#cas killed billie to save mary from dean’s deal and cas died with his empty deal to save dean from billie | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

astermacguffin · 3 years

Text

Okay. I warn y'all that this is very much a Poast™. This is another one of Those Poasts™. You have been warned.

I very much blame (affectionate) @autisticandroids for this, since this is pretty much me trying to combine as many concepts as possible from the #mpregpocalypse tag.

In this au, Cas is pretty much just collecting babies left and right. The following stuff are all simultaneously true in this spn mpreg rewrite:

- Cas absorbs the deanlisa baby and carries the child himself. This is his first pregnancy. This is also the most "monstrous" of his children because of the godstiel stuff and the leviathans.

- For maximum effect, I don't want Cas to give birth just yet. I want Benny to see Cas with the baby bump and put the dots together in his head. I want Cas to give birth alone, after Dean and Benny already went through the rift. I want Naomi to take Cas out of purgatory and leave his child alone there. I want Cas to grieve for the loss of his child when he remembers. (We'll go back to this in the future.)

- Dean fucks Casifer at one point and impregnates Cas' body. (I mean, with Casifer peeling off his layers and thotting up the place while in the bunker? Not surprising tbh.) NOTE. I wanna be clear with something: this baby is Dean and Lucifer's nephil. I mean, biologically it's a Destiel baby, but with Cas' grace growing weaker and him being possessed by Lucifer, in terms of grace this is pretty much Lucifer's nephil. (But also not??? Because what allowed the conception to happen in the first place is Cas wanting it SO BAD.)

- No one else notices the conception of this baby because Cas hides it within himself (the same way he did with the deanlisa baby) and pauses the pregnancy at will.

- When Cas meets Kelly, they are very much BOTH pregnant with Lucifer's kid. Remember that screenshot where they both look pregnant and bonding about their babies? Yeah, this is inspired by that. When Cas touches Kelly's baby bump and they like soulbond or whatever, Kelly looks at him and goes "oh you're pregnant too?"

- Cas tells him that it's Dean's child, but leaves out the Lucifer part. They already have one Lucifer nephil in danger, he doesn't need anyone else knowing this secret (especially since he hid the nature of this child so well for so long). Kelly thinks he's hiding it because of the Dean part.

- They both know Kelly's not gonna survive giving birth, so they already have a plan: Cas will transfer the pregnancy to himself when it's almost time for Jack to come out (the same way he did with the deanlisa baby). Cas is confident that he'll survive what Kelly cannot. (His hubris, of course, always tend to bite him back.) Dean, Mary, and Sam arrive just in time to see Cas pregnant and about to give birth. Kelly catches them up on the plot.

- Cas dies of childbirth due to an unexpected complication: the pregnancy transfer triggers the birth of the other child inside him, which makes him give birth to TWO children. The strength of the explosion unfortunately kills both him and Kelly, rendering Cas' sacrifice as pointless. (As much as I wanna keep Kelly alive, the point of this au is to inflict as much damage as possible)

- Lucifer and Mary still get stuck in Apocalypse world, and now Dean and Sam have to care for TWO children, one of which is Jack (who still grows quickly) and...another baby? They have no idea who the fuck this baby is until they find two videos: one made by Kelly and one by Cas (a backup plan they made just in case one or both of them don't survive).

- In the video, Cas reveals that the child is his and Dean's nephil (again, removing the Lucifer part). Dean just takes it in stride (since they had enough sex in the later seasons for it to be a genuine possibility) and takes Cas's word.

- In any other scenario, Sam would definitely be teasing Dean for impregnating Cas. But since Cas is dead and they're still grieving, he shelves this conversation for a future time. (With so much plot happening, Sam never finds the right chance and eventually just forgets it. He's just happy that he was right all along.)

- They agree to never let anyone else learn about the baby's nature, which the baby seems to understand as well, choosing to not manifest any angelic abilities. In fact, the baby internalized Cas' instructions to keep all their secrets under wraps that the kid goes selectively mute throughout the series. (I wanna see Eileen teaching ASL to the kid.)

- The two babies scenario works great for two reasons: it satisfies my "give Dean a baby" instinct (that pretty much drives my baby jack truthing) while still keeping Jack the way that he is in canon.

- Dean lets the baby rest on Cas' chest for a short while before wrapping Cas up with the curtains. Both Dean and the baby cry over the body.

- I want to give Jack as many Problems Disorders in this au. I want him to be jealous of the way Dean treats his twin (because they're pretty much twins, right? They have the same grace-father, they got birthed by the same body, so yeah).

- Dean treats the baby with as much care and love while still treating Jack like shit. Sam once calls him out on it and says "Dean, they're both Cas' children." Dean throws out an "I can hardly look at the freak" rant. Jack wakes up Cas from the Empty, yada yada.

More fucked up shit below the cut:

- I wanna keep this as close to canon as I can, so Dean would still exhibit suicidality before Tombstone. You would think that the baby would at least hinder this instinct, but he genuinely believes that he's poison and that everyone he touches dies. (And besides, Sam is good with both Jack and the baby so they won't need me anymore, right?)

- Cas comes back, and things mostly stay the same as in canon (except there's now a baby there, who honestly won't influence much of the plot until later). Dean never really apologized that much to Jack in canon (and I still hate it) but in this au, it would work perfectly. I want Jack to believe that Dean still sees him as a freak, even if he's a bit nicer now that Cas is back. (I can and will put my entire pussy into the Dean-as-John, Jack-as-Sam parallels.)

- When Jack kills Mary, Cas hides it from Dean and Sam. We're going full Torturewife on this one, folks.

- Jack's truth spell forces Cas to confess that (1) Cas hid the fact about Jack's soullessness; (2) Cas lied about Jack killing Mary, and; (3) the Destiel baby is technically a Dean/Lucifer nephil. Chaos fucking ensues.

- Dean has to confront the fact that both of the kids (HIS kids) are Lucifer's spawn.

- Chuck doesn't really care about the baby since it never manifested any powers (yet), unlike Jack (who is a genuine threat to him).

- Moriah happens, Jack dies. (And it's even more fucked up now because despite being soulless, Jack remembers all the insecurities he got from Dean. The "It's okay, I understand" line Jack says to Dean while having a gun pointed to him is sooooooo.) Rupture happens, their divorce is finalized and Cas takes custody of the baby.

- Cas having some father-child bonding with the baby as a breather between all this fucked up stuff.

- The Trap happens, they make up, and oh? Who's this person who helped Cas escape and get the flower? It's the deanlisa baby, but now grown! Together with Emma! She was thankfully found by her big sister, Emma, when she was a baby in purgatory. She had to grow up fast and now they survive together.

- After eating Eve in order to save Cas, the deanlisa child is now technically the new Mother of monsters. Dean explains the Chuck problem, so the two choose to come with them to help.

- Cas never really explained the deanlisa baby, huh? When they get back with their now grown child (and Emma, who doesn't really hold a grudge over the entire Sam killing her thing) and Cas explains, Dean is baffled but takes it in stride. I mean, they just made up! He doesn't wanna fight with him anymore and he wants the family together again!

- They make the two stay with the baby so they'll be safe in the bunker while they try to trap Chuck with the Mark of Cain spell. It fails, of course. (But hey, at least there was sibling bonding time in the bunker.)

- Billie brings back Jack and they formulate a plan (Billie doesn't go evil in this one btw.) They strengthen Jack, Jack knows that he'll be a bomb and is totally fine with it. "Maybe if I do this one good thing, Dean won't see me as a freak anymore." Remember, Jack internalized a lot of the shit Dean said.

- Cas attempts to call out the self-sacrificial bullshit and that Dean actually loves him, but Jack insists. "You would do the same! In fact, you have done the same! (In reference to the Empty deal, which still happens here btw.) I'm just learning from all of you." If there's one thing I'm obsessed about in fics, it's when Jack calls them out for learning martyrdom from team free will.

- Dean finds out about the plan and tries to talk Jack out of it. They have a heart-to-heart, Dean finally fucking apologizes for all the complexes that he's given Jack, and Jack (for the first time) finally believes that Dean doesn't see him as a monster anymore. Jack stops the process so he doesn't become a bomb (but at least he's stronger than he was before).

- They call Billie to come up with an alternative plan. She considers the options, and says an alternative plan would be harder and would require more players in the field. "As long as we don't have to sacrifice any of our loved ones anymore, we're good," Dean says. "I don't think that's an easy request, but we'll try," Billie says, giving a pointed look at Cas. (Hmmmm, wonder how this would come to play later?)

- Billie points out that the destiel baby is in fact not powerless, but is instead choosing to supress their own power. If the child can be convinced to unlock their own capabilities, then perhaps they might stand a better chance at winning.

- They spread out to gather more allies: Sam goes to Rowena, Dean goes to Michael, Billie goes to Gabriel (yes, he's alive here), and the kids stay in the bunker with Cas to try and explore each other's abilities. (Since I hated the Michael-Lucifer nonsense of 15x19, none of that happens here. Lucifer doesn't go back and Michael doesn't betray them.)

- Jack finds out that he can push out all the energy he gathered for the bomb into a one-time-use blast. They find out that the baby can apparently enhance the power of whoever they're holding. And the new Eve apparently has traces of Godstiel/Leviathan still in her after being in the womb with them. (She also spends the time catching up with Cas because they've not seen each other for years.) Emma is just vibing there, adoring her powerful younger siblings and interrogating her father's...husband? Boyfriend? Ex? (She's still confused about their status.)

- This goes just like in S11, and they go all out and attack Chuck together until he's weak enough for Death's scythe. There's one shot where the kids are just holding hands to power each other for Jack to deliver a fatal blow. Billie is just around the corner, ready for the final blow, when Cas turns to Dean.

- "Dean, I need to say something." Cue the 15x18 confession scene, except this time Dean knows about the deal now. So the moment Dean realizes what Cas is doing, he tries to stop him.

- "Stop, please stop. Don't say it, you don't have to say it." Because of course, happiness is in just being, it's in just saying it. And Dean knows what true happiness would do.

- But unfortunately, Cas has to do it. (Billie talked to him about it, and her scythe won't exactly do a clean job with something as powerful as a Chuck-Amara hybrid. I don't know when or why they fused together since the bomb plan was cancelled, but it happened here okay? Yeah. So they need something that is guaranteed to be older and greater than God or the Darkness—the Empty. Billie can only go there, but she can't summon it to be on Earth. Enter Cas' deal.)

- Cas says "I love you," Dean reciprocates, they share a final kiss, and then Billie finally reaps God. The Empty arrives to take Chuck, and Cas shares one final moment with his kids before accepting his fate.

- Billie goes to the Empty to make sure the job was done, and she finally gives the Shadow the sleep that she promised. She uses her scythe on the Shadow, because death is the final slumber. (Of course, you can't exactly kill nothingness; she only destroyed an embodiment/personification of the Empty.)

- Post-fight. They're happy because Chuck is finally defeated but also...Cas. Before they even have the chance to process what the fuck just happened, Billie is back and she has Cas with her. "I just put the Shadow into sleep, so it's not like anyone would notice," she says. The problem is that Cas is still very much asleep. (He still has some grace here btw. Maybe he's not at full angel anymore, but he's not fully human either. There wasn't a need to cut out his grace without warning.)

- Dean and the kids crowd Cas' body. The baby's touch on Cas's shoulder (which burns a mark that parallels Dean's) is what wakes him up. Reunion kiss!

- Happy ending! Michael (with Adam) goes back to heaven to fix things, and they are very much implied to be a couple. Midam rights babyyyyyy! Gabriel goes back to roaming the world and occasionally visits the kids.

- Sam and Eileen organizes a hunter's network and organizes a bunch of safety protocols and rehabilitation projects with the help of the new Eve (which most monsters obey, key word most). Oh, and Saileen definitely swings regularly with Rowena (and occasionally with Gabriel when he's around).

- Emma decides that she likes hanging out with the Wayward Sisters better (and you know what? Good for her). The new Eve decides to hang out there often as well (whenever she isn't busy with monster diplomacy or something).

- When Jack finally feels safe and peaceful enough, he reverts back to his child form. The baby, who has been selectively mute this entire time, holds their brother's face in recognition and utters their first word, which is "JACK!" Dean and Cas cry in joy over this entire exchange. (That's his twin! He missed his twin!)

- They move out of the bunker to get their own house by a lake or something. Whenever the topic of pregnancy comes up again ("Dean, when do you want another baby again?"), they can now playfully joke about it and Dean says something like "Don't steal someone else's baby again, okay? The next baby to be inside you needs to be mine." They're both stupidly horny about the subject, I hate them so much.

- Whenever there's an important event, they all celebrate it in the bunker for the extra space (because their family is, indeed, very large). END.

There's something poetic to me about the Empty being the one that beats Chuck in this mpreg rewrite because technically, the Empty is the Original Womb that gave birth to God. It it the nothingness of potential, the dark water of pregnant beginnings.

All this talk about the Empty and stuff also made me stop and think about the metaphysics of spn. The fact that the Darkness and the Empty are two distinct entities says something interesting about the metaphysical reality of spn. It doesn't treat darkness as a mere absence of light, a mere nothingness, but rather a thing/substance of its own. It's a very Manichean kind of metaphysics as opposed to a Platonic/Neoplatonic one. (Oh, St. Augustine would probably have a blast trying to unravel whatever the fuck is happening with spn.)

The fact that it's also Cas' free will that brought upon God's demise? Delicious.

(If you're still reading, congratulations for finishing my very long spn mpreg rewrite. Why did you do this to yourself tho.)

(also apologies if I didn't give a name to Jack's siblings. I haven't thought of a good name for them just yet)

#spn #destiel #mpregpocalypse #long post #literally what the fuck is this post #aster writes #spn mpreg rewrite #tw suicide #tw mpreg

164 notes · View notes

mittensmorgul · 3 years

Note

So for the most part, I outright reject the finale. But I do think, in light of the whole "Jimmy was supposed to be in the bar, and Dean was disappointed by that because his perfect heaven would have Cas in it" just makes me all the more convinced that the final episode was some kind of djinn dream. Like.... There's no other explanation in my opinion. If Dean's perfect heaven was supposed to have Cas, and he tragically gets faked out by Jimmy (????? Why tf would jimmy be there anyway), it just proves that it's not ACTUALLY heaven. That, along with he El Sol beer he's drinking is all the evidence I need. I think after 15x19, Dean and Sam got whammied by some monster, and are stuck in a hallucination, and that's what we're seeing. (My headcanon is that it's actually The Empty doing it, because it knows if it doesn't keep Dean and Sam occupied and spinning in circles, they'll invade the Empty to save Cas. So its trying to prevent that) :)

Hello, anon friendo! I am gonna start by offering the socially distanced version of a high five, because yeah... There is just so much to unpack here, and you provided such a succinct and all-encompassing series of statements to start from. Thank you!

*flings open array of questionable suitcases*

First off, Congrats on having rejected the finale. I know a lot of folks are still struggling with that one, for many reasons. But you have hit upon so many of the points I’ve been trying to make about the finale since it aired. I’d just like to start with some of the assumptions I’ve heard from folks about the finale that make it impossible for me to consider it fully honestly canon. Because so much about it just makes no goshdang sense... like... not at all...

One of the biggest issues I have surrounding the reception of the finale in parts of fandom is that it portrayed a “happy ending.” The show itself spent the entire final season telling us that a gravestone marked Winchester was not and never would be a happy ending (thank you Becky Rosen-- words I never thought I’d say, but honestly and most sincerely meant). Let’s break this down a bit.

Starting from the assumption that “heaven was fixed” so that characters could have true free will there, making it satisfying in any way that Dean died so young and never got to truly experience happiness during life, I would like anyone who has adopted this attitude to then explain Kansas the band. I mean... explain that in any satisfactory canon-compliant way. (hint: you can’t. it makes zero sense in canon, if heaven is truly reformed and “happy” with everyone in possession of free will.)

Which brings me to Misha’s comments about Jimmy being in the Roadhouse. Why, if heaven were truly fixed, would Jimmy ever in a bazillion years attend a party for Dean Winchester? If Heaven were truly a “happy” ending for Dean, why introduce this element of eternal tragedy and heartbreak to his heaven experience? Why taunt him with the eternal loss of Cas-- even if you don’t think he reciprocated Cas’s romantic feelings, he was canonically the best friend Dean ever had, and being forced to exist forever in a place where he had everyone else he ever cared for except for Cas? Is frankly horrific.

How the actual fuck is that a happy ending, in any sense of the word?

How is this the sort of heaven that Dean would’ve made for himself before it was “fixed?” At least in the memorex heaven, he could’ve lived in oblivious peace with Cas, even if it was always just his own memories and not ~actually Cas~. I honestly think that would’ve been happier than the abject tragedy of what we did get, and what we would’ve gotten had the original script played out.

All of this kind of makes me wonder if they ever even actually defeated Chuck. Like... it feels more like Dean got pulled into the Empty at that moment with Cas and Billie, and everything else after that point was the Empty’s endless experience of sorrow and despair we knew it subject its charges to. So that’s one potential for what could’ve actually happened. I mean, everything about the finale was sorrow and despair, you know? Dean didn’t even get to enjoy his pie at a pie festival because Sam smashed in in his face. How is any of it happy, in any way?

Because if that was actually heaven, there wasn’t actually any free will (because why tf would Kansas the band have chosen to put on that concert? why tf would Jimmy have been there, just to torment Dean with the taunt of Cas returning to him only to have that hope snatched away again? It’s cruel. It’s, in fact, a source of intense despair).

The djinn theory could also work, and I’ve read some excellent fix-it fic using that as a premise. But that doesn’t really explain what happened to Jack (and Amara, since she was in there with them) after hoovering up Chuck’s power, you know? I think the simplest explanations in canon are that Chuck actually won via the unified power of Light and Dark being transferred into Jack and effectively using him as a vessel. With Sam and Dean convinced they’d won, they effectively stopped resisting Chuck’s story for them, and using Jack’s understanding of humanity and the Winchesters specifically, Chuck finally was able to implement a version of his story that the Winchesters would just waltz into without thinking it was supernaturally influenced at all. Going bigger and bigger with monsters and cosmic troubles hadn’t worked, but going so small Sam and Dean would barely even notice the influence-- even with the incongruous reappearance of a vampire that appeared in their lives once, for like two whole minutes 15 years ago, and an unsolved case from the journal from more than 30 years ago that John had never even linked to vampires at all.

At this point, I need to mention that I’m watching 10.23 as I type this up. An episode in which we confront the Mark, along with Death, and Dean’s despair, where he learns a version of the truth (but by no means the full truth, or even accurate truth in some respects) about Chuck’s Story, Amara/The Darkness, etc. That would unfold more fully over the next five seasons. And what was the case Dean took in this episode? Vampires. LOLOL omg this show is nothing if not horrifically consistent, yes?

So because of this, I went haring off through my own blog looking for a post I made a long time ago about the symbolism of how various monsters are used on this show (because again, consistency). I got sidetracked by other posts in my monsters tag, including this from after 15.09 aired, which feels particularly awfully relevant. This was my reaction to Chuck’s Story he showed Sam in that episode, about what the future would look like should he successfully trap Chuck with a Mark, and which... yeah is basically exactly thematically consistent with what we saw in the finale, right down to a cheesy twist on vampires. Read the whole post right here, but this is the part that reached up and punched me in the face:

this is how Dean personally reacts when he loses Cas. We know how he reacts when he loses anyone else– think about what he did when Charlie died. He went on a murder rampage against the Stynes for killing her. When Mary died he broke some furniture and went full bore toward both resurrecting her and stopping Jack. But without Cas, Dean loses the will to fight. Sam has… always been different. He referenced Jess in 15.04 to remind us of how he was after she died in the pilot episode. Just like John, he picked up the revenge mission and ran with it. But for Dean, Cas is different. Without Cas… Dean gives up.

Because... Dean gave up. Sure, he and Sam weren’t overrun by vampires in the end. Chuck knew they’d never stop fighting the monsters, one way or another. The only way to get Dean to give up is something Chuck hadn’t quite figured out yet... maybe not until after 15.17, after confronting Cas in the hallway of the bunker, after absorbing Amara’s power, knowledge, and perspective on Dean.

Chuck needed Dean to give up, and honestly? Pushing Billie to clear him off the table and send him (and Cas, that pesky angel who never did what he was told) to the Empty would’ve been a direct way to deal with that... pretty much akin to having one sibling locked in a cage forever, yes?

Also, still looking through my monsters tag, I’m reminded of 14.15, and still cannot differentiate the version of Heaven in 15.20 from what was done to the people of that town. This... is not... paradise. This is actively what Dean has been insisting is the OPPOSITE of paradise since like… 4.22… No ending where Dean was a “Stepford bitch in paradise” ever had the possibility of being “happy,” at the core of things, and this “fixed” version of Heaven just doesn’t hold up to any degree of inspection. Something is seriously wrong here. https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/183465650390/so-can-we-talk-about-this-monster-of-the-week-for

And since I was unable to find the post I wrote who knows how long ago about Monsters and how they’re symbolically used on Supernatural to represent larger themes in the episode, I’ll just attempt to sum up what Vampires have been used for. Revenge. Vampires are always, in some way connected to themes of revenge.

(and hooray, I found at least a post adjacent to the one I’ve spent the last four hours trying to find... https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/187207052080/i-obviously-did-not-think-this-through, where I mention that shapeshifters are about revealing hidden truths (mostly about Dean since most shapeshifters are connected to Dean), zombies are about grief and the inability to move past it.)

So why... why at the end of their road is the monster that comes after them-- literally FOR REVENGE for something that had never been blamed on Sam or Dean to begin with, from season 1, directly connected to John’s revenge mission and the first time they learned about the Colt AND the first time they learned in canon that Vampires were even real... like... this feels very specifically like some kind of layers-of-meta levels of shade on them, you know? Vampires are for revenge, so what vengeance exactly is being visited upon Sam and Dean in this episode? If not Chuck’s entire story for them itself?

So yeah, 100% agree, something is incredibly rotten in the finale. And I am sick to effing death of people trying to convince us that anything about this was “good” or “happy” or “satisfying” in any way. Or even “how it was always supposed to end” with Dean dead bloody, as if the entire back half of the series hadn’t been suggesting that a true win was the subversion of all of Chuck’s story for them, and Dean finally being able to have his chosen family all alive, happy, and chilling on a beach somewhere watching the sunset. Nothing will ever convince me that the ending portrayed in 15.20 wasn’t exactly how Chuck thought he “won,” rendering it entirely irrelevant to the rest of canon, unless all of canon was ultimately the tragedy we’d been encouraged to believe would be firmly defeated in the end.

Folks, you can’t have it both ways.

#spn 15.20 #chuck's process #if this was the 'happy' ending for dean they sure did fail big time to make it actually happy!#it makes me feel sick thinking that dean's happy heaven ending was more like an eternal pit of torment #like actively tormenting him and taunting him with the fact that cas was truly gone forever #like wow they went all the fuck out to make it clear that even in heaven #dean would never be allowed to respond to cas's declaration of love #like... it's the most hurtful and hateful thing the show could possibly have done to us #and it still fucks me up knowing there's people who think this heaven was a 'good' ending for dean #like... fuck that entirely and with extreme prejudice #i feel like i have not been emphatic enough about my absolute hatred for this episode in these tags #but sadly there are limitations to expressing the actual feelings i'm feeling in the english language #sometimes the only effective word for these feelings involves velociraptor screeching #Anonymous

122 notes · View notes

chessieshire · 3 years

Text

Processing my thoughts here.

I've been rewatching Cas and Dean scenes and moments where I know they talk about each other to analyze their reactions. Why? Because I wanted to assess for myself how I think Dean feels about Cas. I like to think I have pretty good intuition or so I've been told throughout my life. Track record of it is pretty good with the results.

When you grow up walking on eggshells having to assess people's behavior and emotions in order to protect yourself and others it becomes a necessary survival skill.

So what do I think so far? Ok so Dean is definitely bi so let's get that out of the way.

I personally think Dean has been subconsciously attracted to Cas and has felt love for him as a best friend or brother up until season 12 when I believe Dean actually fell in deep love with Cas.

I believe the moment Dean fell in love with Cas was when Cas killed Billy to save the 3 of them and then says he doesn't care if he loses his own life as a consequence.

I think before that moment Dean really did feel dead inside from being locked up in solitude for almost 2 months. Then when Cas made that huge risk to his own life to save theirs I believe it brought Dean's emotions back to life. Like a cosmic jumpstart.

Obviously Dean's an emotionally suppressed dum dum (I am too it takes one to know one) that he wasn't aware of falling in love with Cas he was just reacting to his frustrations, confusions, and concern for Cas and the "cosmic consequences". Hence the marital bickering in the next episode.

I believe that Dean started to realize he was in love with Cas when he almost died by the poisonous/venomous lance. When Cas said he loves him looking at Dean and loves them all. Dean started to realize he loved him romantically as he almost lost him again but probably still didn't "get" what kind of love Cas meant towards him.

Then Dean's dealing with too much confusion about it. He was so upset with Cas leaving and not responding to his messages it triggered his abandonment issues while Mary was also "needing space" at the same time that made those triggers worse. He had told Cas previously that he's his and Sam's best friend and brother (probably to observe his reaction to that to get a hint of how Cas felt) but he's obtuse so he probably felt like Cas loved him like a bro.

Not to mention season 7 when Dean is telling Kevin that he doesn't believe angels have the equipment to care and when they try they breakdown.

So I can see how it never occurred to him about Cas being in love with him and why he'd continue to suppress his own emotions and try distracting them with countless women. Despite cutting down on the sexual conquests in the last few seasons because they probably didn't work much anymore as a distraction and he got a piece of the void filled with merely Cas's friendship.

Edited to add: (oh shit how could I forget to point out?! So the last time Dean canonically had sex was season 12 episode 18 while Cas was missing and Dean was extremely upset with him. Dean was trying to distract his feelings about Cas and it no longer worked in my opinion. He looked more distracted than usual and when he told Sam how his night was he had to say awesome 3 times like he was trying to convince himself. Hence the last time he sleeps with a woman. From this point on Dean doesn't have anymore one night stands. ...carry on...)

Without a doubt Dean was unsure if angels in general could actually fall in love and felt like it was less painful to not pursue a romantic relationship due to the job and how either one of them could die for any reason.

If Cas had been human and there were no more monsters and demons and supernatural shit to hurt and kill people I'm confident that they would've been hooking up. It would've ruled out the complicated job risks and made clear that Cas is capable of feeling romantic love for somebody.

The times that Dean was actually angry at Cas and not "pretend angry but actually worried" were because he was offended that Cas didn't trust him and that Cas took off without an explanation or response. It just added to Dean's fears of Cas being incapable of feeling true love for him because he's an angel.

When Dean prayed to Cas in season 15 I think he was going to finally confess he loved him. But time was of the essence. As it always is and then they never get a moment after that to really talk to each other until Cas confessed his love.

Edit: Can I check this one off?! Because it really does sound like Dean says, "I...(breathy pause) I-love...(huff pause) you-don't know why I get so angry." *thinks* Yeahhhh it counts dammit! ✅

The episode after Dean's confession is Garth showing him being with someone is possible with their complicated backgrounds and jobs and he dances with a lamp and blows it a kiss. Whether or not the lamp really is a stand in for Cas it definitely is a representation of something or someone Dean truly wants.

He yearns for sharing love with someone.

Edit: Can I sorta check this one off? Ehhhh...maybe??? The guy that plays Garth (sorry I don't want to misspell the actor's name) stated that there was hidden subtext for romantic love with Dean and another character. He didn't say the subtext was "lamp" though since he thought this scene was meant to be fun...but...I think maybe it still could be if he was unaware of it. Since I'm hearing the dance choreographer says there's deeper meaning.

In season 11 Dean asked Jesse and his husband Cesar about what was it like settling down with a hunter. He was thinking about it! He wanted to know not only for Sam but for himself as well! He asked a GAY COUPLE which clues me in on maybe because they made him think of him and Cas. Maybe subconsciously anyway.

Dean never gets the opportunity to express how he truly feels other than anger, forgiveness, and brotherly love towards people and that's some toxic masculinity bullshit!

When Cas left to the Empty Dean was completely breaking down not just because he lost Cas but because he felt he lost his only chance at a happy life with a significant other who understands him.

And then the next episodes made no fucking sense. Read a bit like "oh well now I'm relieved I didn't have to confess my deep love for a dude and can move on! Mmmmmm...pie!"

(my phone autocorrected to "mmmmmm... Pierre" and I was like 👀 even my phone's like Dean is bi and looking for a french dude to take his mind off Cas lolll)

So to summarize...Dean Winchester loves Castiel and the last 2 episodes is some outrageous bullshit and I'll never get over it unless by some miracle Jensen obtains the rights to the show and fixes it!

248 notes · View notes

postmodernmulticoloredcloak · 3 years

Note

I would love for you to talk more indepth about the montage. To me it feels so off and weird. Almost like a parody? So many scenes in it are "funny" moments that just don't make sense in the context of an emotional overview of the road so far... (Like all the scenes where Dean is eating, Donna with donut dust on her face, Sam getting hit during the game show.) I don't know. Isn't the montage supposed to make me nostalgic, teary-eyed? This one definitely doesn't do it for me!

Here I am! Yes, I absolutely agree. The montage is Weird(TM). It’s kind of a tone rollercoaster. It’s very full of funny/silly moments, with some serious moments smacked in. And it definitely looks like... there’s something about it.

For an easier consultation I will reference the gifs I have made of the montage sequence here.

[Gif 1] It starts pretty much like I’d expect a Supernatural goodbye montage to start. The two brothers meeting for the first time in the pilot, a reminder of their childhood with John, their banter still from the pilot, a couple moments of them driving in the car in the first seasons, Dean saving Lucas in 1x03 which is the first Dean-heavy episode and also an extremely symbolic moment for Dean’s entire journey - just think at how Lucas as a mirror was still relevent during the “drowning” Michael possession arc. Everything feels normal so far. We’re starting from the beginning! Now--

[Gif 2] Interesting and weird choices start here. Them pretending to be high school teachers from After School Special 4x13 - actually a very iconic moment for the fandom, remember that post of Dean in shorts from that episode that you had to reblog when it came on your dash? (Actually I’m not sure if I ever reblogged it lol.) Dean celebrating getting young again from The Curious Case of Dean Winchester 5x07 (and Jensen showing off his agility). The two of them showing their FBI badges to Jesse Turner’s biological mother in 5x06. Dean mowing the lawn of Mary’s house in the Djinn dream and immediately after Jess and Sam kissing also in the Djinn dream, from What Is And What Should Never Be 2x20. Then Dean after killing the witch when he was under the memory loss spell, in Regarding Dean 12x11. Sam happy when they celebrate Christmas in A Very Supernatural Christmas 3x08. Them being “lucky” under the effect of the rabbit’s foot in Bad Day At Black Rock 3x03. Sam also happy in Baby 11x04.

Again the present, then the montage starts again with the water-related ghost from Red Sky At Morning 3x06, a Bela episode, and then Bela herself from her first episode, 3x03 again.

What do these moments have in common? Not all of them, but for many of them I’d say reality being manipulated. The Djinn dream, the rabbit foot, Dean’s aging, the Antichrist... and it’s not over yet. Also, them pretending to be teachers, agents etc - not “real”.

[Gif 3] The tone suddenly gets more serious and relevant to current events: Chuck in The Monster at the End of This Book 4x18 (eh). Death in Two Minutes to Midnight 5x21 (the first appearance of Death, while now we’ve had Billie’s last and a very short-lived new one), and then two major moments from Lazarus Rising - Dean emerging from the grave and finding the handprint on his shoulder. Crowley’s first episode, Abandon All Hope 5x10. Zachariah’s death in Point Of No Return 5x18. Anna from The Song Remains The Same 5x13, where she is the antagonist having been brainwashed successfully by heaven. Michael burning and Sam jumping in the cage with Michael in 5x22, then another moment from 4x01 (the brothers hugging after reuniting). A moment from The French Mistake 6x15 (reality fuckery again!). Sam in Frontierland 6x18.

[Gif 4] Reality fuckery continues with Becky marrying Sam in 7x08. Funnily enough, this is the peak of Becky’s obsessive behavior which she went to therapy for and grew away of - it definitely emphasizes how far Becky has come. Donna’s first appeance in 9x13. That iconic shot of Dean in Bloodlust 2x03 because he’s pretty. Charlie’s first appearance in 7x20 while she dances to Walking On Sunshine (relevant?), Kevin’s first appearance in 7x21 when he becomes a prophet (lots of firsts). Abaddon’s first appearance in As Time Goes By 8x12. Then there’s the first appearance of the bunker, in the next episode, a couple shots in fact. Then more 4x01, Ruby pretending to mistake Dean for the pizza man (eh). Then more present...

This section seems to be mostly “first appearances” - including Ruby’s s4 meatsuit, i.e. Genevieve’s first appearance.

[Gif 5] We suddenly jump to more recent events with Kelly and Jack in heaven in Byzanthium 4x08. Jack’s iconic hello from 4x16 Don’t Go In The Woods. Dean teaching Jack how to drive in 14x07 Unhuman Nature. But then we suddenly go from Jack things to something completely different on the surface: two consecutive moments from Changing Channels 5x08, including the iconic Nutcracker scene, and Sully from Just My Imagination. We are actually back to the previous theme: reality fuckery. Gabriel’s episode was about placing them in “television shows”, Sully, while real, is literally a child’s “imaginary friend”. And then... a moment from the cartoon part of Scoobynatural! It doesn’t get more reality fuckery than that. Oh, wait! Charlie and Dorothy going to Oz in 9x04. That’s a pretty strong contender. Dean being hit in the face by a fairy in 6x09 - also about a realm Dean briefly went to. And, in case we felt like we hadn’t gotten enough 4x01 yet, Pamela’s first appearance (her last, albeit a hallucination, was about the whole “How come you only want what you can't have?” thing).

[Gif 6] We continue again with a mixture of firsts and weird things. Ellen’s first appearance in 2x02, Dean and Cas in 4x18 (we saw Chuck from that episode earlier), Jody’s first appearance in 5x15 Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. Rufus in 6x04 Weekend At Bobby’s (not his first but a good episode...), Garth in 9x12 Sharp Teeth (not his first but the first in which he is a werewolf and is married... relevant to recent lamp events??), Missouri in 1x09 (her first appearance).

Then Gabriel from 13x21 Beat The Devil (an episode where he plays a trick on Lucifer) and Rowena from the same scene (in fact a scene where they’re flirting). Then Eileen coming back to life in 15x06 and smiling at Sam. Jo flirting with Dean in 2x02 - her first appearance, again. Funnily enough, she had been introduced as a love interest, but ended up being repurposed as a sisterly figure. Tempted to say it’s relevant in an ironic way. Mary in 14x11 Damaged Goods, when Dean has a goodbye mother-son moment with her. Amara in 11x09 Oh Brother Where Art Thou when she was looking for her brother. Then Lucifer in two different vessels (12x07 Rock Never Dies and 12x21, when Lucifer regains control over the vessel).

Then Metatron doing the find a wife make babies speech to Cas in 8x23! Relevant??? Dun dun dun. Then Ketch for some reason (the first episode where we see his face, 12x08 LOTUS).

[Gif 7] Then Jo/Anael in 13x13, another first appearance. (I cropped these horribly I should have cut them when the present happens lol.)

Sandwiched between two shots from the present, Dean Sam Mary and John having dinner together in 14x13 Lebanon.

Then we start again with Dean riding Larry in 12x11, Dean and Cas dressed as cowboys in 13x06 (mini pattern here...), Asmodeus with the archangel blade in 13x13 (insert meta about Asmodeus in Christian lore here), and the really intriguing “Intermission” shot from the play in 10x05.

[Gif 8] To continue a certain pattern we might be tempted to see, Dean eating piecake from 14x06 Optimism (an episode about a distorted version of romantic love), then Dean eating noodles from 10x13 Halt & Catch Fire (the ghost is a husband that passes on thanks to his wife). Dean after his dentistry session with Garth in 15x10. Meg from 6x10 Caged Heat (the episode with the pizza man porn). Dean and Sam investigating in 4x12 Criss Angel Is a Douchebag (an episode about growing old poorly). Crowley in 10x16 Paint It Black (that episode). Dean playing that game in 14x17 Game Night (the episode Cas calls for God, and when Mary dies - the one playing the game was God...). Sam and Dean getting out of the car in 13x05 when they visit the traumatized kid (peak mourning Dean episode...). Then we go into reality fuckery territory again with 14x15 Peace of Mind, Sam under the psychic’s control and Cas disgruntled about it.

[Gif 9] Mick Davies from 12x16 Ladies Drink Free, when he learnt a lesson about monsters. Dean geeking out about the Hatchet Man - so heavy with mirror significances - in 14x04 Mint Condition. Belphegor - Jack’s dark mirror - in 15x03 The Rupture, the break-up episode. Donna’s first episode again, this time Dean and she eating donuts. Dean, Sam and Mary hugging in 12x22 after the confrontation in Mary’s head. Kaia in 13x09 The Bad Place, when Jack uses her to find the way to where Mary is (Mary pattern?). Claire&co rescuing Jody and Donna in 13x10 Wayward Sisters. Dean in 1944 dresses as a sailor in 11x14 The Vessel. Baby nyooming in 15x11 The Gamblers...

Aaand more Changing Channels, the genital herpes ad. It’s almost like reality fuckery is a theme. Followed by Sam drinking the anti-cold concoction at Garth’s in 15x10 and the two of them outside the monster fighting pit in the same episode. Then Cas, Dean, Sam and Jack on a video call with Ketch in 14x09 The Spear when they talk about the egg to trap Michael.

[Gif 10] We stay in the same episode with the four of them heading to Michael. Then the four of them celebrating Jack’s return to life (after Cas’ deal with the Empty). More present, and then the iconic “we’ve got work to do” [trunk closes] moment from the pilot.

So: some of these moments seem like genuine moments you’ll want to put in a montage, but there’s a weird predominance of characters smiling and looking happy or goofy. It’s kind of... not exactly representative of the show as a whole, you know? There are moments that fit as, you know, iconic steps in the story, but surprisingly few, and many moments you’d expect to be in a “final” montage are blatantly not there. Several moments with, let’s put it like this, suspicious meta connotations. Moments that, well, we don’t know what happens in the finale yet, but smell like they might be relevant to future developments. (Metatron’s speech to newly human Cas anyone?)

What really strikes me is the amount of moments connected to reality being manipulated or distorted in some way. Lots of Changing Channels, fantasy elements of various kinds (the Djinn dream, Scoobynatural, Oz, the imaginary friend Becky’s wedding to Sam, the fairy, ...), them acquiring luck (s3) or losing it (s15), and so on. It’s almost like the sequence is telling us something...

Thoughts?

#anon #my spn thoughts #spn meta #spn 15x19 #spn

139 notes · View notes

verobatto · 4 years

Text

Destiel Chronicles

Vol. LXXIX

It was a love story from the very beginning.

All For You (Part II)

(12x09)

Hello everyone! I'm here again with another meta from this series.

This time I'm gonna talk about episode 9 from season 12 "First Blood".

The episode is a picture of Cas' fears and insecurities. We have a face to face with his depression. But also is a prelude to his dead.

I failed

When you rewatch the episode knowing Cas is going to die and go to the Empty, what officer Camp says to Dean in the maximum security jail takes another relevance, and we can spot s huge foreshadow of what the Empty will mean to Castiel.

CAMP: See, when I leave, that door closes, and it stays closed, and you stay in the dark. Now, maybe that doesn’t sound so bad. But after a month? A year? You spend enough time staring at these walls, just you and all that nothing, you’ll get so crazy to talk, to see someone real, you’ll tell me exactly what I need. You’ll tell me with a smile.

Taking the symbolism in all these words, is quite a forced meditation. You and the nothing. An introspection, the loneliness, this will be Cas in the Empty. Cas will face himself, by himself I mean his fears, his insecurities, his depression. That's why the Empty will take his own form. And that way the Empty will be helping Cas to face his own darkness. Camp is using the nothing, and darkness as a weapon to break man and make them talk, but the Empty will use it to break Castiel and put him back to sleep, with a huge difference, it won't brake Cas but will make him stronger.

We will have a first dialogue between Cas and Mary, in which Mary will make Cas responsible for loosing his sons. But Castiel will replied pointing at Mary's responsibility too, and the woman will end up saying, they're both guilty.

MARY: You left them.

CASTIEL: No, I… Dean told me to go. The woman--

MARY: The one you lost?

CASTIEL: I didn’t. I… I thought that she--

MARY: Stop making excuses.

Mary is that voice of guilty in Castiel's head, making him suffer and being more depressed. Like someone inside of him telling him all the things he did wrong, another foreshadow of the Empty facing him in the darkness.

MARY: Why… if they needed help, why didn’t they call me?

CASTIEL: You were out.

MARY: [sighs] How did we let this happen, Castiel?

Mary takes the responsibility too here. She recognizes her own mistakes too. Because is not just Cas'fault.

Another picture of Castiel's depression is how deep he felt he couldn't solve a case, and how coming back from the Empty will give him more strenghts and more confidence in himself to solve cases by himself.

But in the meantime, we have another sad picture of his depression...

CASTIEL: I saw it on the news and I thought, that’s the sort of thing Sam and Dean would investigate. They would roll into town, save the day, kill the monsters. But with them gone… I tried to work the case. I tried. But… I don’t know what I did wrong. I… I asked questions, but maybe they were the wrong people, or the wrong questions, and I just-- I never found it. Never found the monster. Never even got close. And three more women died before I left town. Before I ran away.

He's calling himself here a coward, by using the words 'running away', and he names his failures, pointing at how important are Dean and Sam to the world. Words he will repeat at the end of this episode after killing Billie.

MARY: So we go back. You and me.

CASTIEL: No, no. I'd only get in your way.

And now Castiel is calling himself useless.

From Longing in the dark to cosmic consequences

The scene with Dean in the jail that cuts to Cas sitting in the bunker, in the middle of the darkness, is a prelude too at what Cas in the Empty and Dean longing for him in real life will be, but in reverse. The longing.

Gif credit @blueredeye2

When Dean and Sam die and then resurrect, and then Dean calls Castiel. They pictured a phone ringing alone in the bunker. A failed first attempt, but then, Castiel picks up. This could be a foreshadow of how Dean will pray to Chuck and Cas to get him back, but it won't work at first... Helped with the lovers longing and some magic from a nephilim, it will work the second attempt.

The first person Dean calls after be or from the jail is CASTIEL, NOT MARY, BUT CASTIEL. This is very relevant because it's showing us that evidently, Dean was longing strongly for his angel.

And Cas not being able to find Dean and Sam shows us that my theory about how his grace lowers when he's depressed. There's an important connection between Castiel's feelings with his powers.

Now, let's check that phone call...

DEAN: Cas.

CASTIEL: Dean?

DEAN: Hey, buddy. Long time.

This denotes Dean missed him.

CASTIEL: What… What happened? Wh-- where are you?

DEAN: You wouldn’t believe me, and I have no clue. Uh…

Dean is hiding their deal with Billie, Sam didn't expect he would do that to Cas...

SAM: You didn’t tell him?

DEAN: No.

Dean only said they're running out of time. To make Cas to hurry.

The world needs you.

I laughed so hard because when those agents talked with Dean by phone, this line appeared...

DEAN: Well, what we have here is a failure to communicate.

Okay, foreshadow of Destiel misscomunication of the whole season 13/14 and 15! We should know it! 🤣

But also, notice how Dean is avoiding to talk with Sam about the deal, about who will go with Billie, of course because we know who will offer himself willingly to die for everyone: Dean.

So, to Dean, there's nothing to talk about.

Let's talk about the reunion. The reactions (oh yes, we are gonna talk about reactions a lot here) when Cas found them, Dean is like in awe to see him, and the one hugging him first is Sam. A beautiful hug and a beautiful scene. Dean didn't expect Cas to be there, that's the only explanation to his reaction. Then he goes for his hug, and Castiel's face always break my heart... That angel was very sad and depressed in this season. Damn.

Gif credit @spnsmile

Now, let's talk about the car, because Dean is the first born, and sorry for the little brothers here, but first born goes in the front seat with the father/mother driving hahahahaa. And yes, I'm a first born and I know very well my rights.

But Dean is in the back seat this time... Why? Because his angel is in the back seat, you know? And he is about to die? Yes, little detail. So there's this head canon out there, where people say Dean was about to confess something or to say goodbye to his angel and even that he held his hand over there... IDK, I like these ideas but... I will just keep the one I have clues for... Because Dean confessing his love will take a lot of work. We are still waiting for it, right?

Gif set credit @haloless 👇

But, I do believe, he was trying to talk about Billie and the deal, and we failed at doing it. That's why the longing stare, and Cas puzzled face saying "What's going on?" And Dean "Damn, I couldn't use my words, again."

And then we have Billie, and Mary trying to go with her, and then Cas kills the reaper.

And cosmic consequences, and Cas speech that conquered each Winchester's heart over there, but the reactions are different, so, let's check his speech...

DEAN: Cas, what have you done?

CASTIEL: What had to be done. You know this world-- this sad, doomed little world-- it needs you. It needs every last Winchester it can get, and I will not let you die. I won’t let any of you die. And I won’t let you sacrifice yourselves. You mean too much to me. To everything. Yeah, you made a deal. You made a stupid deal, and I broke it. You’re welcome.

Gif set credit @inacatastrophicmind 👇

Okay, Cas is too cute, but faces people's, FACES, Sam and Mary are very touched. But Dean??? Damn... Dean is so, so in love. Is like if we could read his mind, yelling : "YES CAS, YOU MEAN TO MUCH FOR ME TOO, MARRY ME RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, LET'S MAKE A LITTLE NEPHILIM."

The thing is, again, we have different reactions, writers are showing us the difference between ROMANTIC LOVE (Dean) and FAMILY LOVE (Sam and Mary).

To Conclude:

This episode gave is a sad picture of Castiel's sadness and depression.

The foreshadow of the Empty, and how Cas will face himself, and will come back stronger from the darkness.

It also shows us the difference between family love and romantic love, and one interesting hint about what Destiel misscomunication will be.

Hope you liked this one, see you in the next meta!

Tagging @magnificent-winged-beast @emblue-sparks @weird-dorky-little-deana @michyribeiro @whyjm @legendary-destiel @a-bit-of-influence @thatwitchydestielfan @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @lykanyouko @evvvissticante @savannadarkbaby @dea-stiel @poorreputation @bre95611 @thewolfathedoor @charlottemanchmal @neii3n @deathswaywardson @followyourenergy @dean-is-bi-till-i-die @hekatelilith-blog @avidbkwrm @anarchiana @dickpuncher365 @vampyrosa @authorsararayne @mybonsai1976 @love-neve-dies @dustythewind @wayward-winchester67 @angelwithashotgunandtrenchcoat @trashblackrainbow @deeutdutdutdoh @destiel-shipper-11 @larrem88 @charmedbycastiel @ran-savant @little-crazy-misha-minion @samoosetheshipper

@shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @mishtho @dancingtuesdaymorning @nerditoutwithbooks @mikennacac73 @justmeand-myinsight @idontwantpeopletoknowmyname @teddybeardoctor @pepevons @helevetica @isthisdestiel @dizzypinwheel @jawnlockwinchester @horsez2 @qanelyytha

@destielle @agusvedder @spnsmile @shippsblog @robot-feels @superlock-in-the-tardis @superduckbatrebel @2musiclover2 @nickelkit @anon-non2 @cea1996

If you want to be added or removed from this list, just let me know.

If you want to read the previous metas From this season, here you have the links:

Vol. LXXV, LXXVI, LXXVII and LXXVIII.

Buenos Aires, September 15th 2020 5:38 AM

64 notes · View notes

nellie-elizabeth · 3 years

Text

Supernatural: Despair (15x18)

I'm having an out of body experience, I cannot believe this. Last night was legitimately one of the weirdest nights of my life, and not just because of *gestures broadly* but also because of *gestures broadly* and myriad other small but still totally bizarre personal things coming at me from all angles... strap in, y'all, I've got some shit to say.

Cons:

We're gonna talk about it. Ohhhh, we're gonna talk about it. But let's start with some other shit before we get there.

So... are we ignoring "Dean was willing to let Jack sacrifice himself" or something? Like there was that moment with Sam and Dean where they talked about it, and Dean apologizes for pulling a gun on Sam, and Sam is like "oh it's okay Dean, no worries." But at the beginning of this episode, Dean seems to be just as worried for Jack, and as protective of him, as the others, with absolutely no acknowledgment of what happened in the last episode. This... should have mattered. There should have been some regrouping and some serious talks about this. Seriously.

The Thanos snap thing... guys, when Infinity War did it in 2018, it was kind of fun and shocking and cool, and we knew the deaths wouldn't be permanent but it was still wild to watch our heroes react to such an immense loss and then leave us all in limbo for a year. This... is not that. The sheer tone-deafness of having this episode contain a moment of domesticity for AU!Charlie and her cool egg-making girlfriend Stevie, only to have Stevie vanish... and then to end the episode with the biggest queer-bait/bury your gays moment imaginable... like...

Okay, sorry, no, saving the Destiel thing until I've sorted out the rest of this nonsense. The point is, seems pretty clear that the deaths in this episode (other than Cas') are temporary, and Supernatural already has the biggest power creep problem of any show I've ever seen... they really couldn't think of another way to up the stakes for the ending, other than doing the thing where everyone gets killed? Didn't... Crowley... already do this to them several seasons back? Am I hallucinating? There's nothing new under the sun with this show.

Why does this show introduce things and resolve them in a single episode? Like, big, huge things? We just figured out Death was trying to double-cross them, and now by the end she's dead? This show either limps along and does nothing, or speeds through plot stuff at lightning-speed. These last two episodes were big and dramatic and full of Plot but in a way where it all feels kind of unreal. Pacing issues like whoa.

And speaking of. Ahem. Okay. Let's... let's do this. I have some things about the Destiel scene that I'm going to put in the "pros" section below, and hopefully as you read on you'll understand why it's really hard for me to be black and white about it. If I had to, if I had to determine whether I am "happy" or "sad" or "grateful" or "angry" I'd say... sad and angry, 97%? Like? Let's dive in, here.

Setting aside the larger context, a couple of smaller notes:

Acting-wise, what the fuck was Jensen doing in this scene? Misha was acting his whole heart out and Jensen gave him nothing to play off of. I don't understand how Jensen accidentally played Dean so obviously in love with Cas all this time, and then in this moment, no-homo'd it so fucking hard. Even the stage directions in the script page that was floating around said that Dean didn't reciprocate. That's dumb, like, in a shipping sense it's disappointing, but also... Dean, what was your face doing while Cas gave his whole monologue about how amazing you are? What a great and loving man you are? Even if he hadn't ended the whole thing by saying "I love you" and then dying right in front of your eyes, surely you would have been feeling some kind of way about the whole situation?

Also, the scene was shot so awkwardly, there was too much space between them, and then Cas pushes Dean out of the way and he just sits there on the floor with Pikachu-face while The Empty opens up and takes Death and Cas away, making these weird shocked noises... Supernatural often has awkward pacing when dramatic things are happening in action scenes, where certain people have to stand still like it's not their turn on the initiative order in a D&D fight or something, and this was one of the more embarrassing and awkward examples of that.

Cas' deal with The Empty has not been brought up practically since it happened. Cas has been sidelined as a character a lot this season, the past couple seasons, really, but we had this hanging over our heads, right? When Cas says "I've figured it out, true happiness isn't in having, it's just in saying it", the moment doesn't really work on a character level, because we didn't get to see Cas do any of that figuring out. We didn't know he was curious about his true happiness, we didn't know it was an internal struggle/debate for him, wondering what it could be. A lot of Destiel people wanted it to be Dean confessing his love to Cas, and that being the true happiness... but of course that would never happen in a million years. Others thought it would be "yay we defeated the big evil, we can all be a happy family together," oh snap, I'm too happy, goodbye. Which would have been... weirdly anticlimactic, but at least would have made some level of narrative sense. This idea that telling Dean how he feels would bring Cas peace is... well, it's okay, it's fine in isolation, but there's no buildup to it, no tension to his moment of "realization."

And now to fry some bigger fish...

Let's forget about the fact that we never thought this would happen to begin with. Is it actually... worse that it did? Seriously, queer angel man confesses his love to stoic human man who stands there without making a single expression, and the act of confessing said love, knowing it's not reciprocated, knowing he won't get to be with Dean or even be near him ever again, is enough to make Castiel so truly happy that he's willing to die peacefully and forever, all in the act of saving Dean's life? Is that not... like... textbook homophobia? People toss around "bury your gays" a lot and I think what they're missing is that the trope doesn't automatically apply just because a queer character dies. It means a queer character dies because of their queerness, or they are revealed to be queer but can't get any measure of happiness and then they die immediately. This is textbook that. The act of confessing his GAY LOVE is what KILLED CAS. It's a one-to-one sequence of events. It's not a coincidence that Cas died right after saying this. Saying this is what made him die. That's... appalling. Truly, in a very real sense, it's appalling.

Another thing I haven't seen people talk about much is the manufactured nature of this sacrifice. We just found out Billie was going to turn on them at the end of the last episode. If Cas was going to die in a sacrifice-y way, did it have to happen now when Billie was basically just knocking on the door trying to get at Dean for a last-minute revenge thing, even though Billie was already at death's door? This was so contrived, like, can Cas not whoosh them away to somewhere else? Keep them running until Billie succumbs? I get that it wouldn't have been easy, and maybe Billie could have caught up to them anyway, but my point is, they manufactured this moment to be "the only way" that Dean could survive, making Cas' sacrifice so noble and necessary or whatever... but I was sitting there thinking there's got to be another way. If they'd wanted to write in another way, there could have been. The inevitability felt so very contrived. And, as mentioned, the impact of dying on this show has lost all meaning, so even Billie trying to kill Dean, squeezing his heart in his chest, did absolutely nothing for me. I knew he'd be fine, because there are two more episodes left. And if Cas hadn't been there to do what he did, Dean would still have been fine because he's Dean. Am I making any sense?

We have two more episodes left. I am... fairly confident Misha won't be in those episodes. All context, both within the show and without, points to that. I truly think that after all this time, he gets the only ending in the whole show that's unambiguously unsalvageable and tragic. We have a world where the afterlife exists and people can hang out there, but The Empty is a different beast, and this means Cas is... gone. Permanently. Like, his consciousness no longer exists, he's caput. They could bring him back from The Empty, in fact, they've already done it once... but if they decide not to, that's just... where we leave things, and that's brutal and unnecessarily grim. The other characters, even if we get an end-of-show TPK (which would be STUPID, more on that later), could at least have canon or implied-canon reunions in the afterlife. If we don't see Eileen again, we can get the implied ending of her coming back to life, or Sam dying and joining her in Heaven. Same with Charlie, with Charlie's new girlfriend, with Bobby, with Donna, with every other character that's died along the way, including Mary Winchester and OG Charlie, OG Bobby, whatever you want. The fact that Cas gets this, after everything, is truly the part I'm the most sad about, setting aside love confessions entirely.

So as I said, two more episodes. I'm worried that Cas dying is gonna get swallowed up with everyone dying and not get its due, thus making the confession completely isolated. Like, here you go, gays, have this one scene, which, in isolation is quite heartfelt from Cas' perspective, but can be carefully boxed up and not touched for the last two hours of the show. If they don't want to touch on how this would affect Dean specifically, they don't have to. He can be generally angsty and sad about Cas, but they could get away with never bringing it up again, and that is some grade-A level bullshit right there, my friends. At minimum, Dean needs to tell Sam about this. He probably won't, but he should, if the show has any sense of integrity left in its bones.

Ahem. Like I said, I have... lots of thoughts. More on Destiel later, but let's turn to the "Pros" section and talk about some other aspects of this incredibly crowded episode.

Pros:

Despite my issues with everything that didn't get resolved re: Dean letting Jack die, I did kind of like the "to somehow" scene, because it was a nice little breather for the brothers, it solidified them as being on the same side to the bitter end, that despite all the crazy shit they've been through, that they've put each other through, they'll have this as a bedrock at the end of the day. I'm not a brothers-only sort of fan, at all, in fact, I think a brothers-only ending betrays most of what's beautiful about this show in its good moments. But they are the stars, they are the protagonists, they should be the center of their own story, and I like it when we get check-ins like this, that shows how unshakable they are underneath all the other crap.

Charlie and Stevie... okay, cute that their names are like that, cute that Charlie said: "I liked the way she handled herself" and that's how they got together... eggs are cute, whatever... and if these deaths are impermanent, which... come on... they have to be, I do like that Charlie gets to have a girlfriend and be happy as a hunter and as someone's partner.

I liked the tense car ride with Sam texting Eileen, with Dean, Jack, and Cas all silent in the car with him... that was a nice moment of solidarity, all of them entirely on the same page about being there for Sam and helping Eileen however they could... even knowing the futility. What were they going to do when they got there? That was a great tension-building moment, in isolation, even though the deaths are likely temporary.

Cas and Jack's talk was good, I'll admit I've definitely been won over by Cas and Sam as Jack's dads... Dean too, once upon a time, but dude needs to do some groveling before he gets to be Dad again, seriously. It's nice that in the midst of all the chaos, there was a check-in moment. Jack is the embodiment of a lot of our end-game themes, here. He had a noble destiny to sacrifice himself, and then it fizzled out and didn't work, and now he's just left in the aftermath, not sure what to do with himself. It was important that Cas tell him that Jack is worthy of love and family, even if he's not "useful" in the way he thought he could be. Definitely nice to have that nailed in.

If we're following the Infinity War/Endgame line, the last two episodes will be majority Sam, Dean, and Jack, but at the last moment there will be a way to reverse it, and everyone else will come back in a moment of triumph. But probably not so much Castiel, which... well... see above complaints. The point is, seeing Charlie, Bobby, Donna, Eileen, etc. all burst forth for one final moment of glory could be really cool, if they manage to stick the landing with it. It'll be an incredibly manufactured sense of triumph and nostalgia, but it will probably work on me because it's been... guys, I don't know if you know this, but it's been kind of an emotional year. :)

I will say, working under the assumption that the dead characters will come back, I'm actually oddly... not mad about Donna dying. It was actually a legitimately shocking twist. A rule was set up: if a person had died before and been resurrected, or if a person was from another universe, they could be Thanos snapped by Billie. Makes sense. Sam and Dean are in danger because of all their deaths, Jack and Cas aren't safe for the same reason. Charlie, Bobby, Eileen... sure. But Donna should have been safe, given the parameters we started with.

And then Dean and Cas are confronting Billie, she says she's not killing anyone, we realize it must be Chuck... and then Donna, who isn't from another world, who has never died... GONE. I gasped.

And the hits kept coming... Billie is dying because Dean killed her with that small wound, and didn't even know it. That's another excellent twist. The past two episodes, back to back, have kept me on my toes about who to ultimately be afraid of. Chuck? Billie? The Empty? It's so much better than this slow march to Chuck vs. Sam and Dean that we've been getting all season, even if we do loop around to Chuck again as the final Big Bad.

The Empty is actually quite a complex, interesting idea for a villain, this entity that doesn't get involved in petty squabbles, doesn't have personal vendettas, but actually just wants to sleep and be left alone. Having Meg be the Empty's face here at the end is also a nice touch. I wish we could have had more of this, truthfully, and I'm curious how The Empty will play a role in how things shake out, if at all.

So... I want to go back to something I've been saying these past couple episodes, about how if this show has a grimdark ending, it will be a betrayal of everything they've set up. It will be so stupid that my anger will manifest in yet another round of hysterical giggles. What I suspect is that we'll get something peaceful, something where trauma will linger but people will get to start anew. Maybe Jack creates a new world outside of Chuck's power. Maybe Sam and Dean take over as God and the Darkness, as some people suggested, and Jack is the new Death. Maybe maybe maybe. Bottom line, I could be satisfied with the majority of this ending, and I can even (obliquely, reluctantly) understand that they wanted one final perma-death to really make the stakes feel higher. If they aren't killing off the Winchesters, that leaves Castiel. So what I'm saying in this paragraph is basically that I'm not guaranteed to despise the ending of this show yet. They could still get it right.

God, that sounds pretty bleak, doesn't it?

Before I end this, I want to talk about, as promised, the few Destiel-related points that I'd classify as "pros", albeit with a big asterisk.

First off, Misha clearly found the moment very cathartic, and he pulled out all the stops, and, in isolation, the confession was hella romantic and quite poignant. Without context, just reading these lines? "The one thing I want, it's something I know I can't have" and "because you cared, I cared. I cared about you, I cared about Sam, I cared about Jack, I cared about the whole world because of you..." like, that's some premium content, I won't lie. I also kind of enjoy the idea that Cas finds happiness in saying the words out loud, in being true to who he is. I hate a lot about what happened to Cas here, but if Cas' arc, in its totality, is about embracing humanity, and Dean is the anchor to that, this really does come full circle. He pulled Dean out of Hell, he saved him, he loved him, he'll die for him, and in accepting that love, that human love, he is finally at peace with who he is. Now, mind my comments above, I'm still not happy, but I can see how in one sense, this is narratively poignant. And if others are satisfied with it, I'm happy for them.

(Added bonus, while Jensen's acting was WACK for the majority of that scene, I did like the ending shot, the silence, him not answering Sam's call, crying silently into his hands. That was very nicely shot and acted, I thought.)

Secondly, and this isn't actually praise for the show, it's more a... meta experience? I have to say, the idea that Destiel became sort of canon, but in the most homophobic way possible, in the year 2020, while we're all still waiting for election results to come in is... one of the wildest, most hilarious things to ever have happened to me. I mean it, last night sitting alone in my house I kept cackling loudly to myself, in complete and utter disbelief. I saw Tumblr explode in a way that hasn't happened in years. I was transported back in time nearly a full decade, to the person I was when I started writing these reviews, or even before that, when I was new to Supernatural, new to the whole concept of being truly involved in a fandom.

Here's the thing... I never. Ever. EVER. Thought we would get any sort of textual confirmation. I thought at most, if they went for a happy ending for everyone, we'd get Dean and Cas as hunting partners, and we could all fill in the post-canon gaps. I once told my sister that I'd be happy with a one-sided love confession from Cas to Dean, because that part was practically canon before last night, and in a way, I am happy. I'm happy that this crazy thing actually happened, and if nothing else, all of those clowns can put away their makeup. I was never with them. I never believed, and there's this sliver of me that's happy to have been wrong. It's completely bogus how it happened, but the fact that we live in a reality where it happened is still kind of tripping me out in a major way. So I'm happy, I'm... flabbergasted, but I'm experiencing a very unique, unprecedented soup of emotions this morning and I never would have felt like this if Cas had died with a no homo parting.

And that's the thing, they let it be unambiguously about Dean, not just in that one moment, but all along, and that's really satisfying in a meta narrative sense that when everyone was reading it as "Castiel is in love with Dean," they were... correct. It doesn't really matter when they decided this, in last night's episode they made it crystal-clear that it wasn't a whim, wasn't a recent development, in-universe. This has been Cas' truth from very, very early on, his entire experience since meeting Dean has been shaped by him, he's loved him all this time. That... I don't know, it's absolutely bonkers that this is all we're going to get, but it does mean something, if you want to let it.

Welcome back to 2012, Tumblr. Last night was a wild ride, I won't deny.

I'm giving the episode a bad score, but I just want to say the Destiel scene gets a simultaneous infinity-out-of-ten and also zero-out-of-ten, imploding the multiverse instantly. That's where I'm at, folks. Insert gif of Chidi dropping Peeps into a big pot of chili. I'm gonna go take a nap.

6/10

#review #supernatural #supernatural review #spn #spn 15x18 #destiel #i'm experiencing actual shock #i keep laughing #but like #you know how sometimes people laugh or smile inappropriately at funerals?#it feels like that

8 notes · View notes

acrackedchassis · 3 years

Text

the mirrors surrounding you did as they were meant to, reflecting back a spitting image of misha collins - but it’s clear something is wrong from the moment that a vision of restructuring heaven with jack strikes you. perhaps it was a passing daydream in the frenzy of the funhouse. you reassure yourself - you’re CASTIEL, an unknown/forty-five year old doctor whose virtue lies in your compassion & good intentions, although you’ve been told that you tend to be quite naive & intense, and you’re associated with falling stars burning brightly, praying to an absent father, and slowly learning how to love by those around you. suddenly, however, you’ve found your angel blade on your person - was that always there? from the moment you leave the funhouse, memories from your life in SUPERNATURAL have begun to return - leaving whoever you had been before in the mirror’s reflection behind you. you can almost hear take me to church by hozier following in your wake.

tw homophobia, death mentions, mentions of religion and potential religious trauma, abuse

I would like to formally apologise for the complete and utter mess that is everything below. I got... very carried away with canon. If you make it through all my rambling, I tip my hat to you!

BASICS

Name: Castiel, but Castiel Novak in his alternate life. Nicknames: Cas, but he’ll accept any nickname that isn’t disrespectful. (Please don’t use Cass. I understand that this is canon, but given that it’s a stupid-ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it.) Age: 45 in his alternate life. In his canon life... we really don’t know how old he is. Old. Very, very old. Gender/pronouns: He mainly uses he/him, but he'll accept any. He’s agender. Sexuality: Asexual and homoromantic. Species: Angel. Specifically, he’s a Seraph.

CANON LIFE

I don’t know how to summarise twelve years, but I’m gonna give it a go. And if anyone would like to know more, here is his wiki... good luck!

Anyway, so! Cas is an angel who we first saw introducing himself to Dean as the person who fought through Hell (literally) and pulled him out of it. At first, we see him as a soldier of Heaven who obeys all orders given to him, but that begins to change the more he gets to know the Winchesters (primarily Dean), as he learns the importance of free will and tries to help the brothers.

Since then, he has helped the brothers stop the apocalypse, started a civil war in Heaven, absorbed all the souls and leviathans from purgatory to become God, become an angel again, lost all his memories and believed he was a human called Emmanuel. He regained his memories, took on Sam’s hell trauma and spent some time in a psychiatric hospital, then helped Sam and Dean defeat Dick Roman (leader of the leviathans) and got sent to purgatory with Dean.

He did his best to keep the leviathans in purgatory on his trail to keep them away from Dean. Dean tried to make him leave purgatory with him, but Cas insisted on staying, believing it wouldn’t work because he’s an angel (also that he deserved it), and stayed in purgatory for longer. Once he was out, he found out an angel called Naomi was controlling him to find the angel tablet, and tried to make him kill Dean, which he didn’t do. Then he teamed up with Metatron, who manipulated him into making all of the angels fall from Heaven, and eventually stole his grace.

Cas spent the next three months as a human working in a gas station, started stealing other angel’s grace so he’d have his powers back, got his army back, lost his army, locked Metatron up, and got his own grace back. He was put under an attack dog spell by Rowena, regained control of himself, agreed to allow Lucifer to possess him in order to defeat Amara/The Darkness, and was possessed by him for several months, but eventually gained control of himself again when Lucifer was exorcised.

He later tracked down Kelly Kline, who was pregnant with Lucifer’s son, Jack, believing the Nephilim to be dangerous, until Jack (still a fetus) showed Cas paradise, proving to him that he was good, and Cas chose to become his protector. (Basically, he adopted him.) Cas was killed and sent to the Empty, was woken up by Jack’s powers, annoyed the Empty Entity/The Shadow until it sent him back, and he reunited with the Winchesters and Jack.

Later, he found out about an AU version of Michael (Apocalypse world) wanting to invade their universe, got captured by Asmodeus, escaped, tried to find Gabriel to restore Heaven, travelled to Apocalypse world with everyone else, and when they got back, apocalypse Michael came with them. When Dean was possessed by Michael, Cas went looking for him, got manipulated and captured by a demon, and defeated said demon with Sam. They later found Dean, Jack died, and they tried to recruit help to resurrect him.

Cas went to Heaven in search of Jack’s soul, Heaven was attacked by The Shadow who wanted to take Jack, Cas made a deal with the Shadow to exchange himself for his son, the Shadow said that it would let him live for now but come to take him when he experienced a moment of true happiness.

Later, Dean and Cas fought after a soulless Jack accidentally killed Mary. Chuck/God manipulated Sam and Dean into wanting to kill Jack, they locked him up in the Ma’lak box which Cas tried to prevent, and later, when Chuck tried to convince Dean to kill Jack, Cas tried to stop that too. Chuck killed Jack, rose spirits from hell, and Cas fought them with the Winchesters after Chuck vanished, met Belphegor who possessed Jack’s body, who he absolutely hated for this reason. Cas worked with the Winchesters, Belphegor, and Rowena to try to send all the souls back to hell, went to Hell with Belphegor to do so, killed Belphegor before they could complete their plan, which lead to Rowena having to die for them, which lead to tension rising even further between Dean and Cas. Cas left, then later returned.

Cas and Dean went back to purgatory to get a Leviathan blossom to use for a spell to lock Chuck up, got separated, thought they’d lose each other, then were reunited and got back to earth. That plan failed.

They tried to help Jack become powerful enough to take down Chuck, but when that plan failed too, Billie chased after Cas and Dean, wanting to kill Dean. In order to save him, Cas sacrificed himself to the Shadow by telling Dean that he loved him and allowing himself a moment of true happiness. Some time after that, he was resurrected (we don’t really know how, but can assume it was Jack’s doing), and Cas worked with Jack to rebuild Heaven into something better.

ALUCARD LIFE

Castiel’s childhood was an incredibly unhappy one. With extremely religious yet controlling parents, he was expected to do as he was told, and to fit into the mold his parents wanted of him. They were both physically and emotionally abusive.

He was a lonely child, didn’t get along with other kids very well, and found it hard to make friends. Was always considered ‘strange’.

Isolated from his extended family as his parents didn’t get along with them.

Never came out to his parents, even after leaving them and cutting them out of his life, as they were very homophobic and made it very clear to Cas that they’d never accept him.

Has always been very intelligent and was almost always top of his class.

Went to medical school and became a doctor because he wanted to help people.

MISC

Cas’ wings were destroyed back when he and the other angels fell from Heaven, BUT I’ve decided that when he was saved by the Empty, his wings were also restored. It’s what Cas deserves. Fight me.

Also his wings are like oil slick!! Black but rainbow!! Again, fight me!!

Fucks up a lot when trying to do the right thing. Has never done anything wrong in his entire life.

A Grumpy Soft Boi.

Has died many, many times. The last time, because he told Dean he loved him and let himself be happy.

Serious dad issues and for good reason!! In canon, Chuck lied to everyone and made them believe he was a prophet, while being absent as God for an incredibly long time. Awhile after he eventually revealed himself as God, it was revealed that he had actually been controlling and manipulating Sam and Dean the entire time, writing their story for them. Cas was (somehow) the only person Chuck couldn’t control.

Loves bees and has an apiary as a hobby.

Doesn’t understand sarcasm and doesn’t get (most) references, even though Metatron once gave him knowledge of pretty much every story ever.

And there may be errors in my intro or things I’ve forgotten, so I’ll probably come back and edit all this at some point!

#' i'm an angel of the lord ( about ) .#dhq.intro

5 notes · View notes

shadowywerewolfqueen · 3 years

Text

Carry On

Here’s my nearly 10k fix it fic for Episode 18 Despair. Dean and Cas deserve a happy ending dang it! If you prefer, you can also read on AO3.

Tears were flowing down Cas’ face as he attempted a smile and said, “You changed me Dean.”

Dean could hardly process what Cas was saying. Billie was beating down the door and any second she would break through and kill them. Cas was just now telling him about a crazy deal he made with the Empty while also saying Dean was a selfless person and had changed him in the last decade they had known each other. The only thing he could think to say was, “Why does this sound like a goodbye?”

Cas tilted his head slightly. “Because it is.” There was a brief pause before he said, “I love you.”

Dean blinked and clinched his jaw. There was no way Cas could tell him something so monumental at a time like this. They were staring Death in the face and Cas was telling him goodbye. He couldn’t tell Dean he loved him when Dean was holding on by a thread. Dean shook his head as he softly said, “Don’t do this, Cas.” “Please, not now, not when I’m about to lose you,” Dean thought.

Dean turned his head sharply when he heard a wet, sticky sound behind him. An inky black hole was forming in the wall. Dean could feel the tears building in his eyes as he watched the slimy tentacles starting to take form. He turned back to the angel, a thousand words on the tip of his lips. “Cas,” he gasped out.

Cas’ eyes were glistening blue as he reached out and laid his palm on Dean’s shoulder. “Goodbye Dean,” he said, his voice thick and full of emotion.

Dean’s eyes went wide. “What?” he asked as Cas shoved him out of the way and he fell to the floor. Dean rolled back against the wall as he stared at Cas. The angel flashed him one last watery smile before facing the Empty. Dean watched as Cas stood tall, a smile on his face as if he was embracing the cosmic entity coming for him. Black tendrils wrapped around Cas’ shoulders and waist before spreading over his whole body. Dean caught one last glimpse of Cas’ face before he was covered entirely in inky blackness and sucked towards the hole in the wall. In less than ten seconds, Cas was gone and Dean was alone.

Dean looked towards the empty spot where Cas had been standing only moments ago. He gasped out a breath, trying to wrap his mind around what just happened. The angel who pulled him from Hell, the one who had been by his side for ten years, his best friend, the person he was in love with was gone. Once again, Cas had sacrificed himself for Dean.

Dean suddenly felt his phone vibrating. He pulled it out to see Sam calling, but he didn’t pick it up. He couldn’t because he had no words to say. He was alone and he was empty. He dropped the phone before letting his head rest against the wall behind him. He brought his hands up and scrubbed them over his face and through his hair as a sob escaped him.

The first sob broke the dam as Dean’s entire body was wracked with painful spasms as he felt his heart shatter in his chest. His entire life, he had tried to do the right thing. He had done his best to take care of Sam and protect him. He had tried to protect his mom and Bobby and Charlie and Jack and Jody and Donna and the whole damn world! He had never asked for anything in return, never wanted it. He knew he didn’t deserve it because as many good things as he had done, he had done twice as many bad. He had failed Sam, causing his brother to be killed, to be sent to the Cage, to become souless, to be taken over by an angel. It wasn’t just Sam Dean had failed, it was every person Dean had known. Mary, Bobby, Benny, Charlie, Kevin, Ellen, Jo, Rowena, they had all died either for or because of him. He had always known he was a monster just like the monsters he hunted. His entire life he had been filled with rage and anger, choosing to lash out at those he loved instead of letting them help him. Dean didn’t deserve anything, especially someone’s love.

And yet, a minute ago, Cas had said just that. Cas, a literal angel, had somehow fallen in love with Dean. Dean, who had taught him about free will and family and laughter and joy. But Dean had also gotten Cas killed, possessed, and had kicked him out of the only home he had ever known. For years, Dean had used Cas as his punching bag to take out his anger, frustrations, and fears on. For some reason, Cas always came back like a moth to a flame. Dean wasn’t a flame worth coming back to.

He knew that and that was why he had never admitted his own feelings. How could he? He was destruction incarnate and Cas was pure and shining and so bright it hurt Dean to look at him sometimes. For some reason, Cas had always stuck by Dean’s side from the moment he pulled him from Hell. He had always been the one willing to go with Dean whether it be a simple hunt or a suicide mission. At first Cas had just been another monster on the board but he had quickly moved to ally to friend to best friend to family and finally to the person Dean was in love with. And now, when the world was falling apart and Dean needed something to hold onto more than ever, he was gone.

Of course, Cas was always willing to bleed and sacrifice for the Winchesters, for Dean. In his final moments, instead of accusing Dean for bringing him into this mess in the first place, he had made a declaration. He had told Dean how he was the most loving and selfless person Cas has ever known. It was because of Dean that Cas had cared about Sam and Jack and the world. It was because of Dean that Cas had changed from Heaven’s soldier to Sam and Dean’s family. It was because of Dean that Cas had fallen in love. It was because of Dean that Cas had thought he could never have the hunter.

Dean had never told Cas how much he meant to him. Instead he had always kept Cas at arm’s length, choosing to treat him as just a friend. How could he blame Cas for never saying anything when Dean had always flirted with women any chance he got? When he always got angry and blamed Cas when things went wrong even if it wasn’t Cas’ fault. Even in his dying moments, when Cas had finally admitted his feelings, Dean had stared at him in silence, too overwhelmed to say anything back.

Dean continued to sit against the wall as his thoughts continued to swirl. Billie was dead, but so was Cas. Jack and Sam were alive, but Cas was dead. Chuck was still a threat, but Cas was dead. Dean was alive and in love with the angel, but Cas was dead. And Dean never said anything back.

Dean couldn’t, though. He was backed into a corner, surrounded on all sides by his enemies and hearing Cas’ speech and the thought of losing him all at once had been too much. He had been trying to figure out why Cas was saying goodbye in such a way. He was still trying to comprehend the idea that Cas saw him as anything other than a monster, how could he process the angel’s true feelings in seconds. Dean was never good at emotions, choosing to bottle them up until he lashed out. He had no other idea how to handle the strength at which he felt things.

He had wanted to say something back to Cas, to tell the angel how much he had changed Dean and how much Dean loved him right back, but he couldn’t. All he could do was beg Cas not to say something so huge when they were on the precipice of dying. He had hoped if he didn’t say it back, that maybe it would keep Cas from being taken from him. Because, he had lost Cas so many times before and couldn’t handle the thought of losing him again. But it didn’t matter. Apparently just telling Dean that he loved him was enough. Now, Cas was gone and Dean was alone.

Dean didn’t know how long he sat, wallowing in heartache. All he knew is he suddenly heard his name being called over and over. He didn’t even look up when he heard Sam and Jack’s footsteps echoing in the silence of the room.

“Dean! Dean, what happened?” Sam asked as he came to a stop in front of his brother.

Dean shook his head, unable to say anything.

“Dean,” Sam said hesitantly. “Where’s Billie?”

Dean squeezed his eyes shut even tighter than what they were. He just shook his head, knowing that if he said anything, the few pieces he was holding together would crumble.

“What about Cas? What happened to him?” Sam asked insistently. Dean stayed silent. “Dean, please, what happened? Where is Billie and Cas?”

“THEY’RE GONE!” Dean finally shouted. “BILLIE IS DEAD! And so is Cas,” Dean added, the fight draining from his body. He looked at his brother, tears blurring the outline of Sam’s face. “Cas knew of a way to kill Billie, so the stupid angel sacrificed himself like he always does.”

“No, no. Cas, he can’t be gone,” Jack said disbelievingly, his face crumbling.

Dean looked at Jack and he didn’t know if he wanted to hug him or kill him. “It was because of his deal with the Empty. He used it to bring the Empty so that it- so that it could take Billie as well.” He watched as Jack’s eyes widened in understanding.

“It’s all my fault. Cas is gone because of me,” Jack said, folding in on himself.

Dean wanted to snarl back and say Jack was right. He wanted to punch the kid for allowing Cas to make such a deal. He wanted to wish Jack had never been born and then they wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. As he watched Jack fall to the ground and tears pour down his face, Dean knew the kid was just a victim as much as the rest. “No, it’s not,” he said, his voice carrying in the silence.

Jack looked at him. “How can you say that? Cas made that deal to-to…”

“To save you. To save his kid,” Dean replied with a nod of his head. He looked at Sam, his brother’s eyes shining with unshed tears. He focused back on Jack. “Look, we’ve all made stupid deals to save the people we love. Sam and I are experts at it and Cas learned from the best. I sold my soul to bring Sam back from the dead. Sam let people suffer to turn me back into a human. Giving himself to the Empty to save you was an easy decision for-for… for Cas. You and Cas are family, Jack, and there isn’t a single Winchester who hasn’t made a stupid deal to save someone they love.” Dean pushed himself to his feet and walked over to Jack. He helped the man to his feet before clutching Jack’s shoulder. “Cas… died to protect you. The least we can do now is make sure that his death means something.” He wiped at his eyes and sniffled one last time. “Chuck is still out there and it’s our job to get rid of him. We’ve got work to do.”

“Dean, what was the deal?” Sam asked.

Jack looked between the two brothers before answering, “The Empty would come for him when he was truly happy.”

Sam swallowed thickly before locking gazes with his brother. “What made Cas?” He started to ask.

“Don’t,” Dean barked. He sighed and straightened his shoulders. He couldn’t talk about Cas’ deal, couldn’t tell Sam and Jack that being in love with Dean brought Cas such joy. If he did, what little bit of his heart was left would shatter and turn into dust. He had to suck it up and bury it because Chuck was still out there, and they had people to save. He took a shuddering breath before saying, “It doesn’t matter. He’s gone. There are people who aren’t. Did you get everybody to the safe house?”

He watched as Sam’s face fell. Sam opened and closed his mouth a few times before dropping his eyes and replying, “It didn’t matter. It wasn’t Billie. It was Chuck, and they’re gone. They’re all gone.”

Dean shook his head in disbelief. “Everybody from the Apocalypse world?”

“No,” Jack said softly.

Dean spun to his head to look at Jack. “What?” Dean asked confusedly.

“It’s not just them. It’s everybody Dean. Donna, Jody, the whole world. I think we’re the only ones left,” Jack explained.

Dean reeled back as if slapped. He grabbed at the single chair to keep from falling to his knees. “No. No, that- that’s impossible. We can’t be.” He looked at Sam, begging his brother to tell him it was some cruel joke. Sam’s refusal to answer was answer enough.

“Sam and I, there was nothing we could do. They just vanished… right in front of our eyes,” Jack described.

Dean gripped the chair so tight his knuckles turned white. He felt something building in him, anger and fury and pain and despair all rolled into one. With a raging snarl, he threw the chair across the room causing Jack and Sam to jump. Without another word, Dean stormed from the room.

He walked straight to the garage where Baby was parked. He grabbed the keys and slid into her front seat. He quickly backed her out of the garage before speeding away from the bunker. He was numb, his mind silent in the aftermath of everything that had happened. It was too much to comprehend, and he knew if he focused on any one thing, he would be overwhelmed.

He drove for minutes until he came to an empty field. He parked Baby and stumbled out of the car. He walked a few feet away before looking up at the sky. “CHUCK! YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

He took multiple deep breaths, trying to keep the tears from falling. “YOU WANT AN ENDING? WELL, I’M RIGHT HERE! I’LL GIVE YOU AN ENDING! COME AND KILL ME LIKE YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED, BUT BRING EVERYBODY ELSE BACK YOU BASTARD!”

Dean couldn’t hold the tears back any longer as he fell to his knees. He sniffled as the drops rolled down his cheeks. He reached up to wipe them away, his hand dragging across his shoulder. He froze when he felt something wet and cold. He looked at his shoulder and sobbed as he pulled the jacket from his frame and stared at the bloody handprint.

“Please, please, just bring them back. Bring everybody back, including Cas, and you can have me. It’s always been me you’ve wanted so here I am. Just bring them back, bring Cas back,” Dean said softly to the empty field, his voice full of emotion.

“My father isn’t going to be drawn out like that.”

Dean snapped his head up to see Michael standing in front of him. He glared at the celestial being. “What are you doing here?”

Michael smirked. “It seems that you’re losing the fight against my father.”

Dean scoffed. “At this point, I think he’s won. Sam, Jack, and I? What can three powerless humans do against a celestial being such as God? He’s not some Pagan god that can be killed with a stake or some vampire that just needs its head chopped off. He’s the God, the Almighty, the creator of the frigging universe.”

“You’re right on most of those,” Michael said as he moved closer.

Dean tilted his head. “What the hell does that mean?”

Michael grinned. “What happened when you killed Death? The first time?”

Dean looked at Michael like he was crazy. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just answer the question.”

“The next reaper that died turned into Death. So, what? You want me to go kill another reaper and have a new Death? I’m not too keen on meeting a new Death right now,” Dean snapped.

Michael huffed. “What about a new Darkness? The universe can’t exist very long without certain cosmic entities. Death, the Empty, God, and the Darkness. When one dies, they must be replaced or else the universe will fall out of balance.”

Dean squinted his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“God killed his sister. Even he can’t be both light and dark, whether he wants to or not. If Death dies and the next reaper becomes Death, what do you think turns into the next Darkness or even God himself for that matter?” Micahel asked.

Dean shook his head as he started piecing Michael’s riddles together. “You’re saying that Jack is now the Darkness?”

“You’re not as dumb as you look, you know? Yes, my nephew is the new Darkness. You actually have quite the playing card now.”

“So Jack can kill Chuck? If he does, who’s the new God? You?” Dean asked bitterly.

“Would that be so bad?” Michael questioned.

“Oh I don’t know. You were the one trying to wear me around for a meat suit so you could start the Apocalypse which would have destroyed the world. Not too sure if you can handle that much power,” Dean said angrily.

Michael seemed to ponder what the hunter said. “You’re right, I did. But that was before I spent quite a while locked up in the cage. I was once the ruler of Heaven, and I wasn’t that bad at it. I don’t have the same loyalty to my father that I did then.” He paused before adding, “My father needs to die. He has gone too far this time. I think my nephew and I could make a much better world.”

“So, you and Jack kill God and then we kill you so you become God? And how the hell do I know this isn’t going to backfire all over again?” Dean looked at the archangel, barely an ounce of trust in him.

“I’ve never had a need to help you and yet I have. Besides, I know how to bring Castiel back,” Michael replied.

Dean looked at the coat still clutched tightly in his hands, the handprint the only thing he had left of Cas. He clenched his jaw, wanting to just say yes, so they could kill Chuck once and for all. “You have to ask Sam and Jack. This is as much their decision as mine.”

Michael cocked his head slightly. “You have changed. The Dean Winchester I knew years ago wouldn’t have hesitated at making this deal. You’re not that brash anymore it seems.”

Dean dragged a finger over the bloody handprint. “People change I guess.” He forced himself to his feet, clutching the jacket as if it was a lifeline. He started walking back towards his car.

“Where are you going?”

Dean looked over his shoulder. “I’m not leaving my Baby in the middle of some field.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “I will never understand your obsession with this car. Even Adam is fond of it.”

Dean’s lips curved up in a small smile. “Yeah, well, she’s pretty damn special.”

Before he could say anything else, Michael put a finger to his forehead. The next moment they were standing at the map table in the bunker. “The car is in the garage,” Michael said.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Sam barked out.

Dean fell into a seat, still refusing to let go of the jacket. “Michael has something to say.”

Sam and Jack were speechless after hearing Michael’s speech. The archangel looked at his nephew. “We have the chance to stop my father. Together we can undo everything. We can bring everybody back, set the world right.”

Jack looked at Sam who had stiffened at Michael’s words. It was obvious he was thinking about Eileen. He glanced at Dean who was staring at the jacket, his last piece of Cas he had. He focused back on Michael. “Are you sure we can bring everybody back?”

“Every human my father made disappear we can bring back with the snap of our fingers,” Michael confirmed.

Jack tilted his head. “Every human. What about Cas?”

Michael was silent for a moment before replying, “I can’t bring Cas back; the Empty won’t allow me to do so.”

Dean saw red as he lurched to his feet. He dropped the coat on the table and stormed towards the archangel. He had both fists twisted up in his shirt and the angel slammed against the wall as he growled, “YOU SON OF A BITCH! You said you could bring him back!”

Michael clenched his jaw as he stared at the hunter. “I said I know of a way to bring him back.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Dean asked, shoving against the angel even harder.

“It means I can’t bring him back and neither can Jack… but you can. Help me defeat my father, and I will tell you how,” Michael replied.

Dean glared at the man in front of him. Every fiber of his being was shaking with barely contained fury. He wanted to shove an angel blade into Michael’s stomach and see the man squirm. He suddenly released Michael and dropped his fists from the angel’s shirt. He grabbed Cas’ coat and stalked off to his bedroom.

He slammed the door shut before dropping heavily onto the bed. Cas was wrong. There was nothing good about Dean, nothing worth loving. Dean got everybody he loved killed and it had just been proven again. Because of Cas’ love for Dean, it had caused the Empty to take him away. How could he think Dean was caring and selfless when all Dean did was hurt the ones around him? Cas should have just let Billie kill Dean like she wanted to.

Dean felt a tear fall down his cheek as he absentmindedly stroked the coat. “Cas, how could you think you could never have… me? You’ve always had me. I love you, I’ve always loved you.” He jerked when there was a knock on his door.

“Dean,” Sam said as he slowly pushed the door open.

Dean gripped the coat tighter, not even bothering to hide from his brother. Sam took a seat next to him on the bed and laid a hand on his left shoulder. Dean flinched, and Sam dropped his hand.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said softly.

Dean didn’t look up as he asked, “For what?”

“For Cas.”

Dean scoffed. “I’m not the only one that lost him. He was your friend, too, and Jack’s dad. I should be asking how you’re doing.”

“No, Dean, you shouldn’t. You don’t have to take care of us right now or protect us. We’ve all lost people,” Sam said with a shaky breath.

Dean looked at his brother. “How are you doing? After Eileen, I never even asked.”

Sam took in a deep breath and wiped at the corner of his eye. “I’m trying not to think about her because if I do, I can’t do the job. I loved her Dean and if this whole plan doesn’t work… I’m just hoping it does. How are you doing? I know how much Cas meant to you, even if you never said anything.”

Dean had always pushed people away, but he decided that he couldn’t do that any longer. “It was my fault Sammy. I-I was his- his true happiness.”

Sam huffed out a breath. “You don’t think I don’t know that. The two of you have been walking around each other and hiding looks of longing for years.”

Dean clenched his jaw as he stared at the dried up handprint. “He said his true happiness was something he always wanted but couldn’t have. He said he realized that happiness wasn’t in having but in feeling and in saying.” He looked at his brother and said, “Cas said he loved me and I- I… I didn’t get a chance to say it back.”

Sam gasped at the admission. “Wow. Dean, I can’t believe he said that.”

“I know. I don’t really deserve it, do I?” Dean asked, self-deprecating.

“What, no? Of course you do! Dean, you have done so much for this world and for the people you love. You deserve to have someone love you. I found Eileen, so of course you deserve to find someone. Hell, Cas found you a decade ago. Even after everything we’ve all been through, Cas has always been there for you. He’s always loved you Dean, and you deserve that more than any of us,” Sam insisted.

Dean shook his head. “How can you say that? Look at every bad decision I’ve ever made. Look at what my decisions have brought this world.”

Sam gripped Dean’s forearm tightly. “It wasn’t just your decisions. It was yours, mine, Cas’, Jack’s. It’s like you said, Winchesters are infamous for making bad decisions. But those decisions were made out of love Dean. They were made because we were trying to protect each other and the world. Cas made his deal to protect Jack, and he’s gone because he was protecting you. I just can’t believe Cas finally admitted how he felt for you. I wasn’t sure either of you ever would.”

“He’s gone Sam. What do we do? What do I do?” Dean asked with despair.

“We let Jack and Michael save the world and then we get Cas and Eileen and everybody else back. We get the ending we deserve,” Sam replied.

Dean stood to his feet and helped Sam to his before pulling his brother into a tight hug. “Let’s go kill this son of a bitch and get that happy ending.”

Dean put his jacket back on before the two of them walked back to the map table. Michael and Jack looked up as they walked back in. “What’s everybody standing around for? We’ve got God to kill,” Dean said.

“Jack and I were talking, and we think that the best plan is to just go for the kill. No traps and no sneak attacks, we go after my father head on,” Michael explained.

Dean and Sam nodded. “Sounds good. So, where is it all gonna go down?”

“My father is currently at some decrepit barn in the middle of Nevada. Sam and Dean, you need to make your way there. I need to teach Jack a few things about his new powers and there are a few weapons we need to collect. We will meet you there in three days,” Michael said as he looked between the two brothers.

“What barn?” Sam asked.

“One that Dean is quite familiar with,” Michael answered, causing Dean’s face to pale.

Dean’s hand covered the print on his jacket. “Bastard,” he muttered.

Sam looked at his brother, confused. “Dean, what does a barn have to do with anything?”

“It’s where I first met Cas,” he said stoically. “It doesn’t matter. We’ve got work to do. Sam, go pack a bag and meet me in the garage in ten minutes. Jack, Michael, go do what you gotta do. We’ll see you in three days.”

Jack and Michael disappeared with a flap of wings and Sam walked down the hallway to his room. Dean headed back to his bedroom and quickly packed a bag, not really caring what clothes he grabbed. Once he was down, he started walking towards the garage. He stopped when he passed by Cas’ bedroom. He pushed the door open slowly before walking inside.

The room was sparsely decorated, nothing more than a bed, a nightstand, and a dresser. The walls were bare and if Dean didn’t know better, he would say nobody had been inside for years. He sat on the bed and ran his hand down the blanket. He glanced at the nightstand and saw something he recognized. He picked the tape up and smiled, happy that Cas still had the only gift Dean had ever given him. He slipped it in his pocket before pulling the top drawer of the nightstand open, surprised to see a few pictures lying on top.

He pulled them out and looked through them. There was one of Sam, one of Jack, one of Dean, and one of Dean and Cas sitting at the kitchen table. They each held a glass of whiskey in their hand and had bright smiles on their faces. Looking at the picture, it was obvious how Dean and Cas felt about each other. Dean had a soft look in his eyes as he stared at Cas, and Cas was looking at Dean like he hung the moon. Dean pulled his wallet out and slipped the picture inside.

He headed out to meet Sam in the garage. They loaded their stuff up in Baby’s trunk before sliding into the front seat. Dean pulled the tape out of his pocket and pushed it into the tape slot. If Sam noticed what was written on the tape, he didn’t say anything. Dean turned the car on and pulled her out of the garage.

The next three days were spent mostly in silence between the two brothers, both of them consumed by their own thoughts. They were sitting in an abandoned hotel room when Michael and Jack suddenly showed up. Michael dropped a bag on Sam’s bed.

“There are weapons in that bag that will help you in the oncoming battle. They can’t kill my father, but they can wound him. If you can distract him, Jack and I will be able to kill him,” Michael explained.

Sam grabbed the bag and pulled a few weapons from it. There were two knives and two guns. He passed one of each to Dean before asking, “What makes these special? Where did you have them?”

“In Heaven of course. There is no way such weapons would be allowed on Earth. They are far too dangerous,” Michael snapped. He stood against the far wall, his arms crossed over his chest.

Jack took a seat next to Sam. “They are imbued with archangel grace and even a bit of God’s powers himself. I’ve added some strength to them as well. Michael’s been helping me understand and control my powers. He took me to a pocket dimension where time passed differently than it does here. I’ve got a pretty good hang on things now.”

“That’s awesome! Maybe we really can win this,” Sam said enthusiastically.

“Yeah, let’s hope this will all be enough. Even if it is, Chuck’s gonna know about it. We have no element of surprise,” Dean pointed out.

“Actually we do. I made sure to cloak the two of you from my father before we left. He’s not very happy that he hasn’t been able to pinpoint you. Tomorrow we will face him as he is growing more agitated by the moment. If we don’t do something soon, he will end this world before we even have a chance to save it. I hope the two of you are ready. I will be back in the morning.” With that, Michael was gone.

“He’s got wonderful people skills doesn’t he?” Dean asked with a laugh.

“Well, he was locked in the cage for nearly ten years straight Dean. We’re lucky he’s even willing to do this at all,” Sam pointed out.

Dean shrugged and looked at Jack. “Do you trust him? Does he really want Chuck dead?”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, he does. Chuck hurt him too. If it wasn’t for him, I’d have no idea how to handle my powers. I’m more powerful now than when I was just a Nephilim. We have a chance of beating God.”

“Well, if you trust him, then that’s enough for me. I guess we better all get some shut eye. We’ve got God to kill in the morning,” Dean said.

Sam nodded. “Yeah, Dean’s right. Jack, do you still need sleep?”

Jack shook his head. “No. I’ll watch over you guys while you sleep.”

Dean felt a pang in his chest at the kid’s words. He kicked his boots off and slid under the covers as he said, “You don’t have to do that. There’s nobody to protect us from.”

“I know. I just… it’s what Cas always did when we were on a hunt together,” Jack replied, his shoulders slumping.

Sam frowned at his brother. Dean sighed, realizing that Jack was just trying to follow in Cas’ footsteps. “I’m sorry kid. You’re right, Cas would do that. I guess it would be ok if you did too.”

Jack’s face lit up as he smiled. “Thanks Dean. I promise nothing is gonna happen to you guys.”

Dean grinned. “We know, we know.”

Everyone was up early the next morning. Dean and Sam were dressed with the weapons Michael had given them the previous morning hidden somewhere on them. Jack had used his powers to conjure up some food and they were eating silently when Michael showed up.

He surveyed the room, his gaze flicking from Dean to Sam to Jack. “Are you ready?”

Dean shoved the last bite of his burrito in his mouth and then followed with the last of his coffee. He wiped his hands on his jeans before standing up and saying, “Let’s get this over with.”

Michael nodded. “Can we skip the theatrics of you driving up in your car this time with the radio blaring?”

Dean fingered the tape that was now nestled in his jacket pocket. “Yeah, sure.”

With a snap of his fingers, Jack teleported them to just outside the barn that Dean knew like the back of his hand. He stared at the walls, covered in sigils on the outside and the inside. He gripped the tape harder as memories of that night came flooding back.

“Wow, you and Bobby were prepared for everything,” Sam remarked.

Dean thought about Cas busting through the doors and walking towards him and Bobby unfailingly as they continued to shoot at him. He remembered how the shingles had shuttered and the lights had blown, Cas just showing off his power for the hell of it. He remembered how Cas had so easily knocked Bobby out and had pulled the demon blade from his chest as if it were nothing more than a splinter. Dean’s lips curved up in a half smile. “Not even close Sammy. Not even close to being prepared for Cas.”

“Are you prepared now?” Michael asked.

Dean’s fingers itched to wrap around the hilt of the knife that was hidden up his shirt sleeve. “Let’s gank this son of a bitch.”

All three men nodded as Jack held his hand out and blasted the front doors of the barn. They walked through the clearing dust to see Chuck standing in the middle of the barn, a condescending grin on his face. “Well, look who finally showed up. I guess now I know why I lost track of you two flannel clad idiots.” His gaze travelled to Michael. “You were supposed to be the loyal one, and yet, here you are. My own son is working against me.”

Dean felt the archangel tense next to him. “I was loyal to you! For millions of years I tried to do the job you assigned me, but you left Father! You abandoned me to go create other worlds, other versions of me! Even though I was loyal and followed all orders, you favored Lucifer! Any loyalty I had to you is gone.”

“Lucifer always did make things more interesting. You were always so… so boring in your blind faith to me. You were my blunt little instrument just like Dean was. It really is no wonder why he was supposed to be your perfect vessel. Oh well, I let Lucifer die, I’ll have no problem killing you as well,” Chuck said, completely uncaring.

Jack stepped up in front of all of them. His eyes flashed gold as he said, “You will not kill anyone! I won’t allow it any longer.”

Chuck’s face contorted into one of rage. “You! You took my sister’s power from me! The little Nephilim that wasn’t even supposed to exist! You were never in my stories and you’ve been a pain in my ass ever since!”

Jack faltered. “You never wrote me?”

“No, because you were never meant to be here. We were never meant to make the decisions that led to your birth,” Sam said as he stepped up next to Jack. “It was Cas’ decision that brought you into this world. It was my decision to raise you after you were born. It was Dean’s choice not to kill you in that graveyard. We were the ones that Chuck has never been able to control and it was our choices that led to you, not his writing.”

“You know, it wasn’t just Castiel that came off the line with a crack in his chassis. It was all of you! You used to be my favorites, but now you’re just a pain in my ass,” Chuck growled.

“Yeah, well, it’s what we’re good at,” Dean said lowly before pulling the knife from his sleeve and throwing it at Chuck. He watched in satisfaction as the blade lodged itself deep in God’s shoulder.

Chuck’s face contorted as he hollered out in pain. White light burst from the wound as he pulled the blade from his shoulder and let it drop to the ground. “You wanna die Dean, I’ll make sure you die,” he shouted. He snapped his fingers and Dean waited for pain but nothing happened.

“You won't hurt Dean or Sam, not as long as I’m around,” Jack said with pride.

Before Chuck had a chance to recover, Michael was charging forward, a lance held in his hand. Sam pulled his own knife out and threw it, watching as it sunk into Chuck’s stomach. Using the distraction to his advantage, Michael struck at his father with his lance, the blade drawing a long gash across Chuck’s shoulder.

Dean and Sam pulled their guns out and started firing bullet after bullet into the comic entity. With every bullet that buried itself in Chuck’s body, he grew weaker as more light flowed from the wounds. Jack pulled an angel blade from his sleeve and charged forward, swiping at Chuck every chance he got. Chuck suddenly swiped his hand, sending Dean and Sam flying against the walls. He then grabbed Michael by the arm and threw him across the barn and through the walls. He wrapped his hand around Jack’s throat and squeezed.

“I am God! Do you really think you can beat me?” He held his free hand out to the side, Dean and Sam lifting into the air. “I might not be able to kill you two, but I can still hurt you.” He let them drop, the two of them falling nearly twenty feet through the air. They landed with grunts and moans of pain.

“SAM, DEAN,” Jack shouted. He looked at Chuck, his eyes glowing a deep gold. “NO! You will not hurt them or this world any longer!” He shot a bolt of darkness straight into Chuck’s chest.

Chuck dropped Jack, grasping at his chest. “You can’t, if you do, you destroy this world!”

Jack stood to his full height, his shoulders pulled back as he stared at his grandfather. “I’m not like you! I intend to fix this world! I’m a Winchester and we save people and hunt things, that’s the family business. Goodbye Chuck.” He let more smoky bolts shoot from his hands into Chuck’s body until God was consumed by them.

Sam and Dean watched through pain filled eyes as Chuck’s body was enveloped in black smoke. Tendrils of light could be seen twisting and cutting through the smoke, as if trying to escape its clutches. Jack walked up and slid his hand into the darkness and the light slowly entered his fingers and travelled up his hand. Jack’s whole body glowed as he consumed the light until there was nothing left. When he turned to look at Sam and Dean, one eye was black and the other a bright gold.

“He’s gone,” Jack said happily. He rushed over to Sam and Dean, kneeling next to them and reaching out to heal them. They let out relieved gasps as pain was no longer flooding their bodies. Jack helped them to their feet before pulling them into tight hugs. “Chuck is dead,” he announced again.

Dean cupped Jack’s cheek as he stared at his son, pride swirling in the depths of his eyes. “Good job son. You did it.” He pulled Jack in for another hug.

Jack wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist and buried his head in the older man’s chest. “Thanks Dean.” Sam came up behind them and pressed his chest to Jack’s back. The three of them reveled in the moment.

“I hate to break up this bonding moment, but we’re not quite done here. Jack, you know what you have to do,” Michael said from behind them.

The three men broke apart to stare at the archangel. Jack pulled away from the two men and walked up to Michael. “You’re sure this is going to work?” he asked hesitantly.

Michael nodded once. “If it doesn’t, you can just bring me back and we’ll try again.”

Jack took a deep breath before holding both hands up and cupping either side of Michael’s head. Sam and Dean watched as Michael’s eyes and mouth glowed white and he let out a howling scream. The next instant, he dropped to the ground.

They all watched Michael’s body, waiting with bated breath to see what would happen. Without warning, Jack’s body started glowing and then the light began spilling from him into Michael’s prone form. Once the last speck of light had flowed into Michael, he took a deep breath and then struggled to his feet. His eyes flashed blue before settling back to their normal color.

“Well?” Sam asked.

Michael held his hands up and stared at them before looking at the three men. “It worked. I am God now.”

Dean’s face was set in a hard line as he said, “Are you gonna keep your word? Are you gonna bring everybody back?”

Michael held his hand out to Jack who took it. Their eyes flashed colors before they snapped their fingers at the same time. They dropped hands quickly. Jack looked at Sam and Dean with a bright smile. “It’s done! Everyone is back!”

Sam’s phone started ringing and he pulled it out, his jaw dropping. He shakily accepted the call. “Eileen,” he gasped out. Tears sprung to his eyes and a smile spread across his lips. He looked at Dean and nodded his head.

Dean smiled back and then focused his attention on Michael. “Cas.”

“I can pull my brothers and sisters from the Empty to help restore Heaven, but Castiel is not one of them because he’s not dead. The Empty has him locked away where even I can’t reach him. The Empty was angry because Castiel woke him up, and he wanted to get back at my brother for that. Now that he has Castiel, he has fallen back asleep. He might be convinced to give my brother up if his sleep is once again disturbed. I can give you a spell that will allow you to summon the Empty to Earth as many times as you want. You do have a way of pissing people off to get what you want,” Michael said with a smirk. He swiped his hand and a rolled up scroll appeared. He gave it to Dean and then conjured a bag which he also handed over. “There’s enough ingredients in there to summon the Empty at least a dozen times. If you need more, just let me know.”

Dean took the items silently. He looked at the spell and then inside the bag, confirming everything Michael had just told him. He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Thank you but why? You don’t owe me anything.”

“You helped me get what I wanted. The least I can do is help you get what you want. I know I said we don’t always get what we deserve, but I think this one time we all deserve that chance. Now, I have some things to start taking care of. Goodbye Dean.”

“Goodbye Michael,” Dean said softly as the archangel walked over to Jack.

He watched Sam still talking to Eileen and Michael and Jack were now deep in conversation. Dean gripped the scroll and bag tighter before walking outside the barn. He walked deep into the abandoned corn field. He didn’t stop until the barn could barely be seen over the brown stalks.

He spent the next ten minutes setting up the summoning circle and preparing the ingredients as described. He pulled a knife from the bag and cut his palm, squeezing his hand so that blood dripped onto the circle below. He watched dispassionately as a familiar black ooze appeared in front of him. The ooze bubbled upwards and formed into a familiar figure. Dean stared at the entity before him who was wearing Meg’s face.

Her face twisted into rage as she snarled, “Who are you? Why have you summoned me here? I’m supposed to finally be asleep!”

“Bring Cas back,” Dean demanded.

The Empty’s lip curled up. “NO! No, I will not give you that pesky angel back! We had a deal, and I don’t intend to go back on it.”

“You don’t give him back and I’ll do this all over again,” Dean said.

The Empty’s eyes widened. “You dare threaten me!”

Dean stepped to the edge of the circle. “There is nothing you can do to me inside that circle. So, go ahead, go back to sleep. I’ll just summon you again and again and again until you release Cas. You want sleep, then give me my angel back!”

Meg growled and snarled and kicked at the dirt beneath her feet. “No! No, you can’t do this! I am eons old, and I will not be bested by some human.”

“Bring Cas back,” Dean reiterated.

The Empty said nothing, just disappearing. Dean huffed but pulled out more ingredients and performed the summoning a second time. He watched in satisfaction as the Empty glared at him. “Bring Cas back.”

“You’ll run out of ingredients soon enough,” Meg said before disappearing.

Dean performed the summoning again. “Actually Michael, the new God, said he’ll keep supplying me until the end of time. So, keep disappearing and I’ll keep summoning you. Now, bring Cas back!”

Meg paced the circle like a caged tiger, snapping and snarling every so often. Dean knew he had the entity cornered and he was just waiting for the Empty to realize it as well. He watched with a smirk as the woman in front of him finally spun to face him.

“Fine,” she bit out. “You want your precious angel, you can have him… but on one condition. I’ll give the angel back, but he won’t be an angel any longer. I refuse to be woken up by him ever again.”

Dean paled. “What?”

Meg chuckled darkly. “I’ll give him up, but he’ll be human. And you make the decision, so how badly do you want Castiel back? Are you willing to make such a choice for him? Are you really so afraid of being alone that you would take the one thing from Castiel that makes him special?”

Dean stepped back, his jaw clenching as he swallowed thickly. He dropped his eyes, unable to stare at the being in front of him. He slipped his tongue out to lick his suddenly dry lips.

“I can’t. I can’t take being an angel away from Cas. I won’t make that choice for him. I did it for Sam and look how that backfired. Cas is an angel and I’m just a pathetic human. Even if he’s locked in the Empty, he’s still an angel. I don’t want to be alone; I don’t want to be without Cas, but I won’t take his wings from him. I won’t make one more bad decision and have Cas hate me.” Dean’s thoughts swirled around his head.

Dean started to say something when another voice filtered through his head. “Every choice you did was for love. You are selfless and caring. You love so much. You’re not the monster you see yourself as. I love you.”

“I love you Cas, and I’m gonna make one more decision out of love,” Dean whispered to himself softly. He looked at the Empty. “Bring Cas back.”

Meg laughed. “When he hates you for the pain he’s about to experience, just know it’s all your fault. I have him locked away in darkness, experiencing nothing. You’re about to make him experience torture the likes of which you can never imagine.”

Dean felt his heart stop and was about to say something, but then a shape started forming next to the Empty. He watched with bated breath as the shape took form, and then Cas was standing in front of him.

Cas’ eyes focused on Dean, confusion clouding them. “Dean?” he asked softly.

“Cas,” Dean whispered letting out the breath he had been holding.

“Remember,” Meg said darkly.

Dean watched as Cas let out the most agonizing scream he had ever heard. It pierced his ears and shattered his soul. Dean felt every bone in his body shaking as Cas started writhing, screams still falling from his lips. He watched as Cas’ body contorted in ways a body wasn’t meant to, as Cas started clawing at his arms and face. Dean wanted to reach out, to do something, but he was frozen, a vice like grip on his heart keeping him from moving. Cas fell to his knees, his body rippling in painful spasms and his voice wrecked from all the screams. His back bowed, and Dean watched as bright blue light filled Cas’ eyes and mouth.

Finally, Cas fell to the ground in a heap. The Empty stood over him laughing in glee and Dean’s heart was beating out of his chest. His gaze remained locked on Cas’ prone form as he fell to his knees.

“Well, that was more entertaining that I thought. I think that was better than having the angel caught in my grasp for eternity. Now, will you please leave me the hell alone so I can finally sleep?” the Empty snapped before disappearing.

Dean barely noticed Meg leaving, his eyes still staring at Cas’ trench coat clad form. He had tears rolling down his eyes, but he made no move to wipe them away. He finally dropped his eyes, not having a clue what to say to the man in front of him. He had just caused Cas unimaginable pain and for what? Dean had chosen to let Cas go through something so horrible because he couldn’t imagine living the rest of his life without him.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop,” Cas said, his voice scratchy and broken.

Dean’s head snapped up to see Cas looking at him. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and he slowly crawled closer to where Cas was. He stopped a foot away. “You don’t know what I’m thinking,” he said, his voice full of tears.

Cas forced himself to sit up, his face twisting as pain surged through his body. “You’re regretting whatever choice you just made to bring me back. I can see the despair in your eyes Dean. You’re blaming yourself for reasons I don’t know.”

Dean huffed out a breath as the tears continued to fall. “You’re not an angel anymore and it’s my fault. All that pain… it was my fault.”

Cas shuffled closer until he could reach out and grab Dean’s trembling hand. He squeezed as he said, “Why did you bring me back?”

Dean took a shaky breath. “Because I can’t be without you. I don’t do well when you’re not here. I need you Cas; I need you.” Dea paused and then held his hand out and cupped Cas’ cheek. “How could you think that what you wanted you couldn’t have? You’ve always had me. I’ve always been yours from the moment you walked through those damn barn doors.” He watched as Cas’ eyes went wide at the confession.

Cas tilted his head and started to speak, but Dean plowed on. “You’ve changed me, and I’ve fought and kicked and screamed the entire time. You’ve made a place in my life and I can’t- I can’t function without you. I know I’ve always blamed you and yelled at you and pushed you away, and I’m so sorry Cas. I’m so damn sorry; I just didn’t know how to handle what I was feeling. I didn’t think I deserved to have those feelings reciprocated, so I pushed them down and I lashed out at you.”

Dean’s voice broke as a sob escaped him. “I’ve never felt like this before, and I was scared and confused. I couldn’t fathom the thought that you would feel the same way. I’m just a screwed up human who’s made tons of bad decisions. I fell in love with you years ago, but why would I ever think that an angel would fall in love with a demon like me? Of course I love you! How could I not? I love you Cas, more than I have words for,” Dean said, his voice dropping to a whisper. Tears were clouding his eyes, and his hands were shaking. His throat hurt from all the tears clogging it, and he clenched his jaw to keep another sob from being ripped from his body.

Dean gasped as Cas pulled him closer to his body, wrapping his arms around Dean’s back and waist. Dean buried his head in the junction between Cas’ neck and shoulder. He flinched when Cas ran a soft hand through his short hair. “You dumbass,” Cas said, tears evident in his own voice.

Dean chuckled. “I prefer idiot. Less dumb, less ass.”

Cas laughed softly. “I’m sorry for not telling you about the deal. I’m sorry for.”

“STOP! You have nothing to apologize for. What’s done is done. Can’t we just put it behind us? Let’s just focus on right here, right now,” Dean said, looking Cas in the eyes.

A soft smile spread across Cas’ face. “I like that idea. I like that idea a lot.”

“So do I,” Dean whispered before leaning forward and pressing his lips to Cas’.

All the pent up feelings rushed into the space where their lips met. Every emotion the two of them had ever felt: anger, sadness, heartbreak, loyalty, betrayal, love, flowed between them. Cas pulled Dean even closer, the hunter going willingly. Their lips pressed and slipped against each other, their hands clutching one another, afraid to let go. Cas kissed as if he was starving and Dean kissed like a man possessed.

When they finally broke apart, both of them were gasping. Hardly an inch separated them and Dean slid his nose against Cas’, enjoying being so close to the man he loved. He cupped the back of Cas’ neck and twirled his fingers in the short black strands as Cas pecked his lips over and over. When Cas took a deep breath, Dean surged forward, slipping his tongue inside the ex-angel’s mouth.

Their noses bumped together as they continued to make out. Their tongues intertwined with each other before breaking apart just to do it all over again. Cas’ hand had come to rest on Dean’s shoulder once more, and he squeezed tightly.

Dean broke the kiss to stare. “I’ve hardly taken this jacket off. I couldn’t bear to part with it. It was the only reminder I had left of you.”

Cas nuzzled against Dean’s nose and cheek. “I promise not to leave you again. I’m home Dean; wherever you are, I’m home. I love you.”

Dean pressed a quick kiss to Cas’ lips. “I’m home too, Cas. You here with me is all I need. I love you.”

A while later they finally stood to their feet and walked hand in hand back to the barn. Jack and Cas shared a long hug and a few quiet words between them. Sam and Cas then hugged one another, Sam happy to have his brother back. They all took one last look at the barn before heading outside. Jack transported all of them back to the motel Dean and Sam were staying at. With a snap of his fingers, Baby’s trunk was loaded with Dean and Sam’s things, along with a bag full of clothes for Cas.

Without a word, Sam and Jack slid into the back seat. Cas slid into the passenger seat and Dean pulled him close, wrapping his arm around Cas’s shoulders and dropping a kiss into his hair. Before they headed back to the bunker, they would be picking up Eileen and stopping by to visit with Jody, Donna, and the girls. They would also check up on all the Apocalypse world hunters along the way.

Dean started the engine and looked in the rearview mirror. Sam and Jack were talking about some crazy piece of lore, and Dean smiled. For the first time in a long time, Sam and Jack were relaxed, not a hint of tension in their bodies. He then looked at the angel who was curled against him.

Cas looked up, his blue eyes shining. “What?”

Dean flashed a smile. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m just happy for once. We actually won.”

Cas leaned up and pressed a tender kiss to Dean’s lips. “We did. We got the ending we deserve.”

“Hell yeah we did.” As Dean pulled Baby out the parking lot and onto the highway, he leaned forward and turned on the radio. The car was filled with the sound of classic rock music.

Carry on my wayward son There will be peace when you are done Lay your weary head to rest Don’t you cry no more

#My writing #my OTP #Destiel

6 notes · View notes

lovedsammy · 4 years

Text

show me hope again; jack hurt/comfort [commission for wickedwithwings]

This was a commission for @wickedwithwings. The request was for a jack hurt/comfort with Sam & Jack and/or Sam, Jack & Cas, so I tried to do all of those. The premise was Jack gets sent back to Earth from the Empty, Chuck senses it and captures Jack, convincing him that no one wants Jack back and he isn’t loved anymore. Sam and Cas find him, and convince him otherwise.

If we’re going off somewhat canon events, this could take place after 15.08, lol.

--------

Jack remembers dying.

He remembers being blinded -- literally and figuratively -- by pain, screaming so loudly that even in death, he could feel the rawness of his throat. And then there’d been nothing, almost like he’d fallen into an endless, dreamless sleep. Every single concept of existence ceased to be. The process of death was simple. Like a candle, the flame of life burned for only a short period. And then it was snuffed out, sometimes before the wick even burned dry. Death had no regard for time or how long someone’s flame should burn. It just took. Awareness comes back to him almost instantly, or what he thinks is instantly. He opens his eyes anew, his vision intact once more, and he finds that he’s engulfed in blackness, in pure nothing. He’s in the Empty, he realizes with a start. This was the place where creatures like him, with no humanity or a soul, went when they died. This was where Castiel had been, before Jack had awoken him.

He glimpses a figure emerging from the shadows, and the boy sits up, squinting. He somehow recognizes it, the entity; it’s the host for the Empty. Jack feels his body, or what he perceives as his body, tensing up, and suddenly wishes he’d never awoken at all. He stares up at the faceless being with trepidation, waiting, for what he knows will be unimaginable torture. He’d defied it, and so had Cas, back in Heaven. There was no way it was going to let him remain awake without some kind of revenge. But The Empty just stands before him, using a finger to draw a smile on its nonexistent features. It calms Jack, although he knows it shouldn’t.

But maybe… maybe there was a chance that it meant him no harm. Cas’s deal -- was it considered null now, with his death? Cas, who had offered himself up for Jack instead, for Jack’s life to be spared, only for it to be taken by God. What did that amount to now?

“What’s happening?” Jack asks, not really expecting an answer, but to his surprise, he gets one.

“Yeah, about that,” A cool voice sounds from behind him, and he turns confused eyes onto a woman, dressed all in black with a large scythe in her hand. Billie. Death herself. He knew of her from Sam and Dean, knew that she had power in the Empty, which was probably how he was awake now. But why? Why was he awake? “We should talk,” Billie says, and Jack can only stare at her numbly.

“Talk about… about what?”

Billie regards him carefully. “Fortunately for you, your story is not over yet, young Nephilim. God may have prematurely sent you here, but I have the power to send you back.” She approaches, and kneels down in front of him. Jack’s apprehension fades when she smiles at him. It’s not exactly a friendly smile, but it’s warm enough that it lowers all of his barriers. He has nothing to fear from her. “I have a job for you. A job that only you can do. How would you like to save the world that your Grandfather has so desperately doomed?”

At Jack’s perplexed expression, she raises two fingers and presses them against the boy’s forehead. And Jack sees. He sees himself, writhing on the ground with light streaming from his eyes as they’re burned out of his skull. He sees Cas trying and failing to heal the damage. He sees Sam, gun in hand, yelling at Chuck. He sees Sam pulls the trigger, the bullet becoming a double-edged sword that lodges into both Sam and Chuck’s shoulders, creating mirroring wounds. He sees the scope of Chuck’s anger, feels his wrath, and watches as their almighty creator ushers in what he calls, ‘the end.’ He sees the released souls from Hell inhabit the bodies of the dead, watches his fathers as they try to fight them off. He watches the planet die, little by little. He sees the end of everything.

Billie pulls back at Jack’s fearful shout, watching the boy expectantly. Once he gets a hold of himself, Jack looks at her, really looks at her. She looks sad, he thinks. She doesn’t like what God has done. It went against Death’s very rule. What was happening now… wasn’t how things were supposed to be.

And Jack knows, suddenly, what he has to do. He nods.

“I want to save it. I want to save them.”

Sam, Cas, and even Dean… they were everything to him. He couldn’t bear to see them suffer.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Billie says. Jack thinks he sees fondness in her expression. “Good luck. Tell the Winchesters I’ll be seeing them soon.”

It feels like a warning, as much as it is a message. Before Jack can ask her what she means, fingers meet his forehead again, and everything goes black.

Jack breathes his first third gasp of life -- how many times would he experience that? Dying, just to be born again? -- and his eyes snap open again. It’s a cloudless day, is the first thing he notices. He’s staring up at a blue sky. Then his other senses kick in. His nostrils fill with the strong scent of earth., and he inhales it in, the smell making his nose itch, but not minding it. Allergies be damned. He lets himself absorb the feeling of the grass beneath him, damp from the morning mildew. He listens to the sounds, the rustling of the leaves and the rush of water from the river. He enjoys the gentle breeze wind swiping his hair. The sun is warm on his face. He loves this world, this amazing world that he never was supposed to be a part of in the first place, but had been born into. He loves humanity, with and without its flaws. He loves Sam, and Dean, and Castiel.

His family.

His family, that had included Mary, too.

His heart gives a painful clench when he thinks of her, and it feels different than the last time he was alive, when he’d had no soul. Had Billie somehow restored it? Or had he managed to live with it, as Cas had told him he would, and learned to love even without it? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter now, not really. The state of his soul was the least of his concerns.

Jack carefully rises to his feet, assessing himself. He’s wearing the same clothes that he’d died in. One of the laces of his shoes is untied. His jacket and jeans have grass stains. He reaches up to touch his face and feels unblemished skin. Satisfied, he looks at his surroundings. He’s in the middle of a field in an area that he doesn’t recognize. He hopes he’s somewhere in Lebanon. Billie wouldn’t have sent him back too far from home, would she? Jack reaches down to tie his shoes, and sets off. The first order of business was to find out where he’d ended up. And then he’d go find his family.

If they even want you back after what you did, his mind reminds him, and he swallows down that anxiety. Dean hadn’t gone through with killing him. Sam and tried to stop him, and had even shot God to try and save him. And Cas…. Cas had loved him unconditionally, no matter what. Of course they’d want him back.

“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” A voice remarks, and it’s one that he’s regrettably burned into his memory. Jack jumps, turning wild-eyed and afraid to find Chuck -- God -- leaning against a tree, hands in his pockets as he watches the Nephilim with a smirk. Was this some sick joke? Had he come back just to die again? “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. Again. Not yet,” Chuck says, slowly approaching the boy. Despite himself, Jack backs up. “You’re too weak to fight me right now, and I could always use you as some incentive against the Winchesters and Castiel. You could be helpful to me. Well, your powers, anyway.”

“I’ll never help you,” Jack snarls. He tries to reach inward, to try and sense his powers. They’re there, but it’s as Chuck said -- they’re drained. It would take time to power back up. Right now, he’s practically as useless as he was when he was human. Jack bites his lip, unsure of what to do. He could fight in the way that Bobby trained him to, all raised fists and well-aimed kicks. But his puny human body wouldn’t stand a chance against God himself. Still, he has to do something. As Chuck continues toward him, he wrestles with his fight or flight response. Flight wins out, and he makes a beeline for the trees.

Chuck sighs, loud and exasperated. “Jack. Really? Come on. I created everything. There’s nowhere that you can go that I’ll never be able to find you. All you’re doing is prolonging things. You’re just going to wear yourself out.”

Jack ignores him, running as fast as he can towards the highway. Maybe he could hitchhike. Sam always said that was dangerous, but if it got him home, to them, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He needed to get away from Chuck. Chuck, who he can still hear as loud as if he were directly next to him, despite the distance that there should be between them.

“I mean, are Sam and Dean going to even want to see you? You killed their Mom.”

He knows that Chuck is just goading him, trying to break him down. And Jack, unfortunately, rises to the bait. “You made me!” He snaps. “The voice, the sound I heard that day, when Mary was talking to me! That was you!”

“Yeah, but it was your hands that killed her, Jack. Your powers. It was still you, too, even if I was guiding your hand. Not that it matters anymore, though. What happened to Mary Winchester is over. Her sons and their angel are the only ones who matter now. Well, and you. Especially you.”

Jack’s lungs wheeze from how fast he’s running, but he can’t slow down. He’s close, so very close to the highway, thinks he can even see it now, and recognizes it as he edges closer. He’s been on this highway countless times before, had driven down it with Dean. He was only about ten minutes from the Bunker.

If only he could --

There’s a stab of pain as he trips over something, and Jack shouts as he tries to catch himself, falling on his hands. He groans, and forces himself to sit up. There’s a hole in his jeans at the bottom of the pants leg, and a steady flow of blood from where the jagged piece of rock had cut into him. It doesn’t look that deep, but it would slow him down.

Jack whimpers as he tries to get up and fails, vision swimming, feeling every bit like the helpless kid he is. “Cas,” He calls out. He doesn’t know if his angel father can hear him. “Castiel…. Sam, please.”

He can’t move. All he can do is lie there and hope and pray that someone, somewhere, can help him. That Cas can hear him, that Sam will --

“Ohhh… kid, that looks like it hurts.”

Jack raises his head to see Chuck leaning over him. “Hello again, Grandson. It’s about time we actually spent some quality time together, don’t you think?”

The days are long and miserable.

Honestly, Jack begins to consider that being dead may be less of a torture than this. Chuck doesn’t even have to hurt him physically. It’s the mental pain that God inflicts the most, and enjoys. He makes Jack remember Mary’s death, over and over. The countless other people that Jack’s hurt or killed since he was born. He makes Jack remember his mom.

Chuck shows him things, too.

Sam and Dean, locking him in the Malach box. Dean, with his gun trained on him, ready to execute him. Both of them, calling Jack a monster. Castiel, agreeing, turning away when Jack begs him for help while the brothers torture him.

Jack knows it’s not real. God is like Michael in how he tortures him. It hadn’t been real, then, either. But this time, God has Jack’s insecurities and regrets to use against him, his doubts and fears. And he uses them. He breaks Jack over and over until the boy cries and begs to die. And then, eventually, Jack stops crying. He becomes numb, feeling almost hollow. Not soulless -- he’s quite certain that he’s not soulless anymore, if he’d honestly ever been -- but hollow in the way that only pure torture can make you.

Jack had seen it in Sam, when Sam was around Lucifer. He’s only now really understanding the depths of the fear Sam had toward his father, and why. Jack wishes he could tell Sam he understands, and that he’s sorry.

In the beginning, when Jack’s resolve was still stronger, he’d fought against Chuck’s mind games as much as he could. Chuck would play a game where he’d ask Jack where he’d go if he ever got free. Jack would tell him. And when Chuck would say that Jack didn’t belong somewhere, Jack had another answer lined up.

And on and on it went, until there were no answers left.

“Sam and Dean won’t want you, Jack. You killed their Mom.”

“Cas --”

“If Cas cared, he’d be here. He can hear you pray, remember? He just isn’t listening.”

“Heaven.”

“You think anyone would let you upstairs? Come on, kid. Yeah, you made new angels, but I’m back. You think for a second they’d take you over me if I told them not to?”

“Hell, then.”

“The demons? They want Lucifer, they wouldn’t want you. Even if you’re his son, they know your affiliation with the Winchesters. Why would they want the boy who rejected his father and chose humans? Face it, there’s no one out there waiting for you, Jack. I’m all you’ve got.”

After a while, he’d started to believe it.

“Why don’t you just kill me?” He asks Chuck one day when the man comes down to visit him in his cage from whatever establishment he has upstairs. A bar or something, Jack recalls Chuck telling him once. Even God needed breaks.

Chuck just laughs around his glass of tequila. “Where’s the fun in that? Billie would just keep sending you back, and then we’d have to start all over. At least this way I know you’re not going anywhere. You’re contained, and no one’s the wiser.”

But it makes Jack realize the true reason why he’s doing this. Chuck is afraid of him. He’s afraid of Jack’s powers. And Jack could tell that Chuck was getting weaker by the day, while he was growing stronger. Contained, but stronger. His power was on par with that of God. The thought makes him nauseous instead of confident. Because if God could do what he’d done to the world, then what damage could Jack do?

I wouldn’t, he tells himself. I wouldn’t do what he’s done.

He’s unsure if he believes it.

He falls asleep at night dreaming of Sam, of his kind smile and gentle hands.

He prays to Castiel every day.

And every day, he thinks he breaks a little more. Because Chuck was right. If Castiel or Sam or even Dean… if any of them truly cared, they would’ve been here by now. Cas would have answered his prayers. Which meant that he didn’t want to hear him. And Sam…. Sam would never come find him, not after what he’d done, not after he’d taken Sam’s mother from him. Sam, who never got to really know his mom, who had lost her as a baby like he’d had his.

Sam had more reason to hate him than anyone.

Jack curls in on himself, and falls into a restless slumber.

Even if he got out, Chuck was right. There was no one and nothing to go back to.

He wasn’t wanted anywhere.

With his powers failing, it takes Castiel a little while to pinpoint the source of the cry being directed to him for well over a month. And when he does, it hits him like a freight train. He and Sam are researching in the Bunker when Cas feels it again, stronger than before. It’s like knives in his head, the intensity of the misery, and Cas gives a pained shout, grimacing.

“Cas?” Sam asks worriedly, the books forgotten. “You all right? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Jack,” Cas answers after a beat. “Sam… Jack’s alive.”

The hope that enters Sam’s eyes is something that Castiel never wants to see taken from him again. It’d happened far too much already.

“What?” Sam asks, breathless. “Are you sure? Cas…”

“He’s calling for help,” Cas confirms, getting to his feet. He’s able to hone in on Jack’s presence now, can feel his state of being. “He’s been crying out for me, for us. He’s showing me… Chuck. Chuck has him. There’s enochian sigils and other forms of warding on the cage he’s in, I… he needs help.”

Sam leaps to his feet without hesitation. He hasn’t looked this alive in months. “Then let’s go get him, Cas. Let’s get him and bring him home.”

Jack is awoken, at some point, by a commotion upstairs. He opens an eye, squinting, focusing. Chuck usually had his fair share of parties and things happening -- it was a bar, after all. He listens for the familiar shriek of girls, the game machines blaring, the loud music… but none of it ever comes. It’s silent except for loud thudding, and hushed voices. This isn’t Chuck. Something’s different.

“Hello?” He calls out, heart pounding in his throat. “Is someone there?” He moves around a little, managing what he can in his little cage. It clunks every time he remanuvers.

He waits.

More talking.

“Hello?” He repeats, trying to make his voice louder.

He tries to see up the stairs to where the light from the room is coming from behind the door, but from the angle he’s at, he can’t see who it is. He’s still too far away. Luckily, whoever it was up there seemed to know there was someone downstairs, and open the door, hurriedly descending the staircase, flashlight in hand. Cops, then.

Jack doesn’t understand why they’re here, of all places. From what he knew, there wasn’t any illegal activity taking place. Chuck would want to keep the establishment under the authorities’ radar, lest the Winchesters discovered it. Jack had honestly thought there was no chance of rescue, that no one at all would be coming for him. Maybe they still weren’t, but the possibility of freedom has Jack reworking things. He would take anything.

He didn’t know where he would go, or who could possibly ever want him. But he’d give anything to be out of this cage, and out of Chuck’s grasp. Anything for the days of torture to be over.

“Hello?” A voice calls. “Is someone down here?”

Jack knows that voice. He knows it, because it’s the first voice he’d ever heard.

“Sam?” He croaks, mouth dry. Was he just imagining things? Was this just another of Chuck’s mind games, making him see what he so desperately craved? But then Sam is standing in front of him. Even with the limited light, he can see how pale Sam is, see the absolute shock on his face.

“Jack?” Sam gasps. “Jack, you’re alive, you’re…. Oh my God. Cas! Cas, get down here! I’ve got him!”

Sam pushes himself down to his knees, and reaches out to the boy immediately, still locked in the cage. He engulfs Jack’s small hand with his much larger one. The sensation of the touch takes Jack aback, and he shakes his head. Was this really happening?

“I don’t believe it,” Sam says wetly. “You’re really here… I need to get you…” Sam looks around for something he can use to pry the cage open. He settles for a crowbar, prying and shoving at the lock. It comes undone after a long moment, and Sam wrenches the door open, pulling Jack out and into his arms. He cradles the boy close to him, his large frame trembling.

He is soft and warm in the way that Jack remembers, and not even his dreams had been able to replicate the safe feeling he associated with the man.

“Sam,” Jack realizes. This isn’t a trick, isn’t some form of distorted reality that Chuck had cooked up. This was real. Choking, tears running down his face, Jack clings to Sam with everything he has. He lets himself relax for the first time in weeks against Sam’s body. Sam was here. Sam was really here, and he was free, and…

“Sam --”

Cas.

Jack and Sam pull apart at his arrival, and Jack raises his head to meet Castiel’s eyes. “Cas,” He sniffles.

“Jack…”

The angel looks thunderstruck, like he’s seconds away from falling over. Instead, he surges forward and envelops both Sam and Jack to him in a tight embrace. His fingers card through Jack’s hair, and the boy closes his eyes in pure relief. Somehow, he was still wanted. He was still loved. His fathers had come for him. Chuck had been wrong.

“It’s all right now, Jack,” Cas says. “You’re safe. We’re going to take you home.”

But Jack shakes his head. “I can’t. Dean. He’s going to kill me, he's ...”

“No, he isn’t going to kill you, Jack,” Sam promises, hugging the boy close. “He’s missed you, too. I won’t let anything happen to you ever again. Neither will Cas. None of us will. I promise. I know this is late, but… I love you too, Jack. I love you so much, and I’m so sorry I failed you.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Jack cries, his tears coating Sam’s neck. “I’m sorry about Mary. I’m sorry for all of it.”

Sam and Cas shush him, whispering nothing but comfort and assurance, holding him close.

They stay huddled on the floor for a long, long time.

#wickedwithwings #jack kline #commissions #samjack #casjack #sam winchester #castiel #spn #supernatural #chuck shurley #*mine

79 notes · View notes

caranfindel · 4 years

Text

Recap/review 15.12: “Galaxy Brain”

Oh, my friends, so many things have happened since we last got together. Most of them bad. But let’s try to forget them and immerse ourselves in our favorite show again, shall we?

THEN: Sammy lost hope (Saaaaaaammmmmm!!!!), Chuck needs to visit his other worlds, and oh. Crap. Kaia. Claire’s wooden response to Kaia’s death, Dark Kaia’s stupid dramatic poses… ugh. I’m not here for any of this. And also, Jack has to do exactly what Billie says if he wants to kill God.

NOW: Four weeks ago. Earth 2. Apparently Radio Shack Shed is still in business in this other world. Maybe because Hillary Clinton is the president. Oh, but things are going to go downhill for Radio Shed, because Chuck just walked in.

I take it you’re unsatisfied with your viewing experience at home?

You have no idea.

Hee!

The friendly Radio Shed employee tries to interest Chuck in his giant wall o’televisions, but he’s not here for a TV. What is he here for? “An audience. It’s monologue time.” Each of the TVs begins to show scenes from one of Chuck’s worlds, including the interior of the bunker in our world, as he begins his monologue. As we watch Sam’s visions from the other worlds, Chuck complains that he created his one world, created copies, and should be happy. Because he’s gotten what he wants from hundreds of Sams and Deans, and could get more. But the other worlds don’t spark joy like the original Sam and Dean do. “They challenge me. They disappoint me. They surprise me. They’re the ones.” Chuck doesn’t need more. He suddenly realizes he needs less. It’s time to cancel “all the other worlds, the alternate realities, the subplots, the failed spinoffs.” YES, CHUCK, ESPECIALLY THE FAILED SPINOFFS.

Title card!

Sioux Falls. Our version. Jody is examining a dead cow. Alex calls, wanting to know when she’ll be home to eat vegan lasagna. Which sounds nasty. I’ve got nothing against vegan cuisine, but I think taking a dish that’s supposed to be loaded with cheese, and loading it with not-cheese, is a mistake. Just make spaghetti. Jody says she thinks her dead cow is evidence of humans, not monsters. She sees something suspicious in a barn and heads inside, where she is promptly clobbered.

Bunker. Sam’s wearing that orange plaid shirt that fits him just right, although the collar is higher than I’d like, and we’ve discussed my feelings on orange. Whatever TFW is talking about, he doesn’t like it. “Which part?” Dean asks. “Jack’s deal with Death, or the part where she’s got him eating angel hearts?” Yeah, there’s a lot to dislike there. Sam doesn’t think they should trust Billie, and he’s concerned about Jack’s state of mind, considering that he is still soulless, and was in the Empty for months. And I’m sure this was not intentional on the writers’ part, but I like the way this played out. When they first saw Jack, Sam was the one who immediately reached out, because his boy was back, and it wasn’t until later that he thought oh, things might be fucked up. Dean, on the other hand, immediately had his guard up, and took a moment before he decided it was okay and accepted Jack. This feels true to the characters and I like it. But as I said, I’m sure it’s an accident.

For his part, Jack is wandering the dark rooms of the bunker. He comes across the initials scratched into the table and touches Mary’s, then retreats to his room. Where a strange woman suddenly appears behind him and says she’s answering Jack’s silent prayer to Death, who is busy at the moment.

Meanwhile, Cas says he has some concerns, but Jack trusts Billie and he trusts Jack. And that makes sense. Jack is, what, two years old now? So of course he’s learned who is trustworthy. It’s not like he ever trusted Lucifer or anything like that. Sam reminds them of the required cosmic balance, what with Amara needing to be cancelled out by God. Dean says, having spent time with Billie and visited her library, that he believes in her and her commitment to the rules. He thinks she’s probably got it all figured out.

“Probably?” Sam says. “Like she had the Ma’lak box figured out?” Well, there’s an interesting point. Billie was sure there was only one road that didn’t end in chaotic destruction, and she was wrong. {Or she was lying. Discuss.} But Dean’s still willing to put his faith in her. After all, she was right about Rowena. And it’s the only plan they’ve got, which Sam reluctantly agrees with. Well, he doesn’t agree as much as he just stops arguing.

Skeptical Sam!

Jack is telling his visitor about how he called out to Billie for help with the Grigori, but she didn’t respond. The visitor must be a reaper. She’s a pleasant change from other reapers – a middle-aged woman with gorgeous silver hair and a matronly outfit. She assures Jack that Billie must have known everything would turn out okay, or else she would have stepped in. All Jack has to do is follow Billie’s rules – lie low, wait for instructions, and don’t use your powers under any circumstances, because God might find you. Oooh, what could possibly happen now? Whose life will be in jeopardy, forcing Jack to use his powers?

Approaching Jack’s room, Sam hears him talking to the reaper. Sam knocks on the door and then opens it, which is not cool. {Sidebar: A knock is supposed to say “can I come in,” not “here I come.” You should wait for permission to open the door.} Anyway. When Sam enters, the reaper is gone. Jack claims he was talking to “no one,” and Sam lets that pass. He tells Jack he’s just checking in on him, and stumbles a bit when trying to express how glad they are to have him back. He tells Jack that he could have come to them, even though I’m pretty sure Jack said he couldn’t because he was hiding from God, but that was so long ago that I’ve forgotten. But let’s concentrate on the important part of this conversation. Sam’s face.

He’s awkward and endearing and I adore him.

Dean and Cas are sharing a decanter of whiskey now that Sam’s finally out of their hair. {waves to the Destiel shippers.} Cas explains that he was sure Jack would save the world somehow, and he was “lost” when Jack “died” because he knew Jack’s story couldn’t be done yet. And now, he is absolutely sure that he was right all along. “Here’s to being right,” Dean offers as a toast. He’s also excited about the idea of revenge against Chuck, though Cas says he’s only interested in “Jack fulfilling his destiny.”

Can we just have several minutes of Dean drinking whiskey? Please?

But before Dean can spend a lot of time basking in his anticipated revenge, his phone rings. It’s Jody. Someone’s holding a phone up to her face, so she must be tied up. “Dean, I’m in trouble. Route 11, Fletcher Farm, the old barn. If you don’t come, I’m dead.” Yeah, looks like trouble, all right.

Fletcher Farm. The Impala pulls up next to Jody’s Sheriffmobile. (Aw, typing that makes me miss the Pimpmobile.) It’s just Sam and Dean, though Sam is on the phone with someone when they arrive.

Hello, gorgeous.

The guys find Jody tied up, as predicted, inside the old Fletcher barn. Sam starts to untie her, as Dean conveniently looks the other way and therefore completely misses someone attacking Sam. You will probably not be surprised to hear that this someone is Dark Kaia. She dispatches Sam easily, as people always do when it’s convenient for plot reasons, and gets Dean by the throat. “You have something that belongs to me,” she says. Which, as we know from the Then, is her magic spear. That got broken. Oops. Dean doesn’t care that he promised her he’d get her back to her own world, or that he promised to return the spear, because “that promise expired the minute you hurt our friend.” Although, Dean, you were conveniently ignoring that promise long before Jody got involved, but okay. Luckily, Jody is able to sneak up behind Dark Kaia and hit her with something, allowing Dean and Sam to pull their guns. Yay! {Sidebar: I love Jody, y’all, but that doesn’t mean I want her being the badass instead of Sam.} Sam asks Dark Kaia why she’s so desperate to get back to “that hellhole,” because apparently Sam doesn’t get that your home is your home, even if it’s a hellhole, which makes perfect sense, she said sarcastically.

It turns out the awful orange jacket doesn’t actually match the orange plaid shirt all that well.

Dark Kaia explains that her world is dying, and she knows this because she’s psychically connected to Kaia 1.0. Who is still alive, somehow. Jody feels awful, but Sam and Dean are the ones who didn’t even bother to haul her carcass back through the rift, so. {Sidebar: Coincidentally, I just watched “Defending Your Life.” I wonder if Dean’s feelings of guilt have changed since that episode?}

Bunker. Jack is beating Cas at Connect Four when they hear the creaky door open. {Sidebar: The Husband winces every time he hears the Impala’s squeaky doors. Do the Winchesters not know what WD-40 is?} Sam comes downstairs with Jody, and we have this weird conversation.

Jody!

Hey, Jack, Cas.

Nice to finally meet you in person.

Have Jody and Cas really never met? And if not, why did she casually greet him with “hey, Cas?” Weird. Carrying on. Dean appears with Dark Kaia, who also greets Jack, because I guess she knows him from Kaia 1.0’s dreams or whatever.

Time jump. Cas insists Jack can’t help Dark Kaia, and the guys are like, no shit. But they still want to rescue Kaia 1.0 somehow, so they send Jody into the depths of the bunker to look for something they might not have thought of that can help them jump worlds. Let’s just think about that for a minute. These two, experts in hunting and lore, residents of the bunker for the past 7 years and at least one of them a cataloguer of its contents, who spent a huge part of previous seasons trying to break into a different world and scouring the bunker for anything that would help, think Jody will find something they didn’t?

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Cas says he’s going to call Sergei to see if he has any more archangel grace. Sergei? Sergei who almost killed Sam recently, and had to be threatened with death to fix what he’d done?

Oh, seriously, for fuck’s sake.

Carrying on. Cas wants archangel grace because, other than Jack, it’s the only thing that’s opened a rift before. And Sam agrees, because both Sam and Cas have forgotten that an angel’s vessel retains some grace which can be extracted after the angel is gone.

Come on, guys. I’m trying, but you’ve got to meet me halfway. And this isn’t even a Buckleming episode.

Shhh. Concentrate on the pretty.

Dark Kaia yells that they’re wasting time, and Jack is right there and could get them to her world right now. “Hey, Not Kaia?” Dean says. “Not helping.” Hee! Jack decides he’ll do research instead, and then they have to decide what they’ll do with Dark Kaia. Jody says “She killed a prize heifer just to get my attention, then she jumped me, beat me up, and threatened to kill me. Do I get a vote?” Oooh, I like Dark Jody.

But the worst thing that happens to Dark Kaia is that they handcuff her to a table and force her to read a fashion magazine. She pretends she’s not interested, hurling it across the table, but sweetie, you’re not fooling anyone. I’m looking at your hair and makeup right now and I can tell you’re into it.

{Sidebar: Is this model supposed to remind her of Claire? Is that why she got upset, because she feels Kaia 1.0’s love for Claire? Discuss.}

Jack throws himself into the research and finds an old Italian spell that requires the liver of a monster which is, unfortunately, extinct because John Winchester killed the last one. Awkward. Dean suggests Jack check on Cas and Jody, and Jack does the oh, because I’m a failure look. The guys are sure they won’t find anything, but to me, the possibility of one spell that requires a monster’s liver implies that other spells might be possible. I mean, how special could that one monster be? Unless it was an archangel monster. Sam suggests he might be able to jerry-rig some magic using a substitute, and oh, guys, once again I’m sure this was accidental, but I love Sam being able and willing to do magic. Love it so hard. Unfortunately, he abandons this idea, since no substitutes are available.

In another part of the bunker, Cas is leaving fruitless messages with Sergei, who presumably remembers the last episode he was in better than Cas does. And Jody’s not having any luck identifying what she finds. They have a little chat about Claire, who is out of cell phone range (which means she won’t show up in this episode, thank you baby Jesus). Jody doesn’t want to involve her anyway, because she loved Kaia so freaking much after knowing her for, what, a day, and if they’re not able to rescue her, Claire would just be crushed.

I don’t know how we’ll be able to tell, since this is Claire’s crushed-by-the-loss-of-her-true-love face. And it’s also her Alex-borrowed-my-sweater-without-asking face. And her Patience-ate-all-the-Cheetos face.

Uh oh! Jack was listening! What will that do to him? He goes to see Dark Kaia and apologizes for not being able to do more. Dark Kaia blames him for Kaia 1.0 crossing over, and reminds him again that she’s going to die soon. Oddly, she doesn’t try this guilt trip on Dean, who pointed a gun at Kaia 1.0 and forced her into the car, as we saw in the Then. Dark Kaia says she crossed over into our world because she envied Kaia 1.0’s peaceful world, but it turns out she hates it, and desperately wants to go back to her own world. She grabs Jack’s hands and begs him to fix it. Jack touches her face, like he did when he was showing the Winchesters where Mary was being held in AU World, and sees Kaia 1.0 in the Bad Place. She’s got a shelter and a campfire and a lizard in a cage, so I guess things could be worse.

He goes to Sam and Dean and tells them he saw Kaia 1.0 and is going to save her. He confesses to dreamwalking, which is against Billie’s rules, but he insists it’s the right thing to do. “You’ve gotta be kidding me” says a voice from the shadows. Jack introduces Merle, his silver-haired reaper. “How did you get in here?” Dean asks, because he’s forgotten how reapers work, I guess.

(Checks again to make sure this isn’t a Buckleming episode.)

Merle says being willing to risk everything for one person isn’t just dumb, “that’s Winchester dumb.” Dean is offended but, well. She ain’t wrong. Merle says if Jack tries to use his power to save Kaia 1.0, she’ll tell Death. Jack says she should go tell Billie, but while she does that, he’ll open a rift, and therefore Merle will be in big trouble. And I kind of had the impression that reapers didn’t have to, you know, physically go find Billie to tell her anything, but maybe I’m the one who forgot how reapers work.

{Spoiler alert: I don’t think I am.}

Anyway, Jack’s threats work. Merle agrees to fix the bunker’s cosmic warding, which the Winchesters did not completely repair after Amara destroyed it. It can’t be restored permanently, but she can put up a temporary fix that will hopefully hide Jack from Chuck. And she’ll need to use Cas to juice it up. Oh, so many possibilities for disaster here. Later, Sam performs a spell and we see glowing sigils appear on the walls, which is a nice effect.

Sam reading the spell is also a nice effect.

Another time jump. The guys are packing for their journey. Dean asks how Sam feels about it, and Sam says “Honestly? It feels like we’re taking a big, probably stupid risk. It feels good. Disobeying cosmic entities, doing the dumb right thing. Feels like we’re back.” Aw yes. My boys, doing the dumb right thing.

Jody thanks Cas for staying, and he asks her to stay too. Because he’s concerned that if she gets killed, Claire will never get over it. Jody agrees that he’s right. And I’m pretty sure this is going to be important somehow; that something awful will happen because Jody isn’t there, or Jody staying behind will mean she’s able to save the guys somehow. {Spoiler alert: I’m wrong.}

Oddly enough, Jody doesn’t seem to actually tell the Winchesters she’s not going. I guess it happened off camera. Merle and Cas power up the sigils, Jack does his thing, and the rift opens. Dark Kaia goes through first, followed by Sam and Dean.

Bad Place! It’s dark and windy and there are lots of those weird little red-eyed dudes around, but they don’t attack. Dark Kaia says they’re afraid of the oncoming storm. {Sidebar: What evolutionary purpose is solved by glowing eyes? It seems like a hindrance.} They yell for Kaia 1.0, and she comes out to meet them, grabbing Dean for a hug. {Sidebar: Yeah, of course it’s Dean.} They turn to leave and wait, you’re just going to leave your lizard? He’s in a cage! He’ll starve! Dark Kaia doesn’t follow, and says she’s going to stay. Sam reminds her she’ll die, but she doesn’t care. She can’t live in our world. Which, well. It sucks sometimes. No judgment here, kiddo. And I guess she can take care of Kaia 1.0’s lizard. The Winchesters head back to the rift with Kaia 1.0 just as the lightning picks up and a huge cloud of destruction approaches. Oh. I guess that lizard didn’t need anyone to take care of him after all. Bye bye, Bad Place!

Bunker. Jody is sitting in front of the rift when the boys burst through with Kaia 1.0. Big hug! Later, we see Kaia (I’m gonna just call her Kaia now, since I think she’s the only one left) wearing Jack’s clothes. It’s cute. Jody invites her to move back with her. “Will Claire be there?” Kaia asks, because, you know, the love story for the ages, blah blah blah. Kaia thanks the guys, and leaves with Jody. Yay! Job well done, right? Except there’s a little too much time left in this episode for a happy wrap-up, so.

Merle tells the guys that if she gave a rat’s ass about Kaia, she’d call this a victory. But she’s pretty sure their scheme worked, since none of them are dead and oh crap, she’s impaled by a scythe. Guess again, Merle!

So, yeah, Billie’s here and she’s not happy. She lectures everyone and points out that one life isn’t important, because all the worlds are dying. All of them except this one. Sam angrily asks Billie what her plan is. She tells them everyone has a death book in her library, even God. God didn’t plot his own death, but “the books wrote themselves,” so Chuck’s death is in there, pre-plotted. But no one gets to read their own book unless Billie lets them. Jack is in Chuck’s book, and so are the Winchesters. “This is your destiny. You are the messengers of God’s destruction.”

Back at the Radio Shed, Chuck is watching his worlds self-destruct on the bank of TVs. He’s been there a while, judging by the number of takeout containers. The sales clerk is curled up on the floor, having served him “for weeks.” He asks Chuck if he’ll be spared, and Chuck says “You’ll be fine. Everything’s just fine.” Then he walks out of the store just as the sky fills with falling meteorites. Hey, I think that was a lie!

So. Several annoying things happened (yes, we know, because you wouldn’t shut up about them) but I can’t call this a bad episode. But I can’t call it a really good one, either. As mytharc episodes go, I guess it could be worse. What did you think? (And what does the title mean?)

Please help me stay unspoiled, thanks!

#spn #15.12 #recap #tv recaps

14 notes · View notes

profound-poster · 3 years

Text

We've been with the boys since the very first time Dean saves Sam. When he was just a little boy, he held his little brother and ran out the burning building. We have continued to be with them as they save each other time and time again.

We were there when Dean pulled Sam out of another fire while Jessica burned on their ceiling. We helped look for their dad and mourned when Yellow Eyes got him.

We were there when Dean rescued Sam after he was murdered by Jake. Screaming and crying with Dean and right next to him as he made a deal.

We were with Sam when he tried to rescue Dean from dying. Bobby told us, "Family don't end with blood."

Our hearts bled while the hellhounds ripped Dean apart and then sent him to hell. We were in hell with him. Then Cas grabbed Dean tight and raised him for perdition and we were in that barn with them when they met.

We were there as Cas, Dean, and Sam tried to save the world and tried to stop the seals from being broken. And when we found out Ruby was tricking Sam into drinking demon blood and raise Lucifer, we were shocked and hurt too.

We were with Cas as he rebelled from Heaven. And as Team Free Will tried to stop Lucifer from starting the Apocalypse. Our eyes were red and puffy after losing Ellen and Jo.

We mourned with Dean as Sam jumped in the Cage with Lucifer and Michael/Adam. And again when he was alive and soulless. We made a deal with Death and helped Sam with his wall in his brain.

There had never quite been a betrayal as hurtful when Cas lied and deceived us to work with Crowley to open Purgatory for a soul powered war in Heaven. And yet we understood why he did it.

When Cas was taken over by the Levathains, we cried and felt the pain as he walked into that lake. We fought with Dean, Sam and Bobby.

Dean told us, "You don't stop being a soldier 'cause you got wounded in battle."

We had mourned Bobby, and watch him go vengeful, and lose him again. We were with Dean and Benny while they searched and murdered monsters in Purgatory to find Cas. And we were there when Dean and Benny escaped. We were also there when Sam hit the car and fell in love with Amelia.

While Sam completed the trials to shut the gates of hell, we watched. It was us who begged with Dean to Sam to choose not to die and to live. And we fell with Cas as Metatron took his grace and made him human.

We cried and screamed and hurt when Metatron took over heaven and made the angels fall. We were just as heartbroken when the trusted angel killed Kevin using Sam. We were there with Cas when he experienced every new Human Experience with him.

Our home became the Bunker too.

And we felt just as betrayed as Sam did when he found out how Dean tricked him but Dean, you are not poison.

We had the Mark of Cain with Dean. And helped kill Abaddon. Then we watched as Dean became someone else, something else because of the Mark.

Our hearts were happy again seeing Cas get his wings back. And understood when he gave up an entire army just for Dean. Of course we understood, we watched them fall in love. We saw how he tried to save Dean from dying again.

We fought with Sam and Cas just save Dean from the Mark and from being a demon.

Everything was wonderful watching Fan Fiction and see how important the boys were to each other.

We mourned the loss of Charlie and killed the Steins with Dean. When Dean started turning again, we were there as he killed death.

When the Darkness was released, we were prepared to fight again. When God came back we were just as furious because he had abandoned us too.

It was surprising to watch Mary come back and we rejoiced with the boys. But it hurt us too when she was not great to them.

We hated the British Men of Letters and fought against them with Sam, Jody, and the other hunters. And we were with Dean as he pulled Mary out of the brainwash. It was shocking to see Lucifer was out again.

It was hard to feel Cas betray the boys and us again to raise a nephilem but it was so easy to fall in love with Jack once we knew him.

Before we met Jack, we were said as Rowena died again, and when Crowley sacrificed himself. And we screamed with Dean as Sam pulled him away from Cas and Lucifer fighting. It was awful to watch Cas die in front of Dean and life be sucked out of his eyes again. And then some more when Mary fell into Apocalypse world with Lucifer.

We raised Jack and squealed when he saved Cas from the Empty. And when Jack left to protect them, it broke our hearts. Yet, as Jack was trying to save Mary it meant the world to us.

When Jody, Donna, Alex, Claire, Patience, and Kya saved the boys from Alternate World, we watched in awe. And our hearts broke for Claire losing her new love.

We helped stop Michael and screamed when Dean said yes. Finally Lucifer was dead but at the cost of Dean. We were devastated with Cas and hurt as Lucifer took Jack's grace.

It was horrible to watch Jack die and then for Cas to make the deal with Empty. It haunted us.

We fought against Michael when he left Dean and tried to come back again. Our hearts were on the line when Dean tried to jump in the Ma'lack box in the ocean. And we pleaded with Sam while he convinced Dean not to.

When Jack saved them Michael, we knew he burned off his soul and it was scary. It was heartbreaking to lose Mary again.

We were shocked at Dean's grief and his cruel words to Cas. And even more shocked to find out God was pulling the strings and trying to make Dean kill Jack.

Our hearts leaped when Sam shot God and when God released the souls from Hell in retaliation. And it was devastating to watch him kill Jack.

We mourned Kevin again. Cas told us, "You asked what was real? We are." And then we watched them break apart their family.

When Eileen was brought back to life by and for Sam, there was hope. And it was taken away when God revealed he pulled the strings again and tried to use Eileen to hurt Sam.

We prayed with Dean when he apologized to Cas in Purgatory. And felt relief as they found each other again.

When Cas found Jack, their little family felt whole again. Until they realized Billie was pulling the strings to kill God so she could get rid of everything they held dear.

We watched everyone get turned to dust in front of Sam and Jack. And felt loss.

We watched Cas confess his love to Dean and then die blissful. We felt Dean's immense pain to be showered with true unconditional love and to have it ripped from him in the next moment to save him.

And as Dean, Sam, and Jack walked the world alone, we were there too. We heard Dean scream to God to save Cas. And we were there when they defeated God.

We raised Jack, the new God. We watched Dean and Cas fall in love. We watched Sam grow and love himself and find love after loss.

And tonight we will watch the story end, but then again... Nothing really ever ends, does it?

#supernatural

1 note · View note

tippitv · 5 years

Text

TippiTV recap: SPN 15.01 “Back and to the Future”

First a quick note on the format of this recap: I'm dealing with some neck/back/shoulder pain so I'm not going to make a bunch of captioned screen shots and diagrams and other visual aids like I usually do. That stuff, while hugely fun to do, is time-consuming even under ideal conditions. I will instead attempt to provide you with mental images of graphics I would have made.

Now, let's get on with things.

Welcome to the 15th and final season of Supernatural, everyone! If the show were a person we could give it a Quinceañera.

[Graphic: The Impala in a beautiful taffeta gown and tiara and like... satin mudflaps instead of gloves.]

It's been 5140 days since the show premiered. That's 123,360 hours. Our solar system travels around the center of the galaxy at 490,000 miles per hour. This means we have moved through 6.04464e10 miles of space since this show premiered. I don't even know what that means. Once numbers start getting letters in them, I'm lost. But it's got to be nearly as many miles as are on the Impala's odometer.

[graphic of our solar system and the Chevy Impala zooming through space together, perhaps in friendly competition]

The road so far: Man, I do not remember a lot of this. Relevant to this episode is God throwing a hissy fit, killing Jack, and releasing all the souls and/or demons from Hell.

Currently: Jack's eyeless corpse is lying around as corpses are wont to do. The surviving members of Team Free Will are fighting a lot of freshly risen dead bodies that were possessed by the released souls. If it were me just out of Hell, I wouldn't waste time in a rotted corpse. I'd just fuck off as quickly as possible and possess someone who's eating a deep-dish cheese pizza.

The risen dead are polite enough to mostly attack the Winchesters one or two at a time, so they get to grab Jack's corpse and run into a mausoleum for shelter. Okay I understand why the souls can't get through the iron doors but what's stopping the disembodied ones from just going through a window? Or through a stone wall, for that matter?

Sam asks Castiel if he can bring Jack back but he sounds like he already knows the answer. A mid-level angel without all his original powers isn't gonna be able to undo what God's done unless the plot requires it.

[Graphic of Sam's incredibly sad face as he says or thinks "maybe the plot will require it later?"]

Everyone tries to figure out what they're going to do next. Dean snarkily wonders if they're going to starve to death. I mean, no, because the ambulatory corpses will break in before long. Failing that, they'd die of thirst unless Castiel has like a TARDIS bladder that holds Dasani, and then they could eat Jack. Mmm nephilim jerky....

Proving my point for me, a resident of the mausoleum or perhaps a neighbor tries to bust through some of the loose stones just as Sam starts chipping away at them in search of an escape route. Castiel smashes its head with a big rock, causing the ghost to flee? I guess? Whatever it is looks like a glowy skeleton and ghosts usually look like their living selves for the most part.

"What the hell are we gonna do now?" Sam asks.

Ol' Eyeless Jack pops up and says in a friendly tone of voice, "Hello!" Nobody's super shocked by this turn of events.

[Graphic of Jo and Ellen saying "nobody stays dead on this show except us"]

It's just Jack's bod with a demon in it, though. Was he the one that looked like a glowy skeleton? Whatever. He happens upon some budget sunglasses on the floor nearby. No seriously they're sunglasses to save the budget because it wouldn't be cheap or timely to have to CGI empty eyes for the whole episode.

He introduces himself. "My name is Belvegar." The fuck? That sounds like a horrible portmanteau for shipping Mr. Belvedere with Garfield the cat.

[Graphic of Buckleming: "We'd write that!"]

I suppose I should check IMDB to see how that's spelled...

BELPHEGOR???

Oh okay apparently Belph is a prince of hell and "Lord of the Gap," which is like half a step up from being Lord of Old Navy. I'm looking this up on regular Wikipedia not Supernatural Wiki so the show didn't just make him up. It says here he seduces people by suggesting inventions that will make them wealthy. One time I came up with an idea for pills that would turn people's urine into toilet cleaner. I was going to call it Vita-Wiz. And that's why I've never been able to seduce anyone with my inventions.

Anyway Castiel shoves Belph up against a wall, as is customary on this show, and demands he leave Jack's bod. But Belph says he has some mojo that will get rid of all the hellish souls and demons currently trying to get into the mausoleum. Much like how Vita-Wiz gets rid of hard water stains and leaves your toilet with a minty fresh scent!

[Graphic: a colorfully jaunty ad for Vita-Wiz with Sam's endorsement a la the "Changing Channels" Herpexia ad. "I've got powerfully clean urine."]

Belph knows all about the Winchesters but is slightly surprised this latest fuckery is God's fault. He makes himself out to be a low-level demon so either he's lying or the show's not going with the prince of hell backstory. Judging by his delivery and mannerisms he thinks he's auditioning to be in Goodfellas: The High School Years.

[Graphic: High School Musical promo poster but make it mobster]

He goes on to say that, like the Winchesters, he wants all the souls back in Hell where they belong and he can get back to torturing them. "I like my job!" Unrelatable. He can't fix the main shitsplosion that's going on but says he can get them all out of the cemetery safely.

Using some "graveyard dirt" from the floor and angel blood from Convenienstiel, he works a little spell that turns all the risen dead back into just... dead. Unoccupied corpses litter the ground by the dozens. Man, what a mess. You know who isn't gonna like their job in the morning? The groundskeeper.

Also, that sure is a useful spell. I wonder if it will ever come up again...

"Where are all the ghosts?" Dean wonders.

Cut to two teenage girls somewhere else acting like teenage girls Dabb has seen in Troom Troom videos. One of the girls sees herself as a ghost in the mirror and claws her face clean off. Man, that ghost's wig is terrible. Is she Bloody Mary? I don't remember her wig being this bad. I can't believe they couldn't afford a better one even with the Budget Sunglasses.

Back to Three Men and a Belphy. Riding home in the Impala, Sam checks the news. So far, no mention of any kind of worldwide Ghostpocalypse. It seems like you're mostly safe in this universe as long as you don't live in middle America. Belph suggests they may be able to contain the ghosts before things get too out of hand and he just happens to know the right magic.

"Imagine a salt circle a mile wide," he says. Castiel points out that Harlan, Kansas is less than a mile from the cemetery so Dean hatches a plan to get everyone out so as to not trap them inside with the ghosts and demons. Is it gonna be a lame plan that would never work in reality?

But first they stop for a wrecked car on the side of the road. There's blood on the inside of the windshield but no body. "This look familiar to you?" Dean asks Sam. It looks like a lot of wrecks where someone got wanged on the head and wandered off in a daze, but they figure it's the Woman in White. "If she's back then they're all back," Dean goes on. "Every last one that we ever killed."

Okay shout out to everyone who answered my post where I asked if ghosts used to be obliterated rather than going to Hell. The consensus seems to be that the Winchesters didn't really know one way or the other early on and were guessing.

Cut to a woman running through a house with her young daughter in her arms. The aftermath of a destroyed birthday party can be seen. How late in the day were they throwing this kid's party?? To make a long story short, the ghost of John Wayne Gacy is chasing them. I'll just reiterate my hatred of this character, not because Gacy is a serial killer obv, but because it lacks internal logic! Why is he dressed like a clown?? He wasn't executed in his old clown outfit!

Suddenly it's daytime. It's like Bugs all over again. Sam, in a jacket with an FBI decal on it approaches what must be the dumbassiest dumbass sheriff in three states. He convinces the sheriff to evacuate the whole town because of a benzene leak and the sheriff just... takes his word for it. Like, he's never heard of a benzene pipeline in his hometown but doop de doop this handsome giraffe in a cheap jacket said to evacuate so it must be true!

Also why isn't the sheriff down at the cemetery?? Someone would've called that in by now! You know what I don't really care.

Meanwhile, Dean is in the car and tells Castiel to take Belph to go get supplies for the spell. Cas says he can't do it, he can't even bear to look at him. And Dean! Rolls! His! Eyes! Like, Jack's the closest thing Cas will probably ever have to a child. He was with Kelly through her pregnancy. It's only been like eight hours since the kid died horrifically. Don't roll your dang eyes!

Cas leaves and Dean puts the Equalizer gun in the glove compartment along with a copy of The Complete Works of Anton Chekhov.

Belph notices that everyone walking down the street is good-looking. Yeah, that's casting agencies for ya. He says back in his ancient penis-worshiping days, people were uglier. Belph appears to be an equal-opportunity ogler. He turns to Dean. "I mean look at you. You're gorgeous!"

[Graphic: Belphegor replacing his penis-shaped rock altar with that Skittles poster of Jensen Ackles.]

"So who was he anyway?" Belph asks, referring to his meatsuit. "He was our kid, kinda," Dean says. The show manages to resist making a Gay Dads joke that I feel like it would've given into in an earlier season. So, yay progress I guess?

Sam and Castiel split up to check every house for ghosts. That seems super time-consuming. How many Reapers are left besides Billie? I feel like they should get one on the horn unless they're all dead. Anyway, Cas's house is where the Troom Troom girls were killed. The ghost's wig looks even worse in daylight. Do they get their wigs from the Hobby Lobby doll crafting aisle or something?

Sam's house, meanwhile, is where John Wayne Ghosty went on a sartorially illogical rampage. Somehow the mother and daughter are still alive. Dumbass ghosts can't see behind a shelving unit, I guess. The instant Sam gets them safely down, Ass-Clown immediately slices him across the belly. Castiel shows up to blast the ghost with rock salt.

Meanwhile, Belph is fanboying over Dean's torturing skills. Gasp! The show remembered Dean was in Hell. It'd be nice if they were consistent about it but whatever. Belph casually mentions that all the doors in Hell opened and Dean realizes this means the cage, too.

[Graphic: That dancing gif of the actor who played Adam that says "Still in Hell" but now it says "Maybe not in Hell."]

Castiel heals Sam's wound and the fabric of his jacket! The mother and daughter are still standing there seeing all this. Cas is like, "Whatevs, I'm an angel of the Lord & Taylor." The mom is pretty flabbergasted, and even more so when Sam mentions the wound he sustained after shooting God. Castiel can't heal that one, though, because it's probably gonna be a recurring plot point judging by the flash of Evil Sam we see.

The sheriff is making a final sweep through town when he happens upon the Woman in White. The sun looks to be setting, which means it's probably been 16 hours since all the souls and demons escaped, but they're still basically within a mile of the cemetery? Even I, burdened with an easily exhausted flesh body with shitty joints could have gotten farther than that.

Anyway, Belph needs a fresh human heart for his spell so it's pretty handy of the sheriff to die! That way none of the mains need to do the morally objectionable thing of murdering someone.

Dean senses a sudden drop in temperature. "Winnie the Pooh, right now!"

WHAT THE FUUUUCK??

Hold on. I'm watching this at 1.2x speed. Let me rewatch it at 1x.

Okay he says "we need to move, right now." My apologies to Mr. Pooh for thinking you could ever be a part of this.

[Graphic: Winnie the Pooh chipper as anything. "I CRAVE THE BLEAK ABIDING COMFORT OF DEATH AND HUNNY."]

At the same time, Sam and Castiel are walking the two survivors through town. The little girl pauses at a badly placed fish pond because she sees a woman in it. Is it Bloody Mary? What's she doing in a pond? Seriously though putting a pond right on the street corner is just asking for trouble even without spectral shenannigans. How many people have driven over the curb and right into that thing?

Okay I gotta stop getting hung up on landscaping issues. Even if they are HIGHLY IRRESPONSIBLE AND NONSENSICAL.

Dean is attacked by the Woman in White. Ass Clown goes after Sam and the others, and is soon joined by... a tall ghost and... Lizzie Borden? Sam accidentally shoots Cas full of rock salt when Lizzie vanishes, which is pretty funny although move ya pretty self out of the way, Cas. When she pops up behind him, she tries to choke him with the ax handle. It reminds me of that lesser known poem about Miss Borden.

Lizzie Borden had an ax Gave her mother 40 whacks Tried to choke the angel Cas 'Cause axing would've been too fast

In the ensuing fisticuffs, everyone has time to throw punches while Belph performs the spell. All he does is put the heart on a little pile of salt and chant some Latin. Is like the thing Ruby 1.0 did with that poor virgin girl's heart a million years ago?

Oh sweet Jeebus the sight of these ghosts chasing everyone on foot is... bad and funny. Y'all are ghosts! You can just blip in and out of wherever you want to go! One of the only upsides to being dead has got to be not having to do cardio anymore and here you are running the hundred yard dash like it's 6th grade PE class. They come screeching to a halt where the spell has created an invisible boundary. This might be worse than Hell.

[Graphic: Parisian street mimes trying to escape an invisible box]

But wait... Why wasn't Belphegor affected by this spell? Did he write in an exception clause? Or is it only for ghosts and not demons?

The Good Guys plus Belph bring the mom and daughter to the high school down the road where all the evacuees are sheltering. With no sheriff to coordinate things, isn't it all just gonna... fall to pieces now? How are they gonna convince everyone to stay away from their homes? What if someone needs their prescriptions? ("Oh no my Herpexia!") They can't get rid of the ghosts as long as Hell isn't in business anymore, right? This is a mess. Dean seems to know it.

Dang why are Castiel and Dean on such icy terms? Why do I not remember last season?

Now that they have a five second breather before the shit hits the fan, Dean wants to see Sam's godly bullet wound. It looks a little crusty but not too bad except... "There's no exit wound," Dean notes. He gives it a swipe with some alcohol which will surely kill whatever supernatural E. coli is in there.

"So when Chuck said this was the end I guess this is what he meant," Sam says. Yes being trapped in a high school with my neighbors seems like end times to me, too. Tonally, things seemed a lot more dire in All Hell Breaks Loose 2.

Dean's feeling a bit embittered about discovering they didn't have as much free will as they'd thought, that everything was part of Chuck's personal lab experiment. "What did it all mean?" he wonders. "It meant a lot," Sam says. "We still saved people."

But what even are people, man? I'm going to have an existential crisis and I can't drink as much as Dean because I have that "Asian flush" gene thing. One drink and I turn super red and hot and queasy and then I pass out.

Sam thinks God has fucked off to who knows where because he hasn't seen the promos for episode 2 yet. "He gets bored and starts another story." Ah yes like me and my WiPs. Relatable. Overall, Sam is feeling much more optimistic. "Once we win this, God is gone... and it's just us. We're free."

Dean catches his optimism cooties. "I like those odds," he says of fighting billions of evil souls. You know what that means? We got work to do. Quick intercut of Baby Winchesters with Middle-Aged Winchesters saying the same thing and closing the trunk of the Impala.

[Graphic: Impala with the solar system again. This time the Impala is pulling ahead. "ONE MORE TIME AROUND, SONS O' BITCHES"]

So there we are at the first episode of the final season. Reblog or reply with what you thought of the episode and thanks for reading!

One final note:

You can read more about my writing and general life situation and GoFundMe here: https://tippitv.tumblr.com/post/188224749207/supernatural-final-season-recaps-and-assorted

If you enjoyed the recap and are able, please visit my virtual tip jar: paypal.me/TippiBlevins or https://ko-fi.com/A4017DA

Henry Hound and I could use the financial help!

See you next week.

#spn recap #supernatural #spn #tippitv #my recaps

36 notes · View notes

spn-4-ever · 4 years

Text

DEAN LEARNS ABOUT CASS's DEAL WITH the EMPTY....

Fanfic...

21.01.2020

DEAN LEARNS ABOUT CASS's DEAL WITH EMPTY....

Jack comes back to the life for helping defeat Chuck and saving the world. Of course, Dean cannot acknowledge his presence at the beginning, he refuses being together and a team with him again because he blamed him of his mother' s death. But as usual, Castiel supports Jack no matter what he has done, he tries to explain to Dean that Jack was soulless and it was the reason of his mistreatments. Dean cannot forgive him and don't want to see him around.

(Dean, Sam, Jack and Cass are in the bunker, Dean is very pissed and Jack wants to talk about Mary's death, he wants to apologize)

JACK: Dean, She was really important for me, I never wanted to hurt her, Mary was always kind.......

DEAN: 'Don' t.... Just don't.... You... you are the only person who doesn't have any right to call her name. She had faith on you, she was on your side no matter what happens, what you do, she treated you like her son.. But what did you do?!!! You killed him... Perhaps,You even thought twice about that ...

SAM:' Dean... '

DEAN: That is end (turns to Jack) you died, and stayed dead for me forever. Now, leave and don't come back again.

After these words, he looks at Cass, because he knew that Cass would not leave Jack, if Jack left, he would go with him.

CASS looks anxious and sad, because he had to choose, either leave with Jack, or stay with boys.

Dean leaves the bunker and goes out, Sam follows him.

SAM: Dean, I know, I understand.. I miss her, too, every minute, every second she is in my mind... But we don't have any choice, Jack came back for a reason, he is the only person who can defeat Chuck, We know Chuck has survived from the wound, we are not connected to each other anymore, we don't know what he plans and I am sure that he plans such a tragic end for us, for the world. It is our work to save the people , it is the only way to save the people who are important for us, whom we love, whom we care.. Our mother was a hunter, if she was with us,I am sure she would make a true decision no matter what had happened , she would let Jack stay here and help to defeat Chuck.

DEAN WITH A GREAT ANGER: I can't look at his face,Sam,I remember her every time when he is around.. Sammy, I am not strong enough to deal with that anymore. I am tired, man. I am really tired.

SAM: And.....

DEAN looks at him for what is coming next after this 'and'

SAM: And if Jack leaves, Cass will also go with him. He can't let him go alone. We don't know what Chuck plans, if we split up, who knows what will happen..

Dean seems confused and he is still angry, he gets in baby and leaves...

Sam and Cass are in the kitchen and they are both waiting for Dean's decision about Jack.

SAM: If Dean does not change his decision, will you go with Jack?

Cass is very sad and he seems hopeless and in a big dilemma.

Cass: I just don't know. Jack is like my son, I promised Kelly to protect his son no matter what happens, and once I failed my word, I can't let it happen again.

SAM: What about us, Cass? What about Dean?

CASS LOOKS AT SAM WITH A GREAT CONFUSION. (He thinks why Sam mentioned Dean alone)

SAM: Dean has changed a lot after these years. He is not such a tough guy anymore. He does not want to show his weaknesses to the people, he always hides his feelings, emotions, but I can feel how tired he is. He tries not to give up, he makes people believe that he is so strong, no matter what happens or whom he loses, he always gets over and carries on, but when you killed by Lucifer, I saw how weak he was, how hopeless he was, he just gave up. He lost his hope without you Cass, he did not believe any damn thing anymore. If it happens again, if you leave, I don't know how he can deal with that again.

At the same time, Dean opens the door and enters to the bunker. SAM stands up..

Sam: Dean!!....

Dean: OKAY.... He can stay for a while, but after all of them are done, he will leave forever and I won't see him again.

He looks at Cass, then goes to his room.

JACK sits on the table, then Cass ENTERS TO his room. He comes and sits beside him...

JACK: Dean is right. I am the only person who is guilty. I killed Mary with sudden outburst of anger..

CASS: You were soulless,Jack, and I knew about it. I knew how dangerous is being soulless. But I hid it, I thought we could get over it, we are all guilty, we can't always make right decisions....

After a bit silence, Cass tells :

Tell me, how did you come back from the death?

JACK talks about the whole story.

JACK: what about you? Did you tell about your deal with Empty to the boys?

Cass: No. Not yet..

JACK: Don't you know she will come for you one day...

CASS: SHE told she would come when I became really happy. But there is no any sign of happiness yet. And...

JACK turns his head and looks Cass..

CASS: And after defeating Chuck I think I am done with my mission, I can't go back Heaven, I can't live as a human, too. All people whom I love, care will be dead one day, I will be only one who has to live forever to see their death and to live without them.. If Empty comes for me after defeating Chuck, I am OK with that...

Next day:

While boys are in the kitchen, Billie shows up..

Billie : The Winchesters... And another apocalypse..

Dean: why are you here?

Billie: do you remember when you died, or chose to die because (she looks Cass), because you just gave up living, I told you there were many death versions for you, but then I gave you just a book because there was only way of ending your story.

Now everything has changed completely... Chuck's drafts changed day by day. He wrote many endings for you and your brother. He wrote then deleted, one after another. But finally he decided one..

SAM: DO you know the ending?

BILLIE: Unfortunately.. No... Nobody does... He completed story for sure, but it is a top secret. He hides it from every entity, everybody. Nobody knows how it will end, what will happen to brothers.. SHe looks at Dean, and 'Only thing I know is how it will end for your ANGEL after his big, big deal....

CAS seem anxious.. CASS: tell us the reason why you came...

DEAN looks at Cass..

DEAN: What? WHAT deal? CASS what does she tell about?

BILLIE : OWW, you didn't know about that.. Your friend made a deal with Empty to save Jack.. When he feels happy, Empty will come and take him where he really belongs to..

Everybody is shocked.. DEAN stares at Cass.

His face looks hopeless, he feels helpless once again.

DEAN : CASS....Casss...

What is going to happen after that will be in my next fanatic writing.

#deancas #destiel #spn #s15

7 notes · View notes

mittensmorgul · 5 years

Text

Faith on the tnt loop (which, full disclosure, I slept through oopsie, so I pulled out the blu ray because this is NOT one I can skip).

Post 14.20, this episode is... extra-amazing, honestly. I’ve always felt that this episode was unwittingly (possibly, at the time it was written) a window into what this story could potentially do. When I first binged this series, this was the first episode I finished where I had to stop and completely reevaluate what I was actually witnessing. This was the episode that took me from casually consuming a fun lil monster show to 100% invested in this grand narrative. Even without any knowledge of what the ensuing 6 1/2 season (that existed at the time), I felt like I had my first glimpse of a much bigger picture in store for me. This was the first episode that, after a break to absorb what I’d just witnessed, I went back and immediately watched it again. Turns out I wasn’t reading too much into it... in fact, I wasn’t reading nearly enough into it...

The episode begins with Sam and Dean hunting a monster that we’ve only ever seen once more in the entirety of canon-- a rawhead, which earned a mention in 14.01 after an off-screen hunt for one went wrong enough to have left a tooth behind in one of the AU hunters. As if the monster in this case has been rendered doubly irrelevant, by virtue of the fact it practically dies offscreen in 1.12 while Dean's defeat of it and his own actions and choices in defeating it are the actual inciting incident of all the relevant action to follow. And in 14.01, all that remains of the rawahead was a tooth that's extracted from a wound and likely a wild hunter's tale.

Dean explains the use of the tasers they're using to take down the rawhead (specifically that the electricity is deadly to it and each weapon is one use only, "so make it count"). Dean takes his shot, and misses, but they find the children the rawhead had been holding captive. Dean tells Sam to take them outside to safety, and Sam hands over his taser to Dean, leaving Dean alone to face the monster (who we learn in 14.01 moves a lot faster than expected, and fast enough that we never even really see it in 1.12). Dean is literally backed into a corner, on the ground in a puddle of water, with the monster looming over him when he chooses to take his shot. It's not like he had much choice, right? So he shoots, and thanks to the water he's lying in, he electrocutes himself as well, damaging his own heart to the point where the doctor gives him a month to live.

He could've made a different choice, could've rolled out of the water, could've tried to fight off the rawhead (probably ineffectively) but perhaps enough that it would've given up and escaped to hunt children another day, but Dean took his shot, in a circumstance where he felt it was the right thing to end this monster and prevent it from hurting anyone ever again, even when it hurt him in the process. Not that he knew it would necessarily kill him to do it, but he was fully aware of the power of the weapon in his hand and what it was capable of, and accepted that it would hurt him right along with the monster he'd aimed it at since they were “connected” through the puddle of water.

Can anyone else say Hammurabi? Equalizer?

All of this has happened before.

But that's just the beginning. Because Dean survived, even if mortally wounded. This was the first time, though, that they were motivated to defy death, and that brings us to the true Monster of the Week-- Sue Ann LeGrange. Yes, I know it's technically "a reaper," but operating under Sue Ann's control and on her orders. She was the one who chose who lived and who died, based on who SHE thought was worthy, or unworthy in the case of her chosen victims. She was "playing god," deceiving her husband after saving HIS life with this dark magic (which required at least TWO sacrifices on her part-- one to make the altar and talisman to bind the reaper in the first place, and one person to die to save Roy, unbeknownst to him), and letting him think that he was miraculously granted the gift of healing by God.

And Sam decides to look for a similar sort of miraculous cure for Dean, even when Dean had accepted his own apparent fate:

DEAN: Look, Sammy, what can I say, man, it's a dangerous gig. I drew the short straw. That's it, end of story. SAM: Don't talk like that, alright? We still have options. DEAN: What options? Yeah, burial or cremation. And I know it's not easy. But I'm gonna die. And you can't stop it. SAM: Watch me.

Sam isn't about to go committing human sacrifice like Sue Ann, but after a tearful phone call plea to John for help, which goes unreplied to, Sam takes matters into his own hands, just as Dean checks himself out of the hospital having accepted his fate:

SAM: You know, this whole I-laugh-in-the-face-of-death thing? It's crap. I can see right through it. DEAN: Yeah, whatever, dude. Have you even slept? You look worse than me. SAM: (Helping DEAN to a chair) I've been scouring the Internet for the last three days. Calling every contact in Dad's journal. DEAN: For what? SAM: For a way to help you. One of Dad's friends, Joshua, he called me back. Told me about a guy in Nebraska. A specialist. DEAN: You're not gonna let me die in peace, are you? SAM: I'm not gonna let you die, period. We're going.

(aside to lol at John’s friend being named “Joshua,” namesake of the one angel God continued to talk to after supposedly abandoning Heaven and Earth, the angel who told Sam and dean in 5.16 that God refused to step in to help stop the apocalypse, and the angel killed in 12.19 by Dagon before fetus!Jack hijacked Cas to kill Dagon in turn... and even after his death it was Joshua’s amulet in 14.17 that enabled him to summon Chuck back into the story... funny that this hunter we never hear about again was the one to point Sam in the direction of this healer...)

And I'm sorry to just keep pasting in chunks of transcript, but this all goes to Sam and Dean's respective outlooks on pretty much everything, and the Grand Manipulation of Chuck in the entire narrative as we now understand it post 14.20:

DEAN: I mean, come on, Sam, a faith healer? SAM: Maybe it's time to have a little faith, Dean. DEAN: You know what I've got faith in? Reality. Knowing what's really going on. SAM: How can you be a skeptic? With the things we see everyday? DEAN: Exactly. We see them, we know there real. SAM: But if you know evil's out there, how can you not believe good's out there, too? DEAN: Because I've seen what evil does to good people.

Sam has faith, Dean's a skeptic. Throughout s14 we saw what it would take to break Dean to the point where he would accept the word of God without question. It literally took the entire season, more than half of it revolving around his possession and complete loss of free will and self, building him up when Michael left him again and giving him a false sense of security to begin to feel comfortable building emotional bridges to his entire family (including Jack), only to tear it all down and lose himself to Michael again on a whim, losing Mary again, losing Jack to soullessness because of his own failed choices (in his estimation, at least). This process of showing Dean how little power and control he has over his own existence was furthered by Billie presenting him with the supposed singular solution to save the world, which Dean interpreted to mean the most horrifying iteration of self-sacrifice the show has ever presented to us-- an eternity spent at the bottom of the ocean, locked with Michael in the Ma'lak box. Ironically, just as he was beginning to think of himself as something more than just a weapon, the parallel can't help but be drawn to the First Blade, which Cain had thrown to the bottom of the ocean in a similar fashion. Which should only serve to remind us that even that's not a permanent solution to any problem. And I think THAT was the lesson Billie truly wished Dean to understand. Jack is the one who ends up making the true sacrifice (his own human soul) to kill Michael once and for all, and Dean is left with the guilt of that.

But several other important incidents in s14 tie directly back to this, too. 14.08, playing with life and death, learning about what truly matters in someone's destiny after death, and what the Winchesters are willing to do to save a loved one. Ironically, in the process, Cas is backed into a corner, making a deal with the Empty Entity for his own happiness in exchange for Jack's soul.

Nothing ever comes for free. The Winchesters have been juggling these horrific choices and sacrifices their entire lives, and nothing is ever just as simple as an uncomplicated win.

Which is a key element of 1.12. Dean's skepticism, his feeling of "wrongness" after being healed by Roy, uncovers the larger truth. Sam desperately wants Dean to just let it go, accept it as a miracle, and move on:

SAM: Look, Dean, do we really have to look this one in the mouth? Why can't we just be thankful that the guy saved your life and move on? DEAN: Because I can't shake this feeling, that's why.

A miracle isn't enough for Dean, and the truth is darker and more horrifying than Sam can accept. As he uncovers more and more of the facts of just how Roy is supposedly healing people, he tearfully apologizes to Dean, and they work together to find a way to stop it from happening again. Someone is controlling a reaper, literally trading one life for another. Chuck must've LOVED this episode of his favorite show. It nails all his favorite themes:

DEAN: You never should've brought me here. SAM: Dean, I was just trying to save your life. DEAN: But, Sam, some guy is dead now because of me. SAM: I didn't know.

Ignorance of the truth didn't stop them from becoming entangled in this mess, though. Just like it hasn't stopped them from becoming entangled in every other cosmic mess they've stumbled across over the succeeding 14 seasons. Sam believed it was a miracle, and his faith had blinded him to the truth-- or at least made him want to believe, motivated by the results at Dean's miraculous healing. It's the same faith that led him in early s11 to want to believe his visions were coming from God, that maybe his visions that had plagued him in early seasons were being used for good now-- and with the intervention of Billie in 11.02 when those visions began, it's interesting how the solution that actually saved his life in that circumstance technically came from what she said to him about being "unclean in the biblical sense."

Reapers and their powers and limitations (clean hands!), and their knowledge of the Bigger Picture that Billie herself won't be able to see until she dies and is resurrected with the mantle of Death, have their beginnings in the mythology right here, enslaved to the will of a mortal woman who believed she could make choices about who deserved to live and who deserved to die based on her own corrupted sense of morality.

Even when the concept of Death is introduced in 5.10, he's presented as "lesser" than what he truly is by virtue of Lucifer having bound him to his will for the purposes of the apocalypse, and as merely one of the Four Horsemen equal to War, Famine, and Pestilence. In 5.21, we learn what he's "supposed to be." Practically an equal to God, with the power over all life and death. It's not really until 13.05 that we learn the truth about just how powerful Billie has become, and yet what her limitations still are. We begin to see one side of this massive cosmic chess match, all leading up to the biggest revelation of them all in 14.20.

Back to 1.12 again... (sorry it's impossible not to be continually distracted by the theme spiral here). Dean also is uncomfortable for the first time over the potential for The Lord to be eyeballing him specifically, which is a feeling he's gonna truly grow into throughout s4 "I don't like being singled out at birthday parties, let alone by God," right up through the showdown at the end of 14.20.

DEAN: Why? Why me? Out of all the sick people, why save me? ROY: Well, like I said before, the Lord guides me. I looked into your heart, and you just stood out from all the rest. DEAN: What did you see in my heart? ROY: A young man with an important purpose. A job to do. And it isn't finished.

Throughout the episode, they believe it's Roy controlling the reaper and making the choices about who lives and dies, but he was literally blind to the fact it was Sue Ann. He was as much a victim in all of this as the people he believed he was healing, that he believed he had been touched by God to impart new life to. But knowing the full truth, Dean has to stop someone from being healed that even HE believes deserves to be saved, to be spared the suffering of a life cut short by an inoperable brain tumor, after learning an innocent man would die in her place. No matter how much he might feel that Layla didn't deserve that fate, he also doesn't believe the man who'd been protesting Roy's healing ministry deserves to die just for that fact, either.

SUE ANN: I just don't understand. After everything we've done for you. After Roy healed you. I'm just very very disappointed Dean DEAN stares at her, saying nothing. SUE ANN: You can let him go. I'm not gonna press charges. The Lord will deal with him as he sees fit. SUE ANN leaves. The cops turn to DEAN. COP 1: We catch you round here again son, we'll put the fear of God in you, understand?

Once again, in text, Sue Ann is unwittingly labeled "God." It's not God's wrath Dean fears, but Sue Ann's, knowing his defiance has likely turned him from worthy of healing to unworthy of living. Now this has moved beyond idealistically wanting to stop someone from playing god with people's lives right back to the immediate need to stop them before someone else becomes the next victim. And all of their choices-- Dean not being able to walk away, not being able to look the other way, discovering the full horrific truth of how he himself had been brought back from the brink of death, led them to this juncture where it truly felt like they had no other choice but to stop the monster. It literally became a life and death matter for Dean.

I still find it fascinating that as a result of their actions and choices in this episode, the reaper who'd been enslaved to Sue Ann's will was freed when Sam crushed the talisman that kept him bound. I find that highly amusing in retrospect, that while Dean was literally touched by an incarnation of Death several times in this episode, Sam effectively committed services rendered to the Cosmic Order.

We've learned so much about all of this over the years, as well-- the need for balance, order in the universe, and so many of those lessons have come from Death directly. Dean learns some of this firsthand in 6.11, for example, when he takes on Death's job for a day (or at least the life-and-death side of his job, now that we know so much more about his knowledge and understanding of creation as a whole). We learn even more through Billie, and her constant reminders that what's dead should stay dead, and through Billie's reapers once she becomes Death. 13.19 reminds us, through a story about the consequences of killing reapers, just how tenuous the course of cosmic events can be, and what the universe does to self-correct when the balance tilts too far in one direction. It's a lesson Tessa began to teach way back in 4.15, in an episode where Dean once again saves the life of a reaper (not only unwittingly protecting the cosmic balance, but literally stopping the breaking of a seal and staving off the apocalypse for at least another day, and that entire episode, that entire case, only happened through the unwitting guidance of them to the case by Cas-- still operating under Heaven’s orders and pretending to be Bobby sending them to that town to investigate...).

It has always felt to me that the show has subtly revealed more about the truth of the cosmos through death and Death than anything else. And that's on full display now in 1.12. Sue Ann's lies of omission about Roy's "powers," her manipulation of circumstance and her ensnarement of a reaper to do her will, choosing who lives and dies and literally "playing God," is it really any wonder to find out that Chuck has attempted to do the same on the highest cosmic scale from the start? He is a writer, after all, writing the entire story of the universe even as the universe fights to tell its own story. It's only by looking to the center and seeing the truth of the entire picture that they can free themselves from that fate, break the spell that's held them captive to Chuck's narrative and this endless cycle of sacrifice.

Heck I still love this episode. So much that I’ve let the next three episodes play out in the background... This is the entire spiral of the story played out in miniature, wrapped into a single episode.

71 notes · View notes

beatlejuice64 · 5 years

Text

Destiel Season 14: A catalog of Supernatural episodes

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

Season 14 Summary Analysis

Cas is in a tailspin after losing Dean to Michael’s possession, and he resorts to seeking help from a demon. Cas is determined to find a way to stop Michael without killing Dean. After Dean becomes himself again, he and Cas resume their affectionate domestic behavior toward one another, along with their co-parenthood of Jack. Cas and Dean comfort each other when Jack dies, and they work together (with Sam) to bring him back. When Michael possesses Dean a second time, Cas and Sam do whatever they can to save Dean, and Cas continues to worry about Dean while Michael is trapped inside his mind. Dean becomes resigned and self-destructive after Billie (aka Death) talks to him about his fate, and he pushes Cas and Sam away. After Jack kills Mary, Dean cannot forgive Cas for hiding Jack’s mental state from him. Dean is determined to stop soulless Jack by any means necessary, but Cas still wants to save Jack, and this conflict drives a rift between the two of them. In the end, Dean can’t bring himself to kill Jack because he still considers him to be family.

My interpretation: When Dean decides to lock himself inside the Ma’lak box, Cas gets angry at him for giving up and for not talking it through with him. Cas canot bear to think of Dean trapped in an eternal torment with Michael, and he’s hurt that Dean is willing to put himself in that situation without even saying goodbye. After Jack dies and is resurrected, Castiel’s top priority shifts from Dean’s safety to Jack‘s, partly because he knows that he will most likely outlive Dean, whereas Jack could live much longer and have a more lasting impact on the world. Even after Jack kills Mary, Cas continues to be protective of Jack, and it wounds him to see Dean so fervently vengeful toward their fostered son. Sam recognizes the rift that has appeared between Cas and Dean, and he stops Cas from moving to comfort Dean at Mary’s funeral because he knows it would cause a fight. Cas has difficulty reconciling his love for Dean with Dean’s violent attitude toward Jack. Cas feels like he has to choose between Dean and Jack, and he ultimately chooses Jack. Dean’s repeated traumatic experiences with mind control harden him and make him emotionally distant from everyone, and this is only made worse when Mary is killed. Dean sees soulless Jack as a monster, and he takes it as a personal insult that Cas would defend Jack. Dean blames Cas for Jack’s actions because he’s desperate to find a scapegoat for his pent-up frustrations and repressed trauma.

14.01 Stranger in a Strange Land

Cas is so desperate to find Dean that he seeks information from a demon named Kipling.

Kipling makes a joke about Castiel’s relationship with Dean: “I’m sorry, did you just say that you lost a Winchester? Because one, that’s interesting, and two, how is it that you lost Dean? I thought the two of you were joined at the... you know, everything.”

Sam and Jack both express doubt that they’ll be able to save Dean, but Cas remains steadfast and faithful: “We are going to find Dean, and we are going to beat Michael, and we’re going to do it together. Because that’s what we do.”

14.02 Gods and Monsters

Cas references a phrase that Dean has used with him in the past: “I had myself. Just the basic me, as, uh... as Dean would say, ‘without all the bells and whistles.’”

Cas demonstrates his wholistic understanding of the human perspective when talking about Jimmy Novak: “You know, in all my thousands of years, what happened to Jimmy Novak and his family, it’s my greatest regret.”

When Jack inquires about killing Michael, Cas insists on the importance of saving Dean: “Did they find Michael?” “Yeah, they think so.” “So they’re gonna try and kill him?” “Uh, no. No, the plan is to subdue him using angel cuffs and spell work. They have to get Michael out of Dean.” “And if he doesn’t leave?” “Then they’ll try to drive him out.” “And if that doesn’t work?” “Jack...” “Cas, Michael has to be stopped.” “I know, and he WILL be, after Dean is...” “No, Dean doesn’t matter. You’re all so focused on trying to saving Dean. And I get it, I understand, but if he can’t be saved, if it comes down to him or Michael, Michael has to be stopped—caged or killed.” “And if that means that Dean dies, too?!” “Then Dean dies. I know this Michael. I’ve seen what he’s done to an entire world, and so have you. If stopping that from happening here means that Dean has to die, then... Do you think he’d want it any other way?”

14.03 The Scar

Cas is so damn happy to see that Dean is back safe (the music swells when they first see each other): “Sorry, I wanted to be there, but we figured that Michael would sense my presence, so...” “Sam told me. Ain’t no thing.”

Cas continues to worry about Dean and asks Sam how he really is: “Dean... how is he really?” “I don’t know.” “Why would Michael just give up his vessel like that?” “I don’t know.”

Dean exhibits the high level of trust he has in Cas to be willing to let him inside his head: “So, Cas, I’m gonna need you to, uh, get in my head. You know, do the whole Vulcan mind meld thing. ‘Cause if I can’t remember what happened, I need you to drag it out of me, okay?”

When Dean hurts Jack’s feelings (“You’re barely 100 pounds soaking wet”), Cas gives him a scolding look, which clues Dean in on his transgression.

When a girl asks Jack if Cas is is his dad he says, “One of them, yes.”

14.07 Unhuman Nature

While talking with Sam, Cas acknowledges that they’re all co-fathers to Jack: “You know, he’s [Dean] lost people, we’ve all lost people, but, um...” “This feels different. Losing, um... a son, feels different.”

14.08 Byzantium

Dean leaves the room while Jack is dying and Cas goes after him to remind him that Jack needs him there: “What? It’s not fair? I know that. But he needs you.”

After Jack dies, the boys hang out and get drunk together. Cas stays up with Dean longer than Sam.

When Dean wakes up with a hangover and is tactlessly blunt to Lily, Cas is visibly amused.

Cas asks Jack not to tell Sam and Dean about his deal with The Empty because he doesn’t “want them to worry.”

14.09 The Spear

Cas explains to Jack that they should have plenty of time together before The Empty takes him: “You know, The Empty said that it wouldn’t come for me until I had finally given myself permission to be happy, but with everything we have going on, with Michael still out there, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. This life may be a lot of things, but it’s rarely happy.”

Cas points out Dean’s good mood, noticing his behavior is out of the ordinary: “You seem good lately. Happy, even. We have a broken tape deck, we drove this whole way without music, and you did not complain once.” “You know, I guess I’m just fired up. I mean look, we got Jack back. When was the last time we had a big, no-strings-attached win like that?” Cas is visibly uneasy about keeping his deal with The Empty from Dean, but he doesn’t want to dash Dean’s high spirits.

14.10 Nihilism

While talking to Michael, Cas demonstrates his understanding of the value of vulnerability: “You’re confusing loyalty and compassion with weakness.”

Cas shows concern for Dean while he and Sam are in Dean’s mind: “So much trauma in Dean’s mind. So many scars.”

Sam and Cas use their knowledge of Dean to know that that they need to look for him in his good memories: “If Michael wanted to keep Dean placated...” “Dean thrives on trauma. I mean, he’s had to his whole life, right? It keeps him alert, keeps him ready, but if I wanted to distract Dean, I’d give him something he’s never had before.” “Contentment.” “Exactly.”

Michael mocks Dean’s relationship with Cas to throw him off: “You only tolerate the angel because you think you owe him, because he ‘gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition,’ or whatever. But since then, what has he done? Only made mistakes, one after the other.”

14.12 Prophet and Loss

After failing to talk Dean out of shutting himself in the Ma’lak box, Sam calls Cas for help. Cas is doing everything he can to figure out a way to save Dean, and even offers to try talking to Dean himself: “Sam, maybe if I spoke with Dean...” “It wouldn’t matter, believe me. I’ve never seen him like this. He won’t listen to me. He just... no. If we don’t find some way, Dean’s gone.”

Cas is excited to hear Dean’s voice when Dean calls him, and he tries to convince Dean not to go through with his plan: “Dean! It’s so good to hear from you.” “Okay. Well, good. Uh, listen, Cas, uh, Sam and I are workin’ this case...” “You’re working a case. That is so good to hear. So I assume that means you’re not going through with it, because I have to say, Dean, this plan of yours, it was born of desperation, not reason.” “My plan.” “I know that I’m not supposed to know what I know, but...” “Look, I’m fine with my plan, okay? We can talk about my plan later.” “Dean, you are making a terrible mistake. ... We need to have a conversation.” “Look, I really gotta handle this right now, okay? So thank you, and uh, it’s good to hear your voice.”

Cas calls Dean out for being dismissive and self-destructive: “What happened to him [Donatello], that was my fault. It was necessary, but doesn’t mean I don’t regret it. It doesn’t mean that I don’t wish that there could’ve been another way.” “I know the feeling.” “Oh, no. No, please don’t compare this with your suicidal plan. Just stop!” “Okay. Alright, why don’t we talk about that later?” “Because according to your plan, there won’t be a later.” “Cas, if you were a friend of mine, then you will understand that I have to do this, and you won’t try to stop me. You think this is easy on me? It has to be done.” “So then, this is goodbye?”

Cas is frustrated that Dean has given up: “Dean, if there’s a spark, a hope, then I have to try. YOU taught me that.”

14.14 Ouroboros

Cas recognizes Dean’s struggle and genuinely wants to know how he is doing. Dean opens up about his experience: “Hey, Dean?” “I’m fine.” “What you’re doing, even just sitting here and having a cup of coffee, is a Herculean feat. I can’t imagine the willpower it’s taking to keep Michael imprisoned. Are you really fine?” “I don’t know, Cas. But that’s what I’m supposed to say, right? ‘I’m fine,’ keep on movin’? It’s what we all say.” “No, Dean.” “Okay. There’s this pounding in my head. It never stops. Michael’s in there, and he is fighting hard to get out. And I can’t let my guard down, not for a second. I’m barely even sleeping.” “Well, that’s not sustainable.” “No, no. It’s probably not, but no point in complainin’ about it. It’s on me.” “No, it’s on US. We are here to help you.” “I know. I know that, and I appreciate that, I do. Look, before the kid gets back... I know I agreed to give you guys time.” “Hey, Dean, and we will find a solution.” “Okay, but if... if you don’t, we still have plan B.” “Dean, come on.” “Coffin. Ocean. Done.”

Cas gives Dean a scolding look when Dean blows off his concern.

When Jack asks what A.V. Club means, Dean teases Cas about being an A.V. Club member.

Dean makes a joke about Castiel’s sex appeal: “Somehow he knows you, but you’re not standing alone. Why doesn’t he mention me?” “Maybe you’re not his type.”

While talking with Jack, Cas exhibits the deep respect and affection he has for Dean and Sam, and for humanity: “You know, Sam and Dean, they’re human, and they’re very extraordinary, brave, special humans, but they’re still humans. And humans burn bright, but for a very brief time, compared to, you know, things like us. And eventually, they’re gone, even the very best ones, and we have to carry on. It’s just... it’s part of growing up.” “Losing people?” “Yes.” “What’s the point?” “The point?” “What’s the point of being a cosmic being if everyone I care about is just gonna leave?” “The point is that they were here at all, and you got to know them, you... when they’re gone, it will hurt, but that hurt will remind you of how much you loved them.” “That sounds awful.” “It is, but it’s also living. So when Dean wakes up—and he will wake up—we just have to remember to appreciate the time that we all have together now.”

To prevent Jack from burning off more of his soul, Cas convinces Jack not to use his powers to heal Dean.

14.15 Peace of Mind

Case and Dean bicker in the kitchen about their son, like an old married couple: “You were right. Jack is struggling. And I’ve tried, but...” “Why do you think he’ll talk to me?” “Well, because he looks up to you. And his soul... I mean, you’ve seen this before.” “No, no. No, see, I was not great with Sam, you know, when he was, uh...” “But Jack’s soul isn’t completely gone, at least I don’t think so. We just don’t know how much is left.” “Well, how am I supposed to figure that out?” “I don’t know! Just talk to him. Get him to open up. And then, sleep until the cows come home.”

14.18 Absence

In a flashback, Cas demonstrates his concern for Dean and Sam while talking with Mary, and she recognizes his protective presence: “I know you know this, Mary, but, um, Sam and Dean, they’re glad to have you back. Whatever you still have to deal with and however long it takes, you should know they’re happy. Finally they don’t have to be so, um... so alone.” “Castiel, they were never alone.”

Dean is angry at Cas for not telling him and Sam about Jack: “We don’t know what happened, but I swear, if he did something to her, if she is... then you’re dead to me.” “Dean.” “No, he knew. He knew something was wrong with the kid. He knew it! And he didn’t tell us! He didn’t even tell us!”

Cas is ashamed of his lack of foresight, and Dean is not willing to forgive him this time: “I was scared. I believed in Jack for so long, I... I believed that he was good. I knew that he would be good for the world, and he was good for US. My faith in him, it never wavered, and then I saw what he did. It wasn’t malice, it wasn’t evil. It was like Jack saw a problem, and in his mind, he just solved it with that snake. What he did wasn’t bad. It was the absence of good, and I saw that in him. But we were a family, and I didn’t want to lose that, so I thought I could fix it on my own, felt like it was my responsibility. So I left, and I didn’t tell you. If I could go back and just talk to him right then and there, I would. But I can’t, Dean. I failed you. And I failed Jack. And I failed...” “No, no. Don’t even say it. Don’t even say her name.”

At Mary’s funeral pyre, Cas moves toward Dean to comfort him, but Sam stops him and shakes his head. Cas stays where he is, looking forlorn.

14.19 Jack in the Box

After Mary’s funeral, Dean goes off on his own to cry in the woods.

When Dumah threatens to end the happiness of Mary and John Winchester in Heaven, Cas doesn’t hesitate to kill her immediately.

When Cas finds out Dean and Sam locked Jack in the Ma’lak box, he gets angry and refuses to go along with it. He argues about it with Dean: “Even after hearing what I said, you wanna keep Jack sealed in a living death?” “He agreed to it. Because deep down I think he knows it’s best.” “No. You’re doing what Dumah... you are manipulating him. What? You just wanna forget about him?” “I wish I could forget about him! After what he did? And you know what he can do. This is our only play.”

14.20 Moriah

After Jack escapes the Ma’lak box, Cas is still angry about the Winchesters’ manipulation, and he and Dean continue fighting about Jack: “You should never have tried to lock him away.” “You know what? You’re right. I never wanted to put him in that damn box. I wanted him dead.” “Dean!” “He’s dangerous, Cas, and you knew it! You’ve known it for a long time! But that’s okay. You know why? Because me and Sam, we’ve killed just about everything there is. And this, Jack, oh we’ll find a way, because he’s just another monster.” “You don’t mean that.” “The hell I don’t.” Cas walks away furious.

While talking with Chuck, Cas remains determined to save Jack, and Dean continues to push back against Castiel’s optimism: “Stop, Cas. You heard him. This is the only way.” “And Billie said the only way to defeat Michael, was to lock YOU in a box. There has to be another way.” “Well, there’s not. Now, I know you don’t like it, and I don’t really care. ‘Cause you just heard it from God himself that this is the only thing that can kill Jack, so either get on board or walk away.” Cas walks away.

Dean approaches Jack to kill him, but can’t bring himself to pull the trigger.

Cas is distraught after Chuck kills Jack, but he is able to compose himself in order to fight the monster horde with Dean and Sam.

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

13 notes · View notes