i'm not bad, i'm just written that way

first of all, let me just say that having dean contract a bloodborne disease through a back alley fight that was HEAVILY coded as sexual assault was like. so homophobic. i don’t even know where to start with how homophobic it was

that being said, that scene, combined with the digs about glitter and the twilight jokes and the sire’s comments, codes vampirism as gay and gayness as monstrous (and it’s not the first time they do that with vampires) (update: it’s a sera gamble thing.)

update i just saw this post from 6.05 and i think it speaks for itself?!

and it’s this vampirism. this monstrous thing inside of him. that messes up dean’s relationship with lisa

(and one could certainly argue that it was the violence of his life inevitably spilling into lisa and ben’s that really messed up their relationship but like. the lines drawn in this particular ep between violence and monstrousness and homosexuality that just. it’s about the violence but it’s also about all the sides of dean that he doesn’t want to show lisa and ben but ends up showing them anyway)

and dean killing the entire nest at the end by himself. and then being cured by hunters of the thing that made him monstrous.

it’s. people have said it before but sera gamble’s era was just like. the EPITOME of gay and homophobic writing.

the one with an easy laugh, dean, has an opinion on seemingly everything in the shop, and can and will get into enthusiastic discussions about almost any pop culture at the drop of a hat. turns out that old people can be….kinda cool, one teen decides after a thirty-minute discussion of the cultural impact of the Hatchet Man series.

the next week, when dean squints suspiciously and asks what tiktok is, that same teen is reminded that, while he’s kinda cool, he’s definitely still Old.

the darker-haired owner, cas, knows the ending to every. single. story, not only in the store but probably in the entire world. however, he has absolutely no idea what spoiler etiquette is. great for book reports, not so great for game of thrones discussions.

no, they do not carry those shitty supernatural books. please stop asking.

most assume that the name, bradbury’s, is a reference to the famous sci-fi author. however, when asked, dean will smile and say it’s named after an old friend.

turns out they can also thank this ‘old friend’ for the free wifi, so score

while dean seemingly has an Opinion on everything, cas, despite (or maybe because of?) his encyclopedic knowledge, discusses everything from thundercats to dickinson in the same measured, almost puzzled, tone.

no one’s quite sure if he even has favorites, and some people wonder if this whole shop is just his way to indulge dean, until the day he shuts down a gatekeeping nerd complaining loudly about fake geek girls. according to witnesses of the storied event, he tilted his head, kinda squinted at the guy, and then read him for filth in the same calm cadence he uses whenever he refers to star wars as “the space knight movies dean likes.”

his favorites are the little prince. and destiny’s child. which makes sense in a way.

there are a few kids that make a daily habit of setting up their homework at the reading nook in the back. dean and cas mostly leave them to it, but every once in a while they’ll get roped into helping with homework–dean always begs off, shoving cas toward them instead, but one time cas is home when their kid is sick and dean does….a really good job walking them through a physics problem, actually.

speaking of their kid, jack is possibly the only person stranger than his dads. a real sweetheart, always ready to talk riverdale, but also no one is ever quite sure what will come out of his mouth next. the days when he mans the checkout counter are the best.

look. dean and cas are cute, in a gross old guy couple kinda way. and it’s kinda hard to find gay elders in a small town in the middle of bumfuck kansas. it’s nice to see a gay couple that has it all figured out y’know?

the first time someone mentions this to dean he laughs for about three minutes and asks what gave them the impression they had their shit together. marta, the shy freshman who brought it up, mentions jack and the shop, and dean looks across the record aisles to cas, shelving books on the opposite wall. ‘yeah, okay.’ he admits, a soft smile on his face. ‘i guess we’ve got some of it figured out.’

he gives marta an overly enthusiastic thumbs up when she comes in holding her girlfriend’s hand the next week. which. embarrassing.

this seriously intimidating blonde chick shows up one year in mid-march and is immediately put to work behind the register. as she’s checking a kid out, she accuses cas of collecting kids. cas huffs a laugh, tucks a free copy of the latest miss america comic into the kid’s bag, and says something about it being a tradition that started with her. the blonde chick rolls her eyes and ducks her head to hide a smile.

the way that dean is trying to go ‘off-book’ the whole episode and he can’t until he finally asks for help

the way dean’s “you have tested me and thrown me every which way“ sounds like something straight out of the psalms

but then, it’s 2002 and dean is turning 23 all by himself, and he hasn’t seen his dad in months, and something in him just goes, ‘fuck it’ and he picks up a bottle of bleach at the drug store and goes to town. he’s never done this before and he’s pretty sure he burned his scalp, but when he washes the bleach out, he’s blonde. like, really blonde. looking at himself in the mirror, he feels a kick in his gut that’s half jubilation, half fear, but he ignores the fear and turns his head to the side to run his fingers through the short brittle strands. he feels almost like he’s looking at a stranger, and it’s hard to keep a strange laugh from escaping his throat.

he goes out and celebrates that night–doesn’t tell anyone it’s his birthday (not like there’s anyone to tell), but he does get drunk enough for it to constitute a real celebration. it’s when he’s walking toward the exit, vision blurry but gait casual and controlled from years of practice, that he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the bar and hears his dad, clear as a bell in his head: “you look so much like your mother.”

dean comes back and david definitely refuses to leave the bunker now that michael’s in the wind. they each know the other’s there and don’t know what to do about it, but eventually he and dean end up in the kitchen at the same time at 3 am, and neither of them can look at each other, but neither of them leave, and then david starts to say, ‘thank you,’ and dean abruptly grabs his beer and flees the room because he can’t listen to the end of that sentence. his vision goes a bit fuzzy for a moment as he stumbles down the hall but that’s the early hour and the knot of emotions choking him and nothing more.

it’s like a mirror, and that’s why it’s so hard to look–and that’s what terrifies them most, that they both said yes to save something, and they both damned the world with their yeses. they’re the same, except they’re not the same because dean’s world is still here, and dean is free of micheal, and did dean kick him out? did dean beat michael? if he did, then why couldn’t david? they meet again later, another early morning, and david finally asks him, and dean still can’t look at him, still stands in the doorway of the kitchen with one foot in the hallway, but he says ‘no. he left. it wasn’t–i didn’t beat anyone.’ and the admission is terror, and at the same time it’s relief that david’s world didn’t die because he, specifically, was weak, and at the same time it’s a crushing guilt at the relief because at the end of the day his world is still dead and he still said yes.

Ahhhhh I mean, yes, eventually! Okay, so the ways that they relate to each other and the things that they have in common varies depending on when they first run into each other–but no matter when they run into each other, I think that they would each see the other a kindred spirit of sorts. They understand what it’s like to have a child, what it’s like to lose a child, what it’s like to watch your child push you away and run alone into a dangerous world, what it’s like to be beaten to hell and to grit your teeth and keep moving forward. They’re both fierce and principled, and I think Jody would love Linda’s creativity and Linda would love Jody’s sense of humor. So, here’s a….collection of possible canonverse meet-cute scenarios, if you will:

s8: When Kevin sends his mom away, Garth calls up Jody to see if she’d be okay with hosting a house guest for a few weeks. She’s in a new, smaller, house now, on the opposite side of town from the house where her husband and son died, but at night the rooms still seem too big and the hallways too quiet. So she says yes. Garth said Linda was a “real nice lady,” but after the first day Jody’s not sure that that description quite covers it. Not that that’s a bad thing, though.

s9: In the chaos of the falling angels and the King of Hell going missing, Linda is able to break herself out of demon captivity. She remembers that the last time Crowley came to visit her, he was boasting about capturing her son. And she’s injured and tired but there is no way she can leave Kevin behind. So, she finds a tracking spell to find Crowley–she’s learned, now, about not hiring witches–better to do things yourself. The thing is, though…she’s not a witch, so the tracking spell doesn’t exactly latch onto Crowley. Instead, it latches onto the last person affected by Crowley’s magic–a woman in Sioux Falls who had a terrible date with the King of Hell just a couple weeks ago. Once Linda figures out that Jody’s not a demon, she’s ready to dismiss her and move on, but instead of just letting her go, Jody offers to help find Kevin.

s10: There are weird things happening in town. Cold spots in the grocery store, flickering lights at the library–it’s all the classic signs of a haunting, Jody knows, but it’s not confined to one place. Jody narrows the cause down to a haunted object, probably one carried by Linda Tran, a new resident in town. Jody befriends the lady, and then, friendship turns into something more. And then, Linda introduces Jody to Kevin, the ghost of her dead son.

s11: The same thing as s10, but this time, it’s Claire stalking Linda around town. Linda, of course, notices the teenage girl following her around almost immediately. She reams her out, and then, weirdly, ends up taking Claire under her wing. So Claire’s been going off by herself a lot for the past week–she tells Jody she’s working a case, but refuses to elaborate, so Jody follows her one day and finds her helping Linda shelve books at the library. It’s not often that Claire latches onto people like this, so Jody decides to introduce herself.

s13: see marynatural’s kevin + wayward sisters fic!

and the day comes, like cas hoped it wouldn’t and like he knew it would. the day comes and cas knows he’s reached his tipping point, and so he opens his heart to dean. he lets himself be happy, forces himself to be happy, and tells dean ‘i love you’ and ‘goodbye.’

and nothing happens.

or rather, a lot of things happen–cas stares at dean and dean stares right back, both of them frozen except for the tears rolling down their cheeks–and then when the empty fails to appear, cas turns away in confusion, and only then does dean finally reach forward and catch cas’ arm. after that, there is a lot more crying, and some yelling, and a kiss that knocks the breath out of both of them, and when their lips meet, cas thinks, surely now, surely this is the moment–

later that night, he slips away, and as he rounds a corner he hears a squelch and a black, writhing wound opens on the wall of the library. cas closes his eyes. but then, there’s a laugh, and the empty says, ‘i meant what i said–i want you to suffer, castiel. taking you now would be a mercy you don’t deserve.’

cas steps forward, growls, ‘i’m happy, we had a deal–’ and the empty tuts and says, ‘i changed my mind. call me again when you have dean’s blood on your hands.’ and with that the black tear curls into nothing. cas lunges for the opening, but only succeeds in slamming into an empty brick wall.

yes to all of this! i do think that, if they had decided to give purgatory screentime in something other than flashbacks, it would have been so cool to see that shift happen. i think we get some hints that the monsters in purgatory are not just, well, monsters, in the show–the way that dean is shown as the predator chasing the prey, benny turning away when dean cuts up a scared, unarmed guy–but they never say that the monsters in purgatory don’t deserve purgatory. and they should have, frankly, at some point in the show!