I have now giffed this moment for microanalysis because I saw him pat Cas’s shoulder but I had missed the thing with his eyes and I had to see it for myself and just:
HE ACTUALLY DOES COMPLETELY AVOID EYE CONTACT AND GO STRAIGHT FOR THE SHOULDER.
And then he’s like BEER AND SNACKS ARE SO INTERESTING I KNOW YOU JUST GOT YOUR GRACE BACK BUT I HAVE TO UNPACK THESE RIGHT NOW, RIGHT THIS SECOND
And this last one just kills me because Cas is clearly SO UPSET about having to lie to Dean again and you can see Sam do this little micro-frown thing and he can totally tell Cas isn’t happy about the lying. And then there’s Charlie who appears to be LITERALLY WITNESSING AN OTP MOMENT. Like fucking look at her and that glowing smile. She’s not looking at Cas at all, she’s looking at Dean and I feel it in my soul that her internal monologue has got to be something along the lines of “MY SWEET LITTLE BISEXUAL PRODIGY! OH THE PLACES YOU’LL GO! (like Cas’s ass)”
I mean honestly, if she were paying even an iota of attention to Cas in this moment, she would have seen him in full on I-AM-LYING-TO-DEAN guilt mode. But no, she just watches Dean be reunited with his “dreamy” angel and UGH I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH TWO FUCKING IDIOTS!
“Take my advice and live for a long, long time. Because the maddest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die.”
Does Quixote himself say it? Is Cas being compared to Don Quixote? His attempts to execute Heaven’s missions (like tracking down rogue angels) comparable to Quixote’s delusional tilting at windmills??
Wow there’s some serious meta in that I wish i had more time to think about it!
if i’m not mistaken, don quixote does everything he does in order to impress the woman he loves, whom he sees as a noblewoman but is in fact a peasant, someone who’s worth nothing. dean is referred to as a ‘back-road nothing’ by jacob styne. i’m not saying what i’m saying, but yeah i’m saying it. don quixote acts all noble but in fact he acts to impress the person he’s in love with. compare it to a certain metatron quote about cas doing everything just for one man…
thank you for not saying what you’re saying but still saying it!
well said
heh
(best not to compare Quixote’s love for his
Dulcinea too closely to Cas and dean tho – the point with Quixote was that the woman was a stranger to him and he basically picked her to call his true love at random because according to him a true knight needed a woman to love from afar, part of what is called the “courtly love tradition,” so what he loved wasn’t the woman herself but a FICTION of a woman he projected onto her… I would say Dean’s feelings for Lisa fit Quixote’s for Dulcinea a bit closer…)
Also, IIRC, Don Quixote and Dulcinea/Aldonza never even speak to each other in the book. Sancho knows her but that’s it. I remember the first time I read it being exasperated that nothing at all ever happens. And it’s a super long book for nothing to happen in, too!
The musical is different and they do speak and she even reciprocates his love by the end (though it’s too late).
Ok, but. Charlie. Charlie has read the books, and she knows about “I’ll just wait here then,” and “I did it, all of it for you,” and about that one time when Cas disappeared for months and Dean worried himself to bits. She looks at Dean, then looks back at Castiel just in time to catch his reaction
(Cas looks like the guy in romantic comedies who watches his love interest walk down a staircase in her prom dress. Open-mouthed and gobsmacked), and her smile. Her smile.
Sometimes I just need to stop and remind myself that season 8 is a thing that actually happened. Season 8 has given us so much, jesus christ! Like last night I was rewatching 8×08 and even in the fucking recap… THEY HONESTLY USE AMELIA TALKING ABOUT HER DEAD HUSBAND/LOVE OF HER LIFE WHO HAS BEEN GONE FOR 8 MONTHS AS A SEGUE INTO DEAN BEING IN MOURNING FOR CAS. ALSO PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS THE SAME EPISODE THAT WE FIND OUT HER HUSBAND/LOVE OF HER LIFE IS NOT ACTUALLY DEAD!*cough* Perhaps similarly to a certain angel who was presumed dead but came back just last episode?