A/N: This is for @thesassywallflower for the @spnfanficpond’s Secret Santa Fic Exchange! (I had to pinch hit for the person who drew your name because they had a family emergency, so I hope you like this quickly-written thing!) They listed a few different pairings they would like, and my weird brain said, “SHOVE THEM ALL IN THERE!” Well, that wasn’t physically possible, but I fit three of them in, somehow. Not beta-read because I’m a savage and time is a cruel mistress.
Summary: This is technically post-15x19, but in a canon-divergent world where certain folks are somehow back because reasons.
Pairings: Dean x Donna, Sam x Eileen, Cas x Meg
Word count: 1230 words
Sam landed so heavily next to Dean that he sent the gliding seat flying back hard enough to nearly tip the thing over. It was a pea-green two-seater outdoor gliding rocker that had been Donna’s grandparents’ from sometime in the early ’70s, but she kept it greased and looking good. Dean appreciated the work she put into it, just like Donna appreciated the work Dean put into Baby. He shifted to counterweight his moose brother and successfully stopped an accident from happening while glaring at the culprit.
Sam was so drunk his cheeks were bright red and his eyes rested on somewhere near Donna’s garden shed, completely oblivious to how he’d nearly knocked everything over. Dean wanted to grunt at his brother in disapproval, it would have gone well with his mood, but Sam looked to be in a similar mood.
“I love how much Donna and Eileen and Cas and Meg are getting into the holidays, but man, I don’t think I can listen to another version of The 12 Days of Christmas. That last one was just dogs barking, I think? Who comes up with all of this stuff?”
As far as I’m concerned, I’m now imagining the Empty having to deal with Gabriel and Balthazar redecorating the Empty into the angel/demon afterlife (probably with a lot of wacky alternate realities and bad porno) with all the free will angels and redemptive demons invited, Cas finding Meg and eventually Jack again for his true happy ending that he can have and Crowley probably trying to install himself as king again. Then when Rowena finally exits as Queen of Hell, she’ll join and Crowley will annoyed, but Gabriel will be happy to see her again. LOL.
Megstielers also got robbed hard with all that setup of Cas still pining for Meg for YEARS, the Empty using her image (not Dean!) to taunt him (the Empty clearly saw Meg in Cas’ head when it could have taken the form of anyone, including Cas like last time) and a whole dropped plot thread that Cas made a deal with Ruby to break a demon out of the Empty, which only makes sense with the one and only demon he’d actually want to let out of the Empty. That’s dangling one ‘ship a whole bunch of carrots (like every single Clarence reference for a decade) to rip the rug out from under them.
I suppose I should’ve seen it coming when the previously on segment for 15x13 was a Pizza Man and the Babysitter retrospective that shoved Cas out of the Pizza Man role beside Babysitter Nurse Meg to shove Dean into Megstiel’s sexy times meme. I guess it turned Cas into just Dean’s Baby in a Trench Coat (which was an insult about being useless to Dean’s cause without powers, which suggests Cas has no worth to him otherwise), since he got infantilized with the removal of the Pizza Man originally being him.
I still haven’t watched the episode. The Tumblr crap is that off-putting.
What should’ve been an epic moment in Cas’ story is now tainted by his love of humanity, found family and free will (his real love story is with all of humanity and finding belonging, in spite of always being on the outside looking in on a life he can’t have because he’s not human) being reduced to horny girls who just want fetish smut with Dean and don’t give a fig about canon Cas outside of a toxic, abusive crack!ship. It’s always so immature and vapid!
It was immediately clear when I joined the fandom that shockingly few gave a crap about any character but Dean, even refusing to see what he’s become in later seasons. Also numerous examples where they admit having not seen the show in a decade or only knowing the show via manipulative .gif sets. Cas and Sam (if they remember him at all) are just props or prizes to be won. They ignore context of familial/platonic relationships. Canon love interests aren’t good enough because they’re not the big prize of being a main. I also note the deluge of Wincest girls who hate Cas for existing (he’s in their way) in the anti-Destiel tag.
I can’t say the .gifs are making me want to watch, even though the dialog is vague enough to still fit Cas’ actual character for the general audience who isn’t glued to social media.
As for Dean’s non-reaction, I had similar problems with Jensen’s constipated acting back in 15x03 when Cas finally walked away while Dean looked like he couldn’t care less, which the writers coincidentally praised Jensen for (holy crap that interview was up his backside) and completely ignored Misha actually giving a good performance in a scene that actually meant something long coming for Cas. I certainly can’t say the same about the quality of this scene, which just looks forced on both ends.
I hope I like the episode more than the sounds of it, but my hopes aren’t high. This is not how I wanted Cas’ final moments on the show to be.
After:
Well, I got up the stomach to watch it tonight. Thankfully, in context, it definitely got blown way out of proportion by what the Hellers turned it into (as usual). Yeah, even when watching while unfortunately not blind to the wackadoodle fandom discourse, it played out better on screen than the .gifs. And frankly, a whole lot less like creepy Care Bear stare nightmare fuel than the few choice screenshots kept showing (yikes). I still wish Sam and Jack had been there, because they’re just as much part of what connected Cas to feeling like part of a family (even more so in the later years), but it’s not the total monstrosity it was turned into online.
Average viewers who just take canon as is without trying to read into it what they want to be there instead, IMO, will safely interpret it platonically (even if coming after a particularly hellish few years in Dean’s personality rot where the whole friendship was beginning to be questionable) more often than not because that’s what the canon has said for a dozen years. Again, I repeat that Cas already told the Winchesters he loved them when he thought he was dying.
It’s a crime to have Cas’ perfect philia (brotherly), storge (parental) and agape-style (sacrificial and unconditional) loves being immaturely twisted into eros in a way that degrades the whole meaning of the character’s journey. People telling each other they love one another when it’s not sexual should never be mocked into being afraid to do so because of this insidious, willful misinterpretation. If only somebody had told Cas they love him instead of him always being the one with his heart on his sleeve!
This character went from being tortured into a robotic, emotionless, ancient, not-remotely-humanoid being who couldn’t relate to the simplest of human needs to being someone deeply in love with humanity and wanting to find belonging amongst it despite knowing it would always end with him watching them all grow old and die after having families and such experiences angels are forbidden from having (another reason why Jack was so important to Cas’ story).
The wording is valid for that philia/agape interpretation, given Cas definitely equated Dean (whom Cas watched sacrificing himself for Sam endlessly, including why he had to be raised from perdition in the first place) with a guide role in his learning to understand humanity and proudly-defiant free will before he could love it. It’s valid enough to say that Cas wouldn’t have broken his programming permanently without being challenged to question everything he’d ever believed and give up his entire angelic belonging. That much of it did begin with Cas just happening to be the angel who succeeded in the Hell rescue.
Obviously, it’s also canon that Cas had a long history of not following orders and getting lobotomized by Naomi, but Cas actually understanding humanity and what free will means did happen only after this particular rebellion. I’m very glad at least that was in the speech, but of course, it’s being hopelessly ignored.
I stand by my interpretation that what Cas can’t have has always been the tragic version of The Little Mermaid where she turns into sea foam in the end. Cas has always looked in on what everyone else takes for granted from the outsider’s perspective. There’s a part of him that will always be left out, no matter how well he learns to fit in and how much those around him begin to treat him as a real person. Cas never really got to truly belong with humanity, no matter how much he loves and is loved by it. He’s also not getting to stay where he wants to be. There’s no Pinocchio ending for Cas that turns him into a real Winchester.
Sadly, Dean’s constant othering of him and Jack like they’re just more monsters to hunt only alienated them more. Jack was someone Cas could relate to as a supernatural being capable of human emotions, which might also have furthered his draw towards Meg. Sam was also someone Cas could relate to as freaks and abominations amongst their own kinds. Sam always had that same struggle, also with his own family. It goes a long way towards explaining why Sam was always so empathetic to Cas and Jack in a way that Dean couldn’t be. All three kept conflicting with that black & white humans = good/other = bad mindset that sometimes creeps in with Dean. When Cas was Dean’s “best friend” in the early days, he rationalized it by thinking of Cas as being “like” a human (“You used to be human, or at least like one.”).
Yet it still remains true that Cas often found himself looking to Dean to teach him about humanity back when he didn’t know enough about it to be inconspicuous amongst them. Dean gave him the crash course in both what humanity is willing to do for each other, but also its flaws and failings at the same time.
Perhaps the saddest scenes in the episode were actually Sam watching everyone poof in front of him. Sam has really been forced to watch a lot of death scenes this season all by himself (as with Rowena), but he looked the most broken by Eileen’s. Cas is going to be hard on him, because I genuinely think Sam was far closer to him in the end. Sam was the one who actually was trying to reach out to Cas when Dean repeatedly kept him out of the loop. Sam being left out from the final words with Cas or even hearing first-hand about the deal with the Empty just furthers that tragedy. While Dean has been raging at everything in sight, Sam and Cas have both looked broken, sad and tired all season.
Duncan, Angel, Tenth Doctor, Castiel & Lucifer - Who Wants To Live Forever
I made a sequel to my last fanvid, again from the Highlander soundtrack (Queen), but this time including more immortals that have a lot of parallels and similar tropes. Namely, Duncan MacLeod, Angel, the Tenth Doctor, Castiel and Lucifer Morningstar.
I’ve outdone myself on angst.
I just finished my binge-watch of Highlander not long ago, so I thought I’d add a couple of characters I hadn’t used yet.
Warnings: Fluff, Castiel’s Hair (which, tbh, might warrant a NSFW tag by itself)
A/N: Just a short little Megstiel fluff for y’all. Special thanks to @blacktithe7 for being my beta on this one. Enjoy y’all!
Castiel stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, still slightly fogged from his warm shower. Simple human tasks such as bathing - although pointless to the angel - had a rather calming effect that he had grown attached to.
His hair was still damp and in a mess as he grabbed a small section. He twirled it around his finger, noticing how it had grown. Human hair grew, he thought. However, a human vessel didn’t age- or at least shouldn’t.
Castiel had keep note of Jimmy’s body aging. Although subtle, it was not as it should have been. He often wondered if, by spending as much time on Earth as he did, he was growing almost human.
The thought passed as it mattered little.
Castiel grabbed the scissors and raised them to the bunch of hair he held. Opening the pair, he took a deep breath.
“Woah, woah, slow down there, angel boy.” Meg enter the bathroom, shaking her head with a smile. “Now what exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“Cutting my hair,” he answered sternly. “A regular task,” he continued, “of which I didn’t think required interrogation.”
Meg smirked. She reached for the scissors, having to raise her feet in order to match his height. She took them, then returned them to their proper place amongst the bathroom shelves. “Well, you thought wrong.”
She walked closer to Castiel, looking up into his blue eyes. Running her fingers through his hair, she clenched her hand to pull him down into a kiss.
Castiel felt Meg’s lips form into a smile as he pulled her into his chest.
Kissing: another human task he had grown fond of.
When their makeout session ended, Meg returned her gaze to his hair. Shaking her hand through it, making more of a mess than it had originally been, she just smiled.
“Yeah,” she said, “there’s no way I’m ever letting you shorten this beautiful chaos you’ve got going on.”
Castiel thought for a moment. Although he was not much of a flirt, or even knew how to be a proper part of a relationship for that matter, he returned with, “Well, if it means more kisses like that, I’ll never want to cut it.”
~~~
A/N (pt. 2): Hey guys, lemme know if you liked this/wish to be tagged in future work. Feel free to PM me (or ask) if you have any drabble ideas. :)
Tagging@singingflames because I know Megstiel is your secret pleasure.
