I’ll pray for you.
Tag: ow pain
—but I guess I was never much of a writer ( j.p. )
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.
coda for 13.1
For better or worse, the
bunker’s in shit shape. Repairs take up a lot of their time, and while it’s
hard work, Dean’s thankful for the distraction. If he works himself hard, he’s
so damn tired when he crawls into bed that he doesn’t think or dream or cry.The worst part is that
damn kid starts following Dean around like a lost puppy. For a while, he seemed
to like Sam more, which was just fine with Dean. Dean doesn’t like the kid for
obvious reasons (“He’s Lucifer’s kid,” he tells himself. “Enough said.” “Sure,”
he answers back. “Has nothing to do with him being the reason Cas got
killed.”), and it creeps him out when he feels the kid watching him.“Keep him on a shorter
leash,” Dean tells Sam one night. “I don’t want him around me.”“Yeah right.” Sam snorts.
“I’ll just tell the all powerful nephilim what to do.”“He ain’t all powerful.”
There’s one very important thing he can’t do, so he’s basically useless.
Can’t even control his powers.“Well, he’s more
powerful than me. And he’s not even doing anything. Just give the kid a
break.”Since Sam refuses to
help, Dean goes back to ignoring Jack. The kid’ll take a hint eventually,
right?Wrong. A week more of
having a silent shadow trailing him throughout the bunker has Dean grinding his
teeth and wanting to punch a few more walls.“What?” Dean snaps one
day. He’d been tuning the Impala just for something to do, and the normally
soothing task has him completely on edge because can’t Jack just leave him
the fuck alone!? “What do you want? Why you keep following me around?”Jack doesn’t even look
taken aback by the outburst. “I want to learn more about humanity.”“What? TV, the internet,
and Sam not good enough resources for that? Why you bugging me?”Jack tilts his head to
the side and Dean wants to go over and physically straighten it. How dare
this kid be like him.After a moment of
consideration, Jack answers. “I know my father—”“Cas isn’t your father.”
“… I know my father
was fond of humanity, and of you and Sam in particular. If Castiel trusted you
both, I thought you would be good models for how to behave. Maybe you’d give me
insights on how to be the type of person Castiel and my mother would have
wanted me to be.”Dean wipes grease off
his hands and doesn’t meet Jack’s eye. “Yeah, well, stick with Sam. I ain’t
exactly a role model.”“That’s not true.”
The flashback is short
but vivid, and Dean feels short of breath. It’s like the world’s closing in on
him, and he gropes for the Impala just so he can keep his balance.“Sam says that you and
Castiel were close,” Jack continues on, as if Dean’s not having a nervous
breakdown in the middle of the garage. “Closer than he and Castiel were. I
thought that would make you a better choice to learn about humanity. Surely
Castiel saw something in you that was worth seeing.”“I-I’m not— he didn’t—”
His knees give out and he lets himself fall to the ground. Jack lays a hand on
his left shoulder and Dean shudders. Like father like son, he supposes.“You are, and he did.”
As if Jack at all knows what Dean meant to say. Dean sure as fuck
doesn’t know, so it’s absurd to think this month old creature possibly could.They stay there like
that, with Dean trying to catch his breath and wishing he could cut out his
heart, it’d hurt less. Jack stays at his side, kneeling beside him and keeping
a steady hand on his shoulder. When his head clears, Dean can’t help but laugh
at how fucked up his life is. He’s losing his shit because the love of his
life—an angel, for fuck’s sake—is dead, and that same angel’s adopted
son—the spawn of the literal devil—is trying to comfort him.What a world.
“Alright, enough of
that.” He shrugs off Jack’s hand and pushes himself to his feet. “I’m telling
you, kid, I’m not special. And I don’t appreciate the silent brooding as you
watch me do stuff. It’s creepy.”Cas used to be creepy,
too.“I’m sorry.” Jack looks
more frustrated than apologetic. “I’ll go—”“Whoa whoa, I didn’t say
that.” He hands a tool to Jack and ushers him over to the Impala. “If you’re
gonna stick around, you gotta make yourself useful.”“I don’t know anything
about cars.”“You think I did either
when I started? No. You gotta learn. You said you wanted to learn how to
be a better human, why not start with learning how to be human, period. We can
add in the morals and stuff along the way. Got it?”The corner of his mouth
perks up a little. “I got it.”“Alright, so this here
is the battery…”Dean doesn’t want to be playing
babysitter or uncle or dad to this kid, but Jack has a point. This right here,
the two of them bonding over the Impala’s hood? This is what Cas would’ve
wanted. And if Dean can’t save Cas this time, well, at least he can do his best
to follow his wishes.
country roads
take me home
WHO IN THE HELL GAVE YOU THE RIGHT?!
And we keep living anyway
We rise and we fall
And we break
And we make our mistakes
(insp.)
I’ve no words for these feelings ;___;