#and HE DID IT ALL FOR DEAN

[greypistacchio]

just finished watching 6.20, "The Man Who Would Be King", and i just wanna say--

watching hardcore gay porn would've been WAY less homosexual than whatever the hell was going on in this episode

now i get why we don't get more episodes from Castiel's POV. the homoerotic yearning that the last 15 minutes of that episode packed left me shaking

and this is coming from someone who has been in the MM trenches for long enough to remember how we used to refer to it as lemon

screaming jesus on a ferris wheel

[souporsaladnatural]

Obsessed with the sudden shift in Cas' willingness to say insane romantic shit to dean in season 8. A couple of seasons ago, he would tell dean that they had a profound bond to his face. That everything he did, he did for Dean. Now? He's hesitating. He clenches his fists to avoid hugging Dean back in purgatory. He stutters and looks away before saying he stayed away from Dean to protect him. When asked what broke through heaven's brainwashing, he looks away and says he doesn't know. It's so interesting to me

[lazarrusrising]

Destiel raises Claire au except it's like those stories kids have of their adopted parents forgetting they're not biologically related and Claire will find out she has an allergy to cats and Dean will be like "got that from me, kiddo" and Claire will be like "that's why we can't have nice things" and Dean will be like "Hey blame your grandfather, John was allergic to all pets, we still have the dog!" and they'll carry on until a couple hours later when both of them separately come to a pause and go "wait wtf were we talking about?" and Cas (who witnessed the whole thing and chose not to say anything) will just be sitting there smiling

[bloodydeanwinchester]

DESTIEL IN EVERY EPISODE → 8x16 remember the titans

do you think cas was in the middle of killing one of the hundreds of copies of dean when he got this prayer?

[wigglebox]

And in that moment, he knew he was never beating the 💖💜💙 allegations

[mickeys-been-staying-at-ians]

So Dean is fucked up after Cas is taken into the Empty obviously, all melancholy, no sleep, drinking too much, you know his gist. Sam probably tries to get him to talk about it, but he would never tell him everything Cas said, you know. So Dean is miserable, and Sam is miserable, but THEY DON'T STOP trying to get Cas back.

And they do, somehow. So Cas appears somewhere in the library or wherever they were Doing What Brought Him Back and there's a second of confused, vulnerable silence because this can't be real don't believe it's real he's gonna disappear and it's gonna suck all over again but he stays, and looks at Dean, and then Dean is hugging him, clutching him like... well, like everything that happened, happened, and they're breathing each other in. Cas hasn't had the chance to think about what it all means, yet, so he's not overthinking it. Then they break apart, and Dean has tears in his eyes and his lower lip is shaking, and while Sam hugs Cas, too, Dean's body is like, shutting down, months of exhaustion (physical and emotional) catching up to him, and he feels it coming, so when Sam gets Cas to sit down, making him drink some water, Dean's like "I'm just gonna-" and he's running into his room and he doesn't even make it inside before he starts sobbing. He's sitting against his bed, his face in his hands, all wet now, when Sam comes in. Maybe he knocked, maybe not, Dean couldn't hear him. And he tries to cover himself a little, but Sam sees anyway, and he's so tired, so he just. Doesn't care.

And Sam says, "Dean, don't hide from him" and Dean isn't sobbing anymore but he's still crying into his palms, saying "I'm so tired, Sammy" and Sam knows. He doesn't know what happened between Dean and Cas but Cas said he did something and now Dean wouldn't feel comfortable around him. So, you know. Sam can guess, a little.

So he says, "He thinks you don't want anything to do with him anymore" and "you should go talk to him" and Dean is like "I can't" and he doesn't know why, maybe because he's exhausted, or because he doesn't know what to say to him , or because Cas sacrifised himself for him again, or because he told him he loved him and turned Dean's world upside down and disappeared, or maybe because he's scared.

And Sam knows this is all happening in Dean's head and he knows some of it is whispered to him in their dad's voice, so he says, "you know nothing in the world would ever change how I think of you," and Dean's head snaps towards him, wet with bloodshot eyes, confused and terrified, but he doesn't say anything, so Sam asks, "what really happened down there?" and Dean knows Sam knows. There's a hand squeezing his heart and lungs and he can't breathe, and Sam knows, and Dean wishes he could go back to when it wasn't even an option.

"He's your best friend," Sam says, and he is, he is, he's Dean's best friend, above all else, it's not just sacrifises and battles and blood and desperate confessions, it's also movies and music and inside jokes, so Dean asks Sam to get Cas. He does, and leaves them in Dean's room alone. And Dean says "don't ever die for me again" and "you think you saved me but i was barely alive" and "next time we die together" which is maybe a little fucked up, but he's feeling so raw. He says, "you're my best friend" and looks at Cas, hoping Cas hears everything he isn't saying, how Cas is the most important person in all the universes to Dean. He's family, but he doesn't say that, doesn't want Cas to think he's family like anyone else, because Cas is more. To Dean, Cas is- something Dean won't say yet, but he is.

And they have a quiet dinner with Sam because they're all tired, and Cas showers while they turn on the TV and bring out a couple of beers, and they act like it's a normal day in their life. Dean's head keeps falling and his eyes keep closing, his temples aching, but he stays, and at some point Sam goes to sleep, and when they're alone Cas tries to get Dean to go, too, but he keeps coming up with lame excuses to stay and Cas doesn't know what to make of it until he thinks maybe Dean doesn't want to be alone, or even - maybe Dean doesn't want to leave Cas alone, maybe he's scared something will happen to him again, or maybe he wants to just - be with Cas longer. And Cas is completely out of his element, because why would Dean- But it doesn't matter. His priority has always been Dean's well-being, so if there's any chance Dean is pushing himself because of - some of that, Cas will step up.

So he asks Dean if he can sleep in Dean's room tonight because he doesn't want to be alone. And there's a blaring red light going off in Dean head, screaming he knows he knows he knows Dean wants him to... what? Dean doesn't even know. Cas is asking as if for himself, for Dean's benefit, and Dean. God. Dean loves him, doesn't he? He's always loved him, but he loves him like... like... but he doesn't think it, still. He feels too open, now, and he wants to lock himself in his room and sleep it off and drink and stop feeling so vulnerable, he thinks he must be an open book to everyone, to Cas especially, and god, could people always tell? Can Cas tell, now? But why does it matter? Cas told him- he told him-

But none of it matters, because Cas is here, and he's offereing Dean an easy way out, and Dean is a weak, weak man, and he's exhausted and all he wants is to breathe Cas' air and know he's here, and not going anywhere.

So Dean puts on an old T-shirt and gets out of his jeans like he always does before realizing Cas is here. He flushes all over, sits down on his bed because he didn't think about how this was gonna go. Cas glances at the desk as if he was gonna sit in his chair the whole night, and Dean doesn't actually know if Cas sleeps now or doesn't, which he maybe should've thought of before, but before he can say anything, Cas says, "Dean, I don't want to make you uncomfortable" and Dean, completely lost, says the first thing that comes to his mind, which is, "can you lie down with me?" which is not exactly how he was gonna tell Cas he's the opposite of uncomfortable with him, but it does the trick. He makes Cas get out of his dress pants and gives him a T-shirt to sleep in, too, and flushes even more when he realizes what Cas is wearing. Dean lies down when Cas steps towards the bed, faces the wall because he doesn't know what to do with himself. They lie in silence for an awkward moment before Cas says, "are we okay?" and Dean says, "of course we are" and Dean knows Cas is still overthinking it, and he is, too, but... Cas took the leap, and he must feel so uncertain about them, and Dean thinks he owes him something, at least. Cas told him he loved him. Nothing felt right since then, because Cas died and because Cas thought he could never have what he wanted and because Cas thought he wasn't the most important person in Dean's life with Sammy, whatever that meant, and because Dean had to come to terms with that reality, a reality where Cas loves him, has loved him, him, Dean, broken and all. A man. A man Cas thought beautiful, and loving, and- and Dean has many issues, but Cas was never one of them, and Cas deserves to feel certain about his place in Dean's life.

So Dean asks Cas to come closer, and there's a still moment before Cas does, still too far away from Dean, and Dean can't see him, can't make himself turn because his heart is beating so loud he thinks if he looks at Cas, it's gonna beat out of his chest. So he reaches behind himself, finds Cas' hand and brings it forward, keeps it between his hands and brings them to his face. Breathes Cas in. "Please don't leave again" he says, in that tone he used when he prayed to Cas. He feels Cas shift, finally, as if he lost some of the tension from his body, feels the bed dip behind him, and he doesn't know how Cas moves but then Dean's back is pressed against Cas' front, and despite his beating heart, Dean is feeling the exhaustion start to take him. "Cas, I..." he tries, but he can't think anymore, can't make sense of anything.

"You can fall asleep, Dean," Cas says, his words warm in Dean's hair and the last thing he hears before sleep takes him is "I will be here when you wake up."

So when Dean wakes up, it's to a heavy arm around his chest and slow breaths against the back of his head. There's no moment of confusion about who he's with, or why. He doesn't even get a second to consider if it was real before Cas says "good morning, Dean" and Dean wonders if Cas slept at all. If he needs to sleep, now. There's so much they need to talk about, all three of them.

"Cas," he tries again, remembereing his attempt from last night. He needs Cas to know, for sure. "Cas, I - what you said. You know I. I've never..." and Cas is like "I know, Dean" but he sounds a little confused, so Dean doensn't know what Cas thinks he knows. So he turns, takes a second to notice how close they are now, and he thinks about Cas' eyes, his lips. Thinks, soon.

"You have to know," he says, as if Cas didn't say anything. "You have to know how I - what I" and he can't get the words out, not sure if it would be easier if there were no words to get out or if there were no voices in his head screaming over them. So he breathes in, Cas' scent overtaking his senses, brings his palm to Cas' face. Closes his eyes. Thinks, soon. Thinks, now, and meets Cas halfway.

[soft-pine]

people will be like looking for subtle evidence for queer dean like oh he's in bisexual lighting here, he's referencing this niche queer media there.

meanwhile dean is just like "he was my gay thing" no further elaboration.

[deuteragonist1]

Young Sam: Why do I have to be the bride?

Young Dean: Shut up, you're the girly one here and white looks better on you anyway. Plus, you can't exactly carry me over the threshold, now, can you?

Young Sam: 🙄🙄🙄 Did you at least memorize your vows. Last time was a disaster

Young Dean: Yeah yeah. C'mon, put the veil on and go get dad.

John in the other room listening to them play and pretending to be asleep so Sam doesn't ask him to fake-officiate:

[castieldelamancha]

when they get together the "driver picks the music" rule stops applying to cas, dean informs him about it like it's a big deal (and it is, huh), but all cas does with that privilege is pick whatever he believes dean would pick depending on his mood just because music is great but it can't compare to the bright smile dean gives him every time from the driver seat reaching out to close his hand on cas' thigh for the whole trip

[fenicearts420]

Gee, thanks Universal for ruining my favorite movie of all time. Much appreciated.

[shanastoryteller]

what if sam remembered jake stabbing him in the back and so woke up and knew that dean must have done something he shouldn't so he takes off for a crossroads demon first thing, intent on figuring out what dean did and how to fix it. but dean comes back to the cabin and instead of seeing sam alive and upright the cabin is empty and he thinks the demons took his little brother's body and he has a full on crash out about it, his absolute last straw snapped, and so when sam gets back to the cabin it's to all the furniture destroyed and a drunk and bleeding dean that he has to manhandle into the back of the impala and drive to bobby's, showing up like hey what the hell, you should have prevented this! only for bobby to speed run the five stages of grief he'd been suppressing in order to try and stop the demons and dean wakes up in the back of the impala still thinking sammy is dead

just a thought

[shadystranger]

the hottest thing a man can do is be dean winchester in red meat

[ineffablelara]

Something about Thomas and all of the other Cardinals of the curia putting the church and its reputation above almost everything else, almost above God Himself, something about the Cardinals trying to become pope because bc then they could shape the church in the way they want, something about not a single one of them being actually worthy of the papacy or knowing what it truly means

Something about Benítez caring more about God than about the church, something about him saying in the book that he felt more likely to encounter the embodiment of the holy spirit in those countless women who were victims of sexual violence whom he helped than he did in the church itself, something about him serving his ministery in those remote, violent places because that's where he truly saw the face of God

Something about Benítez getting stuck in Rome by the end of the story, unable to ever go back to his mission, to the places he believed he was going to live until the Lord called him back home, sure, as pope he could do much, much more to help those people, but still, it would never be the same, and he knew it

Nothing would ever be the same again, and he could do nothing but accept it 🥲

[searchingforserendipity25]

thomas lawrence's bisexuality is not a secret, as such, not because he made any fuss about it to make a political point, and not because he broke his vows at any point.

but because, back in the late eighties, he was involved in a semi-infamous love triangle involving a forceful up-and-coming middle-aged professor of religious studies.

she; and her sad ancient foppish husband, who in his turn was a rather morose, more-or-less decent theologian of the late roman period.

their marriage was more of a polite convenient arrangement than anything else. the real surprise, at first, was that professor, let's call her profressor whatelet - that professor whatelet wasn't actually a raging lesbian.

many of the early rumors had it that she was a lesbian, and dating a pretty young woman with a taste for tweed suits; until it became clear that the pretty young thing with a taste for tweed suits she was found kissing in the library of the sorbonne after hours was not, in fact, a lesbian. he just had very long bangs.

but then, her boytoy was also her very gay husband's live-in secretary and research assistant. a real arthur-guinevere-lancelot triangulation, by all appearances:

but then, not quite.

there was a great deal of walking arm-in-arm and long debates and chivalrous opening of doors. there was hand-kissing. there were whispers about gold-digging, or worse, academic historical source digging. there were three chairs around a round table, at home and in restaurants and in the office.

this would have been fine enough, in its deeply hypocritical way, paris in the late eighties. a bourgeois academic couple, not unusual they'd have something on the side.

that the something on the side was shared between husband and wife was too salacious to prove. as he was playing the gallant towards both of them, it was not quite eminently clear which way the infidelity was happening.

and that was just what they liked. something to be said about being cleverer and more charming and more original than anyone else. most lovers feel like that. the whatelets had more cause for it than most.

alas, it so happens that this may-december threeway affair had its january-april fallout.

beyond closed door and closed windows, thing came to a head. after some intense intellectual debate and some intense intellectual threesomes, and a great deal of aquinas, and a great deal of st. paul's epistles, and some de beauvoir, the arrangement was found to be non-sustainable.

not least because dr. whatelet wanted to retire back to auvignon to be a beekeeper and try to win back his widowed first love, and professor whatelet was desperately bored of paris andwanted to apply to a senior position in stockolm.

also, their shared boytoy was having a spiritual epiphany no amount of unsacred kneeling could silence. there was that, too.

in conclusion:

professor and dr. whatelet got a divorce, a controversial uncatholic move that shook the foundations of their department.

it broke apart friendships. itlead to a number of low-simmering disputed coming to a head and several supposedly-unrelated resignations, and caused a domino effect of revealed scandals and anonymous letters-to-the-editor debacles.

a small but meaningful faction of the theological studies sphere was pulled through the who-kept-what-friends-and-what-grant nightmare. including a clever chessmaster that would one day become pope, who heard the confession of one:

thomas lawrence. young, successful and disillusioned manager of a london firm, his sabbatical to paris got him a reputation as a homewrecker.

he only barely shock it off by falling out of love with the whatelets, passionately in love with christ, quitting his soul-sucking job, joining a seminary, being extremely weird about chastity as both a theological ideal and a practical principle for nearly half a century, and outliving most anyone who ever heard about it.

except for the old pope, of course. his holiness was the one who celebrated the whatelets' purple marriage in the first place.

[disabled-dean]

Changing channels 2.0 but Gabriel makes Cas the Bachelor and Dean is the P.A. having an excruciating awakening of homosexual lust

[deliriousblue]

the scene on the boat honestly feels to me like kant's actions are just the culmination of a spiral that's been going on for a while now.

he’s being pulled in different directions that are fundamentally incompatible. protecting babe is the single drive that the entire show has been built around; none of the rest of the events in the show after the first part of the first episode happen without it.

at the same time kant genuinely has fallen in love with bison at this point. and there’s nothing he can do about it! he can't work for captain christ and protect bison but he has to be at his every beck and call to protect babe. by the time he admits to himself that he cares about bison too much to betray him he's already betrayed him too much.

i think he's known the whole time, on some level, that he’ll never be truly free of the captain. but he’s already made the choice. and even if he were honest with bison now what good would it do?

and yet he tells style he's going to stop working for the captain anyway. he even cites babe as one of the reasons.

this, honestly, makes no sense. nothing about the fundamental dynamics between him and his brother and the captain has changed. christ explicitly threatened babe in the first episode and — the way i read it — he hasn't stopped.

i don’t think kant is thinking clearly through the situation and deciding that the captain will never let him go so he might as well save the man he loves. i think he’s just desperately flailing at anything anything that would let him out. fox in a trap chewing off his own leg!

and so then the scene on the boat where he just. stops. i think there are multiple things going on simultaneously there — obviously kant is terrified and bison is a loose cannon — but it isn't his only option. bison is expecting to be cajoled and groveled to and what he gets is kant jumping wrists tied into the water. you can threaten me all you want, but i quit.....