pluto

plutossymposium on AO3

Castiel/Dean Winchester, background Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester

Rating: Mature

Chapters: 10/10

Words: 104,855

Post-canon fix-it, Canon Divergence, POV alternating; References to philosophy, literature, poetry, and biblical scripture

Summary:

Everything Castiel is, everything he’s made of, is hitched to a thin golden string attached to Dean Winchester’s soul, tugging him closer, begging him to let them collide.

He recalls Aristophanes’ story of creation; the one in which humans were split in two as a divine punishment, forever in search of their other half.

Cas is not human, but he understands the sentiment.

In which Dean is finally in a world without impending catastrophe, but it's also a world without Cas. He spends all day fighting not to think about it, and at night, his sleep is haunted by grief.

But then his dreams start to feel more and more real, and no grave can hold Cas down.

~

My first fic!

things to look forward to:

dean angst

cas being bad at phone calls

more dean angst

awkward hangouts

wyll?

______

He sucks in a deep breath, his chest expanding against his fist. Being aware of your body is a suffocating feeling. It feels like his ribcage is a prison, its forbidding claws trapping rather than protecting the delicate organs inside of it. 

It’s this thought that reminds him of the script etched into the enamel of his ribs. The memory of a foreign, internal ache, a kind of sting he’s never experienced in a life full of every type of pain imaginable, knocks the breath out of him, just like it did the first time. Heaven might think his body is theirs for the taking, might have even designed it to their liking, but this one small thing is something they never accounted for. This wasn’t a part of their divine plan.

The carvings in his bone are there because Dean, against all odds, convinced an angel to help him do what’s right. Not Sam, not Bobby, not his dad, just him, and him alone.

Well, not entirely alone. 

It occurs to Dean that for maybe the first time in his life, he has an ally—a friend—who’s actually, actively on his side, come Hell or high water (and it really might). Sure, he’s had friends before, has some now—Lee, Ash, Pamela, Jo and Ellen, Cassie, kind of, if you want to boil what they had down to friendship—but it’s always been conditional. He could never ask for too much, or reveal too much, or it was over. Or they were dead.

Cas clutched his soul in his hands, and turned his back on Heaven because Dean told him it was the right thing to do, and he’s still around. There’s nothing Dean could do or say that could be more than any of that. It feels like there’s nothing he could do to ruin it. He even got Cas killed, like he got his dad and Ash and Pamela killed, and he came back. He came back to Dean, saved his life, and painted protective warding onto his skeleton. 

It’s the second marking Cas has given him, Dean realizes. The handprint on his shoulder, which used to be a reminder of Heaven’s claim on him, has taken on a new meaning. When it was red-hot, Castiel was an ice-cold marble statue that pulled Dean out of Hell at Heaven’s command, and now that it’s pale pink, Cas is a brother-in-arms, someone who came through for Dean when he needed it most. When his actual brother had let him down worse than he ever thought possible. 

He opens his hand again, splaying it wide, smoothing it over the front of his shirt. His body is imperfect, inside and out, scarred and tattooed with symbols of his rebellion, his decisions, his life.

______

ao3 link: Cathedral of Cards

i'm so sick of this narrative that queer people's love doesn't need to be reciprocated, just accepted, and that's some "beautiful thing" that we, as the audience, should be grateful for. these actors and show runners keep pushing the message that gay people should be happy that the people in their lives don't outright reject them, and that the audience is greedy and unreasonable for being upset that queer characters' feelings aren't reciprocated. to me, it feels like telling your queer audience that they should be happy about and grateful for acceptance of their identity, not that it should be expected of the people in their lives, and that hoping for reciprocation is unreasonable--because your love is queer. and, on top of that, sometimes you not only get no reciprocation, but you might also DIE after confessing your feelings, and you should be happy with that "beautiful" moment because the guy you confessed to didn't spit in your face and call you a slur.

i never actually expected destiel to go canon, because that's giving the show runners far too much credit. however, to tell the disappointed fans who did hope to see that love story play out that they should've been happy with the representation they got (which, let's be clear, was a SINGLE SCENE, which was vague enough that people STILL argue to this day it wasn't actually queer, and that ended in the queer character's DEATH) is ridiculous and so out of touch. queer people do not need to be happy about subpar representation.

also, it is outright homophobic to compare (tw) winc3st to destiel, period. in no way are they remotely similar (other than being same-sex pairings), and saying that a gay fanon ship is "the same" as a ROMANCE between BROTHERS is disgustingly ignorant and genuinely offensive.