#I think I shoved a lot of the outright violence to the Jacob/Dean ship instead because I really wanted to focus on the psychological aspect-

[derelictdumbass]

The Angel's Baptist

warning/s: religious themes, unhealthy relationship dynamics, canon-typical violence

It's funny referring to Dean as an angel seeing how his character ends up but in an odd way at the start of his story in Hope County he really is—compared to John. The worst things he'd ever done were during a traumatic childhood, his teen years spent self isolating and his early years of adulthood were spent in the most mundane, boring ways possible. Even during the beginning of the story he was giving all his days to help others. But under the surface there's a lot more than that, he's still riddled with sin, and John can see it.

Despite the first cursory glance showing something akin to a saint John can see all the cracks within him and he digs his fingers in until he can start tearing Dean apart and exposing every scar and vice. And what he finds is a broken man who'd rather sleep than take care of himself, a man who'd rather start a barfight to punish himself rather than go to therapy, a man whose so comfortable in his own company he neglects his relationships and doesn't do anything to change.

A man so afraid of being seen he uses his teeth as a warning and his words as a knife. But he never bites down and John has always been comfortable with his neck in an open maw.

Once John has scrapped away all the coating and gotten to the core of Dean he's more ethereal than ever, to John each imperfection and unhealthy coping mechanism is a work of art. A work of art he's ready to mold, to creep inside and weave himself into as a support structure that can't be taken out without destroying the whole thing.

Dean is a fallen angel, wings dirtied with mud and body bruised and scarred from head to toe. And when John finally gets through to him and is able to cradle his broken ribs he becomes one too. Just a drop of holiness is shared through split lips and trembling fingertips. John carves out his sins and by proxy he can forget his own, in indulging in Dean's rebirth he chases his own and for once feels like maybe he reached it.

He's Dean's Baptist, his saviour, his lover, his solace—and Dean is his angel, his proof that those gates will be open to him as long as he has him in his arms.

The Sloth's Wrath

The first iteration of Dean and John's relationship, so much more violent and corruptive in almost the opposite way. Dean in this iteration has his vices on full display, he was a mess and everyone knew about it. His anger simmered and boiled over in bloody knuckles and bruised cheeks.

John's own sins were ramped up, focusing on his neglect of his previous duties in his sole need to dig his hands into Dean's soul and rip him art to build him back together. His own Wrath parries Dean's, they collided like fireworks and left scars no each other deeper than anyone else could witness.

Dean was no angel, he was from the same circle of hell that John crawled out of and it was John's sole responsibility to raise him from it. Dean resisted at every corner, almost killing him, but John knew all about the love in bloodied knees and brought Dean down to his level until all they were was raw and open and broken in each other's embrace.

The dynamic changed from violent and raw to violence in softness, a slow decline of walls until the serpent could sneak in to the garden. I like the new dynamic of slow corruption compared to how quickly Dean succumbed to John in their first iteration, he was almost immediately drawn in by the twin flame and he still is but this time he's afraid and resistant to the pull.

It's more realistic for them to have this slow dance into a descent, for Dean to grapple with what he wanted himself to be and John holding up a mirror to what he always had been. Dean is still violent and they still near kill each other but it's lathered in a twisted love neither of them can deny at the end.