Tag: destiel fanfic

starsinursa:

Okay, okay, okay, but I CANNOT get this AU idea out of my head:

Castiel, as a Reaper instead of an Angel.

Castiel, meeting Dean for the first time when Dean is four years old, standing in front of his burning home with the flames reflecting in the tear tracks on his face. Castiel revealing himself to Dean, gently prompting Dean to mind Sammy’s head as the infant cries and squirms, because he really doesn’t want to reap more than one soul tonight. Laying a sorrowful, sheltering hand on Dean’s head and staring down into pleading green eyes and whispering, “I’m sorry,” before walking slowly up the burning porch to reap Mary Winchester’s soul (who refuses to go with him anyways).

Castiel, as the Reaper who appears to Dean after the car accident while Dean is in a coma, shocked when Dean remembers him from that night so many years ago. Dean jokingly asking, “Are my guardian angel or something?” and Castiel sadly telling him, “No. Rather the opposite, I’m afraid,” and having to explain to Dean about the existence of Reapers. Castiel wishing to himself that he didn’t have to reap this vibrant young man, who is brave and frustrating and stubborn and obviously so full of life, and then realizing he should be careful about what he wishes for, because Dean is spared but Castiel is forced to reap Dean’s father instead, and he hates that he’s causing Dean more pain.

Castiel, meeting Dean again less than a year later. And then meeting him again. And again. And again, as Dean and Sam work the Trickster case, and Dean dies every day. They get to know each other pretty well, and it becomes something of a running joke: “We’ve got to stop meeting this way, Cas,” Dean teases, and each day Dean bemoans the ridiculous new way that he’s just been killed, and Castiel commiserates sympathetically and helpfully points out that at least Dean didn’t pee himself this time. And he hates that Dean has to die every day, but he hates himself even more because he can’t help dreading the day they catch the Trickster and it all stops, because then he won’t have an excuse to keep seeing Dean and listen to his laugh and hear about his favorite bands and watch the fond way he looks at his brother.

Castiel, appearing when Sam is stabbed by Jake, sick to death with the thought of reaping the soul from Dean’s brother. He doesn’t reveal himself to Dean in the real world this time, even though he could, because he can’t bear to have Dean turn those stricken green eyes on him, he’s a coward, a coward, a coward – but it doesn’t stop Dean, kneeling in the dirt and clutching the lifeless body of his brother tight in his arms, from screaming out, “I know you’re out there, Cas! Don’t you dare take him! I’ll never forgive you!” And he thinks it’s a cruel, cruel joke that he’s destined to continually reap the souls of the people Dean loves most, one by one, and when Castiel leads away the soul of Sam Winchester, there are tears on both their faces as they tell Dean ‘goodbye’, even though he can’t hear them.

Castiel, being summoned one year later, unsure of what’s happening, suddenly finding himself staring down at Dean’s shredded body on the floor at his feet – but Dean’s soul is still here, obstinate and unyielding, circled by snapping hellhounds but refusing to let them drag him away because “I said I’d go to Hell and I will, but I don’t need hand-fucking-delivered by these fleabags, I’ll take my own way there, goddammit! I’m allowed a Reaper! Bring Castiel the Reaper!” And Castiel raises his eyes and meets Dean’s gaze, and it’s gentle, and resigned, and frightened, and forgiving, and Castiel doesn’t deserve it, he’s never deserved anything less than the understanding in those eyes, and he’d rather be anywhere else, he’d rather be dead himself, than here to take away Dean’s soul to Hell. But he does his job and he leads Dean to the gates of Hell, except then he can’t go, he can’t leave Dean here, he can’t – until Dean kisses him, sudden and fleeting, and tells him, “It’s okay, Cas,” and pushes him away.

Castiel, blindly turning away for only the briefest span of time – the blink of an eye, the pulse of a human heartbeat – before he realizes he can’t do this. Screw the job, screw the deals, and screw the laws of nature, he will not leave Dean here…except when he turns around, Dean is already gone. 

Castiel, spending the next forty years breaking into Hell, laying waste to horde after horde of demons with the fatal touch of his ghastly true form. The memory of Dean’s kiss burns a brand against his lips, and when he finally, finally finds Dean, the touch of Castiel’s spectral hand burns its own brand on Dean’s soul as he grips him tight – the touch of death claiming a soul already dead, because Dean is his. Dean looking up at Castiel, and his soul is messy and tortured and broken, but he still manages a smile as he chokes out: “See? Told ya you were my guardian angel,” and Castiel carries Dean’s soul out of Hell and chooses life.

outpastthemoat:

It’s not love, Dean swears, it isn’t.  It’s just preference, right now, that’s all. Dean just likes him the most. Likes to be near him. Likes the smell of his shampoo, likes it when his phone rings and it’s Castiel on the line, but that’s not love, Dean would know.

Not love, not yet. It’s not love, it’s just the way things are just better when he’s near, a part of things, a part of Dean’s everyday routine. His name there, filling up every line, every page in Dean’s book of days.  Taking the remote out of Sam’s hands to change the channel or kneeling close at Dean’s side after a fight, it’s not love but it’s close, it hits home right in the center of Dean’s chest whenever he turns his head and finds Castiel smiling at him, just at him and nobody else – that’s not love, though.  Dean would know.  

If there was ever gonna be anybody for him, someone for Dean to take home and say finders keepers, he thinks it really might be Castiel –  but it’s not love, just something like it.  Something that looks like love, sometimes; something that sounds like love and tastes like love and feels just like it but it’s not love, Dean’s not stupid.  He tells himself it’s not love because he’d know.  It’s not love because Dean knows what love feels like, and this isn’t it: Love is oiled brakes and love is dinner made from scratch and love is watching someone’s back as they walk away without a single glance behind, and so this can’t be love, Dean knows it’s not because it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t burn, it doesn’t leave him strung out and hung over the next morning.  

This isn’t love.

Whatever it is, it isn’t much.  Just golden light creeping across the kitchen floor in the late morning and pouring Castiel a second cup of coffee, it’s just warm hands resting on the crook of his elbow to help him stand up, it’s not like love at all.  It’s not what he remembers.  It’s not a love he knows.

But there are signs – the flowers on the kitchen table that Castiel left there for him.  Castiel’s shoes left in the doorway of the library, laces untied.  The way he nods off in the front seat of the car with his shoulder against Castiel’s sometimes, when it’s four in the morning and Cas says he’ll drive for a while. He likes that Castiel’s dark hair curls against the back of his neck, he likes to look at the bare slice of skin just under Castiel’s left ear.  That’s not love, is it?  Dean can’t tell, can’t be sure.  It’s not the final sum, the grand total of everything they are and are not to each other, it’s just part of the equation.  Dean tells himself that If this was love he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. If this was love, he’d be singing love songs at two thirty a.m. along with the radio, he’d be doing ninety down the highway just to match the pace of his heart.

But sometimes he’ll sit there watching Castiel, with his arm thrown back over the arm of the couch watching This Old House, and he allows to himself – it might be, one day, if something ever changes, if Dean ever gets the courage – it’s not love, he knows, he knows.  Just something like it.

atlast-adragon:

Dean brings it up one day. They are having breakfast in the map room, Sam is out for a run and Cas has jam on the corner of his mouth. The most eloquent thing Dean can come up with after he’s been rolling it around in his head for months is, “So, marriage?” Dean tries to keep his cool, he tries not to squirm, to settle his heart rate, to not behave like a tween who’s just met her idol in person.

“Yes,” Cas says and Dean’s heart feels like it is about to jump straight out of his chest but Cas isn’t done, “It baffles me that some humans think they can speak for God when they try to withhold two people from getting married. Marriage was around before Christianity and if it was ordained by God then why do human think they can impose restrictions on it?”

Dean deflates, it’s going to be weeks before he has the courage to do this again. “Yeah man, that’s messed up.” He manages weakly.

Dean keeps his eyes on his half-eaten sandwich but he can feel Cas looking at him.

“In ancient Greece people could get married simply by holding their beloved’s hand and stating their intent to marry.” Cas says and Dean can hear the smile in his voice before he looks up.

Cas is looking at him with what Dean has fondly called his serial-killer-in-love look. No matter how much Dean loves it, it is still disconcerting to have all of Cas’ attention so firmly on him. When Cas looks at him, Dean feels like he is really seen, not just his outside, not just his soul, but all of him and Cas loves it all. It is the most wonderful and terrifying thing.

“Oh?” Dean chokes out.

“Yes,” Cas confirms and extends his hand across the table towards Dean, who takes it. “No clergy, no civil servants or pieces of paper. Just…” Cas places his free hand on top of their joined ones and his gaze becomes, if anything, more intent. “I marry you, Dean Winchester.”

Dean isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry so he does both and he adds his free hand to the pile on the middle of the table. They sit there, like a couple of dumbasses, their sandwiches shoved to the side, holding hands over central Asia, just smiling and staring.

Dean says, “I marry you, Castiel.” and he kisses the jam from Cas’ mouth and that’s that.

(They do is the modern way too, a few weeks later. They go to the court house file for a marriage license under Dean Campbell and Castiel Winchester (that way they both still get to be Winchesters) and come back the next day.

Sam is there and Claire and Jody. Dean cries again and the justice of the peace smiles when she pronounces them married. Cas kisses him in a way that is maybe a little inappropriate for a government building.)

mittensmorgul:

deaneatscake:

elizabethrobertajones:

fanabana:

imagine dean proposing to cas by getting down on one knee and giving him a fake id that says “castiel winchester”

#spn#destiel#oh no#but how about the reverse#dean giving him an id saying winchester and cas THINKING it’s a proposal#and dean is just super flustered and uhm and actually…#but since this kind of solves the problem of the love confession he’s been dreading he just rolls with it (via @deaneatscake)

Oh no. 

Cas looks up with that sort of hopeful/disbelieving smile and thanks Dean wholeheartedly for the ID and then keeps looking back at it and then at Dean nervously, and Dean’s shifting awkwardly like, what, it’s just an ID, no big deal, right? And sweating bullets about his whimsical choice to make Cas family this way and oh no what if he doesn’t want to what if he LEAVES. But he says, I’m glad you, um, like it… and Cas says yes, I – and then doesn’t know how to say it, and Dean’s like wait is it overreaching to have done this and says you don’t have to use it, it’s okay and Cas says no I want to – and then he’s looking at Dean all squinty like what is going ON here so he clarifies, I’m honoured. And Dean’s like yeah, uh. It’s not that big a deal, and Cas rolls his eyes like of course it is, of course I’ll be your partner. And Dean’s internally going FBI partner or – 

(Actually I literally can’t get to an end of this, it’s just going to be them squinting and blushing for about 3k more words or until Sam interrupts)

Now this is the kind of emotionally repressed quality bullshit I’m here for.

3k words later, when Sam comes striding into the library with his nose buried in his laptop, announcing that he thinks he’s found a new case. He looks up and sees the both of them standing there, Cas holding the ID that he’d helped Dean make, both of them looking so entirely flustered he’s amazed neither of them has actually burst into flames yet.

“Guys?” Sam says, hesitating about ten feet shy of the table, mentally kicking himself for not having run for his life before he’d stumbled into the middle of whatever the hell the two of them are currently being weird about. Then he spots the ID pinched between Cas’s fingertips, the edges of the card threatening to cut into his skin with how hard he’s clamped on to it. Sam frowns, because the level of tension in the library is practically smothering, and wonders how Dean managed to screw up what was supposed to be a gesture of welcome this badly, unless… no, he couldn’t believe Cas would actually refuse the official acknowledgement that he was part of the family, could he?

Dean awkwardly clears his throat and shoots Sam a panicked look. Sam had considered fleeing while he’d had a chance, but it was too late now. He glances over at Cas, who’s looking at Dean with a mix of confusion, resignation, and heartbreak.

“Um…” Dean tries, but his voice cracks and fades as he looks from Sam’s wary face back to Cas, and whatever he’d been trying to say dies on his lips.

Sam’s first instinct is crack some joke or tease the both of them, just to break the tension. He sets his laptop on the table, and has the good sense not to risk making whatever this is even worse. He decides to go with cautious friendliness. He can pull out the floppy, friendly puppy bumbling into things. Yep, that’s definitely the best way to bring down the tension.

He takes a deep breath and walks over to Cas, smiling fondly and nodding down at the ID card. “You like it?” Sam asks, adding an eager eyebrow raise into the friendly puppy face. “Dean thought it was about time we made you an official Winchester. Well, at least as official as anyone who’s been declared legally dead on more than one occasion.”

Cas blanches and frowns, tearing horrified eyes from Sam and looking down at the little plastic card in his hands. He speaks in a low, careful voice. “Is that all you wanted, Dean?”

“I, uh… “ A myriad of emotions cross Dean’s face, but when Cas looks back up at him, pinning him with the weight of hope in his eyes, Dean clears his throat and takes a deep fortifying breath. “Can you give us a minute, Sam?”

He doesn’t bother to wait for a reply before grabbing Cas by the shoulder and steering him through the door. Sam considers calling out and reminding them that they have a case, but he figures it can wait for a few minutes.

There’s some quiet mumbling in the hallway that he decides he definitely does not need to hear, followed by hurried footsteps and the slamming of a door. Against his better judgment, he goes to investigate. If his little family has just suffered some sort of emotional explosion, he figures it’ll fall to him to try and collect the pieces.

Sam cautiously approaches Dean’s door, one hand raised to knock. He hesitates when he hears a strange noise. Is that… is Dean crying? He’s about to knock when he hears what’s inarguably Cas moaning, followed by a lot of shuffling and a loud floomp noise as something lands on the bed.

Sam backs away from the door, turns on his heel, and then walks back to the library as fast as his feet will take him. Yeah, the case can probably wait a few hours… maybe even a few days…

Raisin D’être

starsinursa:

A/N: I bet you thought I was done with horrible, fluffy, food-based ficlets, but YOU WERE WRONG! SO, SO WRONG!

So this one is inspired by a cracky conversation I had with @sunshine-hunters, in which we decided that Cas is probably a picky eater who does ridiculous things like pick raisins out of his food, and this is now my new favorite headcanon.

Naturally, I had to write it, and then it turned disgustingly fluffy. I’m so sorry.

Ao3

 

“Hey, Cas, gimme your opinion on this,” Dean says,
handing him a cookie.

Castiel takes it gently, reverently. It’s still warm from the
oven, the rest of the batch cooling on top of the stove, and the kitchen smells delightful. It’s not often that Dean bakes – he prefers to whip up burgers or
steaks, or the odd hearty stew or casserole – but occasionally Dean will get in a “mood” and
decide to use up some of the flour sitting in the bunker’s pantry, and
then he’ll bake and bake until Sam laughingly tells him they’re all going to get fat. It was fudge brownies last time, and apple pies the time
before that.

This time, apparently, it’s cookies.

“It smells very good, Dean,” Castiel says earnestly, and Dean flashes him a grin before turning back to the oven.

Castiel brings the cookie closer and
inhales again. A discerning sense of smell is just one of his angelic perks, and he enjoys smelling Dean’s
cookies much more than smelling dead bodies. He recognizes just a waft of vanilla, and brown sugar, and a
hint of nutmeg, and –

“Raisins?” he asks, looking up. “There’s raisins in
this?”

Dean glances over. “Uh, yeah, Cas, that’s where they’re
called ‘oatmeal raisin cookies’.”

Castiel squints at the cookie, anticipation ebbing away, and now he feels a little… well, cheated. 

Dean watches him for a
moment, then turns to face him and leans back against the
counter.

“What’s wrong with raisins? I mean, they’re no chocolate chips, but they’re all right.”

Castiel grumbles. “I don’t like raisins.”

“Huh. You’ve tried raisins before?”

“…no.”

“What? Then how the hell do you
know you don’t like them?”

“I just do,” Castiel says primly.

Dean makes a face. “That’s not an answer.”

“I can tell. By their smell.”

“Raisins have a smell? That’s…well, kinda gross. But not everything tastes the way it
smells, Cas, some things are misleading and – hey! Stop picking out the
raisins, you fucking heathen!”

Castiel freezes guiltily with a raisin pinched between
his fingers. Dean levels a finger at him and
glares.

“Leave the raisins alone, Cas, they’re in there for a reason. It won’t taste the same without them.”

“Good,” Castiel mutters.

“Cas. Take a bite of the damn cookie.”

Castiel sighs and shoots him a mutinous look, too quickly for Dean to see, but
dutifully raises the cookie to his mouth and takes a slow bite. Dean’s eyes are
fixated on him, scrutinizing, watching him chew with an intensity usually
reserved for working a case or watching one of his soap operas.

“Good, yeah?” Dean finally prompts.

Castiel nods slowly, but he doesn’t open his mouth to respond. His mouth is still full of cookie that he refuses to swallow.

“You still have it in your mouth, don’t
you?”

Castiel hesitates, then nods again. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you big baby,” Dean sighs, but he doesn’t actually sound angry. “Fine, just spit it out then – not on the table! What the fuck is wrong with you, I just wiped that down! I meant in the trashcan! Christ – here –“

He thrusts his open hand in front of Castiel, palm
up. It’s obvious what Dean is indicating – the gesture is unmistakable – so Castiel spits out the bite of cookie into Dean’s
waiting hand.

Dean makes a face, wrinkling his nose in disgust, but stalks over
to the trashcan and throws away the bite of cookie. He immediately goes to the
sink and flips on the faucet, starting to wash his hands.

“You are so lucky I love you, Cas,” he gripes,
scrubbing his hands together vigorously. “Do you know how many people I’ve let
spit food into my hands? Two. Sammy when he was little, and Ben. Two kids, not grown-ass adult angels.” He turns off the faucet and snatches up a paper towel, drying his hands as he turns back around. “I mean, at least it wasn’t fucking gum – there is nothing worse than carrying around chewed gum – but raisins
are a close second – “

Castiel is staring at him. He knows he’s staring, but
he can’t help it. The cookie is still grasped in his hand, forgotten, horrible
raisins and all.

Dean stops, raising an eyebrow. “What?”

“You said you love me.”

Both eyebrows shoot up this time, in a way that looks
distinctly panicked. “What?” Dean repeats. It’s the same word, but an entirely different tone of voice.

“You said -” He raises his empty hand so he can add air-quotes, “- ‘you
are so lucky I love you -‘”

Dean splutters. Throws the paper towel at the trashcan. Misses. “That was – Jesus, Cas, that’s just a turn of phrase, you know I didn’t – you’ve been
around humans long enough to – “

“I love you too.”

Dean sucks in a breath like someone just
punched him in the stomach. “What?” he says, a third time.

Castiel sets down the cookie on the table, brushing
off his fingers on his coat, and stands up. “I love you too.” He moves
around the table towards Dean, who’s standing frozen against the counter looking
remarkably like ‘a deer in the headlights’, as he’s heard people say. “I’ve loved
you for a long time. When I first cupped your soul in my hands and lifted you
out of Hell. When you fought me and raged against me and refused Heaven. When I spent every day in Purgatory trying to stay one step ahead of
you.”

It doesn’t look like Dean is even breathing. Castiel is starting to become a little concerned, but he needs to finish saying these things now that he’s started, or he might never take the chance again.

“I love the way you sing along to the radio, and the way you always make
the hard choices even though you hate them, and the way you say my name. I love how a successful hunt makes you happy, but so does baking. Although,” he adds, because he feels like he needs to be entirely honest here,
even if it hurts Dean’s feelings, “I do not like your oatmeal raisin cookies.”

That does it, finally, and Dean bursts into a startled
laugh, some of the tension ebbing out of his shoulders. He laughs until he snorts, and
then he raises a hand and rubs it across his face. Pinches the bridge of his nose. Covers his eyes. “Jesus, Cas – “

And then Dean kisses him, both hands coming forward to cup Castiel’s
jaw and curl his fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. 

It feels like he’s waited millennia for this, and Castiel kisses him
back.

Even if he does taste like raisins.

starsinursa:

destiel-is-cockles-fault:

I need jack to ask more about cas (to dean preferably). And I want him or Sam to tell dean how jack considers him his father, how he chose him.

I want to hear dean talking about cas. About how dorky or clueless or self-less and badass he was. About how many times he saved their asses, how cas saved him from perdition, how cas cared so much about jack to the point of risking his life.

Please, give me this!!!

When Jack goes to Sam and asks him, “Will you tell me about
Castiel?”, Sam gives him an unreadable look and only says: “I think you
should ask Dean.”

So Jack does, although he doesn’t understand why.

He finds Dean in the garage. The loud, black vehicle is turned on,
and he can feel the vibrations shaking deep in his chest before he even gets close.
The door on the driver’s side is open. Jack can see Dean in the vehicle, sitting with his head back against the
seat. He has one leg inside the car, the other leg stretched
out. His knee is faintly bouncing. Beneath the noise of the
engine, he can hear the sound of music playing from the radio.

Dean’s eyes are closed, and he doesn’t notice Jack standing in front of the open door.

“Will you tell me about Castiel?” he asks, for the second
time that day.

Dean opens one green eye and stares at him. Jack looks back, because he has learned the importance of eye contact if he wants to show that something is important to him.

Finally, Dean straightens up and jerks a thumb to the
passenger seat. “Get in.”

Jack rounds the car, opening the passenger door and
sliding into the bench seat. He shuts the door and waits, straight-backed,
hands on his knees, while Dean turns down the radio.

“What d’you wanna know?” Dean asks gruffly.

“Everything. Anything,” Jack says sincerely. “I don’t remember everything about my mother clearly, but I remember that sometimes she felt very alone, or felt very afraid. They were very strong feelings, strong enough that I could feel them too. But those feelings lessened, when Castiel was around.”

Dean makes a sound – a strange, choked kind of laughter –
but he leans back against the seat again. He’s quiet
for a few moments, and then he starts to talk.

And he talks, and he talks. And Jack listens.

___

Dean tells Jack about Sam dying, and making a deal with a demon to save him. Jack is surprised, and thinks that he doesn’t know very much about these two men after all, these men who brought him to their home and speak of Castiel with such affection and wistfulness in their voices.

Dean tells Jack about the forty years he spent in Hell, and it’s painful to listen to. Jack doesn’t particularly like hearing about this part, but he listens because he wants to hear about Castiel saving Dean from Hell and using Jimmy Novak as a vessel and helping stop the apocalypse.

Deans tells him about Castiel fighting a war in Heaven, and working with Crowley. Dean tells him about Castiel walking into the lake, and
returning as Emmanuel. Dean tells him about Castiel being tricked by Metatron, and the
angels falling from Heaven. Dean tells him about Castiel being possessed by
Lucifer, and meeting God and His sister.

Dean tells him about all of these things – an overview of Castiel’s history with the brothers, the good and the bad. The obvious cornerstones and momentous events of Castiel’s life. 

But these are the things that everyone would know about Castiel, and Jack is more interested in the other things that Dean tells him – the small things, the tiny details filling in the cracks like
grains of sand. These are the words that Jack soaks up, leaning slightly
towards Dean to catch every word, hands gripping his knees a little tighter.

About how Castiel learned to doubt and ask questions. About the shadows of Castiel’s wings. About the ugly trenchcoat and backwards tie that Castiel would never give up, because they had been part of Jimmy’s sacrifice. About how Castiel loved PB&J, at least for a while.
About the haunted look in Castiel’s eyes whenever he talked about Heaven. About the exasperated tone Castiel would
use when Dean or Sam would do something particularly stupid. About the subtle smile that would grow at the corners of Castiel’s mouth sometimes, when he was amused but pretending not to be, hidden unless you knew where to look.

Dean barely glances at Jack as he talks. Instead, he stares out the windshield with distant eyes, as if seeing something other than the garage of the Bunker. He gestures as he talks, lively hand movements to accentuate points in his stories. It’s the most that Dean has ever talked to Jack, and the longest he has ever gone without casting one of those secret, guarded looks in Jack’s direction, as if waiting for the moment that Jack will attack them – looks that Jack knows he isn’t supposed to see. But now, it’s as if Dean has almost forgotten he’s there, and is simply talking to himself. He hardly looks at Jack at all.

Once, while describing the process of teaching Castiel something called ‘knock knock jokes’, Dean even smiles – nothing more than a quick flash of teeth under faraway eyes. It’s not even aimed in Jack’s direction, but it startles him, because it’s the first time he’s ever seen Dean smile, and it looks so out of place that it almost seems wrong. Sam smiles, sometimes. But Dean doesn’t smile, at least not around him.

But Jack listens, and as he listens, he thinks he understands. 

When Jack thinks about his mother, there is an painful feeling, an empty, aching sensation – almost like being hungry, except the
feeling is in his chest, not his stomach. He might not have met her, but he had known her, and her absence is like he was born with a piece of himself already missing. He does not entirely feel whole. This is the same feeling he can see reflected in Dean’s eyes now, and it’s almost startling to realize that he is not alone in this.

Jack and Dean are not so different, he realzes, despite what Dean might think. Jack and Dean share something, and it’s called ‘loss’.

Dean has finally stopped talking, words sinking one by one under the rumble of the Impala until they stop coming at all. 

“You miss him,” Jack says, when it’s obvious that Dean isn’t going to say anymore. It’s not a question.

The answer is not immediate. It comes quietly, hushed, like footsteps in the dark.

“…yes.”

“You loved him,” Jack says.

“Yes,” Dean whispers.

With a slow movement, Jack reaches out and teaches Dean on
the shoulder, brief and light. A small connection, an acknowledgment.

“I am sorry,” Jack whispers, “for your loss.”

Dean nods. And then he lowers his head,
puts one hand over his eyes, and does something else that Jack never knew Dean could do: he cries.