#dean grieving Cas' death

[follows-the-bees]

Dean's grief couldn't be contained, as he looked down at the face of the angel, his angel, he sank down to his knees, feeling the full weight of the loss. His protector, best friend, the love of his life, even if he won't ever tell him that last one. Won't have the chance now.

He places his hand over the wound, the speck of blood where the angel blade he wields everyday in battle has betrayed him.

He presses against the fabric of Cas' shirt, his rough callused hands getting caught. Dean looks up as if to pray, pray for the power to heal. But it's useless, the only person he prays to is Cas, and he doesn't think he can hear him anymore.

Through the wet tears welling and spilling down his face, he sees darkness behind him feels and the ruffle of sand moving in the nighttime wind. His eyes are drawn to that darkness and he sees the black outline of Cas' burnt wings. All hope that he will get Cas back fades. Angels don't come back from this.

He leaned down and lightly brushed his lips against Cas' forehead before willing his arms to cradle Cas' body and pull him against him. It feels weird, all of his limbs are shaky, his legs are numb, asleep from who knows how long kneeling at his angel's body.

Cas looks so pale on the table. The life drained out of him, correction, the light burned out of his vessel, which has been Cas' body for years now. The literal light in Dean's life faded, but only the darkness of the night invaded those once bright spaces.

He works on autopilot, wrapping the body and building the pyre.

"Are you ready to go?"

He feels a hand on his shoulder, but it doesn't feel right, that's where Cas' hand belongs. Where it's seared into his skin forever. He turns to see his brother there, brows creased in concern, puppy dog eyes full of their own tears. He looks around and sees he's still standing by the now-burnt pyre. How long has he been here?

He's lost time again. Just like when Sam went to Stanford and dad left him for his own hunts. The words echo through his mind: Everybody leaves you, Dean.

Dean clears his throat, willing his voice to work, and hands the keys of Baby over to Sam. "Yeah, why don't you get the car started?" His voice comes out horse, like he's been screaming, or dying of thirst.

The hand squeezes his shoulder before letting go and he feels Sam leave.

Dean turns and sees the spot in the beach where Cas died, the dark pool of dried blood and the shadowed expanse of wings. It isn't right, he's seen Cas' wings before, when they were in full glory, large, looming, showing the power of Cas. And he's seen them broken and burnt, the result of someone betraying Cas and tricking him to fall. But that was bound to happen right? After Cas fell for him, would this have happened any other way? He caused Cas' broken wings, the burned wings in the sand now.

Dean can't leave them, but they are the only thing left. Just more ash.

He goes back inside the house. A house that Cas found and was going to raise the child in, his brain supplies him with.

Rummaging through the cabinets, Dean finds both a small and large jar. He finds a shovel on the side of the house and goes to the funeral pyre.

Sam is already there, clearly either not going to Baby or coming back to look for Dean. He reaches out and takes the jar and shovel from Dean, who grunts in reply as Sam starts to fill the jar. He will thank him later when he is able to speak again.

Instead, he trudges back to the spot and kneels down collecting some of the charred sand into the tiny jar. The last remnants of his fallen angel. He tucks that into his jacket pocket. That is just for him.

He can't let others see the wings. They aren't for them. They aren't for anyone.

He kicks the sand, harder and harder, tears starting to fall again. His toes tingle through his boots as he takes out all his grief in the action. He is good at this, at destroying. He gets rid of the physical evidence of Cas' death, but he can't rid the ache in his chest.

When all evidence of Cas' demise is gone, he wipes his eyes. He won't let Sammy see he's been crying again.

Walking to Baby, Sam is leaning against the door, holding the jar against his chest, his head bowed. He walks up and hugs Sam. Cas was his friend too.

Sam nods curtly and climbs into the passenger seat. Dean takes his angel's ashes, buckling it into the backseat. In Cas' seat. Steeling himself, he climbs into his familiar seat, in his home. Their home.

Turning the engine, he avoided looking into the rearview mirror. There's no use. Those warm blue eyes and soft smile won't greet him.

He dips one hand in his pocket and holds onto the jar containing the ashy sand.

The last semblance of his angel

[witchy-worm]

Here's my art for the second @destielbeatlesminibang fic I worked on!

I was matched up with @celestialstarlight27's really cool post-season 12 fic, you can check it out on AO3 here: Link to Fic

More info behind the cut

Title: In Matters of Faith

Author: celestial_starlight

Artist: witchy-worm

Rating: Teen and Up

Summary: After Sam and Dean burn Cas’s body, Dean walks. He leaves Sam with a devil baby he can barely stand to look at and rents a cabin near the field where he spread Cas’s ashes. He prays to Cas day and night, desperate for his faith to mean something. His calls wake Cas and bring him right back to Dean’s doorstep. Dean takes him home, struggling to sort out a rollercoaster of feelings while the three of them figure out how to raise a nephilim child.

Tags: Major Character Death, Dean grieving, Dean praying to Cas, Cas is Dean’s faith, Cas confesses to Dean, Cas sacrifices himself to save Dean, Dean resurrects Cas, Dean and Cas being dads, baby Jack

[scoobydoodean]

So—Dean is refusing to torture Alistair in the beginning of "On The Head Of A Pin", right? And Uriel is telling him he has to. And you’d think that when Dean asks to speak to Cas alone, it’d be in an effort to bargain or plead (something Uriel isn’t amenable to at all and never has been) or to let Cas give him a more candid and convincing argument on how this is the right thing.

But when Dean gets Cas alone, he just wants to know why Uriel is in charge of Cas now, and then he wants to tell Cas torturing Alistair is going to bring something horrifying out of Dean. Cas doesn’t do any convincing at all. He doesn’t make any further argument for why Dean has to do this—he doesn’t tell Dean it’s for the greater good. Hell—it seems like Cas got demoted because he balked at asking Dean to do this to begin with. Cas doesn’t want Dean to do this and doesn’t try to convince him to! But the scene cuts and Dean is pushing his torture-set-on-wheels into the room where Alistair is being kept! So why? How does that interaction result in Dean suddenly deciding to do something he was refusing to do moments before???

I think it’s because Cas showed Dean sympathy.

The episode opens with Dean trying to tell Sam he’s hurting. He’s grieving Pam (they’re driving from her funeral), he feels like her death is his fault, he feels like they aren’t making any progress on saving the world—they’re just fuck ups who are going to fail.

DEAN I'm tired of burying friends, Sam. SAM Look, we catch a fresh trail— DEAN And we follow it, I know. Like I said, I'm just—I'm just getting tired. SAM Well, get angry!

No sympathy from Sam. Sam wants Dean to nut up—and that's what Sam said last episode too, and it's what he said the episode before that too while under the Siren's spell.

They get into the motel and Uriel and Cas are standing there waiting for them when Dean just wanted to sleep after an awful day, and Uriel says they're needed. Dean says he just got back from needed, and Uriel tells him to mind his tone. Then of course,

CASTIEL Dean, we know this is difficult to understand. URIEL And we— URIEL gives CASTIEL a significant look. URIEL —don't care.

So no one is showing Dean any sympathy, right? Everyone is telling him to shut up and do what needs to be done—except Cas. Cas is sympathizing with him. And when Dean gets Cas alone?

DEAN You ask me to open that door and walk through it, you will not like what walks back out. CASTIEL For what it's worth, I would give anything not to have you do this.

And that's all it takes. That's literally all it takes—is just a single shred of sympathy—someone saying that they care that Dean is in pain—that they care what this will do to him and don't wish this on him. Just someone saying that they understand and that they care is enough and Dean agrees.

Don't ever let anyone tell you Dean "needs tough love".

[perlukafarinn]

cas is suicidal at multiple points throughout the series because he feels overwhelmingly guilty and unable to face up to the consequences of his actions (a lot of which were out of his control but many which weren't). he views death as redemptive and that's why his suicidality expresses itself in a recklessness with his own life and well-being. if he dies, it's alright, because his life is meaningless, and if he dies while saving someone that's even better, because then he will be redeemed in death.

dean is suicidal at multiple points throughout the series because he loses his loved ones in horrifically violent ways and cannot/is not allowed to grieve healthily. he doesn't seek death actively (any more than he already does as a hunter) but he doesn't avoid it either, and he thinks of it as something that will grant him relief from the pain of loss.

what i'm saying is that the ending of supernatural is awful (in part) because it confirms both of their attitudes towards death while they were at their lowest.

[ananke-xiii]

Talking about mommy issues... I'm not a 100% fan of Jack as the destiel son BUT it's important to me that going there means acknowleding that "archetypically" speaking Dean is The Mother while Cas is The Father*. And this isn't just because, when Sam accuses Dean of acting like their father, he replies with a Freudian slip if I've ever heard one ("I'm not his mother"), it's also why Chuck's myth-retelling doesn't work (Abraham is totally Cas and he and Jack subverted that myth) 'cause first he doesn't understand Dean and second he's not an astute storyteller and doesn't realize his story was already subverting the myth he wanted to re-enact. Therefore he should've created a situation where Jack (The Son) was forced to kill Cas (The Father) if he wanted to provoke Dean, this was Jack's original sin according to Dean, come on Chuck, it's been 14 seasons, everybody already knew Dean was not gonna kill Jack. He's totally fine with caging and entrapping his putative sons but he draws a line at killing them (insert that meme from Community). (I mean, I know Chuck wants Dean to do his bidding but after 14 years he had to get a little more creative than that. Maybe he should've listened to his editor Metatron, just saying. "maybe less about detail and more about balance") ((hello Becky and Metatron parallel)).

It would have also meant that Jack's story would've gone back to its genesis + the long tail of dead parental figures (not only Kelly and Cas but Nick/Lucifer and Mary and whoever else I'm forgetting lol).

By the end of s14 there is a short-circuits of symbols so it all had to go tits up, hence the rising of the dead etc. etc.

*This doesn't mean they are the Good Mother and the Good Father as they're clearly not but these are the primordial energies that they both channel to Jack. Also, obvs patriarchy in SPN is very much alive and well as demonstrated by the fact that the Good Mother and the Good Father are only the Dead Mother and the Dead Father and unfortunately for Jack this is what he got when he was born. He's not even born and he already lives in an ideal world with ideal figures compared to whom he'll always fall short.

Also, Jack's got the power to wake up from the Empty his putative father because his Mother (Dean) is grieving his death and he wants to please him: Jack is a total mama's boy.

[hells-plaid-angel]

Destiel Pride: Featherlight

There comes a time in the grieving process when you run out of things to destroy. There are only so many colourful curses that can be screamed and muffled into the fabric of a trench coat. There are only so many people to blame before it becomes obvious the culprit is the person staring at you in the mirror each morning — or night. Time loses all meaning but before and after. There are no true mornings when mourning. Without Cas, there is no sun rising, only setting. That was how Dean lived in the weeks after Cas was dragged into The Empty.

He still hadn't used the word 'death', not even in the sanctity of his head. 'Death' was a slippery word when it came to the Winchesters, and Cas — whether the bastard liked it or not, was a Winchester by default. He was family. Goddamn family, with all the shitty hang-ups that came with the title.

The word 'death' didn't seem to encompass the grief. Cas was absent from any place that Dean could find him. Even in death, Dean would find him. The lack of him throbbed like bruised knuckles. It only hurt when he moved or thought about it, or stayed too still.

When two months had passed and all options Dean could think of had been explored to get Cas out of The Empty, he was left in the wreckage that'd once been his bedroom. The only things left intact fell into two categories, things that'd been too tough to break, and things that belonged to Cas.

In the silence that followed the carnage, Dean was left with what he'd been avoiding, a moment to think. He wasn't struck by a revelation. 'Revelation' wasn't the right word. He was struck instead by a sense of recognition. A long-hidden truth had stilled his hand and hollowed what was left of his body.

Cas loved him, he knew that. He'd known from the second the angel was gone. He knew what kind of love Cas meant. What he hadn't realised until he was hunched over himself, holding the splintered remains of his nightstand was that he loved Cas back. His loss had brought a torrent of rage because where the hell was all his love meant to go? When Cas left, he'd taken Dean's love with him.

And goddamn wasn't that the cosmic kick in the balls to bookend what he'd deemed a tragic existence? He'd been thinking about death and how useless death would be if Cas wasn't on the other end of it. He was thinking of life in much the same light.

Dean hadn't been raised to know what to do with a grief so all-encompassing it ran in the background of his existence like a mixtape on a road trip. If he followed his father's example, all that was left to do was to become an obsessed bastard, and destroy himself and everyone he touched in slow motion. The Winchester rule for dealing with grief? Become the gangrene in the wound. Make everything so much worse.

When Cas arrived at the door of the bunker a month later, Dean didn't know what to do. Everything in him pushed towards anger, towards utter annihilation of all that was good in himself. However, upon seeing the look of uncertainty on the angel's face decades of rage disappeared. What he was left with was the familiar ring of tinnitus and the thick pit of dread that'd settled in his stomach. What the hell were they meant to do now?

"Hello, Dean," Cas spoke, like nothing had happened. Giving Dean an out, he knew he'd never be able to take.

There was too much left unsaid between them to go tumbling back into cowboy hats and coffee quips like their last run-in with death.

Dean knew he was meant to talk but he'd never been much of a talker when it counted. His hands trembled as they moved unbidden to hover over Cas' shoulder. He needed to touch the guy, to make sure he was real but to do so felt too definitive. If Cas was an illusion, Dean didn't care. He wanted him to stay put for once.

Dean's hands hovered ghostlike in the space between them, haunted as the rest of his body by the loss of the angel. His fingers flittered around Cas' body, nervous birds on hot, highway concrete. They'd land for a moment, featherlight, before taking off again. They explored Castiel's arms, his chest, his cheeks. All the while, Dean remained silent as the saint he wasn't.

In all his imaginings of their reunion, everything had been intense, whether he was throwing curses or kisses at Cas. He'd never expected his lips to lock and his body to betray him by shaking like a goddamn leaf in the breeze. He felt like he was a kid again, lost, silent and looking for someone or something to hold onto with all his fucking might.

He wanted to find his tongue, to say something to wipe the look of absolute bewilderment and trepidation from Cas' face but what the hell was there to say? No words would be enough.

He placed his hands on either side of Cas' face, watching the angel's eyes swell. He wanted a grand gesture. Cas deserved it, but Dean was still tied in knots trying to work out if this was a line they could cross and walk back from. Dean didn't know what he'd do if he screwed things up, terrified Cas would be another home he could never return to.

His lips found the scrape of Cas' cheek. The familiar five o'clock shadow on the unfamiliar territory of his mouth. It was so unlike Dean to be any kind of tender. There was no way the action could be misconstrued for anything other than what it was. A promise? A confession?

His hands had landed on the small of Cas' back and the curve of his hip. He opened his mouth to speak but the words came out garbled, sounding embarrassingly close to a sob.

Still, his mouth wouldn't shape the words. He closed his eyes and prayed, hoping Cas would hear.

Don't you ever do that to me again.

[castiellesbian]

Did Dean ever even have a girlfriend who ended up dying? Cassie lived, Lisa lived (though it was fucked up), other flashback gfs like Robin lived. Pretty much every girl Sam was ever into ended up dying (except Amelia as far as I remember). Oh I suppose Anna did die, but it wasn't treated by the narrative as a Love Interest Dying™, or really even an ex. The only people in Dean's life who were ever given this narrative (someone close to Dean either in the past or now ends up dying and Dean has to grieve their death) were men. Benny. Lee. Cas.

Literally Supernatural was like okay John lost his wife. Sam lost the love of his life. Dean? Heh. We will never tell 😉

[shallowseeker]

Truth & despair *COMPLETE*

"The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable."

Synopsis:

With Cas gone, Jack vanished, and Dean in turmoil, Sam turns to therapy to cope. His search for answers leads him to the bunker’s surveillance footage, where he uncovers startling evidence that casts doubt on Dean’s account of Cas’s death... and Dean's sanity. Determined to restore a semblance of normalcy, Sam gets them back on the road. But their case takes a terrifying turn when Chuck appears with a chilling revelation: the universe is targeting them in a deadly Final Destination-style game of fate. As Sam grapples with his own fears and a world seemingly set against them, he clings to the hope that reuniting his fractured family will be the key to overcoming their darkest challenges. Maybe once they’re all back together, they won’t need therapy at all.

---

Focus: Supernatural post-15x19 fic, TFW grieving badly, Bad therapy attempts with Mia Vallens, False memories, The Shadow is in love with Cas, Jack and Amara are AWOL

Characters: Dean/Castiel, Dean & Sam, Sam & Dean & Cas & Jack, Eileen Leahy, Mia Vallens, Chuck Shurley, Becky & the Rosen-Baron fam, Donatello Redfield, The Empty, Amara, Jack as God, Rowena MacLeod, Sam POV and Sam is blessedly annoying

Content warning: Major character death (Castiel), poor coping mechanisms (Dean), and encroachment of personal boundaries (Sam). Eventual happy ending.

Updates every weekend!

Proofread by @minalblood & finished for @tenderthunder

❤️

///

Ch 01: (~4200 words, ~17 minutes) - In an attempt to tackle his grief, Sam rifles through the bunker footage to track down Cas’s last moments. The footage leaves him with more questions than answers.

//

Ch 02: (~5700 words, ~23 minutes) Mia admonishes Sam for his breach of boundaries, and Dean suffers his first meltdown.

//

Ch 03: (~5200 words, ~20 minutes) Sam leans into unhealthy coping mechanisms that nearly get them killed.

//

Ch 04: (~4700 words, ~18 minutes) Snapped out of Chuck’s grand finale, Sam and Dean wonder what’s next.

//

Ch 05: (~5250 words, ~21 minutes) In need of Becky Rosen’s laptop, Chuck and the Winchesters track her to a safe house in the recesses of the Wallowa Mountains, Oregon. En route, the roadways are riddled with mysterious sinkholes. Dean admits he’s drawn to them.

//

Ch 06: (~7500 words, ~30 minutes) - Chuck shows his true colors, but Dean’s the real problem.

//

Ch 07: (~7200 words, ~28 minutes) - Dean takes a leap of faith. Sam follows.

//

Ch 08: (~7100 words, ~28 minutes) - Sam and Dean tunnel their way into The Empty. It's not empty.

//

Ch 09 (~ 6200 words, ~25 minutes) - Unable to rid Castiel of the cooling Empty gunk, Sam and Dean transport him back to the Barons’ house and attempt to free him.

//

Ch 10 (~ 6200 words, ~25 minutes) - Hoping to track Jack and Amara, Team Free Will returns to Washaway Beach to perform a potent locator spell.

///

Ch 11 (~8000 words, ~32 minutes) - Sam and Chuck crash-land in a lush landscape and run afoul of Amara. She taunts Sam, promising that Jack will never return, at least not of his own free will.

//

Ch 12 (~10800 words, ~43 minutes) - Jack's got everything he needs right here. Why would he ever leave?

//

Ch 13 (~8000 words, ~32 minutes) - Sam awakens in the shallow waters of Washaway Beach...alongside the prone body of Jack Kline.

//

Ch 14 (~10200 words, ~40 minutes) - Maybe Sam can't fix everything. Maybe that's okay.

//

Ch 15/ Epilogue (~17000 words, ~68 minutes) - Then, Dean welcomed Cas back from The Empty. Now, they deal with the fallout.

[destieltropecollection]

Destiel Trope Collection 2024 | Day 9: Empty Rescue

his and mine are the same | @cascigarette Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 1,510 Main Tags/Warnings: Post Canon Fix-It, Dean Winchester Has Abandonment Issues, Alcohol, First Kiss, Newly Human Castiel, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel and Dean Winchester Use their Words Summary: Dean rescues Cas from the Empty. They end up having to talk about that final confession.

Two lesbians, two bicons, and their cat walk into super turbohell | @nuttysaladtree Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2,038 Main Tags/Warnings: crossover with She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, the Empty, Fix-it, first kiss Summary: And they bury one person and zero gays. 15x20 "Carry On" finale fix-it that Castiel deserves. Mentioned Bow/Glimmer. Sam Winchester shows up, too, as well as the OTP Dean x pie. Melog is best kitty, and good riddance to the Empty/Shadow/Cosmic Entity and Horde Prime.

sometimes you just don't know the answer (wait for me) | @cassiecasyl Rating: General Word Count: 7,992 Main Tags/Warnings: Canonical Character Death, Episode: s15e18 Despair - Castiel's Confession Scene, Grief/Mourning, Album: evermore (Taylor Swift), Grieving Dean Winchester, Episode: s15e18 Despair, Alternate Ending, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Reunion, Castiel in the Empty (Supernatural), Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Angst, Hope vs. Despair, Love Confessions, Angst with a Happy Ending, Inspired by Hadestown, Song: Doubt Comes In, The Fates (Hadestown) Cameo, First Kiss, Reunions, Epic Love Summary: As Dean grieves, Jack tells them of an old story, one that has been told and sung over and over again anyway. Two lovers challenge the universe to escape death. They walk the long way home, but the one in front is not allowed to turn around for the whole way. Every entity of grand power knows this, for the pact has to be respected were it ever to be attempted again. Of course, Dean goes to find Castiel, because if anyone can do this, it's them.

Can't Stop Lovin' You | @teeparadigm67 Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 9,512 Main Tags/Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Castiel is Saved from the Empty, First Kiss, Castiel and Dean Winchester in Love, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Happy Ending, Fix-It, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, Dean Winchester Saves Castiel from the Empty Summary: On paper, the plan seemed simple. Jack opens the portal between the worlds. Dean walks into the Empty and makes it loud enough to wake the dead. Drag Cas’s feathery ass out of there. Simple, right? Cloaked in Cas’s grace, tape deck in hand with Van Halen blasting out its little speaker, he plans to bring the angel home and tell Cas all the things left unspoken between them for all these years. Now they have a chance, he can’t throw this all away. The only problem is, the Empty has other ideas. It doesn't stop Dean however, it’s his turn to be the one who drags Cas out of perdition. Inspired by: Van Halen - Can't Stop Lovin' You

Bring Me To Life | @Taymarpigeon Rating: Explicit Word Count: 10,960 Main Tags/Warnings: Post-Canon Fix-It, Angel Castiel (Supernatural), Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gratuitous Smut, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Dean Winchester Calls Castiel "Angel", Bottom Dean Winchester/Top Castiel (Supernatural), Interrupting Sam Winchester Summary: In 2008 Dean Winchester met a man who changed everything; he says a man, Castiel Angel of the Lord was so much more than a man and not just because of the whole halo and wings thing. November 5th 2020 Castiel sacrificed himself to save Dean and by extension the world, but not before turning the hunter's life upside down one last time. In 2025 Dean was... moving on, let's put it that way. He hadn't forgotten Cas, spending the past five years trying to be all the things the Angel said he was in that teary goodbye. He put one foot in front of the other, day by day, because as Frank Devereaux once said: 'that's what you do'. This life only ends one way for most hunters though and Dean was no exception. Skip four months into the future and he's back, only this time he's done playing by the rules, done pretending his life didn't end with Cas that day in the dungeon. He's done. Time to do what he should have from the beginning...

stay | @thisisapaige Rating: Explicit Word Count: 15,073 Main Tags/Warnings: Fix-It, Post-Canon, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Light Angst, Happy Ending Summary: Standing on the bridge beside his brother, Dean looks around. Something’s wrong. Because this Heaven, this place Dean supposedly deserves, just seems so... empty.

The Little Issue with the Mission to Perdition | @amaranthhiding Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 16,460 Main Tags/Warnings: Canon Universe, Post-Ep 15x19, Jack and Amara Try Fixing Things Together But Make Everything Worse (at first), Amara is Part of Team Free Will, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Temporary Major Character Death, Angst with Happy Ending, First Kiss, DCRB 2023 Summary: Chuck is defeated and his power now belongs to Jack and Amara. They struggle with adjusting to their newly-shared existence, and with big questions such as, how can (almost) all-powerful beings avoid becoming what Chuck was? What even is all that power good for when it doesn't allow Jack to save someone from the Empty who absolutely deserves being saved? Who thought it was a good idea to hand all that power to two beings who, together, have spent less years on Earth than the average human child? ...And why is there suddenly black goo everywhere?

Until the Moss Had Reached Our Lips | @alulangel Rating: Mature Word Count: 20,543 Main Tags/Warnings: Fix-It, Everybody Lives, Lake House, Saved from the Empty, Groundhog Day Loop, Castiel’s True Form, Castiel’s handprint, Creepy forests, Inappropriate use of pie Summary: After everything with Chuck went down, Dean thought he deserved some time off. Not a retirement, just a break. A little cabin by a lake. Fishing. Baking. Time to process and reflect. Except he doesn't remember exactly how he got there. And he doesn't know why he can't leave. And there's something about the woods around the cabin, creeping closer and closer and closer every day...

one working part | @mittensmorgul Rating: Explicit Word Count: 40,051 Main Tags/Warnings: Inspired by It's a Wonderful Life (1946) Episode Fix-It: s15e19 Inherit the Earth (Supernatural) Angst and Fluff and Smut POV Alternating Not Canon Compliant with Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth (Supernatural), Human Castiel Summary: Wherein they actually inherit the earth. Again. Because I will never be done retelling the end of their story in more sensible and satisfying ways. This time, via the power of a classic holiday film... with a slightly demonic twist.

Empty Earth (WIP) | @amaranthhiding Rating: No Rating Word Count: 102,437 Main Tags/Warnings: Post-15x18, Epic, Plotty, Angel True Forms, Consensual Possession, Enochian, Apocalypse, Rebellion in Hell, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Witch!Sam, Destiel and Samwena, Jack & his three fathers, Crowley & Jack Summary: After Castiel's confession, Dean carries a spark of hope telling him this can't be the end. This spark is the strongest weapon for Dean, Sam and Jack in this final war. The enemy is God. The battlefield is an Earth devoid of humans, a Hell in rebellion against its queen, and a Heaven betrayed by its creator. And the stakes are everything and everyone they have ever cared about.

[samsgff]

*Using the events of s5 with a little bit of alternations*

⚠️ tw for suicide nd alcoholism ⚠️

Once Sam jumped into the hole dean felt like he was stabbed right through the heart.

Days, weeks, months had gone by and Dean was still grieving. See everyone has their own way of grieving Dean's way was to rot at Bobby's house, he did not move an inch from his bed, he let himself drown completely in his sorrow. Bobby tried his best to convince him to go on hunting trips with him and constantly told him it'll help, but dean's only reply was "I'm done".

Day after day, the bottles of boose kept increasing, but drinking was his only escape. It was his way to numb the pain, it was his way to fill in the void inside of him that kept growing ever since the incident. It was his way to be at peace, it allowed him to sleep without rewatching his brother jump to his death. However some coping mechanisms lose their purpose at some point. The alcohol was not doing it for the now only child winchester, even so he tried to keep on going but what was left for him to hang on to if the only person he ever cared for was gone? And so one night, when Bobby was out, Dean went looking for some pills and since he knew Bobby more than his own father he knew exactly where he kept them so it didn't take much time for him to find those colorful tablets. He wrote a farewell letter to his adoptive father his one and only father, thanking him for taking him and his younger brother under his wing and apologized for being such a pain in the ass for the past few years. Dean knew the right dose, he always has. As he swallowed those pills down with whiskey he could feel the inside of his stomach already lightning up in flames, but he didn't care, he wanted it to end, he wanted to be where he belonged, in hell, next to his sammy.

Few minutes later, everything went silent, his body was completely numb, his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

The old man arrived at his house, he opened the door, it was quiet way too quiet. He placed his keys on the coffee table and called out: "Dean?" his eyes caught the letter, he opened it with shaky hands, that can't be, Dean wouldn't do that he tried gaslighting himself. He dropped the letter and ran as fast he could breaking down the door and holding Dean's unconscious body between his arms. "No Dean wake up" He yelled. "Wake up now boy" he yelled again as his eyes filled up with tears. "Dean don't do that to me" he mumbled while holding his body closer to him. "Castiel!!" he screamed. "Get down here cas now!" he screamed again hoping the angel would answer his prayers. And he did. "what happened?" he asked confused. "Fix him now or i swear" Bobby threatened. Cas placed his hand over Dean's forehead and it only took a few seconds before he opened his eyes again.

He adjusted himself, looked at his hands all confused.

"No no noo" he screamed in anger.

"WHY DID YOU BRING ME BACK?" he looked at the angel and his adoptive father with eyes full of tears.

"i was ready to go i was ready to die" he yelled.

"Well too bad because i wasn't" Bobby snapped

"the only person who brought a purpose to my life is gone. The only person i ever loved and cared for and looked after is gone. And there's a hole inside of that just keeps on growing and growing everyday and it- it hurts it hurts so much i thought- i thought i could numb the pain but it's crushing me it's sucking the life out of me i can't i just can't" he cried out.

Bobby and Cas stood above him, with sadness and despair in their eyes.

"i think i could help" Cas mumbled

Dean looked up to him with the tiniest bit of hope.

"i could erase every memory you ever had with sam it would be like he was never your brother- like he never existed" he continued while avoiding eye contact.

"no i can't allow that" bobby added

"this is my decision bobby" dean replied firmly.

"do it cas" he said as he stood up and faced him.

"but this is going to hurt" castiel warned him before proceeding.

"i said do it" he repeated.

The angel placed the palm of his hand over the hunters forehead and channeled every power he had, it didn't take long before dean fell to his knees screaming as all of the memories with his younger brother flashed before his eyes. Bobby looked away since he couldn't handle seeing his son in that condition.

Once it was over dean fell to the ground unconscious.

"his body is going to need a little of time to readjust" cas told Bobby in a reassuring tone.

"i hope you realize the consequences of what you just did" the adoptive father added before leaving the room and slamming the door behind him.

[ubernatural]

What if the show let dean grieve? What if they let him drink and rage and sob himself to death? What if they had him snap at Sam and push him and everyone else away? What if they let him show how heartbroken he was? How utterly destroyed? What if they let him scream and cry? What if they let him give up? What if they let him think that he had nothing left to live for? What if they let him die broken and alone in the dungeon where it took cas? What if they let him have peace when he was done? What if they let him in the empty? What if, at the end of their story, Dean and Cas don’t get a happily ever after and Sam goes crazy? What if it ended how all tragedies end? So many open ends, but no one to fill them. So many things to do, but no one to do them. Happy ending just inches away, but still just out of reach.

What if?

[destielbeatlesminibang]

Title: In Matters of Faith

Author: celestial_starlight

Artist: witchy-worm

Rating: Teen and Up

Summary: After Sam and Dean burn Cas’s body, Dean walks. He leaves Sam with a devil baby he can barely stand to look at and rents a cabin near the field where he spread Cas’s ashes. He prays to Cas day and night, desperate for his faith to mean something. His calls wake Cas and bring him right back to Dean’s doorstep. Dean takes him home, struggling to sort out a rollercoaster of feelings while the three of them figure out how to raise a nephilim child.

Tags: Major Character Death, Dean grieving, Dean praying to Cas, Cas is Dean’s faith, Cas confesses to Dean, Cas sacrifices himself to save Dean, Dean resurrects Cas, Dean and Cas being dads, baby Jack

Posting on July 1

Keep reading for a short excerpt.

He wanders the fields outside, his mind replaying the image of Cas’s ashes catching on the wind, glowing in the sun before fading in a flash, returned to the earth and the sky.

Except he didn’t come from there. He came from the stars. He came from a world Dean could never hope to understand, and yet Cas made all kinds of sense. He only wanted to help people, same as him and Sam. What Dean can’t understand is why Cas cared so damn much about him. He went radio silent because he was so desperate to do something good. He healed Dean’s screwed up leg with a touch softer than he gives anyone. It was Dean he was looking at when he told them to go, when he said he’d hold Lucifer off.

Dean shuts his eyes and listens to the wind, feeling it tear past. Sometimes he wishes he had some kind of faith. That stories about sensing someone’s presence weren’t bullshit, or the dead turned to monsters.

Why was he so important to Cas? What did he ever do for him except call him a dumbass and tell him not to do anything stupid? Regret stabs at Dean. Why couldn’t he control his temper? Cas did his best, and goddammit, that was enough. He shuts his eyes and lets out a shaky breath. The pit in his gut yawns wider.

Please, he thinks. Please what? Come back to me. Wherever you are, come back to me.

[lavenderdreams205]

spn thoughts as requested

tw & spoiler warning

they should have kept the grungy filter and aesthetics from the early seasons

bring back the southern / midwest gothic vibes

dean would've listened to and loved 90's & 2000s grunge - I know that the whole "there's no good music past '79" is a key part of his personality but pre series/early seasons dean is soo nirvana / Weezer / smashing pumpkins coded

there is too much flannel in the later seasons - I miss the carhartt and leather jackets so bad

BRING BACK DEANS JEWELRY

there's so much about cas that we don't know. there's all the episodes where he just isn't there and they never tell the viewers what he's doing or where he went

on the same note, cas's personality isn't nearly as flushed out as sam's or dean's are. who is his favorite musician? what's his favorite place to travel to? why does he like the pimpmobile so much? does he actually like the trench coat or does he wear it just because it's there?

so many people characterize cas as a little guy, and while he is cute, it's important to remember that he's also an incredibly powerful eldritch horror who leads angelic armies and brands Michaels vessel just because

dean is bisexual and in love with cas - I won't take the time to list all of the reasons here, but you can definitely find those reasons somewhere

i would've loved for them to use the handprint as a physical manifestation of their bond instead of having it be just a scar that fades with time

i'm actually really ok with the way cas dies, I think it makes sense for his character and provides closure (for him, at least, not for dean)

the parallels of cas and dean meeting in a barn and then dean dying in a barn

cassie is deans first love, cas is his last

the imagery of the empty as cas's wings in 15x18

why do the subtitles spell cas as cass, its awful

there's a few lines in the early seasons that seemingly reference dean getting roofied / sa'd and are subsequently played for laughs, Jensen Ackles confirmed that dean would've done underage sw when John didn't leave them with enough money. I believe that this trauma is a major reason that dean never accepted his sexuality

the way deans alcoholism is overlooked and joked about is actually insane

having dean be completely ok after 15x18 is also insane, especially after the widower arc where the show specifically shows it's viewers how deeply dean grieves cas when he dies

deans death is literally so stupid. I get that the show is trying to make a really meta point about the characters not having plot armor anymore because chuck is gone, but dean deserved to find peace. if the events of the show had never happened and pre series dean had never gotten pre series Sam back into hunting it would've ended the exact same way - dean dead on a hunt and Sam dying from old age

dean spends as much time on earth as he did in hell, and while he would never be the same, I like to believe that if he had been allowed by the narrative to live longer he would've gotten back a little of the twinkle in his eyes that he had before hell

in 15x20 Bobby says that cas helped rebuild heaven but if he was there he would've gone to see dean. additionally, there's no way cas should have been able to escape the empty. this is such a glaringly obvious plot hole and it drives me nuts

I would've liked to see cas's wings in the show - not just the shadow of them

the only time I tolerate serious discussion of wincest is in the context of ethel cain

i am a Sam disliker - while he does have many positive qualities, I have a really hard time getting past him not looking for dean when he was in purgatory and him joking about deans alcoholism and other traumas

i like Sam the best when he's with Eileen, I think they're adorable together and I'm mad they killed her off

I am a chronic jack defender, that boy has done nothing wrong

it would be interesting to explore cas and jacks relationships with their respective genders

there's no way being forced to murder the dean clones didn't affect cas, we only saw him kill the last one but the first few he had to kill had to have been devastating

i'm really disappointed by 14x13 Lebanon, we get the scene with John and Sam but I would argue that dean has significantly more reasons to be upset with John and it's unfortunate that the episode just glossed over this - I believe a screaming match between the two would have cleared the air a bit and been at the very least cathartic for dean

i'm fairly sure that it's canonical that John sent dean away on his 17th birthday to kill lesbian ghosts. my personal hc is that John suspected that dean was bi and sent him to teach him a lesson

i saw a post on here comparing hunting culture to biker and cowboy culture and viewing those things through a queer lens and I thought it was fascinating - there's so much spn could've done if it cared about the show more than money and losing viewers

every time cas and dean beat the shit out of each other, it serves as further proof of their relationship rather than discrediting their relationship - ie demon dean and cas fighting in the library is used to parallel Cain and Collette. it could even be assumed that their love is stronger because Cain killed Collette but dean left cas alive

The purgatory love triangle was so silly

once dean worked through all of his trauma and toxic masculinity he would've been a swiftie

all of the main characters have old / vintage cars but in like season 13/14 dean sam and cas just collectively own and use this really ugly silver truck from the 2010s. its such a small detail but it absolutely ruins my viewing experience every time I see it

dean is actually really smart but most of the fandom overlooks it because Sam is characterized as the smart one. if you know anything about cars you know it takes an insane amount of brains to build a car from scratch (he did this with baby multiple times throughout the show) also he just makes an emf meter using basically nothing. if dean had been given the same opportunities he gave Sam, he would've been an engineer or something

i will always be a John hater, if this man has 0 haters, I am dead

[scoobydoodean]

ok so forewarning, i don’t really have a question here, just lots of thoughts.

there’s so many layers to the general *badness* about the mia vallens therapy scene. like to the manipulation (for lack of a better word) that sam rewrites. like it makes such a difference that she thinks jack is their little brother instead of the son of the thing that killed dean’s best friend/loml. not to mention the fact that it’s been what like a week since *everything*

and like yes dean’s being cold towards jack and giving him orders (which, i could argue they weren’t uncalled-for), but tbh he’s only being moderately colder/more direct with him than he’s been with cas at times on hunts (thinking hunteri heroici) and even similar to how *sam* has been with like claire and even dean himself (thinking that episode dean turned into a teenager and all of MOC). like genuinely, how was sam expecting him to act like?

also (half joking) i genuinely think dean would’ve warmed up to jack even quicker than he did (we can already see it in this same episode, like that look he gives jack when he asks mia if buddy hurt her too) if he heard jack say he hates anakin skywalker lol

ok wait i do have a question. do you think jack actually was “terrified” of dean during that therapy scene?

(post linking to some context)

Okay so I rewatched 13.01-13.04 on a plane this past week so it's all extra fresh on my mind rn. The thing about 13.04 is that Dean wasn't comfortable bringing Jack on the hunt, and Jack didn't want to go, but Sam pushed insistently for all of them to go on the hunt together... primarily because Dean's feelings were thwarting Sam's plans for Jack and his own emotional coping mechanisms in a larger sense.

I think Dean's feelings compared to Sam's here are relatively more simple (and yet somehow still intensely misunderstood to a baffling degree). Dean was grieving. He was grieving Cas who died right in front of him, he was grieving Crowley (he pleads with Chuck to bring "even Crowley" back in 13.01!) and he was grieving Mary.

The thing with Dean's grief over Cas is this: instead of viewing it from Dean's perspective, we tend to analyze it as omniscient viewers who know Cas will come back, refusing see how miraculous Cas’s return truly was. We refuse to see Cas's death was different this time and appeared very permanent. There was no uncertainty like there was in season 7 or 8. His wings burned into the ground and his grace extinguished. Dean pleaded and prayed for Cas and Mary and Crowley's return to the only person who ever brought Cas back from certain death (via explosion in 5.01 and 5.22)—the person who told Dean in 11.23 he was leaving and Dean was on his own. Dean didn't hear back. The ONLY reason Cas comes back in 13.05 is that 1) Jack woke him him up unwittingly using powers no one knew he possessed and 2) Cas then annoyed a creature they didn't even know existed into letting him out of a place they 3) didn't even know existed and 4) Cas somehow came back with a body even though he had been burned to ash. All of this is completely miraculous. It was unforeseeable. It doesn’t even make complete sense as a viewer. In other words, Dean has ZERO reason to hope for Cas's return. There was ZERO reason to refuse to acknowledge that grief… but that's exactly what Sam does. He suggests Dean pray for Chuck to bring Cas back in 13.01. As soon as Sam knew Dean already tried that and Cas was DEAD dead, he treated Cas as something Dean needed to reframe and get over:

SAM: You thinking mom is gone and Cas is gone, and that Jack can’t be saved. Dean, after everything we’ve gone through… We just lost people we love, people who have been in our lives for a long time. Everything’s upside-down. I get it. But we’ve been down before. I mean, rock bottom. And we find a way. We fix it because that’s what we do.

This is the "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" speech in 13.02—like a day after they burned Cas's body. Sam's wording here is cruel too—saying Dean is "thinking" Cas is gone as if he didn't die right in front of him? He refuses to acknowledge Cas's death as something Dean was actively and rightfully mourning. This becomes a major point of contention between the brothers at the end of 13.03.

DEAN: Look, I know you think that you can use [Jack] as some sort of an interdimensional can-opener and that’s fine, but don’t act like you care about him! Because you only care about what he can do for you! So if you want to pretend, that’s fine! But me? I can hardly look at the kid! Because when I do all I see is everybody we’ve lost! SAM: Mom chose to take that shot at Lucifer. That is not on Jack!

Sam will only name Mary—the one person whose death they can’t 100% confirm (the same thing happens in front of Mia in 13.04). The absence of Cas’s name here is pointed. So Dean says:

DEAN: And what about Cas?

And how does Sam respond?

SAM: What about Cas?

Uh... wow. That's what really sets Dean off to full on shouting:

DEAN: [Jack] manipulated him, he made him promises, said, ‘paradise on earth’ and Cas bought it and you know what that got him? It got him dead! Now you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t!

Sam's denial of what Dean literally SAW (Cas died) and how that hurts—his insistence that Dean also halt grieving to hope for the impossible—it's a major sticking point and very revealing of Sam's own coping mechanisms. Sam's chief response to grief is to disassociate himself from it. We see a textbook case in season 8 (see: 8.08), but in most of the series, what this actually looks like for Sam is to keep moving and hunting (ex: 1.02, 2.02, 2.10, 2.11, 2.18 3.11, 4.09, 9.01) which is also why he insists on bringing Dean and Jack on the hunt in 13.04. Sam tries not to think about what they've lost and focuses on what he CAN do. He focuses on hoping Mary can be saved because she's the one person he didn't SEE die.

The thing about Dean’s grief over Mary is this: he convinces himself Lucifer had to have killed her. She's the one person whose death Dean can't be certain of, but he absolutely cannot bear the thought of hoping she’s alive and it turning out he’s wrong. He knows he wouldn’t psychologically survive hoping in that and his beliefs being crushed. It would be like losing his mom all over again (a THIRD time). So he sticks to what is most likely: Lucifer killed her. He can't contend with the hope Sam is clinging to desperately, and that's what makes them such poor companions in grief. Sam feels off balance when Dean won't keep moving and hoping like him—when Dean can't keep up the pace Sam wants to run at in his own grief—and in doing so, Sam keeps pushing Dean to contend with hopes that open Dean up to a WORLD of pain Sam can psychologically convince himself not to feel. Grieving together just really just doesn't work for them because they're never on the same page and deal in such different ways—and this has been hurting them from as early as 2.02!!!

Now to bring Jack into this more fully: Jack represents Sam and Dean's different perspectives on grief and on Mary. Just like Dean despairs over Mary's demise, Dean despairs over the possibility of Jack being good. He can't bear the idea of hoping in that and being wrong. The psychologically safest option for him is to assume the worst and not hope or believe in anything turning out okay.

Sam, on the other hand, pretty much immediately sees a way to use Jack to get Mary back. This is clear when he and Jack get locked up together in the jail cell in 13.01. After establishing that Jack isn't hearing things and (probably) isn't going to murder him imminently, Sam immediately starts down a line of questioning establishing how well Jack understands his powers, and then asks him outright:

SAM: Jack, look, um... before you were born, you -- you opened up a door to another world. Do you remember that? JACK: Yes. SAM: Okay, um, could you do that again?

Shortly after, when Sam arrives, he tells Dean (who is convinced after everything that happened in 12.23 that 12.19 that Jack is evil or will turn evil):

We need him.

Sam repeats this sentiment multiple times with clear meaning, and later in 13.04, he admits to Jack that he wants to use him to open the portal. This doesn't mean he doesn't also grow to see himself in Jack quickly and genuinely believe in his capacity for good, but he isn't fully honest with Jack about his motives until 13.04 where he finally comes clean, and this poisons the well with Jack a little.

@shallowseeker has pointed out before that in 13.03, while trying to figure out how to get Jack's powers to work (and spying on Jack through cameras from another room) Sam is seen reading "The Drama Of The Gifted Child". I wish I could find the post because Shal probably brought it up too, but when I was rewatching this episode, I noticed the chapter Sam had just settled into read before being interrupted was titled,

"Depression and Grandiosity: Two Related Forms of Denial"

Given the accusations flying from Sam toward Dean then from Dean toward Sam about denial in the following episode (13.04), this feels amusingly pointed. Dean is depressed (and about to attempt suicide in 13.05), Sam is depressed and has "grandiose" ideas of using Jack to pop open a portal to another reality while hiding behind the guise of being the most rational person in the room when he... isn't necessarily? And it's easy to argue "Well, Sam turns out to be right even if he didn't ultimately have much of a reason to think he was" but the core problem here is how his beliefs effect how he treats other people's grief. He isn't honest with Jack about his motives (while Dean is somewhat brutally honest) and pushes and watches even while claiming he's giving Jack space (13.03), he refuses to give Dean space to grieve even the family member they know is dead, he inserts a therapist into the situation and criticizes Dean's grief when Dean won't play his game, and in 13.05, after Dean says that he can't believe in anything right now, Sam's clumsy attempts at help involve plying Dean with alcohol he says he doesn't even want and trying to send him off to strip clubs—believing that Dean performing being okay will somehow address his mental state because Sam's idea of coping himself is simply "going through the motions".

As for Jack, I don't think he's scared of Dean. I think he's scared of what Dean believes. He's scared that Dean is right. From 13.01-13.06, Jack is contending with the question of whether he's destined for evil or good, and in his depressed state, Dean believes Jack is destined for evil because hoping in anything is completely beyond him at that moment. Sam tells Jack that he can be good, but he hides ulterior motives as to why he's being nice, and when those ulterior motives are revealed, it leaves Jack thinking Sam is the kind of person who will lie to Jack and tell him he's good just to get what he wants. Meanwhile, Jack knows Dean is being completely honest with him about what he believes. 13.03 and 13.04 clearly demonstrate that Jack understands the difference between beliefs and facts: Dean could be right or he could be wrong. What Jack holds onto like an anchor is that he can trust Dean to tell him the truth about what he believes—even if it hurts.

It's also just so obvious that Jack immediately wants Dean—specifically—to like him (see: Jack mimicking Dean's mannerisms while eating in 13.02, and his clumsy attempts to earn his favor in 13.04). Sam also picks up on this, and encourages Jack to seek Dean's approval in 13.04 to try and change Dean's beliefs. Sam (and to some extent Jack) are thinking in 13.04, that if Jack can prove to Dean that he can be good, and if Dean tells him he did a good job (which Dean does in the end), Jack can believe that. Sam sees that Jack wants Dean's approval and the impression that Dean's beliefs have had on Jack and thinks by pushing them together as soon as possible (when neither of them want to go on the hunt) and treating them as a family and forcing Dean to accept Jack when Dean just isn't ready (including by paralleling Jack with himself in a way that becomes an accusation), he can "fix" Jack so he isn't scared of his powers anymore (13.03) and then he can teach Jack to use his powers and Jack can open a portal to save their mom.

Jack's attempts to earn Dean's favor in 13.04 are clumsy. His first attempt is directly ignoring Dean telling him to wait in the car and sneaking into the crime scene, potentially contaminating it. At Mia's office, Jack's outburst about losing a mother is what allows Sam to set up the whole family therapy trap to begin with, and because Dean knows Sam is going to use that to hurt him, he warns Jack not to make outbursts like that. Dean is not being nice. Point blank. And I do think his tone is a little different than with Cas which in the past felt more like exasperation. I also don’t think it makes him the devil. I think that's understandable when putting in even a tiny amount of effort and it's kind of laughable to me how few people seem to even try because they're so caught up in Sam's happy family narrative and the idea that someone wanting Dean's approval presents an obligation that Dean give it no matter how emotionally impossible—and in a situation where asking him to lie would actually destroy that much more of Jack's trust.

[angelsdean]

was reading an article abt all of dean's deaths on the show bc i was looking for a list of all his deaths and just. the way the article ends talking abt dean's last death saying, "The brothers eventually meet in Heaven where they're finally able to live peacefully, reunited with their friends and family." Like ??? That's how the general audience / casual viewers interpret the finale and it's so ???? like you clearly missed the point of the show entirely if you think them dying and being reunited in Heaven is a good ending. And if you think them being dead means they're somehow finally getting to "live peacefully with their friends and family." Like, they're dead !!! There is no living. This new open-world Heaven isn't the same as being alive on Earth. If it were then why keep them dead in the first place ??? Also, literally a HUGE recurring theme of the show is that they DIDN'T want peace or 'paradise' over freedom. Especially Dean. Dean always wanted freedom over peace, because peace is meaningless if there is no freedom. And I guess you could argue that they got their "freedom" if you're doing a surface level reading of 15x19 / 15x20 and take it for face-value that they actually defeated Chuck. But that ending echoes Chuck's ending almost to the T. It's bleak af when you take .05 seconds to think about it. Dean dies young on a run-of-the-mill hunt and sam has now lost everyone (dean, cas, jack, mary) and seemingly doesn't marry eileen (his most recent major love interest) and doesn't seem to keep in touch w/ any of his hunter friends and family (garth, jody, donna, claire, etc). And he continues to grieve dean into his old age, like he never gets over it. It's depressing. But yeah oh, reunited in heaven so it's fine. Like !!! They deserved to LIVE. After everything, if they really defeated chuck and won their freedom they all (including cas and jack) deserved to live and finally write their own stories !!!!

[happilyfeatherafter]

Happilyfeatherafter’s ficrec Fridays

Back back back again, and I don't know guys, I think we should all just totally stab Caesar! Welcome back to a new fortnight of fics that I’ve read and loved recently.

If you want to find more you can see my previous rec lists here!

15 March 2024

Are You Writing From the Heart? by  @luckshiptoshore is now complete!! Congrats Luck! Full disclosure, Luck is one of my very best friends, but that just means I know not only how much of a talented fic writer she is, but also how much of her heart and soul she poured into writing this love letter to queer storytelling, season 4 Destiel as a romcom, meta text (and subtext), and finding out who you really are when society and your upbringing is fighting against you. Castiel is a ghostwriter for L.S. Shore's Supernatural novels about Neal and his brother. Caught in a storytelling rut, Cas finds himself adding the fallen angel character of Bel...what could possible go wrong? Meanwhile at his local writing coffee shop spot, he meets the handsome stranger Dean who is an up and coming standup comedian and Supernatural fanboy. They because firm friends, but that's definitely it because Cas is straight....right?! Following these two dummies as they FAIL TO USE THEIR WORDS is a total joy, as Luck's humorous and emotional writing paired with her eye for detail is so very on point, and I'm so excited more people will finally get to read this story in full.

Baker Six by komodobits because !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot tell you how goddamn excited I was to get this email notification and finally be back in 91w world, and to witness these early stages of Dean and Cas' relationship through Dean's eyes at last. This barely needs a rec because it's THEE 91w Dean, but komodobits hasn't missed a beat in getting back inside their heads and I was once again swept away by this iconic love story against the odds. Head the trigger warnings as always, this is truly on the front lines as a medic in a war zone. Baker Six was written for the very good cause of the fandom Palestine fundraiser, in support of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Please donate if you can!

Truth & despair by @shallowseeker was a recent discovery and such a fascinating read! It's set in a post-15x18 verse, but importantly it features a fun Sam narrative perspective that delights in his lens by...being a bit of an unsympathetic oblivious dummy (affectionate). I really appreciate a crunchy Sam characterisation and oooboy does this pay off. Dean is steeped in his grief for Cas, and Sam is oh so concerned. He reaches out to Mia Vallens to understand his own grieving, and that leads to him making a discovery...Dean's memories of Cas' death aren't what he claims happened. With the unwelcome reappearance of Chuck (he lost...didn't he?) and LITERAL sinkholes appearing in the fabric of the universe, can they figure out what's happening to save Cas and save the world? This wip plays with physics, theology and narrative fuckery in such intriguing ways. I can't wait to see how it wraps up in the next two chapters.

The Leap by @friendofcarlotta started reading this one when Tina reshared it on Leap Day...because of course. I'd actually read it before but it more than lived up to the reread. 'Castiel Krushnic is a police officer in Soviet-occupied East Berlin. He is also gay, in a city where that’s a dangerous thing to be. One night, he meets Dean Winchester, a mechanic from the American sector. Their mutual attraction is instant, and a convenient hookup quickly turns into a passionate love affair that defies all rules and expectations.' Meticulously researched, emotional, heartrending and thought provoking. I highly recommend taking the leap on this fic!

See you in two weeks and OMG it's @deancaspinefest time!!!! I'm so excited *clears calendar*

Tag list under the cut - let me know if you'd like to be added to be notified of future recs!

@dean-you-assbutt-cas-loves-you