#so yeah ultimately i do think it ends with dean finally working through telling cas his truth and them being together

[antigonewinchester]

so finally powered thru the rest of S11 and have like a billion thoughts, phew. I can see why a lot of people think the show should have stopped here, because despite how Carver’s era is talked about as so grim, it ends on an uplifting, even oddly optimistic note: the world is saved not through death or sacrifice but reconciliation, with Chuck and Amara as family again and Amara resurrecting Mary, reuniting Dean (and implicitly Sam) with their lost mother. 

I’ve often struggled w/ the fandom framing I’ve seen of Carver’s seasons being “Sam and Dean working thru their issues” because it didn’t always feel that way with the writing, but it does seem to be what Carver intended his seasons to be: that Sam and Dean would go through a lot of shit, hurt each other, hurt the world, but ultimately end up in a better place by the end. I think the problem is Carver and his writers aren’t good at showing those changes within relationships, the healing and reconciliation that would need to happen after familial harms, and that he took Sam and Dean (particularly Dean) to some dark places that people felt like the characters couldn’t easily come back from.

other people have talked about this as well, but there’s an oddness in that S11 is seemingly saying “Sam and Dean need to change/let each other go for the sake of the world” but then has Dean sacrificing himself for Sam as late as 11x17 and then trying to sacrifice himself to protect Sam and world in the finale. Sam and Dean’s inability to let each other go led to a lot of horrible stuff—Sam and Dean choosing each other over closing the gates of Hell and freeing the world from demons, Dean tricking Sam into possession, Sam (and Cas) indirectly getting Charlie killed & then having Rowena kill Oscar to save Dean from the Mark—with a big Point being that Sam & Dean need to stop prioritizing themselves over what’s good for the world. so Sam “lets” Dean go off to kill Amara, even though doing so will kill Dean. but Dean... does he “let” Sam go in sacrificing himself? kind of. but he’s also sacrificing himself to protect Sam and the world, and that’s not something new for Dean. that’s a role he’s played (and been forced to play) his entire life. so what’s the change? if Sam needs to “let Dean go,” then what does Dean need to do?

at least from how the finale frames it, Dean’s changes don’t actually come from “letting Sam go” but from letting go of his familial resentments/his desire for revenge, just as he counsels Amara to do. Amara’s resentments echo Dean’s feelings in S8, in his being hurt that Sam didn’t look for him in Purgatory (just as Amara resents Chuck for locking her away for years), and in S9 and S10, with Dean’s focus on taking the Mark and getting revenge in killing Abaddon, which spiraled out into a very bad situation for everyone (just as Amara is obsessed with getting her revenge on Chuck, which ends up very bad for everyone). There’s talk of betrayal (”Yeah, I might have lied, but I never once betrayed you. I never once left you to die. And for what, a girl? You left me to die for a girl?” “My brother betrayed me. He locked me away for billions of years. He sent you to execute me.”), and Purgatory actually comes up in S11, when it hasn’t been mentioned for a while, with Sam saying he still feels guilty for not looking for Dean and Dean explicitly saying he forgives him/doesn’t resent Sam for that any longer. the show frames Dean letting go of his resentments—as he tells Amara, revenge feels good “for about 5 minutes” and then turns sour—as what allows him to talk honestly and help Amara let go of her resentments and reconcile with Chuck, which leads to a happy ending and the world being saved.

when I first watched 11x23, I had this question in the back of my mind, and I still have it even the second time around: why didn’t the writers have Sam and Dean go together to confront Amara? the 2 siblings who’ve ‘worked through their issues’ helping 2 siblings reconcile w/ each other seems like a pretty obvious ending. I guess it’s because Sam represents the idea of “letting go” of the family versus Dean representing family togetherness. (it actually echoes the series finale, doesn’t it, with Sam “letting” Dean go in his death, living his life, and then reuniting with Dean in Heaven, the family together once again.)

#spn rewatch #season 11

[chaoticdean]

Sometime it hits me in the face that Dean’s entire character arc was left completely unfinished and basically butchered because they couldn’t complete it without Cas; because Dean’s narrative doesn’t make sense if it doesn’t end with Cas. 

And because for whatever fucking reason (too gay, Covid, network meddling, all of the above) they couldn’t have Cas there, they decided to let their second main character’s arc — the one they spent a decade and half crafting — utterly incomplete. Dean’s left silenced, having never spoken his truth despite everything in the past seasons (season 15 alone) leading to him doing so.

They basically tossed him to the side and said “hey thanks for the past 15 years but we’ve decided you’re just not worth the proper ending. Godspeed, buddy.”

And then I proceed to cry for an hour and a half, approximately. Rinse and repeat. 

#good lord am i ever going to stop being mad at what they did to dean #the answer is no that's a rhetorical question #also when i say dean's narrative ends with cas i don't mean it HAS to end with them as a couple #i mean dean's story is incomplete if it doesn't end with him figuring out his shit with cas #so yeah ultimately i do think it ends with dean finally working through telling cas his truth and them being together #but it's fine if people have other views on this #but dean's arc is so tied up to cas that it's actually insane that they literally tossed his entire character development to the side #only because they were told no cas in the finale #ANYWAY #jus.meta #character meta #dean winchester #destiel #spn finale mess #finale fuckery #spn 15x20

[bi-bard]

Milkshakes - Team Free Will Imagine (Supernatural)

Title: Milkshakes

Pairing: Team Free Will X Platonic!Fem!Reader (as put in the request)

Requested: @gabrielasilva1510

Word Count: 1,846 words

Warning(s): violence, death

Summary: [Early Season 11 (Before Episode 10)] Sam and Dean think that there's something that can be The Darkness. Castiel warns them but... who knows? Maybe God's ultimate weapon isn't as scary as it seems.

Author's Note: I used dodie for outfit inspiration because the outfit matched the vibe but change it if you want. I only used a female read because it's in the request and it helped with clarity because the whole imagine is in 3rd person (I do usually use they/them pronouns in my work). Finally, I thought the milkshake flavor sounded good, but you can change it in your mind if you want to.

Hey! I did a rewrite of the ending of Supernatural. It took a really long time to complete, so it would mean a lot to me if you check it out. Here’s a link! (it’s on my personal account)

----------------------------------------

--Third Person P.O.V--

Sam was leaning over a lore book in the library. It was too early for him to be so focused on the book but he felt like he needed to. The Darkness being released was his fault, he needed to find a solution.

Dean walked in from the kitchen with a cup of coffee and was clearly still half-asleep. He sat across from his brother.

"What're you reading," Dean grumbled out in between sips of coffee.

"I found this book about the most powerful beings," Sam explained. "Most of them are just rumored to exist but I thought it'd give us a jumping-off point on where to find something to help us defeat Amara."

"Anything interesting," Dean asked.

"A Nephilim; kid of an angel and a human," Sam said. "There's no mention that they could kill someone as powerful as God. Then there's..."

Sam trailed off and went back through the book, hunting for a particular page he had read nearly an hour ago. He pointed to the page once he found it.

"This doesn't even have a name but it describes a creature created by God to be a weapon," Sam explained. "I was doing some snooping on some message boards when I first found out about it. There's a lot of religious nuts and self-proclaimed hunters who think this thing is gonna be the end of the world. They say it's a prophecy that can't be stopped."

"And you think hunting it down is a good idea," Dean asked.

"Listen, I don't think it's fair to think this thing wants to end the world," Sam replied. "I think it's the best choice we have right now."

"Alright, fine, where do we look," Dean asked.

The boys didn't have to look far before Castiel popped into the library. He asked where they had gotten on their path to defeat Amara. His eyes went wide when they explained what they wanted to do.

"Are you two insane," Castiel asked.

"Listen-"

"No, I know more about this than either of you," the angel stopped Dean's argument. "This creature could kill you both with a look and end the world with a flick of the wrist and you want to track it down?!"

"Isn't it worth trying," Sam asked.

"'Trying,'" Castiel was so unbelievable done with the idiotic decisions of the Winchesters at that point.

"If we don't try something, then Amara kills all of us anyways," Dean said. "We need something Cas. This could be the thing."

Castiel sighed, letting his head fall forward for a moment before looking back up at the boys.

"Fine," Castiel threw his hands up. "Do you know how to find this thing?"

"Looks like a spell," Sam turned the book so Castiel could look at the page. "We should have everything. It's strange no one's tried-"

"Succeeded," Castiel corrected. "People have probably tried if the spell is so simple."

"Okay, good, let's get the supplies and give it a shot," Dean clapped his hands and stood up.

In a matter of minutes, the boys and their angel were back around the table and ready to start the spell.

Castiel and Dean jumped when Sam grabbed a knife and nicked his hand.

"One of us needs to be bonded," Sam explained. "Like a human compass. It feels right that it's me."

He didn't wait for the other two to respond before he started reading the spell of the book. Castiel and Dean exchanged a look for a moment.

As he finished the spell, a purple flame shot up from the bowl for a second. Sam felt his arm tingling from the wound up. He shook it out, trying to understand what it was telling him.

States over, a young girl, a college student visiting home, is sitting in a booth at a small diner.

In between page turns, she sits up straight. Her eyes flash the same purple as the flame from the spell before she snaps out of the trance.

She looks around. Everything feels different. It's like the air had shifted around her. She furrowed her eyebrows... what the hell was that?

--time skip--

Dean pulled the impala up to the curb of the street. The three of them look at the nice house. White picket fence, two stories, a garden.

"Are you sure about this," Dean asked Sam. "This seems like a pretty normal house."

Sam nodded, "I can feel it. It's here."

"Alright, let's go," Dean replied.

The three of them got out of the car and made their way up the pathway. None of them knew what fight they were going to get once they opened that door. It could've been a deadly fight. They may not have even had a chance to fight.

Still, with one last silent check with the others, Dean lifted his hand and knocked on the door.

The last thing they expected was for a girl to open the door with a wide smile. She had a white dress on with an orange cardigan over the top.

"Hello," she said happily. "What can I help you with?"

"Sam," Dean looked at his brother. Sam just nodded. He could feel it in his gut. "What's your name?"

"(Y/n)," the girl replied. "And you are?"

"I'm Sam," the taller man answered. "This is Dean and Cas."

"Nice to meet you," she held a hand out.

Sam awkwardly accepted, shaking her hand. They both froze, eyes flashing purple before they both stepped back from each other.

"That was weird," (Y/n) mumbled, frowning at her hand. "What was that?"

The boys looked at each other but before they could speak, there was a crash from inside the house. The girl jumped.

"Who's that," Dean asked.

"I don't know," she replied. "My parents are gone. No one else is supposed to be here."

Sam and Dean grabbed their guns before all of them walked inside.

Before they could get any answers for themselves, an angel rounded the corner and tried to grab (Y/n), who ran behind the others as soon as she saw the angel.

She stumbled backward toward the wall in shock and fear. She covered her mouth as the more angels walked into her living, not that she knew that's who they were.

Sam, Dean, and Cas were getting thrown around.

"Stop," Sam yelled as they walked toward (Y/n).

"We need something to defeat the Darkness," one of the angels said. "This is our option. Thank you for leading us to her."

(Y/n) was shaking more as she listened. The Darkness? Why was she so important to them? To the boys or the others who had broken into her house?

"Come on, (Y/n)," one of the angels had a hand out to her. She shook her head and the angel chuckled. "Fine. Make this harder."

The others came running at her.

"No," she yelled, dropping to the ground, and covering herself with her arms.

A pulse of energy shot out. The angels that had broken in had burned in front of her.

Dean, Sam, and Cas looked at each other.

(Y/n) slowly looked up from where she was.

"Hey," Sam walked over, kneeling next to her. "You alright?"

"What was that," she asked, shaking. "Who are you? Who were they? What did I do?"

"Hey, hey," Sam touched the girl's shoulders. "It's alright. Hey... how about we go somewhere to calm down? How about some food, yeah? Is there a restaurant nearby or something?"

She nodded. Sam helped her stand up fully and led her to the impala. Dean and Cas sat in the front while Sam and (Y/n) took the backseat.

(Y/n) rambled about a small diner nearby, giving Dean quick directions before falling silent again.

The four of them took a booth in the farthest back corner. (Y/n) sat leaning against the wall, Sam next to her and Cas and Dean across from her.

"Umm... do you know what you want," Sam asked quietly, making (Y/n) aware of the waitress there.

She was an old friend, "You alright, (Y/n)?"

"Yeah," (Y/n) nodded. "I'm just a little tired. Umm... can I get a cherry vanilla milkshake?"

"That it for you, dear," the waitress checked. (Y/n) nodded with a grin, playing with the end of her cardigan's sleeves.

The waitress took the other three's orders before walking away.

"Who were those people," (Y/n) asked. "Why did they break into my house?"

"Because God made you a weapon," Cas said bluntly, making (Y/n)'s eyes go wide.

"A weapon?"

"He means," Dean jumped in, "you have powers that you don't know about. That's why you were able to get rid of those angels."

"Those were angels," she tried to keep her voice down. They all nodded. "I thought angels were supposed to be good?"

"They are supposed to follow orders," Cas corrected. "Not all of them are good."

She nodded, "Are you guys angels?"

"No, well, Sam and I aren't," Dean pointed between him and his brother. "Cas is."

"Oh," she muttered. "You're not-"

"I'm not gonna force you to go to heaven to defeat the Darkness," Cas promised.

"The Darkness," she said. "What's that? Why do I need to fight it?"

"The Darkness is... kind of our fault," Sam explained. "She's trying to create a new world in her image, which includes destroying this one."

"So, how'd you find me," she asked.

Before they could answer, the waitress came back, dropping off their food and drinks. (Y/n) leaned forward and took a sip of her milkshake and grinned to herself for a moment.

The boys were so confused. This was God's weapon?

"Well, Dean and I are hunters," Sam continued once (Y/n) back over to him. "We hunt monsters. Our grandpa was part of this group, the Men of Letters. They have a book in their collection that talks about you. There was a spell that led us to you."

She nodded but furrowed her eyebrows. Monsters? God? Hunters? After what had happened today, she struggled to deny all of it but was still hesitant to believe them?

"Well, if the Darkness knows I can defeat... her... won't she be looking for me too," (Y/n) asked.

"We can keep you safe," Dean promised.

"You're sure?"

"As sure as possible," he nodded.

(Y/n) looked down for a moment, "Okay. I'll go with you. I just... I need to get some stuff from my house and tell my parents that I'll be gone."

"You can't tell them where you're going or why," Dean said. "It'll put them in danger."

She bit her lip, "If it saves them in the long run, fine."

(Y/n) asked a lot more questions that day as they ate in the diner. They told her about monsters and the big bads they had faced. Monsters' weaknesses and abilities. Their other hunting buddies. People she could trust.

Sam, Dean, and Cas trusted her immediately. They felt like they needed to. Like she was a person to rely on.

And there- over a cherry vanilla milkshake- (Y/n) watched her entire life change forever.

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[mittensmorgul]

Mittens, I know that some people are rejoicing over Castiel's vision in 12x19, but personally, I started crying when I realized that Cas gave up so much for love and faith in his family, and got teased with that vision of the future - a paradise he wanted for them, for himself - but never approximated that in the end. It's just so heartbreaking and I feel like I'm mourning him all over again and it just really sucks. Idk.

Hi hi!

The vision also hurts my heart, deeply, but maybe for slightly different reasons...

I have been suffering throughout the last few seasons over Cas's overall arc, and this vision, in that moment in 12.19, when Cas was literally (in text! from Dean's mouth!) desperate for a win, is just excruciating to me. And I'll tell you why.

in the mixtape scene, this was Cas's lament to Dean. He wanted to come back with a win FOR DEAN, and FOR HIMSELF. He wanted Dean to think of him as the "hero" or the "savior."

I will pause to ask here: since when has Dean ever wanted that? Ever since Cas gripped him tight and saved him from Hell, Cas has struggled to step out from that role of Protector. Shield.

This was the Big Mistake he made in s6, right? Everything that went wrong was framed around the fact that he was trying to "protect" Dean. This is why he bought into Crowley's plan, why he left Dean in the dark even after he got dragged back into the fight, and why everything ultimately ended with Cas's literal death. Like... the narrative judged him. In 6.20, all he was left with was Dean's disappointment, and a drive to prove that he was actually right (he was not actually right...).

Even in 12.19, he was "playing them" all along. He came back under the pretense of wanting to "rejoin the team" and work together with Sam and Dean again, but really he was only there to steal the Colt on behalf of Heaven. Cas was prepared to do whatever it took to keep Sam and Dean safe from Dagon, but also "safe" from having to kill an innocent woman to prevent the birth of the nephilim she carried.

Like in s6, Cas was desperate for that win. He was desperate to "earn" his place with the Winchesters, the family he chose. He even told Kelvin before they went in to confront Dagon that he wasn't doing this to redeem his "reputation" in Heaven, he only cared about "redeeming his reputation" with DEAN.

He has no idea that Dean does not give one flying fig about Cas's ability to "protect him," he just wants Cas to Be There With Him.

And later on, this is literally the lesson Cas attempts to impart to Jack. When Jack laments the loss of his power, and believes himself "useless," It's CAS who most effectively talks to him about the fact that nobody cares about his powers, that they don't care about what he can do FOR them. They just care about HIM. Like... even in 15.18. This is the conversation he has with Jack by the Impala while Sam and Dean are talking to Charlie:

Jack: I feel... strange. I don't know if that's because of what happened to me, if it means something, or if I just feel strange because... it's over. The plan. My destiny. I was ready to die and, I wanted to, for Sam, for Dean, for the world. I wanted to make things right, and now... I don't know why I'm even here.

Castiel: Jack. You never needed absolution from Sam, or Dean, or from me. We don't care about you because you're useful or you fit into some grand design. We care about you because you're you.

So like... for YEARS I've felt like this was what Dean needed to actually say TO CAS. That he doesn't want Cas to try to protect him. He doesn't need Cas to be his shield. He doesn't need Cas to be "powerful" or his savior. He just needs Cas.

So this vision... this "manipulation" that Jack showed Cas in that very moment in 12.19, that Cas believed was "paradise" at the time, was what Cas needed to hear in that moment. That he could be "powerful," with his wings healed and made "useful" again.

Dean thanking him.

Not Dean being happy that they're all safe, that they managed to finally "get a win," but specifically thanking HIM for actually winning.

He wanted to believe he could be useful again.

And to me that was a tragic, depressing lesson that he still never managed to understand for himself by the end of the series.

If Dean ever knew what the vision Cas had considered "paradise" in that moment of betrayal of his loved ones, I personally think Dean would've been horrified. I mean, he didn't even KNOW what the vision entailed, and was pre-horrified by his personal belief about how Cas had been manipulated into running away and leaving them all in the dark immediately after they'd all just gotten back on the same page again and recommitted to working together again.

So like... This is still DEEPLY in Cas's disturbing mindset of being 100% ready to sacrifice himself to "spare" Sam and especially Dean from having to do the hard things. This was nearly an identical mindset to when he'd said yes to Lucifer in the Cage in s11 because he believed he could spare Sam from having to do that himself. Like... he truly believed he was making Good Choices in these instances, and it ended up both times causing problems he'd never even considered. S11 had Lucifer using him and nearly killing Sam and Dean, and then going on a rampage that would last multiple seasons more which directly led to Jack in the first place. And then in the attempt to bring about Jack's birth, Cas cut off all communication with the Winchesters (theoretically to protect them) and therefore they had no way to warn him that Lucifer was still on the loose and closing in on reclaiming Jack himself. It literally ended up costing them Mary (pulled through the rift with Lucifer), Crowley sacrificed himself to stop it, and Lucifer killed Cas, all because Cas ran away and tried to fix everything on his own. He desperately wanted to be the winner, here.

So to me, I can't see him getting his wings back and being truly powerful and being "Dean's savior" and him basically thinking that Dean's acknowledgement of that salvation and Dean's gratitude was his idea of "paradise?" Yeah... it turns my stomach.

Dean... would hate it.

Dean's idea of paradise... is actual free will. Of them CHOOSING EACH OTHER, choosing family and standing shoulder to shoulder as a united front against the threats that come their way, instead of yet again making the same mistake of believing that they're sacrificing themselves to spare their loved ones from having to stand up and fight at all.

It NEVER works out that way. Never has. Never would.

I mean, this is why Cas made the deal with the Empty, trading away his own happiness for Jack, believing that Dean's happiness was in having JACK in the family. The tragic blind spot was his inability to see that Dean's happiness ALSO INVOLVED HAVING CAS THERE.

And the ultimate tragedy is that Dean never got a chance to actually say that to Cas.

Because if Cas had actually known that, he would never have made the choices he did.

Which is another reason I absolutely can't credit the end of 15.19 and Jack NOT bringing Cas back, knowing that he'd done it once before, and knowing WHY Cas sacrificed himself. Jack knew the conditions of Cas's deal, and I cannot believe that any version of JACK would have allowed that sacrifice to stand for HIM. Because it was the antithesis of everything Cas himself had ever taught to Jack.

Heck... I hope that makes sense...

basically, this should've been a jumping off point for Cas to ACTUALLY understand he was just as wanted, just as needed, just as cared for, and yes even LOVED, for who he was, and not the sacrifices he could make to protect Dean (and Sam, and Jack... but ultimately for Dean).

The fact he KNEW the moment he made that deal with the Empty that the knowledge of the details of that deal would be a "burden" to Dean, that it would be upsetting to Dean to know that Cas had literally traded away his own potential for true happiness because he thought that would be what Dean would prefer... he KNEW Dean would be upset about that. He knew Dean would NOT have wanted that, and swore Jack to secrecy about it. Like... he knew he had done the wrong thing here, or he wouldn't have hidden it from Dean.

So I have a really hard time thinking of this vision of Paradise (which is already a loaded word in itself in canon, and was literally what Dean spat out as an angry insult at Cas in 4.22 before his first true "tearing up the pages" and making it up as they go moment) as anything but a glaring warning sign.

And then oh look, Cas was literally killed for it four episodes later.

Then when he came back, he went right back to believing in his "purpose," wondering WHY he was brought back. Dean's "we needed you" wasn't really clear enough for Cas to understand that they didn't need him to "protect" them or to be "useful" to them. Dean just NEEDED him. Full stop.

It's a tragedy, folks.

#spn 12.19 #spn 12.23 #spn 11.10 #spn 14.08 #castiel winchester #heck it hurts so much he never actually got the chance to understand the lessons he taught to jack #and that once jack took on the god power apparently he forgot all those lessons too.... #basically chuck won right? right #spn 15.18

[misha-moose-dean-burger-lover]

for @bend-me-shape-me's spn advent calendar 2020. prompt: christmas curse.

"It could be worse." Sam repeats, and Cas nods.

A killing spree, loss of memory, hallucinations — take your pick. Relative to the scale of havoc they'd seen witches wreak in their day, this was mild. Harmless.

Funny.

"Dashing through the snow." Dean lets out morosely, as if in reluctant agreement, while Sam's restraint suffers a little more. That seems to annoy Dean further, and he glares at his brother. "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas!"

That's probably supposed to be a profanity, but Sam doubles over laughing.

Dean flips him off, and chooses to ignore Sam by turning to Cas with a look in his eyes tragic enough to invoke real compassion in the angel's heart. He wishes he could help, of course, but spells either wear off, or are reversed by the witch (arguably more often, the murder of the witch). And he knows Dean knows he can't help either, so a sympathetic nod has to suffice.

And in any case, even in all his billions of years, Cas has never seen a curse like this.

Dean can only speak in carols.

Trust the Winchesters to irk the most creative witches into hexing them with the most obscure curses for Christmas.

"On the first day of Christmas," Dean starts, voice questioning. Cas squints, paying even closer attention than usual — although, to be fair, conversations with Dean usually involve more focus on intonation than words, in regards to things he means and often doesn't say. "My true love sent to me?"

"A partridge in a pear tree." Sam completes immediately, looking extremely pleased with himself. In his defense, had their positions been swapped, Dean would almost certainly have been more obnoxious about it.

"I think," Cas interrupts, right before Dean could start to curse at Sam inevitably in another carol. "He means what do we do now?"

Dean nods, focus snapped back to Cas. "Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer!"

Cas narrows his eyes. "He's saying I'm right."

"What, you speak caroltongue now?" Sam blinks, surprised.

"No, Sam. I speak Dean." Cas answers sincerely, before turning his eyes to Dean again. "And I'm an angel. I may not be able to read minds anymore, but maybe it's enough for me to still translate for him."

"Here comes Santa Claus?"

"Yeah." Cas nods, earnest. And turning to Sam, "That was just a 'yeah?'"

Sam looks like he wants to say something but then he changes his mind. "Okay. Okay, fine. So Dean speaks in carols, and you translate. Cool. Now," he bites his lip, as if it pains him that they're inching closer to the end of this ordeal, and turns to Dean. "Who did this to you?" They'd been in the middle of taking down a coven.

"Make the Yule-tide gay."

"The greyhaired witch." Cas says, not missing a beat.

Sam looks like he might not be done laughing yet. "The one in the sequins dress who called you, and I quote, a choirboy Scrooge?"

"Joy to the World."

"Sam, he's calling you a bitch."

"Say, Cas, what's carolspeak for jerk?" Sam snickers, and Cas tilts his head because he'd only just specified he couldn't translate like that.

"Here comes Santa Claus." Dean grouses, crossing his arms on his chest.

"Yeah, again?" Sam looks at Cas.

"No, I believe this time it means go to hell." Cas tells him thoughtfully, and Sam rolls his eyes, leaving him wondering how the same phrase could mean such different things in this strange language, but then that certainly isn't the only thing not making sense right now, so he decides to let it go.

*

Hunting down the witch is easy enough, and they nab a chance to confront her after less than three hours of stakeout — where once, in between, they almost got caught because Sam couldn't stop laughing at Dean's remorseful "Santa Baby" when he spilled cheese on his shirt — but everything works out in the end, and Sam's made to swear he won't laugh, and Dean's made to promise that he won't call Sam names in disguised carols, and then they're off to take down Greta, the greyhaired witch.

(Dean nudges Cas to stay behind him when they're about to barge in. At least, he vaguely pieces together that that's what Dean meant to say.

"All I Want for Christmas is You." Is what he ends up saying though, slapping a hand over his mouth the moment the words have come out, flushing red.

Cas falters, and while he wouldn't have listened to Dean's (ridiculous) instruction anyway, he isn't even sure it registers.

"Get a room." Sam mutters eventually, either minutes or aeons later, and they're pulled back to reality with Dean snapping a, "Silent Night!" At Sam, vicious enough to not need Cas's participation to be understood.)

Ultimately, the witch is easy to deal with.

As expected, because Cas has finally learned to anticipate moral greyness in even the villains the Winchesters come up against, she asks for a pass to leave in return of returning Dean's speaking abilities, but she promises to not cause harm (just as she never has before, she swears, and Sam and Dean eye her suspiciously but finally believe her) and stay out of covens of the sort, and that's that.

Dean's vocabulary is restored, which he chooses to test by swearing under his breath, and sagging when it comes out as it should, instead of a verse from Twelve Days Of Christmas.

And since Cas agrees that "6 Geese a Laying" doesn't quite have the same impact as "Son of a bitch", he squeezes Dean's shoulder in reassurance when the latter sighs.

They're okay.

*

On their way back to the Impala, the church bells ring, reminding them of Christmas once more.

Cas turns to find Dean looking at him, a strange swell of emotions in his eyes, which he hasn't pieced together yet when Dean leans in to kiss him on the cheek.

It's just a brush of lips, chaste, almost traditional, but Cas can feel his face heating up uncharacteristically, and Dean's turning red again when he whispers, "Merry Christmas, Cas," so maybe there's more to it than it looks like, like with most things between them.

"Don't you mean," Sam grins, hands shoved in his pockets and eyes dancing. "We wish you a Merry Christmas?"

And just like that, Dean's snapping out of the almost-trance, and taking off after his brother with curses on his lips that finally don't come worded as carols anymore, although Sam laughs as gleefully as if they still are, easily keeping ahead of Dean to the latter's extreme annoyance, and Cas shakes his head, because they're ridiculous —

But they're his family.

And that means everything, he knows now, and knows that he wouldn't change any of it for the world, so it's a merry Christmas after all.

#spnadventcalendar2020 #this is based pre-jack by the way. season 11 or 12 ig? #christmas fluff #destiel #tfw #tfw fluff #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #cas pov #spn crack #destiel fluff #deancas #destiel fanfiction ft. third wheeling sam bc it's funnier that way <3 #day six #bluefirecas #tearsofgrace #rambleoncas #userpris #evermorecastiel

[wormstacheangel]

Day 2 of @spnprideweek and part 2 of sobrenatural fic

Dean ended up coming home a little sooner than he should have, but he didn’t want to lose the shower to Sam. He didn’t want to be sweaty and cochino for his not date with Cas.

Maybe he should have cooled it with the cumbia, making it too obvious that Dean was in a good mood because as soon as he was heading out the door—smelling great, he may add—su Tio called him over to the kitchen.

“¡Oye! ¿A dónde vas tan cambiado?” Tio Bobby was by the stove, smashing the beans for dinner, as he raised his eyebrows at Dean. Sam was standing by the sink peeling tomatillos as he cranes his neck to look over at Dean.

“Dude, what did you do? Break the damn cologne bottle?”

“Es mucho?” Dean lifted his arm to smell himself. “It’s fine!”

“¿Me vas a contestar?” Bobby threw in some whole chiles into the beans and let them simmer away. “¿Quieres que te hable en inglés? Where are you going, niño feo?”

“Estas siego, viejo!” Dean walked over to the small mirror that hung on the wall. You can barely see yourself in it because of the Jesus painting on it, but it still worked. “I’m just going out with some friends.”

“Mmm.” Bobby hummed in reply, going back to turn off the beans once they looked how he wanted it. “Llévate a tu hermano.”

“Tio!” Dean turns around, wide-eyed and heart racing. “I can’t take Sam!”

“I’ll go get my coat!” Sam rinsed off his sticky hands and started to walk out of the kitchen, but Dean grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him in close. Pinning him down against his chest, which was difficult considering the kid is a damn giant.

“You aren’t coming with,” Dean mutters to him before begging Bobby again. “Tio, I’ll take Sammy with me tomorrow! Nomas hoy no.”

“¿Y porque no?”

Dean looks between curious eyes, not knowing how to explain himself. He can’t say he’s going out with a friend cause then there would be no reason why Sam couldn’t tag along. But he didn’t want to come out to his Tio and brother now! Fuck that shit; he’ll just lie.

[continue reading under the tab or on ao3]

“I’m going to meet up with Cassie.” Technically true.

Bobby’s eyes widened, and Sam’s grin grew while he wiggled himself free from Dean’s grip. They both liked Cassie and were mad at Dean for breaking things up between them. However, it wasn’t tough when Cassie rarely gave him any attention, always busy with work and school. She had to know Dean was holding her back, so he broke it off. She was mad at him for a while but ultimately thanked him for doing something she didn’t have the courage to do. Rumors still spread, though, because of course, they do, about Dean cheating, but he didn’t care much about those.

Su Tio, though, cared a lot. Dean has to constantly remind him that Dean didn’t cheat on her, and he just broke it off cause Cassie was too smart for him.

Cas is probably too smart for him too.

“Okay, pues, have fun! Bring her home to say hi.” Bobby practically pushed him out the door with Sam happily towering behind him with the same annoying grin.

Dean wondered how disappointed they would be if they found out he was going out with a guy instead.

Dean drove to Cas’s house, waiting outside a few minutes before seven. He wasn’t sure what he should do. Does he honk the horn, or is that too rude? Should he park and get out of the car to knock? That seemed too much like a date thing. And he still wasn’t sure if this was a date or two not-strangers hanging out.

He stayed in the middle of the street, unsure of what to do until finally, the front door opened, and Cas stepped out with a jacked hanging on his arm. He stood outside and squinted at the car before tilting his body down to check if that was Dean.

Dean’s panic from before melted away while he nervously waved at Cas. He saw Cas’s eyes widen with a slow-growing grin before he practically ran over to Dean.

As soon as Cas opened the door, Dean felt so sure that there was nothing more right than having Cas sitting in his passenger side.

“You ready to go, Angelito?” Dean looked Cas over; he’s dressed in dark jeans and a grey long sleeve. He has never seen Cas in anything but that rumpled old suit. He never minded the suit, but now he wished he could burn it because all that suit did was hide Cas’s muscled body. Dean couldn’t stop the whistle that escaped his lips as he said, “Mira! You look good, Cas.”

The compliment was shocking to them both, for Dean especially. He awkwardly cleared his throat while trying to think of an excuse. Maybe even use the whole English as a second language excuse, but Cas quietly responded with a, “Thanks, Dean. You look pretty good yourself.”

And maybe those words broke him. He knew he was attractive but having Cas say that made his head spin.

“Your car is beautiful, by the way. I wasn’t sure if that was you in here.”

“Did you expect me to come in that bike?” Dean jokes before slowly driving away from the house, Los Angeles Azules playing softly on the radio did not make things any less awkward.

“I don’t know what I expected. I’m just glad you came, Dean.”

Dean stopped at the end of the block and turned towards the guy sitting beside him. Cas was already looking at him with puppy dog eyes and a beautiful, hopeful smile. His breath catches in his throat as his mind gets overwhelmed with wanting to reach out and touch Cas. Just to make sure the beautiful boy in his passenger seat was real and make sure que su corazon isn’t just playing games with him.

Instead, he tightened his hold on the steering wheel, fingers burning in protest, as he melts into Cas’s smile. Wanting to relax and just be with him for tonight, not caring que alguien lo va mirar. Enjoy this non-date that looks like it has the chance to become an actual one.

But is that what Dean actually wanted?

“Dean,” Cas reached over to gently touch his arm as if knowing that Dean’s mind had wandered off. He looked hesitant, as if not sure if he was allowed to. “Do you want to go eat? We can if you want.”

Dean looked down at the hand that was burning him through his clothes, knowing damn well that Cas was giving him the chance to make this into something more. Algo que se sentía que iba a ser cósmico en su vida. Y Dean quería eso en su vida.

“Yeah,” Dean answered both questions. His hand loosened on the wheel before he reached over to take Cas’s hand in his. Hearing Cas’s breath catch in a gasp, but he didn’t look up at him; instead, Dean twined their fingers together before letting them sit in the seat between them. Dean focused back on the road before turning left to his side of town. “I got the perfect place. Te va gustar! You’re not like vegan or anything, right?”

“No.” Dean turned to catch Cas looking at him still and knew they were both feeling the same excited electricity that clouded the car just by the giddiness in his voice. “Where are you taking me on our, oh um…Oh! primero! Primero date, Dean?”

Ahi esta! La confirmación que necesitaba. This is an actual date! Pero, las palabras no le dieron pánico. No. Instead, Dean squeezed Cas’s hand as he laughed, feeling like he would just fly away if he didn’t hold on.

“You passed high school Spanish, Cas?”

“I did, but google translate did most of the work.”

When Dean parked outside the familiar food truck, he squeezed Cas’s hand once before they got out. They walked together, bumping shoulders while their hands stayed buried in their pockets. Cas didn’t question their lack of touch; instead, he smiled up at Dean as he listened to him rave about his friend Victor’s food.

“Not as good as mine, but it’s good,” Dean adds as they make it to the front of the window, where Victor can hear him.

“Cabron!” Victor said with no fire in his tone but a growing grin across his face. He held his hand out for Dean to take for a handshake. “Nice to see you, primo. Where’s Sam?”

“Lo deje en la casa!” When Dean took a step back, he put his arm around Cas’s shoulder to squeeze him close. “Pero, I brought a new customer.”

“Hi.” Cas looked a little shaken up, and Dean just wanted to lean closer to leave a kiss on his cheek, but he restrained. No necesita mas chisme circling around about him. “I’m Cas.”

“Victor.” Victor raised an eyebrow at him but reached over to shake Cas’s hand in response. “What can I get you and the pendejo around you?”

“Oh. Dean isn’t-” Cas frowned over at Dean, but Dean just shook his head, letting him know that it was okay. Cas squinted at him before he gave a small smile, not understanding but accepting. “You order for me?”

“Sure, Angelito. Anything you don’t like?”

“As long as it’s not so spicy, I don’t mind anything.”

Cas stayed stiff under Dean’s arm as they ordered and waited for their food. Eventually, Dean couldn’t help himself; the street light and the neon sign were the only things keeping this place lit, but it was still pretty dark, so he turned his face to press his nose against Cas’s temple.

“¿Qué pasa, Angelito? What’s wrong?”

“Dean.” Cas sounded shocked as he started to move back, but Dean held him a little tighter. “Someone is gonna see you.”

“Que miran. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

Cas sighed but relaxed back into Dean. “I just didn’t like him calling you that. You aren’t stupid, Dean.” Dean chuckled, and Cas turned to look at him, glaring. “I don’t see how this is funny.”

“Ay, mi Angelito, he didn’t say it in a mean way. It’s just the way we talk to each other. He’s my friend.”

Cas blinked at him a few times before he fell back against Dean, his arms crossed over his chest. “Well, I don’t like it.”

“Trust me, Cas, it’s fine. Quedate conmigo long enough, and you’ll be calling me the same thing.”

Cas didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and Dean wondered if he said the wrong thing again, but then Cas clicked his tongue before turning to Dean. “I don’t know what…um, that word you said means. Que..que-?”

“Quedate?” Cas nodded, looking back at Dean, waiting for him to explain. It brought warmth to Dean’s chest, knowing he’ll have to repeat it in English when before it came out as a joke. He swallowed hard as he looked back at those baby blues. The words barely came out in a quiet whisper, “Quedate. Stay. Conmigo. With me. I said, stay with me.”

“Oh.” Cas looked down at Dean’s lips as he talked. “I can-I can do that.”

Dean hummed a response as his eyes traveled down to Cas’s tongue poking out to lick at his lips. His heart was hammering in his chest until it came to a stop when he heard, “Dean! Oye, cabron! I ain’t calling your name again!”

They pulled apart, and Dean jogged over alone to grab their bag of food. Dean decided to get a few of his favorites and drinks.

“Victor,” Dean called his friend over again. “No le digas a nadie que estaba aquí. Okay? Or I’m gonna steal all your customers otra vez.”

Victor’s eyes traveled from Dean to Cas, who was waiting where Dean left him looking angelic under the streetlamp, before falling back to Dean. He wondered what could be going through Victor’s mind right that moment, but then he heard his friend let out a heavy sigh.

“Whatever you say, primo.”

“Thanks. Call me tomorrow, and I’ll work for you this weekend!” Dean starts walking backward, back to Cas.

“Shit! Really? ¡No juegues conmigo, Dean!”

“Llámame mañana!”

Dean makes it back to Cas, who automatically reaches for the drinks to help, and motions for him to walk back to the car.

“Come on. I wanna take you somewhere else.”

Dean drove them somewhere nicer, more private, but still a parking lot.

As soon as Dean parks the car, he opens his door, “Come on; we can sit on the hood. You might wanna put that jacket on.”

Cas looks excited when he opens the car door and walks out into the parking lot that faces the beach. “Dean! Won’t we get a ticket?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just bring the drinks.”

They sat on the hood of the impala, eating and talking, as the sounds of the waves crashing to the shore mixed with la musica norteña coming from inside the car. Dean soon finds out that Cas doesn’t know how to dance, so he puts on one of his favorite mixtapes, and cumbia plays loudly through the speaker.

They danced in front of the headlights, if you can call it dancing. They always ended up bursting into fits of laughter as they fell into each other because Cas did have two left feet. Eventually, Dean just took Cas from around the waist, and they just spun around in circles.

Feeling Cas wrap his arms around Dean’s neck to hold him as their grins were so close together made Dean’s heart leap. Eventually, Cas’s forehead fell against Dean’s, and the dancing slowed to a nice sway even though the beat was only getting quicker.

“Cas?” He answered Dean with a soft hum. “Me estas gustando mas cada segundo.”

“I don’t know-”

“I like you.” Dean’s eyes closed as he leaned in to brush their noses together. “Mi Angelito.”

Dean never thought he would be here in this situation with a guy, but he has never wanted anything more in his life. Feeling strong hands run through his hair as a strong and firm body pressed against him. He loved the intoxicating smell of Cas’s woodsy shampoo that he would have never smelled on a girl. The stubble of beard rubbed against his chin as Cas turned his head until finally, fucking finally, he had those pink lips on his.

He should be scared. Esto no es algo que debería hacer con El pinche Sonidito playing in the background. He shouldn’t have one hand behind Cas’s neck to deepen the kiss, and his toes shouldn’t curl up when he feels Cas’s heavy sigh inside his mouth. He shouldn’t become so quickly addicted to Cas’s hands reaching under Dean’s shirt to press firmly at his back, feeling the familiar slight burn become a damn forest fire in him.

Esto no es algo que debería querer. Cas no es alguien que debería querer pero aqui esta. Queriendo a nadie más pero a Cas. Cas. Cas.

Cas pulled away just enough only to have their noses touching, their breaths still mixing, as he whispered. “I like you too, Dean.”

And yeah. That was it. That was all it took.

Las cadenas del maldito miedo that held him back from even thinking of wanting Cas this way, se rompieron. Dean ya pertenece completamente a Cas.

Cas grinned as he looked back at Dean, his hand reaching to cradle his face gently. His thumb was caressing Dean’s freckles on his cheek before he happily announced. “¡Me gustas mucho!”

Dean laughed, his arms reaching down to wrap around Cas’s waist and spin him around. Both of them laughing as they continued dancing and kissing until it was late enough that they had to go home.

#inspo from a real date of mine! #instead of the beach we went to a lake and we had to leave early cause i thought I was gonna die #being in mexico and around water just makes me think of the llorona and i get scared so sue me #but this is much better #destiel #deancas #fic #destiel fluff #destiel fic #destiel fanfic #latinenatural #sobrenatural #wormstachewrites #my writing #spnprideweek #also yes i know im late for day two but life has been a mess

[bourbonbees]

Suptober Day 16- Delightful D-Bags

Meatballs and Mishaps

Summary: Dean Winchester is a delight, delightful douchebag, one that somehow gets roped into making the trip to IKEA. Cas is thrilled to finally bring his dreams of making the bunker homey to life. Jack gets what he wants and what he wants is an insane amount of food and maybe a ginormous teddy bear. Sam and Eileen just need them to pick up the crib they ordered. Will Dean and Cas pass the ultimate relationship test of assembling IKEA furniture?

This fic is technically a continuation of my story from Day 15, Patience and Pie, but it also stands on it's own. I hope you enjoy this pure indulgent domestic fluff!

Read on Ao3 or below the cut

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34544641

“Heya Cas, it’s your lucky day!” Dean announces as Cas makes his way into the kitchen in the bunker, still wearing his pajamas, a matching blue and grey striped set Dean bought him. He purchased the set after Cas kept stealing his pajamas. It’s not that he doesn’t like seeing them on him, it’s just he’s kinda attached to his hot dog pants.

“Is it? You didn’t find another rabbit’s foot, did you? As I recall from your stories, the last time you did it went very poorly for you and Sam. Sam still talks about losing that shoe.” Cas frowns, grabbing a mug and pouring himself some coffee. It’s a cute habit that endears Dean impossibly further to the angel. He doesn’t have to sleep or drink coffee, but he does, he does it because Dean does and he enjoys the simple ritual. He loves that they share a routine, it’s all very domestic.

“For the record, those shoes were fugly. The damn thing did him a favor. But no, no rabbit’s foot.” Dean chuckles, kissing Cas on the cheek and handing him the coffee creamer that he insists on adding. It’s too sweet for Dean, but he supposes maybe angels love corn syrup on the account that Jack pretty much exclusively lives on candy and cookie crunch.

“Then what is it? Are you proposing?” Cas asks with chuckle, causing Dean to immediately go as white as a sheet. Dean has considered it, many times, but he still can’t seem to wrap his head around how or when to do it. Mostly, he’s scared shitless of the idea of that level of commitment. Cas lets him suffer for a few more moments before breaking the silence. “I’m kidding Dean.” He says fondly, giving his hip a squeeze.

“I-uh, it’s not that I don’t, I mean, I do. Yeah-not today.” Dean fumbles, looking down at his slippers. “Good work douchebag, you’re breaking his heart before 9:00 AM,” he thinks to himself. He hopes this isn’t one of those moments Cas can hear his thoughts.

“Hey, Dean, I don’t need that. I don’t need a proposal, a marriage, or even a wedding. To be alive, to be with you, with Jack, and safe. That is enough.” They have this conversation every few weeks, always ending the same way. Dean wishes he could find the words to tell Cas that he’s wrong, that Dean wants so much more. He wants to marry him in theory, it’s just fucking hard in practice. Instead, today, he settles for giving him firm kiss on the lips.

“I love you.” Dean smiles, looking into his eyes for a beat before stepping back. “So, as I was saying, it’s your lucky day because Sam and Eileen ordered a crib from Ikea and it costs a fortune to ship. So, you and I get to go pick it up. Time to finally stop looking at those catalogues and start making this place homey.” He adds, pushing over the Ikea catalogue he found under their bed. Cas has circled the things he likes, little notes written in blue pen about what room he would put it in.

“Really?” Cas says excitedly, holding the catalogue to his chest.

“Really. So, drink up. I’ll go wrangle the kid. I swear, he’d sleep through the next apocalypse if we let him.” Dean is used to this routine, he is always the one to drag Jack out of bed since he is eager to please Dean and will do anything he asks. Cas learns the hard way that Jack has no interest in listening to him. The kid goes as far as freaking banishing him with angel warding one time when Cas dares to wake him before noon.

“I sincerely hope to never see another apocalypse.” Cas says with furrowed brows, sipping his coffee, his hair adorably ruffled.

“Me too, babe. Me too.” Dean nods, rubbing Cas’ back and kissing his temple before going to fetch Jack.

Jack takes some convincing to wake up, its only after Dean promises him he’ll buy him one of those sugary Frappuccino things from Starbucks on the way, that Jack even stirs. “What’s an Ikea anyway?” Jack asks as he stumbles out of bed.

“It’s a store, it’s European, they sell cheap furniture. I don’t really know kid, but your dad is excited about it. Besides, this is a special trip. Sam and Eileen need us to pick up the crib they ordered. So, you’ll be helping them out.” Dean knows that the baby is Jack’s weak spot, he’s been talking non-stop to anyone who would listen about how he was going to be an uncle. Dean doesn’t have the heart to explain that he’s actually going to be a cousin.

“Oh well, then I’ll be ready quick!” Jack nods dutifully, waving Dean out of his room.

Dean rejoins Cas in the kitchen, using the quiet moment alone to steal some more kisses, he likes kissing Cas, he’s pretty good at it too. Once Cas is sufficiently flustered, his lips swollen, and his cheeks red, Dean sends him off to get dressed, gently patting his ass as he walked away.

“You’re the worst.” Cas groans, looking over his shoulder at Dean longingly.

“Really I would say I’m delightful.” Dean shrugs, turning to put their mugs into the sink.

“A delightful douchebag.” Cas chuckles, turning the corner into the hallway.

“Where did you learn that word-wait, you were listening to my thoughts before! Ass! I’ll get you for that later!” Dean shouts after Cas, shaking his head as he washes the mugs.

“I wish you would.” Cas replies, making Dean regret that they had to go anywhere that wasn’t their bedroom. He clears his throat and closes his eyes for a moment, trying to clear his mind of any ideas that did not include getting through this shopping trip.

Jack gets to the kitchen first, sitting down at the table and finishing a bowl of cookie crunch in record time. Dean is both slightly proud and horrified. “Nuh-uh, not so fast, you wash your own dishes. Yeah? I’m not Mrs. Butters.” Dean chastises when Jack tries to sneak away without washing his dishes.

“Ugh, fine.” Jack groans, rolling his eyes at Dean. Sometimes Dean wonders if he would have been like Jack, if he was able to have a normal childhood. He’s happy he can at least give Jack the opportunity to be a teenager, to be annoyed with his parents and rebel a little now and then.

Cas arrives shortly after that, dressed in an old pair of Dean’s jeans and a soft blue sweater that Eileen had bought for him last Christmas. “Hey, you’re going to blend right in. You look like a suburban dad, like you’re ready for a school bake sale or something.” Dean teases, giving him a hug.

“I am a dad. You know that.” Cas groans, rolling his eyes at Dean, resting his chin on his shoulder.

“Not you too. Both of you and that eye roll.” Dean complains. “We’re going to need your truck today. Can you drive?” He asks Cas, already handing him the keys.

“Yeah, seems you’ve already decided. I’m honored though, you never let anyone else drive.” Cas points out with a raised brow, leading the way to the garage.

“Well since you’re my guardian angel and all that, I figure I’m safe with you.” Dean shrugs, Jack following along behind him, carrying Cas’ catalogue.

“More like the one that gripped you tight and,” Cas begins, Dean and Jack both saying “and raised you from perdition” in unison with him.

“I know and you never let me forget. Pain in my ass.” Dean nods, getting into the truck after Jack squeezes into the middle of the seat.

“I do like your ass. Though I never wish to cause it pain.” Cas responds, taking things literally as always, much to Dean’s chagrin.

“Gross, as Claire would say, TMI.” Jack interjects, turning on the radio and grinning widely when Taylor Swift started playing.

“No, no, not today.” Dean mumbles, facepalming as both Cas and Jack sing along, terribly out of tune. He reaches to turn the knob on the radio and Cas gently smacks his hand away.

“Driver picks the tunes, shotgun shuts his cake hole.” Cas smirks, screw him, using Dean’s own line against him. He leans back against the seat with his arms crossed and tries to resist smiling when Jack gets the words completely wrong. This is his life, he thinks, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything, Taylor Swift sing-a-longs and all.

The rest of the drive, Dean is treated to several rousing performances of pop diva songs. He is especially intrigued when Cas somehow knows all of the words to Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts.” Something about an angel of the lord referring to himself as a “bad bitch” just really amuses him. It’s also kind of adorable, he’ll never admit that though, not even under the threat of death.

“What the fuck! You didn’t warn me that this place is huge!” Dean says with wide eyes when they finally park outside Ikea, the massive blue and yellow building causing him to have a slight internal panic.

“Jar! Well, suppose the jar isn’t here. But jar!” Jack calls out, Dean begrudgingly handing Jack a dollar bill which he takes and folds neatly before putting it into his pocket.

“Dollar well spent. Where the hell are we?” Dean mumbles as he gets out of the truck and follows as Cas and Jack make their way toward the store.

Once they’re inside, Dean looks around for any sort of sign that might direct them to where they would pick up the crib. They follow a bunch of yellow arrows on the floor for a good twenty minutes before he realizes he’s passed something called a “Malm” twice. “Who named this stuff, the Swedish Chef?” Dean muses as he looks at another tag proclaiming a basic white table was called a “Meltorp.”

“You’re half right, Ikea is Swedish. They’ve got the balls to prove it.” Cas says, pointing to a sign outside the café proclaiming they had a sale on Swedish meatballs.

“There’s a better way to phrase that.” Dean laughs, blushing a bit as a couple stops and gives Cas a dirty look.

“Meat in ball form? I have to try that!” Jack says excitedly, pulling Dean by the sleeve of his flannel toward the café.

“Easy kid, you just ate half of your weight in cookie crunch. How are you still hungry?” Dean says with wide eyes as he allows Jack to pull him along.

“This coming from the meat man?” Cas smirks, already pulling out his wallet as Jack looks over the menu.

“You can’t say stuff like that in public.” Dean blanches, as a mother sitting at a table with her son, gives them a curious look.

“What am I turning you on?” Cas whispers in Dean’s ear, making him swallow hard and chuckle nervously.

“No, the opposite.” Dean’s voice cracks. Damn it, play it cool Winchester, he tells himself as he watches Jack order a large tray of food.

“I can feel your longing, like a prayer. Don’t lie to me.” Cas winks, bumping his hip against Dean’s and then stepping forward to pay for Jack’s food. “Want any balls?” He offers Dean.

“Come on man.” Dean mutters, shaking his head at Cas and walking away before he could embarrass him further. He finds Jack, already seated at table and holding a whole meatball on his fork and eating it in one bite.

“Jesus kid, make sure you chew. You’re not a snake.” Dean reminds him, remembering the brief stint when Jack kept a pet snake and asked him slew of snake related questions. Dean hates snakes, in retrospect, he’s thankful the kid Thanos snapped the creepy crawly.

“These are good, the Swedish understand me. Look they gave me jelly! See, sugar does belong on savory foods.” Jack smiles proudly, continuing to eat his food.

“Here darling, I got you some coffee, black, just how you like it. Thought you might need more caffeine to make it through today.” Cas says as he deposits a cup of coffee in front of Dean. Okay maybe he will keep Cas, even if he loves embarrassing him in public.

They sit for a while, Cas and Dean looking over the catalogue he brought with, while Jack finishes his food. They decide to check out the furniture once they’re up and moving again. Cas actually succeeds in finding the sofas, they stop and sit on a black sectional, trying it out.

“All I’m saying is, I’ve been to purgatory and this store might somehow be worse than that.” Dean groans as he puts his feet up on the chaise.

“Dean, no shoes on the sofa!” Cas corrects, swatting at his thigh with the rolled-up catalogue.

“Sheesh, okay, okay.” Dean mutters, shifting his weight to test the comfort of the cushions.

“This is nice, I like this. It’s perfect for movie nights in the Dean Cave. I think we should buy it.” Jack decides, picking up a fake apple from a bowl on the coffee table in the mock living room and tossing it up and down.

“Put that down.” Cas scolds, catching the fake fruit with cat like reflexes and putting it back. “This is nice though. I agree, I’m going to add it to the list.” He hums, pulling out a little sheet of paper and a tiny pencil. “Jack read me the number on the tag.” He commands.

“I guess we’re getting a couch.” Dean muses, satisfied with the idea. The current couch they have is second hand and it is a little lumpy. He’s a man of simple pleasures, one of them being comfy furniture, especially the kind that fits his whole family.

They walk around some more after that, Cas finding a cart and filling it with throw pillows, new bedding, lamps, and other various decorative items that Dean doesn’t pretend to understand. They eventually find themselves in the kid’s section, that’s when Jack spots it, a comically large teddy bear. He rushes right over to the damn thing and picks it up, hugging it around the middle.

“Christ, that thing is almost as big as you are!” Dean fish mouths as Jack walks over to them.

“I want it! Can I have it?” Jack says with wide doe eyes, directing them at Cas since he knew he was most susceptible to emotional manipulation.

“Jack, if we buy that bear, either you or the bear will have to ride in the bed of the truck.” Cas says fondly, shaking his head at his son.

“I must have this bear, if you don’t buy it, I will smite you. You know I can.” Jack says teasingly, smiling as he knew he was winning when Cas sighs heavily and gestures for him to put the bear into the cart.

“You’re spoiled, you know.” Dean laughs, patting Jack on the shoulder.

“So are you, dad always gives you whatever you want. He bought you those expensive cowboy boots. I haven’t forgotten.” Jack smirks, looking back at Cas.

“I just want you both to be happy, giving gifts is one of my love languages.” Cas explains, earning a peck from Dean.

They finish up their shopping uneventfully, going to the ground level to collect their couch, pay for their things, and finally pick up the crib for Sam and Eileen. They struggle to pack it all into Cas’ truck, the bear ends up strapped to the couch, much to Jack’s amusement.

“Well, looks like you had a successful trip.” Sam laughs when they pull up to his house and meet him in the driveway. “Thanks for picking up the crib for us. Eileen is on strict bed rest for a while, I didn’t want to leave her.” He says softly, leading them all into his house.

“No problem, anything for my nephew!” Jack beams, helping Cas carry the box with the crib parts into the nursery.

“He’s not your,” Sam starts, about to correct Jack. Dean simply shakes his head at Sam who nods in understanding. “Thank you, you’re a good uncle, Jack.” He says genuinely, quickly turning when he hears Eileen step into the hall. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be in bed!” He signs.

“I heard you all talking, I wanted to say hi.” Eileen smiles, leaning against the doorframe until Sam makes his way over to her, wrapping an arm around her protectively.

“Hey! You look tired.” Cas is unyieldingly honest as ever, making Eileen laugh and then groan, clutching at her back.

“I am tired, but happy. Thanks Cas.” Eileen nods, Sam looking her over in concern.

“Okay back to bed with you. I’ll get them set up and come back. I can rub your feet.” Sam offers, Eileen easily accepting and letting him lead her back to bed.

Dean watches them and gives a quiet “aww,” happy to see that his brother finally has his apple pie life that he’s always dreamed of.

Sam gives them all the tools they need, and further thanks, before leaving Cas, Dean, and Jack to set up the crib. Well mostly Dean and Cas, as Jack busies himself organizing all the toys and then sitting and reading the children’s books on the shelf.

“I don’t understand! How are these men smiling? This is not fun!” Cas grits through his teeth about an hour later as he struggles to find the panel that is allegedly labeled with a ‘g.’ “I can read Enochian, Latin, ancient Greek, but this, this is ridiculous!” He gives up, sitting on the floor.

“Give it to me.” Dean sighs, taking the instructions and following them with ease.

“How did you do that?” Cas muses when Dean has the crib finished fifteen minutes later.

“Good with my hands.” Dean winks.

“Ew, no. Stop.” Jack gags, sending Dean an annoyed look.

“Whatever kid, you got your bear, don’t complain.” Dean points out, tossing the instruction booklet at his head.

They spend some time with Sam after that, drinking beer, and talking about his baby to be, until Eileen texts him from their room, asking him to bring her ice cream. They excuse themselves after that and return to the bunker. Dean and Jack bring in the couch and Cas busies himself decorating with all his purchases. Later in the evening they all cozy up on the new couch, Jack’s teddy bear included.

“Well guess this is the real deal.” Dean mumbles once Jack was fully engrossed in the movie.

“What do you mean?” Cas asks, head tipped to the side.

“Well Eileen told me, before we went to the store, the true test of a relationship is if you can handle a trip to Ikea and assembling the furniture after. So, you and me, real deal.” Dean chuckles, holding Cas’ hand under their new fuzzy throw blanket.

“Real deal.” Cas agrees leaning in and kissing Dean lovingly.

#suptober21 #destiel #saileen #destiel fic #saileen fic

[impala-in-gotham]

This Destiel/finale fix-it ficlet I wrote...

This is my first attempt at writing fic so be gentle haha but I had a dream close to this and kinda tweaked it from there but it’s basically a finale fix-it in which I’ve decided Dean’s still alive. He lost consciousness a few sentences into his speech and imagined the rest, which is what we saw. There’s just too much about “heaven” that has been used before as a façade. So here goes…

“Okay. P-Please. I'm fading pretty quick, so...there's a few things that I-...” before he can even start the next words Dean’s head lolls to the side and his eyes fall closed.

Sam feels like everything is moving in slow motion as the nightmare of losing his brother plays out in front of his eyes.

“Dean??”

Sam holds Dean in place the best he can and his dread drains away slightly as he hears Dean’s shallow breaths despite his sudden loss of consciousness.

Sam's thoughts start racing, time-induced panic ticking away. Nothing they haven’t dealt with before but this isn’t Chuck’s tale of heroes anymore. It’s just them now.

"Shit, shit, shit...the nearest hospital is still too far...I can't...there's too many bodies to even try to explain...I can't even let Dean go to hide them...shit. Shit...Jack!"

"Hang on, Dean. Just hang on as long as you can. I'll fix this."

Sam prays loudly into the empty barn, "Jack?? Jack, I know you can see this, I hope you can do something, please. It can't end like this. It wasn't supposed to end like this. Not after everything we've been through, everything Dean's survived, he doesn't deserve this. You know he doesn't. Please, Jack. He's not gone yet, he can still be saved. I'm not asking for resurrection here, just...just heal him, please, he deserves to be saved."

As if on cue, the barn roof starts to rattle, a few bulbs burst overhead and Cas walks through the barn doors, rushing to their side while Sam's eyes widen in shock.

"Cas?!? but...", Sam stammers out with only a little bit of shock and a lot more relief.

Cas darts his eyes straight at him and it feels like he's looking straight at his soul.

"Sam, I need you to hold him steady, I'll start healing, but I need you to slowly pull him forward as I heal, alright?... Sam?!...Ok?!"

"Yeah...Yes...Ok, I'm ready.", Sam’s words stumble out as he refocuses onto Dean's weight in his arms.

The familiar golden glow pours from Cas steadier than it did the last time Sam watched him heal Dean's hand. So easily that Sam is holding all of Dean's weight mere seconds later. Cas helps him lay Dean down. Dean's breathing has evened out, but his face is still clammy and pale.

Cas holds Dean's head in his lap for a few moments, as he pulls off his trench coat and folds it up as a makeshift pillow, easing his head onto it. The care and intimacy of the moment, it feels like Sam needs to look away, but then Cas stands and looks up at the relief and tears on Sam's face.

"He'll be alright, Sam. He lost a fair amount of blood so he just nee-".

Sam practically slams his entire body into Cas as he crushes him into a hug, "Cas, I can't believe you're here. Of course, you're here. You saved him. You always save him. Thank you, Cas. I didn't know what to do. Jack said he'd be hands-off but it's Dean."

"Of course. Jack sent me as soon as he heard you. We’re lucky we made it in time.", Cas looks around at the lifeless bodies and their lost heads strewn about, "I'll help you clean this up but first, I'll get those boys home."

As Sam piles up the bodies a familiar but long since heard sound of wings flutter near Dean and Cas is back. He's looking down at Dean with such adoration but with his matter-of-fact tone states, "They're back with their mother, who was thankful to you both...and to have her tongue healed back. I took the liberty of altering their memories. They shouldn't have to live with that trauma." His eyes still lost to watching Dean’s chest rise and fall.

"You got your wings back," Sam says without realizing he thought it aloud.

Cas smiles coyly and looks back at Sam, visibly spreading them out, while Sam watches in awe as their shadows encompass the barn behind him. "Along with a few other powers I've missed now that Jack has restored heaven to what it should be."

Sam sighs, "Yeah, about that..."

While cleaning up the barn, Sam and Cas catch each other up on what happened since they last saw each other. Sam talks about defeating Chuck, Jack bringing everyone back, and how mundane the past months of freedom have been. Cas tells Sam how Jack rescued him from the Empty as well as other angels like Michael (with Adam), Gabriel, Hannah, Samandriel, and Balthazar to name a few.

Sam throws his lighter into the pile of vamps and looks over at Cas, "It's great to have you back, Cas. Dean didn't...well more like couldn't I guess. He couldn't talk about you much after... all he told us was you made a deal and you summoned the Empty to save him from Billie...but after that, he could barely say your name. Didn't stop him from asking Chuck to bring you back", he says with a small smirk, then presses his lips together and sighs, "but it was like a part of him had shut down or just broke. He wouldn't tell me and if you don't want to, I won't push it but you're my best friend, Cas and I...I still don’t know...Can you tell me what happened?"

Cas looks into Sam's puppy dog eyes, now glistening either from the fire or the topic, and then over at Dean still peacefully asleep a few feet away. He reaches out his grace and maybe Dean's soul recognizes it because he is sleeping soundly as if he hasn't in months. Cas guesses that's probably true. Contemplating how much of the story is his to tell and how much Dean would allow him to say since Sam and Cas both know it's not that he won't, he can't.

Cas reaches out and squeezes Sam's shoulder. "I'm sorry for any pain I caused you, I didn't have a choice. I knew it was the only way to beat Chuck. That only you and Dean could find a way. I made the deal to save Jack when he was dying, the Shadow agreed to take me instead but not until I had experienced true happiness. With Chuck in charge, any happiness seemed impossible, but I thought proving to Dean that he is worth saving, that all he's ever done was driven by love, not anger, prove to him why I love him." His voice betrays him by cracking on the last words. Still new to his mouth and his ears.

Cas searches Sam's face for any sort of shock or surprise but finds none. Instead, there’s a kind understanding that only Sam would have.

Sam sighs and says, "That's why." he continues as Cas' head tilts, "When we faced Chuck, he called Dean the ultimate killer but Dean just walked past him, no anger or malice, and just said 'that's not who I am'. It was because of you. He must have finally started to see himself the way you see him. How we all see him."

Cas brightens at that, looking back over at Dean, "Then it worked. The only thing I ever wanted was for Dean to love himself. I didn't ever think I'd be enough. That how I feel about him was enough after everything...after every time I tried to prove it. It was never enough before."

Sam smiles warmly, "You were enough, Cas. I've been trying almost our whole lives to get Dean to believe he wasn't a killer, that his life was worth more. I think we all tried, but you got through to him. He tried so hard after you...he tried but I could tell he was forcing it. Tonight, before you got here, it sounded like he'd given up. It sounded like the last time we lost you.” Sam shakes his head, trying to push away the image of Dean plunging a syringe into his heart, “Cas…every time we lost you it's been hard. For me too, but for Dean... it's different, each time it was different. He’d close himself off. He’d lose all faith. He’d give up. He’d want to die. I think...I think that he loves you more than he lets on. He's better when you're back. He's only happy when you're back."

Cas looks back over at Sam, a trace of a smile, "I know. I always felt it, just... well", he huffs, "We both know he's not one for words. But I know how he feels. I think his fear was more so in having something to lose. We’ve lost each other too many times."

The fire is dying down with the bodies not quite recognizable. Sam collects their gear into Baby's trunk. Cas walks out of the barn carrying Dean as if he's as light as a feather. Sam offers to drive Baby back to the bunker if Cas wants to fly Dean back instead. Cas nods and another flutter of wings echoes in the space left behind. Sam climbs into Baby, places his hands tightly on the wheel, closes his eyes, and prays to Jack.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few hours later, Dean wakes up. He slowly realizes he's back in the bunker, he's in his room, there's no pain in his back, and his hand is being held. He looks over to meet gleaming blue eyes he thought he’d never see again and can barely get anything out. “Cas... but how... you...?” and just pulls him into an awkwardly angled hug but holds on so tightly. It's just them. He doesn't have a time limit.

Dean feels as Cas inhales to explain but Dean cuts him off with “It doesn’t matter how. Is this real? Are you really back? For good."

Cas smiles as if his true happiness reaches a new level and simply says, “Hello, Dean." tightening his embrace, "Yes, Jack brought me back-- new and improved”.

Dean holds him and breathes in that familiar ozone smell, feels the pulse of grace within him stronger than before, something only he seems to be able to feel. "I thought I lost you forever. I thought you...wait," he pulls back to look at Cas again, "Didn't I die? I was in heaven, but it felt...wrong, you were there but you didn't come to see me, Bobby was there but he didn't even hug me after... what? 8 years?! No one else showed up. I just drove to a bridge…Tell me you didn't make a deal or -" his face freezes and his entire body goes tense, "Where's Sam?"

"No, you didn't die. Sam prayed to Jack and I came straight to you. You're healed but the blood loss left you pretty lethargic; though, I think that was your own exhaustion. Sam’s fine, he took the Impala. Should be here soon. You’re safe, it was just a dream. Those boys are back with their mother. I healed her. Altered their memories. Everyone's safe now. Sam told me everything that happened since...I...," a brief sadness flashes in his eyes before he brightens and smiles at Dean, "I knew you would save the world."

“I’ve been trying to find a way into the Empty for months, Cas. I…I read everything I could find but there was barely anything. I tried to use your blood from the sigil to summon you like what Nick tried to do but I guess I didn’t get the ingredients right or I don’t know…nothing worked. Jack never answered any of my prayers but I kept asking him to bring you back. I tried--…”

“Dean.” The tone over that one syllable calmed Dean the same way only Cas has always managed to be able to do.

Cas continued, “I’m back. Jack only recently was able to get me back but he heard your prayers. It took a lot of time and bargaining to get me and as many angels as we could save back out. The Shadow’s asleep again. I’m back and I’m not going anywhere. This is my home. I’m home.”

Dean sits processing this. Shaking off the fake heaven and submerging himself in Cas being alive and here. Now. In his grasp. He doesn't know how he gets to have a second...or seventh? chance but all that matters is everyone he loves, everyone he cares about is safe.

Dean meets Cas’s eyes and stares into the bright, deep blue he's fallen in love with so many times, eyes that have seen every part of who he is, good and bad, and says, “I love you too, Cas.”

Cas smiles very much like he did before the Empty was summoned but without tears because the one thing he wants is right in front of him. Looking at him like he is the most important being in every possible alternate universe. Still so beautiful.

Dean's eyes drift to Cas's lips as they have many times before, asking the same question Cas has yet to answer. Cas places a hand behind the base of Dean's neck, his fingers warm and strong as they pull Dean closer. Finally, their lips come together and it feels like no other kiss either of them has ever had. It feels like swirling grace entangling into his soul; it feels like being healed. It feels like every jagged piece of each other is clicking into place, completing and filling what was empty and longing before. It feels like being saved.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam parks in the garage and leaves everything as-is to deal with later. He heads down the hallway to check on Dean when suddenly the overhead lights flicker but before he can run for iron or salt, the bulbs burst. First the one over Dean's door, then a few more heading his direction, then nothing. Sam relaxes and sighs deeply, “Finally!”

#spn finale fix it #my first fic #i tried #I think they know how they both feel #i think theyve known for a long time #cas gets his true happy ending #dean gets to live his life #sam doesnt lose everyone he cares about #happy endings all around #the spn famdom deserved better #maybe something like this #destiel was endgame #destiel #casdean #deancas #and then they kiss #i prefer full power angel cas myself #theyre their everything #they are in love your honor #destiel is canon #spn fanfic #destiel 100k #plus one more

[suddenrundown]

okay so... i've been away from the internet for like 4 years and i am so confused what happened on nov 5th i cannot figure it out from context clues alone

Oh gee….what didn’t happen November 5th?

(under the cut cuz this got a little long)

Ok let me set the scene from my perspective: it’s the 3rd day of the 2020 US presidential election and the current Chief Embarrassment guy taking up residence in the White House can’t step away from Twitter for 5 minutes and is calling on states to StOp tHe VotE!! You know, as you do when not all the votes haven’t been counted. It’s a stressful time and an all around sucky situation to be in, and for all that I don’t want to be glued to the real time election map, I am anyway, constantly refreshing every 5 minutes, so I take to tumblr instead to take my mind off things. It doesn’t work very well and just when I think there will be no relief…supernatural comes in to save the day.

…do you know anything about supernatural?

Supernatural is…a show. You don’t need to know anything about the show other than this: there is a longtime fan favorite ship between two characters: a flannel wearing man named Dean Winchester and the angel Castiel. Together, they’re ~destiel~. Now, supernatural at this point is in its 15th and final season and heading towards the end, limping towards the finish line held together by nothing but duct tape and the love of dean-coded cas girls (I don’t know what that means either!) who have somehow, someway managed to continue caring about a show that goes out of its way to say how much it hates them in general and their beloved ship. (For real, destiel had been teased in universe for years while most of the creators and actors of the show actively made fun of people who cared about it. It’s a mess). Personally, I hopped off the supernatural train back in season 12 and never climbed aboard the destiel train, so anything that’s happened since season 12 is a mystery to me. In fact, despite not following anyone who posts about the show, I’ve blocked everything related to it just in case something does pop up on my dash so I don’t have to see it.

But then, right in my time of need, one vague post about the show pops through. I don’t remember the exact wording, but something along the lines of “supernatural did the damn thing“. What damn thing did supernatural do? Who knows. Not me, I don’t care. *refreshes the page*

3 minutes later and another vague post, this time actively naming destiel and I’m like ok I don’t care *refreshes page*…

…and my entire dash is filled with blocked supernatural posts.

Now I’m curious, so I click on the posts and oh my god destiel did in fact go canon. “Wonderful,” I think, “good for whoever cares about that.”

But the posts keep coming and they’re all memes of course and they’re funny and I’m like what the hell happened? Well, then the clip of the canonizing of destiel crossed my dash, so I watched it and. Wow, yeah, that sure did go canon.…kinda. They had Castiel confess his love for dean (who just stood there looking at him like ????) and then promptly die. Literally. Castiel the gay angel made a love confession in one breath and then got swallowed up by some dark goo in the next, dying for the millionth and final time in the series. Love wins! In the worst/most homophobic way possible.

But it was hysterical and when I tell you all of tumblr was having a field day, I mean it. This went on for hours, and amidst the turmoil came some different sort of news:

According to the election map, the state of Georgia, whose votes always skew red for Republican, went blue for Democrat.

WAIT! We’re still in this election and Georgia went blue!! Unheard of….THANK YOU DEAD GAY CASTIEL!!

Now there’s memes about destiel and blue georgia and I feel like I’ve hit a new plane of existence when SUDDENLY rumors about Putin stepping down (which turned out to ultimately not be true) reach the tumblr news cycle and now you have reached critical levels of hysteria sitewide. The memes. Oh the memes.

Would the level of insanity have been the same had we not been in month 9 of the pandemic and 3 days into one of the most stressful elections in recent US history? Probably not. But for a few hours, no one was focused on that in the slightest. All because of dead gay Castiel who died and went to superhell. He did that for all of us.

#answered #oh november 5th....what a time to be alive and awake from 8pm-12 on tumblr dot com #nov 5th #supernatural #destiel #us politics

[feathersandblue]

Dean Winchester, Character Death, and Frodo’s Return to the Shire

This will be a LOOONG post that has been stuck in my head for a while in bits and pieces - about Dean’s death, what it was and what it wasn’t, and incidentally, the Lord of the Rings has found its way in here too.

It’s pretty clear that Dabb always meant for Dean to die.

And while I strongly disagree with that, on so many levels, I think it might have been more palatable if framed in a different way, and so I’ve been trying to figure out what the ending might have looked like in a world that wasn’t quite as shitty as ours. Still shitty, but marginally less so.

Dean is notoriously bad at letting bad things happen if he can prevent them. I find it difficult to believe that Dean would ever quit hunting entirely, and for as long as he kept hunting, the danger of dying would always be present. It’s not unrealistic at all for him to die on a routine hunt. Life is unpredictable; life as a hunter, even more so. I understand that the writers might want to make that point. And it might have been valid if – and that’s the real problem – Dean’s death hadn’t otherwise been devoid of meaning.

The thing about character death – any sort of character death – is that it needs to have purpose.

And there are different ways that it can have purpose, but it depends on what sort of character we’re talking about.

Minor, often unnamed characters – the redshirts in every narrative – die to illustrate injustice or to highlight evil. Their death is a catalyst or a consequence of the events as they unfold, part of the conflict the heros have to solve. An army led into battle by a tyrant. Refugees in a camp dying of malnutrition. Murder victims of a serial killer. In all these cases, death fuels the plot but has little meaning beyond that.

There are minor characters whose death both fuels the plot and gives the hero a more personal motive to act. Supernatural is full of these. Mary and Jessica burning at the ceiling; Charlie dumped in a bathtub. Minor characters can have their own arcs, but ultimately their deaths are only important for the impact they have on the main characters.

The death of a protagonist is markedly different. Protagonists need to have agency even in death to maintain their status.

Their death has to be the reflection of their character development up to that point but it also has to tell us something about them that we did not already know – show us how they make a final decision or draw a final conclusion that marks the end of an inner conflict – which is what all storytelling is about. Character death has to serve a purpose to have meaning, and for a protagonist, the purpose must be personal.

And If it fails to do that, then that’s either a sign that we’re no longer dealing with a protagonist, or that something weng very, very wrong in the writers’ room. There is no inherent value in tragedy. In storytelling, tragedy is justified when it achieves something, otherwise, it’s just capriciousness.

Buffy’s death at the end of season 5 of BTVS is a classic example for the death of a protagonist. Harry’s decision to go and face Voldemort in the forbidden forest, even though it doesn’t ultimately kill him, is another. When Sam jumps into the abyss in Swan Song, that is his heroic sacrifice, but if he’d permanently died in season 2, that would have been bizarre and nonsensical because it was entirely beyond his control – it did not reflect his decisions, gave him no agency, and reduced him from a protagonist to a side character. In that moment, his death was something that happened to Dean. It worked because his death didn’t stick – he regained his agency after resurrection. But as an ending to his hero’s journey, it would have been singularly unsatisfying.

Dean is our protagonist, and he has been for 15 seasons. What does his death tell us about him that we didn’t know – what decisions did he make, what inner struggle got resolved, what meaning did his death have for him, personally, and then, in extension, for us?

The problem is that the finale, as is so often the case in Supernatural, tells two stories at once.

Whe the episode starts, it appears that Dean moves on with his life just fine, a well-adjusted model citizen. He’s ready to get a job, seems to be moderately happy. He even has dog. The decision to keep hunting is his, and death just accidentally happens, which of course is not unrealistic in his line of work. On the forefront, his death is brought about by the fact that he exercises free will. It tells us that he is a hunter and will always be one, that he keeps protecting people because that’s just who he is.

None of that, however, is new. It is just more of the same. All of Dean’s decisions in the finale tell us nothing about him that we did not already know. He’s trying to move on from the death of the people closest to him, as he’s always done. He chooses the hamster wheel, as he has always done. He follows in his father’s footsteps, as he has always done.

As he gets impaled, he has no choices left to make. There is no agency in his death, no inner struggle. His death furthers neither his character development nor the plot. That Dean simply accepts his death is as unsurprising as the fact that his final moments are spent reassuring Sam and telling him that he has to keep fighting.

The conclusion? Dean ceases to be a protagonist.

He dies not as the hero of his story. His death just happens to him.

After Sam and Dean had presumably freed themselves from the constraints of Chuck’s narrative, the final episode should have emphasized their agency, their freedom of choice, through change. But in the end, it only led them both to making the same choices as always, the unsurprising ones. And even the choices that did indicate a change (like Dean’s job application) were not shown to bear fruits.

What meaning does free will have when it doesn’t change the outcome? All the finale does is tell a bleak story about humanity and how we are incapable of making meaningful, consequential changes in our lives.

It’s almost like Lucifer is talking to us all the way from the Endverse of 5.04: “Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up – here.”

Devastating as that is, there is another interpretation of the finale that is arguably worse, a different reading strongly suggested by both text and subtext.

Dean, as mentioned before, is trying to move on with his life but ultimately fails. The situation is different from the way he behaved when he lost Cas and Mary in season 13 where he was outright suicidal – his desperation is more quiet but also more profound. He seems determined to honor Cas’ and Jack’s sacrifice. But determination is not enough. Dean only goes through the motions, and it shows. He clings to the dog in the morning; the dog sticks to him closely throughout the day as dogs tend to do when they feel that their owner is in distress, almost like a therapy dog. His room looks messy, he makes an attempt to fix it but then abandons it as it requires too muh effort. Ultimately, he can’t be bothered. There are alcohol bottles standing around, a sign that he’s drinking, though not as heavily as in the past. All the while, he sems very laid-back, presumably relaxed and at peace and coping well with the loss but also weirdly detached.

When Sam mentions Cas and Jack at the pie festival, he says, “Yeah, I’m thinking about them too. You know that pain’s not going to go away. Right? But if we don’t keep living, then all that … sacrifice is gonna be for nothing.”

He feels an obligation. And he’s trying. It’s just not working very well.

He barely reacts when Sams pies him in the face.

When impaled on the rebar, Dean actively prevents Sam from calling for help. He tells Sam not to bring him back. And in the end, he asks Sam to tell him it’s okay to go. Which isn’t something he would do if he was simply dying – it strongly indicates that he wants to be allowed to die.

Prompting the conclusion that Dean is giving up on life the first opportunity he gets, not even knowing whether he’ll end up in heaven.

In this reading, Dean does have a little bit of agency. He makes a decision, sort of. His death marks the resolution of an inner struggle: He gives up.

He dies as a protagonist.

In the worst way possible.

In all honesty, I can’t decide which interpretation I hate more.

But what could the writers have done differently, if Dean was meant to die all along?

Back when the SPN finale had freshly aired, I was describing it like this:

Imagine that the One Ring is destroyed. But Merry died in the battle and Pippin went missing and was never found again. Frodo and Sam return to the Shire; Pippin and Merry are mentioned once in passing. Upon their arrival, Frodo is attacked by Wormtongue and slowly bleeds out over the span of thirty pages. Sam marries someone else than Rosie; Rosie is never mentioned again. Somehow, both Frodo and Sam are teleported to Valinor, where we are told that the real fun begins.

At the time, I only used this as an example to illustrate what a mess the finale had been. But in the weeks that have passed since, then, I’ve started thinking about the LOTR comparison some more, and it got me thinking about Dean’s death in a different way.

And it has everything to do with the difference between running from and walking toward.

As mentioned before, it’s not unrealistic that Dean would die on a random hunt. Would the Dean Winchester we know ever stop hunting? Maybe. We might want him to. Then again, would be still be Dean Winchester if he did? We know that Dean can’t help but feel responsible. He is someone who is incapable of staying hands-off.

Dean, as we see him in the finale, is trying to honor Cas’s and Jack’s memory by living, although he’s not very good at it – not outright suicidal but worn-out. Exhausted. And still he makes the decisions to keep hunting because he can do nothing else.

When Frodo and Sam returned to the Shire in LOTR, they had earned their happy ending. But Frodo, who had carried such a heavy burden that he was permanently altered by it, could no longer find happiness in Middleearth, and ultimately decided to depart for Valinor along with Gandalf and Bilbo with the promise of later being reunited with Sam. The journey had changed both of them, but it had changed Frodo to a greater degree, his responsibility had been greater, the weight on his shoulders heavier.

And I started to wonder whether the intention had initially been to show Dean in much the same state – and to frame his death as a decision to move on, the same way that LOTR has Frodo move on to the West.

Imagine the following: Cas is pulled into the Empty. His happiness and love change the Empty; he merges with it or otherwise changes it so that it’s now a more demon-friendly environment. Everyone there is at peace. Cas, in whatever form, moves on to Heaven – or maybe his soul does as it’s now mostly human.

Dean goes on a hunt and dies. Jack, or some other entity, shows up where you would expect the curiously absent reaper in order to give him a choice. Learning that Cas is in Heaven, and knowing that he will never be able to stop hunting if he remains on earth, Dean makes the conscious decision to move on. For the first time, Dean prioritizes his own happiness over his perceived duty. His death is no longer suicide by proxy, and neither is its sole purpose to illustrate the inherent meaningless of free will by turning him into a hamster-by-choice. Instead, it becomes a decision because he’s given back agency. He resolves an inner conflict and there’s even a final bit of character development as he breaks the chain of mutual co-dependency that ties him to Sam and allows himself to be with Cas. He remains a protagonist throughout the end.

And because he acknowledges his love for Cas and decides to be with him, he no longer just runs from, he walks toward.

The parallels to The Lord of the Rings get even more obvious when you take Sam into the equation because much like Samwise, Sam remains on earth in order to have a life that, for him, still holds meaning and the chance of happiness – whereas Dean can no longer be happy on earth as long as Cas isn’t there.

To be completely clear: I’d still think that such an ending would suck because it puts too much emphasis on an afterlife, and it would still send the message that characters like Dean could only find peace in death, and unless some adjustments were made to Sam’s arc as well, the ending would still suck for him.

But seeing as SPN plays in a universe where an afterlife exists, I could probably learn to live with Dean’s death if it had any sort of meaning, for him, besides dying and waiting for Sam to arrive, if it allowed for that final bit of character development. If he got to choose.

While I’ll never be able to see the finale that we actually got as anything but a complete atrocity.

#spn #supernatural #meta #dean winchester #destiel

[beanie-beebo-writes]

15x18.. But with a Twist

Trigger Warning: Angst, a touch of suicidality, MCD (yes still, I’m sorry, this is how I saw the episode happening, just differently)

A/N: So this is very similar to the actual episode, but I added some of my own musings. Read to the end for a surprise, obviously.

"C'mon Dean, think.. think!" Dean said aloud, speeding through the war room aimlessly.

"Dean, where are you going?" Cas asked, trailing behind him.

"I-I-I don't know!" Dean replied.

He made his way into the library, still set on finding a quick solution to Billie's ultimate demise.

"You know she can find us anywhere." Cas said.

"I know, I know that!" Dean said, turning to face Cas. "I just.."

Dean now stood almost hopelessly in the doorway, with his back to the front entrance. 

"What do we do Ca-"

Dean was suddenly cut off by a sharp pain inside his chest. He doubled over and cried out sharply. Cas instantly looked up to the entrance, sensing it was no longer just the two of them.  

"Billie." Cas said.

He ran to Dean's side, gently placing his wings and arms around him.

"My heart. I can... I can feel her." Dean said in between sharp gasps.

"Dean come on, we gotta go." Cas said. 

Taking Dean even more carefully into his grasp, Cas guided him across the library before Dean stumbled to the floor.

"It's you Dean, it's always been... you." Billie said, slowly striding towards them. "Death-defying, rule-breaking; you are everything I lived to set right, to put down, to tame."

Cas looked over his shoulder apprehensively as Dean painfully watched beside him. They were trapped; she was closing in on them. He frantically searched the room until his eyes landed on a door not far from their reach. If they left now, they could go undetected for at least a few moments.

"You are human disorder incarnate." Billie continued.

She rounded the last column before turning to an empty bookshelf, where Dean and Cas once laid moments before. She rested her scythe's bottom angrily on the floor with a clank, before turning her attention to the open back door. She sighed before continuing her pursuit.

Dean and Cas had at least a minute tops, before she could catch up with them at this pace.

"I've got you." Cas said, still gripping very tightly onto the groaning hunter.

They half ran, half stumbled down a series of corridors for what seemed like an eternity. They had to have a way out... right? I mean, the bunker wasn't exactly small.

"Come on Dean, you can't escape me." Billie said from somewhere behind them.

A metallic scraping sound then continued down another hallway, causing Cas' head to briefly turn in precaution. It was dragged out for a moment before stopping completely.

"Don't you think it's finally time? Time for the sweet release of death?" Billie egged on.

Dean continued to struggle in Cas' grasp, but was appearing to grow weaker with every few steps they took. Thankfully the dungeon was approaching on their right, which was certain to be at least bit safer than other rooms for the time being. Cas continued to keep his hold on Dean until he guided him to a metal shelf, and shut the door behind them. With Dean still hunched over, Cas took it upon himself to search Dean's pockets and pulled out a switchblade. In a few swift motions, he drew a sigil on the door in his vessel's blood.

"Did it work?" Cas asked, turning around.

Dean stood up straight and gave Cas a nod, still too out of breath to respond. He kept his hand over his heart, relieved to feel it hammering strongly against his chest.

"It blocked her hold on you, at least for now." Cas said.

He made his way over to Dean to devise a plan, but was cut off by a fist pounding against the door. The warding glowed and crackled with each blow, but it seemed to hold.

"Dean, she said that wound was killing her," Cas said. "Maybe we can wait her out."

Dean began to walk towards back of the dungeon. "Yeah, and if we can't?" He said.

Cas paused briefly before responding with the obvious. "Then we fight."

Billie pounded the door once more.

"We'll lose." Dean said.

Hopelessness began to set in as each pound rang out. Dean had wandered to the chair in the center of the room and put his weight on it; his arms slung down in defeat.

"I just led us into another trap," Dean said, briefly cut off by Billie's fist slamming into the door. "All because I couldn't hurt Chuck."

Pound

"Because I was angry..and because I just needed something to kill. Because that's all I know how to do.." Dean said, his voice beginning to waver.

Cas' heart then began to throb. "Dean.." He said, slowly approaching him.

"It was Chuck, all along." Dean said, voice full of emotion.

Cas continued to approach Dean, looking over his shoulder as Billie occasionally continued to pound the door off its hinges. 

"We shouldn't have left Sam and Jack, we should be there with them right now." Dean paused briefly in thought; the door being striked again. "Everyone's gonna die, Cas. Everybody.... And I can't stop it."

That was it, that was the final straw. If Cas had the guts, right then and there he would have squished that damned man's cheeks and whisper him all the sweet nothings he could think of. But all he was, was the husk of a man.

Pound

Pound

"She's gonna get through that door." Dean said, interrupting Cas' inner thoughts. "And she's gonna kill you, then she's gonna kill me." Dean said.

Pound

Dean and Cas share a tearful look for a moment before the emotions became too much to bear.

"Damnit, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Dean said quietly.

Suddenly, an idea dawned upon Cas, one he hadn't thought of in a long time. One that made his heart almost want to jump. It was his only shot at being redeemed in the eyes of Dean Winchester.

"Wait, there is... there is one thing she's afraid of. There's..one thing strong enough to stop her." Cas said, turning towards Dean.

Dean looked up, completely bewildered.

"When Jack was dying, I.. I made a deal, to save him." Cas admitted.

Dean's heart almost stopped, again. "You what?" He asked breathlessly.

"The price was my life. When I experience a moment of true happiness, The Empty will be summoned and it would take me." Cas explained.

Tears began to well up in Dean's eyes; he tried to will them away. The anger that consumed him was a different kind, one he hadn't felt in a while. "Why are you telling me this now?"

The pounding that still continued to drone on was almost somewhere in the distance at this point. The urgency of this situation began to fade, and was replaced with what laid in front of him. Dean noticed unshed tears had begun to form in Cas' eyes.

"I always wondered, ever since I took that burden, that curse, I wondered what it could be. What- what my true happiness could even look like." Cas paused, taking a moment to memorize Dean's beautiful face, one last time. "I never found an answer. Because the one thing I want... It's something I know I can't have."

Pound

"But I think.. I think I know now. Happiness, isn't in.. the having, it's in just being. It's in... just saying it." Cas said tearfully.

"What.. What are you talking about?" Dean asked, eyebrows furrowed.

"I know.. I know how you see yourself Dean. You see yourself as the same way our enemies see you. You're "destructive", you're "angry", and you're "broken". You're "daddy's blunt little instrument". And you think that hate and anger, that.. that's what drives you, that it’s who you are.." Cas swallows a lump in his throat. "It's not."

Dean feels an argument building in his throat, but remains silent. 

"And everyone who knows you, sees it. Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love. You raised your little brother for love. You fought for this whole world for love. That is who you are." Cas continued, his voice wavering.

A chord struck inside of Dean, he is unable to quell the onset of emotions bubbling up inside him.

Pound

"You're the most.. caring man on Earth. You are the most selfless, loving human being... that I will ever know." Cas said with deep emotion.

Pound

Dean, who was still confused as to how this had to do with Cas' happiness, completely disagreed. Despite the heartfelt emotions on Cas’ end, none of it added up. He'd heard it all before. But somehow, this felt different.

"You know, ever since we met, ever since I pulled you out of Hell.." Cas sniffled before continuing. "Knowing you, has changed me. Because you cared, I cared. I cared about Sam, I cared about Jack... I cared about you.. I cared about it all, because of you."

And the dam finally broke.

Pound

"What?" Dean asked in a small voice.

"You changed me, Dean." Cas cried.

Dean just stared as tears continued to roll down his cheeks. He was still confused, it was as if there was something else he was missing from this whole equation.

"I love you." Cas whispered.

There it was, the missing piece.

Cas closed the distance between them, their tears mixing into each other's saliva. Dean was paralyzed by shock, he couldn't will his dumb body to move. So he just stood there like a blundering fool until Cas pulled away. He felt his face heat up as he finally willed his vocal chords to work.

"Cas.... I-" Dean began softly

. Before Dean could even piece together what he was going to say, the door behind them broke down with a loud bang.

"Goodbye Dean." Cas cried.

As if Dean really had the choice to move, Cas smiled through his tears as he pushed Dean towards the floor, leaving a bloody handprint on Dean's shoulder. Dean looked up in a mix of desperation and shock as a rumbling puddle of black goo began to encase the wall above him. Cas just smiled fondly and closed his eyes as he became one with The Empty. Before the goo could fully disappear back to where it came, it vanished before Dean with a bright flash.

Dean blinked and before him Sam and Jack stood in the doorway. He looked around feverishly.

"Hey, hey you okay?" Sam asked rushing towards his brother.

"What.... just..."

"We contained The Empty inside this box." Jack said, picking up a small cube, inscribed with many etchings, from where Cas once stood. 

Dean felt his heart shatter into a million pieces.

"We figured it could at least trap Billie for the time being. I'm just grateful Ketch hadn't vanished...." Sam explained. "....What the hell happened?"

"Where's Cas?" Jack asked.

Dean looked between the two of them, not sure if he even had it in him to answer. He just looked down, trying his hardest to will his wall back up. Sam lowered his head to his brother's eye level.

"Dean?" He asked.

Dean looked back up, a fresh wave of tears trailing down his face. He had no words left. He weakly stood up and stormed to his room, leaving Sam and Jack in his wake. Jack began to run after him, but Sam stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at Sam worriedly, who just shook his head at him with a small frown.

                                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few hours had passed by before Sam gently knocked on Dean's door. 

"Not now." Dean said softly.

"It's important." Sam said.

He heard no response back from Dean, but opened the door anyway. Dean was propped up against his bed, a mess of bottles skewed across the floor. Despite Sam making his appearance known, Dean didn't budge. Knowing he was pushing his boundaries, Sam treaded lightly.

"I know you probably don't want to talk about it.." Sam began.

Dean took a long swig from his beer bottle.

"But I am here." Sam said.

Dean put down his bottle and furrowed his brows.

"He said he loved me, Sam." Dean said.

Sam raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"He.." Dean exhaled and looked at the floor, swallowing roughly. "He said he loved me. And then The Empty took him."

"Why did it take him?"

Dean sniffled. "He was happy, Sam. He made a deal."

"He was happy he made a deal?"

"No damnit..." Dean paused to take a breath. "The Empty took Cas instead of Jack, from before, when we brought Jack back. And the deal was.... He had to be... happy."

Tears began to fill up Dean's eyes again, but he was too exhausted to wipe them away. The wall had crumbled completely, and he didn't even know if he had the strength to fight anymore. He set down his beer. Sam sat there quietly, waiting for Dean to finish.

"I didn't.." Dean choked back a sob. "I didn't even get the chance to tell him."

"To tell him what?" Sam asked.

A tense pause; Dean sniffled.

"That I loved him too." Dean cried.

#Destiel #destiel fanfic #15x18 #spn #supernatural #spn fanfic #spn genfic #dean winchester #dean #cas #castiel #misha collins #jensen ackles #spn 15x18 #15.18 #spn 15.18 #destiel love confession

[uglyorangejacket]

AU where sam dies closing the gates of hell in s8.

metatron still exiles the angels and closes the gates of heaven so sam is stuck in the veil like kevin after gadreel killed him in the OG s9. cas (human like the OG s9) finds his way back to the bunker and stays with dean and kevin because there’s no conflict that says he shouldn’t. crowley, now cured, travels the world and does whatever crowley does.

season 9 starts a few weeks after sam’s death. it alludes to dean, in his grief, hunting nonstop leaving kevin and cas at the bunker to do whatever kevin was supposed to be doing early season 9. eventually dean takes cas and kevin on a hunt and they encounter gadreel, who tries to kill kevin. they put a stop to that right quick. they figure out metatron’s plan and begin a plan of their own to retaliate and reopen the gates of heaven for the angels, thus beginning the Big Arc of the season. the whole episode feels Weird and Off, sam’s death the huge elephant in the room, until the last 5 minutes of the episode where dean cas and kevin are getting out of the impala to check into some motel and the camera pans over to sam’s ghost, sat in the backseat and staring out the window.

the next big ep is seemingly a MOTW ghost hunt, but THAT’S when they find out about the veil (this begins Arc B of the season). dean is quiet. “do you think...?” “he would’ve made himself known.” “but dean what if—” “I said NO.” the end of that episode is dean hesitantly walking alone to sam’s room in the bunker. he stands in the room, squeezes his eyes shut, and goes “hey, man. if, yanno, you’re stuck, make some noise would ya?” he opens his eyes to the empty room, huffs a breath, and leaves. the impala’s headlights flick on in the garage and there’s a sillouette of who we presume is sam in the passenger seat and then the episode ends.

next episode starts with dean wondering why the hell his car battery is dead. weird shit continues to happen with the impala and even cas and kevin are like ??? but it’s not until halfway through the episode where dean sits in a motel parking lot (it’s night), white knuckles the wheel, squeezes his eyes shut, and once more goes, “sammy, are you there?” it’s quiet for a moment and just when you see dean begin to lose hope, the stereo flicks on. a bewildered laugh. “son of a bitch.”

now the rest of the season in quick succession: they figure out how to communicate with sam. sam’s ghost grows stronger like ghost!bobby’s so communication becomes easier as the season goes on. sam helps on ghost hunts as much as he can (his spirit is tied to the car so it’s difficult but they make it work). he ends up meeting, talking to, and helping a bunch of the spirits stuck in the veil because, you know, he’s Sam Fucking Winchester. they find metatron and turn him human. he takes them (after some heavy...coercion) to find cas’s grace (he doesn’t re-ingest it and they make a point of showing the vial sat upright on his dresser). once they figure out a way to reopen heaven to the angels, the angels ask cas to become an angel again and be their commander. he declines, but explains that after living among humans they know more about what’s best for them, and suggests that they band together as equals and make their duty to reform heaven into a true paradise for humanity and keep it that way. oh and also in this AU this is the final season of the series. there’s a point between cas getting his grace back and heaven opening back up to the spirits in the veil where dean and cas are having an Intense Moment in the impala and cas leans over and kisses him. things get heated, at which point dean stops and bashfully goes “hey—wait—can we take this elsewhere?” the next day dean awkwardly gets back into the car and goes, “sorry about that, sammy” at which point the camera pans over to sam (still a ghost but visible) and he goes “I’m just happy for you” or something but in his amused awkward sam face you know the one. yeah.

anyway it ends with kevin getting dropped off at his mom’s house. we see them reunite from the impala and it’s sweet and you probably tear up a bit. the angels are running heaven together smoothly. cas stays human with dean, the vial of his grace sat deep in the back of some drawer.

...and sam? well, even after heaven was opened back up to the spirits in the veil, they try to live along side sam for a while. they go on a few hunts, have brotherly chats in the impala, but ultimately, sam Isn’t Happy. he doesn’t say anything, but dean sees it.

“you know, I’m good now,” dean says one day. “I’ve got cas, and from what he tells me, heaven cleaned up pretty nice. different, but nice.”

sam looks at him, really looks at him, and smiles. “I’m good now too, you know.”

“you sure? maybe one of cas’s angel buddies can bring you back. you can live the life you deserved to live, with the wife and the crotch monkeys and the bottles of viagra—”

“dean, no. you burned my body, and besides, don’t get me wrong—it used to freak me out a little, being dead. but I’ve thought a lot about life—er, my life, and what else I would’ve done with it, and I think I’ve already done it all. and you know what? the Apple Pie Life wasn’t really even my thing. and the trials, I mean I’m clean now. I can feel it, that they purified me. I’d go to heaven.”

dean’s quiet for a moment before smiling a somber little smile and shaking his head. “you were clean before the trials, sam. you deserved to go to heaven with or without having done them. you were never unclean.”

cut to the next day. the car is parked in a field. cas is outside several feet away, standing next to dean. “you sure you want to do this? maybe there’s another way—”

“I’m sure, cas. I think it’s time we all move on, and that hunk of metal is getting kinda old anyway, huh? whatdya say we retire after this?”

they share a wistful smile.

“see ya on the other side, sammy.”

he drops the lighter, and poof.

The End.

#I wrote this at 4-5am so if it’s impossible to read I’M SORRY #also it’s kinda long so I put it under a cut cuz I know how to do those now (hashtag character development) #anyway this series finale has it ALL #human!cas #kevin tran #destiel #sam winchester #(and his quest for purity) #dean winchester #(and the resolution of the codependency between the two of them) #the impala burns #bittersweet ending #cured crowley #ALL OF IT #if only someone who was more articulate wrote it... #:) #supernatural #icr tag #mine #also like I should clarify this isn’t my ideal ending don’t come for me I just think this is how it would have played out With A Little #Extra Spice you know #ANYWAY good luck to those that read all this I love you and I’m sorry

[mittensmorgul]

Since the finale aired, I’ve been yammering on about how it would’ve only worked as a finale to s2, and now that I’m actually rewatching s2, I stand by that even more staunchly. The finale doesn’t work in a post-s2 supernatural universe.

This is the version of Dean we saw in the finale-- the one whose only mission in life was to Save Sammy, to help him get his revenge and allow him to go out and live a Normal Safe Life pretending that hunting and monsters don’t exist. The one who just wanted some pie, to drive his car, and had no real connections beyond Sam in the world outside of Bobby. Even Dean’s characterization in the finale is this far younger Dean who’d never allowed himself to crack open and truly understand love. It would take me years to plow through everything I’ve ever written about him as a character and his long struggle to emotional maturity we saw evolve over the next 13 years beyond this episode, but the tl;dr will always be “this s2 Dean is the same as the Dean in the finale.”

The goal of s2 was saving SAM from his “destiny,” too. In this era of the show, Dean didn’t have a “destiny” the same way Sam did. The ONLY thing that mattered was freeing Sam from “becoming evil,” and being manipulated into terrible things. What Dean wanted, what he was “destined” for by the narrative was irrelevant, because all of his choices and emotional burdens were tied only to saving Sam. To freeing Sam so he could safely return to his “normal life.” Go back to college, have a family and the white picket fence life.

This was before Dean truly began fighting for HIMSELF. Which only really and truly began after he sells his soul to resurrect Sam. That’s when Dean truly begins fighting for himself. Sure, he’s angry with John during s2 for trading his own life for Dean’s, for putting the burden of “if you can’t save Sam, you’ll have to kill him” on his shoulders with his dying breath, but Dean is still fighting against John’s authority and the complicated tangle of feelings of his own childhood and not actually coming to terms with his own wants and needs and wishes out beyond that yet. He’s still unwittingly confronting the “destiny” John had set up for him, and hasn’t moved beyond that yet. It’s only trading his soul for Sam’s that finally brings Dean into the cosmic narrative that will fuel his introspection and personal growth for the rest of the series.

And out beyond that point, his entire character arc explodes into orbit.

Dean’s entire character arc in s3 is confronting this very basic fact: he doesn’t deserve to have been sacrificed just to save Sam. He doesn’t deserve that burden, and he does deserve to live. This is the realization he comes to before eventually being dragged to Hell and then rescued by an angel, who literally tells him, “you don’t think you deserve to be saved” in the aftermath of that. From that point on, we have TWELVE SEASONS of Dean struggling with what he “deserves” versus what is “fate” and “destiny” and eventually confronting what he WANTS if he truly could choose his own destiny.

Plus, out beyond that point, he has Cas. And nothing changes Dean, pushes him to grow and understand himself, and accept himself-- all of himself, from the good to the horrific-- than the pure and unflinching acceptance of Castiel. Cas never looked at him and said “you are evil,” or “you are worthless.” (well, they’ve both said some pretty awful stuff to each other over the years, but there was either brainwashing or other deeper issues pushing those things on them, and they have ALWAYS eventually come back to one another, and the awful stuff was dealt with). Point is, Dean and Cas both began running these parallel arcs of duty versus desire, and for Dean, the duty was always framed around “taking care of Sam” versus pursuing any sort of ambition or goals for himself. They would fight for this for most of the rest of the series, until eventually the goal for ALL of them would be about discovering what they would want for themselves.

The show explicitly dealt with this, repeatedly, over later seasons, asking all of the characters the big questions: is this what you would choose for yourself? What WOULD you choose for yourself if you could?

And then they made the narrative of the final season, of the final Big Bad, the fact that they had NEVER had real freedom, and that their entire lives (and the entire history of not only this universe but every parallel universe) had been Chuck’s Puppet Theater, and true free will had been a lie all this time. Pushing all of the characters to confront their own choices and understand what about who they were as people was separate from what Chuck pushed them into choosing and doing all these years. The main thing that Dean (and also Cas, and to the extent she was included in the narrative this was Eileen’s issue as well) were being pushed to come to terms with what really was real, and were their feelings and choices their own or imposed on them for the furtherance of Chuck’s story.

At the end of the road, finally free and out from under Chuck’s control, they knew what was real. For Sam and Eileen, they had chosen each other. Cas had chosen Dean, but Dean hadn’t yet had a chance to reply, but anyone with two eyes and a brain knows what he would’ve said in return. It’s what Cas stopped him from saying even back in Purgatory in 15.09. And yet, for some reason Sam and Dean forgot all of that, as if none of it had ever even really happened at all, and we went right back to who they were right after they finally defeated the YED, before we even knew Azazel had a name, let alone the fact that the ultimate boogeyman of their entire lives to that point had been nothing more than a fanatic pawn in a much larger destiny for both of them.

The end of s2 was the last time Dean sacrificing himself so Sam could have a normal life, where Dean really felt there was nothing more for himself than fulfilling his father’s orders to save Sammy, even feels remotely plausible. It’s the last time we can feel like Dean might find peace and contentment in a Heaven where John is nearby to be proud of him, and where Dean would actually feel like that validation was even relevant to his own life.

And that finally brings me back to s2, where that was actually addressed through John’s self-sacrifice to save Dean, to serve Dean up to the narrative and provide a stage for this self-transformative journey INTO being a version of John himself. Only... Dean DOESN’T choose that. He fights to save Sam at all costs, even when it seems clear that the right answer would probably be to KILL Sam instead. When not only the ghost of John Winchester plaguing Dean’s mind would make him doubt his own drive to save his brother, but the John Winchester Insert Character of s2-- Gordon Walker-- basically put Dean’s own doubts out there in plain words in 2.10:

GORDON: I'm surprised at you, Dean. Getting all emotional. I'd heard you were more of a professional than this. Look, let's say you were cruising around in that car of yours and, uh, you had little Hitler riding shotgun, right? Back when he was just some goofy, crappy artist. But you knew what he was going to turn into someday. You'd take him out, no questions, am I right?

DEAN: That's not Sam.

GORDON: Yes it is. You just can't see it yet. Dean, it's his destiny. Look, I'm sympathetic. He's your brother, you love the guy. This has got to hurt like hell for you. But here's the thing. It would wreck him. But your dad? If it really came right down to it, he would have had the stones to do the right thing here. But you're telling me you're not the man he is?

This, the episode where Dean finally confesses John’s final orders to Sam, where Dean has decided that saving Sam is all that matters, even when circumstance and everyone else is practically screaming at him that this could all be over if only he gave in-- be it his own self-sacrifice OR killing Sam. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, the universe doesn’t care (and neither does Chuck... especially at this point... and the proof of that is Sam’s s15 nightmares where one of Chuck’s alternate universe endings for Sam and Dean was Sam actually going Darkside on demon blood and killing Dean... any iteration of the old drama, Chuck has explored all potential endings-- oh, except the ending where TFW gets to just be happy and live... that’s the one ending they never get and the only one they deserved in the end).

also from 2.10... loads of chat about “destiny” and one of Dean’s first “we should just lay all this shit down and take a vacation” moments when he suggests they go to Amsterdam and enjoy some of the not-coffee-coffee-shops, which Sam counters by doubling down on the fact that Dean has a destiny in all this as much as Sam does:

SAM: Well, come on, dude, you're a hunter. I mean, it's what you were meant to do.

DEAN: Ah, I wasn't meant to do anything, I don't believe in that destiny crap.

SAM: You mean you don't believe in my destiny.

DEAN: Yeah, whatever.

SAM: Look, Dean, I've tried running before. I mean, I ran all the way to California and look what happened. You can't run from this. And you can't protect me.

DEAN: I can try.

And that’s it, right there. This is the “neither of you can try for a normal life outside of the other while the other is still alive.” This is Sam pinning a destiny to Dean that’s just as inescapable within Chuck’s narrative as Sam’s demon blood and psychic powers. 

This is the core essence of Chuck’s story about them. The sibling dynamic that Chuck failed to free himself from, and that Sam and Dean failed to free themselves from after Chuck’s demise in 15.19.

Destiny. One must die so the other can live.

And considering the next 13 seasons of the show and the long and emotionally grueling character arcs Sam and Dean proceed through where they truly confront the core of who they are as people-- as individuals outside of their duty and destiny-- the finale ceases to make any sense outside of Chuck’s narrative for them. If 15.20 really happened exactly as we saw it on screen, then Chuck still won.

And they had to loop Sam and Dean all the way back to where they were emotionally at the end of s2 in order to make it seem plausible. Which, for those of us who actually care about what they endured after s2, makes the finale entirely implausible as a whole.

#spn 2.10 #spn 15.20 #spiders georg of the tnt loop #while i was writing this up i also watched 2.11 and yep... still holds up #the ghost of john winchester #chuck's process

[dothwrites]

15.13 coda--the price we pay

So it’s true, when all is said and done--grief is the price we pay for love.--E.A. Bucchianeri

---

Jack’s door closes with a small snick. Castiel watches it close. The thin barrier of wood separates him from his boy, but it doesn’t keep away the muffled sounds of sobs and sniffles. 

The moment had lasted an eternity, Jack looking at Dean through tear-bright eyes, begging for forgiveness, Dean staring back down at Jack, his jaw set and eyes gimlet hard. Dean feels things more deeply than anyone else, Castiel had told Jack. He’d meant it. Joy, anger, guilt...Dean feels, so much all of the time, that it spills out onto anyone else who gets in his way. 

What he hadn’t told Jack was that that was the reason that he loved Dean. Was because he felt. As an angel, a being who was never intended for emotion, the sight of a human soul, writhing with emotion so bright that it managed to shine through hell, was enough to captivate him. He’d been drawn towards Dean, helpless as a moth towards flame, and there he’d stayed, caught in Dean’s orbit. There he weathers the tempest of Dean’s anger as well as the brightness of his joy. 

And he’s had time, firsthand, to experience to balm of Dean’s forgiveness. 

Dean’s hand had descended towards Jack and Castiel had hated Jack’s flinch. Hated it for Jack, hated it for Dean. He knew that that flinch hurt Dean, reinforced what Dean had suspected all along--that he was nothing but a brute, nothing but a monster. 

But Dean’s hand had landed on Jack’s shoulder, just a moment before Dean was on his knees, pulling Jack into a fierce embrace. “It’s ok kid,” he said, voice thick and gravel-rough. “You’re ok.” 

Sam had knelt alongside them, his long arms wrapping up Jack and Dean alike, and Castiel...His work was done, in a sense. He’d facilitated Jack’s return to the Winchesters, seen his soul restored. Gotten one step closer to the ultimate goal. So Castiel had taken a few small steps out of the room, silently. No one had seen him go, no one had noticed his presence, until Dean and Sam walked out. Sam’s eyes were glassy, his face flushed. Dean’s mouth was flat, but there was something calm and peaceful in his eyes, something that had been missing for long weeks. 

Anger takes a toll on the soul. 

And then they’d walked away, leaving Jack’s door to close behind them. And Castiel watches--Watches his boy deal with the pain of his actions, watches the Winchesters walk away. After a moment, Castiel follows. 

Dean glances up when he enters the room. Something hard glints at him. It reminds Castiel of the pain of the word idiot when it comes from Dean’s lips, the curling realization that no matter his contribution, he’ll never be valued. 

Castiel is still a soldier, first and foremost. He understands the necessity of sacrifice, knows that in chess, sometimes you have to lose pieces in order to win. 

He just wishes that Dean would care a little more when he’s finally taken off the board. 

---

Cas looks at him with wide eyes and Dean knows that they’re going to have to talk. Probably sooner than later, judging by the stubborn little purse to his mouth. Dean takes another sip from his beer (those bastards drank them down to almost nothing, greedy little sons of bitches) and luxuriates in the swallow. He’ll put off this conversation as long as he can. 

He still doesn’t know, how to put all the concern that he feels, the worry that continuously scrabbles at the inside of his skull, into words that don’t spit and fizzle like poison. He’d seen the minute little flinch in Cas’ face when he said idiot, just like he’d seen the Jack’s flinch when he reached out towards him. He’s doing better, he’s trying, but what the hell does it say about him that the people that he loves best in the world literally draw back from him? 

“I’m going to bed,” Sam says, his voice still scratchy and rough. Dean knows that the deal with Jack hit him hard, but there’s something else there too. Sam’s continuous glances at his phone tell a fairly convincing story. No doubt there’s a series of texts from Eileen waiting for him. 

Which would be fine, Dean’s all aboard the good ship Saileen, except that Sam’s departure leaves him alone with Cas. And Cas isn’t leaving or starting the conversation, which means that he’s going to leave Dean to deal with this whole mess. 

The silence between them takes on a distinctly stony feel the longer they sit in it. It’s so damned uncomfortable sitting in it, yet breaking it would somehow be worse. Dean will give it to Cas--he’s a passive-aggressive little shit when he wants to be. 

After the quiet becomes so uncomfortable that Dean’s teeth are itching, he finally decides to rip the band-aid off in one, vicious tug. 

“It was a damn stupid thing, what you did.” 

He didn’t mean it to sound like that, he really didn’t. But his intentions are worthless--the words fall harsh and flat between them, like little loaded weapons. Whatever softness might have been lurking in Cas is gone. 

“It was the only way to get what we needed.” Cas’ voice is tight with repressed emotion, but the words are enough to spark a wildfire in Dean. 

“It was the only--what the fuck man?” he spits. He stands up, his chair skittering backwards across the floor. Its feet scrape against the wood, loud enough to send the hairs rising on Dean’s arms, but he ignores that in favor of focusing on Cas. 

“The only way was to go and get yourself killed? Again?” 

Try as he might, he can’t erase the image--Cas, slumped motionless in the chair, face gone that particular shade of pale and waxy that Dean knows and wishes that he didn’t. How many times has he been forced to watch Cas die, right in front of him? How many times has he said goodbye? And they’ve been lucky--for every goodbye, there’s always been a Hello Dean waiting, but Winchesters aren’t known for their luck. How long before it runs out? How long before Cas does something so monumentally reckless that there’s no coming back from it? 

How long before Dean has to say goodbye permanently? 

“It wasn’t like that--” 

“It was exactly like that!” Dean’s anxiety and worry spills out of him in a vicious tirade. “Sam and I come back, find you--”

“So you’re the only one who can take pointless risks?” Castiel is standing now, and there’s a dangerous, sharp edge in his voice that Dean should probably heed, but he’s too far gone for that. 

“That’s different--” Though it really isn’t, the difference is that Dean is just...Dean, just some schmuck who doesn’t have a trust fund, who doesn’t know any life other than that which cakes blood and dirt underneath his nails. He doesn’t matter, not in the long run. But Castiel...Castiel is made of stardust and the cosmos. It would be a sin, if Dean were left on the world while Castiel ceased to exist. 

For a moment Cas is speechless with rage. Then he’s striding over to Dean, pushing an angry finger into his chest, so hard that Dean’s sure there will be small, circular bruises blooming over his skin within the next day or so. 

“How dare you? How dare you assume that everyone...that I would be fine without you? How dare you think so little of yourself?” 

Dean laughs, a wretched ugly sound. “Yeah? Well, right back at you pal.” 

It hits him then, weights falling from the sky: how tenuous their grip on this life is. How any wrong move could be their last. How any of them could be snuffed out in the merest flicker of an instant and nothing of them would be left behind, save grief. 

Dean isn’t aware of the series of events that end with him crashing into Cas. He knows that his knees buckle, that he reaches out for Cas, that Cas is there to catch him, steady as ever. He folds himself into Cas, burrowing his nose between the collar of Cas’ shirt and his neck, brushing against warm skin. 

“I thought I lost you,” Dean finally says, the words dredged out of him like vomit, coming from somewhere dark and desperate that he keeps inside himself. Cas, his head lolling backward, hands limp on his stomach. Cas, light pouring out of his eyes and mouth, angel blade pierced through his chest...”I thought that I’d lost you again.” 

He doesn’t cry, but it’s a near thing as his shoulders shake with the release of pent-up emotion. He tries to crawl away to lick his wounds and hide his shame, but Cas’ arms tighten like a vice around his shoulders, keeping him present. 

“I can’t...don’t make me lose you again.” It’s half order, half-plea, but wholly sincere, gasped into Cas’ neck. “You think that you’re fucking expendable, that the ends justify the means, or whatever else your stupid chess metaphors say. But I need you in this with me Cas. I need you with me.” 

“And how dare you assume that I don’t feel the same,” Cas answers back. “How dare you think that I could go through this earth without you with me.” 

Dean draws back, just enough that he can take Cas’ face in his hands. Cas’ skin is warm against his palms. He can feel the flutter of Cas’ pulse underneath his hands, wild and thready and so very alive. “You ain’t fucking leaving me,” Dean says, before he kisses Cas. 

Just before his lips meet Cas’, he thinks that he sees something flicker across Cas’ face. A hint of regret maybe, a deeper secret coiling underneath the surface of those blue eyes. 

Dean pushes it aside before he kisses Cas, hard enough to bruise. Permanent. 

---

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”―Mark Twain

#spn spoilers #supernatural #destiel #destiel fic #destiel fanfic #coda fic #15.13 coda #15x13 coda #spn15 #spn season 15 #15.13 #dean winchester #castiel #jack kline #fare thee well spn #welcome to the end #dothwrites

[demonologist-in-denim]

What if in earlier seasons, Crowley was written as an amiable ally for the boys, rather than them disliking him. Imagine Crowley being established as “not as bad as other demons” in the Winchester’s eyes, as a semi-reluctant ally who – yeah, on occasion, puts his own interests first, but never directly threatens and even occasionally helps the boys. He’s still snarky, and he can still be an arse. But the boys know that as long as they don’t cross him, Crowley won’t mess with them. From Crowley’s end, that’s because keeping good relations with the infamous Winchester brothers is to his benefit. But then, they start to grow on him. And maybe he’s a little more lenient with the flannelled nightmares than he should be, a little indulgent, rolls his eyes and does a few favors for them. Which only further encourages the Winchesters, and later a less willing Castiel, to view him as a frenemy.

The rest of the early seasons is the same, except now, moving into season 6, the boys are willingly working with Crowley and Cas. They don’t like the idea of opening up Purgatory, but they understand that Hell and Heaven really do need to be taken in hand – and who else are they going to trust to do that? As things start to look really dark throughout that season, the boys start pushing back, start testing their relationship with both angel and demon, and Cas still betrays all of them and takes the souls for himself. And now there’s season 7, with Crowley working with the boys to stop Cas – Dean wanting to save him from himself, Sam and Crowley unhappily planning to kill the angel – Sam because he doesn’t think Cas can be saved, and Crowley because he wants his share of the Purgatory power. Unleash the Leviathans, and now we’ve got the King of Hell working closely and willingly with the boys to stop this new threat. Demons at their disposal, even. Which doesn’t put Crowley in a very good position in Hell, but he pushes on because it’s this or let the Leviathans eat the world. The Winchesters plus Crowley and a now restored Castiel manage to defeat the Leviathans, just as the demons rise up and dethrone Crowley. Hell is a free-for-all, and demons are loose in the world.

Then have all of season 8 be about demon in-fighting and the human casualties along the way. The boys work to get Crowley back on the throne, so he can restore some order. But that also means he’s temporarily dependent on them, in hiding with them from his former minions. Leads them to the Men of Letters legacy, which in turn leads to the bunker. Bring the British Men of Letters back in seasons earlier, alerted to the awakening of one of their old establishments in the States. Throw Abaddon into the mix, providing a competitor for Crowley laying claim to the throne, which would make him more susceptible to the help offered by the Winchesters, and unfortunately to the supposed support of the BMoL as well. By now, Crowley’s an unofficial member of Team Free Will, the boys well aware he chose saving the world (and them) over giving his full attention to Hell, leading to all this. There’s the sense that the four of them – plus Kevin and Charlie, at this point – are all in it together. Maybe even Meg is still around, maybe she’s trying to lead one of the demonic factions, and there is this whole I-care-about-you-but-we’re-on-opposite-sides between her and Cas. Crowley has softened, the same way Cas softened over time with exposure to humanity and the Winchesters.

Of course the tablets and Kevin came into play with the Leviathans. The BMoL reveal they have the demon tablet, and suggest Kevin might be able to find something on it to control demonkind and restore Hell. Big dramatic reveal to the Winchesters only, the BMoL admit that there is a means of closing the Gates of Hell permanently on the tablet – learned from a previous prophet whom, ahem, did not survive their duty – and now the Winchesters are torn between sparing the world from demons and betraying Crowley. Crowley, who is counting on them to help him get his throne back. Crowley who has begrudgingly and then more willingly worked cases with them while they’ve tried to find an answer to all of this. Crowley who led them to the MoL and the bunker in the first place. Who isn’t as bad as the rest of his kind, who Dean likes to go for a drink with and might even consider a friend. And just as the Winchesters decide they can find another way to close the Gates, Kevin discovers the necessary spell, and the BMoLs take advantage that there is a demon close at hand, and snatch Crowley to perform the demon trials.

And by the time the Winchesters race to his rescue – torn, because ending the trial means not closing the Gates, but damn it, he’s had their backs, so they’re going to have his – Crowley is in the last hour of the cure. Tells them to let it happen, let the trial be complete, the Gates slammed shut. His own soul restored. But there’s that whole thing with Metatron and Cas and the angels going on, so of course this is the moment the angels are cast out of Heaven. And Abaddon bursts in, maybe Meg comes to challenge her. And in all the chaos, the cure is never completed, time’s up, too late. The boys defeat the BMoLs, rescue Crowley, escape. Cas is lost somewhere in the world, human after what happened in Heaven.

Season 9 would be almost completely the same – Crowley’s blood addiction, searching for the Mark and the Blade, Abaddon, the angels, all of it – except, the Winchesters actually sympathize with Crowley. They express concern, ask after him, say maybe having regained something of his soul is a good thing. And Crowley is torn, because he can now really feel that affection he has for the boys, and he might very well have the option of a place among them, but also he knows Hell needs a ruler to keep demonkind in line, and he still likes power. The boys help him overthrow Abaddon, help him get clean of his blood addiction. Maybe there’s a scene where Crowley and Meg compare notes – he who went through the cure, and she who cares for an angel, neither of whom really fit with demonkind anymore. And by the time the season reaches the later episodes, with Crowley back on the throne and the boys working cases while trying to figure out what to do about Metatron, Crowley is an acknowledged, secret extension of Team Free Will. Makes changes to Hell, keeps demonkind under tight control, helps here and there on cases.

All of this, all of this headcanon, just to get to the point where the boys are always making side comments to Crowley about, you know, how if he wanted to give up Hell and join the three of them full time, he’d be welcome. Come on, just work one more case with us. Just this one about hellhounds. Just that one with vampires. Just one more, one more, one more. And Crowley acquiesces more than he knows he should. Cares about the boys and Cas more than he knows he should, hates Hell and demons more than he knows he should.

So that by the time the Mark takes Dean and turns him into a demon, it’s not only Sam and Cas that are hurt by it. It’s Crowley, too. Crowley who sees Dean turning into something truly evil, something worse than Crowley himself is now. And he agrees with Sam and Cas that he’ll take demon!Dean under his wing as his second-in-command in Hell until they find a cure, a cure for the Mark as much as for being a demon. Season 10 is all about Cas (who’s grace is fading) and Sam working to find a cure while working cases, and Crowley trying to keep Dean occupied with hunting down rebel demons and the like. He even sends the Knight of Hell after angels, to capture more grace for the fading Castiel. Throw Rowena – as Fergus’ ex-wife – in there, attempting to convince Crowley to share his throne with her, causing mischief. He would feel this deep sense of loneliness – demon!Dean isn’t the companion he was before the Mark, Rowena only wants power for herself ultimately, demonkind hates and is in open rebellion against him – and Crowley is beginning to admit to himself that he just doesn’t have this in him anymore, to be the kind of monster it takes to rule Hell. Maybe Dean even tries to take the throne from him, with Rowena’s help, and the acceptance by the demons of this alternative ruler is everything Crowley needs to finally break from old loyalties and the desire to rule, from demonkind entirely.

Realizing the situation is entirely out of control, Crowley, Cas and Sam work to capture Dean. They convince Rowena, who has now taken the throne of Hell for herself, to remove the Mark, thus removing a threat to her reign. Crowley makes an oath that if she will do this, he will never seek to retake the throne. An enraged demon!Dean is forced through the demon trials, in which he says the most horrible and hurtful things to Sam and Cas. And to Crowley, cuttingly demanding to know why the former king will put Dean through this, restore the hunter’s humanity, but not his own. Crowley doesn’t have an answer. He doesn’t have an answer because he realizes that, once, he would have said it was important he hold Hell, or that he wanted the power that came with being a demon, or that he was scared of facing what he’s done as a demon. In light of everything that has happened – the complete rejection by demonkind and the loss of Hell, the revulsion he feels after the aborted cure and Dean’s own time as a demon, and knowing he has a place here on Team Free Will – Crowley realizes he no longer has a reason not to complete the cure.

And in the last hour of the cure, with Dean almost entirely restored to himself, the hunter understands the demon better than ever before. Tells him, one of these days, it’s going to be Crowley in this chair, the cure coursing through him, the three of them gathered around him, supportive. And Crowley knows he’s right. It’s no longer a question of if – only when.

Once they’ve completed the demon cure, the boys set about removing the Mark, with Rowena’s help. And removing the Mark unleashes the Darkness in the world. In season 11, the Darkness should have been something much more insidious, and dangerous. A force which slithers into people, bolsters the innate darkness that is in everyone, turning people into their worst selves. And it controls demons utterly. They are mostly formed of the Darkness, after all.

And for Crowley and the cure, “when” is now. It is that, or fear turning on the people who used to teasingly ensnare him in “just one more case,” who would embrace him as one of them if only he’d allow it. And now, he’s finally ready for that.

#spn #crowley #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #headcanon run amok #multimuse #spn ficlet #this thing just took on a life of its own #happy sulphuric saturday

[torturedpoetemotions]

With Understanding is one of the very few fics that truly haunt me. I'm not sure what emotion it is that stirs up with each of your posts about it, but just wanted to say that every time I see one I'm like 'yeah, that fic. *stares into the distance for a time*' It's one hell of a story.

It really, really is. Like I'm still trying to parse how the hell I feel about it, so apologies in advance for the can of worms.

(spoilers for With Understanding under the cut)

Like a part of me, both as I was reading and after, just wanted to go where the story took me and see things from Cas's perspective without questioning it too much. That part of me probably needs therapy, or to finally understand that no actually, love cannot conquer all. There are some things it really really can't overcome.

I've written a little bit before about how I think the fic almost emphasizes that (that love just can't conquer some shit) just by showing the sheer amount of work it would take for two people with Dean and Cas's history to get to a point where anything between them could even approach healthy. It's fucking unlikely to happen outside of fiction, and even in fiction, done arguably very very well, I feel so torn about it!

Because another part of me (probably the part that at least KNOWS I need therapy, even if she's unwilling to go get it for...personal reasons) recoils from that ending so hard and wonders, really wonders, how much of Cas's perspective we're supposed to accept unquestioningly. We spend so much of the fic in his head as he's reasoning and feeling his way through all of this, but ultimately that's not the perspective we end with. So how much are we supposed to live in Cas's perspective as a source of truth? How much should we step back and consider the perspective of the BAU, even those who don't know the whole story? I don't have a clear answer.

Like...it'd be one thing if the only people who had an opinion about Dean and Cas's relationship were in the dark about key details, but the fact that even Morgan and Balthazar, to the very end, know everything and hate it and keep telling Cas over and over, "you need to get OUT"? That detail refuses to let me just fall into accepting that everything is fine and will always be fine, even when I'm trying to be happy for Cas that he's in a place where he maybe can't control every aspect of his life (who ever can), but can at least make his own choices when faced with a situation and feel reasonably okay with accepting that whatever consequences arise, he still chose.

And then there's the fact that this insane AU crossover fanfiction where Cas's central arc revolves so heavily around free will of all things came out in 2015? That just makes me. Feral. Absolutely fucking feral. Because somehow this person picked up on something in Cas's character and arc that even the writers of the show and frankly, most of the fandom hadn't fully grasped at that point in time. His canon struggle has always been about free will. Choosing it, understanding it, fighting for it. Not even about learning to do the "right thing" per se, but about making the choice at all, and ultimately making it for himself, not anyone else, regardless of what other people think of that choice. But in retrospect, that doesn't really become clear until we reach season 15.

So the understanding (ha) of Cas's character that this fic shows? I wanna have coffee with this person. I want to sit down, inhale too much caffeine, and then ask former AO3 user apokteino how the flying fuck they wrote an AU Cas who is both so different from canon Cas and so essentially, fundamentally correct at the same time.

#supernatural #fanfiction #destiel #with understanding #queerbluebird #ask box #i'm just rambling