#i feel like i could say some stuff about dean and cas too and how they both seem to embrace low-brow entertainment and food

[shallowseeker]

"I'm working on a Ph.D," Sam says.

Sam's lie about himself was so interesting in terms of how he sees himself. (I wish it had made it into the episode.)

Instead of defaulting to, "I'm working on a personal research project," or "I'm taking some classes at a local community," Sam says, PHD!

(And I get it. At my age, I wanna say that I'm working on a Masters' or a Ph.D, too. Not that I, "never made it," even though I was, "considered so low-budget genius and backwoods bright.")

From the 14x13 script Dean draws back-- huh? He and Sam swap a confused glance. SAM: What-- who do you think we are? ELIOT: I-- survivalist bigfoot hitmen? Sam and Dean trade a look. SAM: No-- we're-- my brother is a mechanic and I-- I'm working on a PHD-- (exasperated) Just tell us what you saw.

///

I recall, very fondly, this scene with Rowena in 12x02 Mamma Mia:

INTERIOR: INSIDE A RESTAURANT. ROWENA IS SITTING AT A TABLE WITH A MAN. ROWENA: Sent me to the grandest boarding schools, but I was a wee imp and ran away for a life in the arts. Mother didn't speak to me until I became a star. BEN: A star? Of? ROWENA: Uh, do you follow the Royal Ballet? BEN SHAKES HIS HEAD. BEN: Not a bit. ROWENA: The Royal Ballet. BEN: You know, it reminds me a lot of my story. I left school to work in a steel mill. I rose up through the ranks, and now I own half a dozen. ROWENA: You're not serious? FOOTSTEP’S APPROACH AND A WAITER COMES UP WITH A BOTTLE OF WINE.

NOTE: Ben turns out to be a cad and a fraud, but there's something so interesting about how Rowena wants to portray her class background. We know from 11x10 that Rowena, "was (before magic) nothing but Rowena, the tanner's daughter... a pale, scared little girl, who smelled of filth and death."

It's a brilliant thing about Samwena. They get each other, at least as far as this is concerned.

From 15x06 Golden Time:

SAM: Rowena got it. I mean, she didn't know all the details, but she knew the game was rigged. So this... Magic. This is how she kept control.

[octoberclidan]

I Need You to be Okay

Pairing: Sam Winchester x Reader

Request: Hey absolutely love your writing. Could you please do one about the reader getting hurt really badly on a hunt but totally hides it because she has a crush on Sam and he's like often a bit of a dick to her because he likes her too but is scared to say anything. Anyways she hides this injury and the next morning Sam can't wake her up and absolutely freaks out coz he's shaking her and slapping her face n stuff and she's just totally limp and he ends up finding the injury, stitching her up and she wakes up to him hugging her. It all ends sweet and fluff and they kinds get together. So sorry for that ramble love your writing. Thanks soo much if you do write it.

Masterlist

Story:

"There isn't another hunter available Dean, we're the only ones who don't currently have a case, and it's only a day's drive from here". Sam said from his seat in the bunker's library. He'd found what looked like a werewolf case earlier that morning, and had informed Dean that he was going to take it. Dean was annoyed, because the last case hadn't gone particularly well. It had been a witch hunt, and it had left him with a broken leg and had left Cas drained, neither of them were up for another hunt yet. Cas was stuck in bed until his grace regenerated, and Dean couldn't go anywhere without crutches. Sam had escaped with only scratches, and [Y/N] hadn't gone on the case since she'd been out of town visiting a friend at the time.

"You're not doing a solo hunt, we can't come and rescue you if things go south". Dean said as he took a sip from his beer. Sam didn't think he'd seen him without some form of alcohol in his hand since the last hunt.

"These people are having their hearts ripped out, I can't just sit here and ignore it". Sam glared at his older brother, and they sat staring each other down for a few minutes.

"[Y/N] is due back this afternoon. You can go with her". Dean seemed happy with this compromise he proposed, but Sam didn't.

"I'm not going on a hunt with just [Y/N]". He was quick and firm in his statement, and Dean raised an eyebrow at him.

"She's been hunting with us for over a year now, you still haven't gotten past your feelings for her?"

"I don't have feelings for her, Dean. I don't like hunting with her, she's reckless. Even moreso than you and that's saying something. She's always throwing herself in front of whatever monster there is, she needs everyone to worry and fawn over her. It's dangerous, not just for her, it compromises all of us". Sam stated and Dean scoffed at him.

"You think she protects us because she wants attention? Nothing to do with the fact that maybe she cares about us?" Sam looked away from him and focused back on his laptop. "Wait, wouldn't you be happy to know she wants your attention anyway? Not like you can't take your eyes off her when you think no one's looking". Dean said, and Sam continued to ignore him, only shaking his head in response.

After sitting in silence while Sam dug more into the case on his laptop and Dean continued drinking for awhile longer, Sam eventually closed his laptop and stood up. "I'm taking the case, it's definitely a werewolf".

"Then [Y/N]'s going with you".

"Dean. I can handle it on my own, she's not gonna want to come with just me anyway". He tucked his laptop under his arm and was about to walk away before Dean could argue back, when he heard footsteps coming towards the library.

"Hey!" [Y/N] walked into the library, her bag from her trip on her shoulder. "How's your leg?" She asked Dean, looking past Sam.

"Fine. How was the trip?"

"It was good, it was nice to see some old friends. I'm glad to be back though". She looked up as Sam went to walk past her. "Where are you going?"

"To my room". He said. "What are you, my keeper?"

"He's got a hunt". Dean called from his chair. "Werewolf. You're good with those, right?" Dean smirked at Sam's annoyed face.

"I'd be up for a hunt, especially since I missed the last one". She smiled up at Sam, and ignored how he rolled his eyes and continued to glare at Dean. While [Y/N] and Dean got on really well, she found Sam difficult. He always found an excuse not to talk to her or be around her, and he'd always yell at her for everything she did on hunts. Every decision she made was wrong in Sam's eyes. At the beginning she thought he was just like that; Dean was the friendly and easygoing brother, Sam was closed off. However, Sam's closed off-ness turned into rudeness when he started to straight up just not listen to her or talk over her. Then his rudeness turned into hostility when he started to make snide comments and be overly sarcastic with her. She'd spoken to Dean about it, but he'd just said 'if he pulls your hair it means he likes you' and brushed it off. What really got to her was when she realised he was perfectly friendly towards other hunters and friends. She remembered the first time she met Donna, when Sam had no problem hugging her, asking her how she'd been, telling her they should try and meet up more. It was like she was witnessing a completely different person to the Sam she knew. What hurt even more was that she had a very big and at times difficult to hide crush on him. No one could deny how physically attractive Sam was, but it was how much he cared that drew her in. She often watched how he interacted with victims on cases, how kind and thoughtful he was towards them, how he always had everyone else's best interests in front of his own. Everyone except [Y/N]'s it seemed.

"I'm doing it alone". Sam said, looking to Dean over [Y/N]'s head.

"I'm down here Sam". She waved at him and he continued to glare at his brother. She sighed, looking to Dean for backup.

"Look what happened last time she didn't join us". Dean gestured down at his cast. "C'mon, you two could do with some quality time. I could do with some me time too". He took a final sip from his beer. Finally, Sam looked down at [Y/N] and pointed his finger at her.

"You follow me, okay? You take my lead. We're leaving at 5am, if you're not out by the car by then I'll leave without you". Before giving her a chance to respond, he was gone. She shared a look with Dean who just shrugged and asked her to get him another beer while she was up, fully milking his broken leg and trying to get as much as he could out of it. She dropped her bag off in her room before grabbing him and herself a beer, and spent the rest of the afternoon catching up with Dean before getting an early night.

***

The drive was silent. Sam hadn't said two words since they'd begun their journey, which was going to be 12 hours. When she'd asked him for information on the case, he just shoved a bunch of paper at her and grunted a 'read' to her while he focused on the road. She decided not to push it and just sit quietly and read as much as she could. About four hours in she was getting hungry. Looking up to Sam, she paused for a moment to take in how the morning sun was soaking into his skin, how it gave him a halo. Not allowing herself to be drawn in too much, she cleared her throat and brought it up. "Can we stop for food soon?"

"It's only 9am, it's too early for lunch".

"Yeah but we left four hours ago. I need the restroom too".

Sam sighed, glancing at his watch before looking back out at the road. "Look up somewhere to stop then".

***

Their stop at a diner wasn't very eventful. Sam had ordered a coffee, [Y/N] had ordered a breakfast, and they sat in silence. [Y/N] used the time to look up a bit more about the case on her phone, while Sam had brought his laptop in with him. They only made one other, very similar stop before arriving at the motel in the evening. [Y/N] had a quick shower to wake herself up before she got into her FBI gear; the plan was to head to the hospital and interview a potential witness. She stepped out of the motel's restroom and found Sam dressed in his suit, sitting on one of the beds with his laptop on his lap. He glanced up at her as she walked over to her bag on the second bed, and when she caught his gaze he looked away immediately. If the lighting wasn't so poor in the room she would have sworn his cheeks and ears turned pink as he looked away. She opened her bag and put the clothes she had been wearing earlier into it, and took out her fake badge and her gun, along with a silver knife.

She looked over at Sam, and once again she found herself pausing. He was facing away from her, and she let her eyes wander over the expanse of his back. She couldn't understand how someone could have such broad shoulders, how his hair looked so perfect no matter what situation they were in, how someone could be so strong. She imagined what it would be like to be allowed to touch those shoulders, or his hands, or his hair, or his lips... she shook her head to snap herself out of it. "Are you ready to go?" She asked and he closed his laptop.

"Yep". She figured the trip would consist of one word answers, which at least were better than insults. She decided not to push it.

***

"And it just ran off into the woods?" [Y/N] asked the witness, a teenager who'd broken his leg after running away from what he described as the monster. They were in a small hospital room, and had been interviewing the teen for thirty minutes, but it had been like drawing blood from a stone.

"Yeah". He shrugged.

"Is there anything else you remember other than it looking like a 'monster'? Fangs? Claws? Was it wearing clothes?" Sam asked. "Did it try to attack you or did you just run when you saw it?"

"Dunno". Sam let out a frustrated sigh at the teenager's response, but it satisfied [Y/N], Sam getting a taste of his own medicine. She looked over her notes, trying to tie together everything the boy had told them.

"So, you were out jogging alone at night time, on a school night, then you heard a noise, saw a monster, and ran? And now your friend is missing, is that all correct?"

"I guess".

"And you definitely weren't out there with your friend?" She watched as the boy's jaw clenched and he looked away from both of them. Sam cleared his throat and looked at the teen expectantly.

"He's not my friend, okay?" He snapped and crossed his arms.

"Was he out there with you? Whether or not he's your friend, we need to know. If he was out there then he could be in real danger". [Y/N] explained. The teenager swallowed and unfolded his arms.

"Well, he was my friend. He told me he wanted to show me something, something where adults couldn't see us. I thought he got his hands on some alcohol or something, okay?"

"Go on". Sam pressed, and the teen sighed, running his hand down his face.

"I snuck out, I met him in the forest, but he didn't have anything with him to show me. Then he just... changed".

"Changed how?" [Y/N] asked.

"He picked up this rock, like must have been ten times heavier than anything he'd ever lifted in the gym. I thought it was cool first, like he had powers? But then his eyes, they... glowed? And his teeth grew, and his nails, and he was... snarling? Growling? I dunno. Whatever it was, it wasn't human. I ran. I didn't look back until I fell over that stupid branch and broke my leg. I had to call my dad my dad to come get me".

"And your friend? Have you seen him since?"

"No, and I never want to see him again". He shuddered.

"If he contacts you, you call this number, alright?" Sam handed him a card and he took it, nodding. [Y/N] closed her notebook and put it into her bag. She was about to follow Sam, who had stepped out into the corridor, when he turned to her. "Stay in here, watch him". He ordered before closing the door behind him. Thinking this was unusually rude even by Sam's standards, she quickly walked over to the door and opened it, looking around for Sam. She quickly spotted him at the end of the corridor, pressing a shorter man against the wall. She quietly closed the door behind her and stepped out to walk towards them. After a few steps she could see that the person Sam had pinned against the wall was the missing teen, who looked terrified by Sam.

As much as [Y/N] and Sam clashed, watching him hold the teen to the wall made her appreciate the fact that she wasn't the one Sam was hunting. His grip on the teen's shirt was tight, his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed, and he towered over him. Sam was powerful. The teen was rambling about something, but [Y/N] couldn't make out what he was saying. She quietly took her knife out of her bag, deciding to keep her distance for now and not interfere.

Whatever the teen was saying, she could tell that Sam wasn't believing it, his grip slowly tightening. Suddenly, a doctor walked around the corner, distracting Sam for just a moment, but it was long enough for the teen to push him. [Y/N] had already known from what the witness had described that his friend was the werewolf, but watching how easily he was able to push Sam was a definite confirmation. "Run!" She shouted at the doctor, who stood there frozen. "Now! GO!" The doctor snapped out of it and ran back the way he'd come, but her shouting had attracted the attention of the werewolf teen. Sam moved to stand up, but the teen kicked him, pushing him back against the wall before he sprinted down the corridor right towards [Y/N]. With her knife at the ready, she braced for impact, and it came, hard. The teen slammed straight into her, grabbing at her knife while tackling her to the ground.

"Let... go". He growled out, his eyes glowing at her. Although her strength was no match for his, he was clumsy and inexperienced. She managed to keep the knife just out of his reach, before he rammed his fist into her stomach. Winding her, she coughed and lost concentration, allowing the teen to grab her knife. He winced in pain as the silver burned his skin, and grabbed her hand instead, forcing it downwards and using it to stick the knife straight into her side. She screamed out in pain, desperately trying to grab her wound as he leaned back. He was about to punch her again when he paused, his eyes widening, he tried to inhale but was struggling, only gasping in small amounts of air and clutching his chest. Sam pulled him backwards off [Y/N], letting him fall back onto the floor, revealing his own knife covered in blood. She clutched her side as she moved over to the wall, trying to find some way to support herself as she watched the teen slowly stop moving, his eyes remaining open.

Sam checked for a pulse while [Y/N] bit her tongue, quickly pulling the knife out. It hadn't gone all the way in, but it was still very painful. She didn't need Sam to see it, he hadn't wanted her on the hunt in the first place, and she just knew he would start complaining about how she always got hurt on hunts. She just wanted to get back to the motel room, clean it, get some rest, and drive straight back to the bunker. She applied pressure to it with her hand, and Sam turned to her. "You hurt?" He asked.

"No, he just winded me". She gritted her teeth, the pain stabbing at her as she spoke. "Is he dead?"

"Yeah, we should get out of here".

"Do we need to hide the body?" [Y/N] asked, still from the floor. Sam looked down to the body and nodded.

"Yeah, but we'll have to be fast, that doctor probably called someone. Look for something we can put him in before we get him outside".

***

[Y/N] had managed to keep her discomfort from Sam hidden as they carried the body out from the hospital and into the Impala. She'd applied some gauze from the car's first aid kid while Sam had been putting the body into the trunk, and it was holding up so far. She was struggling by the time they got to a clearing in the local forest. The twisting and turning that they'd had to do while carrying the body through trees had caused her side to burn with every movement. She'd powered through it though, and Sam had insisted that it would be faster if he just dug a hole himself, refusing to let her help and telling her to stand guard instead. It was dark by the time they'd set the body on fire, watched it burn and thrown some dirt on top of it. She was tired, felt hot, and was also feeling dizzy. She walked in front of Sam back to the Impala, and halfway there she lost all sense of balance and fell forwards onto the ground. Sam was quick to grab her shoulders and pull her up, which she was grateful for since she didn't think she'd be able to get up herself, but he was also quick to tell her to watch where she was going.

She was exhausted by the time she slid into the Impala's passenger seat, and was momentarily thankful for Sam's lack of conversation as he drove them back to the motel in silence. [Y/N] sat down on her bed, waiting for Sam to go into the shower so she could have a proper look at her wound. She was surprised and confused when he grabbed a first aid kit out of his bag and pulled over a chair, sitting in front of her. "What are you doing?" She asked.

"You fell in the forest, show me your hands". He was taking out some antiseptic wipes, and looked at her, waiting. She rolled back her sleeves and held her hands out palms facing upwards to him. There were a few scratches on both of them, and one larger cut on her left hand. Sam took her left hand in his. His hand was rough, but warm and gentle. It was a lot larger than hers and she watched as he cleaned the cut and examined it before cleaning her right hand. "You don't need stitches". He said as he closed up the first aid kit. "Are you bruised from the punch?" He asked, looking down at her stomach. She was quick to pull her arm over her side, pulling her jacket closed to hide the blood under it and she shook her head.

"No, it's fine". She said and Sam gave her a short nod before getting up and putting the chair back. She watched him move around the room, grabbing stuff from his back before heading into the bathroom and locking the door. As soon as the door was locked, she took her jacket off and slowly lifted her shirt, checking on the gauze. It was a deep ache now, and it stung every time she inhaled. She gathered up some suturing supplies from her first aid kit and hid them within a clean set of clothes so that she could sneak them into the bathroom past Sam when he was finished. She felt her forehead, and she still felt warm, so she took out a bottle of antibiotics from her bag and quickly took a couple of pills.

When Sam came out of the bathroom, he had changed clothes and had gone straight to his phone. She watched as his wet hair hung down over his eyes and slowly dripped before he ran his hand through it, pushing it back. "I'm gonna get some food, I'll be back in a bit". He said, and she nodded, gathering up her clothes and supplies and walking into the bathroom. She sighed as she looked at herself in the mirror. She looked tired, drained, and she could see that she was shivering. She unbuttoned her shirt and slid it off before starting to peel the gauze off. The wound was narrow, but it was still bleeding and she knew it needed stitches. Stitching herself up wasn't unfamiliar to her, she hunted solo long before she met the Winchesters. That didn't mean that it didn't hurt every time she had to do it though. She gritted her teeth as she cleaned the wound and began to sew it up, finishing off with covering it with a fresh clean bandage. Once she was finished washing up and getting changed, she made her way back to her bed. Feeling a little lightheaded, she lay down and closed her eyes for a few minutes to rest for a bit.

***

[Y/N] was asleep when Sam arrived back. He'd brought back some food for her too, but he didn't want to wake her. She'd fallen asleep on top of her bed, and he paused while he was setting his food down on the table. He never really saw her look so peaceful, she was always busy doing something, talking about something, he never really saw her take a break. He watched as her chest slowly rose and fell with her breathing, quiet little snores accompanying them. He smiled to himself, he never let himself look at her too long while she was awake, scared that she'd catch him and that he'd make things weird. He never quite knew how to act around her. He knew he had a crush on her, Dean knew he had a crush on her, but [Y/N] didn't know, and he wanted to keep it that way. Sam's girlfriends never lasted long. He didn't know if he was cursed or what, but he didn't want to risk putting [Y/N] in any more danger than she already was, being a hunter. He quietly ate his food before deciding to go to bed too. The sooner they could get back to the bunker and go their separate ways, the better. He walked around [Y/N]'s bed to his own, and stripped down into his underwear before climbing in under the covers. He lay there awake for ten minutes or so, staring up at the ceiling until he gave in. He couldn't help himself.

He got out of his bed and walked around to [Y/N], carefully pulling off her shoes and maneuvering her so he could pull the covers down and lay them back on top of her. Her hair fell over her face as he let go of the covers, and without thinking he brushed it back. His hand lingered on her cheek, and he felt a strong warmth in his chest as she snuggled into his hand. Standing there in shock for a moment, he then quickly pulled his hand back and stepped away from her bed.

***

It took Sam a long time to get to sleep that night, and he only finally fell asleep a couple of hours before his alarm went off the following morning. Lazily turning off the alarm, he checked the time before pushing his covers back and going in for a shower. He expected [Y/N] to be up waiting for him when he got out, but to his surprise, she was still asleep in her bed. "[Y/N]?" He called out. "You awake?" He began to pack everything away into his bag as he waited for a response, but she didn't stir. "Hey, it's time to go, come on". He said as he walked over to stand beside her. "[Y/N]". He said again and gently shook her shoulder, but she didn't respond. "[Y/N]?" He tried again, his eyebrows scrunching together in confusion. [Y/N] wasn't a heavy sleeper by any means, in fact she was usually the first to wake up after a hunt, so this was unusual. He grabbed both of her shoulders and shook her a bit harder, starting to panic slightly. "Hey, come on". He tapped her cheek, pulling back in confusion from the heat he felt.

He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. "Shit". It was clear she had a high temperature. "Shit, shit shit". He began to turn her head side to side, looking for an injury, then feeling around her neck and shoulders. "[Y/N], you need to wake up, if you got hurt yesterday then I need to know where". He tried to remember what he saw happen, he knew the wolf had knocked her down, had she hit her head? He couldn't see any marks on her skin. He quickly pulled the covers off her and scanned her body, his eyes immediately being drawn to the bloodstain on the sheets, matching the blood on the side of her top. He pulled her top up to reveal a bloody bandage.

He felt a cold wave throughout his body as he pulled the bandage off. She had stitched it, but the stitches had come loose. Thoughts of the stitches ripping as he'd moved her last night raced through his mind, but he pushed them back as he examined it. It was hot and red, clearly she hadn't been able to clean it properly between it happening and getting back to the motel. He thought about bringing her to the hospital, but there was no way he could get her in there without both of them being arrested, he had no doubt that they'd been caught on camera carrying the body out, and the teen witness and the doctor they saw would be able to ID them no problem. The next nearest hospital was miles away; he had to fix it himself and get them back to the bunker, hopeful that enough of Cas' grace had regenerated to heal her.

He grabbed her bag and pulled out her first aid kit, quickly pulling her top all the way off to get better access to the wound. He cleaned it thoroughly and got to work stitching it up. Sam was best as stitching, he usually did that for both Dean and [Y/N] since they tended to rush it. Sam took his time, making sure it was neat and that would hold, before covering it with a bandage. He routed through her bag again and took out the bottle of pills, groaning when he looked at the expiry date. "This is exactly what I mean about you being reckless, I told you to replace these months ago. They may aswell be sugar pills". He tossed them away and grabbed his own supply, pushing a couple of pills into her mouth and forcing her to swallow. He took a deep, slightly trembling breath as he watched her sleep, waiting for some sort of sign that she was going to be okay. "Come on Sweetheart". He reached forwards and stroked her cheek, still hot under his touch. "I need you to wake up, I need you to be okay". He ignored the tear that drip down his own cheek as he stared at her eyes, waiting for them to open. "Please". He sniffed.

He had sat there and watched her for what felt like hours, but was really only several minutes, when he tried shaking her again. "[Y/N]". He tried again, waiting for a response. "Please". He grabbed her shoulders and shook harder, before wrapping his arms around her back and pulling her up into a sitting position and pressing her head to his chest. He wiped his tears away before leaning his cheek on the top of her head, and swaying both of them. "Please". He whispered.

"Sam?" A small voice sounded from under him and he immediately pulled himself away to look down at her. "What's going on?" She asked, looking up at him.

"You're okay". He grabbed her tight and pulled her back into him again. "Fuck, you're okay". He held her close for a moment before pushing her back to see her face. "What the fuck were you thinking?" He asked, and she gave him a look of confusion. "Why didn't you tell me you got stabbed? You nearly died [Y/N]! You wouldn't wake up this morning, and I found you in a puddle of blood, a knife wound in your side. Why didn't you tell me you were hurt? I cleaned your hands like a fucking idiot last night while you were literally bleeding out in front of me, why would you do that to me?"

She blinked at him, completely taken aback by what he'd just said. "I.. I thought you'd be mad". She said. "You're always mad when I get hurt on hunts, you tell me I'm reckless and stupid, I didn't want to hear that yesterday Sam, not from you".

"Jesus, [Y/N]". He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "If you get stabbed you need to tell someone, okay?" Guilt was flowing through him at this stage, knowing that his efforts to keep a distance between them had endangered her life. She was still staring back at him in a slight state of shock and he sighed. "Look, I know I've been a dick to you. I know you'll find it hard to believe, but I do care about you. I just... I like you, more than I should, and that's dangerous. I know you've heard about Jess, and Maddison, and Sarah, and I just... I can't watch you die, okay? You're too important". He was about to ramble on about how scared he was to lose her when he was stopped in his tracks by her lips against his. It took him a moment to register what was happening before he closed his eyes and kissed her back. His hands flew up to either side of her head and he kissed her hungrily, like he'd been waiting for this since the moment he met her. He licked at her bottom lip and she opened her mouth to him, letting their tongues collide. Her hands gripped his shoulders, finally able to feel them for herself instead of imagining what they felt like, and she moaned as his hands slipped into her hair.

He began to push her back onto the bed when she winced and breathed in sharply, snapping him out of it. "Sorry". She said as she grabbed the bandage.

"No, I'm sorry, I got carried away". He could feel his cheeks heating up a little. "I, uh, I didn't mean to do that". His hands were still in her hair as he stared down at her. "I'm sorry for everything".

"Does this mean you won't be a dick anymore?" She smiled up at him and pecked his lower lip, pulling a small chuckle from him.

"I guess it does. Come here". He tucked her head under his chin and breathed in deeply, savouring the moment. They had a long drive back to the bunker and a lot to talk about, but in that moment, everything felt right, to both of them.

The end

[dykeydean]

read on ao3

"Look at us. Just a couple’a guys with daddy issues hangin’ out on the floor.” Dean leans his back against the edge of the bed. An empty bottle lays next to him, and he’s working his way through another.

“Look at us,” Castiel repeats. He’s sitting rigidly across from Dean, his back against the couch, his legs crossed neatly. He’s holding a beer that Dean has to remind him to drink from. It feels like blasphemy, it feels like religion.

“Y’know,” Dean starts, looking up at the ceiling, because he can only look at those eyes for so long, “I always knew I was disappointing one father. Never knew I was disappointing two.”

Castiel doesn’t respond. He’s always been kinda bad at this- conversation, that is. Talking, instead of just listening. Dean doesn’t tease him about it, this time. He’s grateful to have someone to talk to.

“You ever feel like that?” Dean asks, tipping his head back down to catch Castiel’s gaze. “Like you’re screwing everything up?”

Castiel is silent for a moment, and at first Dean thinks he isn’t going to say anything. Typical of Dean to overstep like that. But, finally, the angel speaks. “Yes,” he says hesitantly. “It is… difficult. When your father is God. To feel as if… you’re doing it all wrong. Not to receive back any fraction of the devotion you have given Him.” He pauses. “That was blasphemous.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, lifting his beer and motioning for them both to drink. A toast, to disappointing your father. “Think my whole life has been blasphemous.”

“Mine is only just beginning to be. It is terrifying.”

“Does it scare you? To… to think stuff?”

“So much,” Castiel confesses.

“Yeah.” Dean looks up at the ceiling again. Same popcorn ceiling as always, just different shaped stains. Motels don't differ much. If he tries, he can imagine he's twelve again, gripping a shotgun and staring up at the ceiling in bed, waiting for his dad to come home. “My dad- he might as well have been God, for all I cared. He created my whole world, and left over and over again. Hell, at least I got some sorta closure for mine.” He fixes Castiel with an apologetic look. “You don't really have that.”

“Fathers are often Gods,” Castiel says, turning his face away. Dean nods and sets his empty glass to the side, reaching out to pluck Castiel’s out of his hand. Castiel doesn't seem to mind. Fathers are often Gods. Dean turns it over in his head as he drinks. Maybe God is on Earth, the Holy Spirit spread between all the deadbeat dads of the world.

Dean gazes at Castiel and thinks it is so easy to look at the angel this way. When he's not looking, not fixing him with that intense stare, like he can see through into his very soul. Hell, he probably can. Sure has before.

“Can I ask you something?” Castiel says, turning back to Dean, who drops his gaze.

“Shoot.”

“Do you ever pray?”

Dean snorts and shakes his head. “Nope. Not once. Not even when my ma died.”

“But you pray to me.”

Dean scratches the back of his neck, looking embarrassed, looking anywhere but the too-raw angel across from him. “Yeah.” He doesn't elaborate. How could he?

Castiel doesn't press. Dean is grateful. They're silent for a few minutes, both staring up at the ceiling together. It might as well be the starry night sky, for the way they look at it. “I try so hard to be like him. To do the things I was meant to do,” Castiel says. “And yet, I find myself asking questions. Having doubts. Making choices and doing things that I was not ordered to do.”

“Rebellious phase,” Dean jokes, but he nods like he understands. He does. “Hell, Cas, I’m no angel, but I was raised like a soldier, same as you. I’ve been there.”

“How do you move past it?” Castiel whispers, and he looks so afraid, so honest that it rocks Dean to his core.

“Honestly?” Dean asks, and Castiel nods. Dean sighs and offers the beer back, and Castiel drinks it gratefully. Dean knows the feeling. “You don't. You ask the questions. You have the doubts. You do more than you were made for or you’re gonna spend your whole life following your dead dad’s footsteps. I won't exactly call myself a great role model for that, but it's all true.”

Castiel looks so pale. Dean wonders why angels even need blood in the first place, why he's not always pale. How this cosmic being can sit across from him and share a beer. He wonders what his dad would think. He decides he doesn't care- or at least, he prefers Cas’s company to his dad’s opinion.

“I think I am going to fall,” Castiel says quietly.

Dean nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Think you already are, buddy.”

[casdeans-pie]

"Close Your Eyes, Dean."

The field he’d chosen was empty and wide open, with grass swaying lazily in a calm breeze, lit up brightly by the roundness of a large full moon. Almost too perfect – as all nights in Jack’s Heaven were.

But it was a great spot for what he wanted, Dean thought.

“C’mon man, I’m already dead, this body in heaven isn’t even real. What’s seeing your true form gonna do? Burn out my non-existent eyes?”

“It might,” Cas rumbled. A muscle twitched in his clenched jaw.

 “You’re such a shitty liar, you know that right?”

Cas sighed and his broad shoulders slumped down into a slouch that made his trench coat look baggy and crumpled on him. His eyebrows downturned as he looked up at Dean from under his lashes and sad, sad hooded eyes. “I don’t…” he started, swallowed, and tried again, “I don’t want you to see me any differently. This is more me than anything else now.”

Dean scrubbed a hand over his mouth, guilt twisting in his gut – unable to resist the power of that expression. “Dammit Cas, I won’t pressure you, but you know nothin’ like that is gonna bother me. So what if you’ve got tentacles or a hundred eyes or whatever-”

“-I don’t have tentacles,” Cas interjected.

“-Point is, you’ll always be this dorky little guy to me no matter what you’ve got stuffed inside,” Dean said.

Cas squinted his eyes and straightened up. “That feels like a backhanded compliment.”

Dean laughed with enough force that his head threw backwards. He shook his head with amusement and felt himself mirroring the smile he’d finally coaxed out of Cas.

Dean reached over and patted his shoulder fondly. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep working on being sincere.”

Green eyes met blue, and Dean’s chest warmed with the intensity of his affection.

Cas was still looking at him with a sad tilt to his eyes, but the pain had gone out of his expression. Moonlight highlighted strands of his dark hair, ruffling slightly in the breeze, and picked out the blue colour of his tie against his white shirt. It was just Cas. No matter what.

Dean took a breath and looked up at Heaven’s stars, shining in a pattern that he wondered if Jack had designed himself. Probably. The kid loved stuff like that.

“I mean it though Cas. Nothing you show me’s gonna change how I feel,” Dean said. Exactly what those feelings were, he wasn’t exactly sure… but that was a train of thought for another day. One life changing event at a time. Dean brought his gaze back down, though he swore he could still see the stars reflected in the blue of Cas’ eyes. “You’ve seen me at some of my worst, man. You literally met me in Hell.”

Cas stared with such dedicated focus, like Dean was the only thing that was worth paying attention to in the whole world, and it made pleasant sparks skitter through his veins.

But Cas said nothing in reply, he simply waited for Dean to continue, as if he was always enraptured by anything he had to say.

It was an intensity that Dean had so much affection for. So much. So freaking much-

“You saw me as a Demon,” Dean said quickly, drowning out his thoughts before he could go to a place that he knew was coming but wasn’t quite ready for tonight. “And you still… You still saved me. You still stayed with me. You still said… Shit, what did I even look like as a Demon? Like, my ‘true face’ or whatever?” Dean tripped over his words as he struggled to push down his feelings. “Actually, y’know what, I don’t wanna know- doesn’t matter-”

“You were beautiful,” Cas said in a warm, quiet rumble, even though his gaze was still just as intense. “You’ve always been beautiful. Even then. You’re still just Dean Winchester, no matter what. The most beautiful soul I’ve ever encountered and ever will.”

“Cas…” Dean sucked in a deep breath through his teeth, while those skittering pleasant tingles across his skin increased. There was a warmth at the back of his neck and a heat blazing in his chest. He swallowed thickly, past the lump growing in his throat. “Then you know I feel about seeing Angel-You,” he eventually managed, keeping the eye contact.

Cas finally blinked and looked down at his feet. He shuffled them a little and it was such a nervous human gesture that it made Dean smile.

“Close your eyes,” Cas commanded, in a voice that reminded Dean of when they first met.

Dean’s eyebrows shot up in excitement. “Seriously? You’re doing it?” Cas gave him a flat look and Dean held up his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay, I just- I mean, this is gonna be awesome.”

“Close your eyes, Dean.”

The commanding tone coupled with Cas saying his name certainly did something to him, but again, not the time to examine that. Dean cleared his throat and closed his eyes. Everything went dark. “This the part where you tell me, ‘Be not afraid’?”

A bright blue light shined past his eyelids and Dean shielded them with his arm, while he became aware of a shrill noise that rose higher and higher until he had to abandon his eyes for pressing his hands flat over his ears. He scrunched his face tight at the assault to his senses.

Finally, the light faded and there was silence.

“Cas? You, uh- you okay there, buddy?” Dean asked, with his eyes still closed, guilt and concern churning in his gut.

-It is safe to open your eyes-

Dean winced again at the high-pitched whining that accompanied the voice, like bad feedback from a busted stereo.

-Apologies… It has been… a while since I’ve used this frequency-

The whining noise stopped mid-sentence and Dean could finally just hear the voice. Cas’ voice. His true voice. It sounded like a mixture of twinkling wind chimes and a single, long, resonant note plucked on the string of a harp.

Dean flung his eyes wide open and felt his whole body lock up at the sight. “Cas?” he croaked, almost unable to believe what he was looking at.

Gone was the man in the trench coat and tie, and in his place stood what looked like a giant crow – easily the size of a house. The huge crow was covered in gleaming black feathers, giving off a sparkle of blue that shimmered and glowed in the air around it, and Dean noticed that the feathers themselves, seemingly black at first, shined with an iridescent spectrum whenever they moved slightly and caught the moonlight. Its black, almost scaly legs ended in silver talons that looked like they were made from the same material as an Angel Blade, the same silver that its sharply curved beak seemed to be made of. It flashed wickedly as the crow leaned down to preen its chest feathers suddenly, like a nervous habit. When it straightened back up Dean’s attention shifted to the long, thin ring above its head – spinning slowly and blazing with a fiercely bright blue fire that cracked and popped blue embers into the night. They floated up and disappeared, past the faint outlines of many blue eyes that were suspended above the halo, blinking in and out of focus.

Finally, Dean looked at the crow’s face. Straight into two glowing blue eyes.

Not a crow.

Castiel.

Cas.

-Uh... Be not afraid?-

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

Continued in part 2 soon

[zmediaoutlet]

Well, Sam wasn’t wrong. The panic room wasn’t any kind of paradise to be locked in, no matter how much the occupant needed it. Cot’s a piece of crap, too. Dean knows Bobby doesn’t go for the softer things, much, but man. Given that being shut in here had a pretty decent chance of turning into your last night on earth, he could’ve at least sprung for a mattress pad. A decent blanket. Something.

Dean sits on the edge of the bed. He turns his wrist against the handcuff and looks at the underside, the blue veins. Knows he could pick it if he had any damn thing left on him to pick it, but Sam didn’t leave him much but his boots. Knows he could pull, and bleed, and dislocate or even break his thumb and force his way out that way, but Sam’s locked him pretty tight and he’s not positive he could drag his way out, and if he screwed it up then he’d just be in a bunch of pain, and Castiel’s probably too mad at him to heal it. He could just bleed out. He turns his wrist in the cuff again, grips the edge of the mattress with both hands. Easy to imagine. The blood sluicing down—and it’d take a while, unless he hurried it along somehow—snapping a spring off the bed and making the wounds jagged and wide and red—making the world slow and slide and shut down, hopefully permanently, so he wouldn’t have to bear it anymore. So Bobby and Cas and everyone who ever relied on him wouldn’t have to bear it, anymore. Except of course it wouldn’t be a solution because he can’t. Everything he was ever taught flooded up against that last lead door and stopped. More’s the pity.

The panic room door opens, creaking. He keeps looking at the floor.

“You want some water, or something?” Sam says.

Dean smiles at the iron between his boots. “I’m good.”

Drag of metal on metal—Sam pulls the desk chair over, sits a yard away from Dean. Not far enough away that Dean couldn’t grab him, if he made the lunge. If he wanted to. He doesn’t know why Sam isn’t worried about it.

“What’s in the box?” Sam says. Dean smiles at the floor. “Don’t make a Brad Pitt joke. The box you had, in the motel in Cicero. I put it in the trunk before I drove the car back up here.”

Dean looks up. Sam’s watching him. Small frown but he’s not mad. He doesn’t even seem disappointed, even if Dean’s been—everything he’s been.

“What I had,” he says. His voice is rough and he clears his throat. “Just… stuff. I thought maybe you’d…” He shakes his head. “Feels stupid. Talking about, you know, crap maybe you’d remember me by, except here I am. Just stuff. Dad’s jacket, my gun, my keys. Wrote a letter.”

Sam raises his eyebrows. “A letter.”

Dean shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, now.”

Sam looks like he’s not sure about that. Dean wishes he hadn’t mentioned it. Imagines Sam ripping off the duct tape and reading the stupid crap he’d written down and thinking that it was all Dean had wanted to say. Felt too messed up to leave without even a note but he couldn’t—formulate it, not out loud and not in writing either, turned out, especially if Bobby or someone else might see it too. How much he loved Sam and resented him and needed him and how this hole in the center of his gut that had started who knows how long ago had just gotten bigger, and bigger, and he’d worried that what he felt for Sam would fall into it and get lost but it didn’t seem to work that way, somehow. The hole got bigger and what him-and-Sam meant got bigger, too, and stranger and stronger and more unwieldy, until there were days that Dean thought he’d suffocate under it, or drown maybe, or that he’d lose his mind with worry, or that he’d—start to hate Sam, maybe, for making him this terrified. For being this thing he couldn’t stand the idea of losing and yet that had been lost to him over and over. Until the hole felt like it took up all of him, just this absence held vastly empty under the barrier of his skin, and what him-and-Sam meant was going to destroy the whole planet, and it felt more right to just—simplify the equation. Subtract the thing by half and maybe there’d actually be something left, afterward. Even if Dean weren’t around to see it then at least there’d be something.

“I wish I could make you believe it,” Sam says. Dean refocuses. The spinning shadow of the fan above cuts random light over Sam’s face. His mouth tucked up on one side, sorry. “I don’t know how. There’s not any—evidence I can show, or logic. It’s not a case. It’s just something I know and I can’t make you understand.”

“Guess I shouldn’t have dropped out,” Dean says, and Sam smiles in this weird flat way that doesn’t look like smiling at all, and Dean can’t make him understand, either, how sorry he is, and how little it matters that he’s sorry. That he has to say yes to Michael because there is no other way he can think of in the world to save as many people as they can but also to save Sam, from Michael and from Lucifer and from himself, most of all, and to save Dean from having to see that, too. He’s thought about how it’ll go. When they got to talk to Jimmy Novak he explained that being possessed by an angel was like being chained to a comet: terrifying, absolute, a blaze of blinding light, and Dean thinks—hopes—that that’s true, that with an archangel it’ll be worse, that he can close his eyes and sink into it and there’ll be pain, he’s sure, but he’s been through hell and pain’s nothing he worries about, if he won’t have to see his brother fall.

“I’m kinda jealous Cas got to beat you up,” Sam says. Dean snorts. Then Sam leans forward, quick, takes Dean’s face in both hands. Dean stiffens but Sam doesn’t—hit him, or choke him, or kiss him. All equal possibilities considering the day. Sam only looks him in the eyes, with this expression like—he’s five years old and wishing for answers Dean can’t give. Dean reaches up with his uncuffed hand and grips Sam’s wrist. His pulse fast under Dean’s thumb. Sam takes a deep, shuddery breath in, closes his eyes tight. When he opens them they’re damp but he doesn’t look five anymore. “We’re going to save Adam and you’re not going to say yes. I don’t care if you don’t believe it. I know.”

This year’s been too terrible for the empty pit in Dean to feel any smaller. “Okay, Sam,” he says, because it’ll get him out of this room. Sam nods and stands up and goes for the keys. Dean watches him, tall and broad and beautiful, and wishes he had faith.

[riverstixxelf]

I love the SPN fandom but honestly it’s so stressful sometimes 😭

For example earlier today I googled “Misha Collins girlfriend” because I heard a rumor that he has a girlfriend, I couldn’t find much besides stuff talking about Vicky so I scrolled down and saw a tumblr post saying something about Misha being attracted to men (which I don’t necessarily disagree with, but I don’t want to tell another person what they are) and women so I clicked on it and it was a huge post (like, a couple paragraphs) talking about some strange things. I don’t remember exactly but at one point the user brought up the “fact” that Misha makes jokes about women and sex?? As in making jokes at the expense of women… and I was like… are we talking about the same Misha here? He DOES make jokes about sex but I don’t recall him ever making jokes at the expense of women. Only thing I can think of is that one story about one of his earlier acting jobs and he didn’t know the “no tongue rule” but that was mostly at the expense of himself. Then I scrolled and found another post that was pretty disturbing…

Someone had screenshotted a regular instagram caption that Jensen posted just talking about how he just got done traveling, he wanted to take a nap, something like that—nothing sexual about the post at all or anything that would suggest that—and someone captioned it with something talking about him and Misha rubbing their [babymakers] together??? I audibly laughed out loud because wtf 😭😭

I don’t want to shame Jenmish shippers (I say Jenmish because Cockles is just a… very interesting name), even though I think it’s the slightest bit strange to be shipping real people… but again I never want to put anyone down for anything because I myself have said some stuff about Jensen and Misha that might suggest something between them.

Another thing is just the amount of hate for various cast members. Mostly the hate I see is for Jared and Misha; J2 fans who hate Misha, Jenmish fans who hate Jared, etc. There’s a lot of love in this fandom but ohmygOD there’s so much hate too. I guess that’s true for any fandom, but it’s so tiring sometimes.

Also, in this fandom, you’ll get hounded for any opinion you have. If you don’t like destiel, you’re homophobic. If you do like destiel, you’re also homophobic for some reason because queer bating or whatever… for the record i’d like to state that I am a proud destiel shipper just fyi. But I see so many people take it to the extreme, make little things into big things or something along those lines. Same thing with cockles shippers I was talking about earlier. I feel like I have a pretty neutral viewpoint on stuff regarding destiel; I see most things how they are, and I make my assumptions based on CANON things. I don’t say “Dean and Cas are definitely fucking”, I say “Dean and Cas love eachother but they cant express it, because Cas wasn’t even sure what love was and Dean’s highest ideal of love is family, which is why he says Cas is like a brother to him”. Now, if you don’t agree with me, guess what… that’s okay! If you don’t think destiel exists, that’s a valid point, and i’m not gonna dox you just because you have a different opinion than me. Because that’s just it, it’s an OPINION.

I could get into Sam haters and Dean haters and stuff… but I’m tired. Actually, you know what, screw it. I WILL GET INTO IT!!!

I’ve had a few experiences with Dean haters especially, and most of the time they just ADORE Sam and thinks he’s done nothing wrong. Let me clarify that I don’t hate Sam- like- at all. Then again, Dean haters who happen to be Sam stans have warped my view on Sam a little, but I won’t let that get in my way of honest judgment.

Sam. has. done. bad. stuff. DEAN. has. done. bad. stuff. Please don’t compare their trauma, they both have their own issues, one isn’t better than the other.

I might be biased because I relate to Dean so much (like a crazy amount it’s not even funny…), but for the millionth time in a row I DO NOT HATE SAM. I saw someone saying how Dean was the cause of almost every single world-ending event that happened in SPN… like honey no. Another person replied to their comment listing all of the world-ending events… and guess what… Sam was the cause of most of them!! Does that make him a hate-worthy character? No!!

I don’t know what point i’m trying to make here. I just think there’s so much in-fighting within the SPN fandom and as much as I love being in the fandom sometimes you just gotta have a break from all the drama. If you made it this far… go outside or something don’t pay attention to me i’m chronically online.

[angelsdean]

wanna preface this by saying if my tone comes across as biting, i did not mean that! especially not to you! i feel ok sending this in bc i agree with your takes on s8/9

anyway lol! maybe a spicy take but…

if we’re blaming dean for kevin’s death, then we’ve gotta blame sam for charlie’s and benny’s, cas for mary and jo and ellen and anna and bobby and sam (s5) and honestly i love you cas but i could probably go on :/

but seriously, i don’t actually *blame* them for these deaths bc while dean/sam/cas’s actions helped create the situations that got each character dead, their actual deaths were on other characters’ choices or even their own (sam, benny). the blame game is just too simple for how complicated spn is. like if you blamed them for every death that occurred after a sequence of events that included their actions, for every death that they were indirectly involved with, it’d just be impossible to count. and that’s just not productive or fair imo yk 🤷‍♀️

yea i definitely get what you're saying. there are a lot of factors playing into things, and chain reaction domino effects that lead from one character making a decision to another character way down the line killing someone. that doesn't necessarily mean the first character is responsible for the death or should be the one that is blamed for it. they couldn't have foreseen how events would transpire. however, i do think, like you said, these situations are more complicated and nuanced. and in some scenarios the "blamed" character did play more of a part in the death of another character. but i don't think in the case of kevin's death dean should be shouldering the blame or responsibility here at all.

like, the stuff with blaming dean for kevin's death feels unfair imo because well, when dean made the choice to let gadreel try to save sam (and sam still !! had to say yes himself!) dean didn't have all the facts. he thought gadreel was ezekiel. he thought this was a friend of cas's that he could trust. he didn't know he was opening the door to someone with ulterior motives, who might try to hurt people he cared about. and secondly, kevin's death was coming, one way or another, because as @aliveboydean says in this post, metatron wanted him dead and wasn't going to stop until he was. so if gadreel hadn't gotten him, metatron very likely would have killed him.

to address another seemingly similar situation where i come away feeling differently: sam and charlie. i have to say i kinda do "blame" sam for charlie's death, because he roped charlie back in. she really would not have been there or been in that situation or been a target for the Stynes had sam not specifically invited her to come help them. and while it seems like charlie and kevin's deaths are comparable, a key distinguishing factor is that one would have been safe had they not been in that specific situation that another character (sam) put them in, while the other always was in danger simply for being who they were. charlie's death is different from kevin's because kevin was always in the line of fire, always had a target on his back by simply being a prophet. so many people wanted to kill him, he wasn't uniquely in danger being around the winchesters. and he wasn't put IN danger solely because of dean's actions. he was always in danger, the whole time. no matter where in the world kevin was, people were going to be out to get him. and i'd argue he was safer in the bunker (and therefore around sam and dean) than anywhere else in the world. dean had no way of knowing gadreel would kill kevin! but charlie was just a regular person who no one cared about killing. if she hadn't been brought in at that time and made a target for the stynes she...most definitely would still be alive.

SO, i think at the very least dean is definitely allowed to blame sam in-world and be pissed at him. (tho sam is obvs still not the one that killed her. but i can understand if dean felt resentment toward him for her death). but. yea i kinda do see sam as more responsible for charlie's death in this case than dean with kevin's because the scenarios and key factors are different. that's what i feel a lot of people don't get when they want to issue blanket statements of who to blame for what and who did worse. there's nuance! and two seemingly similar situations are not always a 1:1 comparison. (this isn't directed at you, just a general sentiment abt fandom)

(and i think a similar situation for cas is mary's death. and i fall somewhere in the middle for him. he knew jack was dangerous at the time. he should've said something. he's still not the one who killed mary though and he couldn't have predicted that outcome)

[paellegere]

final thoughts: supernatural season 15

holy shit. i did it. i finished supernatural. i actually finished it a couple hours ago but i'm still having trouble processing it. i've been working at this for six months (but with a one-month break back in december) and i'm finally finished. honestly i don't think i really believed i would do it because shit this show is long, and i am not predisposed to enjoy shows like this. so this is a huge mark of pride for me, that i can finally say i did indeed sit down and watch all 327 episodes of supernatural :)

anyway all that to say i hated this season with a passion lmao, hasta la vista baby ✨

honestly i think i'll end up keeping this short because frankly most of my criticisms boil down to

how did you fuck up your own lore this badly

holy plotholes batman

this is so disrespectful and irreverent toward kripke's supernatural

nothing about this writing makes any kind of sense

well, that's convenient (in the most boring way imaginable)

so it's basically just a game of spin the wheel and see what it lands on.

the season started super weak; the concept was bad from the get-go and executed only to a mediocre standard, so i couldn't help but cringe my way through it. rowena's death was really well done, but her character was never well developed, in the same way most side characters on this show are never well developed, so while i appreciate the care that went into that scene it felt rather empty. it made me regret how poorly and inconsistently written she was. and yeah most side characters get this treatment—hell, cas gets this treatment which is why i don't care about him much—but she had such a provocative death scene that it had me lamenting that she didn't get a better foundation and better development. alas, that's just what it means to be someone other than sam and dean on supernatural.

after that was... the eileen subplot. i do really like eileen despite her being a rather flat and uninteresting character the way most women are on this show (y'know, kickass independent "girl power" women without nearly any other significant personality trait), but i really didn't appreciate the substantial pivot sam took from dean-focused to eileen-focused in this season. yes, season 12-14 did go to great efforts to make sure this wasn't The Sam And Dean Show anymore, but season 15 is so dramatically incongruous from even 12-14 that it just boggled my mind. the sam/eileen stuff was a major part of that, and it just didn't feel good because it was one more nail in the coffin with regards to how little the showrunners respected the foundation of the show (y'know, "the epic love story of sam and dean"). the only real salmondean moment in the entire season was the 7-minute incest speech in the finale—like what? i couldn't even properly enjoy that because of how poorly it was set up, thanks to the four seasons of retconning their relationship and making it less important to the series overall.

anyway all that to say, they had this massive sam/eileen subplot and then nothing even came of it. sam didn't even call to check if she was alive after jack resurrected everyone? he didn't meet up with her on screen even once? like if you're going to give him this season-long romance with someone other than dean, you could at least have the balls to commit to it. i find that just. godawful writing. eileen didn't have to be sam's blurry wife or anything, but he should have had some kind of resolution, literally anything at all, if we're meant to believe she's in any way important to him. c'mon.

more incongruous moments: dean got weirdly angry in this season. like what's with episode 17 man? there is nothing about dean in that episode that feels even remotely in character. from "jack's not family" to dean pulling a gun on sam, it all felt wildly overblown, way too melodramatic and sudden, and just not anything dean would do. yeah he's an angry guy, but???? this was too much, even for him. and the whole jack argument between sam and dean made me roll my eyes hard. because how do you expect me to believe that after all of the developments up to that point, that

dean wouldn't consider jack family. first of all that's stupid, dean drops the f-bomb on literally anyone he thinks is useful to further his goals. second of all it contradicts the bond they've formed since season 13, and it no longer fits with the parallel themes set up between sam, dean, and jack. it undermines what's been established, what's been developed, and what jack means to them on a thematic level. so so so stupid. cannot stress how dumb this move was. it just felt like the writers pulling out yet another OOC moment just so they can conveniently move the plot in the direction they wanted. so annoying.

sam and cas are equals in dean's eyes. like that's just hilarious to me. the last time cas died dean got sad for a little bit and burned his body on a pyre. the last time sam died dean committed suicide. these are not equal reactions. and sam and cas have never been equal to dean because dean always chooses sam over everyone, again evidenced in the series finale. so it was just hilarious for this one episode to pretend like sam and cas could ever be equal.

of course season 15 did really push a destiel agenda in the most unexpected and bizarre way. like wow, and i thought seasons 12-14 were a totally different show. no, season 15 is so much worse than that. i have absolutely no idea why they made the choices they did with this season, but they were not good, they routinely disrespected kripke's foundations of the show, and they ignored every theme ever laid out up until then. all for... what, exactly? so dean and cas can have a weird little non-romance together for 18 episodes only for them to slip wincest back in at the end? what's up with that? no like seriously, what were they trying to do here????

i told my friend this earlier, but i do think it's funny how cas's death speech is just straight-up factually incorrect regarding dean. i'm 100% fully willing to believe that castiel was blinded with lust by dean winchester that he simply made up some guy in his head who looked like dean. and that will be my headcanon going forth because wow it's shocking and funny as hell how much he got wrong while waxing poetic about dean. "you're the most selfless man i know" when kripke spent 5 seasons pounding it into our heads how fundamentally selfish dean (and sam, obviously, but the speech is about dean) is. girl what are you saying. dick so good he rewrote dean's basic character traits to be more convenient to him. i respect it truly i do.

anyway the finale. i hated it! to absolutely no one's surprise. a few days ago i wrote out what i thought would have been the most thematically cogent endings for supernatural. i knew what actually happens, obviously (hard to miss tbh), but my resolve on this front was only strengthened by actually watching it. yes the 7 minutes of incest were very nice and compelling, but... wow. this episode has some of the worst pacing i've ever seen in my life. dean died halfway into the episode? and the rest of that was... a sequence of short scenes that are too drawn-out to be a montage??? like there was no tension, no buildup, and no setup for what they did. it felt so lazy and underdeveloped, lacking any kind of poignancy or thematic cohesion. and then i had to watch TWENTY MINUTES of half-baked scenes of dean in heaven and sam growing old. i wouldn't have hated this ending so much if they had better pacing, i'm serious. like the outrage i feel is predominantly because of how badly it was written. the concepts aren't good, but they were par for the course. but TWENTY MINUTES OF MONTAGE. A MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH WITH NO EMOTIONAL BUILDUP, WHICH ACTIVELY CONTRADICTS THE THEMES OF THE SHOW. WHAT!!!!!!! WERE THEY THINKING!!!!!!!!!!

anyway i disliked that a little bit.

so overall i pretty much hated every part of this season and there were very, very, very few redeeming features sprinkled in. it's fine though! i'm fine. it's all over now :)

a few brief thoughts on the series overall: i regret ever speaking badly of kripke's supernatural; i didn't know how good i had it until it was gone. in hindsight, a lot of the seasons i thought were dogshit were actually not the worst things ever—i just didn't realize how bad bad could get. i know now. i will carry that knowledge with me forever.

dramatics aside, i honestly did enjoy watching the show. as much as i hated so many of the writing choices, the plotholes, the retcons, the way the writers just handwaved away anything inconvenient and rewrote characters entirely just to force them into the story they way they wanted them—it was still, like, fun. the agony was enjoyable (things masochists say). i think it helps that the fandom at large generally agrees that the writing is bad; it gives a sense of community and solidarity in the misery. there's no uneasy disconnect between myself and the rest of the fanbase, and that honestly does make all the difference. it's fun to suffer together, and i don't regret watching this show one bit :)

so with that said, here's my final ranking for every season:

season 1 (thematically strong, tight writing, incredible vision, truly foundational in its establishment of overarching themes, tone, and genre)

season 2 (such an interesting plot which builds on what was established in season 1. this is where the meat of the show is, where the heart is exposed to daylight as the chest is ripped open)

season 3 (well written, though disappointing in some areas largely due to kripke dropping the special children plot thus leaving a hole. not very noticeable due to the good writing, but still there. i'll never forgive them for killing off henricksen)

season 4 (this is the first real drop in quality imo, but it's relatively insignificant. the writing feels more meandering, and the tone shifts rather drastically away from the horror of its origin. the introduction of angels destroys a lot of the religious anxiety that formed the foundation of the show, but at the same time introduces a fantastic story about fate and doom)

season 5 (same as season 4, but with the flaws a bit more glaring. castiel's unclear motivations and underdeveloped shift in perspective are a major point of contention for me; i don't think it was handled well and could have been written better to make him a stronger character from the get-go, possibly allowing him to be a better character in later seasons instead of the conflicting mess we ended up with)

season 9 (the writing is atrocious, but the vision is so good. i still don't know how they managed that. they had such a great idea and they took kripke's supernatural and expanded on it in such a satisfying way. it drove me crazy! but holy shit the actual writing is so bad)

season 8 (i feel largely the same about 8 as i do 9, but i just think the writing was overall worse. it does get brownie points for having benny in it, though)

season 10 (boring. boring and paced so, so, so badly. the sole redeeming feature was how committed it was to its vision. it has the exact opposite problem as season 6 in that it has too little content to fill out the season. but god, the vision. you'll hear me waxing poetic about the season 8-10 vision on my death bed)

season 7 (it did a lot to pave the road for seasons 8-10 which i can't ignore. it also got itself fairly settled after the mess season 6 was and didn't try to bite off more than it could chew. i didn't love it, but it had a lot of moments that were provocative and interesting, and it provided pretty good setup for season 8. the writing was not good, but i think that goes without saying)

season 6 (introduced really interesting ideas, but tried to cram so much into one season that it failed to deliver satisfying payoffs for any of its setup. soulless sam was an interesting exception and really redeemed it for me)

season 12 (12 and 13 are about equal for me because i hate the plots, i hate the intense diversion away from The Sam And Dean Show, i hate the writing, i hate the concepts, etc etc. but they both introduce supporting characters which show off new and interesting sides to sam and dean: mary in 12 and jack in 13. it allows for focus to stay on sam and dean's relationship a little longer even though they're no longer generating any organic conflict between them, so i appreciate that at least)

season 13 (i fucking HATE the apocalypse world. that is my deciding factor between seasons 12 and 13. also i hate what they did to mary here)

season 14 (honestly an inoffensive season. i still hate the writing way more than anything else pre-12, and it doesn't have the benefits of a new character introduced to provide external conflict between sam and dean, so while it was relatively inoffensive it was also boring, lacking, and really obvious how little the writers cared about maintaining sam and dean's relationship as the emotional core of the show)

season 11 (the writing all things considered wasn't the absolute worst thing i've ever seen, if i'm being fair. on the other hand, i hated everything about this season conceptually, and i hate that it vouched for christianity as the ~one true religion~ which again undermines kripke's original series. this is me being petty and i'm okay with that)

season 15 (see above. oh but i'm honestly surprised it managed to surpass my ire toward season 11. like honestly it's impressive because i hold a massive grudge toward 11 which should have been insurmountable. a feat has certainly been achieved here!)

anyway. i said this wasn't going to be long but then i just kept on writing and writing. because that's what i do. i never learn 😔 i'll end it here then. i intend to go back and rewatch seasons 1-5 now that i'm finally finished, so i'm looking forward to that. i want to see if my rose-tinted glasses that i've been looking at kripke era with are based on reality or simply a longing to return to less terrible times :P

[ezra-editss]

"Dean doesn't reciprocate" MY ASS

I'm just kinda gonna write down my thoughts about this. I'm in season 7 now, I know what happens in the very last episode, but nothing else so I don't read any posts about the show here yet :) (just so yk and don't accidentally spoiler me) Oh and I do this mostly out of memory and some notes that I took, so this might be a little chaotic :,)

Okay, so the whole season 6 fight was crazy to me. The way Cas was watching while Dean kept on defending him. And he knew how much Dean trusted him. ("The worst part was Dean. He was trying so hard to be loyal, with every instinct telling him otherwise.") It hurt him, but the whole time he was, again, protecting Dean. And yes, he hurt Dean, but I think it was as worse for Cas to hurt Dean, as for Dean to be hurt.

Then, Dean apologizing for the others? They (thought they) were wrong and Dean had kept on trusting Cas, so why was it him who apologized? Because he knew it meant more to Cas when he did it? Idk.

Cas wasn't able to lie when he looked in Dean's eyes.. come on? Also, the fact Dean wasn't actually mad when he found out was really interesting. He was just extremely sad. Yes, his trust got broken and maybe he was just tired of it all, but it didn't seem like that to me, I felt like he usually got madder.

I love how they always share those sad looks when they go apart after the fights btw, such a best buddys thing to do.

It was really hard for both of them. We can see that Dean can't sleep that night and that Cas comes back to talk to him alone, because it only matters to him that Dean understands.

Oh and the "I'm doing this for you, Dean." I don't even need to explain his motives, because he reveals them himself.

Then the scene from my edit. (at the top) (it's kinda laggy, bc it's slow-motion, but anyways) They both have teary eyes a lot, but this is different. Dean turns aways because he knows he's gonna cry and Cas disappears before he really starts crying, but they are both fuckin crying about this. They're both just sad and want this to end. Even when Dean said he's gonna stop him and so on, it was way less threatening then usually. And Cas kept coming back when Dean was in danger.

But Dean still cared as well. In the first episode of season 7, when Cas asks for help, he pretends he doesn't care about him anymore for a bit, but you can clearly see that he still does. You at least can see it when he thinks Cas is dead. He's devastated.

It's kinda funny how Bobby's there but Cas very obviously only cares to make up to Dean. Like he always says "they're my friends" but in reality he means Dean.

AND THEN.. Cas tries to protect everyone else again and sends them away but DEAN STAYS. I think he knew that there wouldn't be anything he could do, but it didn't matter.

Cas dies again. (give my man a break, please) Dean keeps the god damn coat? I think he might've done it, because he was hoping that Cas would come back again. Anyways, scene was devastating.

In the judge/court episode about Dean's guilt, I immediately hoped Dean didn't feel guilty about Cas too, but was pretty sure he did. My worries were confirmed in episode 5.

So yeah, I suppose that's the part where I am, I guess I have to wait 'till Cas comes back now :,)

I don't think anyone read all this, but I hope I didn't make any grammar mistakes, bc English isn't my first language, so I sometimes get stuff mixed up (I definitely made the tenses confusing). Anyways, rant end.

[cat-loves-music]

Apple Pie Life

Warnings: Character "death", mention of previous character death (SPOILER!!!), blood, let me know if I missed any!

A/N: if you haven't watched Seasons 9-10 of Supernatural, proceed with caution cuz of spoilers.

Summary: Reader confesses fantasies of an "apple pie" life to Dean and he does something unexpected 👀.

I can see myself and Dean being thrown against the wall as we watched Sam, possessed by Gadreel, stalk over to Kevin. I scream at the top of my lungs for Gadreel to stop, but my pleas are not heard. Gadreel places Sam's hand on Kevin's forehead and a bright light shines from inside Kevin's body as he screams out in pain.

"No!" I shriek, my body immobilized out of fear and panic.

Kevin's screams cease as his lifeless body falls with a thud to the ground, his eyes burned out of his head. Gadreel places a small note with Kevin's name on his body and leaves. Tears stream down my face as I rush to Kevin's side just to feel the remaining warmth fade from his body.

"Y/n!"

I wake up to the sound of Dean calling my name and I'm instantly aware of the light sweat seeping through my pajamas. Turning my gaze over to Dean, I notice a look of worry is evident on his face as he searches mine for some sort of sign.

Kevin died about a week ago. While Dean, Cas, and I were looking for Sam and trying to find a way to cast out Gadreel has been the priority, which meant that none of us had time to grieve.

"Was it the same one, sweetheart?" Dean asks, his voice bringing me out of my thoughts which causes me to burst into tears.

He pulls me in to a knowing and comforting embrace, letting me cry into his chest.

"It's so hard, Dean. Why did it have to be him?" I sobbed.

Dean strokes my hair comfortingly, saying, "I know, Y/n. He didn't deserve it."

I pull back from him and look into his forest green eyes, "None of us deserve this pain, Dean."

"I don't know, sweetheart. If it weren't for me having Kevin stay with us, he would be alive right now," Dean replied.

I sit up, "Dean, this isn't your fault. It was Metatron's fault for telling Gadreel to kill him and Gadreel's fault for actually going through with it."

He sighs, putting his hands behind his head on his pillow, looking like he's deep in thought as he stares into the void of the dark motel room. His eyes look glossy as if tears are about to spill.

"Do you ever think what life would be like if we didn't hunt?" Dean asked, eyes searching my face for an answer.

I study his eyes, trying to figure out what's going on behind them as I answer, "I try not to so I don't get upset about the things that could have been, but sometimes I can't help it."

"What do you think about?" He asked.

I'm suddenly thankful for the darkness of the room as I can feel my face heat up. Dean and I have been dating for what feels like forever and the topic of the apple pie life fantasies have never come up. Needless to say, we've never discussed how much further we wanted to take our relationship.

"I think about having an apple pie life. You know, white picket fence, a nice house, a kid or two, maybe a dog," I answer.

"Ever think about getting married?" Dean inquires.

I smile, "Yeah. I do."

Dean flashes me a soft smile, the first real one since Kevin passed, and says, "I think about all that too. Especially getting married...to you."

I can feel my heart flutter in my chest, "I mean we could if we really wanted to get married, but since we have a lot of stuff going on with Sam, Metatron, and Abbadon, we kinda got our hands full."

"Yeah, you're right," Dean agrees, sitting up and lifting himself off the bed, turning on his bedside lamp.

I somewhat think I've upset him until I see him searching through his bag and coming around to my side of the bed.

"I guess I have a confession to make," Dean states, fiddling with the small object in his hands, "I've held onto this for so long and everytime I've seen this in my bag it has reminded me to keep going. To keep fighting so we can end all of this and I'll actually live to be with you forever, so..."

He kneels down on one knee in front of me, holding out what I can now see as a ring and instantly my eyes are filled with tears, "Dean..."

"Y/n L/n, will you marry me?" Dean asked, his eyes hopeful and his hands presenting the ring.

I nod my head frantically, "Yes! Of course I'll marry you."

Dean grins, sliding the ring on my finger and stands up, pulling me into an embrace and kissing me.

"After all of this, I swear to you that we'll have our apple pie life," Dean promises.

I smile, "Just gotta live through it first."

He smiles back at me and kisses me again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~《W》~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's been a long and difficult road when we've finally reached the final battle with Metatron. Abbadon is finally dead, since Dean now bears the Mark of Cain and we are in possession of the First Blade, and Sam is back to normal.

Fire burns around the homeless encampment and smoke filters into my lungs as I see Sam and Dean. Dean looks bloodied and bruised as he rests against a pile of something I can't quite make out and Sam is assisting him with balance.

My gut immediately tells me something is wrong as I approach them and when I get closer, I notice that he's bleeding profusely from his abdomen.

"Hey sweetheart," Dean greets, his eyes fighting to stay awake.

"Dean you're gonna be okay, there's gotta be some spell or something to heal you," Sam says, frantically.

"Baby, come on fight," I plead, "you gotta stay alive for me."

"I love you," he replies, his eyes closing and his last breath leaves his lungs.

"Dean!" I cry. "No, no, no, please baby wake up."

And just like that Dean and my future with him was gone...

Hiii, lawd it's been a while since I wrote anything. I know I have another series to do but I am currently watching Supernatural and I just finished season 9 and I'm about to finish season 10. I got inspired to do this since this is basically the last half of season 9 and beginning of season 10 will be the next part if y'all want a part 2. Please like, comment, reblog if you liked it and on to the next one!

[shallowseeker]

Their three-man kitchen huddle is more than a little conspicuous.

“He asks every weekend, though,” Jack is whispering. “It doesn’t seem very nice to keep ignoring him or hiding in the living room.”

“One, it’s the Dean-Cave. Two, no one’s makin’ you ignore him. I mean, didja even friggin like it?”

Jack straightens up, defensive. “I—a little bit.” Dean raises his eyebrows at him, and he feels caught out. “At first.”

Cas clears his throat, and then both turn their attention to him. “I find that the human ingenuity of pyramid schemes wears off after the first stroll around the market.”

Dean nods at Cas and snickers. Then, he turns his attention back to Jack. “See? You can be honest, Kiddo.”

Jack deflates. “I just—maybe Mary will go with him? She’s here.”

Dean and Cas share another significant look.

“Come’mon, kiddo. You spent how many months together?”

Jack flounders. “Bobby, then? Maybe Rowena.”

“Rowena does not like to sweat, nor does she enjoy badly homemade soap and overpriced vegetables.”

Jack huffs. “Someone has to go—”

“Jack!” Sam says, sparkly-eyed and excited as he enters the kitchen. “I’m about to head out to Smith Makers’ Market. Wanna tag along?”

Jack feels panic rise up in his throat. Sam looks so happy about it, but, “I—can’t,” he spits out awkwardly, to which Sam cants his head in confusion.

“Dean promised to take me to-oooo, uh,” he tracks his eyes over to where a commercial for a monster truck rally blares on the tiny kitchen TV, “a monster truck rally.”

Sam’s eyebrows go to his hairline and he makes a disgusted face, but Dean looks overjoyed.

Dean crows. “See? Look at that face. It’s a good thing we didn’t get you a ticket. Lookit that.”

Sam’s eyes track hopefully to Cas next, and Dean hooks an arm around Cas’s neck. “Cas’s idea, actually. He’s driving.”

Sam scowls.

Cas stares. “Yes, Sam. It’s in Salt Lake City, so we have to leave soon to make it in time for the show tomorrow. We can’t go to the Makers’ Market or the afternoon Smoothie Fest, I’m afraid.”

Dean balks at that, and Jack suspects that the lie has probably gotten too complex by this point.

Mary strolls into the kitchen next, and Sam’s eyes light up. “Morning, Mom!“

She freezes but can’t escape the full blast of his puppy eyes.

“I’m about to head out to the Makers’ market,” he prattles on. “Wanna go?”

“The one with the overpriced vegetables?” she squeaks. Her face falls, but she manages to zip up her horrified reaction. “Uh,” she says, sending Dean a mayday signal with her eyes. “Could we…do flea market instead? Hot dogs n’ funnel cakes are more my speed.”

Sam scrunches up his nose. “Really? Those are kinda—I mean—I don’t know any closeby.”

“Maybe Dean will go with you.” Her tone is strangely accusatory, and Dean laughs.

“Dean is taking Jack to Salt Lake City,” he crows, triumphant, and Mary’s eyes seem to beg, ‘Take me with you.’

“Well, we do have one extra ticket,” Cas says fiddling with his phone. “If Sam doesn’t want to come along…”

Dean almost gives the game away with a hushed, “You already bought tickets?!”

But Sam’s ears don’t seem to pick it up.

“I’d love to go!” Mary exclaims, not even knowing what the tickets to Salt Lake City are for.

She looks at Sam, “Unless…you want to go?”

Sam looks like Salt Lake City is about the last place he wants to go. “No, you guys go on ahead,” he sniffs, seeming put out. “That’s uh, no.” He trudges off in the direction of the library.

As soon as he leaves, Jack lets out a gush of air. “Oh, no. Was that mean? It seemed mean.”

“Dude,” Dean whispers, gleeful. “That was awesome.”

“So,” Mary coughs, checking to make sure Sam’s out of earshot. “Where’re we going exactly? It’s a good time for a hunting break, and I’ll go anywhere so long as it’s not the frou-frou farmers’ market.”

Cas punches some stuff on his phone. “If we leave soon, we’ll be there in 12 hours and can do a late hotel checkin. The monster truck rally is tomorrow evening.”

“Monster truck rally?” Mary sounds intrigued.

Dean, on the other hand, buzzes with nervous energy. “Wait, are we really going?”

Cas deadpans. “It’s likely they’ll have hotdogs and funnel cakes in the concessions area.”

Mary pumps a fist. “Sounds great. I’ll have a quick shower and be ready in forty-five. I’ll check one last time if Sam wants to come along.”

Two hours later, all four of them sweep up the bunker steps with duffel bags in tow, deciding to take Cas’s Dodge in case they stop by any stores on the way back. (Mary has been wanting an air fryer.)

Sometime between their huddle and getting ready, Bobby had wandered into the library and gotten cornered by a lonely Sam.

Jack hears Mary lean over to check with Cas, “Oops. I forgot Bobby was stopping by. Were there any seats left near us?”

Cas cringes, punching at his phone. “Unfortunately…no. Not anymore.”

“Too bad,” she whispers, before shooting a cheeky grin Bobby’s way. “We’ll see you later,” she calls. “Probably Monday.”

Bobby looks like a deer in headlights, or maybe a lamb offered up for slaughter.

“Have fun at the farmers’ market,” she adds. “Thanks for going with Sam.”

Then, she ushers them quickly out the door.

The look Bobby gives her is nothing short of murderous, but the one Dean gives her is utterly adoring.

The best part about it all is Cas makes Dean and Mary sit in the back seat. Jack always gets shotgun in the Dodge.

[quietwingsinthesky]

8 and 16 for the choose violence ask

8. Common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about.

That Dean would return Cas’s love confession

Okay no actually you know what. I’m gonna talk about that. Maybe it’s just me being deep in Aro!Dean land, but I’m not seeing it. I’m not seeing at any point in the show where Dean loved Castiel. And I’ve been looking, I swear, but I’m. There’s no destiel on my screen. There is a lot more sastiel than I remember but there’s no destiel happening on my screen! There IS a lot of Castiel clearly having Problems and Issues and Angst about dean, and. Zero doubt here there that that angel wants to fuck him. But I honestly can’t imagine any happy ending for dean that revolves solely or even mostly around a romantic attachment. That man is hardwired for family being the most important thing to him, and I love that. Aro!Dean wins again.

Other notable things include: headcanoning Sam as not queer/trans because he’s too boring. Talked about that. Weird fucking opinion to have. That Gabriel is not exactly as fucked up as the other archangels, especially when presenting sabriel as the Good Sam Ship as opposed to samifer. My dudes, did we not watch mystery spot, do the reading. Also. Also. Not acknowledging the really clear character degradation of Lucifer in the later seasons/attributing later seasons stuff to how he acts in s5, just a personal gripe because whatever, people can read him however they want, but I really feel like on a meta level you gotta talk about how these are Two Different Characters who just happen to have been jammed into the same character. Okay. I think that’s it.

16. You can’t understand why people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc.)

I do not like coffee shops AUs. Actually, it’s more that im Extremely picky about AUs that aren’t canon divergence, and will drop them immediately the minute I feel like I’m no longer reading about the characters I like and am instead reading about Generic Guys who say funny quips and then kiss. Which is not a coffee shop au specific problem but the frequency with which that kind of au attracts that writing means I have kind of been turned off from ever reading them again.

if you are writing Sam into your coffee shop au and at some point he does not drop some insane backstory about the time he was kidnapped and forced to fight to the death with a bunch of other college kids, you have failed at writing this au and I am banishing you to the shadow realm /j

The other thing that I do not understand at all, and this extends into a problem with canon, I’m well aware, is how happily people will accept the idea that Castiel is rebellious/different from other angels because he was just Made Wrong. he’s too Broken to be like a real angel. that all the other angels are mindless drones and Castiel is the one good one who could learn about free will, usually justified with it being that “his love for dean is what makes him special”, but even outside of destiel circles, this kind of thing gets very annoying lmao.

And it’s just. That’s wrong. The show might have decided post-s8 that it believed this about Castiel but it’s False and Bad. I’m gesturing wildly at Uriel and Anna and Gabriel and Lucifer and Balthazar and Michael and shit what’s that one angel doing pinball I love them, them too, and Castiel is not special!!! He should not be special!!! All angels have the capacity for free will, they are living under a terrifying system of suppression that has stripped them of their ability to use it and has taught them that when an angel does something they disagree with, killing them is a mercy! (See: the implications of that one angel healer in s9 + Uriel and Cas being sent to kill Anna for falling in s4)

CASTIEL IS NOT SPECIAL. STOP SAYING HE IS SPECIAL. THE CRACK IN THE CHASSIS LINE IS BAD TO HOLD UP AS EVIDENCE OF HIM BEING UNIQUELY FLAWED.

ahem. sorry. i like the supernatural angels. i think making castiel into some separate special being who is the only one capable of rebelling and feeling love and etc does a massive disservice to the heaven storylines and angels as a whole. i think the show’s choice to never have another major angel character who wasn’t killed off quickly/made “too evil” to redeem was a bad decision and contributes to this view of cas as Different and The Good One.

[salchat]

Secret Flowers - Chapter 11

"Dean." Cas’s voice was slow and sleepy.

His lips brushed Dean’s neck as he spoke. And then brushed it again. Was that a good morning kiss? And how exactly did Dean feel about that? The morning sun kissed his face and Cas had kissed his neck.

Good things do happen, Dean.

Not in my experience.

That's what he’d replied, all those years ago. But now? Maybe it was time for good things, finally, to happen to Dean Winchester. And didn't Castiel, ex-Angel of the Lord deserve good things too? Dean had already decided he did. And that it was Dean’s business to see that those things happened.

So, how far was he prepared to go? How far could he go toward letting some of those buried feelings see the light of day? Toward admitting just a little more of who he, Dean Winchester, really was? Did he even know?

Maybe it was time to find out.

Slowly, he turned over, within the circle of Cas's arm, until he was facing his friend - so close their noses nearly touched and he could see right into those blue, blue eyes. Actually it was almost too close to get a good focus on Cas's face - maybe a visit to an optometrist might be a good idea.

"Hey, Cas," he said. His voice was rough from sleep and whiskey and talking about stuff that didn't normally get talked about.

Cas's lips were so close - dry and cracked in a couple of places from all that time outdoors. They’d feel soft enough, though, if Dean pressed his own lips against them. If he dared.

…nothing would do for me but to have you back in my sight immediately.

You are my light that shines in the darkness.

And before that, before Cas had been lost to the Empty…

I love you.

How many times did Dean need Cas to say it? In how many different words did he have to tell Dean how he felt before it got through? And how many times could Dean pretend to himself that he and Cas were just best friends and that he didn’t want anything more?

His Dad’s voice was still there, in his head, after all this time. But it was distant and fading more by the minute, just like when Dean drove Baby into a radio dead spot.

So he leant forward, bridged the gulf, closed the tiny gap, and pressed his lips to Cas's. They were warm and soft, with the surface roughness of those dry patches, which Dean would personally moisturise, today, if Cas didn’t.

It was the lightest, briefest, most significant kiss he had ever shared.

A smile dawned on Cas’s face. And he kissed Dean back, gently, fleetingly, with no urgency or weight of meaning. But it was a promise, a beginning - a kiss for a new morning of a new life.

Dean smiled and Cas smiled back and, for now, it was enough.

Read on AO3

Read on ffn

[one-more-offbeat-anthem]

do-over

While everyone else watches ball drops and sings Auld Lang Syne and drinks cheap champagne and whatever else you’re supposed to do at New Year’s Eve parties, Dean is elbow-deep in monster guts, because the universe has decided that he never, ever gets to observe holidays the normal way. He misses the countdown to midnight, too, passed out on the thin motel mattress from exhaustion. 

(At least he didn’t have to spend half an hour trying to scrub the aforementioned monster guts off of himself under the shower’s weak stream. Cas is helpful like that.)

“It’s a new year,” Cas says at breakfast, looking at the newspaper that he grabbed when they walked into the diner. They’ve found another case, a haunting that they’ll have to take care of tonight, so they’re stuck in Random Podunk Town, USA, for the day. 

Dean nods and shoves a piece of bacon in his mouth. “Yep.”

“We missed New Year’s Eve.” Cas isn’t eating, just attempting to drink some of the world’s worst coffee. It’s alarming, even by Dean’s coffee standards.

“I didn’t know you cared about stuff like that.”

“Well, you do, don’t you?” Cas is doing the fucking head-tilt routine and the squinty eyes, and Dean is about to disappoint him with one of the many idiosyncrasies of human beings.

“I’m supposed to care,” Dean says. “Big difference. New Year’s Eve is supposed to be this awesome night, one last crazy party. That’s not how it’s ever happened to me, and it never will.”

“You sound like to you care.” Cas stops squinting, thank god, but now he’s giving Dean that I know you better than you think I do look, like he’s x-raying Dean’s brain. “You could have a do-over.”

“What, like celebrate tonight?”

Cas nods.

“Yeah, uh-huh.” Dean rolls his eyes, decides to focus his attention on buttering his triangle of toast. 

“Okay.” Cas picks his coffee mug back up, leaving Dean with the sinking feeling that Cas is definitely not going to drop this.

***********

Cas disappears around lunchtime with the promise of pizza. Dean waves good-bye, although most of his attention is on the clunky travel laptop, trying to figure  out the next case. They’re sort of between apocalypses right now, which is a relief but also means that the next big thing could strike at any moment. 

Dean has gotten used to things being upended. His life has always been chaos, and when it’s calm, he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. He never feels like he can just walk through a place, treats everyone else like civilians. And they are, aren’t they? They have no idea about the horrors that lurk, and the people that try to keep them lurking instead of out in the open. 

Also, most people haven’t died before, so that’s something.

Cas returns with the pizza about thirty minutes later, along with a suspicious number of grocery bags. 

“Apparently,” Cas says, setting the pizza box on the table next to the laptop and then turning his attention to the bed, with its ugly brown paisley comforter, emptying the bags onto it, “The New Year’s stuff goes on sale after New Year’s Eve.” Cas picks up a pair of glasses shaped like the new date that Dean’ll write wrong for at least a month. “These are odd.”

“Did the cashier think you were odd?” Dean shuts the laptop; he’s found a couple of leads, but if nothing materializes post-ghost he’ll just call Sam for next steps. 

“I told her we were celebrating late because we got caught up with work.” Cas is now examining a plastic champagne glass. “The grocery store didn’t have champagne, but I thought you’d like beer better anyways.”

Dean snorts. “Tell me she didn’t ask what our jobs were.”

“I said we work in wildlife control.”

“You’re dressed like an accountant. Or a beige Matrix character.”

“I don't know what that means. Wildlife always need to be controlled, Dean, even on a holiday.”

“Okay, fair.” Dean gets up and looks at what's on the bed: party hats, crowns, streamers, noisemakers, novelty napkins. “How many people are we supposed to be celebrating New Year’s with? Is the ghost coming?”

“I was thinking we could handle the ghost first, and then celebrate. We could watch a movie--I’m sure there’s a cowboy film you haven’t shown me yet.”

“Maybe we should watch Matrix. There’s trench coats.”

Cas glares at him. “I was also going to say that I know of a New Year’s Eve tradition.” 

“Oh.” 

Cas smirks, and Dean feels a slight dislike for ever trying to teach him how to play human on TV. This is also the closest they’ve gotten so far to talking about whatever is going on and has been going on, really, for years now. 

Well, it is a new year. Maybe some new things will happen.

At the very least, Dean will have to take a picture of Cas in a party hat. That will certainly be new.

[angelsdean]

Do you ever wonder how Dean would have told the New York story to Cas if Sam wasn't right here, hearing him? (because his hesitation at the end, before settling for the non-problematic answer...)

godd i don't know. i've been thinking abt this ask since you sent it on sunday and i'm really of two minds about it.

i feel like on the one hand, dean doesn't really think he was a victim of anything. like he's repressed and explained away a lot of the incident to make it seem like it was really no big deal in his mind. dean rewriting traumatic memories is nothing new and i can definitely see him doing so with this memory. sam also wasn't there, so he only knows whatever version of the story dean told him. (and bits from john, i guess, though i doubt john would really be sitting there recounting the whole thing for sam).

even if dean didn't specifically rewrite his memories though, dean to me has always felt like he views himself as a kid as older and more responsible than anyone else his age. and he holds himself to a different standard, different rules. sam says dean was WAY underage during this incident, that could mean underage for drinking (21) or underage for being a legal adult (18). my headcanon / guess is that dean was around 15. and like, if any of this happened to some other 15 yr old dean would see them as a child who was taken advantage of by adults. but for himself the rules are different. he sees himself as an adult, as older and more mature. he's had adult responsibilities for years by that point. he's seen and experienced more things than most kids his age. so he doesn't see himself as a kid that could be taken advantage of. he's hunter! he's killed things! he'd be able to handle some regular humans, is what i think his thought process would be like. so for him he can't and won't view what happened as this traumatic thing. he rationalizes and reframes the event to be what he needs it to be, no big deal. just regular teenage rebellion that ends with him getting busted by his dad. nothing more.

but i think recounting that story, having all of that resurface, and then coupled with what happens to claire, her nearly getting trafficked and being lied to and conned by adults, it triggers something in dean. like i said before, i think dean holds himself to a different standard, but seeing someone else of a similar age to him go through something like that would sound alarm bells as being Wrong and Bad. and so, him seeing what nearly happens to claire causes him to really confront what nearly happened to him at a similar age. and then he just. loses it. and kills all those men. as he should !!!!!! (literally those killings had nothing to do with the MOC. i think he would've done it anyway, even with no mark and i stand by that).

so, going back to your question, i think if none of this stuff with claire was happening and he was just randomly recounting the story to cas, he might still play it off as no big deal, just a little anecdote.

but if he were telling just cas this story in the midst of this episode i think as he's telling it he might start to think, oh shit, claire is around the same age and me and she's around these sketchy people and this is bad we need to find her now as he starts realizing what happened to him could've ended bad too. and maybe if it was just the two of them dean might have expressed some of that to cas like, "i didn't realize it at the time, i guess i downplayed it to protect myself but, yea that was a bad situation and it's a good thing john showed up when he did."

also i think when cas says "he saved you" to dean after he tells the story that moment is when dean starts really unraveling all this and realizing "shit that really could've been bad. and now claire is in a bad situation too and we need to save her."

[sio-lokistiel]

Hi!! So I'm a fairly strong chuck won believer (i have been given some Extremely convincing evidence and I think its interesting to think about so) but I saw a post you made about how that theory disregards cas and jacks arcs and I was just wondering if you could expand on that? I'm super open to interpretations lol and I'm really curious to hear the other side (i haven't seen too much anti chuck won stuff so I dont know the arguments)

Okay, oh boy. I guess part of it is what exactly you mean by “Chuck Won” because I understand it on a censorship level. Yes, Chuck was representing the network. Yes, the network meddled and cut Dean’s reciprocation and we ended up with that garbage finale with pages of [OMITTED] in the script. So, if that’s all you mean by “Chuck Won” then yeah, whatever I guess.

Idk, some people probably feel it’s a legitimate theory simply because Dean died. It seems a lot of the fandom thinks death = bad…and that’s just not the case now that Jack freed the souls. I mean, I can throw quotes from The Mummy and Lord of the Rings at you about how death is the next step in journey. So while I’m no longer upset about Dean dying in general, especially because it was foreshadowed, the way he died was so fucking dumb. That doesn’t mean I think it has anything to do with Chuck.

Cas’ arc was all about self-actualization. His speech in Gimme Shelter explains a good part of it with how he found purpose having a family and becoming a dad, BUT him also realizing that having himself is important, too. Then, oh goodness, we reach the culmination in Despair (The Truth) when he realizes happiness is in the saying, in accepting your truth, both the good and bad bits of yourself. The Empty comes and he reintegrates with his Shadow to become whole and saves Dean, the world, and himself in the process. Yes, that’s a whole bunch of Jungian psychology stuff and it’s a lot to process and I’m probably not doing the best job of explaining it. Most of the Chuck Won theory stuff I’ve seen ignores all that and seems to ignore the canon that Cas IS in heaven. I understand the disappointment of Cas and Dean not reuniting, YET. Corporate fuckery (and Covid) kept it from happening in the finale with the original Roadhouse ending that was planned and then scheduling conflicts and Jensen and Misha agreeing Cas needed more than a cameo kept him from being in The Winchesters.

And Jack. Jack was literally the whole goddamn point. The two big things are he’s possessed and sometimes dead because of this, or he is corrupted somehow. I have never seen a convincing damn argument for either of these things. There’s one post that tries to compare some his mannerisms to Chuck, but is filled with so much straw grasping and reaching I’m surprised the author didn’t need a doctor afterward. Another is that some people project on the poor boy so much and just they don’t like his arc, they want to think something is wrong. There is a lot more Pagan stuff about Jack and the number of mythologies where some god is brought down by being a power hungry dickhead and that comes back to bite them in the ass as a grandchild in Jack’s case removes them from power. There are better people to explain all the Pagan imagery surrounding Jack; my tag #jack is the orphic egg should get you to some really good stuff. I’m also not down to argue about how the last 3-5 seasons are meant to read with a Pagan lens. There was one group who predicted the end of the mothership months in advance and then all of The Winchesters and it wasn’t the people clinging to some white Christian reading.

Last thing, I just personally find the theory really lazy as well. I would legitimately be so disappointed in Jensen and whoever ends up writing the next chapter whether that’s Robbie or someone else if they went that route. Luckily, they are all smarter than that and I can see them seeming to lean into it, but then having the most fabulous rug pull! This is very long, oops.