#chuck really said ‘yeah *looks dean up and down* I don’t think cas is going anywhere’

[cascigarette]

his & mine are the same

for @lifbitch spn multi-ship week.

day one: souls (destiel) 1.5k

Cas and Dean spilled out of the slip of a portal Jack had opened up, crashing on the floor covered in black goo. Sam rushed forward towards the two, not minding the goo he was getting on his hands and clothes. He pulled his brother up first, the man hardly paying attention to him as he knelt down towards Cas, holding his face in his hands. Cas was breathing heavily, staring at Dean with wide eyes.

“Cas, Cas, can you hear me? Are you okay?” Dean asked roughly, demanding an answer out of him.

Cas just stared and breathed, his hands coming up to rest over Dean’s. “Is… is this real?”

Dean let out a sigh of relief. “Yes, damn it, it’s real. The kid opened up a portal and we got you out. I got you out,” He slowly releases Cas’ face, then pointed a finger at him. “Never do that again!”

Cas continued staring, his jaw falling shut. “Okay.”

~~~

For a while, there was no time to talk or even think. Jack rushed Cas into a hug, talking a million miles a minute, as Cas held his son tightly. Sam thanked Rowena for her help before she had to go back down to Hell, and Eileen and Sam were signing something to each other with hurried hands. Dean, ever the avoidant, snuck out of the room to go clean off the Empty on him, taking the quickest shower he’s ever taken in his life and changing into fresh clothes. His thoughts were racing, and he felt anxiety deep in his chest like it wasn’t really over. Chuck was defeated, Jack is okay, and Cas is back, but there’s always another shoe to drop, isn’t there?

He followed the corridors out slowly back into the library, which was surprisingly empty. He felt relief; he couldn’t deal with talking to anyone right now, especially Cas. Their last interaction is seared into his memory and he can’t get Cas’ stupid crying face out of his head. What was he supposed to say to him? What was it supposed to be like now between them? Most importantly… is Cas going to stay?

Dean pulled the top off of the whiskey decanter and poured himself a glass. He downed it all in one go, his eyes falling shut as he felt the familiar burn go down his chest. He opened his eyes and poured another one, this time taking a sip. He didn’t hear the footsteps behind him, and when he spoke, he tried to hide his flinch.

“Dean,” he said in that infuriating low voice. He didn’t turn around, choosing to take another careful sip. Hello, Dean. Goodbye, Dean. He didn’t want to know which one this was. 

Finally he turned around and laid eyes on him, magically freshened up in that angel-like way. Dean gave him a tight smile, leaning against one of the tables. “So you’re right as rain? All good?”

Cas watched him carefully. “Yeah. All good.”

There was a beat of silence. Dean’s heart was pumping furiously in his chest and he tried to hide his shaking hands as he took another sip. 

“Well I guess you should-”

“Dean, I wanted to say-”

Another pause. The silence felt suffocating. Dean cleared his throat, deciding that he didn’t really want to hear what Cas had to say. 

“So it’s all done. Chuck is gone, the kid has taken up the mantle, and you’re… back.”

Cas nodded, finally moving forward. He poured himself a drink of whiskey in silence, Dean watching his tense shoulders like he couldn’t bear to look away. “Yes. I’m back,” he said. “Thanks to you.”

Dean scoffed, brushing off his praise. “It was mostly Jack, you know. He was the one who found you.”

“Yes but you pulled me out,” Cas set down his whiskey glass on the table without taking a drink from it. The table felt long between them. “Dean, what I wanted to say was… you don’t have to.”

Dean paused, eyebrows furrowing. “Okay… what don’t I have to do?”

Cas seemed uncomfortable, looking away from him as he spoke. “I know… what I said to you. Before I was taken. And you don’t have to say anything. Or do anything. We can go back to the way things were before, or… or you don’t ever have to see me again.”

Fear bundled in Dean’s throat. “Woah, woah,” he stood up, taking a step forward. “What, you’re leaving? That’s it?”

“If that seems prudent, then yes, I will leave-”

“No, Cas!” Dean’s outburst shocked them both. Dean took a breath, set his glass down. He was shaking now, either from anger or fear, he didn’t know. “No, Cas. You don’t get to say all of that and then-then just leave again. You’re always fucking leaving and I-I can’t do anything about it.”

Cas was still looking away from him. Dean took another step forward, the space between them merely feet away now. He knew what he needed to do, to make him stay. By God, it goes against everything in Dean’s body but maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s time to stop being so goddamn afraid and make him stay for once.

“Okay, listen to me Cas,” he said, voice rough and commanding. Cas finally looked up into his green eyes. “You know, you know I’m not good at this kind of stuff. Never have been. But… but I need to tell you…” his voice got lower, and he stepped closer, into Cas’ personal space. “I need to tell you that you can have it. Me. Whatever you want. You’ve always had me.”

Cas stared, lips parted, at Dean, frozen like a deer in headlights. “Dean… what are you saying?”

Dean’s hand came up to cradle Cas’ face. “You’re an idiot,” he muttered, before leaning in and kissing him.

It was electrifying. It was over a decade of pent up aggression and love poured out into a single act. Cas stood still for a moment before melting into Dean’s mouth, groaning as Dean held his face close to him, kissing him again. Cas bumped into the edge of the table as Dean tried to get closer, closer. Cas’ hands wrapped around Dean and held on tight to his shoulders, their bodies pressed up against one another. Dean’s fingers felt the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled him even closer. 

Finally, they parted for air. The room was standing in silence asides from their breathing and blue met green in an astonishing kaleidoscope of color. Cas leaned in again and gave him a final chaste kiss, their foreheads pressed together even as they parted. 

“Dean, I-I-”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry I didn’t say it.”

Cas shook his head, the tips of their noses brushing. There was a smile on his face, a real genuine smile, and it made him look stunning. “Thank you for showing me,” he whispered. Dean smiled and brought him into a hug, cradling him against him. They stood there for several moments until someone cleared their throat.

“So… is this going to be like a thing now?” Sam asked from the war room, trying to fight off a smirk on his face. 

Without parting from Cas, Dean flipped him off.

~~~

Six months after that, the five of them-- Dean, Cas, Sam, Jack, and Eileen-- were all standing around the table in the war room in the Bunker. The air was apprehensive. 

“So, one last time. You really want to do this?” Sam asked.

Cas nodded, glancing at him. “Yes. I do believe this is the best course of action.”

Sam nodded, lips pressed together. Jack stepped towards Cas with a small smile on his face. “I think I can do it without hurting you at all. You’ll probably just feel tired,” he said. Cas smiled at his son, nodding, having full trust in him. Jack turned towards Dean, holding out his hand. “The vial please.”

Being clutched around Dean’s fist was the small empty vial Cas’ grace will be placed into, strung on a chain. He paused for a moment, having a silent conversation with Cas. Cas gave him a small reassuring smile. So Dean handed it to Jack, his hands feeling particularly empty after. 

The process doesn’t take very long. Jack placed his hand on Cas’ forehead and his eyes glowed yellow, then the supernova that was Cas’ remaining grace fell from his mouth into the vial. Jack closed the vial up, it glowing brightly. “All done,” Jack said, before healing Cas of his fatigue. Cas looked at his hands-- his newly human hands-- and then back down to the vial. Dean took a step forward, his hand out in asking. Jack carefully placed the vial into Dean’s hand. Dean slipped it on over his head, the grace falling against his sternum. He patted it, smiling softly at the love of his life.

“Well, what do you know. You’ve spent so much time watching after my soul and now I get to look after yours.”

#spnmultishipweek #destiel #deancas #dean x cas #dean winchester #castiel #cas #destiel fanfic #deancas fanfic #destiel fic #deancas fic #spn #supernatural #spn fic #spn fanfic #sam winchester #jack kline #eileen leahy #mine #my fic #my writing

[watchingspnagain]

Rewatching Metamorphosis

Welcome to “I swear to Chuck, Dean Winchester, if you say Man Pig one more time…: A Supernatural Rewatch Blog” with Lor and Mace!

   Up today, s4e4: Metamorphosis.

 In the suburbs, a married man is becoming insatiable for meat. And maybe… human flesh? He’s scaring the bejesus out of his wife (and himself), but when two incredibly handsome young men clad in flannel show up and tell him it’s because he’s a monster, he’s not buying it. (Always believe handsome young men in flannel when they tell you you’re a monster.) Turns out the dude can NOT become a full-on monster as long as he refrains from eating human flesh. Once he does, there’s no going back. But the boys are divided on whether he can be saved—Sam argues that he’ll be able to control himself and be fine; Dean is sure he is doomed to be a monster. This, of course, echoes their positions on what’s going on with Sam and Ruby and how they each feel about THAT. The episode’s climax involves a lot of ew and gross and an old hunter friend of John’s being awful. And our boys… are FRAUGHT.

  Below is a log of our real-time reactions as we watched. Remember that there may be spoilers for any part of SPN’s 15-season run here. Note also that the nature of our conversation is adult and thus it may contain adult language and themes.

 [and we begin:]

  Mace:

 Interesting. I don’t think Sam gets objectified like this often (“slutting around”)

  Lor:

 no, I don't think he does

 oh Dean

I FORGOT that he finds out by spying

  Mace:

 yeah

Lor:

 "is that Ruby?" and the LOOK

  Mace:

 right?!

  Lor:

 oh he's maaaaad

they are so FRAUGHT

  Mace:

 he really is

  Lor:

 ooo Sammy's wearing one of his BEST shirts

  Mace:

 HE IS

  oh Dean, you don’t wanna leave

HEY NOW, LAY OFF MY STRINGBEAN

  Lor:

 oh Dean, that's it, cycle that violence

  Mace:

 YEP

  Lor:

 OH! Sam's being influenced by Ruby BUT Dean's being influenced by Cas. and they both CAN be influenced bc something in there lets them be, but I never picked up on the parallel before

  Mace:

 YEP

  Lor:

 I feel a little dumb right now. like, it's RIGHT THERE

  Mace:

 snork

  Lor:

 but Cas is definitely not a love interest for Dean. definitely not

  Mace:

 NOPE DEFINITELY NOT

JUST FRIENDS

  Lor:

 only bros

  Mace:

 we don’t need to discuss how there’s 1000% more sexual tension in the scenes between Cas and Dean than Ruby and Sam...

  Lor:

 lol nope

 not beat down after five or six years of marriage to JOHN

  Mace:

 and the fact that Sam and Ruby are married in real life now so there must have been actual tension between them but still Misha and Jensen provoke more sexy vibes…

 HAHAHAHA

  Lor:

 RIGHT?

I was just trying to figure out how to say something very similar

  Mace:

 HA

  Lor:

 "weird with crazy on top"

 dude, have a string cheese. this is what they are FOR

  Mace:

 YEP

 HAHAHAHAHA

 this one is just kinda gross

  Lor:

 yeah

 WOULD HE? or would he find something to criticize

  Mace:

 enough with the pointed snark, Dean

 oh he would totally criticize

  Lor:

 "is that made up? that sounds made up"

  yeah, Dean is passive aggressiving today

  Mace:

 LONG PIG

EW

  Lor:

 LOL

I love that it's Sam who knows what it means, not Dean

  Mace:

 yeah, that doesn’t seem right somehow

  Lor:

 yeah

I suspect it was sloppy, but I kind of like the against-type of it

  Mace:

 yeah

  Lor:

 so props for calling the jerk out but points off for the fatphobia

  Mace:

 yep

i do love that they do things to make the ‘bad’ guy sympathetic

  Lor:

 YES

  Mace:

 SAM SAID LORE EVERYBODY DRINK

  Lor:

 LOLOLOLOLOLOL

 ooof Dean, people pleasing and managing the people/conversation

  Mace:

 YEP

 okay so here we have Dean on the side of black-and-white and Sam on the side of greys

  Lor:

 Travis, you dick, YES they have not eaten in days, you KNEW their dad, you jerk

 yep

  Mace:

 we should keep score on these because I think I remember they flipflop several times throughout the show

  Lor:

 oh yeah, they definitely do

  ooo, retrograde marital dynamics

fun

  Mace:

 HA yeah

 um, WHOSE emotions are getting in the way, Dean?

  Lor:

 I think they flip on the grey thing depending on what's going on with them. Sam wants monsters to be okay sometimes bc he's afraid he's kind of one. Dean wants it to be black and white bc he wants Sam to just STOP using his powers. you'd think they'd learn at some point though

  RIGHT?

  Mace:

 yeah

  Lor:

 Dean can never resist upset Sammy

  "hungry hungry hippos levels" DEAN

  Mace:

 I wonder if part of why Dean’s panties are so bunched about all this is that he has always felt wrong/inadequate/not-enough (thanks to John) and so he tries to protect Sam and keep him normal

 HAHAHA

  Mace:

 STOP. SAYING. MAN. PIG. DEAN.

  Lor:

 oh YES

 LOL

  Mace:

 he feels like he’s failing Sammy so he’s angry at himself and taking that out on Sam

  Lor:

 YES

  DEAN. stop being a little shit! NO PIE

  Mace:

 Come on, we all know you’d give in in a heartbeat and give him pie

  Lor:

 ....

yeah, it's true

I can't even pretend it's not true anymore

he's just little and he's never done anything wrong

  Mace:

 HAAAAHAHAHA

  “we should go” “yeah"

 HAHAHAHA

  Lor:

 "we're here to save you! i guess"

  Mace:

 BOYS

  Lor:

 HAHAHAHAHA

  so he only wants to eat women?

  Mace:

 well, eating men would be kind gay

  Lor:

 it feels like there's a sexual component here they are not addressing

  Mace:

 HAHAHA

  Lor:

 HA! and no one would want THAT. not on the Man Show

  Mace:

 nope

 OH DAMN I forgot about this part

  Lor:

 so not that all options here aren't awful, but Travis is aware you can... not have a child without killing the woman?

  Mace:

 that wouldn’t be the Christian thing to do, though, now would it

  Lor:

 splutters in 2023

  Mace:

 HAAAAAHAHAHA

  oh Travis is dead. how tragic.

  Lor:

 yes, I weep

  OMG LOCK YOUR CAR WHEN YOU LEAVE IT ON THE STREET

  Mace:

 SNORK

  Lor:

 correct, Sammy

  Mace:

 YES

 ew.

  Lor:

 yeah

  omg stop hitting Sammy in the head!

  Mace:

 omg STOP HITTING SAM IN THE HEAD

  Mace:

 HAHAHAHA

  Lor:

 HAAAAHAHAHAHA

  Mace:

 my Bean’s gonna have the brain damage

  Lor:

 seriously

  look. when the Winchesters show up and tell you to do something, you do it. that's how you don't end up a monster who can't see your family.

  Mace:

 ayup

 for the life of me I can’t understand how anyone could say no to either of them

  Lor:

 interesting choice to have Dean lying down like this for this scene

  RIGHT?

  Mace:

 well if they didn’t then he’s have burned the dude without chatting first

  Lor:

 it's definitely not as sexual assaulty as somethings they do to him, but

  Mace:

 and they needed Sammy to have his little existential crisis talk first

  Lor:

 well, he could be unconscious in a chair or something

  Mace:

 mmm

  Lor:

 LYING

  Mace:

 YEP

  Lor:

 oh boys

  Mace:

 yeah

#watchingspnagain #watchingspnagain 4x04 #spn #supernatural #spn meta #spn spoilers #spn 4x04 #watchingspnagain boy king of hell #watchingspnagain cas as love interest parallel #dean and assault #watchingspnagain dean's responsible for sam #watchingspnagain fraught #watchingspnagain monsters #watchingspnagain gray #watchignspnagain sam and assault

[sarah-dipitous]

Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 112

Swan Song

“Swan Song”

Plot Description: with the apocalypse looming in a showdown between good and evil, Sam and Dean realize they are out of options

Can we take a moment to appreciate that there’s an episode called Swan Song a THIRD of the way through the series. I know the lore is that this was supposed to be the series finale, but like…….there’s TEN MORE SEASONS

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: would I survive writing? Or drinking beer? I think so…yeah.

Dean speaking for ever shorter older sibling calling Sam overgrown. Thank you, Dean

God…maybe I was wrong about surviving the first five minutes because I’m dying rn just watching it

Omg…I can’t with them. Sam’s trying to make Dean promise not to try to bring him back if they actually get Lucifer back in the cage in Sam’s body

How DARE they make me laugh by making Cas lie in the worst and fakest way but because Sam asked him to

Hold on, how do you drink FOUR GALLONS of demon blood and not have to pee EVEN A LITTLE immediately after. I’m asking the real questions here

Cool cool cool, now Lucifer’s got the keys to his cage. Good job, boys

No Dean, not with the tears. I can’t handle it

No. I’m sorry. You don’t get to just tell Sam that he felt out of place in his own family when it was your fault and your dad’s that he felt that way in the first place

That’s so unfair to Sam that he’s been yanked around by demons his whole life

Oh…sure. Literally rip them apart. Why not??

The Chuck interludes are so jarring. Everything is going to shit in real-time, but his prose is so peaceful.

Imagine if you could just call god on your cellphone and reach him on his landline…that would be fuckin wild

But like…WHY DO YOU have to do this??? Oh cool. *I* am asking the same questions Lucifer is. Awesome

So…my brain? Can’t turn off the part that wants to compare this to last year’s Todobros showdown. It’s um…it’s certainly something. It doesn’t totally match up nicely(/not really at all except that it’s two brothers fighting because of an overbearing yet somehow absentee father. Their sentiments get muddled)

I didn’t realize “Hey, Assbutt!” was this close to happening…RIP for now to both Michael and Castiel

Bobby, no. The colt doesn’t work on the devil…you just got yourself fucking killed

This is extremely hard to watch (Lucifer beating the shit out of Dean in Sam’s body)

Oh…this montage of all the times they shared in the impala that give Sam the strength to fight off Lucifer for even a minute. It’s just long enough to open the cage back up.

Bye, Adam. Sorry Sam and Dean left you down there for the rest of the series

Cas got his angel mojo back. Dean asking if Cas is god…there are thoughts I cannot grasp

Aw and Bobby’s back

Chuck writing about how hard it is to end a story and how fans will always bitch about loose ends. AMAZING

This would have been a very powerful and really touching but so sad series finale.

“Nothing ever really ends, does it?” Is the truest statement about this show to ever be said, and I can’t believe it’s IN the show

Mmmmmm, and now our first look at soulless Sammy

“Been On My Mind…”: I mean…Dean does go to Lisa’s at the end as he promised Sam he’d do

#hellsite nostalgia tour 2023

[dressupheart]

i'm digging in the depths of my wip graveyard and i found this

camael and a couple of my ocs are mentioned, i had Big Plans but 🤷🏻‍♀️

it felt like a dream.

cas was back. he was real. he was alive. he looked stunned when dean had hugged him, his eyes were almost vacant. he had been in the empty for a month, maybe he couldn’t believe he was out.

dean kept his eyes on him, the hint of a smile on his lips as he watched jack, then sam, and claire hugging cas. he turned his head for a second to lock eyes with sam, and cas was gone.

his heart leapt into his throat, he couldn’t have imagined everything that had happened, could he?

a flash of beige appeared in the hallway, and dean weaved his way through the newly returned angels to follow. cam patted his shoulder and whispered, “you’ve got this,” and dean knew this was really happening. he walked down the hall, checking cas’ room, then his own. nothing. where else would he…

dean pushed on, making his way to the dungeon. and there was cas.

he was circling the chair in the middle of the room, fingers brushing the back of it. he looked up, seeing dean in the doorway. cas backed away, fear in his eyes. “this isn’t real…it’s the shadow…”

“it’s real, cas. we got you out.” dean spoke softly, not wanting to startle cas. “we got you out and you’re never going back there again.”

“how?”

dean shrugged. “got a spell. found a prince of hell and two more archangels to help out. everyone’s out of the empty, except for lucifer and azazel.”

“but i had a deal with the shadow, why did it let me go?”

dean took another step forward. “jack and belial made a deal.” he grabbed cas’ arm before he could react. “we’re gonna find chuck and throw his ass in. that’s how we got you out. the shadow thought he was a good enough trade. it took lucifer and azazel in exchange for the other angels and demons.” he gave cas’ arm a reassuring squeeze. “this is real, you’re home.”

cas relaxed, probably because jack didn’t sacrifice himself for his sake. but as he looked in dean’s eyes, dean could see fear.

“i know you’ve got a lot to process, but i really gotta get this off my chest,” he nervously rubbed the back of his neck, “you left before i could respond to what you said. i just…”

“dean, you don’t have to say anything.”

“yeah, but i need to. i just…it’s hard for me to say this kind of stuff. i told myself that when i got you back, i wasn’t gonna fuck around. i was gonna nut the fuck up and tell you, and now you’re here and, man…it’s so hard.” he licked his lips. “when you said, you know, i didn’t know you meant it like that. i didn’t think you could feel like that. and…i’m pretty sure i feel the same way about you.”

cas backed away. “i’m not falling for this, not again.”

“cas, look at me.” dean wasn’t letting go of his arm. “look at my soul. can you feel it’s reaching for you? could the shadow replicate that?”

cas said nothing, but did as dean asked and really looked at him

#spn #destiel wip #van writes #and back into the wip pile it goes

[clairenatural]

i had a dream that sam and dean took cas to an art museum and showed him all these paintings of angels and it was like that scene in vincent and the doctor and cas said these paintings are beautiful because they depict the angels as human when a true angel could never be described as anything but monstrous and i woke up crying

anon i love this SO much. i love it so much i had to write it. this is 1.4k, destiel, human!cas

They’re making their way out of the city, monster killed and day saved, when Castiel sees a poster, pasted up on the side of the plywood wall of a construction site. It’s an angel—he doesn’t recognize the artist, but he’d guess late 19th century. Be Not Afraid: a History of Angels in Art, it proclaims, the logo of the city’s largest art gallery tucked into the corner.

Castiel stares at it. The angel on the poster stares back, wings spread and staff raised. Valiant. Something in his heart twitches, but it’s hard to place. He still has his blade, tucked safely into the trunk with the rest of their frequently used weapons, and he never had wings like that; even the shadows, the ones they showed to humans, were simply the closest representation to the real thing possible in this dimension (his back aches anyway, dimly, his human body reacting to the loss as if they were real severed appendages. He ignores it).

Dean notices, because of course he does. He stops, because of course he does, and flags Sam down before his long legs can carry him too far ahead. “Hey. You good?”

Castiel isn’t sure how long he’s been staring at the poster, but it’s long enough that Dean is obviously concerned. “Hm? Oh. Yes, I’m—I’m fine.”

Dean nods but doesn’t move. He considers the poster. “Art gallery, huh?” he asks, avoiding the obvious elephant. Castiel appreciates it. He nods back.

“I’ve never been to one,” he offers, as explanation. It seems odd—he can remember the painting of the Sistine Chapel, he remembers watching with fascination as humans began collecting the smaller paintings into collections and museums, but he’d never been inside one. It hadn’t seemed necessary. Humans collect art in large boxes to remember their history, but Castiel has seen it all.

Dean seems surprised by this. “Seriously?” Castiel nods, and there’s a pause, and he’s about to turn and keep heading towards the car, and Kansas, and home, when Dean claps him on the shoulder and turns to call over his own.

“Sammy! How do you feel about seeing some art?”

“You want to go to an art gallery?” Sam sounds incredulous, and is closer behind him than Cas expected. He hadn’t noticed him retreat the half-block he’d managed to gain on them.

“Yeah, why not? Come on. What happened to ‘a little culture wouldn’t hurt, Dean?’”

"What happened to ‘I’ve got plenty of culture, eat your damn burger?’”

“It’ll be fun, Sam,” Dean counters. Something in his tone has changed. Cas doesn’t think too hard about it.

There’s a long pause, and Cas knows there’s some sort of communication happening he can’t hear or see. “…Okay,” Sam concedes. “Okay, sure. Yeah. Let’s go.”

So they do.

Dean makes a comment about “haven’t been in one of these since I was a kid,” before they all fall into the hushed silence of the museum floor. It’s nice—nicer than Castiel had expected. Not in aesthetics; the building is sleek, and modern, and the art is obviously beautiful. But it’s nice to be there. It feels almost Holy—humans, funny creatures they are, with their habit of treating their own culture with the respect of something divine. Creating houses of worship out of museums and libraries and living rooms. 

He wanders through the various exhibits but doesn’t really pay attention until he ends up in the exhibit from the poster. He’d managed to lose the Winchesters halfway through the photography exhibit, when both the brothers had gotten distracted. Castiel had continued onward anyway, on a mission, and by the time he finds himself walking into the angel exhibit he’s on his own.

He comes to a stop in front of one of the largest paintings in the room. It’s not the same angel as the poster. It’s several, actually, looking over what appears to be Mary and a baby Jesus. The angels are beautiful—smooth, flawless skin. They have long hair that looks soft, even in paint. They’re wearing white robes, and their wings are white and dove-like. None of these angels have several heads, rotating bands of fire, or thousands of eyes. They’re beautiful, but they aren’t angels. The human who painted this didn’t know that, of course—none of them did. Humanity was faced with the concept of divinity and conceptualized it as a version of itself.

“The real things ain’t as cuddly, huh?”

Dean’s voice startles him, which he hates, both because he hates being startled and because he’s still adjusting to Dean being able to sneak up on him.

“I was just thinking,” he starts, pretending he’d known Dean was there the whole time, “you paint us like we’re human.” Not ‘us’ anymore, he reminds himself, but he brushes that thought off. Not now.

Beside him, Dean snorts. “Yeah, well. If you’d told any of those Renaissance guys that the real angels are dickhead balls of celestial intent, they’d’ve arrested you for heresy.”

Castiel shakes his head. “No.” he pauses. “Well, yes. But that’s—” he turns to face Dean for the first time. He notices Sam over Dean’s shoulder, focusing intently on a painting a few feet away and obviously pretending not to listen.

“My father—God—Chuck,” he cycles through, which will never not be weird, “created us first, but not in his image. We weren’t worthy of that. Only you were. Humans, his perfect creation, modeled after their creator. But then—” he turns back to the painting and gestures to it. “You created us in your image. You thought about divinity and you couldn’t conceive anything more Holy than yourselves.”

Dean shifts. He tries for a laugh, but it comes out short. “Well, damn, Cas. Way to make a guy feel self-centered.”

Castiel turns back to him. He blinks. He frowns. That’s not what he means. “Most of my siblings thought so,” he agrees. “But I always thought it was an honor. Look,” He turns again and reaches out for the painting, only remembering a few inches from its surface to not touch it.  “This one has a lyre. You always paint us playing music. But music, art….these are human things, Dean.” He lets his hand fall, but keeps his eyes forward.  “We’re soldiers. They don’t teach us to play the harp in Heaven, they train us to fight. But these angels are…soft. Kind. Angels you trust to protect. The kind of angels people pray to, build churches to.” He looks back at Dean, who is staring at him with a frown. He holds his gaze, steady, and takes a deep breath before finishing. “I wish I was—that any of us were—worthy of being depicted this way. I wish we were the angels you paint us as.”

There’s a long pause while Dean searches his face, obviously trying to decide on the right reaction. If they were at home, Cas thinks Dean might reach out and hug him. Instead, Dean reaches out to clap a hand on his shoulder—he lets it linger there, and Cas knows what it means, so that’s okay, too. “For what it’s worth,” he starts, and his voice is softer than the last time he spoke. “You’re the closest thing to those angels that I’ve ever seen.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but Cas smiles sadly as he turns back to the painting. “I’m not any kind of angel anymore,” he points out, and tries his hardest to keep his voice neutral.

Dean squeezes his shoulder and tilts his head, trying to recapture Castiel’s gaze. “Hey. Look at me.” Reluctantly, he looks back over. “Your wings weren’t what made you a good angel, alright?” he brings his other hand up to poke into Castiel’s chest. “That was all in here.”

He sounds like he’s quoting the Wizard of Oz, and Cas wants to make a joke about that, but he’s also never wanted to kiss Dean more. He doesn’t, because they’re in a museum, and they’re still working up to that, but he makes a note to do it later. Instead, he reaches up and pulls Dean’s hand away from his chest, links it in his own, and squeezes.

“Thank you,” he says, and it’s earnest, and it’s for everything.

Dean smiles. He understands. He squeezes back.

#i do hope it was ok to write this #i was hoarding this ask until i could #bc i couldnt stop thinking about it!!! #Anonymous #answered #my words #over 1k words #destiel #deancas #destiel fic #deancas fic #i am Not an art historian so i tried to keep all the descriptions vague enough to not cause problems but if there are issues im sorry

[magickastiel]

Heavenly Connection

summary: Dean discovers Spotify and, more specifically, the playlists about him. And Cas.

complete, 4.5k, ao3

for @apathetichristmascracker for the @spnvalentines gift exchange!

-

Dean’s midway through cooking a greasy breakfast when Sam comes back from his run, sweating, grinning and talking very loudly on the phone.

“ - dude, it totally suits you! It’s amazing. I don’t know how they managed it. It’s…almost biblical.”

There’s a rumbling crackle on the other end of the phone but Dean can’t quite work out who it is.

Who the hell would Sam be calling dude at nine in the morning on a sunny Thursday? He supposes it could be another hunter. Sam is better at keeping in touch with people they’ve met on the road.

Wait, does Sam have a friend he doesn’t know about? Huh. Look at the kid go.

Dean’s sitting down with his bacon, eggs and toast and just taking a swig of coffee by the time Sam hangs up the phone and plops down in the seat opposite him.

Dean waits, fork paused, to hear Sam’s explanation.

He just glugs his green smoothie and sweats some more. “Man, it’s warm out there already today.”

“Yeah.” Dean narrows his eyes, chewing his bacon with a clenched jaw.

“Oh!” Sam takes an obnoxiously long drink before continuing. “Cas said he’ll be back this evening.”

“What?”

Sam blinks into the suddenly tense mood. He half waves his phone at him. “Cas. He’ll be back today.” He meets Dean’s hard stare blankly. “What? Why are you glaring?”

“I’m not.” Dean says quickly, trying and failing to take the clipped tone out of his voice. “Just…didn’t think you and Cas had…you know…buddy calls.”

Sam snorts. “Buddy calls? What, you thought he only called you to check in?”

“No.” Yes.

“Sure.” Sam smirks as he wanders over to the sink to rinse his cup.

Dean huffs and shovels eggs into his mouth.

It’s fine. He glares at Sam’s stupid back. It’s good. Sam and Cas should be friends. They are friends. It’s great they’ve got their own phone calls to talk about stuff and that’s absolutely nothing to do with -

“What were you talking about?”

“What?” Sam asks over his shoulder as he fills his water bottle.

Dean grits his teeth. “What were you and Cas talking about?”

“Really?” Sam gives him an incredulous look. “You’ve really got to know?”

“No.” Dean shrugs but it’s too aggressive to be convincing. “Don’t gotta tell me. Just wondering.”

“Right.” Sam smiles to himself. Smug little s - “Don’t think you’d enjoy it anyway.”

If anything can lure Dean into being interested in something, it’s someone telling him he wouldn’t like it. He is suddenly determined to make whatever Sam and Cas’ joint interest his favourite thing ever. He’ll learn Latin if he has to. He’ll learn Enochian -

“We were talking about music.”

“Dude!” Dean explodes, almost sending his empty plate flying. “I love music! Why did ya think I wouldn’t wanna talk about that?”

Sam sighs and turns to face him, looking amused and exasperated all at once.

“It’s…uh - ”

“What?”

“It’s not just talking about random music. I kinda…found something out a few weeks ago.” He eyes Dean cautiously. “You won’t like it.”

“Won’t like what?!”

“Well,” Sam begins overly dramatically. He wanders back to his seat at the table opposite Dean. “You know how Chuck wrote those stories about us?”

Dean’s stomach churns. “Yeah. Freaky.”

Sam winces, pulling his phone out. “Yeah, I know. But…I found this playlist on Spotify - ”

“What?”

“Man, you have to start listening to music on something other than cassettes.”

“I listen to vinyl!”

“I mean digitally.” Sam glares over the top of his phone before showing it to Dean.

He peers at the screen, momentarily confused about what he’s seeing. It’s a playlist - a long playlist judging by the run-time at the top of the screen. His eyes skim over the songs. A few artists jump out at him and he snorts. Lady Gaga, Fall Out Boy, Taylor Swift.

When Sam scrolls up he sees the title. ‘I’m unclean | sam winchester’

Dean’s smirk slips away and his blood runs cold.

“What the hell? You’re telling me someone made that?” Dean goes from shocked to furious in 0.2 seconds. “About you? Being ‘unclean’? That’s such bullshit, man! Look, we’re gonna have to, like…call this stupid website. What’s their number? I’ll call them right now, get them to take it down. Loada shit - ”

Sam just laughs. “You want to call Spotify and get them to take a playlist down about me? Dude, it’s got 68 likes - it’s not exactly viral. Besides,” He looks down at his phone with a grin. “It’s a good playlist honestly.”

Dean pauses, midway through finding his own phone. “What? You actually like it? Sam, you’re not unclean - ”

Sam laughs again. “No, no. I know that. This playlist isn’t saying that’s what I am, Dean. It’s about me as a person. It’s about how I see myself. It’s about me as a character in a story.”

“But you’re not - ”

“I know.” Sam’s grinning, like he’s actually pleased about this horrible new development in their twisted lives. “But to the people that read those books and make these playlists, I am a character. And it’s kinda cool to see how they see me through music.”

“You mean there’s more than one playlist?”

“Dude, there’s loads. Actually, there’s uh…” He almost giggles as he fiddles with his phone again. “I clicked on the account that made this playlist to see if they made one about you too - ”

Dean perks up. “Did they?”

“No, actually. But they did - ha - they made this one.” He holds up his phone again and Dean almost splinters the coffee cup in his hands.

‘Nothing Is Worth Losing You | Sastiel’

Sam’s smirking. Dean isn’t. “Apparently, ‘sastiel’ is a thing. That’s how me and Cas started talking about these playlists in the first place. I sent it to him ‘cause I thought he’d find it funny. There are some good songs on it too. Romantic ones - ”

“But that doesn’t fit you and Cas.” Dean snaps.

“No.” Sam puts his phone away again, a smug expression on his face. “But it’s fun to listen to. And I’ve discovered loads of new music this way. Cas sent me a great playlist he found about him last night. That’s what we were talking about this morning.”

“Right.” Dean tries and fails to unclench his jaw.

“So, yeah. Now you know.” Sam stands and stretches like a man who hasn’t just tortured his brother. “I’m going for a shower. Maybe you should get on Spotify, Dean. Check out all the playlists about you.”

He glares so hard Sam actually winces. “Pass. I don’t need a bunch of mouth-breathing, ‘Supernatural’ nerd fans to tell me what music to listen to, thank you very much.”

_

Dean has a Spotify account by lunch time.

He tried cleaning Baby, he tried watching Dr. Sexy, he tried doing a complete inventory of his weapons.

But those dumb playlist are all he can think about.

So by lunchtime, he’s given in. He lies on his belly on his bed, chomping on an excellent grilled cheese sandwich as he scrolls through his phone.

He searches his own name first, fingers slipping over the letters. The titles of the playlists throw him.

songs that dean winchester secretly listens to

Dean winchester and his daddy issues

Dean Winchester's emotional repression

repressed bi eldest daughter complex (derogatory) dean winchester

He tries to work that one out until his head hurts. He chooses the one just titled:

Dean Winchester ☀️

He can manage that. He opens the playlist and rolls his eyes so hard he sees stars when the first song is by Beyoncé. Daddy Lessons.

But the song immediately regains his interest as it starts. There’s a rowdy, backwater country feel to it that makes him soften to it. If this is how people see him, he can live with that. Hell, it sounds country enough to make him want to put his cowboy hat on.

‘Came into this world - daddy’s little girl. And daddy made a soldier out of me.’

Ok, that’s…Dean swallows. That’s a little too on the nose. He quickly skips to the next track.

Springsteen. Dancing in the Dark. Thank god. He lets that one play, his foot jiggling along. He lets the beat carry him over the lyrics that try to suck him in like quicksand.

‘I ain’t nothing but tired. Man, I’m just tired and bored with myself - ‘

The next few tracks make him feel cold. He’s not sure what he expected, but he definitely hadn’t thought the songs would be so…tragic. The melancholic opening bars of one called ‘Smother’ makes him skip it almost immediately.

Song after song, he feels his grip on himself loosen.

Dean’s under no illusion about the hollowness in his chest, the aching void that is never sated no matter how many breakfasts he cooks with Sam, how many movies he watches with Cas, how many hour long chats he has with Jody.

He’s greedy for attention, for affection. For love.

He’s always been like it.

As a child, John would scoop him up and laugh as Dean clung to him, unwilling to let go. His tiny fingers would only loosen on his father’s shirt at the feel of his mother’s arms around him. He’d cling on to her while she bustled around the house, face half-pressed into her blonde hair. She never seemed to mind, humming softly to both of them as she worked.

Then she was gone. And John stopped holding him.

Dean still remembers the first motel they stayed in after the fire. The faint smell of mildew in the air was overtaken by the choking scent of smoke from their clothes. Sammy slept propped against some pillows and John sat on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing. Dean thought it would make both of them feel better if they hugged.

He’d only managed to get one little arm under John’s before he was being roughly pushed away. There was a darkness in his father’s eyes he had never seen before and the shock jolted him out of his desire for comfort.

He never tried again. He clung to Sammy instead. He was a baby so he couldn’t push Dean away.

But Sammy got bigger and bigger and then left.

And the hollow void in his chest ached. So he distracted himself with hook-ups and hunts. That would work for a few days but then he’d find himself alone again and the space yawned wider.

He scrubs his hand over his face and pulls his headphones off. His eyes feel dry and tight, like he should be crying but he can’t work out how.

He looks down at his phone and chuckles despite himself.

Ok. Maybe those Supernatural nerds know what they’re doing.

He’s about to give up for the day when he remembers the other playlist Sam showed him. ‘Sastiel’. Dean’s trying not to think about why that sets his teeth on edge.

He clicks on the username of the person who made the playlist he’d been listening to. He scrolls through a few labelled things he doesn’t recognise before he spots it.

Destiel

He can respect a simple title. He clicks on it and stares at the runtime: four hours and fifty seven minutes. Ok, this particular nerd obviously has quite a lot to say about ‘destiel’.

Despite himself, he grins at the title of the first song. Angel With a Shotgun. He shoves his headphones back on, hits play and feels a swoop of excitement as the song rumbles on, upbeat and strong. Like Springsteen, he lets the rhythm carry him past the lyrics that should make him pause.

He really doesn’t want to stop and think too hard on, ‘I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back, I’ll throw away my faith to keep you safe. Don’t you know you’re everything I have?’

It’s not as if that has to be romantic, right? Pushing aside the fact this is a ‘destiel’ playlist, it could still be platonic. He kind of is everything Cas has. Or at least, he was. But now Cas is friends with Sam, and Mom and he keeps in touch with Claire.

And that’s great. Dean forces himself to smile before realising he’s alone in his room so he doesn’t have to. The aching gets stronger in his chest.

The next song comes on without him noticing.

Fast Car by Tracy Chapman.

He rolls over onto his back and listens. This one’s...yeah. This one’s good. The sense of companionship - finding someone who is stuck just like you are.

He smiles up at the ceiling.

‘Maybe together we can get somewhere...’

_

Dean hunches over his phone in the kitchen that evening, the smell of homemade lasagne cooking in the oven.

Sam’s talking but Dean’s too busy to listen. He’s reading the lyrics to ‘E.T.’, confused how this particular song apparently relates to him and Cas.

He’s just feeling some type of way about ‘Could you be an angel? Your touch, magnetising, feels like I am floating, leaves my body glowing’ when his phone abruptly leaves his hand.

He blinks and lunges for it but it’s too late.

“Dude, I’ve been talking to you for a half hour now and got nothing back. What are you - ” Sam trails off, eyes widening as he flicks through the lyrics and sees Spoitfy is open in the background. “Really?” Pure glee lights up his brother’s face. “A ‘Destiel’ playlist?”

Dean tries to be cool despite his face burning. “You were going on and on about it! I thought I should see what people are saying!”

Sam snorts. “I was not ‘going on and on about it’. I mentioned it because you’re so possessive of Cas that you just had to know what we were talking about.”

“What?” Dean squeaks, and forcibly lowers his voice again. “I’m not…possessive of Cas! That’s so…you don’t know what you’re…that’s a loada bull!”

“Why are you both shouting my name?”

Ah, shit.

“Hey, Cas.” Sam says smoothly, smirking.

Dean, thinking Sam’s sufficiently distracted, lunges for his phone again but Sam holds it just out of reach. Desperate and annoyed, Dean stamps on Sam’s foot and he cries out. Dean pulls his phone from his grasp and roughly shoves it into his pocket.

Cas is watching them with a slight tilt to his head and a furrow in his brow.

“Is everything alright?” He says, so sincere Dean feels embarrassed.

“Yeah. Just Sam being a dick.”

“Dean was listening to a ‘destiel’ playlist.” Sam says, because apparently Dean raised him to be a total bastard. Sam smirks as he tries to rub his foot through his shoe.

“Oh.” Cas blinks, looking at Dean with those eyes. All-seeing and soft and so blue. “Is it…a good one?”

Not the question Dean expected to get but it’s one he can work with. “Y-yeah. Not bad. Don’t get some of the songs but…ya know. Not my playlist, I guess.”

He can feel Sam’s eyes flickering between them. Dean’s definitely going to spit on his lasagne before he gives it to him.

Cas just hums, thinking. Dean can never tell what he’s thinking which strikes him as very unfair because Cas always seems to be able to get a read on him.

“I have an excellent one bookmarked.” Cas says, reaching into his pocket and retrieving his phone. “I will send it to you.”

Dean’s brain switches off.

_

Thing is, he keeps listening to them.

It’s stupid, but now he’s started, it’s kinda hard to stop. It’s like all those people that read their horoscope, or take personality tests - at some level, everyone wants to hear about themselves from someone else.

Even for someone who hates himself as much as Dean does, it’s fascinating when someone holds up an image of you and says this is how I see you.

It takes a few weeks for him to admit to himself that a lot of them are right.

And it’s oddly comforting when he’s feeling frustrated with a case, or upset about Mom leaving or annoyed with Sam or missing Cas, there’s pretty much always a song tailored made for him and his emotions.

Particularly emotions regarding Cas.

There’s playlist after playlist about them and Dean’s steadily working through them all. He’s also bookmarked the one Cas sent him and has no idea how to process the fact that someone made a romantic playlist about them that both of them listen to. It’s funny, right?

Right?

Weeks later, Dean has a moment of weakness and lets Sam choose the music while he drives. They’re bone tired and they’ve been on the road too long. First they had a lead on Kelly in Jackson, Ohio which turns out to be a dud. Then on their way back, they stumble on a case in Flora, Illinois which takes almost a week.

Bruised and exhausted from dismantling a vamp nest, it’s all Dean can do to drive. So when Sam asks if he can put some music on for once, Dean just waves a hand, figuring it’ll be some folk/rock or maybe Celine Dion if he’s really unlucky.

He doesn’t really listen to it for a while, too focused on not falling asleep at the wheel to think about anything other than the road. A few of the songs sound familiar but he doesn’t dwell on it. It’s only after nearly an hour when a particularly distinctive intro kicks in does he actually pay attention.

‘No one on earth could feel like this, I’m thrown and overblown with bliss. There must be an angel playing with my heart…’

“What’s this?” He demands, voice rough from hours of silence.

Sam fidgets in his seat. “It’s Eurythmics.”

“Yeah, I know.” And he does know. He’s played the song himself enough times. “I mean, what’s this playlist?”

“Oh, uh…” Sam holds his phone up and Dean takes his eyes off the road for a second to read the title.

heavenly connection - a destiel playlist

“Dude!” Dean is suddenly painfully awake. “Switch it off!”

“What? Why?” Sam rolls his eyes and lets the song play. “You listen to them all the time. Why can’t we listen to them in the car?”

“Because - ” It’s private. “Because it’s dumb, ok? Switch it off.”

“It’s ‘dumb’? Dean, that’s so - ”

“I said switch it off! NOW!”

“ALRIGHT! Alright. Jeez.” Sam jabs at his phone and huffs.

The car is plunged into silence.

Dean immediately feels stupid. There was no need for him to lose it. No need to shout at all. But there’s something too exposing about hearing the playlists out loud. Dean listens to them shut away in his room, headphones on to block out the rest of the world. They’re not for anyone else to hear.

If this is how he’s going to behave about it, maybe they shouldn’t be for him to hear either.

Besides, he’s got too much to think about now. Mom’s working god knows what, god knows where and Cas is…Cas hasn’t checked in for a while.

He clenches his jaw and pushes a little harder on the accelerator.

He’s going to leave those girly, emotional songs behind. He’s got a job to do and people to save.

The void in his chest rumbles like thunder.

_

Two months later, he goes crawling back to them.

More specifically, he goes back to the playlist Cas sent him.

He plays Florence + the Machine’s Cosmic Love over and over and over until the tears dry on his face and make his skin feel tight and stretched over his skull.

‘The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out - ’

Dead, dead, dead. What had that angel said? Oh, yeah. All the way dead. Gone and not coming back.

‘No dawn, no day. I’m always in this twilight.’

The bunker’s a great place to grieve. It’s easy to shut yourself in there like a tomb and rot. It would be even easier if Sam wasn’t hovering around, trying to feed him and get him to go outside.

What’s worth going outside for?

More monsters, more death, more ways for Dean to fail.

The song changes and he quickly flicks past the hopeful ones. He tried listening to those a few days ago but it was like putting vinegar on a burn.

He stops on Take Me to Church, letting the deep tone wash over him like hot water.

‘The only heaven I’ll be sent to is when I’m alone with you. I was born sick, but I love it. Command me to be well.’

The next case they take involves an old house filled with ghosts. Dean plunges the syringe into his chest without hesitation.

It’s not gambling if you don’t care about the outcome.

_

His headphones sit on the bedside table gathering dust while Dean whisper-sings along to Madonna.

He’s gotta pack for Dodge City. It’s a quick turn around but who cares when they’re back up to a full team?

‘It’s like a dream - no end and no beginning. You’re here with me, it’s like a dream.’

“Is this the playlist I sent you?” Cas is in the doorway, broad-shouldered and alive.

“Yeah.” Dean grins. His face flushes a little but he can’t bring himself to be embarrassed right now. He’s skipped all the downbeat songs to get to this one.

“Hmm.” Cas nods, a rare and precious smile on his face. “I like this song.”

“Yeah.” Dean has a vague memory of his father in his mind, scowling and flicking the car radio off when ten year old Dean jiggled his leg along to ‘Like a Prayer’. He takes a breath. “Me too.”

_

He doesn’t really use Spotify for anything else.

He doesn’t see the point - he’s got all his favourite albums on cassette or vinyl and he’s got no desire to listen to them digitally, no matter what Sam says.

He finds other music from the playlists though. More Taylor Swift, but Dean didn’t need much persuading there. If he's in the right mood, he likes listening to Florence + the Machine.

The songs are usually a bit weird and they usually remind him of Cas in some way or another. So when he’s been gone from the Bunker for a while, Dean listens to High As Hope.

‘Hunger’ hits him hard.

‘At seventeen I started to starve myself, I thought that love was a kind of emptiness. And at least I understood then the hunger I felt and I didn’t have to call it loneliness.’

He remembers being a kid and passing the last piece of bread to Sammy, stomach rumbling. At least when he was hungry, he couldn’t tell the difference between the space in his stomach and the space in his chest.

Now, he has the luxury of food in the kitchen and his own bed to sleep in. Nothing else to think about other than that ache in his chest.

Then Mom is gone again and the ache turns to fire.

_

He doesn’t listen to the playlists for a long time.

It churns his stomach knowing what Chuck has been doing. Maybe no one even made these playlists at all. Maybe they’re all Chuck’s invention, created to give Dean a soundtrack to his life inside the cage.

He’s trapped like a hamster in a wheel, running and running and never getting anywhere.

He uninstalls Spotify but doesn’t delete his account.

_

God is dead.

Well, not dead but his power has been ripped from him and that’s enough. It’s enough for Dean now. He’s trying to be better. Trying to be the man that…

Eileen’s back and Sam is buzzing around her, giddy with excitement. Dean wants to pack a bag and leave, let them be happy without him dragging them down.

But he’s got nowhere to go and Sam would only be on his ass ten minutes later to drag him back. He tries to be grateful. He tries to be happy in his freedom.

It’s what he wanted.

Dean manages to sit through dinner with the happiest couple on Earth. He laughs along with Eileen’s stories and torments Sam for her entertainment.

Then he goes to bed early, pulls off his clothes and slides beneath the covers. He slips on his headphones and reinstalls Spotify.

‘The End of Love’ is the first song that comes on because Chuck might be gone but the universe still likes to laugh at him. He lets it play because nothing can really make him hurt more than he already is. And he’s still self-destructive enough to lean into the pain.

‘I’ve always been in love with you. Could you tell it from the moment I met you?’

He feels like he’s stood in the water, looking up at a tidal wave high above his head. It’s going to crash down over him and he can’t escape it. No point in even trying.

‘We were a family pulled from a flood.’

He turns his face to let out the first sob into the bed. Just in case Sam’s walking by and hears him. His fingers curl into the pillow and he clings on as he cries, feeling like a child again; wailing and sobbing to his mother because his father put him down.

‘Joshua came down from the mountain with a tablet in his hands, told me that he loved me, and ghosted me again.’

The chasm in his chest is so big, it presses against his skull and makes his toes cold.

Dean thinks if he falls over, he’ll just crack open.

_

‘Feels like fire, I’m so in love with you. Dreams are like angels, they keep bad at bay - ‘

“Really?” Dean tries to mock but he’s smiling so much his cheeks are hurting. “You chose The Power of Love?”

Cas bristles, holding Dean’s hand a little tighter. “Yes. It’s a good song. It’s featured on many of the ‘destiel’ playlists - ”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dean grins, his fingers squeezing Cas’ hip slightly. “Weird first dance song, though.”

“Is it? Oh.” Cas looks genuinely troubled and impossibly handsome. Dean wants to kiss him.

Dean can kiss him. It’s fine. Encouraged, even. It’s their wedding, they’re expected to be sappy and embarrassing and make out if they want to.

So he kisses him and completely forgets that they’re supposed to be dancing. Luckily, Cas leads him in a soft sway, one large warm hand on the base of his back.

‘When the chips are down, I’ll be around with my undying, death-defying love for you.’

Cas hums against his lips and pulls away a little. They’re still close enough to share breath. It should be gross but Dean’s too happy to care.

“I stand by my choice.”

“Yeah?” Dean whispers. He’s vaguely aware of the faces, blurry and distant behind Cas’ head. Sam’s out there with Eileen, Garth and Bess, Jody and Donna and the girls. Bobby and Charlie and Stevie from the other world, even Rowena made a very dramatic appearance…they’re all there for them.

Dean’s so full of love he feels like he’s going to burst.

“Yes.” Cas says firmly, and holds Dean close.

‘The power of love. A force from above.’

Dean closes his eyes and trusts Cas to guide them.

#spnvalentinesgiftexchange #they're MARRIED #destiel #destielfic #deancas #dean winchester #castiel

[sortasirius]

“Despair” and Dean and Cas

Well well well, winning is my favorite thing.

As usual, this is going to be as long as hell. And fair warning, it’s extremely emotional.

So here it is, the thing that we have been barrelling towards for years, literally years.

Just want to point out this.  Also, I will NEVER allow someone to speak negatively about this writing group, EVER.

Team Free Dads starting off the episode is so sweet, so scary.  Cas’ calming, Dean’s fear, Sam’s desperation, really just hammering home how much they love Jack, how his pain is pain for them, how losing him is unbearable.

“I can’t stop this.  I’m coming apart.  I don’t want to hurt you.  Don’t let me hurt you.”

Oof.  If you’ve ever question whether Jack is a Winchester, this line should shut that shit down for you.

When I tell you I was PISSED when Billie sent Jack to the Empty to EXPLODE?????  PAIN.

“Yeah the Empty can’t come to earth, not without being summoned.”

Hello Bobo, clue number 1.

The fact that they only had Jack in limbo for like five seconds was great for my heart health, thank u very much Bobo.

Also Dean wielding Death’s scythe?????? KING?????

Man, Sam and Dean’s growth.  The way that they’re able to, idk, actually speak on how they feel without death looming or fear or pain.  It’s just a conversation, just an honest conversation of Dean admitting his mistakes, admitting how he felt.  Admitting that he fucked up, and Sam forgiving him for it.

CHARLIE AND HER GF CHARLIE AND HER GF CHARLIE AND HER GF

Also...hunters and their “dates.”  Two hunters who are happily together, who are happily fighting monsters.  Hm.  Sounds like a Saileen/Destiel parallel to me boys.

You ever wish Cas would look and the mirror and take the great advice he gives others?  Because I do.  He’s always tried to be “useful” for Sam and Dean, for Jack, always tried to make sure that he’s useful enough that they keep him around.  But what he doesn’t understand, what he’s never understood, is that they need him because of who he is, not because of what he contributes.

Remind y’all of anything?

And here we have Clue Number 2

And then, Sam’s realization.  Eileen.

Did I begin full tilt screaming no in my apartment when he said her name?  Who’s to say?

How can a lock screen cause me this much pain????

Okay but: Charlie loses Stevie, Sam loses Eileen.  Clue Number 3.

I feel like I don’t talk enough about how much Sam loves Eileen.  About how obvious it is that they are endgame, about how happy he is when he talks about her.  This just feels like a blow to the stomach, but we’ve barely even started.

Sam immediately shifting into protective leader mode?  He is the love of my life.

Dean’s simple nod, like it’s a given?  Enough to do me in right there.

This is another episode where it’s just so clear that Sam is the leader of the North American hunters.  Everyone knows him, everyone is willing to follow him.  He’s knowledgeable and kind and fair and just and an incredibly capable fighter.  Once again, I don’t believe his work on earth is done.

Can we also please talk about how FRIGHTENING IT WAS for Jack to kill that plant???  I don’t really have much of a comment on it because I was literally just like ?????

With Billie saying that it’s Chuck, the way that people were dusted, very similar to Becky and Amara, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised, especially with Donna getting taken off the board.  It’s like I said last week, I don’t buy that he’s taken himself off the board, he’s too invested in the unraveling of this story to take a step back.  He’s gotta break them before he can defeat them, that’s the only way.

And here we go, into one of the most painful and surreal things I will ever write about.

Dean’s speech.  His guilt, his regret.  The shame of not only trapping himself, but the pain, the horror of trapping Cas.

“I just lead us into another trap.  All because I, I couldn’t hurt Chuck.  Because I was angry and because I just needed something to kill, and because that’s all I know how to do.”

“Dean-”

“It was Chuck all along.  We never should have left Sam and Jack, we should be there with them now.  Everybody’s gonna die, Cas.  Everybody.  I can’t stop it.”

His narrative arc.  Tied up in a bow.

“She’s gonna get through that door.”

“I know.”

“And she’s gonna kill you and then she’s gonna kill me.  I’m sorry.”

Cas smiles.

Cas knows.  He knows what’ll get them out of this, and he knows that he would do anything in this Universe for Dean Winchester. The human man he fell for.

“When Jack was dying, I made a deal to save him.”

“You what?”

“The price was my life.  When I experienced a moment of true happiness, the Empty would be summoned and it would take me forever.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“I always wondered, ever since I took that burden, that curse, I’ve wondered what it could be, what my true happiness could even look like.  I never found an answer, because the one thing I want, it’s something I know I can’t have. 

“But I think I know, I think I know now...happiness isn’t in the having, it’s in just being.  It’s in just saying it.”

“What are you talking about, man?”

The most selfless thing Cas does in this, and he does a lot of selfless things, is to tell Dean Winchester how impossibly good he is.  To tell him that he is worthy, to tell him that he is adored.

“I know, I know how you see yourself, Dean.  You see yourself the same way our enemies see you.  You’re destructive and you’re angry and you’re broken and you’re daddy’s blunt instrument.  And you think that hate and anger, that’s what drives you, that’s who you are.  It’s not.  And everyone who knows you sees it, and everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love.  You raise your little brother for love, you fought for this whole world for love.  That is who you are.

“You’re the most caring man on earth.  You are the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know.  You know, ever since we met, ever since I pulled you outta Hell...knowing you has changed me.

“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. 

“You changed me, Dean.”

“Why does this sound like a goodbye?”

Dean’s greatest fear. His fear of those loving him leaving him. The terror of being alone.

“Because it is.

The head shake.  Don’t love me.  Don’t love me if it means you’ll leave me, don’t love me, everyone I love leaves me.  Don’t leave me.  Don’t love me.  Don’t leave me.

“Don’t do this, Cas.”

Just like I always thought.  One last look at Dean before the Empty takes him.

“Cas-”

“Goodbye Dean.”

And Dean is left, broken on the floor, unable to answer Sam’s calls, unable to do anything.  It doesn’t matter to him that Chuck has wiped everyone out, it doesn’t matter to him that Sam and Jack might need him.  It doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter, because the thing that mattered still hangs on his lips, still waiting to be said, and now he won’t get another chance to say it.

The fact that I am writing this, even with all my spec, with all my analysis of the writers’ room, of their text, of the way Dabb and co had approached this story, nothing could have ever prepared me for this.  Nothing could have prepared me for a three and a half minute, uninterrupted scene where Cas confesses not only that he loves Dean, but that he has always loved him.

I talk a lot about how these writers don’t get the credit they deserve.  Unfortunately, from most of this fandom, they never will.  We will likely never know the fights with the network they had, the steps backward they had to take, the way they had to beg and fight and claw to get this on the screen.  But they did it.  They did it for these characters, they did it for this dinosaur of a show, and yeah, they did it for us.

It was not easy, I can promise you, to get this greenlit.  They had to fight for this, they likely had to call in favors and make threats and quite literally put their careers on the line (you may scoff at that, but WB is a BIG company, especially in the TV/movie world) for this story.  This story of Dean and Cas, the man dragged out of Hell and the angel who fell for him.

I have tons more to say, and will likely have several more posts about this, but I want to leave all my babes who are worried that that was the end for Dean and Cas with some takeaways.

Sam is missing Eileen.  Dean is missing Cas.  That is no longer a fun subtextual parallel, that is it for them.  Their respective endgames are missing, and they will not know their peace until they get them back.  Chuck will not win.  That’s not the story being told, and right now?  He’s winning.  He’s broken them, left them with nothing, left them with an empty world and a hole in each of their hearts where their person (or angel) used to be.

Our show is going to end with “contentment.”  “Contentment” isn’t from Sam and Dean being filled with grief and hitting the open road.  It isn’t Sam getting Eileen back and leaving Dean with no one.  “Contentment” is Sam and Eileen, Dean and Cas.  Together.

#destiel #spn #supernatural #my meta #destiel meta #spoilers #spn 15x18 #i cannot believe this #i cant believe i wrote this #this is real #theyre really canon

[lottiethroughthelookingglass]

15x20 Coda

Can’t believe it’s the year of our Lord 2020 and I��m writing Supernatural fix it fics at 3am.... This truly is the bad place. Anyway here’s what happened immediately after the credits rolled on whatever that was...

“Sam and Dean stood, arms around each other looking out towards the vista. Heaven. Their heaven. United again, after everythi-“

“-Is he for real?”

“That’s what was saved on my computer. Supernatural – Final Draft.”

“This is bullshit.”

Becky shrugged, taking her laptop back from Sam as his face twitched uncomfortably. 

“Who did I even marry? Like, it wasn’t even Eileen?”

“I don’t know man but you named your kid after me. I’m holding you to that one.”

“I don’t even want kids. Our lives are crazy. Why would I do that to a kid?”

“Well I’m just glad Chuck didn’t get to go ahead with that one.” Becky said, sitting back down with her laptop, “I mean all of his drafts were honestly terrible but that one… I mean it didn’t even make sense considering your character arcs. Dean literally died like he thought he would at the beginning of the series and Sam, grows old with a random woman and doesn’t do anything with his life and not even mentioning Cas even though he was right there in heaven-“

Becky looked up to find Sam and Dean staring at her.

“I’m sorry, not that you guys are just characters or anything. But just, when I came back and I found that I was really worried you’d actually died in barn because you fell on a nail.”

“Yeah well I will be avoiding all barns from now on.”

Thunk. The three of them looked up to where Cas had knocked over a Funko Pop Sam.

“Sorry,” Cas readjusted Funko Sam so he could go back to back to fighting Funko Crowley.

There was an awkward moment of silence as the group processed the revelation of Chuck’s ending. Becky sipped her tea as Cas sat back down next to Dean. Dean looked over to him, their eyes met briefly and they shared a small smile.

“Did I never even ask about Cas?” Sam shook his head breaking the silence. “Like, you come back from fighting Billie and say he’s dead and I just… never question it?”

“Well, none of you seemed very upset about my death in that story.” He turned back to Dean, “You were far more concerned with the pie and the dog.”

“To be fair that was probably the only thing that felt right there – pie is more important.”

Cas rolled his eyes and picked up another biscuit from the tray Becky had brought them. Ever since becoming human again he’d picked up a real sweet tooth. Dean was silently waiting for when Sam would start having a go at him too about healthy diets.

Like hell I’m going because of a rusty nail in a barn, Dean thought, I’m getting killed by a heart attack and Cas’s gonna die of diabetes. Sammy’ll still get to outlive us both though.

“It’d be nice to think Jack is doing that with heaven though.” Sam said, “You know, rebuilding things, making it actually good.”

“I guess we’ll have to see when we get there. Which will not be soon, we fought for a bit of peace and I’m intending to actually enjoy mine.”

“We can just ask him next time he’s home.” Cas added.

Dean shook his head stifling a laugh with his hand, “Can you imagine if we’d made him God I mean- He’s three for crying out loud. He made me buy him a Marvellous Marvin the Talking Teddy three months ago.”

“You bought him that?”

“Wait so Jack didn’t become God?”

“God no, no he’s not God.” Dean plucked the biscuit Cas had just picked up out of his hand and started to eat it, “I mean he is up in heaven, but he’s just helping Michael get things running again with all the angels back from the Empty.”

“I’m confused, so you didn’t kill Chuck?”

“Noash fukind matr-“

“Chuck’s gone, but he’s not dead.” Sam interrupted the garbled explanation Dean was trying to make through a mouthful of cookie. “We found a way to umm- bind him I guess? In his own mind so he didn’t even know it was happening. Rowena and I did the spell and Dean set the trap.”

“I was still as useless as in Chuck’s version.” Cas clarified taking another biscuit to make up for his stolen one.

“Hey, if you hadn’t saved me from Billie we’d all have been toast. You were key.”

“Wait so Chuck’s not human and he’s not dead?”

“No- God I can’t believe he made himself human. I can’t believe we made him human and then said that was a punishment – sorry, no he’s kind of in a uhhh…”

“Alternate universe.” Sam added, “but one just for him. It’s more like an alternative plane of reality inside his own mind where he can write whatever stories he wants and think they’re real but they’re not. They can’t hurt anyone.”

“But he’s God so…. They might be real? He could be making them real.”

Sam twisted his mouth thinking, it was something he’d considered but didn’t want to dwell on.

“Well it’s not us.” Dean declared, “And honestly, if he makes another world with other Sams and Deans and Cas’s and Jacks then they’ll defeat him some other way. Like Inception, but with God!” He grinned at his reference even as the rest of the room ignored him.

Becky leant back in her armchair letting out a sigh of relief. “I’m glad you guys are ok. You too Cas, he was really adamant about killing you off.”

“Dean was very adamant about bringing me back.” Cas looked over to Dean, a soft smile and look of adoration of his face.

Dean blushed, trying to cover it up with a cough. “Yeah well, I had some stuff to say.”

Becky grinned, taking a sip of her tea as Sam suddenly started to find the wallpaper very interesting.

“So, what are you guys going to do know?” Becky asked after the moment had become sufficiently awkward. “I mean no Chuck, no apocalypse, no world to save. Are you going to keep hunting, or…?”

Sam, Dean and Cas looked at each other.

“I don’t know,” Sam said. 

“Honestly, I’m thinking Chuck had it right with the pie festival.”

Becky and Sam laughed at that.

Cas took another biscuit

***

Dean closed the boot of the Impala with a soft thud. Becky had given each of them one of her dioramas she sold on Etsy. It was always a bit weird being reminded that their life was a story that some people liked to collect stuff from for fun but he had to admit the miniature scale replica of Baby she’d given him was awesome.

Sam stood at the door giving Becky a hug and thanking her for the lunch. She hadn’t quite explained to the rest of the family who these three strange large men were that were randomly joining them for lunch beyond “They’re just some Supernatural fans I know from the internet.” Her husband had spent the entire time struggling to believe that lie even moreso after Cas had slightly traumatised one of the kids with an in-depth description of the dangers of invasive wasps to honey bee colonies.

Dean wandered over to where Cas stood beside Sam and Becky.

“Thanks again for checking on us Becky.” Dean said, accepting the hug she gave him.

“Of course, I always knew you’d beat him but it’s good to know for sure.”

“Sure is.” Dean took a step back, “Well I guess we’ll be seeing you?”

“Next Supernatural convention?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Even if there’s a ghost?”

“You do know we’re not the only hunters in America.” 

Becky bit her lip.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she paused, “it’s just, this is exactly how I would have written it.”

Sam raised his eyebrows in surprise, Dean brows knitted as Cas tilted his head.

“I don’t- not that you had to go through all that. Just that now you can actually take a break. Be normal, do your laundry-“

“-Sam and Dean have always done their laundry. That’s how they clean their clothes.” Cas piped up in confusion.

“-Be happy. Get to actually enjoy living in the world you saved. Have free will and be at peace.”

Dean chuckled, “I mean I’m personally good with never doing my laundry. But you’re right, it’s weird but good.”

“We’ll stay in touch Becky.” Sam said.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

They waved their goodbyes and walked back over to the Impala. Dean got in behind the wheel, Sam in shotgun and Cas in the back.

Turning the key the Impala revved to life. The radio began to sing, the opening chords to Kansas’s Carry on Wayward Song filling the car. 

Dean slammed the radio off.

“God, I think Chuck has forever ruined that song for me.”

Sam laughed, in the back Cas even let out a chuckle as he leant his head against the window ready for the long drive home.

It wasn’t their heaven. Not yet anyway. And that made it so much more.

#spn fic #spn spoilers #supernatural coda #destiel #destiel fic #deancas #spn #supernatural #spn 15x20 #as you can see i'm not impressed #also becky's gonna be real mad when she gets back from being thanos snapped and runs into sam ten years later at the mall #only to find out that dean died ages ago from a rusty barn nail #that will be her villain origin story #my fic

[stratiotis-nth]

The few times Cas spoke about his true form, Dean had always imagined some terrifying robed creature with a bazillion heads and rotating rings and fifty giant wings from different animals. He imagined mighty beings that embodied the idea of God’s warriors. Cas once said his true form was size of the Chrysler building, and Dean had had to hide just how impressive the angel was despite looking and acting like a total dork. Cas as Cas was intimidating enough, but Castiel—the Chrysler-sized warrior of divinity—sounded terrifying and majestic all at the same time.

But apparently, Cas had omitted a few details. He had neglected to tell Dean that little bits of his true form lingered with him while he was in human form, some additions that couldn’t be seen but existed with him in another plane of reality.

So imagine Dean’s shock when he’s on a case and accidentally uses the holy fire glasses in his insurance company disguise. He didn’t even realize the difference until Cas joined him and Sam to help.

They were dealing with a Shifter who had been killing old people in a wealthy neighborhood in upstate New York. Cas, a fully functioning angel again, had offered to help when Sam and Dean realized they were up against a Shifter duo instead of a loner.

Sam was out getting grub when Cas appeared in the motel room with a whoosh of wings. Dean knew how much Cas had missed flying, and even he had missed hearing him announce his presence with that characteristic whoosh.

“Hey Cas.” Dean greeted without looking up from the laptop.

“Hello, Dean.” Was the usual response. He flicked his gaze up to Cas briefly, peering over the rim of the glasses he hadn’t bothered taking off. Dean did a double take when he caught a flash of black within the glasses’ lens. Frowning, he pushed the frames up his nose until he could squint through them properly. A sharp intake of breath caught in his throat.

“Dean?”

Cas’ voice floated through his mind but he couldn’t process it. He stared at the Castiel revealed through the lens, abso-fucking-lutely floored.

A pair of black wings, ones Dean had only ever seen the shadow or scorched remains of before, were folded neatly against Cas’ back. As the afternoon sunlight hit the feathers, Dean could see them shimmering and reflecting all the colors of the rainbow subtly. The feathers looked spun of night sky and stardust, light as clouds but dense and powerful was cooling lava. Dean had a really, really strong urge to run his fingers through them. They looked like they’d make his fingers tingle with lightning.

Alongside the wings, the other newly revealed part of Cas was his halo. He had never mentioned one before, so Dean had just assumed halos were just another one of those things crazy Christians made up. But apparently, angels did had halos, because there was a thin ring of glowing light surrounding Cas’ head like a circlet, hovering above his ears and just a few inches away from his hair and forehead. It gleamed an ethereal pale gold, almost white, light. As he looked at it closer, he noticed a few gaps in the ring, like jagged cracks where pieces had fallen away. Were they supposed to be like that?

Dean was so shocked that he wondered how the hell he was even seeing these parts of Cas now. It took him a moment for his sluggish brain to piece together that he must had accidentally taken the holy fire glasses instead of another fake pair.

“Dean? Are you alright?”

He blinked, still taking in the halo and wings, and cleared his throat. Cas was frowning at him in concern, his head tilted adorably to the side. The halo drifted and followed a half second behind his movement.

“Uh—“ a strangled noise escapes Dean’s throat. His fingers itched to dig themselves into those feathers, to trace that halo and try to feel the warmth of light. He swallowed thickly, his throat clicking. The words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them.

“Are there supposed to be cracks in that thing?”

Cas blinked at him, thoroughly confused. A split second later, his face both flushed and paled at the same time. Dean worried the sudden blood flow would make him pass out, but then he remembered Cas was an angel.

“Those glasses have been burned in holy fire, haven’t they?” He asked, his wings tucking more firmly against his back like he was trying to hide them.

“Uh, uh yeah.” He stammered, wondering if he should say something to ease Cas’ obvious insecurity. “Grabbed ‘em by accident.”

Cas shuffled his feet awkwardly, the light of his halo dimming shyly. He obviously wasn’t going to offer any information unless Dean pressed a little more.

“So?” He managed to sound somewhat casual, even though his heart was beating loudly in his ears. “What’s with the missing pieces?”

“Ah.” Cas rumbled in his low voice. He avoided Dean’s eyes, his chipped halo floating after every movement of his head. “Well, to angels, the halo represents purity and devotion to God. It is the manifestation of each angel’s divinity. When Lucifer rebelled against Heaven, his halo was shattered as a sign of disgrace and he was banished to Hell. Other angels like Gabriel and Anna had a chip broken off because they rejected Heaven and their loyalties were to their own well-being. Angels cannot exist fully if their halos are damaged, but because Gabriel was an archangel and Anna became human, they were exceptions.”

Dean frowned. But Cas had way more than one piece missing and he was still alive and still an angel.

“So how come you’re still around?” He asked, waving a hand at Cas’ cracked halo.

“Because I was created already broken.” The words, delivered in a flat, emotionless tone, still cut through Dean’s heart. That wasn’t true. Cas wasn’t broken. He was just Cas. Perfectly fine the way he was. “As you have heard from many angels and Chuck himself, I came off the line with a crack in my chassis. I was created to be flawed.”

“Cas…” Dean began, trying to find the words to tell him that it wasn’t true, that everything Naomi and Chuck had told him was a lie.

“It’s alright, Dean.” Cas said gently, glancing at him for the first time since the conversation started. “When Jack restored me to my full power I asked to keep the cracks I bear. Not as an punishment.” he added, somehow interpreting the frown flashing across Dean’s face. “but as proof that angels can exist with their flaws and still do good things. That they can still protect humanity, as was their reason for existence.”

Well, when he put it that way, Dean really couldn’t protest. It was very Cas-like of him to not give a single fuck about being perfect and defying everything anyone has ever known by doing it his way.

“But I am sorry.”

That made Dean snap his head up sharply, looking at Cas in surprise.

“For what?” He asked incredulously.

“For forcing you to see me like this.” Cas’ wings spread out momentarily before being tucked tightly against his back again, hiding their magnificence from Dean. He hated that. He hated that Cas thought Dean wouldn’t want to see him like this, one step closer to his true form, to the real Castiel. “I understand it was undoubtedly shocking and unsettling, but if I could hide these parts of myself from those glasses, I would for your sake.”

“No.” Dean snapped vehemently, jumping to his feet and jabbing a finger at Cas. He hated that Cas believed the things he was saying. How could he not be awestruck by him, by his beautiful wings and perfectly flawed halo? “Shut the fuck up, Cas.”

Cas’ face fell even further than before, the corners of his mouth ticking down and his eyes falling downcast. He looked so…rejected. It cut right through Dean’s heart again, and he scrambled to fix it before they fell victim to miscommunication again.

“Cas.” Dean said firmly, ducking down to catch his gaze. Like a moth to light, that piercing blue gaze fixed on green and followed them up. “I ain’t unsettled. Shocked, but in a really good way.”

Cas looked frowned, confused. Dean plowed on.

“Dude, don’t be ashamed of who you are. Your wings and halo…they look awesome, man. Seriously. You look badass.”

Cas’ lips parted in shock. Dean nervously fidgeted with a pen he had forgotten was in his hands, tapping it against his palm as he struggled to find the right words.

“You ain’t broken or flawed—you’re just Cas. My—“

Best friend didn’t cut it anymore. They had gone through too much together to be best friends. Brothers didn’t sit right either. Dean didn’t feel the same things for Cas as he did Sam (it made him shudder in disgust just thinking about his little brother like that). Dean knew what it was like to lose Cas and Sam—Sam, he had lost his family, his blood. Cas, Dean had lost a part of his soul.

“—you’re my—“

Dean wanted—needed—to say the words. But nothing fit, nothing felt right. No word could describe just what Cas was to him.

“—you’re my angel, Cas. And I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

Cas just stared at him with another one of those soul searching gazes. Even when he was human, Dean felt he could still see straight through him, searching for deception or lies and every time never finding one.

There was a small, awed smile on Cas’ face, and before Dean could register what was happening, Cas gently cupped the back of his neck and pulled Dean down. Soft, chapped lips pressed briefly against his forehead, warm and sweet and grateful. They were gone a moment later, and so was Cas’ hand.

“Thank you, Dean.” He said softly after a while. “I appreciate it.”

Dean blinked and nodded stiffly. His entire body was shaking, aching to feel that warmth again. “Don’t…yeah, don’t mention it, Cas. I just…you gotta know the truth.”

Cas’ wings were fluffed up a bit, and they twitched against his back like they were itching to spread out. His halo was glowing much brighter than before, matching his smile.

“I have always been honored to be by your side, Dean, but it is nice to hear that you consider me yours.”

There was a lump in his throat that muted his voice. He nodded, shivering when he felt the cool, electrified tingling brush of a feather run down his arm and the warmth of light as Cas’ halo grew brighter.

“Always have. Cas.” He murmured, staring down at the pen clutched between his trembling fingers. He could feel Cas’ smile grow, and the primary feather of his wings brushed against his arm with a little more intent.

“As have I.” His response was so quiet that Dean almost didn’t hear it. But a shiver ran down his spine nonetheless. There was something different in the air, now that there were these confessions in the open. It wasn’t quite like a straightforward declaration that Dean was Cas’ and Cas was Dean’s, but it was pretty damn close. It was just a soft, gentle confirmation of how they had felt about each other since Cas pulled Dean from Hell all those years ago.

The quiet, peaceful moment between them was effectively shattered when they both heard the motel door open and Sam come barging through. They both jumped apart. They might have confessed…something between them…but that didn’t mean they were at all comfortable letting Sam see them in such an intimate moment.

“Uhhh…” Sam came to an abrupt halt as he took in Dean and Cas all but throwing themselves in opposite directions. “did I…?”

“No.” both Dean and Cas said quickly. They faltered and fell silent. Sam glanced between them hesitantly, like they were a bomb about to go off. Dean peeked over at Cas, noticing how his wings were fluffed up almost twice their size, his cheeks burning when he noticed Dean had noticed.

“Riiiight.” Sam said. “Well…there’s uh…been another body. I was gonna grab you and go…?”

“Yeah.” Dean said immediately, straightening up. “Let’s go.”

Cas looked like he wanted to protest—or force Sam to leave so they could deal with twelve years of tension—but Dean pointedly sent a prayer his way.

Tonight. Promise.

Cas’ wings fluffed up even more, his halo’s light shone so brightly it poked Dean’s eyes, and his face was redder than a tomato.

Dean grinned before grabbing his keys.

“See ya at the crime scene, angel.” He said before ducking out of the motel room.

“Is Cas okay?” Sam asked when they were in Baby.

“Oh yeah.” Dean grinned smugly, already looking forward to tonight. “He’s definitely okay.”

He’s got a chipped halo and beautiful wings that had once been burned to bone.

He’s Dean’s angel. He’s perfect.

#this was a lot longer than i thought it would be #but i’m a sucker for cas with a halo and wings #dean would be so floored to see cas like that #supernatural #cas #castiel #destiel #spn #casdean #dean is bi #dean winchester #deancas #love confessions #destiel confession #destiel fandom #destiel fanfic

[wormstacheangel]

For The Girl Who Has Everything

Masterpost link for Reelin’ In The Years: Here

AO3 Link: Here

wc: 2.4k Summary:  Claire is too mad to even look at Cas let alone talk to him. Dean knew he had to step up because two people with messed up childhoods and anger issues really need to spend more time together talking about their feelings.

When Chuck was defeated, a lot of people came to the bunker to celebrate. Those times were a big blur to Dean, his focus was on finding a way to save Cas, and it wasn’t until he saw Claire run down those steps that the world focused again. She smiled at him, a rare big grin, before her arms wrapped around his neck to bring him down for a hug with an intoxicating giggle.

‘She didn’t know,’ Dean thought as his arms hung loosely at his sides.

He hid his face in her curls, not knowing how to face another kid Cas left behind because of him. He was holding his breath when she pulled away to look at him. Her eyebrows were raised in a question that Dean didn’t hear. Didn’t want to hear.

She repeated it, “Dude, where’s Cas? Is the old man sleeping or something?”

‘Yes.’ Dean swallowed the hard lump in his throat.

He didn’t look at the audience around them when he finally opened his mouth to say, “Claire, Ca—” He couldn’t say his name. He felt like it would tear the fragile wall that was keeping him on his feet if he did. “I’m sorry.”

Dean watched as her face twisted into confusion, understanding, and then settling into anger.

She was trying to fight the tears, but they fell as she yelled, “No! No, you were—Where were you? Why didn’t you protect him?”

“He protected me. He—he saved me.”

She looked at him with round eyes, shaking her head as if not wanting to believe it.

“Then it should’ve been you! You should’ve died! Not him!” Dean flinched at the words that have been echoing in his head since that night. “It’s not fair!”

Claire’s angry fist collided with his chest. He flinched at every hit but didn’t back away as her punches became sporadic but still filled with grief. Maybe even guilt.

“I’m sorry.” Dean knew those words did nothing to comfort, but he couldn’t help but say them. “I’m so sorry, Claire.”

She screamed in frustration until her punches weakened, and he was holding her. Then, finally, she fell against him, her face hidden in his chest as her grip tightened on his shirt.

She didn’t stay after that.

She walked back up the stairs with Jody and Kaia following behind her. Jack tried to talk to her, but she couldn’t even look at him. Dean couldn’t blame her.

It’s hard to look at the kid when he reminded them of the person they lost.

Of course, Dean never told Cas any of this.

Since coming back, Cas had been dealing with the silent treatment from the killer Barbie. She only replied with the thumbs-up emoji, and when Cas was too much, she responded with the middle finger emoji. A little warning advising Cas to back off.

She only visited him once, but that was when Cas was in the hospital. She freaked out, yelled at him for being stupid, and then passed out by his bed only to leave the next morning like nothing ever happened. Still, it made Cas feel a little better knowing she still cared, but she was dealing with it her way. Or, as Cas liked to say, she was dealing with feelings the Dean Winchester way. Of course, he’ll argue it wasn’t true, but he knows he won’t win that one.

Now he was sitting awkwardly in Jody’s living room watching Kaia and Patience play with Jack on the floor while Claire and Cas had a yelling match in the privacy of the backyard. Well, Claire was yelling while Cas was trying very hard to keep his tone even, which only made Claire angrier.

“I’m done talking to you!” Claire slid the glass door open and stormed through the living room.

“Then try listening to me!” Cas followed behind her, watching as she walked straight past the living room and towards the front door. “Claire. Claire, where are you going?”

She whipped around to glare daggers at Cas, eyes wide filled with tears, but she still looked at him with a pained grimace. “Did you even think of me? When you were out there being a damn hero. Did you-Did you think of me?” Her voice breaking on the last word made Dean flinch.

“Claire, of course-”

“No. No, of course, you didn’t. Cause if you did, then you wouldn’t have-” She bit her cheek as tears started to fall. She stood tall, presenting as strong, as her expression hardened. “You left me, Castiel. And now I-I don’t,” She looked around the room. It was quiet as everyone watched the interaction before her eyes landed on a little Jack in Kaia’s arms. She clicked her tongue before turning back to the door. “I’m leaving.”

“Claire.” Cas tried following her, but Dean quickly rushed up to stop him. “Dean. I may not have my strength, but I will-”

“Calm down, Rocky,” Dean had a hand on Cas’s shoulder to stop him. “I just wanted to stop you from making it worse.”

“I don’t think I can. She hates me.”

“She doesn’t.” He assures his boyfriend with a little smile, but Cas simply rolled his eyes at him. “Okay, you stay here. Talk to your son, and I’ll go talk to the other kid.”

“Oh yeah? What are you going to say to her?”

“I don’t know, but like you said before. Two fuck up’s just understand each other.”

“I didn’t say-”

“Yeah. Yeah. Just let me handle this. You trust me, right?”

Cas made a face at that, not answering quickly enough before he said, “Just bring her home.”

“Gee. Thanks for the confidence, babe.”

Dean ran after Claire, forcing his way to her passenger side as she started to back up on the driveway.

“Thanks for waiting, kid. Where we going?” Dean buckled up just in time for Claire to slam the breaks. Unfortunately, he hit his head on the front dash because the damn seat was scooted forward, his knees were practically pressed against his chest, which made sense knowing a tiny Kaia would usually occupy the seat. “Ow.”

“You aren’t going anywhere. Get out.”

Dean ignored her scary and oddly familiar glare as he pushed the seat back so his legs could fit. “Oh, come on. My treat.”

She didn’t have time to argue because Cas walked out of the front door—his trust in him really was lacking—and Claire decided that dealing with Dean was much easier than having to talk to Cas again. But, of course, he would take that as a compliment.

Claire drove with loud rocker girl music vibrating the windows and didn’t stop until she finally parked outside some ice cream shop.

“I want a shake.” She sniffled, and Dean did his best to ignore her red blotchy eyes for her sake.

“Sure, kid.”

They drank their shakes and shared some fries while sitting on top of Claire’s ugly little red. Well, she sat, and he leaned, but either way, silence remained.

He didn’t want to pressure her to talk—she would probably lie if he did—but still, he wanted to ease the tension between Cas and her, salvage a relationship he knew was important to both of them, but he didn’t know where to start.

Maybe he could start with his own guilt.

“I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat as he felt the smooth ice cream start to turn to gum down his throat. He looked down at his shake, lifting the straw up and down to hear the gloppy sound while trying to figure out what to say to her.

She hummed, “‘bout what?”

“Not telling you. About Cas. What happened to him.” He sighed and looked back at her. “Sorry. I should have called, but I wasn’t—I was a mess. I couldn’t be there for you. I couldn’t even be there for Jack. I should have-”

“It’s okay.” She waved her hand up to stop him. “I-I get it. I mean, it’s not, but whatever.”

“So, are you gonna tell me why you’re mad?”

She rolled her eyes, once again the gesture was familiar, before slamming the shake on the hood and sliding off the car. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking so small as she kicked a pebble on the floor.

“He replaced me.”

Her voice was quiet. Almost like she didn’t want to admit it out loud.

“I know it’s stupid and-and I’m acting like a child, but…” She quickly sniffled again before running her hand through her hair nervously. Looking up to stare into the darkening sky, acting like everything was okay. “He’s not my Dad, but he’s the closest thing I have, and I just thought—I just thought that maybe he felt the same way.”

She shrugged, her lips pinching together as if trying to hold something back, before retaking control of her expression. A glare directed towards Dean replaced the lost child stare into the stars, but the lost child was still there.

“Kid…” Dean sighed, head scrambling for words.

“I’m not a kid.”

“You’ll always be a kid to me.”

Claire teased with a little smirk. She definitely learned this from Dean or Jody. “Whatever you say, old man.”

“Old—Claire.” She let out a breath of a laugh before rolling her eyes away from Dean. “I’m trying to be serious. Cas… he loves you. He-he loves you like you were his own.” She didn’t look at him, but he could see her face scrunch up, ready to argue. “He worries about you constantly, and Jack knows all about you because he won’t shut up about how awesome you are.”

“He says that? He says I’m awesome?”

“Well, awesome is my word, but you get the gist.” He turns to face her even though she doesn’t meet his gaze. “Cas may not be your Dad, but he loves you like a daughter. Sometimes—yeah, a lot of the time actually—he makes stupid decisions, but it’s cause he is trying his best. And he cares. That dumbass cares way too much about the damn world, but he’s also someone who would give up the whole world if it meant keeping you safe.”

“Stop making excuses for him!”

“Claire, you gotta believe me. He didn’t mean to hurt you.”

She finally turned to look at him. “But he did. He hurt me! He left me!”

“He left me too!” Dean raised his voice; it sounded broken to admit such a thing out loud. And to Claire of all people. He slumped down against the car again and looked at the ground to ignore her big blue eyes throwing sympathy glares his way. “He left me—more times than you know. And—and don’t tell anyone I told you this—but I…I was scared. Each goddamn time I’m scared that this may be it! That this time…this time he won’t come back to me.”

“But he did.” Her voice sounded so far away.

“Yeah. Had to work a little bit harder on my end, but I got him.” He reached over and patted her shoulder. “We got him back.”

Something in the way her eyes went cold and far away made his fight drain out. He didn’t know what else he could do or say, but he opened his arms just in time to have her fall against him. His face mushed into her curls while he hugged her tight into his chest.

“Were you mad at Cas?”

Dean thought about it for a second. “No. I mean, I was at first. That asshole got himself killed over and over again. Leaving me alone.”

“But you had Sam. Jack.”

“Yeah,” Dean pulled back and looked down at her. “Well, you had Jody. Kaia. Alex. Patience and even Donna. Made it any easier for you?”

“No.”

“No.” He chuckled while she hid her face from him, asking him to continue. “But I was mad at him. Real fucking pissed, actually. At him. At…at everyone. Sam and Jack didn’t even wanna be near me.” He tries to shake off those dark memories of screaming and feeling nothing but agonizing loneliness. “I just shut down and gave up on…a lot of things because he was gone. Couldn’t really see a point, you know?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I get why you’re mad, Claire. Trust me, I do, but he’s back now.”

“And I’m just supposed to forgive him? Did you just forgive him?”

Dean shrugged, looking back down at her sad baby blues. Hoping she would understand and that she won’t tease him about it later on. “I didn’t want to waste any time being mad at him. I love him too much.”

“Gross.” She pushed him away this time, tucking her hair behind her ear before smiling at him. It reminded him of Jack’s little shy smile. “But I-I think you’re right. Maybe I’m done wasting time.”

They drove back with the music luckily a little lower but Dean just watched Claire drive with a growing smile on his face. He’s gonna have to admit that Cas was right, two messed up people can really relate and help each other out.

When they walked into the house, Dean took Jody from marching over to Claire to lecture her. “Just wait,” he whispered to her, and luckily she listened to him. They both held their breath as Claire walked over to Cas—who looked like he had been sitting in that seat freaking out since they left—and asked if they could try talking outside again. He blinked up at her a few times before nodding, following her to the backyard again.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief when the glass door closed behind them.

“Dean.” He looked up towards his kid, who reached for him from Kaia’s arms on the couch. Dean quickly walked over to pick him up, pressing a kiss to his head while trying not to let guilt eat at him. “Is Dad okay?”

“Don’t worry, bud.” Dean watched Jack’s eyes that showed how much he has experienced, how much he understood. “He’ll be fine.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

On the drive back, Cas had a smile plastered across his face. They hadn’t had a chance to talk about what happened, considering Cas walked in, ready to introduce Jack to Claire. Then Cas spent the rest of the night watching his kids getting along, looking the happiest Dean had seen him in a really long time.

“So, what did you and Claire talk about?”

Cas hummed before looking up at Dean as if just remembering that he was there. “Oh. Um, she just made me promise her something.”

“And what’s that?”

“Same thing I promised you. Don’t get dead anymore.”

“Oh. Good. Keep that promise.”

“I’ll do my best.” Cas looked back at Jack before he leaned over and pressed a kiss on Dean’s cheek. “I have a lot to live for now. A family.”

A family. Yeah.

Dean took a peek at Jack with the mirror and then watched as Cas changed his phone background pic to one of Claire spinning Jack around in the living room.

They were a real family.

#shhhh we are gonna pretend it hasn't been months since i updated lol #4 months geez okay well have this #wormstachewrites #dadstiel #destiel #claire #baby!jack #dean #cas #jack #destiel fanfic

[spnsisterimagines]

Mario Kart

Summary - Y/N decides to engage her brothers and Castiel into Mario Kart, not realizing what she was getting herself into.

Pairings - Dean Winchester x Sister!Reader, Sam Winchester x Sister!Reader, Jack Kline x Platonic!Winchester!Reader, Castiel x Winchester!Reader

Word Count - 1,911 words

"Let's get it!" Y/N squeals, claiming her spot on the middle of the couch. She was practically bouncing up and down, waiting impatiently for everyone to join her. The Dean Cave had brightened considerably since she had added a few redecorations. While Dean initially denied her, she had forced him to allow her to put up LED lights, several polaroids from her camera(they were mostly of herself smiling widely at the camera while Sam and Dean looked mildly annoyed with fake smiles. There was also a real funny one where Sam was unconscious on a hunt and Y/N decided to pose beside him), as well as posters from their favorite bands. Not to mention the added dock to the TV stand to hold her Nintendo Switch that Sam had bought her for her previous birthday. 

She supposed he regretted it now, since she was forcing him to play a game he'd never even heard of.

He entered the room first, holding a big bowl of popcorn and a soda. Dean followed close behind, Little Debbie packages hanging from his mouth since his arms were occupied with pillows from their bedrooms and a pack of beers for himself. Jack was the only one to come empty handed. He happily took the spot beside Y/N, waving merrily as Castiel also appeared with two sodas(both of them for Beth because he was just so considerate), taking the spot on her other side.

"I'll give this an hour before we switch to movie night, Y/N," Dean warned as he occupied his armchair, which was to the left of the couch. She had discovered this old thing at a garage sale. It had been a rather stressful day because Dean had refused to strap it to Baby and they had to hound what little friends they had for a truck. Since most of their friends were dead, Y/N had hot wired one outside of a bar and returned it before the drunk redneck inside could notice it had even left. She was sure the dent in the bed was there before they put the couch on it. Sam had not been happy about that.

Sam took his own armchair, which was to the right of the couch. 

"What is it, again?" he asked curiously. 

"Is the only thing in the media you've ever heard Facebook? You've seriously never heard of Mario Kart?" Y/N asked, happily accepting one of the sodas from Castiel. "Dad really did a number on us. I was introduced to this through Charlie." She got up to grab the number of controllers necessary for four. Jack was eager to try the game, but he was always open to trying new things, something Y/N could appreciate.

After connecting them to the Switch, she handed them out to her brothers along with Jack before returning to her spot on the couch between the angel and nephilim. 

"If I remember correctly from what you've told me, it's a racing game, right?" Castiel asked.

"Exactly, except with a few quirks to make it interesting. Like, um...I could throw a shell and hit one of them and vice versa. Or a banana peel. I'll give them a trial run before we actually get into it. Are you sure you don't want to try it, Cas?"

Castiel shook his head. "I have seen how you play with Charlie, and I don't want to be on the receiving end of your anger. And I rather like watching you in your element."

Y/N smiled, blushing, before playfully pushing him. 

"I need to get drunk to stomach this," Dean said, offended as he popped one of the beers open and took a gulp. "Keep the PDA to a minimum guys, you've got a kid next to you. Alright, what buttons do I push to hit Sam?"

"What the hell?" Sam scoffed. 

"What?"

"We haven't even started and you're gunnin' for me?"

"Uh, yeah!" 

"Alright, alright! First we gotta pick our player," Y/N mediated, pressing the buttons to get them to the screen full of Mario players. "I already got mine." She moved her icon until it landed on Wendy, before selecting her. "Obviously the best character, hands down."

The three boys maneuvered their icons over different characters, for some reason taking it a little too seriously on who they would choose. Sam selected his first. 

"Luigi?" Dean scoffed.

"You got a problem?" Sam asked. 

"No, but...why Luigi?"

"Who cares, I just chose him."

"You have to have a reason, man." Dean shook his head, before selecting his own. 

"Why'd you choose Bowser, then?"

"Because he's a badass. And he'd beat the holy hell out of Luigi if the games lost their PG rating," Dean shrugged.

Jack hummed thoughtfully, still scrolling. "I choose him!" 

He selected Toad. 

"Why him, Jack?" she asked. 

"I like his hat."

Y/N snorted, but it was a valid enough answer. Once everyone was ready, she selected the settings for the game and then decided to use the time to explain to them how the controls worked and anything else they were curious about. After a few trial races, they were ready for the real thing. Castiel was sitting patiently, his hands on his lap. 

"You assholes are going down," Dean declared, bringing his remote closer to him. 

"So much for being appropriate in front of the kid," Y/N sneered, but she was just as ready.

She set the game to go through ten races with a random select for the roads. 

And with that, they were off.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" Dean yelled, nearly jumping to his feet. His first empty beer bottle slide across the floor from his rapid movement. "I DIDN'T EVEN TOUCH IT! I DIDN'T GO NEAR THE GODDAMN PEEL!"

"That might've been mine," Sam stated, smugly. "But Bowser also takes up half the road, so avoiding it was probably impossible anyway."

Dean squinted. "You callin' me fat, Sammy?"

Sam shrugged. "Luigi's doing just fine."

Y/N hid her smile as she hit her own item, snatching that smile right from Sam's face.

"Why did you do that?" he asked, incredulous, the red shell sending Luigi off the edge of the map. 

"You got in my way!" Y/N sang. 

It only seemed to get worse from there. What was supposed to be an hour of playing turned into four with the bowl of popcorn thrown across the room at Dean when he had decided to hit Sam three times with three separate shells before snagging first place and doing a lewd dance as a way to declare his victory. Y/N's hair had bristled up, becoming bushier almost as though it were alive. Her right eye was twitching, and her hands were cramping by now. 

Jack, however, was having a good time. He has gotten last place the entire time, but he was still having fun, and that's what truly mattered.

Castiel, on the other hand, seemed to be on the verge of a panic attack, not knowing whose side he should take because all three Winchester siblings were completely out of their minds, including Y/N.

Finally, it was the last race. Everyone's nerves were shot. Sam's hair seemed even more raggedy than Y/N's, and his shirt was stained with soda because Dean decided to take vengeance by chucking his pillow at him when Sam was taking a big gulp. They had to pause the game for several minutes while Sam fought for his life coughing and wheezing because the soda went down the wrong pipe.

"I'm afraid I must at least attempt to deter you guys from participating in another race. There aren't any weapons in the Dean Cave, but I'm sure you three will find a way to kill each other," Castiel said, worried. "Jack, are you okay?"

Jack nodded enthusiastically. "I'm having fun!"

"I will let it be known if I lose, someone is dying tonight. I will call Billie to fix it, but someone has to die tonight if I lose," Y/N threatened. 

"Good luck with that, I'm kicking all of your asses, and you can kiss mine when it crosses the finish line," Dean said.

"I don't even care if I win, as long as you guys lose. And I'll make sure it happens." Sam jeered. 

With that, the race began. Aside from Jack and Castiel, everyone was bloodthirsty. Surely no matter who won, someone was gonna be pissed off. Castiel was making a mental note to grab Jack as soon as possible and escort him out of the room while the siblings brawled. 

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Y/N shouted, jumping to her feet. "WHO DID IT! WHO DID IT?"

"I did!" Sam happily announced, moving to and fro with the turn of his controller, as though he were in the game himself. 

"I'm gonna get you, Sam," Y/N snarled, pressing hard on the buttons, trying her best to catch up to her brother, collecting any items she came across, but none of them were good enough, so she kept using them without thinking until she heard Dean curse and also jump to his feet. 

"THAT WAS ME, JACKASS!" he yelled, completely distraught. "I didn't even do anything this time!"

"You probably deserved it anyway!" Sam shrugged, continuing to maneuver through the AIs to get to the front. 

By that time, Dean and Y/N had caught up, and with all they had, they used their items to completely screw each other over up until every kart had passed them. In the end, they were the bottom three with Sam first, Y/N second, and Dean in dead last. And for a moment there after, nobody said anything. They were completely beside themselves in utter shock at what just occurred. 

"What just happened?" Y/N asked, deflating considerably. 

"We lost..." Sam mumbled. 

"Screw you guys, I lost overall!" Dean scoffed.

"I won!" Jack suddenly cheered, leaping to his feet and jumping up and down. "I won!"

"You what?" Y/N asked, shocked as her eyes trailed to the top. Sure enough, Toad was in first place. "You're kidding!"

"I can't believe I won!" Jack said, smiling as he high-fived a proud Castiel.

"I want a rematch," Dean commanded, sitting back down and retrieving his controller. 

"Yeah, me, too!" Sam agreed. 

"I'm down!" Y/N eagerly agreed, about to grab hers when Castiel snatched it. He went around the room, taking up all the controllers.

"Given that it's five in the morning, and just a couple moments ago you three were ready to quite literally rip each other's throats out, I'm going to recommend everyone get up and get to bed instead," he instructed curtly. "I think we should postpone a future night of games indefinitely, at least for a little while until you three can learn to control yourselves."

"What-but-you can't-" Y/N sputtered.

"Quite literally, I can shut off whatever is necessary so you can never play the game again with just a snap of my fingers," Castiel warned. "Shower and get some sleep. Jody already told us she needed to discuss something at noon tomorrow, and it would be rude if we were tardy. C'mon, let's go!"

With a grumble, everyone got up and cleaned their mess, ignoring each other vehemently as they walked out. Except for Jack; he was practically skipping. 

There was another good thing about tonight that he knew about. He was the one that triggered the lightning item that really stumped the three siblings and put them at the bottom three.

#supernatural #spn family #dean winchester #sam winchester #sister reader #sister!reader #winchester!reader #dean winchester x sister!reader #dean winchester x winchester!reader #sam winchester x sister!reader #sam winchester x winchester!reader #jack kline x winchester!reader #castiel x winchester!reader #castiel #castiel novak #jack #jack kline #funny #mario kart #fanfiction

[tibbinswrites]

Day 3 - Rainbows

They were everywhere. Plastered in shop windows, strung up across the street, at every booth and stall. It seemed like everyone they passed was rainbow-coloured in some kind of way. Clothing, bags, hair, even beards. Flags waved proudly above and around them. People were smiling, laughing, kissing, holding hands. Like Dean. He clenched on so tightly to Cas’ hand that he almost felt the bones grind beneath skin. He expected Cas to say something, but he didn’t, so Dean held on.

It was his first pride. At forty-one years old he was at an event that was full of young people who’d already figured themselves out. Sam (with glitter on his face) looked down at him with a soft expression.

“We can go, if it’s too much.” he said quietly. Whatever was showing on Dean’s face was apparently so pathetic that Sam didn’t have the heart to mock him.

It was too much, and Dean wanted to go. He wanted the quiet of the bunker, of the Dean-cave, where he understood how everything worked. There, neither Sam, Cas or Jack cared that he was broken. They loved him regardless, and Cas let Dean love him too, in a way that he hadn’t thought he was allowed to.

Jack, immediately distracted by the colours and sounds, rushed off towards the nearest stall, chatting animatedly with the… guy, girl? Person, person behind it, who had a multicoloured mohawk and a yellow, white, purple and black striped shirt. They looked briefly taken-aback at Jack’s overly-forward approach (and probably thousand questions), but responded just as eagerly. Jack was beaming. Eileen (with her own glittered face) followed him after a moment and Sam turned to look with a soft smile before turning back to Dean, his ‘whatever Dean needs’ face replacing it.

“I’m fine.” Dean lied, hoping that his shirt was thick enough to hide the sweat he could feel building down his back and under his arms. “Besides, Jody’s brood will be here soon, it’ll be good to see them.”

Sam paused for a moment but nodded. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“That’s what Cas is for.” Dean muttered.

Sam’s smile was fleeting but warm. Eileen called his name and Sam turned to see his fiancee wink at him, holding a free string of condoms. Sam flushed red and went to join her, pressing a kiss to her glittery cheek and signing something back which made her laugh.

Jack was darting from stall to stall, apparently interrogating everyone, but in such a disarming, truly curious way that nobody seemed to be taking any offence.

Cas remained by Dean, letting him crush his hand, standing stock-still barely inside the cordoned off entrance.

His mouth felt dry and he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t belong here. Everyone else looked so comfortable. There were couples everywhere, of all kinds, thruples too. There was even a string of six that all kept trading kisses and fond looks to each other. Even those on their own looked relaxed. Either waiting for friends or making new ones.

There were drag queens in the most flamboyant, ridiculous and amazing costumes. Huge feather boas, sequined everything and more glitter that Dean had ever owned (which was, admittedly, not much) on every exposed inch of skin.

“How about we go get a burger?” Cas said after a while, pointing at a food truck that looked a little quieter than most of the other, closer, places.

Realising that he’d spent a good long while lost in his own panic, not moving, he figured he should do something other than loiter by the entrance. This was Cas’ day too and he probably wanted to go enjoy himself with everyone else.

“Yeah,” he said, so, his feet feeling like lead, they made their way over to the truck and got a burger and bottle of water each. There were a couple of park benches set up nearby, so they sat there, next to each other, and ate. Letting go of Cas’ hand was more difficult than he’d expected. It had taken him months to get comfortable with the idea of holding Cas’ hand in public, weeks more to get comfortable with the practice. Cas winced as the pressure was finally released. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Cas shook his hand out before digging into his burger. Between mouthfuls, he went on, “We all convinced you to come here because we thought it would be good for you to break down some of the stigmas you’ve held for years about why you can’t be like one of these people,” he gestured around them, “but I don’t think any of us ever thought to ask if you were ready. This is clearly difficult for you. I’m sorry we pressured you into it. If you want to just sit here and wait for Claire and everyone to come before heading back to the bunker for dinner, that’s perfectly okay. None of us are going to judge you. This is a big experience and we’ll take it at your pace.”

“I love you.” Dean said immediately. That was his gut reaction to a lot of things Cas said, and if Dean had learned anything over the past year, it was that Cas always appreciated hearing it. Even now Cas’ eyes crinkled warm, and the edge of his mouth curled up.

“I love you too.”

They finished their burgers in silence and Dean, bolstered a little by Cas’ reassurance, began to really look around at what few booths he could see from where they sat. One of them was for struggles with high school, another was selling flags, another was about the history of Pride. He was curious about that one, he admitted. He didn’t know much about this community he was supposedly a part of. The kind of community that was so vastly different from the one he’d been raised in. A community that John had scoffed at, disrespected, with only Dean to hear him most of the time. But shifting his gaze from the stalls to the people, he had to admit that it was less overwhelmingly rainbow than he’d first thought. There were people in biker jackets and boots, people his age looking similarly nervous, without an angel of humanity to hold their hand. A teenager who looked close to tears carefully glanced around before darting into the high school booth. There were people on their own, some with an air of defiance, others completely comfortable, still others with a cloud of sadness over their heads; here, but with no family who could, or would, join them.

It was an odd thing to take comfort in, the pain of others in this place of joy and self-love, but this more than anything reminded him that they were all just people. People with their own struggles and burdens. People came to Pride anyway, either in defiance of everything that tried to tell them to disappear, or to find comfort in those with similar stories. He wondered how many people out there had fathers who forced them away from their family to try and ‘fix’ them; he wondered how many were in their forties and only just now ready to admit that maybe they weren’t the person their father had wanted them to be, that that person actually went against the values they’d been taught, and the ones they’d figured out for themselves. He was so used to feeling alone in this aspect of his life that it hadn’t even occurred to him that there would be others. He saw a man who must have been in his eighties holding his partner’s hand and brandishing a sign with fervour. Never too old to come out, and he couldn’t help but smile. He nudged Cas and pointed. “Guess that applies to you too, huh? And I think I’m slow. It took you millennia.”

Cas smiled at the men and then shook his head. “It took me millennia to find you,” he said pointedly. “Gender and sexuality was not something I ever thought about before. They don’t mean much to me. And it’s fascinating to see a celebration that both says ‘these things don’t define us’ and ‘these things are important’. It’s all about being comfortable with yourself and fighting for the world to learn to be comfortable with you too.”

“Kind of the meaning of pride, I suppose.”

“Whoever said that was a sin was sorely mistaken.”

“I mean, Pride of the seven deadly was a huge asshole.”

“Hubris is not the same as pride. I’ve always thought that sin should be renamed.”

“Take it up with Chuck,” Dean said with a grin which Cas returned.

“Thankfully, he has no more say in it than I do.”

“Let’s go look in that history booth.” Dean said suddenly, already standing and holding his hand out for Cas to take. Research was always the best first step after all. And if it was right next to the stall selling pink, purple and blue pins, then that was just pure coincidence.

#suptober21 #day 3 #rainbows #pride #destiel #supernatural #fanfic

[sinnabonka]

It’s spec time: Love always wins

(Okay, I promised it, I’m doing it, there’s no stopping me now.) 

For the last three days I’ve been all over the place emotionally, clinging to every post saying Cas is not dead dead, saying his story is not done, but then someone wrote the “but” post and, there I go again, down the bottomless pit of angst. 

I’ve been a Schrödinger believer for so long with this show, one can get used to it. 

I know I’m not the only one feeling this way, regarding whether Cas is coming back or not. We won’t know till we know ©

Ep 19 speculations here

But let's speculate!

Apparently, there's nothing better for me to do way past midnight on Saturday and on Sunday morning (when I’m writing this). 

What makes us think 15*18 might indeed be the end of Castiel’s story:

Everything the crew and Misha told us, officially, is pressing toward Cas dying permanently in this scene. “Proud ending”, indeed. 

Castiel’s story has the perfect symmetry this way, with the handprint, the “Hello, Dean” - “Goodbye, Dean”, and the whole “Dean Winchester is saved” theme.

He is smiling, while Empty takes him, he’s content with his sacrifice. 

Something about Castiel’s monologue didn’t sit right with me for some time. The whole point of happiness being not in having, but in being and saying, gave me an idea of it being the way writers say we can’t have Destiel, but we should be happy to know it’s real and to hear it said aloud after all those years. 

Supernatural had to be the story of two brothers and their journey, and Winchesters driving in the sunset is the most probable endgame we are gonna get. 

Even though all those points seem valid, we can’t trust any of it. 

Let me fix it for you:

It wouldn't be the first time the crew lied about someone being on set. 

The handprint was not scripted. I repeat, the handprint was not scripted.

Castiel’s monologue could be just about loving Dean, and it’s just my poor wounded heart looking too deep into it and seeing my angstloving reflection on the bottom of the well. 

And Supernatural might indeed be about family, but, as we know, family doesn’t end with blood, and doesn’t start with it either. Cas is family, after all. 

I’m glad be are clear on this one.

What tells us Cas is coming back and we are getting Destiel endgame:

(Brace yourself, it’s gonna be wordy)

1. The most obvious, without rewriting his memory or going OOC, there’s no happy ending for Dean (not the crappy bittersweet substitute) without Cas. 

Even without the love confession in place, we’ve seen what Cas’ death did to him before, it shuttered him to pieces. Imagine the damage it's gonna cause now! 

“I love you, I always did, bye bye now, have a long and happy life knowing my feelings for you have killed me dead.” Really? No win can make up for it.

2. My fave point, aka the natural dynamics of storytelling. The big loss predicts the big win. The deeper the wound, the brighter the prize. Following the roller coaster this season has been, we should be up for a pretty high damn up pretty soon. 

So, there’s The Big Loss (losing Eileen, all of their friends, all the people on Earth and Cas). 

Next - The Big Win (defeating God, getting their free will back, getting humanity back). 

Then, we should have The Big Regret and Reflect moment (Sam and Dean talking a lot at this point, realization of things which are important, what they want with Chuck gone). 

And at the end, there’s The Ultimate Happy ending waiting for us (see point 1 again in case you are not sure what that means).

3. You know what, forget it, this one is my favorite. The parallels. Throughout this season we’ve been spoon-fed with context (Geez, it feels nice to finally know we are not crazy, we are not seeing things, we got it all right!) and writers chose to do so via parallels, via reflections, subtle hints. 

It would be some lazy storytelling to shove everything to our faces, so, instead, we’ve got: Charlie and Stevie, Sam and Eileen, the world and humanity, Dean and Cas. 

Everyone separated. Forever? No, not really. And I don’t buy everyone getting their loved ones back, except Dean. C’mon.

4. Unresolved love confession. Yes, Cas might have died with a smile, meaning it’s enough for him to speak his truth and be gone. But Dean? Him sobbing in the dungeon, ignoring Sam’s calls (he literally never chose anything above Sam before), the “Don’t do this, Cas” part - it’s the lowest he’s ever been. 

To sum up, Dean didn’t get his closure. He might have needed five to six business days to process, but he still has his truth he has to find out and then give a voice to. 

And yeah, I know, he could confess via prayer or something, but we all know that’s something needed to be said face to face.  (Btw, he already confessed to Cas in purgatory via prayer once, you can try and prove me wrong, but good luck with that, sunshine.)

5. The perfect symmetry. If I were in SPN writers room, I would literally cry my eyes out of joy at the symbolism this ending gives. I would literally fight everyone against it. 

The broken man not deserving to be saved is dragged from Hell by the most loyal and righteous angel Heaven ever seen. 

VS

The fallen angel not deserving to be loved is dragged from Empty by the most loving and caring man the sun shone on.

I mean, c’mon, people. Poetry.

(We are nearing a very important thing here, fasten your seatbelts, please.)

6. The message the show wants to give the world has changed. From “it’s all about the journey, about saving people, killing things, no one ever gets what they deserve”, the philosophy has changed drastically toward the “good things do happen, you deserve to be saved, to be loved”. 

Come and see what lane we are walking right now: allowing yourself to love again, to experience things again / losing the love of your life a moment later / fighting for your love / winning your love back. 

I believe the final message is: love always wins. 

Love is not one’s weakness, love is power, love is strength, it’s a perfect fuel. 

Humans declare war in the name of love, kill and get killed in the name of love, but, most importantly, humans live and win those wars in the name of love, too. 

7. Go big or go home is on the table, and no one goes home this time. 

Supernatural was a bunch of broken glass for soooo long, I think this time writers are gonna give us something good, for a change. Not bittersweet good, but actually cotton-candy-almost-diabetes-sweet good.  

Why? 

Because *loud and clear* we deserve having good things happening to us! 

Also, it’s The End, the creators have nothing to lose, but, on the other hand, the ultimate happy ending would allow them to leave an enormous mark on the world and Supernatural to be known as the only show that actually could.

To sum up:  

Dean can’t be happy with Cas gone and, following the logic of prebuilt parallels, he won’t have to - everyone gets their loved ones back at the end, because love always wins. 

Cas might be at peace with speaking his truth, saving Dean and being gone, but it is not fair, Dean also deserves a chance to be heard. 

Few seasons ago I would laugh in my own face for these arguments, but the philosophy of the show has been transformed. During the last few years we were being prepared for this moment, slowly, gently being led toward this moment. 

Supernatural has to give us the Destiel endgame to prove their point.

click x click for more

#the fuck did just happen how do i have 3 pages of meta on my phone #destiel meta #spn meta #supernatural season 15 spoilers #spn spec #supernatural spec #speculations #destiel is canon #destiel #dean winchester #castiel #spnfandom #spn15 #spn spoilers #supernatural #spn #Castiel forever #destiel endgame #spn liveblog #deancas #casdean #team deancas positivity #spn positivity party #a Schrödinger believer #spn theory #sinnabonka talks

[charlie-minion]

Could the same SPN finale make a little more sense with some additions/changes?

I’ve had the idea for this post stuck in my head for days now, but with every new conspiracy theory and every new eventuality in the fandom, it became difficult to cool down enough to write something less ship-related and more narrative-focused.

What Supernatural and non-SPN fans have to understand is that a lot of us have expressed disappointment and frustration after 15x20, not because of Destiel (that’s just one part of the whole problem), but because the finale doesn’t make sense. Everything was leading up to something beautifully crafted until the end of 15x19. Beyond that, it’s hard to understand what happened. The story rendered all the character growth irrelevant, invalidated the themes of free will and “family don’t end in blood”, regressed to the original brother codependency they spent 15 years trying to overcome, made a queer non-binary character in a male vessel and a deaf female character basically disposable, and kept the show’s reputation of queerbaiting and misogyny until its very last breath.

That’s not going out with a bang! At least not a positive one. We all were ready to mourn Supernatural, but we wanted to feel proud of its legacy, and somehow TPTB managed to tarnish that legacy in less than 45 minutes. What a way to ruin the other more than 13,600 minutes of story!

It doesn’t matter who is to blame (The CW, Robert Singer, Andrew Dabb). It doesn’t matter why it happened (homophobia, censorship, marketing for Walker, bad writing). What matters is that at the end of the day, the finale that aired is what we got and that’s going to hurt for a long time. It hurts even more when we realize that the same finale could have easily made more sense, even without being perfect.

That’s what I want to do in this post. I want to show you how things would have been less jarring (for the fandom), while still keeping the goal to please the general audience.

Before I begin rewriting 15x20, I have to mention that I talked to my conservative boomer sister about the finale. She hasn’t watched the second half of season 15 yet (she’s waiting for Netflix to have it), but she’s been watching the show for a long time (she introduced me to it 8 years ago). She’s the perfect example of a viewer from the general audience. Loves the show but doesn’t give a second thought to it and definitely isn’t paying attention to character development or themes. Doesn’t engage with fandom, actors, or any of the show’s social media. Pure GA! When I told her the series finale had aired, she asked me about it and I refused to give her spoilers. Because of that, she told me the ending SHE wanted. She said she would be happy with either of two possibilities: the boys retiring and finally living a normal life OR they going to heaven and finding peace at last. She saw Sam and Dean as a unit, which means: both retiring or both going to heaven. AND she saw Cas as part of that, too. She wasn’t so sure about Jack. And for her, we could use the “Eileen who?” and it wouldn’t be a joke. She didn’t remember her.

NOW IT’S TIME TO WRITE A NEW VERSION OF 15X20 (KEEPING 15X18 AND 15X19 EXACTLY THE SAME AS THEY AIRED). This will be a very long post:

The opening remains almost the same. No “Carry on my wayward son” to induce feels. Too soon and too predictable! (Reasoning: Everyone was expecting it to play right there, so it would bring more tears at the end)

In the opening, after the scene where Jack says “People won’t need to pray to me or sacrifice to me”, we also see the scene from 15x19 where he says “I won’t be hands on”. Then we see the rest of the opening as it was. (Reasoning: People needed to be reminded that Jack would NOT intervene and that’s why later on, he would NOT save Dean).

We get the same montage, but when Sam takes a break from his morning run, we see him reading a message on his phone. A simple: “Hey Sam, what’s new?” from Eileen. Sam smiles fondly and begins to type a response we don’t get to see. The next scene continues the same, Sam making breakfast. (Reasoning: A text was a very simple way to show that Eileen was alive and still in communication with Sam).

The montage slowly ends as Sam enters the library (not after he sits down). He seems to be talking on the phone but we only hear an “I’ll tell him. Bye”. As he walks towards the table, he tells Dean: “Charlie says hi. Mentioned something about Stevie’s perfect scrambled eggs we have to try.” Dean’s answer is “Awesome!” (Reasoning: Just ONE line was needed to unbury Charlie and her girlfriend. ONE LINE).

Sam sits down, opens his laptop and everything continues the same. The title card shows for the last time.

YOU SEE? In the first 4 minutes they could have acknowledged that THREE WOMEN were alive and safe: Eileen, Charlie and Stevie. It wasn’t hard! Don’t blame bad writing on Covid! Now let’s continue.

Sam and Dean arrive at the Pie Fest just the same. Dean goes to get some “damn pie” and Sam takes out his phone. He dials and when someone picks up, he says “Hey, Jody, how are ya?” We don’t hear the rest of the conversation. The scene moves to Dean coming with his 6 portions of pie. Dean sits down and Sam tells him, “Talked to Jody. The other hunters haven’t had much work lately.” “That’s good, isn’t it?”, Dean says. All we get from Sam is “Yeah.” So, Dean looks at him and asks “what’s wrong?” like it happened in the episode. (Reasoning: Again, a couple of lines to make sure the people that were killed in 15x18 are safe and remembered by the boys in 15x20. Why is this important? Because they’re family!)

The conversation about Sam’s sad face happens the same. Sam is the one that mentions Cas and Jack. (Reasoning: Because this episode was so Sam-centered, it’s obvious he was the protagonist in the finale. If we see him communicating with Eileen, Charlie, and Jody, then it’s NORMAL, even expected of him to be the one to bring up Cas and Jack). Without these additions, it’s harder for people to understand that most of the finale was NOT from Dean’s POV but from Sam’s.

Dean’s “if we don’t keep living, then all that sacrifice is gonna be for nothing” stays the same. (Reasoning: I believe it’s necessary that the show sticks to the importance of “letting go” and “what is dead should stay dead” for the first time ever because the message is “even when you lose someone you love, you can still find some form of happiness and keep living, for you and for them, because that’s what they would have wanted”. Bringing someone back means “I can’t live without you”, and that’s just more codependency. It’s how the demon deals began in the Winchester family –Mary being the first one to do it. This would explain why Dean didn’t ask Jack to bring Cas back, as he asked Chuck. He understood Jack was NOT going to interfere anymore and accepted it. Besides, when Cas saved Dean from hell, Dean thought he didn’t deserve to be saved. This time that Cas saved him, Dean finally feels worthy enough to accept that YES, HE DESERVED TO BE SAVED ALL ALONG, just as much as he deserved to be loved by that angel of the Lord. In this scene, Dean also says that the pain is not gonna go away, which means that from HIS PERPECTIVE, it still hurts that Cas is not there. The problem is that the finale is not showing his POV but Sam’s.  

Sam pies Dean on the face just the same. (Reasoning: That part was just to avoid ending the scene on a sad note).

Everything related to the case happens exactly the same. (Reasoning: At this point, people don’t really care about the MoTW, they care about Sam and Dean).

NOTE 1: The case is important to show that even when the Winchesters are finally free of Chuck’s influence, they CHOOSE to keep hunting. It isn’t something they do out of revenge or because it is their destiny anymore. Maybe they were forced into the life at first, but they’ve learned to find joy in saving people. Being hunters is who they are. However, the fact that a job application was shown on Dean’s desk is also important because it means he was willing to explore what else was there for him besides hunting. Maybe he could find a balance? Maybe he was thinking it was time to quit? We will never know! The thing is that Sam only finds out about it when he goes into Dean’s room after his brother is dead, so maybe that’s when it hits him that Dean wanted to explore his options, and Sam starts to think it’s time for him to do the same.  

NOTE 2: I believe the masks the vampires are wearing is something we can blame on covid. If they had their faces covered, it was easier to use people from the SPN crew for some scenes, instead of using more actors unnecessarily.

NOTE 3: When Sam and Dean arrive at the barn, we get 3 visuals to remember Cas in the same scene (those are for the fandom, not for the general audience): a) the barn, obviously; b) the bag that resembles Cas’ trenchcoat so much that many people thought that’s what it was; and c) two feathers hanging on Dean’s right when he opens the trunk.

The scene with the throwing star happens the same. (Reasoning: The episode is still told from Sam’s point of view, so it makes sense that he fondly sees his brother as a man child).

Jenny the vampire? Uhhh… I mean, it’s not the best piece of writing I’ve ever seen, but it’s not the worst, so okay. That stays the same. (Reasoning: There is none, but she’s not what really ruined the finale, so whatever!)

Dean still dies impaled on a rebar. (Reasoning: OK. HERE ME OUT!!! I hate as much as everyone else that Dean is killed. I think it’s lazy writing, but that’s what we got and I can’t change that in this re-write, so if killing Dean is what we have to work around, then, memes aside, death by rebar is better and here’s why. There’s no one to blame for Dean’s death: no Chuck (the boys were willingly hunting even after Chuck was defeated), no vampires (they were all killed and were no real threat, so it was impossible for Sam to begin a quest for revenge against all vampires. What was Sam going to blame? A rebar? Can you kill it? Hunt it? NO. It was an ordinary death, a stupid accident. Just like any person can die at any moment by slipping on a banana peel. Is it a good death? No, but it’s good to know he doesn’t die trying to save Sam or Cas, because Dean Winchester is NOT willing to give up his life in exchange for anyone else’s anymore.

Sam takes out his phone and says he’ll call for help, but his phone is more visible to the audience. He dials and it’s almost to his ear when Dean stops him and Sam hesitantly hangs up. (Reasoning: People have complained that Sam didn’t call an ambulance, but actually he tried to. It’s just that people missed that part, maybe?)

After Sam puts his phone back in his pocket and says “OK” to Dean, he adds, “I’ll pray to Jack”. Dean’s immediate answer is: “No hands on, remember?” “But Dean”, Sam says, and Dean interrupts him with “OK listen to me” and tells Sam what to do with the kids they rescued. (Reasoning: Jack is God now and how come Sam didn’t remember? The viewers remembered, so it was necessary to include a line that ruled the option out and that showed Dean didn’t want Jack to intervene. The rest was fine).

The lines “You knew it was always gonna end like this for me. It was supposed to end like this, right?” disappear completely from Dean’s monologue. (Reasoning: This is the most problematic part of Dean’s dying speech. He fought God and earned free will, he is no longer controlled by fate or destiny. Accepting that he is supposed to die on a hunt regresses his character development and denies his desire to keep living. This was a total mistake and should be removed).

Instead, if going to heaven is the ending TPTB wanted to give Dean, at least he should say something more empowering. Sam tells him that both of them are going to take the kids somewhere safe. Dean answers and the scene follows like this: “No. Sammy, we made our choice, didn’t we?”, he smiles with difficulty. “We were free to write our own story and we did. We decided to keep saving people, hunting things. Because it’s what we love despite the risks.” (Reasoning: If Dean’s going to die it doesn’t have to feel like it was always meant to be that way. He should die knowing that he exerted his free will until his last breath).

The rest of the dialogue between Sam and Dean happens almost the same. Except that instead of Dean saying “‘cause when it all came down to it, it was always you and me. It’s always been you and me”, he says “’cause when it all came down to it, we’ve always had each other’s backs. Always.” And instead of Sam saying “Don’t leave me”, he says “I still can try to save you.” (Reasoning: It sounds way less codependent without diminishing the importance of their love and support for each other).

Besides, let’s change Dean’s “I’m not leaving you” for “You don’t have to be alone. You’ve still got family.” The rest stays the same word by word. (Reasoning: Dean reminds Sam that “family don’t end in blood” and there are still lots of people out there who love Sam and will be with him).

“I love you so much, my baby brother” stays exactly the same. (Reasoning: Dean always had trouble to express the big L word. I always believed and said many times that before Dean could say “I love you” to Cas or any other character, he had to say it to Sam. So, this is important as part of Dean speaking his truth).

The last part when Dean insists Sam tell him that it’s okay stays the same. (Reasoning: It’s the final moment when the codependency cycle breaks. No more running in circles).

The forehead touch between them stays the same. (Reasoning: I think I would do something similar if my sister were dying. I know there are w*ncest shippers out there, but it shouldn’t matter because the moment feels appropriate for that kind of goodbye). 

See? There are changes but not too many. That’s why I’ve been saying that it was easier to get it right, yet they still managed to screw it up.

The second montage stays the same. (Reasoning: Life goes on, but of course Sam has to mourn).

The call about a case in Austin remains the same. (Reasoning: It’s the only part of the episode where someone from the found family is mentioned, so I think that Donna’s name is perfect in that moment. However, without the other additions I’ve made in this re-write, that off-hand mention feels too little. Its purpose was to tell the viewers that if Donna was alive, so were the others, but the way the episode was executed gave us an isolated Sam, incapable of having friends and a family without Dean).  

After 30 minutes of Sam’s POV, let’s finally see the last bit of Dean’s POV that we’ll ever get.

Dean arrives in Heaven and Bobby receives him. All their conversation stays almost the same, except that after mentioning Rufus and before saying “and your mom and dad…”, Bobby adds an “Ellen and Jo let me borrow their place”. (Reasoning: If you’re gonna put the man outside the Harvelle’s place, at least mention them for Jack’s sake!).

Besides, after Bobby tells Dean that Sam will be along and that time in heaven is different, Dean gives a small smile and says, “Well, there’s no rush. I want him to have a long, happy life.” Bobby answers with: “I would expect nothing less from you, boy” and tells him he got everything he could ever want, etc., just like it happened in the episode, and finishes by asking “What are you gonna do now, Dean?” (Reasoning: It’s important we know for sure that Dean is NOT codependent anymore and that he doesn’t expect to have a miserable afterlife just because his brother is not there yet).

Instead of saying “I think I’ll go for a drive” Dean says, “I think I know what I want” and walks towards baby. Bobby still tells him to have fun. (Reasoning: “Know what I want” is ambiguous enough to help us introduce the last piece of the puzzle, the one thing Dean’s wanted for many seasons and has never been able to express).

 The biggest change is coming:

Dean gets on the Impala and has a moment of silence while he contemplates the wheel. He begins to pray: “Hey, Cas, you got your ears on? I hear you’ve been busy working on this updated Heaven with Jack. You were right about him, Cas. You had faith in him and he saved us all. You could always see the best in everyone, even when they couldn’t see it themselves. Even when I couldn’t see it myself. There’s so much I want to tell you. Maybe you can visit sometime. I hope prayer’s still a thing up here.” (Reasoning: Dean’s side of the confession was unaddressed and that was terrible writing. If there was no way to get him to speak his truth textually, at least take him as close to it as possible).

We listen to a flutter of wings and a “Hello, Dean” from the back seat. We don’t see Cas, but the camera shows us Dean’s cocky smile and he says “Took you long enough.” He turns around slowly. End of scene. (Reasoning: The flutter of wings confirms that angels have their wings back and ties that loose end. The final “hello, Dean” was highly anticipated and it made sense. If Misha couldn’t be there to film, for whatever reason, or if the problem was the kind of conversation Dean and Cas would have, then don’t show it, but leave the door open. Let us know that the two characters were reunited and will talk, but whatever Dean has to say is so private that it’s not for us to hear, only for Cas.  

We finally hear “Carry on my wayward son” and get a montage that begins with Sam playing with his kid. Then we see Dean driving, super happy, and Sam living his life to the fullest. We still get Sam’s Blurry Wife, BUT… we see pictures of Eileen in the living room (not just of John, Mary, Sam, and Dean). We also see photos of Jody, Donna, Charlie, and AU!Bobby. (Reasoning: FAMILY DON’T END IN BLOOD).

The scene where Sam is wearing the party wig and looks miserable inside the Impala is cut and nobody talks about it ever again because it never existed. We get a scene of Sam teaching his son how to fix the car instead. (Reasoning: First of all, don’t give Sam a life where years later he’s still in pain. Second of all, the fucking wig was a crime).

Sam’s dying scene stays the same. The only thing is that his son signs a couple of phrases to him before actually speaking. (Reasoning: More confirmation that Dean Jr. is Eileen’s son).

We hear the final “Evanescence-like Carry on my wayward son”. Again we see the photos and there’s family other than the Winchesters there. (Reasoning: Obvious at this point).

The rest is exactly the same. The show began with two brothers and it’s okay if the last scene is with the two brothers reunited in Heaven. At this point, the other parts of the story are acceptable enough for us to feel happy that they get to see each other again after years of a happy (after)life.

Now look me in the eye and tell me this was too hard to execute. I still think that bad writing is a thing we can’t deny here, adding to the possible meddling of the Network. Maybe Dabb wanted us to hate the finale because he couldn’t get away with what he truly wanted. If that was his intention, then kudos to him. He and The CW really gave us a finale that only 30% of the fandom liked.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this and it helps to give you some peace of mind. In my heart, this was the finale we got. It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t drop the ball either.

#supernatural #15x20 #spn 15x20 #spn finale #rewrite #dean winchester #dean deserved better #cas deserved better #destiel #the characters deserved better #we deserved better #it was easier to get it right #yet they screwed up big time #alternate ending

[clairenatural]

1k. canonverse destiel fix-it with light emotional hurt/comfort. the events of 15x20 never actually happened but are referenced (including cut lines from the leaked script)

Castiel thinks his newly-human body is in denial about needing to sleep. It’s either that or he’s being intentionally punished, which he doesn’t rule out, because every time he tries to sleep he has nightmares—horrible ones, too. Ones that wake him up screaming. That, in turn, wakes Dean up, and after a week of that exhausting cycle he’s relegated himself to simply never sleeping again.

Instead he stares at Dean. He counts his freckles—as many as he can see, when Dean has his face half-buried into Castiel’s chest—and he trails his fingers along Dean’s arm.

“You know,” Dean grumbles, and Castiel freezes as if he’s been caught. “For a guy who just came back to life, you sure stare at me like I’m the one who’s gonna disappear.”

Castiel frowns. “I thought you were asleep.” It’s not an answer, but Dean hadn’t exactly asked a question.

“I could feel you watching me.” Dean tilts his head up, trying to make eye contact. Castiel avoids it. “What’s going on, Cas?”

He takes a deep breath and still doesn’t meet Dean’s gaze. He’s been vague, he’s danced around it, but now—he’s tired.

“I don’t want to watch you die again,” he replies, a hoarse whisper, and there’s a short shocked silence in which Dean pushes himself off of Castiel’s chest and onto one elbow.

“What?”

“Every night, Dean. I have to—watch you die, and I can’t do anything to stop it. That’s what the nightmare is.” 

Nightmare-Sam’s voice pops into his head, unbidden.

If Cas was here—

He’s not.

He has the lines memorized at this point.

Dean, real Dean, is still staring at him, expression unreadable in the darkness of their bedroom. “…I’m right here, Cas,” he starts, finally. Softly. “It’s just a nightmare. I’m not gonna die.”

Castiel turns to look at him, really look at him, for the first time. “Yesterday it was just a nightmare. But what if tomorrow—” he cuts himself off, frustrated. “Tomorrow it could be real, you could be really hurt, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t help.”

Dean just blinks at him. “Okay, well—how do I die?”

“What?”

“In your dream. How do I die?”

Castiel furrows his brows. “A hunt. A vampire.”

Dean snorts. “Cas, come on. A vamp isn’t gonna take me out.”

“It doesn’t.” Technically. “The rebar you’re impaled on does.”

“Ouch, okay.” Dean grimaces, and for a moment Castiel feels bad for going that far. “Okay, well. I ain’t dying on a vampire hunt, Cas, I can promise you that much.”

“I’m sure dream you said the same thing.”

This time, he actually rolls his eyes. “No offense to your brain, dude, but dream me sounds like an idiot.”

“That’s not the point.” Castiel narrows his eyes, actually a little irritated. “The point is I wasn’t even there. And even if I was—or am, assuming this is a similar real life scenario—I can’t do anything anymore.”

“Sam can’t do much against rebar either, and I still trust him with my life.”

“Except I could. And now I can’t. I—” It comes out harsher than intended, so Castiel cuts himself off. He swallows. He chooses his next works carefully. They probably still come out wrong. “I only know how to save you, Dean.”

Whatever dismissal Dean was planning—probably something along the lines of come on, dude, you’re putting way too much stake into a nightmare—dies at that. He stares at Cas for a long moment before abruptly turning over and turning on his bedside lamp.

Castiel frowns, pushes himself into a sitting position, and watches Dean pull open the drawer on his nightstand. He finally turns back, holding out a crumpled piece of paper. Castiel takes it.

He stares at it. It’s a job application.

“I got a job,” Dean explains, and when Cas looks back up at him he looks away, sheepish. “I mean—not that one, obviously, I never turned that one in, but, uh. A different one. Working on cars in town.”

Castiel, who has been looking back and forth between Dean and the paper, frowns. “You d—”

“I didn’t tell you, I know,” he replies in a rush. “I didn’t—I wanted to wait until I had something signed, you know? It’s still not official. But they called this morning and offered, so I guess it’s gonna be.”

It’s still not making sense.

“But what about hunting?”

Dean snorts. “What, a guy can’t have hobbies?” He pauses, then shrugs. Something in his demeanor shifts. “And, I mean—you know. With Sam all wrapped up in his archive project, and Chuck gone—there ain’t too many hunts in the first place.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, so. You don’t have to worry about me dying on a vamp hunt, alright? Or any hunt.”

“Oh,” Castiel repeats. “For how long?”

Dean shrugs again. “I don’t know. Maybe forever, who knows? All I know is that I fought God, man. I deserve a break.”

“You did,” Castiel agrees. He smiles. “You do.”

“Damn right,” Dean grumbles, but he’s smiling too. He reaches out to take the job application back. “Can we sleep now?”

“Yes,” Castiel replies, but he makes no movement towards lying down again until Dean puts the application back into his nightstand, turns off the light, and rolls back over.

They settle back down—Castiel on his back, Dean lying half on top of him, ear against his heart. He has one hand splayed across Dean’s back and the other one finds Dean’s hand and holds on tight. He feels Dean smile against his chest as he squeezes back.

“Cas?” he whispers. “You do save me, you know. Every day.”

Castiel smiles. He leans down to press a kiss into Dean’s hair. “You deserve to be saved,” he reminds, and even though he knows Dean thinks it’s cheesy he’s too sleepy to care.

For the first time in a long time, he doesn’t have nightmares.

#destiel #deancas #destiel fic #deancas fic #my words #under 1k words #very barely rip

[magickastiel]

✨ B&B’S CHRISTMAS ADVENT CALENDAR ✨

13th December - christmas shopping

I am, once again, attempting to write one story through different prompts. I really enjoyed it last time so let’s see if I can do it through December!

check out the other days | now on ao3

Summary: Just a month after defeating Chuck, Sam & Dean are faced with their first real Christmas. Eileen, Jody, Donna, Claire & Kaia descend on the Bunker for a Christmas celebration like no other. But for Dean, Castiel’s confession still weighs heavy. It might be easier to deal with if Cas was actually around to talk to but he and Jack are busy in Heaven. Surely they don’t have time to come home for Christmas…do they?

🛒

As the morning seeps into the afternoon, the mood in the Bunker mellows.

Cas, pleased with his card, retreats to the library with Jack. Jody and Donna take Kaia to the range for some firearm practice, Claire tagging along for support.

Sam and Eileen have sloped off somewhere and Dean doesn’t want to think about what they might be doing, thank you very much.

The radio is on low - classic rock being the perfect background noise for Dean to inspect his shortcrust pastry. The blind bake is done and he’s reasonably happy so far. The sweet potato is cooked and all he needs to do now is mix in the spinach and feta before he puts it back in the oven. He can cover it until tomorrow when he’ll reveal it to Sam. Really, it’s a miracle he hasn’t seen it yet -

“Dean!” Sam bursts into the kitchen, hair wild and eyes wide.

Dean hurriedly throws a tea towel over the pastry and sweet potato and turns to face his brother.

“Yep.”

Thankfully, Sam seems too preoccupied to question it. “I really need your help.”

The panicked look on Sam’s face makes Dean stand up straight, body a little tense. “What? What’s going on?”

“It’s Eileen’s necklace. It still isn’t here and I’m - I’m freaking out!” Sam runs his fingers through his hair desperately. “The store said it’d be delivered yesterday and I was worried when it didn’t arrive but I thought maybe it was delayed or something and it’d come today. But still nothing and now the store I bought it from is closed for Christmas and…man, I don’t know what to do!”

“Ok, ok, ok! Easy, man, take a breath.” Dean holds up his hands. “Right, first thing we should do is check the Post Office in town. Might’ve been delayed there, ok?”

“Right! Yeah. Yeah, ok. But what if it’s not there?”

Dean unties his apron and hangs it up. “Then we go to Walmart and buy her enough stuff to make the best damn hamper you ever saw. Then she’ll have something to unwrap tomorrow but she can still have the necklace after Christmas.”

Sam nods enthusiastically. “Yes! Yes, good! Ok yeah. I’m not freaking out anymore. That’s good!”

Dean pulls on his jacket and jangles his keys. “Come on then, jackass. We can say I forgot to get cocoa when I went shopping with Jack yesterday. I didn’t but, the rate we’re all drinking it, we’ll need more anyway.”

They manage to escape without any questions, Jack only looking momentarily puzzled because he thought he and Dean had bought everything yesterday. Sam babbled on about cocoa and milk so long Dean had to shove him out of the door.

They’re roaring into town, Baby eating up the snow-sprinkled road while Dean taps the steering wheel to the beat of the Christmas radio station he and Jack listened to yesterday.

Sam’s still stressing in the passenger seat but he seems a bit more focussed now he has a plan.

“You know this is so typical!” He rants, crossing his arms across his chest. Dean is briefly reminded of Sam as a moody teenager and grins. “This is the first time in years that I’ve actually really thought about a gift, you know? I wanted this to be perfect. And of course this is the one thing I ordered that hasn’t showed up!”

Dean isn’t particularly surprised. Sam faffed about looking at the necklace online for nearly a fortnight. Dean had been so driven to the edge by Sam’s constant debating that, in the end, he just sat Sam down and told him to order the damn thing.

Dean had lived the selection process so of course he’s now living the delivery process too.

“I really want this to mean something.” Sam says, staring out of the window with a morose expression. “After what happened with Chuck…it made me realise I can’t keep holding back. Eileen is amazing and I should tell her.”

“No argument from me!” Dean says, feeling a peculiar mixture of joy and envy.

He pulls them into a parking spot right in front of the post office. The fact that they’re the only car there isn’t lost on Dean and his heart sinks. But Sam, with his total tunnel vision, doesn’t seem to realise what that might mean.

He stops dead almost comically late at the door.

“They…no!” He wines and actually goes to kick the door but stops himself just in time. “They’re on a half-day for Christmas Eve. They closed nearly an hour ago.” He peers in through the window but all the lights are off. “We could - ”

“Dude, no.” Dean cuts him off, uncomfortable with being the sensible one for once. “We’re not breaking into the post office on Christmas Eve. We’ll get arrested and then we’ll have to knock out everyone at the police station and probably ruin their Christmas.”

Sam’s shoulders slump. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“I know.” Dean claps him on the back and guides him back to the car. “Come on. Walmart it is.”

_

Walmart is as chaotic as you’d expect it to be on Christmas Eve afternoon.

Sam grabs a shopping cart and starts prowling the aisles like a man possessed. Dean wanders along behind him, relieved that he hasn’t got to worry about a thing.

Then Sam decides to spoil it.

“What have you got for everyone?” He demands suddenly, taking a break from trying to decide between the ‘relax, you deserve it’ gift set and the ‘self-care Sunday’ gift set.

Dean blinks.

“What? Nothing. Jody said not to bother since we’re putting them up for Christmas.” Sam raises his eyebrows and Dean starts to panic. “Shut up! I’m literally cooking an entire Christmas meal plus sides plus desserts for eight people. That’s a lot of work!”

“No, no, I know it is!” Sam shrugs and Dean can see the beginnings of a smirk. “Just wanted to make sure, that’s all.”

“Right.” Dean says, doubt starting to creep in.

“I just think,” Sam continues, adding the ‘self-care Sunday’ set to the growing pile and pushing the cart along the aisle at a more leisurely pace. “It might be strange receiving presents tomorrow and not giving any in return.”

Dean grits his teeth. “You little shit.”

Sam grins, tapping his fingers on the plastic. “Plenty of space in the cart.”

_

Sam gets Eileen enough stuff to fill two hampers - bath bombs, moisturisers, nail polishes, chocolates, cheeses, crackers and a large bottle of champagne.

Dean scurries along behind him, cursing all the way. He grabs a cable-knit sweater for Jody, a set of pyjamas with donuts on them for Donna, a thick sketchbook and fancy pencils for Kaia and, after a brief debate, decides to get two polaroid cameras - one for Claire and one for Jack.

Sam splutters as Dean puts them in the cart.

“Don’t.” Dean hisses. “Just…let me get them, ok?”

They’re heading to the checkout but Dean is still puzzling over Cas. Honestly, that’s a constant. He’s virtually impossible to buy for - he doesn’t need food, he doesn’t need toiletries, he doesn’t even need pyjamas now he actually owns some.

They wander past the outdoor area, making Dean pause. His eyes fall on a healthy lavender plant in a pretty looking ceramic pot. He swallows. What’s Cas gonna do with it really? He’s in heaven most of the time anyway. What’s the point in giving him a plant he doesn’t have time to take care of?

He almost passes it by when a small label on it catches his eye.

Attracts bees to your garden!

Well, shit. Now he’s gonna have to get it.

He’s just finished carefully placing it in the cart when Sam practically slaps him on the arm.

“Dude, dude! Isn’t that Meryl?!” He points to a late middle-aged woman packing her shopping three checkouts over.

“Oh, yeah.” Dean says, vaguely recalling her. “Meryl who works at the - ”

“Post office!” Sam finishes before dashing off, leaving Dean to weave their cart through the crowds.

“- please, just take a look!!” Sam is already exclaiming by the time he gets there. “Please, Meryl! I’ll - I’ll do anything you want! I’ll fix that janky air conditioning unit! I’ll - I’ll repaint the whole building! Please, anything!”

Meryl looks totally startled and Dean can’t blame her. Sam looks one rejection away from a breakdown.

“Look, Meryl.” Dean says smoothly, turning on the charm. “I know it’s really inappropriate of us to ask but my brother here: he’s a little, shall we say, unlucky in the love department. And now he’s finally met this girl that can deal with him - ” Sam glares. “And he wants this Christmas to be perfect. So could you help - ”

“We’ll pay for your groceries!” Sam blurts.

Dean wheels around. “What?!”

“We’ll pay for your whole shop!” Sam says again, looking totally deranged. “Everything!”

“Will we?!”

“If you can buy two polaroid cameras, I think I can afford to buy Meryl’s shopping for her!”

_

On the drive back, money poor and present rich, Sam fondles the little box in his hand. He opens and closes it several times, peering at the silver pendant. He slots the box back in his coat pocket and smiles to himself.

Dean, still smarting from the very expensive Walmart trip, says nothing.

Another minute passes by. Then Sam gets the box out again and opens it. He stares. Then holds it up to show Dean.

“Do you think I should have got her something else?”

Dean almost swerves off the road in pure rage. He settles for smacking his head on the car horn.

#b&badventcalendar #spn fic #destiel fic #destiel #saileen #spn #supernatural #look! i'm posting before 11pm for once!!!!!! #and it's a long one today! #i received revelation for this one #sam and dean being annoying brothers <3 #w*ncesties do not interact #mine