauma is) Dean stans would fucking riot.

intensely aggressively strongly agree | strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

(sorry in advance, I ranted A Lot)

2) I'm gonna start with this one. YESYESYES I mean dean stans are already constantly unironically whining that dean's traumas never get acknowledged (EVEN THO IT'S LITERALLY NOT TRUE, HIS TRAUMAS ALREADY GET ACKNOWLEDGED MORE THAN ENOUGH. EVERY TIME HE STUBS HIS TOE. EVERYONE IS CODDLING HIM AND ASKING HIM HOW HE'S DOING. HALF THE SHOW IS LITERALLY DEAN MANPAINING ABOUT HIS TRAUMAS - but apparently that's not enough for them, so I can't imagine the uproar if it was actually true). meanwhile sam's traumas either get ignored or they get treated like a fucking joke? well I guess it's just another tuesday

I've also seen a lot of dean stans moaning about sam "forcing dean to talk about his traumas", because apparently sam actually acknowledging dean's traumas and encouraging him to open up about them and being always supportive af because he actually cares is unacceptable (and I'm willing to bet that if he didn't acknowledge them, they'd still complain because sam literally can't win no matter what he does)

but dean ignoring and never acknowledging sam's traumas (not even when he's directly responsible for said trauma) or making them all about himself (mystery spot, hallucifer, soullessness, gadreel possession) or vilifying and victim blaming him (being force-fed demon blood, soullessness, gadreel possession) or using said traumas to justify his actions (hallucifer) or making cruel, disgusting and unnecessary jokes about them ("you had a girl inside you for a whole week" [meg possession] "you know how wrong that sounds, right?" "you've like an episode of teen mom" [gadreel possession - let's talk about how these two in particular are a thousand times more disgusting than the rest since he's actually joking about a violation he's directly responsible for] "smores foot" [bmol torture] "crybaby pie" [cole torture] "you saw the [devil's] john [or butt]?" [the cage] dick of death jokes right, left and center) is perfectly acceptable behaviour

1) again YESYESYESYES. I mean, this isn't even a hypothesis, we already have an extremely similar storyline for dean - the moc - and everyone made excuses for him and glorified him, even tho he was worse than demon blood sam in every possible way

actually I wrote a rant on reddit a couple of days ago about the awful double standards between demon blood sam and moc/demon dean. I'm gonna paste it here because I'm Bitter Af

comparing demon blood sam and moc/demon demon is ironically and hysterically bitter because, logically, no matter how you spin it, s4 sam is much more understandable and easy to sympathize with - both in intentions and actions - and should have the moral high ground, while s9-10 dean was flat out awful and damaging. yet both the show and the fandom crucify sam and treat dean as some poor victim or a great martyred hero who made some great noble sacrifice and I just... don't get it. so let's break it down:

> reason for drinking blood / getting the moc

- sam: exorcising demons without harming the host, thus saving people (which apparently isn't that relevant to dean) and killing lilith, first because she sent his brother to hell and then to stop the apocalypse and because she was an actual threat

- dean: because he couldn't face the consequences of his actions after the gadreel mess and decided he wanted to kill abaddon, who, at that point, wasn't even their problem (she only became a real problem in 9x17, when they learned about the soul harvesting, so unless dean has some sort of prophetic knowledge, he had no reason to take the moc in 9x11) and was a real threat to no-one but crowley

> trusting / working with a demon

- sam: I've already said this before, but ruby was a master manipulator and went to extraordinary lengths to gain sam's trust and even managed to fool every single demon (aside from lilith obviously). as far as both brothers knew, she's done nothing but help them, saved their lives multiple times and helped them save others, fixed the colt for them, was there for sam after dean died, is basically hunted by other demons for helping them, has risked her life for them several times and even got tortured for them and was helping sam to go after the demon who was trying to start the apocalypse. sam had absolutely no valid reason not to trust her. I'd really like someone to look me in the eyes and tell me that, if anyone did everything I mentioned above, you wouldn't trust them

- dean: trusted a demon who they knew is extremely untrustworthy and self-serving and only does what's in his best interest and has screwed them over one way or another every time they worked together and has hurt people they're close to

> level of manipulation involved

- sam: as I already said, ruby was a master manipulator and spent two years carefully manipulating sam to get him to do what she wanted. not the mention everything azazel did to get him there, lilith pushing his buttons at every turn to get him to kill her and the manipulation from heaven as well, who were lying to the boys at every turn

- dean: while crowley was manipulating him, the level of manipulation isn't remotely comparable to the one sam went through is s4. crowley saying “let’s kill abaddon” and pretending to be afraid of cain is not comparable to a plan that’s been set on motion since the beginning of time and crowley wasn't the only one involved in dean getting the mark. cain was involved as well and he wasn't manipulating him (unlike sam, who was being manipulated by everyone involved). on the contrary, he was completely honest with dean and even offered to tell him more about the mark and DEAN REFUSED (like can you imagine how many problems would've been avoided if dean sat on his ass for one minute and listened to cain's warning???)

> actions

- sam: in s4 sam was trying to use something that was forced on him when he was six months old, and that he hated about himself, to do good because he felt like he had to and was literally SAVING PEOPLE and trying to stop the apocalypse, I literally still don't get why he's vilified for it????? in s4 sam killed a total of one (1) person: the possessed nurse and while that was obviously bad, 1) he was clearly upset about it and 2) I still haven't seen one (1) valid reason for why she's any different from the demons dean drained and killed in swan song or from any of the other possession victims they killed with the demon knife or the angel blade

- dean: meanwhile dean was going around murdering people left and right (also another example of fandom double standards: everyone defends moc!dean and demon!dean because "he only killed bad people" - which isn't even true, but let's say he was - and yet, I seem to remember a certain kitsune named amy pond, who was ALSO killing bad people (and not for the lolz of it, but to save her son) and dean killed her and the fandom defended him back then as well. is killing bad people okay only if dean does it?), tried to kill sam, beat cas bloody

> keeping secrets

- sam: keeping his powers and the demon blood a secret was his god given right, since it affected no-one but sam himself and the demons he was exorcising. not to mention, he had pretty good reasons for not telling dean, considering his bigotry, black and white views and judgmental attitude. and yet, he was, and still is, vilified by both the show and the fandom for keeping secrets and dean even punched him for not telling him about his abilities (something in particular about this point that absolutely drives me up the wall: in 4x04 sam accidentally revealed that he knew about what azazel did to him and dean got mad at him for not telling him about it, even tho dean himself found out about it and didn't tell sam and no-one - not the show, not the fandom and not even sam and dean themselves - notices the hypocrisy. they're literally saying that it's okay for DEAN to keeps something about SAM a secret from SAM, but not okay for SAM to keep something about HIMSELF a secret from DEAN. if you don't think that's super fucked up, then I don't know what to tell you)

- dean: no-one says anything about dean keeping the effects of the mark a secret, even tho, unlike s4 sam, lying about the mark directly affected other people and put everyone around him in danger, including sam

> general treatment

- sam: everyone treated sam like a monster in s4, dean straight up called him a monster, told him he'd hunt him if he didn't know him, forced him into a torture-detox that almost killed him, tried to control him and refused to see his point. at the end of s4 sam apologized to dean. in s5 dean repeatedly told him that he doesn't trust him. sam was blamed for everything that happened in s4 and his mistake kept getting brought up even seasons later

- dean: everyone and their mom was coddling him and helping to get rid of the mark. everyone considered the mark to be the problem, not dean himself. sam was unconditionally supportive. dean never once apologized to sam for any of the awful things he said/did to him while he had the mark. sam never once blamed dean for anything that happened in s9-10 and instead placed the blame on crowley and none of the things dean did ever got brought up again

> at the end of each arc

- sam: paid for his mistake by sacrificing himself and jumped into the cage and saved the world and got tortured by the devil himself for centuries

- dean: paid for his mistake by having his mother brought back to life

send me unpopular opinions

#redredwine92 #sORRY FOR THE MEGA RANT YFGEUFYUGY

[finaledenialist]

Okay, your tags on The Empty Post have showed up in my notes and I have to ask. Tell me more. Tell me it all. All of the feelings and thoughts about that scene because what I’ve seen so far? Absolute perfection and I agree wholeheartedly.

Thank you! Okay I basically unloaded most of my thoughts in my tags here but let’s go through this one more time. I may add: this was already said a thousand times by better meta writers than me 3 years ago when season 13 was actually airing. And I will ramble a little about Purgatory, too. Now with that out of the way: 

The Empty. Canonically it is a being, a living immortal being that rules the place or an ‘anti-place’ where angels and demons go are sent to when they die to dream of their regrets forever (this sounds awful and like a punishment for dying despite being immortal, for getting themselves killed or something). Also: the Empty was there before Creation, the Nothingness before Darkness and before Light. 

Okay. But let’s see what other things the Empty represents: lack of anything. Complete nothingness that Cas got sucked into (by Lucifer but also by helping the Winchesters). Now we know that Cas‘I am afraid I might kill myself’tiel had his issues, right (I still can’t believe that we are praising 8x08 thee Hunteri Heroici for being a filler episode with Cas - which is awesome, don’t get me wrong - but we all keep forgetting what he actually did say to Dean there!!! Dean says: are you afraid the angels will kill you if you show up in Heaven? And Cas looks straight into his eyes and says: After all I’ve done, when I see Heaven, I am afraid I might kill myself).

Please remember that it’s not only Dean, Mr. ‘Purgatory was pure’. Cas, after all he did in season 6, after his death in s7, after coming back and being literally haunted by everything he’s done, must have felt that Purgatory was liberating, too. It was some kind of an Alternative Universe where he didn’t have to face the consequences of his actions. He was free of them. It was literally his escape AND additionally it was (well, according to good old christian lore, maybe not specifically spn lore) a place where you are supposed to atone for your sins so there must have been the feeling of atoning, of making things right without actually doing anything specific, where having to survive and not get eaten by the Leviathans was his main problem (= surviving was just enough, nothing was asked of him), which, compared to all he’s done, wasn’t that hard or difficult. He found himself running away from Leviathans which could mirror running away from consequences of his actions - but it was Purgatory, it was at the same time atoning for what he did. It was EASY.

Cas basically confirms that he officially stayed in Purgatory because he didn’t think he deserved to go back to Earth and that is true but what he doesn’t say is: ‘Purgatory was pure and easy and kill or be killed and no other worries than that, no thinking, no real responsibilities which actually was a nice escape from the real world after all I did and been through in the past 3 years’. He wanted out, he wanted an easy choice. Okay, maybe he wasn’t actively looking for an easy way out but when it presented itself - when they appeared in Purgatory - he took it like a gift. We’re talking about a character who spent all his life following orders, who finally broke free and found himself completely lost in the freedom of choices, directionless and maybe wanted an escape. He must have felt overwhelmed but all this freedom (which he basically confirms in 6x20 freedom is a length of rope and god wants you to hang yourself with it). I COMPLETELY understand that choice to escape. 

So in seasons 8-12 Cas has a lot of stuff going on in his head, he gets lobotomized for most of season 8, he is hurt and tortured and treated like shit for most of season 9 and 10 and he ultimately gives himself up to Lucifer in s11 and then he almost dies in 12x12 and he never really got to talk about all of this or work this things out with anyone because Sam or Dean are not really the most talkative guys and Dean in 10x09 basically tells Cas to ‘let it go and not think about it’ which is a shitty advice to someone who suffers from some mental issues if I am being honest (this is like. ur depressed? oh go for a run and smile and stop being sad!!! kind of advice if you ask me). So these issues only grow and grow and start eating him up and please remember that at the very same time Cas is falling in love. I said it previously but I think the moment he realizes what he really feels is 12x12 when he is dying. In that moment he is able to name this feeling but it’s of course covered by: ‘I love you. I love all of you’. 

Now in season 12 he finally gets a proper arc with Kelly (god bless her, honestly, she and Cas had one of the most healthy relationships ever portrayed on tv and it wasn’t even romantic, I could go off about this but it’s getting really long anyway). So he kind of is on his way to find a purpose again - Dean is saved (from hell, from Michael, from the Mark), so he focuses on Kelly and unborn Jack and maybe in his relationship with her he rediscovers love (not necessarily romantic but he sees how she loves Jack) and he does all he can to protect her from basically everyone including the Winchesters. And he promises he will take care of Jack and then. Then he is killed by Lucifer (shattered at the altar of Winchester because he gets involved in the Apocalypse World because of them while having built something for himself with Kelly and Jack BUT still not having properly processed all his previous trauma). 

Okay, so fast forward: Cas is woken up by Jack in the Empty. He is of course confused and stuff (we still don’t know what was he dreaming about all this time he spent there now that we know this is a place where angels and demons dream about their mistakes and regrets <- fanfiction gap #1). He wakes up, he is ‘greeted’ by the Empty and one of the first things he says is that he has to go back because Sam and Dean need him. 

This is his first, automatic thought - I (probably) don’t want to go back, but Sam and Dean need me so I have to, I don’t want to go back for myself because I never wanted to since Purgatory but I know I have to. He doesn’t even think about Jack in this moment. I... maybe it is a stretch but I sense a kind of fear in these words. It’s like he thinks: ‘if I had the chance to come back and chose not to come back from selfish reasons then if the Winchesters ever find out about this they will be angry at me’. But I might be reading too much into this, but on the other hand Jesus fucking Christ this is precisely what happened in Purgatory. He chose to stay although he had a chance to return and the effect was Dean being mad at him. Talk about trauma--

Then the Empty (who was in Cas’ mind) voices his biggest fears: 

'I know who you love, I know what you fear. There is nothing for you back there. Wouldn't you rather be a fond memory than a constant festering disappointment?'

There is a lot to unpack here because this is the Empty’s (who, as stated at the beginning can be read as a manifestation of not only death but also Cas’ depression and self-worth issues) reaction to Cas saying that Sam and Dean need him. She says: uh oh you’re wrong<3 I know who you love, what you fear, the is nothing there for you, sweetie. Essentially: they don’t need you. No one needs you or wants you there. They are better off without you. Wouldn’t you rather be a fond memory (of actually being useful as in: saving Dean from hell, helping to stop the Apocalypse, helping to fight the Leviathans) than a disappointment (failing powers, makes mistake after a mistake, chooses to protect the unborn Antichrist rather than killing him before he’s born - and not to make this whole thing worse but this is what Dean has the audacity to say to Cas in 15x03: why if something goes wrong it always seem to be you).

I will now allow myself for some privacy, because I am a person who dealt with these kind of thoughts in my head for years, these are straight up suicidal thoughts: no one needs you, no one wants you, you are a disappointment and if you die you will be fondly remembered, everyone is better off without you. And we know Cas was suicidal because he literally tells us in 8x08 and we have no proof that he somehow got rid of these thoughts, ever. If anything, they were always there, present, if not growing. Thoughts like that don’t just disappear. Please remember one more time what was happening to Cas in seasons 8-11. He wasn’t healing. He was getting worse, while all this time managing to keep his head above water for someone else, while the guilt was rising and rising. 

If the Empty represents all his issues: depression, suicidal thoughts, guilt, self-hate, lack of self-worth, and what she offers is: eternal sleep. Maybe not entirely peaceful sleep, but sleep nevertheless, no consequences, no facing your fears, no dealing with anything, an escape, sleep - 

And she prompts him to stop fighting, to go back to sleep because there is nothing to fight for (now the symbolism of him being waken up by JACK who was his new found purpose just before he got killed), but she makes a mistake to confront his thoughts and fears with him. She makes a mistake of taking a ‘physical’ form, putting on his face and voice his fears. And Cas is a warrior and he kind of hates himself, so his instinct was to fight. Of course it was easier not to think about all of these stuff at all, to push it back, to try to forget. But once he was forced to face all of these? He fought back. AND HE WON!!!!! 

WHAT A MESSAGE TO SEND RIGHT?!!! You might have all these issues and not want to face them because you feel you will crush under them but look: when you are forced to face them it turns out you are somehow way stronger than them!!! The moment you choose to fight you already won, you are already saved!!! Because ultimately these are your thoughts and this is your mind and you control it, no one else! The moment you decide, you choose, to take control: you win. You are saved because you chose to save yourself because you decided you are worth saving. And the Empty (and everything she represents) immediately gets angry and lets him go, ultimately annoyed because he dared to defy her and she just can’t win with someone who decides he wants to be free. WHAT. 👏🏻  A.  👏🏻 WONDERFUL. 👏🏻  MESSAGE.  👏🏻

So... Having said all that. There is only one thing left: I have NO IDEA. NO IDEA. HOW HE FOUND THE STRENGTH. TO STAND UP AND SAY THIS:

I'm already saved. You can prance and you can preen and you can scream and yell and remind me of my failings but somehow, I'm awake. And I will stay awake and I will keep you awake until we both go insane. I will fight you. Fight you and fight you for... ever. For eternity.

A FUCKING ICON. STRONGEST CHARACTER EVER. YOUR FAVE COULD NEVER--

#ask #mutuals #cas #castiel meta #cas meta #the empty #long post #theselfhatingangelofthursday

[sylvanfreckles]

Fever Dreams

Summary: Castiel caught a bad chest cold and Sam stayed behind to look after him.

Just some soft times with these two, because I don't give them enough time together.

The Flare 'Verse, if you're not familiar with it, started Here and continued Here. Basically, Cas is human because Naomi burned his grace out in a ritual to elevate herself to a higher level. It's left him with scars and chronic pain, and the Winchesters are doing their best to take care of him. I'm still working on the first chronological story, but this one grabbed me and wouldn't let go.

...

Sam looked up from his book as the blankets on the bed rustled. He waited for a few seconds until the figure in the bed shifted around again, then set his book aside and gently pulled the blankets down enough to reveal Cas's tousled hair and pinched face.

He rested the back of his hand on the ex-angel's forehead, frowning a little at the temperature, then carded his fingers through the dark hair until he reached Cas's neck. The muscles there were tight, and Sam gently rubbed his thumb back and forth while he half-sat on the bed to be closer.

“Just a dream, Cas,” he murmured. “You're home safe. Just a dream.” It was just the two of them in the bunker at the moment—Dean was on a case, Eileen was meeting up with some old friends, and Jack was still trying to find something to help Cas's condition.

A sympathetic smile crept across his face when Cas's eyes cracked open, only to turn to a grimace of concern when the dark-haired man started coughing.

“Up you get, come on.” He slid one arm behind Cas's shoulders and gently pulled the other man up, then fumbled for the box of tissues to pass a handful to Cas.

The ex-angel might have muttered his thanks, but the tissues were pressed against his mouth as he leaned against Sam and coughed. Sam winced in sympathy and gently rubbed his friend's back, careful to avoid the sensitive scars left by Naomi's ritual.

“Ready to eat something?”

Cas shook his head and just leaned his weight against Sam. They didn't know if it was because of the way his grace had been burned out of him or just a consequence of taking human form, but Cas had trouble maintaining his body temperature now. He usually ended up curled up against the closest warm thing, whether that be a heating pad or a Winchester.

“C'mon, Cas,” Sam pleaded. “If you don't eat something Dean will never leave us alone again. He texted a dozen times while you were asleep, I'm surprised he didn't ask for a picture so he could make sure I was tucking you in the right way.”

That earned him a snort of laughter, and Sam gently pushed himself off the bed and started to lay Cas back down. “I'll bring you something, okay?”

“Wait,” Cas, voice still crackling with congestion, caught Sam's sleeve in one hand. “Not here.”

Sam raised his eyebrows high enough that he felt his hairline shift. “You need to rest, Cas. This is the best place for that.”

Cas shifted uncomfortably and stared up at Sam, somehow managing to look far too pathetic, even for a chronically ill ex-angel with a chest cold. “I need to move. I feel...confined.”

He understood that, a little. Dean could be a mother hen sometimes, and a chest cold rarely needed strict bedrest. Besides, the TV room had a deep, comfortable couch now, and Cas could rest there.

“Wanna watch a movie?” Sam offered as he helped tug the blankets away from Cas's legs. “We've still got the rest of that documentary series on deep-sea plant and animal life.”

They'd been actually really fun to watch together. When he'd been an angel, Cas had liked to venture to the depths of the ocean to study the patterns of life there, and there had been a few times he'd actually recognized the filming locations from personal experience. Sam had also ordered another set of documentaries on the ancient world, but that was mostly so Cas could point out the errors and explain everything the archaeologists were getting wrong. It was one of the things Dean rolled his eyes about and called them nerds, but they were all secretly pleased to see Cas's enthusiasm after those first long months of pain.

Sam started to hook his arm under Cas's legs to carry him out of the room, but the ex-angel waved him off and scooted to the edge of the bed on his own. So Sam stood back and held his arm out, bent at the elbow, so Cas could use it to pull himself to his feet and steady himself to walk.

“How is Dean?” Cas asked as they shuffled down the hall.

“He's pretending to be mad it's the library that's haunted and not the gym,” Sam said with a shake of his head. Dean took it personally when kids were in danger, and word of a poltergeist at a middle school had him out the door in less than an hour. “I think he's more relieved it's a spirit and not a psychic phenomenon.”

“And no one's around for his Ghostbusters references,” Cas added blandly.

Sam had to laugh. “Those too. 'Imagine, Sammy, a ghost in a library and it's not even an old lady',” he said, pitching his voice a little lower to imitate his brother.

“'He slimed me',” Cas whined, though it dissolved into a cough and they had to pause while the ex-angel caught his breath. “'They're here' might be more appropriate.”

“He's got to stop making you watch those movies,” Sam shook his head as they squeezed through the door to the TV room (not Dean Cave. Never calling it that). “This whole 'Hunting 101', it's not how it works. Real hunting isn't anything like that.”

Cas didn't answer until he was settled on one side of the u-shaped couch, sitting up in one corner so he was facing the TV with his legs stretched out along one leg of the couch.

“Isn't that what makes it entertaining?” he finally asked, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders and leaning back into the cushions.

Sam bit back his first reaction. This was Cas. Cas had been an angel for millennia before his grace had been torn out of him and left him with this frail mortal body. As much as his friend might seem innocent or naive at times, he still knew how to separate fact from fiction. “Sorry.”

“Just don't let Jack see them,” Cas continued, and Sam had to laugh at that. God...or demi-god? Elevated nephilim? Something more? Anyway, powerful though Jack might be, Sam wasn't sure he could ever see him as more than that wide-eyed kid who just wanted his father.

“I'll be right back,” he promised, patting Cas on the shoulder. There would be cream of chicken soup and apple slices in the fridge, and that would be enough to satisfy Dean the next time his older brother checked in.

Maybe.

…

They were forty-five minutes into a documentary about the Great Barrier Reef when Sam noticed Cas was shifting uncomfortably in his place on the couch.

“Cas?” Sam paused the movie and half-turned on the couch to study his friend. “You okay? Need to go back to bed?” He was sitting beside him, close enough to touch if Cas needed help, but did his best to make sure his friend didn't feel too crowded.

Cas shook his head, but Sam could still tell something was wrong. He had drank the entire mug of soup and eaten almost all of the apple slices Sam had brought, so he probably wasn't hungry. He wasn't due for more cold medicine for over an hour. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”

There was a heavy sigh, then Cas slumped against the couch. “It's cold.”

Cold. They'd learned to hate that word. If Cas got too cold he could have one of those awful flares of pain, and end up curled up and miserable for hours. They tried to head it off by tucking him back in bed with hot water bottles and heating pads, but he'd actually been enjoying sitting on the couch to watch a movie so Sam was reluctant to pack him away in his isolated bedroom.

“Hang on, here.” Sam scooted closer and tugged Cas's blanket free. He slid one arm behind his friend's back and tucked Cas in close against him before spreading the blanket back over the two of them. “One Winchester heating pad, at your service.”

“Sam...”

“Hey, I have body heat to spare,” Sam teased. “Come on.”

Cas was still reluctant. “You might get sick.”

“I might get it anyway,” he replied. “Colds get passed around, Cas, that's the truth of it.”

There were a few more seconds of hesitation, then Cas practically melted against him. They spent a few moments rearranging themselves on the couch, ending up with Sam propping one foot on the side of the couch next to Cas's legs with his arm around Cas's shoulders, and Cas leaning his head on Sam's shoulder until his hair almost brushed the tall hunter's neck.

“This isn't personal space?” Cas asked. He probably didn't mean to sound so pathetic, it was just the cold making his voice croak like that.

“I don't have personal space,” Sam joked. “You think I could live in the car with Dean for so long if I did?”

Cas seemed to consider that, then nodded and seemed to relax even further against Sam. “He's very sensitive about such things,” he murmured sleepily.

“What's that?”

In answer, Cas mumbled something into Sam's collarbone. Sam glanced down, grinning when he realized Cas had fallen asleep almost as soon as they'd gotten re-settled. He left the documentary paused and reached for his book, figuring it was time to get a few more chapters in.

His phone buzzed on the couch beside him and he picked it up, seeing yet another text from Dean.

“Hey, Dean wants to know how you're feeling,” he whispered to Cas.

Cas grunted, face still buried in Sam's shoulder. “Sie koennen hier nicht Baseball spielen.”

Sam bit back a snort of laughter. “No baseball,” he agreed. Cas talking in other languages in his sleep was nothing new, though at least it was German this time and Sam could almost understand him. He texted back that Cas had eaten and was sleeping, then after another moment's thought held the camera out and took a selfie.

He looked the picture over with a smile before sending it off to Dean. In it Sam was leaning back against the couch with a big grin on his face, and Cas had his face squashed into Sam's shoulder, already sleeping so hard he was practically drooling.

Setting the phone face-down on the couch, he picked his book back up and ignored the repeated vibrations of his brother's reply messages. Cas was all right, Dean needed to focus on his case, and he really wanted to get through another chapter or two before he had to wake Cas for his next dose of medicine.

“No baseball,” he repeated, squeezing Cas's shoulders in a sideways hug. “Just get some rest.”

...

End notes:

The first two quotations Sam and Cas say are from the first Ghostbusters movie, and the second one Cas says is from the Poltergeist movie.

“Sie koennen hier nicht Baseball spielen.” - rough German translation of "You can't play baseball here". I used an online translator, so I apologize if it's incorrect. It's not a line from anything, I just wanted some random dream-talk. (Now corrected thanks to the lovely @slipper007! I couldn't do accents in my word processor, so thanks for the alternate spelling! I'll remember that!)

#supernatural #fic #fanfic #castiel #sam winchester #castiel and sam friendship #platonic sastiel #angst #hurt/comfort #fluff #the flare 'verse #chronic illness #chronic pain #human castiel\

[pallasperilous]

So It Goes

So, forgive me this indulgence as somebody who does not ordinarily write meta; a friend asked me why I thought that the manner of Dean’s death in 15x20 is an incredibly lovely and mature writing choice. I think it is so, for reasons that also happen to explain why so many fans of the show fucking loathe it.

There is some Vonnegut at the end. Hang in for that. 

PART ONE: 

Chuck's story direction has always made sure that the boys, if they died, did so in a mega intense or glorious fashion (minus the *Mystery Spot* meddling by Gabriel, and those weren't meant to be permadeaths). Those deaths were awesome heroic television deaths that FED the story rather than ending it. Every time, the surviving brother would do some extremely stupid and destabilizing shit to bring the other back, often feeding an entire new cycle of death and retrieval. 

If he *didn't* (cf: Sam in the Cage, Dean in Purgatory), it caused a massive rift between them, which then fed *further* wild-ass decisions. The dudes were in the dictionary under 'codependency'. People knew that killing or capturing one of them meant the other wasn't far behind. 

Chuck's endgame for Sam and Dean was literally to *die fighting God.* How much more heroically wanky can you get?

But they beat him. They’re free. Jack takes over, and makes it clear that he isn’t going to be a God who meddles or directs; he’s not going to be their in-house writer. He’s just going to set things back where they belong, reform the systems that Chuck established out of ego or cruelty, and then integrate himself with the universe so that anything that happens to it…happens to him, too. He’s won’t be a character anymore. He’s a setting.

PART TWO: 

So, minus Chuck, with Jack’s goodbye and Castiel’s sacrifice…the boys get to experience plain old…real life. Tuesday! Drinking beer, kicking the laundry machine, filling out shitty job applications, enjoying the little consolations of food and pets and free time. (I think that messy room and dog-bonding and staring into the internet bespeaks a Dean who is really doing his goddamn best to not implode with grief as he has in the past, but to try to thrive in the face of deep grieving). 

When Sam expresses grief over losing Cas, Dean's response is basically: yeah, it sucks. But our job, that our loved ones sacrificed for us to have a shot at… is to stop trying to reverse all of our losses, and to learn to live with them, like normal people have to. That’s the price of the gift they’ve been given — accepting whatever real life deals them.

They can literally do anything they want; circumstances won’t herd them into Season 16. What’s the first thing Dean really does, after this little break? 

He hears “missing kids, dead parents” and he dives right back in. He opens his Dad’s goddamn notebook for the info. He’s immediately choosing to go right back to where they started, for the sake of helping other people. He books them to fight some of the very first basic bitch monsters he and Sam dealt with. That is unforced 100% Dean’s choice. 

(Sam has demonstrated an ability to not take on the responsibility of eliminating all monster-based misfortunes in the world and pursue a life beyond just hunting, so long as Dean has been off the map…but Dean’s one attempt to take a job and settle down with Lisa ended up being so obviously hollow that Castiel felt SO BAD he took time off from RUNNING HEAVEN to rescue Sam FOR DEAN.)

PART THREE: 

Remember Chuck's little fit earlier where Dean wound up getting his teeth drilled etc? That bad luck was being magnified by Chuck being pissed at them, but the brothers truly did find themselves facing ordinary people shit they had never really had to deal with. It drove the point home -- Sam and Dean had been exempt, this whole time, from the petty little ways that failure and misfortune work in the normal world. That extended to their hunting, too — they found out that there were people they could fail to save, despite their best effort. People who, according to the rules they’d been operating under, should have been savable. 

So we see this hunt — which is really rough and tumble. They’re still doing amazingly considering how outnumbered they are, but this was some of the most intentionally graceless fight choreography I remember seeing on the show. They seriously almost lose the fight, and Sam kills that last vamp pestering Dean with the kind of “whew!” last minute heroics we’ve come to expect from the show.

And Dean realizes: something has gone wrong. Something that no pulp TV action genre writer would ever, ever draft for a hero’s death. There was some scary rebar sticking out and Dean got shoved into it in the scuffle and it hath Fucked Him Up. It’s the kind of shit that happens on construction sites. It’s an accident. It’s a random misfortune. It has nothing to do with his heroism or skill or the cleverness or powerfulness of his opponents. It just happens.

Under show rules, here is what would happen next: Castiel would heal him. Jack would heal him. Sam would call an ambulance and Dean would be DOA and Sam would whip out his cellphone and call Rowena or a crossroads demon or Sister Jo or research a spell and we’d be off and rolling for Season 16.

But Dean says: Don’t do that.

Because that is what Chuck would write.

Dean realizes — this is exactly the world they have fought to exist in. A world that is randomly wonderful, randomly shitty. This happened because he chose to be here. Nobody made them pursue this hunt. Is he surprised that it happened so soon, that he ended up having so little time to give unscripted life a shot? Yes, to the point that he clearly thinks it’s honestly kinda funny. Cuz who’d write it like that? Nobody! He likes the part that he gets to die on a hunt, standing up, in his boots — that’s what he’s always seen for himself. Not in a bad way, not in a “killing machine” or a “daddy’s little soldier” way, but because it means he kept fighting for other people up to the last second. He’s upset that Sam is so upset — he’s more worried about calming Sam and reassuring him than he is about how cool his death is gonna look on IMDB, or how they can cheat circumstance to buy him more time. 

Instead of buying more time, at the expense of living like real people instead of TV characters…he decides to make the most of this one moment. He tells Sam how much he loves him. He tells Sam that Sam will be okay; he’s going to go live a whole life on whatever terms he and the universe can work out together, and the fact that Dean isn’t there is gonna be a painful but acceptable part of those terms. Dean says: don’t go running off trying to change this. Just spend this last little bit of time with me, while the universe does its thing. That’s what they do.

TL;DR — this death is fucking awesome because Chuck would absolutely fucking hate it. He wanted Sam and Dean to go down in a ball of fire together, fighting their coolest foe ever, CHUCK! 

Instead: Dean dies like a normal person, from an accident bred under circumstances that he chose for himself. Chuck loses half his prize, not to some other big bad, but to a damn piece of construction material on a mundane job.  And Dean gets to die in a way that unshackles Sam’s fate from his own. Like Castiel did for him, he gets to say: I love you. This is enough for me. Go live your life.

He finally gets to drop his kid back off at Stanford.

Chuck would be so pissed.

And we, the viewers of Supernatural...well, hell, we’re ultimately fans of Chuck’s writing, aren’t we? So of course something so unprecedented, so un-heroic or badass, so mundane and intimate and random...of course it shocks. Because that’s not the show we’ve been watching!! But isn’t that the point? The author is dead. We can put aside his tastes, and we can look at Dean’s death, and say the words of Dean’s actual favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut --  So it goes.

#spn meta #spn finale spoilers #spn criticism #I liked what was in the finale and grieved what was not #death of the author hell yeah #dean winchester

[whenwordsmakesense]

Day 5: Asexual

@pridewrite2021

Here you can find my masterlist for this beautiful event <3

You’re Not Broken

Fandom: Supernatural

Ships: Dean Winchester × Castiel | Sam Winchester × Eileen Leeahy

Words: 1.5k

Summary: Dean Winchester has done many things in his life that normal people would find either absurd or completely unbelievable. Which isn't something bad, ‘Ignorance is bliss’ is literally the hunter's motto, and he doesn't mind not being normal most of the time.

‘Most of the time’ also happens to be either hunting mythical creatures or cuddling and snuggling with his partner who is a literal Angel of The Lord with all the capital letters, and not his three-year-old son wearing the face and body of a definitely-older-than-sixteen's of his own asking him as to how he knows if he wants to have sex with someone.

You can read it on AO3 or here. 

Warnings: Swearing, (mild) talk of sex. 

>> Starts from here onwards.

Dean Winchester has done many things in his life that normal people would find either absurd or completely unbelievable. Which isn't something bad, ‘Ignorance is bliss’ is literally the hunter's motto, and he doesn't mind not being normal most of the time.

‘Most of the time’ also happens to be either hunting mythical creatures or cuddling and snuggling with his partner who is a literal Angel of The Lord with all the capital letters, and not his three-year-old son wearing the face and body of a definitely-older-than-sixteen's of his own asking him as to how he knows if he wants to have sex with someone.

Dean chokes on his beer. Sam, the bastard that he is, laughs and then tries to hide it with a cough, which offends him because come on, Sam can do better than that.

Dean glares at him until Sam walks out of the kitchen with his shaggy hair trailing behind him—he loves Eileen, he does, but proclaiming that she loves his little brother with longer hair doesn't put her in his good graces—and his hands up in a placating gesture as Jack looks between the two brothers with his trademark confused look. Being God with the capital G has done nothing to educate the poor kid.

He knows he told Cas to bring back the supplies to make apple pies, but he fervently wishes that they were here so that Dean could chuck their kid at them for this bit. Cas was an Angel and their kid is God, surely Jack can see the prevalent logic?

“Dean?” As it turns out, Jack doesn't, and Dean sighs. He checks how much beer he has left in the bottle—it's half-full—and settles down properly on his seat as he thinks on how to explain that.

“Do you know about the... Uh, details?” He gestures vaguely below the table, and shit, he's so glad he got his own bird and the bees talk from the porn magazines and the amazing thing that is the internet and not from his own dad.

Jack nods. “Yes.” Dean waits for more, but there's no more words. Ever since Jack took up the mantle after his psycho grandpa, the kid's been all ‘mysterious ways’ with his words and actions. It would be annoying if not for Cas' apparent excitement over how well Jack's doing at the job.

Dean is a total simp for his partner and he knows it, but he would never admit it. At least his kid knows the meaning of personal boundaries and doesn't mind fuck with any of them.

“Okay, okay.” He tries to think of an answer besides the cheesy, “You'll know when you are in love,” because frankly, he doesn't believe in that. He might believe, hell, knows that sex with someone you love is far, far better than a random one-night-stand, but he's also fucked around in his younger years and it's not half-bad.

Examples. Those help. Right.

“Alright kid. Anyone you find attractive?”

Jack looks at him with an honestly-to-Jack blush, and Dean cracks a smile.

“Nice. So, imagine your crush, and think of how beautiful they are. Do you feel the need to be closer to them?”

Jack thinks for a moment, and then nods. “I want to hear about Clark's day and stuff,” he says nervously. A lightbulb lights up in the back of Dean's mind, he's heard the name before, but he can't remember. “And I want to share my nougat with him.”

It sounds like his kid is already falling in love. And, Jesus, he's been all omnipresent for what, three, four weeks? And sharing nougat—that's basically sharing rings.

“Uh huh. Did your late night ‘I'm answering a prayer’ calls were false?” Jack blushes and looks down. Dean isn't angry. He isn't. “Cas will be disappointed...” he says. And it's the truth. They were really excited about Jack being a good God.

“Not all of them!” Jack tells him with a panicked look. “I did answer prayers. One of it was his and I... kind of go there every night now?” He says it as if he doesn't want to, and Dean takes pity on him. Doing some work, if not all, is at least progress.

“It's alright kid.” He reassures Jack and the kid literally melts off all his tension. “Sounds like someone might be in love,” he teases. “Do you just creepily watch him as he sleeps or do you talk to him?”

Jack gives him an unamused bitch face which he's clearly learned from Sam. “We talk. I'm not Cas, and I'm sure there's never going to be a slow-burn as long as your relationship.”

Dean makes the executive decision of ignoring the words he doesn't understand. Ignorance is indeed bliss.

He gives Jack the patented Winchester look of ‘talk now or forever hold your peace because I'm going to kill you to death’ except only the first two words apply here.

“I know,” the kid mumbles, and Dean cocks an eyebrow at him. “I don't feel like... Claire showed me a website before all of this.” He tells Dean, gesturing at himself to completely drive home the point of ‘before I became God’. Dean sighs, because of course. Claire would do that. She's an annoying kid like that.

“Most of the time you shouldn't try to imitate porn.” He tells Jack wryly. The kid visibly turns green and red at the same time. It's impressive.

There's an awkward silence. Dean shuffles in his seat and drinks the entirety of his remaining beer in one go. It burns, but at least it's a distraction.

“I don't feel like that,” Jack finally says. Dean figures the sooner this is over, the better for the both of them.

“Like what?”

Perhaps Jack feels the same, because he doesn't pause, just babbles. Maybe it's more out of nervousness, but it's progress from perpetual embarassment and no way out, so Dean takes it.

“I want to get closer to him, but I don't want to do other things, you know? I don't want his genitals in me or mine in his, I don't even want his tongue in mine and it's confusing because I feel like I love him and he's beautiful and he's so nice but I don't want to have sex with him and I just—I don't know. I don't know,” Jack finishes with a hiccup, and soon he's crying. Dean feels uncomfortable for only a second before he's flying out of his seat and hugging Jack close.

“Aw, hell, kid.” He mumbles into Jack's hair and rocks them both.

They stay like that until Jack's crying has mostly subsided, and when Dean looks up it's to see Cas looking at them with worry from the entrance of the kitchen.

Jack spots him too and hurries to compose himself. He tries to, at least. Dean shakes his head at his partner and mouths, “I'll tell you later.” Then he guides the kid towards the main room where he's kept his laptop, leaving Cas in the kitchen with a chaste kiss and a reassuring smile.

When he'd lost Cas to the Empty, it'd been worse than hell. Worse than purgatory. His heart had felt had empty and he really didn't want to move from the wall, the world be damned. He hadn't known he'd been not straight up until then—that he loved Cas like that. Sure, he'd experimented with Lee once or twice in their youth, but it was experiment. Right?

Wrong.

Turns out there are a lot of people who think like that—who don't know how they feel and why they feel and if they're valid. And as scary as the internet is, it's sometimes useful, too.

The moment Cas had been back he'd hugged the bastard tight, told him he's stupid for having done that, and proceeded to search the shit out of the internet for what he felt.

He's bisexual. He enjoys sex with both men and women. And he's demiromantic—he only loves those he's known and trusted emotionally first. And Cas, he loves them to pieces, from every pore of his own soul, his cells.

There's tons more terms, and if Dean is correct, then Jack is asexual.

The internet helped Dean, so he's hoping it will help Jack, too. He's God, but that doesn't mean he doesn't need a guiding hand—doesn't need support.

And Dean will be that for him. He loves the kid to pieces, too.

It takes Jack just ten-minutes of research to realise he's indeed asexual and another twenty to figure out he's panromantic—he loves the soul, not the body it comes in—but it takes days to accept he's not broken. It's heartbreaking, but when the norm is heterosexual couples and tons and tons of sex, it's not really that surprising.

Cas and Sam both promise to break Clark's kneecaps if he tries anything or forces Jack, and Dean just hugs his kid tighter to himself as Jack nods and laughs for the first time in days.

#supernatural #my fic #pridewrite2021 #day 5 #asexual #castiel/dean winchester #sam winchester/eileen leehay #bisexual dean winchester #non binary Cas #whenwordsmakesense

[im-some-lionheart]

here’s a continuation for this ficlet I did a few days ago. Enjoy ~

Not many things scare Dean Winchester. He's encountered enough monsters in his lifetime, that by now the list of "things that scare Dean Winchester" has been mostly reduced to: airplanes and feelings. Not necessarily in that order.

But then his brother decided to play Gay Husband with Dean's crush best friend and, well... The way Sam is behaving around Cas is pretty much scaring him right now.

It's not like Dean doesn't know they're faking it all for the case. But there's only so many times a man can watch his little brother grab their male friend's ass and call him "honeybee" before he finally intervenes.

"Would you mind... Toning it down?" he says, pulling Sam aside and lowering his voice so that only his brother can hear him, "you're starting to scare me."

"Scare you?" Sam appears genuinely confused and Dean is already regretting this conversation, just like he's regretting coming to this gay bar, agreeing to this stupid plan, and basically every decision in his life that ever contributed to leading him here tonight.

"What the hell have I done to scare you?"

"Oh, you want a list? Well, what about those silly pet names you keep calling Cas? Those sound practiced, Sam. What's up with that? And, what about groping Cas any chance you get? Or staring at him like you're undressing him with your eyes all the damn time?"

Sam just rolls his eyes and walks back to the standing table where Castiel is waiting for them, "Dean, you knew we were doing this, and you agreed to it. I told you not to come with us if you weren't comfortable with the pla-"

"Oh, I'm comfortable alright, " he hurries, nodding his head, albeit aggressively. "I'm so fucking comfortable with the plan, Sam, you ain't never seen anyone as comfortable with a plan as I'm comfortable with the plan."

The way he chugs down the rest of his whiskey in one shot and immediately orders another one is just him celebrating how comfortable he is with all of this. That's all.

"I just," he continues once the new glass arrives and he's drunk all of that too, "I don't think it's really nece-"

"When did you become such a prude?"

It's Cas who says it and Sam who snorts and Dean who stares.

"I'm not a prude!" he barks back, defensive. Then he regrets it immediately and lowers his voice, looking at the angel in the eye, "I just..." he exhales, losing his train of thought in the bright depths of blue staring back at him.

And for a moment it doesn't matter. For a moment, nothing matters. Nor the case, nor the world, nor Dean's paralyzing fear of his own emotions nor his inability to process them or even admit them to himself. For a moment, everything is blue and Cas and him. And it's fine. Everything is fine. It's just them but it's also everything at the same time. And it's fine. There's no fear, no regrets, no anger. No shame. It's all just blue and Cas. He feels peace, everything is fine, and it's all Cas.

He clears his throat subconsciously, and the sound brings him back to reality. To the rumbling bass on the bar's speakers, the drag queens walking on stage, the concerned look on his brother face, and this stupid conversation he regrets starting.

"You know I'm not a prude, Cas." he's practically growling but he barely cares "You know me."

And it's true. Or at least, it should be. Cas should know him by now. Cas should know him better than anyone. Cas has been with him through Hell, and Heaven, and Purgatory, and everything in between. He's seen Dean's soul at its worse and still chose to be his friend. Still chose to say "I'll go with you" so many times now that Dean has lost count. Cas saw who he was, and still chose to follow him, every time. Cas should know by now. He should know... Why doesn't he know?

"Then why are you so uncomfortable with some light sexual touching?"

He really doesn't know?

"I already told you," he grinds his teeth and signals the waiter to bring him two glasses this time "I'm not uncomfortable."

"You don't seem very comfortable either."

"Well, what the hell do you want from me, Cas?" he explodes, raising his voice and making a few heads turn in their direction.

"Honesty, for once" is the soft, caring answer he gets.

As if were that easy. The look on his friend's face breaks Dean's heart a little, but what's another scratch? He finishes off one of the glasses and brings the other one to his lips before placing it back down on the table with a thud.

"Look, if you and Sam need to make out to get the coven's attention so we can kill those sons of bitches, then so be it. Just don't keep dragging it, alright? Let's get this shit over with. It's... "

It's painful, it's wrong, immoral, dirty, twisted. Wrong. He doesn't say. He doesn't think it either. Not really. Only a part of him does. The part of him that still talks in his father's voice. The part of him that never left that motel room where John found him making out with Lee Webb as a teenager. The part of him that hurts.

He clenches his jaw and looks at Sam for support. But all his brother does is quickly alternate his eyes between him and Cas, concerned frown, mouth slightly open, as if to say something.

He doesn't ask it out loud, and Dean is thankful for that but he can still hear the question in Sam's face, dude, are you okay?

And he can't honestly answer that right now. So he just takes another sip of his drink, and avoids Cas' gaze because maybe he isn't. Maybe he should've stopped two whiskeys ago, but how the hell else was he supposed to survive this gay bar thing?

It's one thing for his brother to wrap an arm around Castiel's shoulder. But if he's gonna have to pretend to be okay with the angel calling Sam "baby" and kissing his neck, then he sure as hell ain't doing it sober.

Not many things scare Dean Winchester. And being drunk isn't one of them. He's spent a good portion of his life drowning his sorrows and his traumas (whatever that means). So by now he knows how to be a perfectly good sad drunk or an angry drunk. But bitterness is a new ingredient he doesn't have much experience with.

So when, a few minutes later, he bursts out,

"You're just so lucky you're straight, Sam."

He surprises everyone at the table, including –especially– himself. And a voice in the back of his mind reminds him: this is why he hates feelings.

#i- #asdfghjkk #idk #deancas #deancas ficlet #deancas fic #destiel #destiel fic #destiel ficlet #fake couple #fake couple case #dean winchester

[mittensmorgul]

okay so rewatching 15.13, and the usual that I’ve probably said before, but like... everything with AU!John being the best guy who was still alive and “spoiled” his sons with private label scotch and their hunting empire and private jet and everything. And not even a mention of Mary, who... ??? in that world.

(and yes, I know this is Bucklemming, and therefore hand-waveable, but like... it’s still canon and still a dangling thread of wtf that kind of needs addressing, and I can’t stop thinking about this post by @hazeldomain https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/639861646083473408 explaining the wtf of the finale by putting the altchesters in the bunker while the actual TFW was off having a beach vacation, because they are the ones who make sense dying in this finale far more than our TFW, and you know what? it makes sense... at least, it makes more sense than what aired.)

We knew things in that world were different, and now know that the Altchesters didn’t have a Castiel of their own. I’d argued when the ep came out that it didn’t even seem likely that those spoiled soft boys probably never made a deal for each other’s lives, never went to Hell, never really faced any sort of real adversity. And yet, having JUST lost their father they’re... oddly unmoved by it. Their entire world, everyone they would’ve cared for there... and they’re complaining about their clothes and the fact Sam told Alt!Sam to ditch the man bun. Like.

Those Winchesters had a lot of the material comfort of a “normal life,” while still getting to hunt corporate-style. But they don’t really understand how to survive. They’ve never known what it was like to not have a home. I mean, they didn’t even have a bunker in their world (no MoL in that world then? maybe?). They never had to struggle for anything or want for anything. They had trust funds, ffs.

But in this world, the original Winchesters did have to fight for everything. They did face down Heaven and Hell, angels and demons, and God himself. They have lived ENTIRELY different lives, and I’m half wondering if Chuck didn’t send those particular Winchesters directly to our Sam and Dean for laughs. Like...

Chuck had already told them that every other Sam and Dean in every other universe eventually gave in to satisfy his story. In every other universe, one or the other or both of them went bad. One or the other of them had to die. And yet, these two show up and there’s zero evidence of any of that sort of meddling in their lives. These two lived pretty comfy lives of privilege and plenty, everything handed to them without having to fight anything other than the occasional monster they jetted around the world to hunt. They were effectively the BMoL of their world, and I bet they’ll find themselves equally unable to live up to the reality of wearing the faces of the most recognized hunters in *this* world for long.

Then there’s their essential personalities. A Sam without the lifelong burden of feeling like something was wrong with him, who’d been fed demon blood as a baby and always believed he was somehow tainted, and terrified he might be something less than human. That Sam never struggled with impurity or the fear that he could go darkside or give in to Lucifer. He never struggled with where he belonged in the world-- he didn’t have to run away from hunting and his family to seek any sort of “normalcy.” It wasn’t a conflict he ever had to face. That Sam never suffered the losses-- but also not the victories-- of our Sam.

That Sam didn’t have an Eileen, either. Or a connection to anyone else in this universe.

That Dean, though, didn’t have what our Dean has, either. It seemed like given the chance, he’d want it for himself, but it took our Dean 40 years of living and another 40 suffering in Hell to become that, though, and I’m not sure Fiat McGee had that sort of investment in doing much more than cosplaying our Dean with the trappings he found most intriguing. But the primary thing that Dean lacked was everything Cas included in his confession to Dean in 15.18. That Dean, in other words, was not entirely made of love. He hadn’t sacrificed himself over and over to save what he loved, out of love. He may have appreciated the comfort of a good flannel, but he was nothing more than surface-level Dean-coded, you know? What was truly important to our Dean, this guy was basically cosplaying for kicks.

Which is weirdly how Dean in 15.20 felt to me. Like a shell of the Dean I’d watched for the last 15 years.

And of course, we have to mention “the car” again, the one the altchesters supposedly took out for a drive... we all agree there’s no way on earth they were actually referring to Baby, right? Because DEAN was driving Baby the entire time the altchesters were in the bunker, left alone to explore the place. Like... Baby wasn’t even on the premises, so what car did they actually drive? What car in the bunker’s garage did they think had some sort of special status? And why did Our Dean seemingly assume they were referring to Baby, when he literally had possession of the Impala the entire time?

I know that’s not specifically relevant to the finale, but the hollowness of these alternate Winchesters theoretically still living in the OG universe is incredibly galling to me if the finale was actually a true accounting of events for our TFW. I can’t countenance a universe where these flimsy replicas without any of the things that made Sam and Dean who they are surviving when the real versions we’ve spent 15 years loving, crying for, and hoping for got exactly nothing of what they’d fought for and finally won. 

#spn 15.13 #spn 15.20 #spiders georg of the tnt loop

[helianthus21]

Monday 6: Jealous

[doing this] ~1,2k

The rationale so far is this:

Dean’s used to having pretty girls admire him, girls they save from what goes bump in the night. He’s a hero in their eyes, one that saved their lives and, judged by Dean’s considerable experience, that’s easily one one the best turn-ons. It scored him a fun night in the sheets on more than a few occasions and with the lifestyle he’s leading he seizes every such opportunity when it’s offered to him. He’s not gonna say no to a good thing among all the shit life throws at him after all, and he’s proud to say it happens more to him than to Sam because everyone agrees he’s the more handsome brother of the two.

That, and only that is the reason why he’s so grouchy at the way the current damsel of the week is throwing herself at Cas of all people. 

There’s just something wrong in the way Chiyo grabs Cas’ hand under the pretense of looking for comfort and reassurance that the monster really can’t harm her anymore which Cas readily gives. Because he doesn’t know what it means when she bats her eyelashes at Cas, the White Knight of her very own rom-com and asks him to walk her home “just in case”.

“Just in case” what exactly, Dean thinks and rolls his eyes at her audacity. The ghoul’s fucking dead as a doornail, can’t get any deader, get a grip, girl.

And maybe he’s being a little unfair to her but that’s just ‘coz his pride’s a little hurt ‘coz this woman’s got no friggin’ taste. 

The strange tightness in Dean’s stomach gets worse when Chiyo pretends to stumble over her own feet so Cas can catch her in his strong arms and Chiyo can admire just how strong they are with her own hands. She actually tightens her grip around Cas’ biceps to get a good feeling. 

Dean grits his teeth in a fit of inexplicable rage. He feels irritated on behalf of his friend, of course. Poor dude has no idea he’s being flirted with. That lady’s taking advantage of a clueless angel, basically!

Next to him, Sam bumps him with an elbow, grinning. “Hey, if they became a thing, their ship name could be ‘Chica’.”

“Shut up, Sam!” Dean bites back.

Taken aback, Sam holds up a hand. “Touchy, touchy,” he says. “What got your panties in a twist?”

“Maybe I just got enough of your ugly mug.”

“Okay,” Sam says, not at all put out by Dean’s testy comment, seeming more amused instead. “So which one of ‘em are you jealous of?” 

Feeling like he needs to block an attack without a clue as to how, Dean whips around. “What?”

But Sam just brushes past him, following Cas and Chiyo at a respectable distance. “Oh, nothing.”

Before the next intersection, they’ve reached Chiyo’s apartment. “That’s it,” she announces, playing with her keys and flashing nervous glances the brothers’ way. “I live on the third floor.”

Okay, Dean thinks. So this is goodbye. Finally.

But Chiyo has other ideas. “Do you want to maybe… come upstairs with me? I have coffee,” she suggest hopefully, looking at Cas and only Cas and wow rude, Dean thinks. What are Sam and him, chopped liver? 

He opens his mouth to say exactly that but Sam puts a hand on his shoulder, swivels him around with force. “We better go, give them some alone time,” he whispers significantly before raising his voice so Cas and Chiyo can hear. “We’re hitting the road, bye Chiyo. Seeya later, Cas.”

And before Dean can gather his wits enough to react, Sam’s urging him further along the road towards where they parked Baby. 

Each step away from them feels like a stab through the heart, and Dean should know what that feels like. 

“Hey, I know I gave you shit about this earlier, but if you wanna talk,” Sam says softly. “You know…”

Dean doesn’t look up from the road. He doesn’t know if he could cover up the frown on his face with a suitable mask right now. Truth is, his denial techniques only reach so far. Deep down, he’s knows his feelings for Cas span farther than the Milky Way and are more complex than some part of him wishes they were. 

Because it’s hard, being who he is and loving someone like Castiel. 

Castiel, who seems so close yet so out of reach sometimes. 

It seemed so easy for Chiyo, to pull Cas into her orbit. Maybe someone like her is just what Cas needs. Someone far away from the hunting life, someone less complicated. Someone who doesn’t trip over his own feet as much when it comes to talking feelings. 

Maybe she could be good for Cas.

He won’t pretend to like it, though.

So he takes up Sam’s offer, the only way he knows how. “‘I got coffee upstairs’,” he scoffs. “How cheap was that?”

“Very cheap,” agrees Sam benevolently. “Apple pie?”

Dean sniffs. “Biggest we can find.”

***

Cas flaps into their motel room not longer than half an hour later. After Sam and Dean drove by a bakery to buy the biggest apple pie they have, Sam’s gone out to commune with nature or whatever he’s doing when he wants to give Dean some space. So it’s just Dean here to greet the angel, hunched over the sink to eat his piece of pie without dropping crumbs all over.

“She did not have coffee,” Cas reports, skipping the hello. 

“Huh,” is all Dean can get out, fork freezing halfway to his mouth. 

Cas steps further into the motel room. “Apparently that was a ploy to get me into her apartment.”

“Oh?”

“She kissed me.”

Dean says nothing. He wouldn’t know what without sounding like an asshole. His throat’s suddenly tight and his eyes sting annoyingly.

“I told her, very politely, that I was not interested,” says Cas. 

Dean drops his fork into the sink. “Why?” 

"I don't…," Cas starts. "I wasn't interested."

"You said that," Dean says dryly. "Why not? She's pretty, seemed sharp and funny too and she was obviously into you." He doesn't know why he argues the point when every word is like a nail in his own coffin.

But Cas shakes his head, a little sadly. "It wouldn't be honest."

Dean chews his lower lip, mind racing. "You have pretty high standards, huh."

"The highest," Cas squints at him. "He'd have to be quite a Righteous Man, in fact."

Dean breathes in.

And he breathes out.

"Well, shit, Cas."

Cas' gaze drops to the floor. "It is quite unfortunate a situation…"

"Unfortunate how?"

"Because he doesn't-"

"...Admit he loves you back."

Cas frowns because that clearly wasn’t what he was gonna say but it’s quickly chased away by the small smile that replaces his confusion. "Apparently," he says softly, still a little uncertain. 

"Well, he's an idiot, Cas." 

"It's a very endearing part of his personality. If trying, at times."

Dean shrugs, a grin of his own fighting for control of his features. "As long as you're into it." 

And then he does the bravest thing he ever did.

He pulls Cas into their very first kiss.

It tastes faintly like apple pie.

#SPNStayAtHome #monday 6: jealous #ficlet #spn #destiel #jealous!dean #heli tries to write #deanial #but he fools no one not even himself #i got impatient in the end sorry it's not the best