Well, he did follow, didn’t he? Thank Chuck, Billie wanted to have none of that and sent him right back.
Oh yes he tried , he really wanted to stay dead, my poor baby 😢
Even if he got to dying he still wouldnt be with Cas. Cas was in the Empty and Dean would have gone to Heaven.
No, Dean wasn’t going to heaven after his death, not according to Billie , she promised that he and Sam were going to end up in the empty and Dean knows that.
The lips of the bottle are cold against Dean’s own. He likes it that way—the ice before the bitter taste and heat. His mouth the gateway between tangible and fantasy where he can pinpoint the spaces to untangle and let go.
It’s a game: Drink. Sink deeper into the motel pillows. Drink again.
It should make Dean’s skin feel less real. It should curb the way his eyes feel dry and heavy. Should lull him into a sense of heady nothingness. But Dean’s stomach churns against the liquid and the mattress is too hard.
“God,” he says, his chest struggling under an unseen weight. It isn’t a prayer or a curse. Instead, it’s a word to try and incinerate the nerves already sparking inside him. Finish the job.
But it isn’t God that answers. It’s Cas, standing like a wall. Strong. Fierce. Not like Dean, who tries to turn away from the angel the moment he appears inside the motel room. It’s Dean who can’t even bring himself to act like he’s ok. He only has enough reserves left now to hide. Only has the strength to close his eyes against the light with force.
And he shivers when Cas’s hand falls on the skin of his arm, holding it tightly.
Dean wonders if Cas can feel his blood move beneath his skin. Wonders if Cas sees any life left in the shell of Dean’s body.
“Dean,” Cas says, and it’s worry. It’s pain. It’s recognition that Dean exists, even if the hunter doesn’t want to be real right now.
Dean wants to look at Cas. He knows the angel has always seen him. And he knows Cas’s soul has spoken to him, too. If only the words could translate. Because maybe Cas could say what Dean needs to hear. Could fill up the empty room with words neither of them ever learned. Words like “hope,” and “safe.”
And Cas’s hand waits. Waits for Dean to allow it.
It takes a long time. It’s reluctant. It’s a fist that sprouts from a tight wad, blooming like a reluctant flower to slowly, lightly touch Cas’s skin back with his own. To give the angel the ok.
It’s brief. It’s shaky. It’s enough.
Dean feels Cas’s heat against his back as the angel lays down behind him. And Cas talks through his fingers, saying the things his mouth can’t. He tells stories with their skin, letting his palms run along Dean’s back and chest and arms. Anywhere he can find to spread his heat like balm.
Then it’s the angel’s mouth against his neck, breathing home into Dean’s spine and hair while Cas’s palm rests lightly on Dean’s stomach, skirting under the hunter’s shirt.
And when he finally feels Cas’s mouth on his back, small kisses through the fabric, the hunter wonders at the need for words at all. Because it isn’t desire, it’s worship. It’s Cas telling him he’s glad Dean’s alive. Glad he’s here.
Dean swallows. He flips onto his back, giving Cas further purchase on his skin. But Cas’s hands have stopped, and part of Dean wants to open his eyes. To see if Cas has left him here to the silence. But he can’t bring his eyes to face the emptiness. And as his skin starts to cool in the wait, he suddenly can’t breathe, Dean’s lungs jolting and shaking while he cuts off his own air supply.
Cas, Dean prays. Cas, touch me. Talk to me.
But the hands don’t return. Instead, Dean is startled when he feels a heavy weight on his chest, right against his heart. He can feel through his shirt where Cas’s ear is pushed up against his skin. Can feel Cas’s tiny breaths of admiration as the angel inhales at the sensation of each heart beat.
The burn inside Dean’s stomach starts to subside and his hand makes his way into Cas’s hair, resting his fingers in between patches of it. Neither of them move except to breathe. Dean doesn’t open his eyes. No one speaks.
But Dean can hear Cas anyway, telling him all the things he needs to fill the silence. And suddenly maybe, just maybe, Dean thinks he might know what hope feels like.
Lol yeah I can’t remember exactly what the timescales were but I think it was like 2 weeks or something? It is noticeably really short considering the “too damn long” line.
But yeah this also happened in reverse in like a day so 😉
“I know. You’re hoping Castiel will return to you.
Seriously tho, this is the best evidence to me of Dean’s feelings. I cannot fathom how this could be interpreted as platonic, Naomi’s words are unequivocally romantic.
Ok, so I’m sniffling and blogging with one eye open right now (hopefully raving more this weekend) but damn, this episode!!!
13×10 was phenomenally done as a backdoor pilot—the solid composition of the characters, the bad-ass feminist action, the new monsters, the premise, and the interpersonal relationships satisfied me so much! One AMAZING aspect? They utilized key parallels with Dean/Sam/Cas = Claire/Patience & Alex/Kaia. And 13×10 was one big-ass expositional Destiel episode via Claire/Kaia.
Claire and Kaia’s interactions were deliberately infused with homoerotic overtones and ABSOLUTELY mirrored Dean and Cas’ own dynamic (right down to 12×23 Dean re: Cas’ death in the AU).
The prolonged eye contact, touching (oh, the hand-holding), wordless tension, shy smiles (showing someone your scars–scars derived from personal life encounters–is an intimate act)—-
—-private conversations (three instances: 1. outside the house, 2. in the sitting room before Patience warned them about her vision [which makes you wonder what they were talking about prior to being interrupted *Claire/Kaia’s first offscreen gap*] 3. in Jody’s car), and–
Listen *addresses ‘you’re-reading-too-much-into it’ antis* this is almost word-for-word verbatim.
Their relationship “seems” advertently non-platonic because the audience is meant to read their relationship as non-platonic. They literally applied the exact same narrative tropes and visual cues of the Dean/Cas love story. I felt like I was watching an Ode to Destiel montage!! *sips bourbon*
Feel free to dismiss Claire/Kaia as familial in the context of Wayward Sister friendship because yeah, they did become friends, but they were narratively framed as having a distinct characteristic dynamic that’s different from the other girls:another Love and…Love.
Not to mention that their reaction shots held romantic potential i.e. there was time allotted to camera shots of Kaia’s dead body juxtaposed with Claire crying as she grieved, presenting the (tbh, textually overt) connotation that Claire cared for Kaia deeply unlike Alex and Patience. Sound familiar? Uh huh, the Sam vs Dean reaction contrast in response to Cas-centric problems.
Kaia also understood Claire’sfeelings without her needing to verbalize them (“You’re scared”) as well as stood with her in solidarity–a direct callback to Cas’ respective loyalty to Dean.
Bonuses: – Kaia being stabbed with a spear = Cas being stabbed with a spear by Ramiel in 12×12 – Claire’s journaling = Dean’s ‘girl journaling’ in therapy-themed 13×04
((**Note: Let’s say we exclude Destiel and observe Claire and Kaia as two female friends. It’s “”easier to see the gay”” since they are women, not men; lesbian fetishization by hypermasculine macho dudes within hegemonic heteronormative society makes Claire/Kaia blatant and it displeases me greatly because they parallel Dean/Cas WHO ARE MEN but anyway))
I LOVE IT.
EXACTLY.
And I mean… aside from the individual exact callbacks the overall set up of their story is just SO DESTIEL.
Claire, who is already established as a Dean parallel, needs softening, needs someone who makes her feel that she deserves to be saved, to be loved and that good things do happen in order to truly be herself as a whole, not just the projected Badass side but also the soft side.
Meanwhile Kaia needs someone to help her realise her true potential, understand her true self and stop suffocating who she really is and let herself be FREE.
I mean JEEEEEEEEZ! Where have we seen this exact list of tropes and ways to entwine two characters into each other’s emancipation endgames before?!
Yeah I am totally with you about all the above, the individual callbacks are great and so clear but it’s the overall storyline that I find most interesting as it’s a choice to write it like this PLUS using the individual callbacks. It’s like verbatim fanfiction of Destiel. Why?!
Because the original story works so well, it builds such a beautiful story why not reuse it and have a bit of fun seeing how long it takes people to catch on when they just condense it into one episode instead of a decade of show.
*Tink stares into the camera*
“You’re scared.” “Yeah. Jody always said I’d get myself killed–hunting. And I’d be like, ‘good’. Yeah. I’m gonna go out, then that’s how I gonna do it, doing something great.”
*waves hands around*
Also, two versions of her in confrontation calls back to 13×04 and our!Cas vs Empty!Cas, after which our!Cas came back. There was even worry that it was Empty!Cas who had come back.
It only makes sense that our!Kaia also comes back to complete the parallel. With her backstory, the two Kaias being both her in some way and getting rejoined, either via the spear or some later MacGuffin, currently seems the most likely scenario.
And as @elizabethrobertajones pointed out, that conversation with Claire in which they compared scars looks an awful lot like Chekov’s gun, with knowing the sources of the scars as proof of our!Kaia. I mean, it’s a cool scene in and of itself, but in retrospect, it looks like revealing that info was foreshadowing.
Adfjkshgd
Idk if our Kaia comes back right away but it’s clear she’s not been fridged never to be seen again as a person because introducing Bad!Kaia clearly means that Kaia herself is salvageable and there’s an ongoing relationship hidden behind whatever conflict Bad!Kaia brings, because this is the beginning of something huge for them all. Kaia is an intrinsic part of Claire, immediately… I love the parallel as well of Patience’s vision meshing dead!Claire with grieving!Claire which also parallels how Dean ended up passing into death and back through grief for Cas in 13×05… Gah, there’s so much going on and I am LIVING because oh my god I knew something was gonna be up with them but I’m FLOORED at what it turned out to be 😀
I mean the fact that we’re supposed to be shipping it is pretty blatant when Bobo literally tweeted “Dreamhunter” so… parallels ahoy! For people looking for the writer’s statement on whether these tropes are being intentionally used as part of an ongoing romantic narrative, the writer has effectively confirmed that these tropes are being intentionally used as part of an ongoing romantic narrative.
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