like the thing about Dean and Cas is that they both feel unworthy of love but handle that in totally different ways
Dean feels unworthy of love, but if he realizes he's being offered love anyway, he grabs at it with both hands because he's desperate for it; this leads to him feeling insecure in the attachment and fearful of losing it, so he ends up feeling panicky and vulnerable and clinging on in unhelpful and sometimes damaging ways while trying to minimize those feelings of vulnerability by clamming up.
Cas on the other hand feels unworthy of love and so simply assumes no one is going to love him, and will ignore any evidence to the contrary because confirmation bias is a helluva drug. anything that doesn't support his "I am unloved and do not belong in this family" hypothesis is simply ignored.
and the end result is both of them being stupidly in love with each other, but Dean is trying to like do the bare minimum to conceal his feelings so as not to make things awkward, which Cas sees and interprets as confirmation of his preconceived idea that Dean only cares about him as an ally and friend, and responds by going off and Performing Friendship And Acts Of Allegiance which is the exact opposite of what Dean wants and leads to him feeling even more insecure about how much more emotionally invested he perceives himself to be, and results in him trying (usually unsuccessfully) to shut down his outward displays of attachment even more
it's the world's stupidest vicious cycle and if it weren't so sad I would find it unbelievably hilarious
stormborns
kaledo-art
titsay
blakekathryn
turnnoffyourmind
