#s6 is a fever dream

[maddy-ferguson]

blaine dating karofsky when he had helped kurt deal with the homophobic bullying is insane to me

[dylanconrique]

i wish i could speak more on this episode, but i feel like i'm being fed so much of what i've secretly asked for that i just can't articulate any words at all. this is the best episode!!

[crimswnred]

can you imagine grace/marshall, toby/amelia and ozzy/mc ending up together AND IT'S CHRISTMAS.

when your circle's small but y'all are horny

[anthony-kate]

Lucifer is pretty much my fave show.

Yes, I hate the end/last season.

We exist.

[violetwolfraven]

So uh…

Has anybody pointed out yet how Kpp’Ar was definitely lying to Viren?

In the flashback scenes in s6, Viren thought Kpp’Ar gave up doing dark magic.

But he had those same bloody bandages on his arm that he had in Viren’s fever dream from s5, which were from (paraphrased) “an ancient and disturbing practice.”

And why would someone who did dark magic his whole life and showed no objection to his student and friend doing it be so adamant that said student doesn’t inherit the staff of ziard even though he is retired and should no longer need it? Why not let him have it, even at the cost of his son’s life?

I’m calling bullshit. I could be wrong, but my theory is that Kpp’Ar was totally still doing dark magic, and wouldn’t give Viren the staff because he still needed it for something.

[actually-a-fish]

the best supernatural episodes

according to an autistic person with a special interest and the ability to make a list.

if youre really serious about supernatural spoilers then maybe stay away :)

None of the season one episodes made in on the list but I will give an honorable mention to S1 E2 Wendigo.

S2 E11 Playthings - A classic, creepy girls in a creepy hotel. Special call out to Sam getting SLOPPY

S2 E16 Roadkill - There's a ghost haunting the highway. the Boys help the spirit move on. This is an early example of monster empathy

S2 E18 Hollywood Babylon - Dean loves hollywood. I love dean. this episode makes me kick my feet like a little girl and i will not defend myself.

S2 EP 20 What Was Shall Never Be - all I have in my notes for this one is "Dean Djinn Dream" which was enough for me to remember the episode and get misty eyes. This is SEASON 2 my son will never know peace.

S3 E5 Bedtime Stories -I had to check the wiki on this one, I think i liked it cause it referenced classic fairytales

S3 Ep11 Mystery Spot - "HEAT OF THE MOMENT" RISE AND SHINE SAMMY!

S3 E13 Ghostfacers! - Im a Facer through and through

S3 E16 No Rest for the Wicked - S3 finale and the Boys are facing consequences! Classic Dean, Sam and Bobby episode.

S4 E1 Lazerus Rising - First Cas Episode. That handprint makes me feel things.

S4 E6 Yellow Fever - What if Dean had anxiety (The Eye of the Tiger blooper is also at the end of the episode which gives it bonus points.

S4 E17 Wishful Thinking - Make a wish? was it for your teddy bear to be diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder? Well thats what youre getting!

S4 E17 It's a Terrible Life - Sam ~ the sales rep. Dean ~ middle management.

S4 E18 The Monster at the End of the Book - There are books about Sam and Dean?! Written by this guy who loves self insert character? Surely the entire show isn't about to take a tone shift?

S5 E3 Free to be You and Me - Sam and Dean are fighting again, but this time Dean has a new heavenly boy toy to play with instead. (Cas has no rizz yet it's actually a little painful to watch)

S5 E5 Fallen Idol - Okay the Wax People episode is on here for one reason and one reason only. Paris Hilton.

S5 E7 The Curious Case of Dean Winchester - Old man Dean and old man Bobby. This is also the episode for HH Husk kinnies.

S5 E8 Changing Channels - Dr Sexy MD is that you?!

S5 E9 The Real Ghostbuster - *in a grizzly voice* "I'm Dean Winchester, this is my brother Sam. Have you experienced anything strange?" "Dude that was so good! Now we can go solve the puzzle" "Man you're breaking the immersion!"

S5 E10 Abandon All Hope - This is here for Crowley's first appearance and not because the end will make you cry.

S5 E12 Swap Meat - "uh... its Audi Nos". Freaky Friday starring Sam Winchester! An angsty teen and April Kepner from Grey/Sloan Memorial Hospital.

S5 E16 Dark Side of the Moon - The Boys lives flash before their eyes. Dean is pissed forever about Sams.

S5 E19 Hammer of the Gods - this is for all my pagans out there!

S6 E4 A Weekend at Bobby's - What do you think this episodes about idjit.

S6 E15 The French Mistake -  “For whatever reason, our life is a TV show.” “Why?” “I don't know.” “No, seriously. Why? Why would anybody want to watch our lives?” 

S7 E4 Defending your Life - consequences? for fucking people over? how about you stand trial.

S7 E20 The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo - The self insert character made for us :) Luv u 4ever Charlie XD

S8 E4 Bitten - found footage will always scare. this one reminds me that this show started as a psuedo horror.

S8 E8 hunteri heroci - Cas tries his hand at being a hunter

S8 E12 As Time Goes By - FINALLY THEY ARE CARVING TRAPS INTO BULLETS

S8 E17 Goodbye Stranger - verbatim here are my notes for this episode "Cas chooses Dean, but the way he handles Meg... Fuck Naomi"

S8 E18 Clip Show - If you only want to watch just one episode of Supernatural this should be it. It's not actually a clip show, theres a broment, bonding time with favorite characters and crazy plots that only supernatural could get away with.

S9 E5 Dog Dean Afternoon - Dean is finally a dog person

S9 E11 First Born - Another bro fight leads to shipping <3 SamxCas + DeanxCrowley <3

S9 E15 #thinman - the slender episode feat. GHOSTFACERS. You come away from this episode thinking "supernatural is so fucking gay why wont the boys kiss"

S9 E21 King of the Damned - my favorite crowley era change my mind. Also the way the Boys interrogate an angel is so funny

S10 E5 Fan Fiction - I would unironically fuck w a supernatural musical and if helluva/hazbin taught me anything the rest of you would too

S10 E6 Ask Jeeves - The Clue episode. (Pay attention to the improvised weapons Dean chooses. It brings me joy)

S10 E9 The Things we Left Behind - Cas is suffering a midlife crisis and his besties are there to help him repair his relationship with his daughter. Funnily enough, Crowley is also getting some family bonding in.

Okay, I'm all caught up on my list. Should I have stayed up late transcribing this with an 8am class tommarow?

Probably not but it did bring me great joy. Tell me your favorite episode! I'll continue to add to my list as I continue my rewatch :)

[starry-skies-writes]

Viren said the path of freedom was the path of truth.

We know Callum is heavily paralleled with Viren, and that his actions have matched up dangerously similar. They both sought out the truth.

But Callum has one thing Viren didn’t have.

Freedom.

In s5 when Viren had his fever dream thing and talked to his reflection, he kept saying his path was already determined (even if he did try and change it later.) His dream showed him saving Soren, another thing where he felt he had no other choice to make— he HAD to save him (at a high cost we know now).

In fact, the first time Viren decides to make a choice and choose his own path, it’s thwarted by his own daughter. She brought him back to life in s6 even though he’d been fully prepared to die. He’d CHOSEN that, and yet. Then he goes back to Katolis and the whole shit happens and he dies. It’s not exactly his choice. In my perspective, it’s him saving Soren again because he has no other choice to.

But Callum has that freedom. He has WINGS.

He’s constantly broken the defaults set in the world, being the first human mage, having TWO arcana now, the first in centuries (?) to love an elf. He’s not constrained by stuff like destiny or fate that’s set in stone.

In his own fever dream he said it himself— “Destiny is a book you write yourself”. He’s always made his own choices (except for Aaravos possessing him but shh) and even after that he makes the decision to make Rayla promise that she’d kill him if it happens again. It’s dark but it’s his decision, his choice. He might feel helpless but he isn’t.

So yeah maybe the two of them are a bit too similar, but this is also where they aren’t. Because of this, Callum will have a much happier, much freer life than Viren.

[weepynymph]

Gilmore girls boyfriend ranking (these are my opinions you are allowed to disagree but like don’t yell at me please I’m fragile)

1. Dave (my beloved has never done anything wrong in his life ever)

2. Jess (he screws up A LOT but he gains points for s6 and for being my little meow meow)

3. Morey (he serenades his wife daily, need I say more?)

4. Kirk (10/10 devotion will not even LOOK at another woman even if it mean crossing the street with his eyes closed)

5. Luke (I love him he waited EIGHT YEARS for her but he loses points for s6/7)

6. Richard (he screws up sometimes but he’s Emily’s no.1 fan devoted 4 life they’re made for each other)

7. Max (good guy had rizz but just not The Guy unfortunately)

8. Alex (it’s billy burke the only reason he’s not higher is we barely see him but he is good vibes and like the only guy we see get on with lorelai’s friends)

9. Jason (funny but not The Guy, plus kinda a snob. I like Jason though he’s entertaining, even if the idea of him and Lorelai actually having sex does not compute in my brain AT ALL)

10. Jamie (he was sweet and kinda deserved better tbh still a little boring)

11. Doyle (devoted and entertaining but a little boring at times - I wanted more for Paris)

12. Marty (we all know a Marty and I hate to say it but I think he’d be a terrible boyfriend and a bad kisser)

13. Jackson (mad points lost for lying about having a vasectomy that was not cool man)

14. Henry (he bailed on lane - fool)

15. Logan (I’m sorry but he loses SO MANY points for gaslighting those scenes trigger me so hard)

16. Tristan (he loses points for actual harassment but at least he’s mildly complex)

17. Zach (I hate him)

18. Christopher (no)

19. Dean (the hardest no)

20. Asher (die)

I’ve probably forgotten someone I made this in a fever dream like four months ago and decided to post it on a whim lol

[sisterofficerlucychen]

@thisnightissparkling089 reminded me about the airplane bathroom and all i can think about was what happened the last time they were in a confined space together where the stakes were high and one needed the other to ground them and how they were the comfort they needed and i think i've seen this film before ... 👀

i have been a clown this entire season and i will end with being a clown and putting 😏✨ vibes ✨😏 into the universe that we get a parallel to the airplane bathroom scene because as so many have pointed out WHY IS SHE STOPPING THE ELEVATOR FOR A HUG?????

like yes, likely a heart to heart, but again the way the tension built up to their first kiss when lucy pulled him in, also the airplane bathroom one, plus the fact that once they got together they could't keep their hands off of each other?? logically this probably isn't it but also in s6 fanfic fever dream, it could happen???

[self-spaghettification]

aaravos & claudia analysis ™

The new S6 promotional art has to mean something for Aaravos’s connection to Claudia Season 6. There’s the connection with the short story Ripples of course and Aaravos’s manipulation of mages, but now I am wondering if Claudia will be preyed on by Aaravos after he gets out - using her loss, anger at herself and the world for her loss and being unable to save her dad - and he’ll channel it into making her a weapon against Xadia, maybe even the tragic main villain.

Taking it a step further, maybe he expected and respected Viren’s decision to die in the first place because he knew it would make Claudia spiral further and he offered to bring him back in the first place so that Claudia would 1. set in motion the steps toward his freedom and 2. trust Aaravos (and his rhetoric…) and 3. have a taste of his power to change things, which will undeniably be tempting.

I feel like Claudia and Aaravos’s outlooks have aligned in the past (ie: Claudia saying “Impassible is just another form of passible” and Aaravos saying “Yesss”) and Aaravos has had his eye on her for a long time, back to Aaravos saying “Well done. She will be a valuable asset”, having Viren lie to his kids so she wouldn’t leave Viren, and all the way back to Claudia saying it felt like the mirror put her on notice too.

Aaravos using her as a weapon against Xadia would parallel how he used Viren’s grief after Harrow’s death and anger at the Pentarchy to set Viren on a path to conquer Xadia. Viren, with reason but also spite, took Callum’s voice taunting him for being a nepo-baby, killed Avizandum, and coined Runaan. Aaravos encouraged Viren to kill the leaders of the four other countries and to kill the guards hunting him in the castle of Katolis. In comparison, Claudia has, unprovoked, almost killed a dragon just for hell of it and taunted Rayla with her parents just to not give them back (even knowing what it’s like to have a parental figure taken away.) Terry was the only thing stopping her. Terry was talking her down both times. Terry is no longer in the picture. (for Claudia, currently at least.) Who knows what she’ll do with that lack of checking and Aaravos egging her on.

She repeats rhetoric that humans deserve revenge for being treated by trash and that dragons and elves should be afraid of her, a fire that Aaravos’s guidance will only fan further. Her rhetoric has been undoubtedly shaped by both Viren’s and Aaravos’s actions, spite, and other reasoning.

carrying the same prejudices and likes as her father, “Look dad, I’m following in your footsteps!” + “Aaravos can change things!” to Soren. + the fever dream metaphor that Claudia goes dangerously further than Viren, stops listening to him, (foreshadowing for future conversations where Viren and Soren plead with Claudia to stop) and gets swallowed up in something she could never predict, something much larger than herself.

Endgame? Well. Claudia has a lot of parallels to Ziard, and we see how that ended… also, that’s a scene in S3. So if S6 does parallel S3… well. It doesn’t end well for her.

(Repeated water motifs)

Claudia currently feels like she’s lost everything. Her mom, her brother, her strength… she prided herself on that but she wasn’t strong enough to beat the Dragang and so she wasn’t strong enough to save her dad. She believes she’ll keep losing and so she cuts herself off from Terry to avoid losing that too.

Key: She is in her darkest place thus far, similar to Viren when he had lost everything and was desperate enough to make a blood pact with a strange elf in the mirror. And what if, once again, that strange elf was there to help the most desperate? If Claudia is made to believe she’s strong enough again, with the aid of a little magic, if she’s given that validation and care again, she can do anything. It would parallel the Reflections story ‘Lost Child’:

If she’s strong enough, and her faith is restored, no one will ever leave her again. They’ll come to understand.

Again it was how she was taught. “I’ll do anything for our family, Dad. Whatever it takes, however dangerous, however vile.” and it’s going to lead to her shaping into a more vindictive villain and to her doom.

[raayllum]

since Finnegrin sorta took Aaravos’s place in the rayllum development this season, was wondering if you had any parallels between the two figures specifically? :D

Oh yeah, for sure!!

There's the way they both have this almost gentlemanly, still too sinister to be entirely pleasant but like... calmer outer demeanour? But something cruel and volatile lurking right underneath when they get pissed that will be brutally unleashed if you dare disobey in a way that offends or presents an obstacle to them.

There's their associations with keys and threes (three quasar diamonds, three main mage pawns, three glowtoads, three keys to Finnegrin's door) in addition to being a clearly more rare kind of elf compared to the rest. There's the way they don't actually tend to fight their own battles, per se, but instead use vessels/pawns - for Aaravos, it's his collection of mages, and for Finnegrin, it's Elmer. Ownership and control go hand in hand with both of them. As Finnegrin says, "The chains are just for show," which feels very indicative of Aaravos' whole "I could just possess any of the dark mages in my collection, but I choose to bolster and manipulate them instead" and their reliance on fear.

But the big one, and the reason why I say I can swap them, is that the core prediction I had regarding Callum-Aaravos-Rayla just came true with Finnegrin swapped in for Aaravos - because Finnegrin is pushing forward and developing similar kinds of dilemmas I imagined along the exact same thematic axis those predictions were built off of: control vs freedom tethered together by love.

To me, Callum having a Key of someone who's imprisoned (and its majority negative associations in arc 1, i.e. being the symbol of temptation and dark magic in Callum's fever dreams) as well as Callum's own associations with freedom (wings like Icarus, the sky arcanum, emphasis in lines of dialogue, etc) seemed like an obvious through line of Callum playing into Aaravos' future machinations and setting the Startouch elf free, for some reason (or at least, foreshadowing being unable to stop him). People doing terrible things for love was a smaller undercurrent in arc 1 (largely with Claudia for her family, and Harrow out of grief with Sarai) and Rayla was the reason Callum had the cube in the first place, at risk to herself, so all those things compounded into Callum, under coercion, doing something he deemed terrible but necessary in order to save Rayla being held hostage/captive, no matter the risk.

S4 just added to this in major ways (and S6 could bring it, wildly enough, wholly to fruition - although I could see the 'captive' part be replaced easily with a fatal wound), largely due to the scene between Callum and Rayla in 4x07:

C: I'm not afraid [Aaravos will] hurt me. I'm afraid that he'll use me, to do awful things, or hurt people I care about.

However, it was always very clear to me that if it came to doing an awful thing or saving his loved ones, Callum would 100% always choose doing the awful thing to save his loved ones. And everything Callum was scared of here due to the lack of freedom and autonomy are things that literally happened in 5x08 thanks to Finnegrin.

Callum frames his relationship with Aaravos as one that's an inherent loss of freedom/control: "When Aaravos possessed me, back at the Storm Spire, I felt so weak and out of control." This is also the level of identity, of someone being able to use his body and strip away his voice - "I was his puppet".

Finnegrin's conversations with Callum centre around a similar theme, but he makes the initial mistake in trying to motivate Callum with his own freedom: "Just one dark magic spell, and you go free." He ignores Callum's obvious signs of 'weakness' ( "Tell me where my friends are") by assuming Callum is interested mostly because he wants to be free: "They won't be springing to your rescue" even when that's hardly what he cares about.

He identifies that Callum is deeply attached to his personal loyalties, but I can see Finnegrin thinking he's doing Callum some sort of twisted favour, in giving him the opportunity to sell out for his own freedom and leave his friends out to dry. (Love is weakness, after all. Shouldn't you want to prune yourself from weakness?)

The fact that Finnegrin is targeting Callum specifically because 1) Callum is a mage, 2) in relation to dark magic (when that was Aaravos' in, too) and 3) out of revenge (against an archdragon who's spared restricted him, and Aaravos wants revenge for his imprisonment & against the Startouch elves for also sparing but banishing/felling him) just furthers these thematic connotations between Finnegrin and Aaravos.

+ Bonus framing used to make it look like Callum is the one also in a cage, and a framing technique TDP has used before with always framing it so Claudia and Soren are the ones behind bars upon visiting their father in 3x03:

Then, much like Aaravos, Finnegrin baits a defiant Callum into a test ("those who fail tests of love are simple animals") that he's doomed to lose. Finnegrin's control is immediately set up to be exerted over everyone, yes, but Rayla in particular:

Because Finnegrin doesn't actually care about any of the other kids besides Callum. All he wants to do is break Callum's morale so that the boy will give up the information he needs, whether that's by trying to force Callum to pick someone to lose a hand (which the others remove as a coercive tactic) or by trying to get him to do dark magic again because as he says "You'll do anything for them."

But this, of course, is a false pretense. A lie. If Callum had done it here (and the show seems to imply he would have, or was seriously considering it), all Finnegrin would've had to do was use his blood spell to incapacitate everyone else. This is also an interesting point of note in some ways too, because technically... the episode could've just ended here.

Think of it this way: the overall structure of the episode is to get Callum's back against the wall so he uses dark magic, and accepts that he would use it, so he can gain a deeper understanding of himself and access the Ocean arcanum, leading to him throwing off Finnegrin's ice spell. Right? That's the Plot structure stuff that had to happen. If that was all that they wanted, you could do it in these scenes. The main cast would know Callum had done dark magic, which is the major difference, but surely wouldn't hold it against him. Callum could've done dark magic to get their chains off, could've had an impromptu Ocean arcanum realization, and things could've played out exactly as they do in the final scenes of the episode.

The episode could end here, but it doesn't, because well...

The writers chose to make him give up the information and do dark magic, specifically, to save Rayla. That's what they wanted. That's the relationship they chose to emphasize. Not the group dynamic, or one of the others (Soren or Ezran, mostly, as contenders), but for Rayla. Just like what I always expected Aaravos to prey upon too, even before and definitely after Callum and Rayla's talk in 4x07.

But Finnegrin still miscalculates, still not quite understanding that this isn't enough to keep Callum under control. If anything it spurs him further into continually more violent, escalating action: punching Finnegrin, giving up the spell (control), and when both of those prove futile, using dark magic to free himself (freedom) so he can save Rayla (love). And all of these lead him to the ocean arcanum: "To love is simply to know this: the tides are true as the ocean is deep [...] the Ocean arcanum is accepting there are depths you can't see."

Callum already didn't like doing dark magic, but as he says, "I had to, to save my friend(s)" and now he knows what that cost him: the threat of hurting his loved ones because doing dark magic has let Aaravos possess him. And here, as indicated by the intro change being the Callum pawn one, Callum has played into Aaravos' hands - at least marginally. He's accepted this darker side of himself, his willingness to do anything for the people he loves (including keeping secrets and trying to be "strong alone") - the part of him that Aaravos has arguably known all along. Remember those Tests of Love? Yeah Callum just passed one.

By and large, Finnegrin is a smaller, less smart stand in for Aaravos in 5x08. Revenge driven, focused on control and coercion, unnecessarily cruel, and willing to do anything to get what he wants - forcing Callum into the corner and subsequent choices for the person he Loves, as I predicted. (And there will probably be future parallels between Callum and Elmer regarding being pawns and breaking free and identity, but again: post for another day.) The fact that Callum's had this identity arc running throughout S4 and S5 ("Oh, I know [high mage] is my formal title, but you can just call me by my regular name" -> "I don't know how to feel about Rayla either" -> "I'm afraid, Rayla. What if I'm a path of darkness? -> "I have to go after him" "I know" -> "A lot has changed, but not everything's changed. I would do anything for you" -> "I'm not a dark mage" -> ?) and Finnegrin says that seeing Rayla in danger makes him Lose Himself (and Rayla's been setup to also Find Him & break him free of the brainwashing)? Love is a weakness, too, Callum's weakness (and strength). Finnegrin knew it, and I expect Aaravos knows it too, and that we'll see both of sides of the strength-weakness dichotomy come to fruition. TDP loves reconciling its dualities after all.

So yeah, we're in for a deep, wild, emotional ride.

TLDR; Finnegrin takes all of Aaravos' most direct thematic interplay (freedom, control, tests of love) with Callum from S4 and shores it up (pun intended) for the boy in S5, naturally pushing Callum further onto the "path of darkness" that Callum fears and Aaravos is relying on. After all:

Let's see just how far that anything goes, shall we?

[jacquesthepigeon]

I think ML should do what my dad thought they were doing with the sequel to Fast and Furious 10 where they just pretend the previous installment didn’t happen and choose a better storyline and have S6 pretend the S5 finale was nothing more than a fever dream

I usually hate it when franchises do that but I genuinely think it’s the only way to save ML aside from scrapping the main series altogether and doing a reboot

I just can’t decide from what point on it would be better to pretend the dream sequence began bc while S5 is the point where it definitely went beyond salvation, they could fix a lot of what started going wrong from S2 onwards

[konmaao3]

Still wondering about Kpp'Ar's wound. It was also there in the S6 flashback, still looking fresh (so fever-dream-Kpp'Ar seems to be the most current Kpp'Ar), and presumably he got it quite some time after giving up dark magic. So what could that "ancient and disturbing practice" be? Or it's an old wound that just doesn't heal ...

Bonus screenshot because:

[buckybarnesss]

we were supposed to get clauida stilisnki in echo house and i believe in one or two shots you can till see her there. i could've sworn they released a deleted scene of stiles talking to her but i cannot find it so perhaps i fever dreamed that.

i almost think it works better. claudia lingering in the background of the supernaturally charged eichen house where she isn't acknowledged or spoken to by stiles. where he doesn't even notice her but she's still there.

the the ghost of claudia hangs over the stilinskis throughout the whole show until she's finally released in s6.

[disabled-dean]

Tell me about s6 WIP? Currently in s6 on my rewatch

Ooohokay the premise is that Dean becomes convinced that Cas is watching him during s6 while he's living with Lisa, so he starts like, pointedly acting out to prove how good and fine he is and amazing his life is. So like, he finally gets out of bed and showers and cleans his room and goes shopping to start- like see I'm not depressed I'm doing great fuck you. And then he starts crafting all of these heavily romantic moments with Lisa to be like, my suberban fever dream IS perfect actually thank you for asking.

Meanwhile Lisa is totally oblivious to the fact that Dean thinks they're dating (because he's just like, some guy she let stay in her guest room) and is like, going on dates and having girls nights and living her best life.

Eventually, Lisa is like, "Sweetie I'm so glad you're doing a little better, maybe i's time to talk about what comes next." 

And Dean is like, "What do you mean what comes next we're in love" 

And Lisa is like, "Are we?" 

And Dean has to face what love actually means to him- and it's NOT the performative, bringing home flowers and mowing the lawn type situation he has going on with Lisa.

Cas on the other hand totally falls for it and eventually shows up pissed like, why the fuck are you rubbing this in my face?!

And then I'm assuming they have a dramatic realization of mutual pining. Here are some excerpts:

But Cas can’t be watching him, because he’s off somewhere saving the world. Which is fine with Dean. Let someone else do it for once. He rolls over and goes back to sleep. 

Something tugs at him, pulls at the back of his mind, tugs him up and out of sleep until he’s blinking filmy eyes against the thin yellow sunlight. Because if Cas *is* watching him, then he sure as shit isn’t watching him sleep. He sits up, ignores the painful twist at the small of his back, throws the covers off of his legs and hauls himself to his feet.

. . . .

He has dinner waiting for Lisa when she gets home.

“This is very sweet, but I already ate. The girls and I got dinner after class.”

“What?”

“Dean,” she says, carefully like she doesn’t know how to break it to him, “you haven’t gotten out of bed for the last few weeks, I thought-”

“I’ve gotten out of bed!

Dean sits and eats dinner alone. He’s glad Cas probably isn’t watching, so he probably isn’t seeing this."

. . . .

"Lisa pauses at the foot of the stairs, keeping her balance with her hand on the railing as she toes into her heels. Her long brown hair falls soft over one shoulder.

"I'm going out actually, but that sounds fun."

Dean slaps his hands on the tops of his thighs,

"Great," he says, with forced gusto, "I'll watch Ben."

Lisa gives him a funny look,

"Ben is with his grandparents," 

Dean frowns. Ben was definitely here when he got here. He's got a distinct memory of him running into the livingroom on that first night, Dean slunped over on the couch with his head in his hands. The next week is something of a blur, but he thinks he saw him in the kitchen once, right after, and later in the yard fucking around with some of the other kids from the neighborhood.  But since then… he rubs at his aching forehead. 

"Dean?" Lisa has abandoned her heels and has come to stand before him. Dean doesn't recognize her perfume. 

"Yeah," he says, forcing a smile onto his face. He drops his hand back to his side with a small shake, "You look nice."

Lisa frowns up at him, 

"Are you feeling okay? Maybe you should lie down."

[princessfbi]

ooof - was just struck with the whumpy angsty thought of Buck (sometime post lightning-strike/S6) having a really high fever - delirious, fever dreams, the works - and he starts dreaming/hallucinating coma!bobby.

Of course he keeps panicking thinking he's back in that world and is subject to negative (worst fears and insecurities) talk coma!feverdream!bobby is dishing him. (but maybe meanwhile he has real bobby (or eddie) looking after him, trying to take care of him and comfort him through it as best they can).

Clearly my head is using the extended hiatus to manifest more lightning strike arc angst.

Listen we all get so thirsty during hiatus and not one person is blaming you! Drink your Angst Juice!