#I would offer my soul to Crowley if it meant we got another season

[adhd-as-my-personality]

I am sorry but having to watch two men be so obviously in love with each other for 10 seasons and still having to point out to people how obvious it is. When if it were a straight couple it would’ve just been taken for granted (all of the couples combined had less romantic scenes than destiel) is my villain origin story.

[apocalypseornaw]

Always be Yours-6

Word Count: 3,105

Story Summary: Inspired by the 2 part I did of the same title. Follows Dean and reader through season 9 into season 10

Chapter Summary: Cas runs across a case so you and Dean go to check it out

Warnings: usual fighting and cursing. Mention of suicide

Kevin finally emerged from his room to say he’d had some big breakthrough with the angel tablet so you, Dean and Sam followed him into the library and watched as he unloaded his arm load of notes onto the tables. You stepped forward and picked up one of the sheets then glanced at Sam and held it out as Dean picked up a few sheets and looked them over as well “Kev, sweetie your big news is that you translated the tablet into doodles?”

“It’s cuneiform” he corrected and when neither of you seemed to understand what he meant he further explained “I hit a wall translating the tablet into english but I found an ancient codex linking the angel script to proto-elamite cuneiform and I was able to translate the tablet and the footnotes into elamite which is..” “Doodles?” Dean guessed and Kevin sighed “It’s extinct”

“Well can you read it?” Sam asked and you tried not to let the disappointment show on your face when Kevin’s answer was “No one can. Scholars have tried for centuries” “So it’s a dead end” you pushed as Dean sat down in the chair you’d been leaning on the back of but Kevin shook his head “Not quite. Now most proto-elamite is abstract but I was able to decipher one phrase from Metatron’s footnotes..falling angels” Dean looked over his shoulder at you then at Sam who said “Ok, so the footnotes refer to Metatron’s spell?” “Maybe?” Kevin shrugged and you let out a breath. Maybe didn’t get you any closer to a solution for Cas or anyone else for that matter. 

Sam nodded then walked over to a shelf of books “Well maybe if we can decipher the footnotes then we can reverse the spell..” “and punt those winged dicks back to heaven” Dean finished and you shook your head at his choice of words but they were dicks for trying to hurt Cas for something he hadn’t really known would happen. “Well, where do we start?” you asked and Sam started handing out from the stack of books he’d plucked off the shelf “Research” 

You took the book he offered you and pulled the chair out next to Dean “So we comb through the library, see if we can find anything else on elamite?” Sam nodded then sat down next to Kevin with two books. Dean cut his eyes at you then read the title of the book Sam had passed him “Zimmerman’s encyclopedia of extinct languages: volume one. Adai to atakapa.. How many volumes are there?” “Twenty four” Kevin replied and you tried to hide your laugh with a cough when Dean groaned at his answer.

You were flipping through volume three when Dean’s phone rang. You glanced up when he stood up and walked away from the table but when Sam looked your way you quickly turned your attention back to the book in your hands. 

A few minutes passed before Dean walked back over and tapped his phone on the table to get all of your attention “Cas has a case in Rexford. Four missing, presumed dead. Strange substance at the scene. Sounds worth checking out” “Ok? So what flavor of weird is he thinking?” you asked but Dean shrugged “He didn’t say” “Who’s going because Kev needs help with the research” you spoke not glancing up until he said “Why don’t you? We worked pretty well in the hospital together against the angels and Sam's better at the research side anyways” you looked at him then at Sam for help but Sam bless his pretty little head simply shrugged.

------

You sat in the passenger side of the impala trying your best to act as if you weren’t alone with Dean. “Why can’t we see Cas?” you finally asked and he shook his head “He’s catnip for angels” “Yeah and we left Zeke at the bunker inside Sammy in case you forgot.. Hell we’re catnip for angels from what went down at the hospital and in Detroit. I want to at least check on him. Please?” You weren’t above begging and knew you struck a cord with Dean when you said please. He sighed “Fine. If we can find him, we’ll check on him. Ok?” “Thank you” you replied and reached over to turn up the radio.

------

Dean stopped a little way out of Rexford for you both to change into your fed suits. The most recent crime scene was a cabin so that’s where you headed first. 

When you rolled on scene the entire place was still taped off and crawling with cops. You grabbed your ID then followed Dean since he was the one to call ahead and talk to the sheriff.

He met the two of you at the tape and waved a deputy off “This is Agent Ermey and Agent Speight” you and Dean both nodded to the deputy then followed the sheriff. “So four missing?” you asked but the sheriff clarified “Four dead. Just got confirmation” You looked towards Dean who asked “Any common threads you can think of?” “Well Joe in there had the suicide hotline on speed dial. The gal before him was a shut in, had enough antidepressants in her medicine cabinet to stock a pharmacy. The first victims were a married couple out of Sugar City, pretty much a walking billboard for no-fault divorce” “Were they all basket cases?” Dean asked with that bluntness of his you’d come to look for over the time you’d known him.

The sheriff glanced away “If you asked me to make a list of this county’s saddest sacks, these four would’ve been right on top”  you nodded then spoke “All right so four unhappy people, one of them definitely suicidal, but you’ve ruled out suicide?” The sheriff looked from you to Dean then got some booties to cover your shoes and some gloves from one of the deputies “You’re going to want to out these on” You raised your eyebrows but leaned over to pull the booties on over the flats you wore with your fed suit then pulled the gloves onto your hands. Once you and Dean looked ready for surgery the sheriff lead the two of you inside.

The inside of the cabin absolutely reeked and it took you a moment to register just what exactly was covering every surface. “This look like suicide to you agents?” The sheriff asked and you swallowed hard as you looked at Dean. Just what in the hell had caused this? 

You motioned to the substance that was everywhere “Correct me if I’m wrong sheriff but is this excuse the way I’m about to put this but is this everything? Like blood, meat, organs and skin?” The sheriff nodded “If the tests come back same as the others. Yes ma’am. Like these poor souls got  run through the world’s finest wood chipper” “What about witnesses?” Dean questioned as you let your eyes skim across the walls and the remains of “Joe”

“Same as the rest. Neighbors reported some kind of pink flash, by the time we got here all that was left was this” the sheriff answered looking around. Dean thanked the sheriff and handed him a card before leading you back outside. You stripped the booties and gloves then tossed them into the bag the deputy at the door held. 

When you finally made it back to baby you looked at Dean as he slid behind the wheel “What the hell did that?” He shrugged but was already dialing his phone “I’m going to call Sam and Kevin, see if they can find anything to point us in the right direction. Meantime you geared up good enough?” you nodded “Silver bullets with devils’ traps, holy water and an angel blade” he smirked “That’s my girl” then pulled the phone up to his ear as he backed out from Joe’s yard and pulled onto the road leading into town.

------

After finding out Sam and Kevin hadn’t gotten anywhere, Dean suggested they try getting Crowley to assist on the translation then you and him stopped to change back into civilian clothes,grabbed coffee and headed into the center of the town. So far you’d tried emf, looked for hex bags and sulfur to not avail. You had no clue what had happened to those four people.

You glanced out your window then hit Dean’s arm “STOP” “OW. What for?” you pointed to the Gas N Sip “CAS!”

------

You waited out at baby while Dean headed in to talk to Cas. He made him leave so he had to face him alone. 

You were going through what lore you’d downloaded onto your laptop while Dean was in the store. You texted Sam to see how his luck had been with Crowley and weren’t too surprised when he sent back “What do you think?”

The driver’s door opening made you look up from where you’d been sitting with your legs stretched across the backseat and grinned when you saw Cas was with Dean “There’s my favorite set of blue eyes” Cas smiled softly at you “Hello Y/N” and climbed into the passenger seat. Dean updated you on the fact that there had been another killing at the local high school and that apparently Cas had a date later that night “Ooh the blonde? She’s hot” both of them looked back at you so you shrugged “What? I got to pick one type that I like?” Dean shook his head with a laugh and pulled out onto the road.

------

You flashed your badge at the deputy and nodded in Cas’ direction “He’s with us” the school ground was crawling with deputies and it made your stomach turn to know whatever was doing the killing had taken out someone this young.

Dean headed to talk to the deputy who had a witness but you noticed Cas stop to look at the bus that was covered in the same substance that Joe’s cabin had been covered in. “Cas, do you know what this is?” he nodded slowly “As a matter of fact, I do”

He looked back towards baby so you offered “Let’s walk away from it” he told you where he’d seen the substance before and the knot in your stomach grew with the information. You spotted Dean when he headed your way “You two ok?” you looked at Cas “He’s seen this before” “What, where?” Dean asked so Cas replied “In heaven” 

“So an angel did this?” Dean questioned and you nodded even before Cas explained “It’s not ordinary angel. This is bad, this is very bad” just seeing Cas that worried scared the hell out of you.

-----

The Rit Zien was a special class of angel. Rit Zien was enochian for “Hands of mercy” They functioned like medics tending to the wounded, healing those that could be healed and putting down those who were past saving.

Cas explained to you and Dean that the Rit Zien honed in on pain like a beacon. So when this particular one fell to earth he heard the victims’ cries, their anguish same as he heard the angels in heaven. He was continuing his heavenly work down on earth. 

Cas turned down going along to hunt down the angel and it was a shock to realize Cas was scared. “We got this” You assured him patting his shoulder so Dean added “Go on that date. Have a little bit of a normal life” 

“I need a ride” Cas said and you smiled at him “Well you’re sitting in the sexiest ride this town currently has in it”

------

You were laid across the backseat of the impala using your jacket as a pillow when Dean pulled to a stop in front of Nora’s house so you sat up. “Nice place” 

Cas started to get out with his work vest still on so Dean stopped him. “You can’t wear that” “This is all I have” you leaned up and took a good look at him “Take the vest off” he did as you asked and Dean nodded approvingly “Unbutton a few buttons” Cas did that also so you threw in “And untuck your shirt!” he did that then threw his hands up at you both “Good enough?” you shamelessly checked him out and saw a hint of a smile “She won’t know what hit her”

“Always open the door for her, ask a lot of questions they like that” you knew Dean was offering Cas help but you popped him lightly behind the head at that “They” comment. He cut his eyes at you in the mirror and added “If she says she’s happy to go dutch, she’s lying” and patted Cas on the chest “Go get em tiger” you leaned up and kissed Cas on the cheek “Be yourself. That’s enough” then he climbed out of the car. 

------

You and Dean hadn’t got all the way across town when his phone rang from the sheriff. The analysis from the first crime scene came back. Only the wife’s dna was present. Meaning the husband was still out there making him the most likely to be the vessel.

The two of you headed straight for the sheriff’s office and there your thoughts were confirmed. The husband had found religion then gotten obsessed with Buddy Boyle’s podcast.You and Dean were going over the files the sheriff had on the couple when he stopped on one photo and showed you the truck “Is that the one that blocked us in?” he nodded “Excuse us sheriff, we got to go”

------

The moment you made it into the door the angel sent you and Dean flying into a crumpled heap.You could hear the baby crying but considering you’d smacked your head going down and Dean’s weight was on your legs you couldn’t get up.

Dean slid his angel blade to Cas at the last moment and Cas buried it home. You pulled your legs out from under Dean and headed for the baby while Dean helped Cas to his feet.

You scooped her up and turned to look at the two of them “Everybody good?” they nodded and you let out a breath “Good”

------

You and Dean ended up staying with Cas until Nora got back from her date and between the three of you the baby finally calmed and went back to sleep. When Nora got there you and Dean headed outside to call Sam while Cas spoke to Nora.

The news from Sam was about the worst you could get. The spell Metatron did was irreversible. The angels couldn’t get back into heaven.

------

It hurt having to leave Cas yet again but he was safe from the angels and adapting. You knew it was for the best even if you wished more than anything he could come home to the bunker.

------

You were silent for the first couple hours of the ride back to Lebanon until Dean bumped your knee with his hand. “Want to stop and grab a bite to eat?” you rolled your head to look over at him “Sure, might as well”

When the two of you headed into the diner he slung his arm around your shoulders “Go to admit Y/N, you’re a natural with kids sweetheart” you rolled your eyes and said “You weren’t so bad yourself Dean” with a laugh.The older waitress that was at the counter smiled at the two of you when you walked in and headed for a corner booth.

When she came to take your order she looked between the two of you “Can I just say how cute it is to see a couple get along so well?” your mouth fell open in shock and you expected Dean to correct her but he just winked at her and motioned to you “Look at her. How could I not get along with her?” you shot him a look then when the waitress left to place your orders you looked back at him “What the hell was that?” and he shrugged “Sweetheart I’ve been accused of a lot worse than managing to get you as mine” you felt your cheeks warm but ducked your head to hide it and said “You’re a natural flirt Dean, you know that?” and when you glanced back up he smiled “Tell me to stop and I will never flirt with you again” you took a sip of the water in front of you and shrugged “I’ve still not seen any flirting worth being impressed over” his eyes widened at that “So is that the issue? I’m not convincing enough?” 

A part of you still wondered if Charlie told him how you felt so you quickly threw back “I just know you don’t mean it” this time he looked a bit thrown but you could see the wheels turning in his head even when the waitress brought your food back over to the table.

--------

Dean was quiet throughout the two of you eating and even when you got back out to the impala. It wasn't until you were miles down the road that he finally spoke "Look Y/N, I know I'm a flirt. I like sex there's no shame in that but if I was to be with someone I'd be loyal to that person and I wouldn't say I wanted someone as a joke or a way to appease hurt feelings hell I'm too much of a jackass for that" you turned sideways in the seat and studied his profile for a moment considering he'd just poured his heart out without taking his eyes from the road. 

"Are you trying to say something Dean?" You asked feeling your heart jump into your throat with the hope that maybe just maybe he was. That hope was squashed when he shook his head "Not really. I just don't want you thinking I'm one of those types of guys is all" "Oh, well don't worry about that Dean. We're good" you replied with a smile then straightened up in the seat pulling your jacket up on you as a blanket "Wake me when we get home or if you want me to drive some" 

He cut his eyes at you with a smirk "Home it is"

Tags: @facadeformyrealblog @akshi8278

[riversongg]

Pairing: Castiel / Dean Winchester 
Warnings: Swearing (Is this a warning?)
 Word Count: 1087
 A/N: This is something I wrote a while ago and planned to post as a later chapter of a fic I started, but due to work/life commitments I haven’t been able to post in that fic as much as I would have liked, so instead I am just posting it here today to celebrate the 2021 Valentine’s day Destiel wedding!!!If you enjoy I would LOVE to hear what you think! 
 Summary: It’s Valentine’s Day after the events of Season 15 except Cas came back and no one dies. Dean and Cas get married and everything is soft.

Dean snuggles into Castiel, his arm around Dean’s shoulders where they lie. Dean has no idea how he ended up as the little spoon, but he’s too happy to care. He reaches up to Castiel’s chest, intertwining their fingers. He revels in the moment, in the feeling of pure happiness. But it’s more than that. He knows happiness, he’s felt it before. It’s a rare feeling, sure, but what he’s feeling right now is beyond happiness. It’s something he doesn’t think he has ever felt before.

Peace. 

He breathes slowly, deeply, closing his eyes and simply existing in Cas’s arms. He pulls Castiel’s hand to his lips and kisses the ring that is now sitting on the ex-angel’s finger. It’s cold against his lips, the silver standing out against the warmth of his husband’s skin.

“Mr Winchester,” Dean says with a smile. 

Dean feels Castiel untangle his hand from his as he reaches to cup Dean’s jaw. 

“Dean,” Cas says, his voice full of more warmth and love than Dean ever imagined he deserved. But he does. He deserves this. He deserves Cas. He leans towards his husband and their lips meet in the middle, soft and chaste but sure. A promise lingering between the two of them. A promise of tomorrow. A promise of every day after. They breathe each other in, eyes closed, content to exist in each other’s orbit.

“I don’t think I will ever be ready for this day to end,” Dean says as he pulls away. He leans back against his husband’s chest, hooking his left hand around Cas’s thigh. The arm around his shoulders gives him a squeeze, tight and reassuring.

“I know,” Cas says simply. “Today was the best day of your life.” Dean shoves him teasingly. “You know it’s true. Everyone you have ever loved, all in one room. Everyone happy, no pain…” He pauses. “Except when Crowley decided it would be a good idea to try karaoke.”

“Heh,” Dean laughed. “Yeah, no one needed to experience that, no matter what they have done to deserve it.” They smiled at the memory of that evening, a drunken ex-King of Hell swaying on stage to a terrible rendition of Air Supply’s All Out of Love. 

After a few minutes Cas presses a soft kiss into Dean’s hair. “You will see them all again tomorrow, you know.” Dean nods. “And Jack has given them all the choice to stay.”

“Cosmic consequences be damned,” Dean quotes, “yeah, I remember.” He sighs. When they told their son that they would be getting married, Jack had told Cas and Dean that he wanted to do something for them, a gift, to make their wedding the best possible day in existence. He’d been away for a while, busy revamping Heaven. Changes were coming, they could all feel that. 

Dean first understood the shift in their reality when Jack told them that he had offered all monsters on Earth the option to be “cured”. He had said that he didn’t want to force a cure on them, that it wouldn’t be fair to those who lived a good life. “Like your friend Garth,” he had told Dean, his face so earnest and hopeful. 

Jack explained that Purgatory would cease to exist. The afterlife would not be the same. Any demons in Hell who wanted to start again as a human would be given the chance. Everyone else would simply exist no more.

And the same thing was going to happen to Heaven. Dean remembers the way it felt when Jack had told him that the souls in Heaven would simply drift away into nothing, the way his heart felt like someone had taken ahold of it and squeezed, never letting go. 

But of course, Jack, kind and good as he is, had one surprise up his sleeve.

Everyone that Sam and Dean and Cas had ever loved, had ever cared for, had been brought back. “Cosmic consequences be damned,” Jack had said with a bright smile. “This is how it is meant to be.” 

Dean had felt happier and lighter than he ever had before. Everyone. They were all coming back. Holding Charlie in his arms, sobbing into her hair as she stroked his back had been a weight lifted. 

There had been a very strange reunion between Sam and Jess, especially when he introduced Eileen into the mix. 

Even John Winchester had been brought back. Castiel punched him on the nose in principle, breaking one of his fingers. That had been a fun trip to the hospital. 

“You will never be ready to say goodbye to any of them,” Cas says. “I understand.” 

For the most part, everyone was excited to stay on Earth, give living another go. Not many people get a chance at a redo, and this would be the last time anyone would ever come back. But Jack didn’t want to force people to come back. He had explained it would be unfair, especially after he understood how painful and difficult it had been for Mary that first time.

Some people had decided not to stay. They would stay for the wedding, for one last hurrah, of course. But on February 15th they would be saying goodbye.

Forever. 

“Hey, Cas?” 

“Yes, Dean?”

“You know I love you, right?” He hates how insecure he sounds. Cas laughs, his voice low and quiet.

“I think the fact that we just got married in front of all of our loved ones, Dean, tells me how much you love me.”

“Okay,” he says. “Just checking.”

“I love you too,” Cas says, “more than anything.” 

And Dean leans in again, kisses his husband with all the love and passion his body can muster. He wants to show Castiel just how much he is loved, cherished, valued. He wants to make his husband feel good, and happy, and pure. 

Things quickly become heated between the two of them, and as Dean sinks into Cas, becoming enraptured and enveloped in their passion, he allows his mind to drift back to earlier that day, to the one moment he never wants to forget.

Dean stands in front of his husband to be, hands joined tight between them. The Roadhouse has somehow been rebuilt - Dean reminds himself to thank the kid for that later - everyone he has ever loved sat in one room. Dean never imagined that something like this would even be possible. But here he was, standing before the person he loved the most in the world, ready to tell the whole world. 

“Castiel,” Claire says, because for some reason she insisted on officiating, “I believe you have prepared your own vows.” Cas nods to her, his face stoic and serious. Dean watches as he takes in a deep breath, preparing for the speech he has prepared.

“Everything I have done since the day I pulled you out of Hell has been done for you,” Cas begins. “Because of you. The good, the bad…” He trails off, a small smile growing on his face. He looks down, away from Dean, and lets out a small huff of laughter. “Yes I may have been misguided at times, made some bad choices.” His eyes reach Dean’s again. “But I did everything for you. All I ever wanted was a better world for you, Dean Winchester. I wanted to create a world that you would be proud of.” Dean squeezes Cas’s hands even tighter. 

“Dean.” Cas says his name so simply. It’s just one word, one small syllable. But the way he says those four letters speaks so much love and affection into the world that a part of Dean wants to run from it. It has taken him a long time to accept that he does deserve the kind of love that Castiel, ex-angel of the lord, and love of his life is offering, but sometimes Dean doesn’t know how to truly comprehend that he is allowed this kind of happiness. 

“I know for the longest time you have thought that I have only stayed by your side out of obligation,” Cas continues. “You feel, you worry, that I think I owe you something, and that is the reason why I stay. You taught me how to love. You taught me how to care, how to be human. 

“I know you still sometimes think that I stick around because it’s convenient. But every day, every moment of my life, it is an honour to be able to exist in your orbit. Knowing you has been the biggest pleasure of my life. Simply standing here, getting to exist next to you… It would be more than enough to make me happy until the end of time. But getting to be with you, to hold your hand, to look into your eyes, to exist with you, that is more than I could have ever dreamed.” 

Cas is well into his speech now, and Dean definitely does not feel his through tightening, a tear forming in his eye. Definitely not.

“I knew a long time ago that I intended to spend the rest of my life loving you. I have told you before that I learned to love everyone, the whole world, Sam, Jack, our family, because of you. But my love for you… That’s something I will never be able to quantify. It’s not only a part of me, but it has made me who I am. And I am so grateful that you have given that to me.”

Dean can feel his heart beating now, harder than it has ever beat before. 

“I want to spend the rest of my life loving you, Dean Winchester. If you’ll have me, I want to do it by your side, holding your hand as we walk Miracle, kissing you good morning despite your awful morning breath,” - that earns a chuckle from their audience- “pretending I like Led Zeppelin more than I actually do,” -and that earns a protested “Hey!” from Dean, a chuckle from Sam, and an understanding nod from Jack- “practicing my baking skills until I make the perfect pie… all of it. I want all of it with you.” 

“You are not only the love of my life, Dean. You are my life. My love, my joy, I would never have understood any of it if not for you. If you will have me, I will spend every day in the rest of my existence thanking you.”

And then Castiel turns back to Claire, giving her a small nod to indicate that he is finished. Everyone is quiet. Everything is still. No one moves.

Claire clears her throat and turns to Dean. 

“Well, shit Cas,” Dean says finally, a laugh escaping as a single tear manages to escape, “how the fuck am I supposed to follow that?”

Everyone laughs. And everything is perfect.

Read on AO3. Credit to @sunforgrace​ for the banner

[supernatural-rewatch-3]

We Need to Talk About Kevin

So Dean escapes from Purgatory one year later. Instead of calling Sam, Dean’s first response to to keep his promise and go revive his new friend Benny. Now I’ve said before there are a few trio’s I absolutely adore. Dean, Cas, and Meg are one. Sam, Dean, and Cas are another. However Dean, Cas, and Benny will always have a special place in my heart. Benny was a special character who never asked for much and gave his life for a dear friend. More about that later though.

Sam meanwhile packs up to Rufus’ cabin. Now the first time I saw this episode, I had thought Dean called Sam and Sam wen to meet with him. That doesn't seem to be the way that went though now that we’ve seen the whole season. More like as Dean implies, he tried to call Sam but none of Sam’s phones are working. Sam even says he never got any of Dean’s messages, and not being able to find or contact Sam, Dean went to the cabin. It’s obvious Dean has been staying there for at least a few days since there is already food and drinks (Dean gets a beer from the fridge and the shelves are full of perishable foods showing they were recently purchased) and Sam had just happened to decide to return to the cabin when he left Amelia. So Sam’s entrance shocked both Dean and Sam.

It’s also important to see how ‘rough’ Dean has gotten due to his stint in Purgatory. Before when they reunited Dean was insistent Sam proved it was him...but not like that. Dean just leaped on him and did the tests quickly and forcefully, on both him and Sam, probably more forcefully than necessary. Sam learns that Dean was in Purgatory for the last year and when he asks about Cas Dean says he let go. Again, the first time I saw this, I thought he meant Cas gave up. I didn’t realize Dean literally meant that Cas let go of his hand and didn’t go through the portal with him!

So Dean learns Sam gave up hunting and he’s pissed about it. Now this part I don’t get but maybe Dean was just lashing out at being stressed. After all Dean has been going at about 100 miles per hour sine the beginning of season 6. He had spent the whole year Sam was gone trying to research any way to pull Sam from the cage. He abandoned his family with Lisa and Ben to return to hunting because Sam asked him to. When he found out Sam didn't’ have a soul he busted his ass to get it back all while having a back stabbing family and Apocolypse 2.0 hanging over his head. Then he lost Lisa and Ben, Sam started falling apart, and Cas betrayed them, then Sam went insane, Cas died, Sam was hospitalized, they had the Leviathan hanging over they’re heads, then Bobby died, then they had ghost Bobby to deal with, and then Dean had to runaround in Purgatory for an entire year with as little rest as possible because everything in existence wanted to kill him.

And when he comes back he tries to find Sam, only to have no way to contact him and when he does finally find Sam he learns Sam gave up. However Dean’s anger becomes justified when he learns Sam didn’t even try to look for him. Now I see both sides of the argument here. The first is they did say they’d never look for each other, to leave what is dead alone. However they’ve never don it before and this time Sam left Dean in Purgatory because he didn’t know. And had Dean not met Benny he would never have escaped.

Dean cools off a little but his anger is reignited when he listens to the phones and learns that Sam’s decision to stop hunting didn’t just leave Dean high and dry, but a now 17 year old boy as well. Sam looks into Kevin’s messages and gets a lead for them to follow.

As they travel they stay in a motel for the night but Dean has a flashback to Purgatory, when he met Benny. Dean is restless, understandable since he spent the last year in constant motion but Sam wants to stay. So they end up talking. Dean finds out that there was a dog in his car and he is not happy (Dean, you’ve had plenty of dogs in your car. Remember Jeffery’s dog? Or Lucky?) Dean talks a little about Purgatory and we see more about how he and Benny met. That after some time of Dean being in Purgatory he was found by Benny who offered to help him out in return for a ride home.

Dean and Sam get to the college and look for Kevin. We learn a little about Sam’s year too, how he hit the dog and made Amelia angry by not taking responsibility at first. Sam decides to go ahead and adopt the dog.

The boys find Kevin, who first tests them to see if they are leviathan. Kevin then tells them about a way to close the gates of Hell for good. Dean decides they need to do this and that Kevin is already involved. Sam is upset, asking if Dean thinks free will only applies to him. I get both of they’re arguments here. Crowley is the one after Kevin, and no matter what they do, he will not stop until he gets him. That is an unfortunate side effect of being a profit. No matter what Kevin does the angels and demons will be hunting for him. However Sam and Dean built they’re whole being’s on being able to make they’re own decisions. However one decision had been made by both that they could never keep, and that was to get out.

However Dean’s decision to get out wasn’t really his. Sam told him to do it and he did. Anyway, Crowley finds them and confronts them. Kevin makes the decision to go with Sam and Dean. However that means Crowley chose the consequence of that decision being Channing’s death.

After they escape Dean talks to Benny and while he still cares about Benny and is glad to hear him, he tells Benny they shouldn’t really talk and for Benny to only call him if it’s an emergency.

[amuseoffyre]

Crossing Paths - 1421 - Heaven

I got to thinking that in all my previous chapters, Aziraphale flailed about being caught by their respective bosses, but he never really put any thought into what that could mean, because it’s simply not how he thinks. So, of course, I decided I needed to enlighten him :D

1421 - Heaven

Aziraphale discreetly rubbed his palms on his tunic, praying that the sweat didn’t leave stains.

No matter how many times they had got away with the… Arrangement in the past, he couldn’t help feeling anxious every time he was summoned to give his reports in person in Heaven. He half-expected to find himself in shackles every time.

“–were considered a great success,” Gabriel was saying, beaming. “Our numbers have never looked better.”

“I’m afraid rather a lot of people died,” Aziraphale said, then hastily bit his tongue.

“Mortals,” Gabriel patiently shook his head with a sigh. “That’s what they do, Aziraphale.”

The angel nodded, folding his hands in front of him again, lacing his fingers together. “I know. I just– I thought it might be considered a good thing for…” He coughed and nodded pointedly downwards. “I mean, they do like a body count.”

“What Hell does or doesn’t approve of is not our concern,” Michael murmured. They were dressed in embroidered robes that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Cathedral. Dark haired spilled down over their shoulders, held back from their face by a diadem, as they tilted their head to study Aziraphale, as if he had somehow sinned and fallen short of their approval.

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale agreed at once, heart pounding.  Personally, he had tried to remain neutral, but it was hard to be neutral when the so-called “good guys” launched an assault that burned down a building full of women and children. He hesitated, then said, “The demon – Crowley – was there.”

“To be expected,” Gabriel nodded. “This was a major point of conflict and we won.”

Aziraphale forced his mouth to smile, although it was hard to consider anything a win when he and Crowley had been left standing in the ashes and rubble, the demon’s face tight with barely masked grief and rage. He couldn’t even be sure which of them had been offering the blessings or leading people into temptation in Žatec. It was too simple now, one or the other, sometimes within the same breath.

And sometimes, Crowley’s miracles were so infinitely beautiful that it was hard to remember that he was a demon at all.

He deserved not to be.

“I know I was only meant to be monitoring his activity,” he began, touching carefully as one does when searching for the source of pain. It was rare for Gabriel to be in such a good mood and the best time to try to take advantage of it. “But do you think– that is to say– wouldn’t it be a real coup d’etat for us, if we could win him back to our side?”

He didn’t know what was worse: the look of incredulity on Michael’s face or Gabriel laughing out loud.

“Win him to our side?” Michael said, disdain dripping from every word. “He’s Fallen, Aziraphale. Why in the name of the Almighty would we want him on our side?”

“Surely all creatures are worthy of the Almighty’s grace…” he faltered as the two archangels exchanged looks.

“Aziraphale,” Gabriel said with gentle condescension. “We understand your intentions are good, but he’s Fallen already. Why bother with someone who chose to reject us? To reject this?” He gestured around the glistening marble halls of Heaven. “Something like that isn’t worth saving. I doubt they would even consider him a significant loss. Would you waste your valuable time on something like that?”

Aziraphale tugged self-consciously at the edge of his tunic. “No. I suppose.” He forced himself to raise his eyes back to Gabriel’s. “But if I could only try–”

“If you want to see what Hell does to him, by all means,” Michael said mildly. “They don’t like traitors down there.”

“Tr-traitors?” Aziraphale blanched. “But–”

“If you even try to draw him back into the light,” Michael said with the tone of one speaking to a child, “they will see it as a betrayal.”

Draw him into the light. By, for example, performing miracles that an angel should, by rights, be performing.

“I– I see.” It felt like poking a sleeping lion, but he couldn’t help asking, “What on earth would they do to a disobedient demon anyway?” He forced an uncertain laugh. “Can you be cast out of Hell?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Nothing a little baptism wouldn’t take care of.”

“Baptism?” Aziraphale frowned. “That doesn’t sound so…” His heart dropped like a rock. “But baptisms are– that would mean–”

Michael gave him an impatient look. “Yes. Holy water. Demons are not as forgiving as we are.” They shot a glance at Gabriel, who nodded slightly. “That will be all, Principality.”

“But–” Aziraphale’s words died in his throat at the cool expressions on the archangels’ faces. He forced another brittle smile, bowing, his fists clenching around the edge of his tunic. “Of course. Thank you for your time.” He backed away, hurrying for the staircase that led back down to earth, trying to ignore the deafening thunder of his heart in his ears.

 ______________________________

 1427 – Valais

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Aziraphale froze where he was, stooped over the poor shackled woman on the floor. There was little to be done for her but the small mercy of a peaceful death. He drew away the pain of her broken bones and soothed the terror and rage enough to let her rest in her last moments. When his wings unfurled, bright and brilliant, he felt her joy and relief, then the quiet as her soul slipped away.

“Angel.”

He didn’t – he couldn’t turn. “I don’t think it’s wise that we continue,” he forced out, knowing how much more difficult it would be to say those words to Crowley’s face. “With the Arrangement, I mean.”

There was a small explosive hiss of a breath from behind him. “And why’s that?”

He folded his wings in, taking comfort from the weight of them against his back. His hands were shaking unbearably. They had to stop. They had to. He had been so worried about his own fate that he hadn’t even thought about Crowley’s and now that he knew…

“It’s too dangerous.”

Crowley groaned. “Not this old chestnut again!”

Aziraphale’s hands twitched by his sides and he curled them into fists to keep them still. “You– you never told me the risk you were taking!”

The demon fell silent. “What are you on about?” he finally asked.

Aziraphale took a shuddering breath, then turned to face him. “You never told me what they would do to you, if you were caught.”

Crowley was still as a statue, the darkness of his tunic and cloak blending into the shadows of the cells. “And?” he finally said.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed. “Is it true? That they would–” The word caught in his throat, hard and sharp and shocking him with how painful it was. “Would they really… kill you?”

The demon looked away from him with a shrug. “Maybe. Never asked.”

“But it’s a chance?”

“Could be.” He hooked his thumb through his belt. “Better not get caught, eh?”

Aziraphale stared at him, feeling as if the world had been tugged from beneath him. “No!” He felt sick with horror at the thought. Not simply because it was the death of a living creature, but the fact that it was Crowley. “I couldn’t bear it if– that you could be–” He shook his head. “We can’t! Not for the sake of saving time.”

He realised that the demon was looking at him again, a strange expression on his face. By the flickering torchlight, his lips twitched. “Aw, angel. You do care.”

Aziraphale flushed. “I don’t! I only– it’s just that–” He threw up his hands. “Why are you so insufferable?”

That made Crowley grin. “Because it’s fun?” He sauntered closer. “Anyway, you’ve got nothing to worry about. They don’t care what we do, do they? Four centuries we’ve been at it now and not so much as a sound out of them.”

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale had to agree. “But there could always be a first time.”

The demon was less than an arm’s length from him, still grinning. “Not if we’re careful. And I don’t know about you, angel, but I’m always careful.”

Aziraphale was mortified by how undignified his snort was. “Well, we both know that’s a lie.”

“Eh.” Crowley shrugged cheerfully. “Even if I’m not, I’m still very good at convincing them I’m damn good at what I do up here.” He tilted his head, his grin turning into a crooked smile. “Come on, angel. Can’t get cold feet on me now. You know this is good for both of us.”

“It is very dangerous,” he protested, but he could feel his resolve giving way.

“Everything’s dangerous to someone,” the demon pointed out reasonably. “That’s living, isn’t it?” He pulled down his glasses, peering over the rims. “What do you say? I’ll let you take Ronda, if you want? I was meant to be heading that way next week.”

Aziraphale almost whimpered aloud. The last time he’d visited Spain, they’d had some of the sweetest, most delicious oranges he had ever tasted. And it was orange season as well. “Maybe once more,” he said. “For old time’s sake.”

“One more.” Crowley beamed at him. “Course. That’s all.”

Much later, Aziraphale would wonder when he had become such a good liar.

[pink1031]

You’ve Woken Up the Demon In Me-Part 3

Characters: Demon!Dean x Reader, Crowley, Castiel, Cole

Warnings: Violence, non-con, dub-con, language, rough sex, oral (male and female receiving),angst, smut, choking, general abuse, fluff (just a little)  

A/n: This is not for the faint of heart.  It is very dark (like my soul). Demon Dean is by no means fluffy at all.  This follows Season 10, episodes 1, 2, 3 with a reader insert. I did not follow everything exactly, but much of the dialogue is there and the same premise. Sorry if this is pure trash. Gifs not mine. (Sorry about all the Gifs in this one but there are just so many out there from this episode that are so good!). 

Word Count: 6004

Part 1, Part 2

@build-a-pyre

@wildefire

Sam had managed to wrangle Dean into the dungeon of the bunker and secure him to a chair inside the devil’s trap. Dean had cussed and ranted the entire time but the cuffs did their job and made him virtually helpless.  You had locked yourself into your bedroom while Sam left to gather the blessed blood that he would need to cure Dean.  Your nerves were on edge the whole time Sam was gone, so much so that when you heard a knock on your bedroom door it actually made you jump and squeak in fear before grabbing your gun from your nightstand and point it at the door. “Y/n it’s me.” Sam called to you through the door. You took a deep breath and laid the gun back down before making your way to the door and unlocking it.  You smiled softly as you craned your neck to look up at Sam as you opened the door. Sam returned your soft smile with a small one of his own. “Just wanted to let you know I was back and I am heading down to get started.”  Sam held up the small cooler in his left hand. You nodded your response but weren’t sure exactly what to say.  You knew this was going to be rough, rougher than anything Sam had had to do before. “Do you want to…” Sam trailed off before clearing his throat. “I mean you don’t have to and I understand if you don’t want to see him.” “I’ll come with you, Sammy.” You nodded in understanding, knowing Sam didn’t want to face his demon brother alone.   He smiled a tight lip smile at you as you moved out of the room.  You both made your way down to the dungeon where Dean was waiting. Sam opened the dungeon door and made his way inside.  You held back, trying to calm your nerves and give yourself a pep talk before heading into the room.  “You can do this.” You told yourself. “You can do this for Sam and for Dean.” You made your way around the corner.  Dean sat strapped into the chair in the center of the devil’s trap.  Sam was standing at the small metal table opening the cooler that contained the blessed bags of blood. “Really?” You heard Dean scoff as he stared at Sam’s back. “For whatever it’s worth I got your blood type.” Sam spoke as he began to prepare the needles.   You walked silently and slowly into the room.  Keeping your distance and honestly hoping Dean didn’t notice you.   “Sam, I know you think you are gonna try and fix me, but…did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want to be fixed? Just let me and Y/n go live our lives.  I won’t bother you. What do you care?” Dean spoke as Sam turned and made his way to the edge of the devil’s trap. “What do I care?” Sam asked staring at his brother in disbelief before sprinkling holy water onto the circle while he chanted in Latin. “Wait, it’s not me you care about is it Sammy?  You are worried about me taking Y/n away again aren’t you?” Dean glared at Sam. Sam shot a look back at Dean as he finished the chant. “Yeah, that’s it.  You think I am gonna sit here like Crowley? Getting all weepy while you shoot me up? Well, screw that. I don’t want this.” Dean yelled.   “Yeah, I pretty much figured that out.” Sam shook his head and turned to go back to the table. You inched a little further into the room as Sam moved. “You don’t even know if this is gonna work do you? You know, I got a hell of a lot more running through me than just demon juice.” Dean continued to try to reason with Sam. Sam’s eyes met yours as he held up the syringe. You watched him as he took a deep breath and turned to face his brother once more. “Mark of Cain, got it.” “That’s right.” “Buckle up.” Sam canted his head as he looked at his brother and then moved forward.   “Sammy,” Dean growled a warning. “ You know I hate shots.” “I hate demons.” Sam said sternly before entering the circle. Dean’s eyes immediately turned black and he tried to lunge at Sam.  Sam was quick to hit Dean with holy water causing him to cry out in pain and his skin to sizzle.  Before you could blink Sam had drove the needle into Dean’s skin and emptied the contents.  Dean’s eyes went wide as the blood began to course through him.  His head snapped up as a roar filled his throat.  It was like a sound you had never heard before as Dean snarled and growled.  You stumbled back in fear as you watched, a cry of surprise and fear leaving your throat.

   Dean’s black gaze snapped to you as the little scream left your lips. He was panting, his fists clenching and unclenching in his restraints. “Look, we got a whole more of these to go. You could make it a lot easier on yourself.” Sam looked down at Dean as he groaned in pain.   “What’s the matter, brat,” Dean brought his gaze back to you as you stood lingering against the doorframe, “don’t want to come give your man a hello kiss?” he tried to chuckle but groaned as Sam shoved another needle into his arm. “Leave her alone.” Sam barked as he yanked the needle back out. “For all you know you could be killing me.” Dean rolled his eyes to look up at Sam. “Or…you’re just messing with me. Either way the lore doesn’t say anything about exceptions to the cure.” Sam made his way back to the table and dropped down the empty syringe. “The lore, hunters, Men of Letters, what a load of crap it all is.” Dean scoffed. “Oh, you got nothing?” Sam sighed exasperated as he turned to face Dean, leaning back against the table. “You want me to debate you?” Sam raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t even the real you I am talking to.” You looked at Sam, he looked so tired and almost defeated. This was really taking it’s toll on him.  You made yourself cross the room the few feet until you were standing on the opposite side of the table from Sam, trying to offer him what little support you could without getting any closer to Dean. Dean watched you, letting you know he was still very aware of your presence. “Oh, it’s the real me alright. Isn’t that right sweetheart?” Dean smirked at you. 

Sam glanced back over his shoulder at you as he followed Dean’s gaze. You stood silently, chewing at your full bottom lip as Dean continued his bullshit speech. “The new real me, the me that sees things for what they really are. Winchesters. Do-gooders. Fighting the natural order. Let me tell you something, guys like me, we are the natural order. It’s the way it was set up.” Seeing you standing behind him in support gave Sam the encouragement he needed to continue. “Guys like me still got to do what we can.” “Don’t be so full of yourself Sammy. ‘Cause, see, from where I’m sitting, there ain’t much difference from what I turned into to what you already are.” Dean cocked his head and grinned. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” Sam asked, a confused look furrowing his brows. “I know what you did when you went looking for me. I know how far you went. Crowley told me all about it. So let me ask you…” Dean smirked. “Which one of us is really the monster? Hmm? Starting to come back to you now?” Sam took a deep shaky breath and turned his back to Dean. His eyes closed and he leaned heavily on the table.  You looked at Sam, a frown creasing your features. “Sam?” You asked softly wondering what Dean was talking about. Sam just shook his head but wouldn’t look at you. “Oh, wait, Sammy didn’t tell you did he baby?” Dean laughed. “He was trying to get a twenty on Crowley, me, and you from any demon he could snag. But Crowley didn’t want to be found, and no one showed when he summoned.“ Dean’s gaze moved from you back to his brother. “But you found a way, didn’t you, Sam?” “You would have liked to have gotten there before the deal went down, but you didn’t really care about poor ol’ Lester, did you?” Dean continued to taunt his brother. “Oh, and so you know, I killed Lester myself. And that wife of his married the tattooed guy.” You still didn’t know what Dean was talking about but you knew Sam and you knew that whatever he did was because he had to do it. He had to do it to find you and Dean and save you both. You moved around the table so you could stand at Sam’s side. Your small hand reached out to gently grip Sam’s arm. “Sammy?” Your voice was soft and soothing. Sam turned his head and looked down at you. His hazel eyes were so sad, like they carried the weight of the world. “ I never meant,” His words were cut off by a now angry Dean. “Who cares what you meant?! That line that we thought was so clear between us and the things that we hunted, ain’t so clear is it? Wow. You might actually be worse than me! I mean, you took a guy at his lowest, used him, and it cost him his life and his soul. Nice work.” Dean huffed angrily. “Yeah well,” Sam’s gaze turned angry as he looked down at you, he grabbed another needle and turned towards Dean, stomping over to his side. “At least I didn’t kidnap and rape my best friend.” 

Sam shoved the needle hard into Dean’s neck before walking back to the table as Dean screamed in pain.  Sam threw the syringe down on the table.  Sam’s face was covered with a mix of emotions: anger, sadness, regret.   Dean’s chest rose and fell with his heavy breathing. His head drooped forward. “Let me ask you this, Sammy: If this doesn’t work, we both know what you got to do to me, right? You got the stomach for that, Sam?” Sam couldn’t answer that question.  Instead he pushed himself from the table and made his way out the door.   You watched Dean as you waited for Sam to return.  Dean did not look good.  He truly looked like he was in pain.  Soft groans fell from his lips as he sat with his eyes closed and his head slumped forward.  What if this really was killing him? You brain and emotions were still a giant jumble of confusion.  You hated the demon that Dean had become, but the man in front of you was still Dean.  Every ounce of your being still wanted to save that man.  You still wanted your Dean back.  You suddenly realized that Dean was too quiet. No more groaning or growling. His breathing was more shallow. “Sammy!” You yelled as you rushed over to Dean.  You shook Dean’s shoulders but got no response. “Dean!” You yelled at him and did the only thing you could think and slapped Dean across his scruffy cheek. “Hey! Hey! Dean! Come on, come back!” Dean’s voice came out a hoarse whisper. “No.” “Come back to me. You there? Hey! Dean, you okay?” You asked as your hands cupped his cheeks and lifted his head so you could look at him. Dean’s head lolled in your hands. “Yeah brat, if you consider drowning in your own sweat while your blood boils okay.” Dean coughed softly and you gently stroked his cheek.  You heard Sam rushing back into the room so you stood and moved back away from Dean. You looked at Sam with worried pleading eyes. “Look I can’t just stop doing this.” Sam said to both you and Dean. “Sure you can. You just stop! There’s no point in trying to bring your brother back now.” Dean glared up at his brother. “Oh, I will bring him back.” Sam seemed more determined now. “In fact, your uh… guilt-ridden, weight-of-the-world bro has been M.I.A. for quite some time now. But I’m loving the new model: Lean, mean, Dean” Dean chuckled. “Right.” Sam scoffed. “You like the new me too, don’t ya sweetheart?” Dean licked his full lips as he looked you up and down.  “In fact you love the new me, the way I make you scream so loud when you cum on my cock.” “Stop it Dean.” Sam barked at his brother. “You notice I tried to get as far away from you as possible Sammy? Away from your whining, your complaining. I chose the King of Hell over you! Maybe I was just … tired of babysitting you. Or always having to yank your lame ass out of the fire since …” Dean laughed. “Forever. Or maybe … Maybe it was the fact that you wanted my girl, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let that happen.  Or it could be that my mother would still be alive if it wasn’t for you. That your very existence sucked the life out of my life!” Your eyes grew wide as you listened to Dean rant.  You couldn’t believe the words spilling from his mouth.  You looked between the brothers.  Sam’s jaw was clenched and his nostrils flared as the anger flooded through him. “This isn’t my brother talking.” Sam took a deep breath as he tried to calm himself. “You never had a brother! Just an excuse for not manning up. But guess what: I quit.” “No. No, you don’t. You don’t get to quit. We don’t get to quit in this family! This family is all we have ever had!” Sam yelled back at Dean, his anger finally getting the best of him. “Well, then, we got nothin’.” Dean snarled. “Would you say that to Dad?” Sam asked, continue to hold on to hope that Dean was still in there somewhere. “Dad? Oh, there’s a prize. There’s a man who brainwashed us into wasting our lives fighting his losing battle!” Dean replied knowing that was the way Sam had always felt about their father. Sam shook his head and turned his back to Dean, moving back over to the table to load up another syringe with sanctified blood.   “Oh, ooh is this you manning up?” Dean poked at his brother. “This is me yanking your lame ass out of the fire.” Sam spoke as he jammed the needle into Dean’s arm once again. “You’re welcome.” Dean immediately began gasping and groaning in pain as Sam turned away again throwing the syringe onto the table before his long stride carried him out of the room.  You stared for a moment at Sam’s back and then looked back at Dean. “Sammy wait.” You called out as you turn and jog out of the room to catch up with the younger Winchester. You moved down the hallway in search of Sam and found him standing in Dean’s room. “Sam?” you asked softly.

Sam turned at the sound of your voice. His normally bright eyes were red and tear filled and it broke your heart.  You quickly moved to him throwing your arms around him and hugging him tight.  Sam’s good arm wrapped around you as he tucked his head to the curve of your neck and you could feel him sob softly.   “It’s going to be okay Sammy.”  You gently stroked your fingers through his hair. “We are going to get Dean back.  It’s going to work.” You tried to soothe him.  Sam let you hold him for a minute longer before he stood to his full height and wiped the remaining tears from his cheeks. “Yeah, it’s gotta work.” He nodded, saying it more to himself than to you.  He smiled down at you and gently cupped your cheek in his large hand.  “I should be the one taking care of you Y/n, not the other way around.” “We are taking care of each other Sammy.” You smiled and nuzzled against his palm. “Yeah but after everything you went through.” a deep frown formed on Sam’s face. “After what Dean did to you.” “Hey,” you cut him off. “That was not Dean. That was and is a monster pretending to be Dean.” You felt your eyes sting with unshed tears. “Dean could never do…he would have never…”  You couldn’t finish. “I know.” Sam leaned down and placed a soft kiss against your forehead.  “I called Cas. I am hoping he gets here soon. I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” You nodded softly wiping your eyes before reaching your hand out and lacing your fingers with Sams’ “We can do this, together Sammy.” Sam gave you a soft smile and you walked out of the room hand in hand together. You both rounded the corner to head into the dungeon when you were stopped in your tracks. Dean’s chair was empty.  He was gone. Your eyes went wide and instantly your heart began to race as the fear coursed through you. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.” You cursed under your breath as you looked up at Sam. Sam’s eyes were just as wide as he looked down at you. “Go back to your room. Lock yourself in. Don’t unlock the door until I tell you.” Sam spoke quickly and softly. “Sammy, I..I..shit…” You began to panic. Your brain wasn’t fully comprehending Sam’s instructions as the fear coursed through you. “Y/n, go, now!” Sam shook your shoulder for emphasis. You nodded and turned back from the way you had come struggling to make your feet move faster down the hallway as you looked back over your shoulder to make sure Sam was still behind you. Sam made his way silently through the bunker. He tried to listen carefully for movement to pinpoint Dean’s location.  He eased himself down the hall with his back against the wall.  He heard doors opening and the sound of Dean’s boots but it was further away. Sam quickly slipped over to the desk drawer, opening it as quietly as he could and retrieved the set of master keys to the bunker.   You were crouched down in the corner of your room. You had locked the door like Sam told you but it didn‘t make you feel any safer. Your gun was in your trembling hand and your eyes trained on the door.  Your heart raced and you could hear it thudding in your ears. “Come on. Don’t you guys want to hang out? Spend a little quality time?” Dean’s voice echoed in the halls.

Sam made his way to the control room and as quietly as he could he unlocked the door. He ran across the room and quickly pulled the lever to lockdown the bunker.  The lights went out just as the lever was pulled and now the bunker was illuminated in the red glow of the alarm lights. “Smart, Sam! Locking the place down. Doors won’t open. I get it. But here’s the thing: I don’t want to leave! Not ‘til I find Y/n and take care of you!” Dean called as he walked calmly down the hallway with a newfound hammer in hand. Dean stopped walking as he found himself outside of your bedroom.  He stood looking at the door for only a moment before kicking it in with one muscled leg. You squealed and jumped as the door crashed open. You stood to your full height holding your gun out in front of you pointed at Dean’s chest. “There you are, brat.” Dean grinned. He canted his head to the side as he looked at the gun you were holding. “You really think that is going to do any good sweetheart?” He chuckled softly. “Pretty sure you’d need the demon blade for me.” Dean’s eyes flashed black as he quickly rushed you. You didn’t even have time to fire before he had knocked the gun from your hand and wrenched your arm behind your back making you cry out. “Come on brat. Let’s go find Sammy huh? Then we can get out of here.” You winced as Dean forced you out of the room.  He stopped to listen and as he heard a clatter in the distance then he steered you down the hall towards the noise.   “Sammy! You’re just making this worse for yourself, man!“ Dean called out to his brother, “Oh, by the way, you can, uh… blame yourself for me getting loose. All that blood you pumped into me to make me human… Well. The less demon I was, the less the cuffs worked. And that Devil’s Trap? Well, I just walked right across it. It smarted, but still.” Dean forced you to continue walking as he continued to try to taunt Sam out of hiding. “I found Y/n Sammy, why don’t you come get her if you think you are man enough.” Sam’s eyes closed and he cursed under his breath at Dean’s words. “Shit.” he mumbled as he leaned back against the wall.  “Dean just let her go.  We can work this out man.” Sam yelled out to his brother. Dean stopped at the sound of Sam’s voice trying to discern what direction it came from.  “I’m going to need you to scream for me now, brat.” Dean whispered low in your ear. “What?” Your brows furrowed. “Need to flush Sammy out. Scream.” Dean grinned down at you. “No.” Your words turned into a cry of pain as Dean wrenched your arm back harder behind your back. You were almost sure he had dislocated your shoulder. The tears streamed down your cheeks as the pain rushed through you. Dean’s head snapped up as he heard Sam roar in frustration at the sound of your scream.  “Good girl.” Dean whispered against your ear before placing a kiss to your temple. Dean shoved you forward in the direction you both now knew Sam to be in.  He kept a brutal grip on your arm as he shoved you along.  You soon found yourself outside of the control room.  The door was standing ajar and Dean smirked as he looked down at you.  With his hold on you he quickly spun you around and shoved you back against the wall pressing his own body tight against yours. “I need you to be a good girl and wait right here for me.” Dean looked down at you, licking his full lips that merely inches from yours. “If you run off and I have to find you again you are not going to like what happens next.” he growled softly before crushing his lips against yours in a brutally hard kiss. 

Dean let go of his grip on you and slipped inside the control room.  Within seconds the lights in the bunker came back to life. “Yeah, that’s more like it.” Dean smiled to himself as he made his way back to the door only for it to slam in his face and lock from the outside. Sam was by your side again as he locked the door trapping Dean inside.  Sam quickly took a moment to pull you in against his side in a gentle hug before looking back at the door. “That’s your big move?” Dean scoffed as he tried to doorknob. Sam yelled through the door at Dean. “Listen to me, Dean! We were getting close, okay? I know you’re still in there somewhere. Just let me finish the treatments.” When there was no answer Sam took a step closer, pressing his ear against the door. “Dean?” Sam suddenly jumped back as a loud thud mixed with the splintering of wood resounded in the quite corridor. “You act like I want to be cured!” Dean yelled from the other side of the door as he continued to drive the hammer into the wood causing pieces to splinter and fly off. “Personally, I like the disease.” Dean grinned through the small hole that was now in the door. “Dean, stop that! Look, I don’t want to use this blade on you!” Sam yelled as he held the demon blade out in front of him.  You had moved from the wall and stood half behind Sam now. “That sucks for you, doesn’t it? ‘Cause you really mean that!” Dean continued as more and more wood broke away from the door.   “Look, if you come out of that room, I won’t have a choice!” Sam continued to argue with his brother. You stepped closer to Sam placing a trembling hand on his right arm as you both tried to stand your ground against the demon. “Sure you will! And I know which one you’ll make. Isn’t that right, Sammy? But see … Here’s the thing: I’m lucky.” The hole had gotten much bigger now as Dean continued to hammer away at it.  “Oh, hell, I’m blessed! ‘Cause there’s just enough demon left in me that killing you? Ain’t no choice at all.” Dean’s cold eyes turned to you and you immediately let your hand fall away from Sam’s body. “Remember what I told you, brat.” Dean scowled. “You’re mine.” With those words Dean managed to bust through the door. Sam grabbed you quickly and spun you both around.  You sprinted down the hallway with Sam at your side as you heard the rest of the wood shatter and then Dean’s heavy boot falls on the tile floor. “Sammy? Y/n?” Dean called out as you and Sam moved down yet another hallway and hid around a corner. Both of you breathing heavily.  “Come on! Let’s have a beer, talk about it. I’m tired of playing. Let’s finish this game!” Sam glanced down at you before slowly and hesitantly peering out around the corner to look down the adjacent hallway.  His attention was pulled back as he heard a yelp fall from your lips. He turned back around and ducked just in time as Dean’s hammer went flying at his head getting stuck in the wall. Dean had his free hand around your throat as held you against the wall. You were frozen in fear as Dean choked you even while staring at his brother.  Your soft gasps for air and Sam’s heavy breathing the only sounds as Sam quickly had the demon blade against his brother’s throat. “Well … Look at you.” Dean smirked and tilted his chin pressing his throat tighter against the cold blade. “You want to save her? Do it. It’s all you.”

Your eyes were fluttering closed, the blackness drowning you as you struggled to breathe.  You heard the sound of metal clattering to the floor and then Dean growling and roaring. His hand fell from your throat and your body crumpled to the floor.  As you lay there you thought you could hear Castiel’s voice but it sounded faint and far away. “It’s over.” Castiel growled as his arms wrapped tight around Dean’s. “Dean, it’s over.” Dean continued to struggle against the angel but Cas held him tight. “It’s over.” Sam was kneeling by your side. His large warm hand gently stroking your pale cheek. “Y/n, sweetheart. Can you hear me?”  Sam pushed the stray strands of hair away from your face as your eyes slowly opened. “There you are.” He held your cheek softly in his palm. You groaned and tried to sit up but your head pounded and the world seem to spin. “No, no.  Don’t get up.” Sam cooed softly. “Cas will be back in a minute to heal you. Just wait.” Sam smiled softly down at you.   Just as Sam had said Castiel was at your side a moment later. “Let me heal you Y/n.” His deep gravelly voice music to your ears as he placed his fingers on your forehead. “No Cas, wait. Your grace.” You choked out your voice hoarse and raspy. “Don’t waste it on me.” “I’m okay now Y/n. I can heal you.” Cas stated and before you could protest you felt the warmth of his healing powers move over your body.  You closed your eyes and sighed. “Thank you Cas.” you smiled up at him as your body felt renewed. You hugged the angel tight as he helped you up to your feet. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The three of you stood in the dungeon looking at Dean’s limp body strapped down the chair once more. “What the hell are we doing to him, Cas? I mean, even after I gave him all that blood, he still said he didn’t want to be cured, that he didn’t want to be human, and this obsession with Y/n.” Sam glanced down at you as he said your name and looked back at Castiel. “Well… I see his point. You know, only humans can feel real joy, but … also such profound pain. This is easier.” Castiel looked from Dean then to you. “He has always had feelings for you but he never allowed himself to act on them. So, as a demon he allowed himself to have what he wanted most.” You bit your bottom lip as you took in Cas’s words.  You had never known Dean felt anything for you. He had always treated you like his little sister and nothing more. You opened your mouth to speak but movement from Dean caught your attention. Dean raised his head, his eyes were solid pulls of black and you felt your heart sink but suddenly the black slowly faded to reveal tired moss green eyes. Dean groaned softly and let out a shakey breath. His eyes moving over the three of you. “You look worried, fellas.” he said with a raspy voice. Sam took a hesitant step forward and reached out his good arm splashing Dean across the face with holy water. Dean flinched and blinked but nothing happened. No pain, no sizzle, no smoke.   You and Sam both released a breath that you had been holding and Sam smiled brightly. “Welcome back, Dean.” Dean nodded softly but then his eyes met yours and his heart broke as me memories came flooding back to him. “Y/n.” He whispered softly. You couldn’t look at the pain in his eyes.  You didn’t know how either of you were going to get past what had happened. Tears flooded your eyes and you stared at the man in front of you, your Dean.  Your lips parted but you couldn’t find any words. You choked back a sob and quickly turned, running from the room. You found yourself a little while later sitting in the library with Castiel at your side. Cas was flipping through the “Practiners Guide to Exorcism” book as Sam walked into the room. “Hey.” Sam greeted you both as you looked up at him. “How’s he doing?” Cas asked as he sat the book back down on the table. “He’s uh … He’s still a little out of it, but better, I think. I mean, I think this whole thing, the blood cure, and the … “ Sam stole a glance at you. “all of it…really wrecked him, you know?” “Yeah.” Cas replied and gave you a soft sad smile.  You couldn’t take the look of pity on both of your friends’ faces so you stared down at your hands. “On the plus side, he’s hungry again, so I’m just going to go pick him up a big ol’ bag of crap food and stuff it in his face myself. You mind keeping an eye?” Sam looked at Cas with a questioning look. “Yeah.” Cas nodded as Sam turned to walk away. “Sam?” Cas called after him. “Yeah?” Sam turned back to look at the angel. “You realize one problem is solved, but one still remains. Dean is no longer a demon, that’s true. But the Mark of Cain… that, he still has. And sooner or later, that’s going to be an issue.” Sam sighed. “You know what, Cas? I’m beat, man. One battle at a time, you know? So I’m just gonna go grab my brother some cholesterol. And then, I’m gonna get drunk.” he nodded before turning and sprinting up the steps to the bunker door. Castiel turned his attention to you after Sam had left the room. “Are you alright Y/n?” “I honestly don’t know.” You smiled a tight lipped smile. “I’m not sure how to deal with all this.”   “You know that was not Dean who hurt you?” Cas looked at you with concerned eyes. “I know that Cas but…” you closed your eyes, feeling a headache beginning to start you pinched the bridge of your nose between your fingers. “Can’t you just wipe my memories or something? Make it all just go away?” Castiel smiled and chortled. “I wish it was that simple Y/n.  You need to talk to Dean.” “I don’t know if I can Cas.” “I’m going to go check on him.” Cas nodded to you as he rose from his seat and turned to leave the room. Castiel knocked softly on Dean’s bedroom door. “Yeah.” Dean called out as he sat on his bed thumbing through pictures. Picture of you and Sam, and the three of you together.  He wiped a tear away from his eye as the door swung open. “You look terrible.” Cas deadpanned as he walked into the room. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to lie every now and again.” Dean looked at Cas as he laid the pictures on his nightstand. “No, it wouldn’t kill me. I just … You …” Castiel looked at Dean with a confused expression on his face. “Forget it. Well, you, on the other hand, you…” Dean gestured to Cas’s appearance as he rose from the bed. “Looking good. So… Are you back?” Cas smiled and nodded. “At least temporarily. It’s a long story. Crowley, stolen grace. There’s a female outside in the car.” Dean raised his eyebrows and Cas just shook his head. “Another time.” “Well, thank you for, um… Stepping in when you did.” Dean looked down at the floor then, suddenly thinking about what could have happened if Cas hadn’t shown up when he did. Cas nodded his reply. “What did Sam say? Does he want a divorce?” Dean looked up at Cas, the worry evident in his green eyes. “And Y/n? Is she?” “I’m sure Sam knows that whatever you said or what you did, it wasn’t really you. It certainly wasn’t all you.” Cas paused. “Y/n, she is really struggling Dean.  I don’t know how to help her with this.” “I tired to kill him, Cas.” Dean felt the tears well up in his eyes. “But that’s nothing compared to what I did to her.  How can she ever forgive me for that? How am I supposed to forgive myself?” “Dean. You and Sam and Y/n have been through so much. Look, you and Sam are brothers. It’d take a lot more than trying to kill Sam with a hammer to make him want to walk away.” “You realize how screwed up our lives are that that even makes sense?” Dean chuckled a little to himself. Cas laughed softly then placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “You and Y/n need to talk.  You both love each other, that is obvious. You will find a way to work through this.” “I’m glad you’re here, man.” Dean smiled softly and clapped Cas on the shoulder. Cas nodded and turned towards the door, turning back to Dean just before heading out. “Hey, maybe you should um … take some time before you get back to work. Allow yourself to heal. It’s, uh … I don’t know. The timing might be right. Heaven and Hell, they seem reasonably back in order. It’s quiet out there.”

[hekate1308]

That Vanished Abode There Far Away, A Season 13 Drowley AU - Chapter Eight

Masterpost

Whatever Sam expected from working with Rowena once more, it was certainly not nothing.

“What do you mean, nothing? You told us the spell should even let you know if Dean were dead –“

Much as the thought hurts, he’d find it hard to believe that this would mean he’d never see his brother again. Death doesn’t stick when it comes to them.

“I say nothing and I mean nothing. Wherever he is, alive or dead, he must have been warded or warded himself very carefully.”

“But who’d have that kind of mojo?”

“You’d be surprised. All it needs is a good understanding of the old runes. Fergus was always very efficient when it came to –“

She breaks off and looks away, and it’s still strange to see raw unfiltered emotion on her face. Sam wonders if she is hurting because she can’t use him anymore or because she’s actually grieving, then chides himself for the thought. If Crowley and Rowena had wanted each other dead, one of them would have been killed by now –

Well, by the other one. No one could have foreseen Crowley sacrificing himself. Except maybe Dean. But to ask his brother about that, he has to find him first.

“But this means we’re looking for someone with extensive rune knowledge, right?” Sam can’t read runes, and he’s rather sure Dean can’t either. He turns to Cas.

“Protections against other supernatural beings was never a priority in my garrison” Cas says, “But Sam is right.”

“Well” Rowena answers, “There aren’t many covens who specialize in things like that, I doubt many even know about protections that old. Surely with our angel pal here, it can’t be difficult to find them – unless they don’t want to be found.”

Sam snorts. “You think? You’re here.”

“I came to you, not the other way around. I’d waited long enough for Crowley.”

It’s the first time she’s ever used his chosen name when speaking about him, and Sam wonders what his reaction would be. Dean would probably laugh about it.

He nods, and she seems glad that he doesn’t answer.

When did things ever get so complicated that he’s trying to comfort the mother of the deceased King of Hell?

Michael is busy making breakfast, having offered to prepare their meal apparently rather out of embarrassment than appetite.

Roderick can empathize. Even though he’ll never admit it, he woke up a few minutes before Michael, and he spent them staring at him as the rising sun slowly illuminated his face.

It’s one thing to be stuck with someone rather pleasant on an island; quite another when this someone also happens to be handsome, charming, funny and kind.

He could have asked about his dreams last night. He didn’t.

He’ll have to tell him eventually, but first he has to make sense of them himself.

There was fire, and pain, and blood; but more, there was a joy about those things that was unsettling, and it’s left a heavy feeling in his stomach that somehow feels wrong, like he’s not used to... having a conscience, he supposes.

He kicks a pebble, utterly frustrated, and here’s somewhat giggle behind him. Giggle.

He turns to find the wraith Michael described. “Greetings, Mistress of the Waves.”

She nods approvingly. “Is there news?”

“No harm has befallen the island.”

She nods again. “There you go. Teach it to your pretty friend, alright?”

“I will do my best.” Not that he’ll have to try very hard. Michael could probably figure it out on his own if he gave him a little time.

“I wanted to talk to you in private” she says, stepping up to him, studying him with eyes of an unidentifiable colour. The gaze that lands on Roderick feels much older than she looks like, but she’s a wraith, the true embodiment of the water she spring from. She’s probably been on this earth for centuries at least... but time would mean nothing to her if he asked.

“I was right” she pronounces. “Your soul has this shine to it... like a newborn’s. As if it hadn’t existed until recently.”

His throat is suddenly dry. He swallows.

What she tells him confirms a suspicion that’s begun to form in his mind.

Sure, after they left Rosemary’s place, they tested themselves to make certain neither of them was a monster masquerading as man; but, human as he is now, he cannot help but think – but assume –

That he wasn’t always. And if his dreams are anything to go by...

“You are a strange one” she says, shaking her head. “But then, your companion isn’t quite what humans call normal either, is he. That’s fine. None of us nature spirits are, I think. Otherwise, we’d have given up long ago, with everything the humans are doing to destroy their planet.”

A sorrow older than either Roderick’s or Michael’s soul settles over her face. “Your souls though... they are clean.”

He shakes his head.

“You don’t agree?”

“What you see might be clean now, as you put it... but I don’t know what it was before.”

“Is that important?”

“You don’t understand” he says, then hastens to add, “And you can’t, Mel – if I may call you that?”

She told Michael it was her name, but who knows with these water spirits? Maybe she’s chosen a different one today.

She nods however, and he takes a deep breath before he continues, “You are ever-changing because that’s who you must be. What you must be. But us humans... We care who someone has been.”

“And neither of you know that” she replies, her eyes wide and curious.

“Correct.”

“Maybe you should try and find out who you are before you figure out what you were.”

It’s the closest he’ll get to useful advice with her concerning this, he knows. So he takes it.

“Thank you. Now, there are a few things we’d like to purchase...”

Breakfast is done by the time Roderick returns. “I met Mel. Told her what we needed.”

“Good. Thanks. Scrambled eggs okay?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Sometimes when Roderick thanks him, Michael feels weirdly surprised, as if he didn’t really expect him to. It doesn’t make much sense, but he’s getting used to that. After all, things are looking up from the field they arrived on.

“Say, do you know anything about a ritual we’re supposed to – I don’t know, use with Mel? She said something yesterday...”

“Oh yes, the old greeting. Don’t worry I can teach you:”

“You sure you were a hunter? Professor seems more likely.”

“Professor of what?”

“Mythology? Religion? No idea. Don’t think i went to college.”

“You’re smart enough” Roderick says, frowning, handing him to plates. Michael fills them quickly to hide his blush.

“Oh, I got that, don’t worry. If I weren’t, I’d hardly be alive now. I have to be, what, pushing forty?”

“You don’t look older than thirty-two” Roderick snorts. “I’m the one who has the experience here.”

“Of course, peaches” he answers lightly, handing him his plate. It almost feels... domestic. “Did Mel say anything that could shed light on our problem?”

“Which one?”

He rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“If you think I am a professor, I think I’ll have to ask you to specify.”

Michael definitely does not imagine Roderick as a professor then, maybe wearing glasses –

Oh God, he didn’t even know he was into that sort of thing. As if this wasn’t complicated enough already.

“What I meant is, did she see anything on your soul that might indicate who or what placed the spell on us?”

“No. She just told me exactly what you said she would.”

“The whole newborn thing?”

Roderick nods and pushes his plate away. “Look” he says, “I know this is far from ideal, but we have to trust one another unconditionally if we want to figure out what has been happening.” It’s obvious he’s forcing the words out, that he’d rather keep some of his cars close to his chest, but he’s right. They have to trust one another if they want to survive.

“I agree” Michael replies.

Another sharp nod. “Then you should know that... I might not have been human before all this happened.”

He stares at his companion. The thought certainly never occurred to him. Roderick acts very human. Smart, sometimes grumpy, sometimes downright joyful (his laugh is one of those things Miechal is determined not to talk about, no matter how honest they want to be with one another). “What else do you think you were? Werewolf? Vampire? Ghost?”

“Judging from my dreams... it could be something worse than that” he says slowly.

“What?”

“You were terrified in your dreams, right?”

“Of course. Someone slices into you –“

“But I was – doing things” he’s wording this carefully so neither of them will have an episode, Dean realizes, “And I was enjoying them. I think it might be possible that I was – evil. In some capacity.”

Silence falls over the table.

Finally, Michael makes a decision. “Look, I get what you’re saying. But right now? It doesn’t matter. As you said, we have to be honest with one another and – you’re human. That’s what matters. If we find out anything... we can deal with it.”

The look Roderick bestows on him is as astonished as it is grateful.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Your post about season six, and Dean forgiving Bobby and Sam for lying to him, you only mentioned Cas in passing. Cas brought Sam back and then never bothered to tell Dean anything either, and Dean still forgives him until TMWWBK when he gives Cas an ultimatum. Can you elaborate on what you meant there?

pfft, I couldn’t even remember what I said there :P 

(this post)

I mean… I was kind of skirting around it because I don’t think Dean forgives Cas? I said 6x04 was where they reconciled and you might have noticed Cas not being in it and I was helpfully keeping that post about Sam and Bobby >.> Because we don’t talk about season 6 because it’s a friggin minefield especially when you’re planted in the Destiel camp, because of how the show used Cas that season as, essentially, the main antagonist, all the way through the season.

(Also we don’t talk about it because it really hurts, I assume :P I mean I accidentally started a season 7 fanclub but that season’s relatively easy once you have hindsight that it’s all distilled Pining For A Dead Loved One with a safety net that the loved one comes back, but hindsight doesn’t do anything to having to sit through a dozen episodes of them at each other’s throats and everyone angry and everything is awful all the time >.> The closest we get to cracking any jokes around Cas is the pizza man exchange.)

Their whole tension in season 6 is that Cas isn’t coming when Dean calls and not helping them (and ugh that line is one of those ones that’s terrible in context but romantic in a gifset and thank goodness Cas says it in nicer context at least once because it was manipulative and not true in context), and they ONLY see him when they demand he comes to them, unlike previous seasons where he was always the one bringing stuff to them, or it was more obviously an equal exchange of help, like 5x10 and all the stuff where they were working together to find the Colt. I don’t think there’s a single time they see Cas that year where they didn’t wrangle him down from Heaven with threats or bribes or weary resignation that asking him to come see about the one thing he’s actually interested in is the only way to get him to come home (Dean being the unappreciated wife with the trouble child, in this case, an entire side of the season away from Crowley accusing Cas of being the philandering husband >.>) 

So in the first couple of episodes they mention Cas hasn’t been answering and that’s his implicit guilt in the same thing that @thejabberwock was saying Dean could have easily never forgiven Bobby and Sam over doing… And I think because they were on the same side and working together through the season and so on, at the very least they get over some of it just because close proximity and fighting side by side, and by the time all the cards are on the table re: Sam’s soul, by 6x07 or so, I think Dean can pretty much say it’s not really their fault if Sam was the moral compass on that decision. I mean he’s angry and miserable so I don’t think he has a sit down with himself and comes to that healthy decision, but over time I think it would easily slip away. 

But in 6x20 the worst part of it is the Cas watches Dean rake leaves moment, which not only uses the fact this *still hurts* that he didn’t come to Dean for help and bring Dean back into hunting when if anyone could have started it again it would have been Cas in that moment, but then in the actual confrontation we get another brief flashback to Cas turning away from Dean and going with Crowley when Dean asks where he was, so Cas making this mistake was the hugest part of the betrayal - that at the very least he could have let Dean know what he was doing, or they could have fought against impossible odds TOGETHER again to whatever end. I mean, like, there’s the genuine implication in that confrontation if you want to see it this way, that Dean would rather the world end but Cas hadn’t betrayed them and at least they could all go out on a moral high ground. 

Through the season it’s like what me and @mittensmorgul talk about sometimes about the whole unfinished conversation through the seasons, only when it starts here as a sort of one season microcosm version, it’s that Cas can’t and won’t tell Dean what he’s doing and why, and so Dean’s telling him stuff like, that’s ALL you’ve told us, when Cas repeats the couple of easy facts to explain what he’s doing. Dean gets to the end of the conversation in any meaningful way in 6x04 with Bobby and by the end of 6x07 he knows pretty much everything soulless!Sam didn’t tell him, including all his motivations, so he’s quite happy to work with him and try and get his soul back once all the cards are on the table. (I mean Bobby explained his motivations for keeping Dean out of the game back in 6x01 and we have no reason to suspect Bobby ever had any ulterior motives, but they had family teething problems for a bit - the first 4 episodes of the season deal with 1 member of TFW each and since Bobby had the lowest stakes of any of them, he gets resolved first to just go back to being dependable old Bobby with no particular emotional drama except being concerned about them/saving the world.)

But they hold off on using Cas until the 3rd episode and when he shows up he answers none of their questions in a satisfying way, shrugs off concern about not answering with the line about having a more profound bond with Dean (another one of those lines that looks great on a bumper sticker and has a lot of truth to it when you go deeper, but in context is actually a really shitty thing to say), and then he spends the episode not really answering anything, except for blatantly being in the middle of an escalating angel war so he has to admit some things like why angels are attacking him or why there’s even a problem they called him down for in the first place. We get his conversation alone with Balthazar to keep plot chatter away from the Winchesters and then he grants him his freedom because he needs Balthazar’s help more than he needs the good opinion of the Winchesters, especially because he’s already firmly decided with the raking leaves scene that they’re not going to be a part of it.

And that just makes the pattern from there that for the rest of the season Cas only comes when it suits him (aka when stakes are too high in the other direction - his war or Sam and Dean getting hurt, or occasionally when he can tell their friendship is really on the line if he doesn’t go, to the point he can’t make amends after he wins - that he has to drop by and try and reassure them or to get involved because they’re accidentally involved in the angel war or what have  you) even when Dean’s really worried about Sam - something we don’t know for sure until 6x20 that Cas is wracked with guilt about and also is fairly helpless to reveal his part in raising Sam about because it opens up too many other questions, namely the one about why he never got back in contact with Dean after 5x22. So it keeps on coming back to the massive void being that Cas saved Sam but then wouldn’t go to Dean for help, and it’s the empty space in his reasoning for why he doesn’t go to them casually for the entire season. 

12x19 offered us his actual motivations when it comes to them about how he feels and that he wants to protect them and I think when he justifies it he’s actually telling the truth about it because I think part of it was there was a lot of startling emotional honesty… Cas actually naming his motivations as Sam and Dean is a bit of a running joke in the show, in a very dark way, that he’ll always say it’s for Heaven like in season 9, and when Metatron called him out on it, he mostly just looked sad and affronted. Sadffronted. :P Anyway he just straight up tells Kelvin, no it’s not about Heaven and my reputation there, and honestly stuff you guys but I need some extra man power and resources, to do this for Sam and Dean. And he’s honest about the same thing when Sam and Dean catch up to him later. In season 6, which was a season-long version of the dynamic 12x19 explored as part of the Cas Retrospective of season 12, he mostly just bristled with impotent rage when things got this close to the surface, snapped something cryptic, and disappeared :P I mean I can’t even remember an exact moment that happened but he was exploiting the fact he could disappear at will to end a conversation like nobody’s business back then.

But because Cas won’t tell them anything meaningful about the plot, is massively unhelpful about Crowley until he just strategically kills him to stop the Winchesters asking too many questions, and avoids Dean over the issue of Sam’s soul, the entire first half of the season is filled with non-stop snapping, and actually Dean’s feelings towards Cas escalating into frustration and anger that only gets worse as the season goes on, and Cas can only give very small respites with unhelpful little promises he doesn’t have to follow up on if he keeps avoiding them. He gets himself a bit of a break when Crowley is dead because there’s less chance of the Winchesters stumbling onto the plan if they don’t think there’s a plan to stumble onto, and Eve works great as a distraction right up until she just goes and tells them that Crowley is still alive… But there’s a very uneasy feeling between Cas and Dean the entire time because the angel war distracting Cas is a huge hovering issue even when they’re talking about other stuff, and they never get a chance to foster better feelings or celebrate a win together or anything like that. 6x18 is possibly the only time they have a sort of aaaalmost uncomplicated good feeling and that’s because they won the episode, Cas has mostly managed to avoid suspicion about why he got stabbed.

I think it’s actually a testament to how much Cas means to Dean that when 6x20 rolls around, Dean is still staunchly defending Cas to begin with, that he can think Cas might have had his reasons all through this and that he thinks Cas is one of the good guys and can be reasoned with and if they treat him on the level it will all be fine. And in a way that is because they made it all through the season without ever addressing WHY Cas didn’t talk to him for a year so it’s sort of more like forgotten with all the new drama that’s happened since, rather than forgiven, because of course that WHY finally comes to the surface, and it turns into the entire reason they can’t reconcile this and why it’s so far gone that they missed the chance to reconcile it right back when Cas made the decision not to get Dean involved.

So I think… in a meta way… that THEY were not talking about season 6 until it was too late and that’s why Dean ever let things pass with Cas until it turned out they’d been betrayed and they should have been talking about season 6 with Cas :P I think that ultimatum didn’t really come out of the blue because Dean had been pissed off with Cas all season, but there was a sort of deep heart of hearts feeling that Cas had to utterly forsake before Dean would see Cas as betraying them, because he trusted and cared about him so much he couldn’t see it coming no matter how shady Cas acted, which meant that he was letting everything sketchy Cas did pass, including the hanging question of why HE didn’t tell Dean that Sam was back from the dead. I mean it gets to teenage girl writing in a diary, maybe he didn’t notice me because he was busy, sort of justifications but I said somewhere or other recently I think 6x20 confirmed their feelings on both sides (and I think it’s weird I’ve ever seen people say that it only confirmed one or the other, especially when I’ve seen that said both ways :P). And Dean giving Cas all those chances and benefit of the doubt to the point you could see the “oh hon” on Bobby’s face… Yeah. 

Also his determination that they could fix everything if Cas just backed off and let them help >.> Like, yeah, you’d have had to have a COMPLETELY different season to make that work - the entire point was it was unwinnable and the best Cas could do was utterly give up everything he ever had - allies, family, morality - to sacrifice for that fight, and he forsakes them all through the season in various small ways, culminating in a total loss of self but his goals completed. Dean’s version of the season where he gets to keep Cas would have been a loss but an emotional victory, and that is not what Cas could bear at that point. And 12x19 also makes the point of emotional victories and moral victories, and again I think that it’s like Dean’s pleas in 6x20 echo all the way up to current canon to remind Cas why he COULDN’T give in to Dean’s request.

The speed run of season 6 is 5x22 > 6x20 without taking a breath, because after all the nonsense and running around and red herrings, Cas ties the entire story back into what had just happened in Swan Song and how he made his decisions, and his conversation with Dean in the car at the end of Swan Song about “peace or freedom” is the key question there which defines Cas’s arc of the season and his decision for leaving Dean out. Dean chose freedom but regretted not going for peace because it was this promise of peace in 5x16, the talk of a paradise and a perfect bliss in Heaven, that swung him the most to nearly saying yes. Cas knows he picked freedom for everyone else but wanted peace in his heart of hearts and it’s the same thing Amara picked on in season 11, that Dean wanted quiet, and it’s the same thing Jack promised Cas and Cas repeated to Kelly. And was Michael and Raphael’s apocalypse sales pitch. 

So all these things are thematically linked together. I guess I’m still typing because it all ends up back at season 12 and presumably 13 based on how these apocalypse-era themes and now characters are back. In the raking leaves scene Cas picked peace for Dean, to stay with Lisa in oblivion in the suburbs, which denied Dean the choice (aka freedom) to help him, and in the start of season 6 we can use Bobby and Sam’s similar decision to leave Dean out to show it’s people deciding for him and not giving him a choice about how to live his life. I’m pretty sure the line “so Dean doesn’t have to” would fit perfectly in 6x20 as much as 12x19. And at the end of the day, Dean knows Cas is annoyingly right, that they’re Team Free Will (hence also… 12x19 hello again :P) and Dean embodies free will and will always end up fighting for it - but of course that doesn’t mean he can’t have a personal struggle with it, which makes it all the more interesting. They just made the decision for him to give into the bad side of the struggle - to let peace win when for Dean it should always be freedom because that’s what he’s the epitome of. 

And in 6x20 that’s what they fight about at the very very end, when Dean accuses Cas that he shouldn’t do whatever he wants and that he’s a child for trying, because he sees Cas as just not grasping these concepts properly, not understanding without the key information (that Cas’s motivations are HIM, the unfinished part of the conversation, the missing puzzle piece to all their interactions, etc) and knowing just how much Cas has grappled with this off screen and Cas’s understanding and motivations. I mean, the VO of the episode is from AFTER this argument, so I think Cas’s opinion on himself and his hubris and arrogance all comes AFTER and maybe BECAUSE OF the bollocking Dean gives him, because he has all the puzzle pieces (or nearly all) and genuine self-reflection and he’s in the position to wryly look back on everything he’s caused from this simple set of choices. He identifies all his own shortcomings but still sees there’s no other way and he’s going to have to make the leap to truly give up his morality and sense of self to accomplish what he needs.

And that’s also, to jump back to season 12, and weirdly I was having a dream about chilling with her last night, Lily Sunder, a literal mirror opposite to Cas in some ways, the human who got in too deep with angels instead of the angels who got in too deep with humans. She’s giving up parts of herself to get revenge, which is the opposite mission to Cas’s in season 6, to protect his loved ones. In a great metaphor for literally every revenge mission ever in this show and other media, Lily is losing her soul the longer she sustains herself on the mission. But it’s also a good metaphor to the idea of giving yourself up for any mission, to the point of only thinking you can accomplish it at a total loss of yourself. Cas gives her a way out to not complete it because she got absolution with Ishim, the one who truly hurt her, and peace with Cas as seeing him as truly repentant and changed and being able to say the right words to set her mind at rest. But Cas didn’t get that chance to not carry on his mission because it was one of protecting them before the bad stuff happened so the stakes were too high to be talked down from. He also tries to talk Dean back from a total loss of self in 10x22 for what good that does. And I think that’s all from experience - of knowing how it is to go over that line and thinking things are justified until they consume you. Cas had to shed his morality and his emotional attachment to Sam and Dean in order to work against them completely as the antagonist once his role was revealed to them and they boxed him into it by not understanding or giving him a chance - because they were more concerned for HIM than the bigger stakes - and so he could break Sam’s wall in order to get the job done. 

And to me that becomes the REAL hurt he caused them in season 6, far far over the earlier choices he has, and he needs to fix Sam immediately when he returns in season 7 and then spend the rest of the season in an arc about understanding and forgiveness and apologies with Dean. And that all springs from the earlier lies and betrayals and stuff but trying to tackle what Cas should have done in the start of season 6 is impossible because in many ways he was basically already the wrong word away from a 6x20 style confrontation every time they met him from 6x03 onwards (which is probably why he looks like he has a migraine the entire season :P) and so I don’t think there’s ANY WAY they could have plausibly sold any sort of real reconciliation or forgiveness in the start of the season if they’d wanted to, which they didn’t because they wanted Dean to be pissed at Cas all season for reasons which were just as frustrating and opaque to US, and I don’t know what they knew for sure about the end of the season but they were definitely planning all along for Cas to have a baaaad bad part in it because he was shifty and showing tells of lying and so on from the get go. I think if they’d made a twee moment for Dean to be given a chance to forgive Cas for not talking to him for a year, it would have basically just escalated Dean’s suspicion through the roof because Cas would never have been able to sell it when the bigger picture of why he did it was what all eventually poured out in TMWWBK. 

(here's a link to my rewatch of 6x20 where I ramble a LOT more about the philosophy behind it all)

[adhd-as-my-personality]

I see you (two ships that are canon), and I raise you (the biggest queerbaiting the world has ever seen):

Need I say more???

[mittensmorgul]

A very random question but in your opinion, what's the difference between plot-drive and character-driven stories?

I’ve been staring at this message in my inbox for days now, and on top of being a long-debated question regarding writing in general, I think it’s also incredibly relevant to the structure of Supernatural specifically. And because of that I’ve been half excited about and yet half dreading trying to answer this.

Not dreading in a bad way, but dreading because I know this is gonna turn into some kind of patented Mittens Uses Too Many Words To Say The Thing sort of post. Because I have FEELINGS about this. :P

Let’s start with the basics, and I’ll explain why this is a much debated thing. Seriously, just google “plot vs character driven writing” and each link you click will offer a different assessment of what this means. I mean, just speaking about Romance novels as a specific, some people would characterize them as “plot driven” and others as “character driven,” depending on your understanding of what is meant by those terms. It’s… confusing.

Because a character driven story is one which obviously HAS a plot which advances throughout the story, but it’s the character’s emotions and choices and personal growth that DRIVE the plot forward.

A plot driven story is one in which the character may also experience emotional growth and make choices and everything, but in reaction to an external plot that draws the character along in its wake.

All stories incorporate both character and plot development (hopefully! or otherwise why would we bother reading them. This reminds me of my favorite English teacher who taught a class called Literature of Changing Times. I think I’ve mentioned her before *waves hi at Mrs. Proenza if you’re out there reading this. You are awesome, btw*. First day of class when we were going over the reading list, she said, “Ha! Jokes on the admins for approving this class, because ALL literature is about changing times, and this just gives me an excuse to teach y’all my favorite books!”

That was an awesome class, because it was obvious how much she loved every book we studied, and it definitely carried through in OUR enthusiasm for the subject. She basically was the one who taught me how to be passionate about stories.)

So yes, all writing will have elements of a plot moving forward, and characters who are hopefully relatable and whose motivations we understand and/or sympathize with, and sometimes it’s hard to tell if a story is more driven by the external plot or the internal character motivations because both seem important.

Now, specifically relating to Supernatural. Taken as a whole, the series has used both character driven AND plot driven stories, sometimes simultaneously. I’ve heard one description in an old meta ages and ages ago that SPN was actually telling us two different stories based on whether you were looking at it through Sam’s perspective or Dean’s.

Short tangent to explain: Sam’s story has largely been plot driven, and that meta I mentioned above compared it to the traditional story structure of the Horror genre. An external force acts on a character, the character is forced to react, make choices based on those outside influences, and thus growth and change happens for the character. Dean’s story (aside from during the MoC arc, when Dean was literally acted on by an outside force) has largely been character driven, similar to a character in a traditional Fantasy genre story where the character is the one who goes chasing after the plot, and his emotions and choices drive that plot forward.

But it’s more complicated than that, because of course it is. :P

Obviously that’s reducing things to their absolute simplest form, but Sam’s narrative began when an outside force literally acted on him, with Azazel dripping demon blood in his mouth. That obviously drove the plot forward, setting up everything that’s happened in the entire series in the opening scenes of the pilot episode.

But Dean’s story really begins (again, in the pilot episode) because he has an emotional need for Sam to help him find their father. That ALSO drives the action of the story forward, because without Dean’s internal motivation, the rest of the plot wouldn’t have happened, either.

Using the Carver Era (s8-11), you can really see the difference between a character driven narrative and a plot driven one. See by my personal bias in the following description if you can tell which style of storytelling I personally prefer:

Early s8 began with a HUGE dose of character driven plots. Dean comes back from Purgatory without Cas and is basically pining or in mourning. Sam’s been on an extended vacation playing house with Amelia. Dean’s internal drive to “fix the plot,” i.e. find and save Kevin, drives the early part of the season while Sam feels a little resentful of being dragged away from his “normal” life.

Then Cas miraculously turns up, they find Kevin, and suddenly they’re learning about other tablets that exist in the world. In a plot-driven world, they would’ve sought out the tablets and probably destroyed them. They wouldn’t start making these huge universe-altering decisions based on the information they learn from Kevin Tran, Prophet of Chuck.

The whole Trials storyline begins as a character-driven story. It’s their united motivations (Sam and Dean), their internal desire to accomplish this thing, that gets the ball rolling. And Dean intends to be the one to carry this burden of the trials, until fate hands that burden to Sam. Once again, outside forces have turned the course of the story. So Sam is the one who again must react TO the plot. Dean spends most of the rest of s8 reacting to Sam’s reactions, supporting him through the trials, but also emotionally attaching himself to Castiel’s story.

Cas spent most of s8 in a similar narrative position to Sam, except he didn’t even realize it. He believed he was acting on his own emotional choices much of the time (turning off Angel Radio, deciding to be a hunter, and then deciding to reconnect in order to answer prayers– we see him healing a baby and generally trying to do good in the world). Yet all along, he’s being acted on by outside forces and is literally being mind-controlled. So he believed he was driving his own plot, when behind the scenes his plot was being driven for him.

At the beginning of s9, Sam is again put into a situation much like Cas’s during s8 where he BELIEVES he’s in charge of his story, while unbeknownst to him he’s actually got an angel in the driver’s seat. Sam’s being dragged along by that plot again. But it was Dean’s internal motivation that directly put him in that situation.

Finally it’s Dean’s turn to make a choice that leads to a self-sacrifice he believes is the only way to regain control of the plot (Abaddon! Must! Die!), and takes on the Mark of Cain without reading the fine print. Thus begins what we BELIEVE is an internally motivated story for Dean, because for A FREAKING YEAR the show was telling us through parallels and the narrative itself that the Mark was a curse and what we were seeing was a change INTERNAL TO DEAN. Heck, it literally turned him into a demon. He wasn’t POSSESSED by the demon, it wasn’t an outside force acting on him, it was his very own most internal soul that had been transformed.

And then round about 10.15 the narrative pulled a 180, yanked the rug out from under a year’s worth of narrative buildup of an intensely INTERNALIZED (i.e. CHARACTER DRIVEN) story for Dean and said WHOOPSIE NOPE IT’S ACTUALLY AN OUTSIDE FORCE CONTROLLING DEAN! You thought he was actually growing as a character but nope we’re taking this one step below Fuckhands McMike territory and blaming EVERYTHING that’s happened on this big scary Dark external force! The plot basically pantsed us all.

Suddenly, after two and a half years of mostly character-driven storytelling, everything shifts and everyone’s chasing after the plot again. Dean loses ALL control over the thing inside him as he’s hopelessly dragged off by the Darkness.

And then in 10.23, Dean wrests control back over his own story by literally killing Death, while Sam and Cas have set events in motion that free Dean from the Mark of Cain and release it into the world at large instead.

Now obviously a huge portion of s11 is plot driven– their reactions to having released the Darkness and their scramble to fix what they broke as it spreads across the land. But even from the start of the season, the narrative gradually shifts into a nice balance between plot and character driven stories, where the two really begin to merge together (even on a subtextual meta level).

Another interesting aspect of Supernatural is the two types of episodes– the Mytharc (which are largely plot-driven) and the MotW (which are usually one-off monster hunts with an internal plot driven structure– MUST SOLVE THE CASE AND SAVE THE PEOPLE AND KILL THE THING!– but are generally propelled by a spurt of introspection and character growth. These are the episodes where they aren’t just acting and reacting to the Big Plot Things, but actually experience growth and change themselves).

And this is why I LOVE s12. It’s almost entirely character driven, even with the overarching plots. The main focus isn’t so much the motives of the Bad Guys and our Intrepid Heroes trying to save the world from them. It’s about the characters own personal emotional growth, how their choices affect the narrative (and yes, even Sam’s choice to work with the MoL is really a CHOICE and not something he was compelled by the plot to choose. His personal internal desires led him to that choice, and are now leading him AWAY from that choice, but it’s still been a real choice for him. Same with Cas and the choices he’s been making, and even CROWLEY, in choosing not to lock up Lucifer properly (or just kill him already ffs).

Dean is at the center of all of this, acting as that strange force of balance he’d achieved in 11.23. He’s not so much driving the story with his emotional choices, but sitting at a weird central axis while the story takes place all around him. He’s pulling a string here and there and waiting to see what budges.

I LOVE THIS. It’s glorious chaos, and I feel like Dean, sitting all zen-like in the middle of a huge unraveling sweater.

Okay, I confess. I don’t necessarily prefer one style of storytelling over the other (though I am a Dean girl, so I guess I probably do prefer a character driven story… and even Cas’s story has long been about his acquisition and proper application of Free Will, learning about humanity and making choices for himself, so while he’s experienced huge swaths of character development and growth it’s not entirely been character driven growth…). And I adore Supernatural’s complicated blend of the two.

I just really hated the bait and switch of late s10. You know that gif of Bart Simpson where he’s playing the video frame by frame and says something like, “you can pinpoint the exact second his heart rips in half?” Yeah. it’s like in 10.15 there’s a record scratch and suddenly we’re watching the freaking Stynes grab the plot by the short and curlies and yanking it in an entirely unforeseen direction. Like, out of left field. Like they picked up Baby off a coastal highway and plonked her down in a muddy field to spin her wheels, jarring. That’s what they did with the narrative.

After 10.23, once the plot had been suitably yanked around where they wanted it, the narrative structure AND the plot itself became about finding another way, a better way, a balanced and unified way. And since then it’s largely stayed on track.

How did I turn a simple question into this? It’s who I am as a person. I hope that’s okay. :P