He’s a star, and you’re his satellite. He’s lost, somewhere out in the vastness of the universe, and you’re sending signals to find him, never knowing if they’ll reach him. They are prayers and they are desperate.
Your hands bleed from wringing them, and from clawing at the Earth to demand he comes back to the home he never knew he had. The one with you. The one where you erase the last few chapters, and when he tells you he loves you, you say it back. When they wrote your story, you always knew it would be a tragedy, but you’d hoped they’d spare him the same.
You remember huskin’ corn down in Indiana. Dad was gone a lot that year. Job didn’t pay for shit, but helped you get by when the money was tight. And money was always tight.
You spent fifty cents tryin’ to win your pops a watch out of one of those claw machines. You don’t say ‘I love you’ in families like yours. Practical gifts are permitted. A bottle of beer, a candy bar from the grocery store, given’ your kid brother the last bowl of Lucky Charms.
You didn’t win the watch. You won a medallion instead with an angel on it. Said ‘angels are watching over you’, same thing your mom used to say before she died. You tossed the coin in the river. Used it to make a wish. The angel hears you, but it’s not your time yet. The world isn’t ready for you.
The gospels of John Winchester, and rule number 24,601 playing on repeat in Dean’s head, telling him how he should act and who he should be. First problem: he doesn’t want to be that man anymore, wants to be his own. His own, and maybe Cas’s too.
Second problem: he can’t tell if it’s sweat or if they are tears falling down his cheeks. He is nestled beneath Cas, and they’ve taken to lazily rutting against each other, both spent at day’s end. Lips tenderly seek out lips, almost desperate as if to say please don’t go . If ‘never let them see you sweat’ means never to be vulnerable, he’d thrown that one out the window the second he’d laid eyes on the love of his life.
His eyes make a rival of the color blue. They shame the summer skies, make him think of the smell of fresh cut grass and lazy Saturdays. They recall to Dean’s memory billowy clouds and their shapes, naming each one passing overhead like it were its own constellation.
In Castiel’s eyes, he can almost taste seawater, blue and turquoise swirled, salty and thick; can hear the sound that they say is the ocean, held to one’s ear in form of a conch shell. They’re prettier than travel brochures laid out at the dime a dozen highway motels. His eyes are not a tourist trap, but they’ve captured Dean within them. They make him think of summer, of warmth. It’s the closest thing to homehe’s ever had.
They look at him in passing as though he is a ghost haunting their holy place: their church, their sacred pews, lined with Bibles and faith. They whisper words in harsh judgment. He doesn’t look the praying type, he knows that. It’s just that there’s so little left of him to care about who he was before purgatory.
So he’s learned to pray. Pray, as everyone does, to something that they hope exists. They pray for an answer, pray for a sign, pray for God. Dean Winchester prays for Castiel, although the church is not the first place that he’s looked. He’s kissed the pillow where Castiel had laid beside him, has fitted his fingers into the dulled scar against his arm. He has shed tears, and shed whatever is left of his soul upon every place that was sacred to he and the angel. None of them have brought him back. And so he prays with everyone else. The faithless with the faithful, the one with the many. Cas…Castiel… can you hear me? Can you hear me?
There are seagulls overhead, singing their off-key melodies. The ocean swells and reaches its crest, white foamed and infinite. Bare toes wiggle and sink into sand, and Dean discovers only as he bounds toward infinity that he cannot run. The sand is different here than in the desert, moist and thick, teeming with life.
He finally catches up to Cas, wraps his arms him as lukewarm water rushes to greet him. It’s up to their ankles now, and like all things, it comes and goes in turn. Dean chuckles, planting a soft kiss against the back of the angel’s nape, “What was the point of me goin’ through all that effort to roll up your pants and make you take your shoes off,” another kiss, “if you were gonna forget to take off the coat.”
If one could see this tender moment from further upshore, they would glimpse silhouettes melting into the sunset, both figures turning to embrace, and then… simply being .
for@profoundnet‘s 100 word challenge Content Warnings: Deals with the aftermath of 15x18 and Dean’s grief after losing Castiel.
Without Castiel, the world gives off a black and white vibe. It’s that old-fashioned Mayberry kind of ordeal. The world is righted of its injustices, it keeps spinning. Dean’s been given the chance to live the life he’s always wanted. Retirementwith a white picket fence and an apple pie in the window: it’s always been his end goal. Right?
Except now, he realizes that within his heart, that ending also bore ocean-blue eyes, and an old ratty trenchcoat. More than the comfort of a white picket fence, maybe it had always been about the idea of two arms around him at his worst. ‘I love you’ was a prelude. How can he live a life in gray when he’s beheld a spectrum of color that he only just learned bore the name ‘love’?
Guys , if you feel like dying a little more , watch this, you will regret it.
Credit goes to this wonderful lady on twitter who removed the background music, I did some work on the colors, increased the sound, and here we are , 2:20 min of pain, pray for me
Disclaimer: Yes this is a sock for safety reasons. Post is long, but please read it.
No shit there I was checking my email, as you do, and I saw I had a screener from one of the market research groups I’m signed up with. On average, I do a market research thing every 3-4 months because I like non-reportable money. And giving my opinions. And talking to people behind 2 way mirrors without having to go to a police station.
Market research itself was early December, 2016. First email contact with the screener was late October or early November.
I see it’s an “offsite,” meaning a market research company is subcontracted by another company who wants to do the market research at their own facility, but doesn’t want to find the participants on their own, so they use the Market research company (in this case Schlesinger and Associates) as an intermediary. I can’t remember if this screener identified itself as being for TV, not all do, some might identify only as entertainment, and some might be even more vague until you get into the screener. Regardless of the identification for the screener (TV or entertainment), I fill out almost every screener I receive unless it’s obvious, from the subject, they won’t want me (ie looking for certain types of professionals)- it didn’t matter, then, if the subject matter was something I particularly like, I would’ve filled it out anyway.
After normal, but more detailed than usual demographics questions, the screener asked about TV habits. Eventually, it said the word “fandom” and asked what TV fandoms I’d count myself in. It was roughly a list of 20 shows and listed “fandom” (defined as I watch every episode and read additional materials about the show. Note this is not what fandom itself would consider fandom, but people most fandom dwellers would still count as GA). Beyond fandom, one could indicate they: watch all episodes but don’t seek out more, watch most episodes, have seen some episodes, watched a few, or haven’t watched. (I just got a screener for soap operas and realized that part was the same and made note). Therefore, fandom, to corporate, are people who watch everything and maybe buy some swag for the show- magazines/shirts. Then, they asked about conventions I might have attended. And then asked about my dream vacation, so I babbled a lot about my dream to go to SDCC (I hadn’t at this point). Supernatural was on the list of shows, so I made sure I answered the essay questions about it, because why not? It was my favorite of what was listed. It was a long screener. I don’t remember the rest. Though sometimes I might remember a detail if a screener reminds me of it. Most fun screener I’ve filled out.
A few days/weeks later, I got a call for step 2- the phone screener for the people that sounded good when filling out the form. And where they try and make sure your answers match or fit that same person who answered them. I passed step 2, and was told there would be homework, and asked ifI’d have time for it, since I would only have so many days to watch the assigned material and write essays about them.
Homework arrives: I have to watch and write essays on all the bonus features of Supernatural S10. There might’ve been something in there from another year, too. And all the bonus features from some season of Big Bang Theory. Essays for all of it, too. And I mean essays, not short answers. It was like the SATs, and I was analyzing blooper reels (among other things). I still don’t get why they wanted essay questions on blooper reels, but I’ll always happily write one again cause that was the funniest essay to have to write!
I had to both print and bring and email all my answers ahead of time. I did not keep them. I’m honestly curious what I might’ve written.
So in December, I get to go to WB’s market research department. Fun fact: the entrance to that building faces what had recently been the Supernatural poster. I check in. At this point I think it’s a group. Because most market research is done in groups. Also they said I was there for the “DVD bonus features study”
I wait in the lobby, but I’m surprised there seem to be very few others around. I don’t think I got there too early, but all the others were taken back before me. And they didn’t seem to be there for the same study. Oh and I wore business casual clothes but had some show-based earrings for fun.
Finally a nice lady brings me back to a room. She turns off the lights and gives me a fancy remote and has me play with a new system for watching bonus features. I had to start with BBT. Then we did something else. Then I was allowed to scroll through and I picked Supernatural, and answered all the things. By this point I figured I would be released soonish because I was supposed to be there only for an hour. And this was at least half an hour at the most. No clock, though and cell phone off. Maybe this part went faster than I remember, but it was less interesting so it felt longer? Or less interesting compared to what came next.
Wow! This is remarkable. I do think your efforts helped in many ways. Maybe their market research brought them a larger sample of heteronormativity over queer representation, but in-depth analysis like yours must have persuaded them to balance the levels within the show.
the first hug post empty has gotta be soooooo embarrassing for them like cas hugs jack and sam for normal amounts of time and then dean is there in the background being all idk tense and scared and cas is obviously apprehensive but dean is like. you know avoiding eye contact as he awkwardly sidles up for his and then they are engaging in the worlds worst most hesitant hug before dean starts clinging and burying his face in cas’ neck and then they stand there in silence for so long that sam and jack leave to go get a snack
crucially after they have hugged it out for twenty minutes the first thing they do is have a massive fight
