#bridge.writes

Dean tells Claire that Castiel is dead on a Thursday. (Maybe it's intentional, but Dean doesn't look up for much intentional at the moment)

She almost doesn't believe it. The first thing she learned about these men that introduced her to the supernatural was that they come back. They always come back. Whether they're welcome or not. But Sam won't look at her, and Dean won't look away from her and Claire realizes that they're waiting for it to hit. For her to get it. For her to breakdown.

Dean's hand is resting on her shoulder, so he feels it when her breath hitches against her will, and he's pulling her into a hug before the tears even have the chance to well up in her eyes.

Dean's mourning. Claire can feel it in how he holds her, how he presses his cheek against the side of her head, the way his arm braces against her back. And she is too, or at least she will be soon, with the way the pressure builds in her chest. (Grief and her are old friends at this point. She's done this before, she can handle it. This is not the first person she's lost, and she knows that it won't be the last.)

But Claire's current tears aren't sadness. No, the reason that she's crying into the shoulder of a man that she once wanted dead is sheer and utter relief.

A fear that she's long since buried and forgotten —but nonetheless held since she was eleven years old— finally unwraps its fingers from around her brain stem. The monster that destroyed your family is dead it says. You don't have to be scared of him taking you away the way he took your father. You're finally safe.

And she cries because she isn't safe, she's probably less safe than she was before, but that threat is finally gone. (The threat that her father's body would fail, or become damaged, or lost and Castiel would come to her. He would ask once again to use her body, and the worst part is that he might actually need it. Need it to save the world or protect someone she loves and how would she be able to say no?)

She cries because she had grown to love him like a friend, like family, and that that was just another way Cas had forced his way into her life and her heart and was hurting her all over again. She cries because, like an idiot, she let him.

Claire cries because Dean is crying, and even Sam has his head hung with emotion, and their grief feels so much more real than hers. They had something with Castiel that she didn't have, something now that she never would.

The Cookbook

While I am gleefully abusing cooking terminology, rest assured that this is a biology textbook. I will still be calling it a cookbook though

OVERVIEW (mise en place. all the prep-work in one place)

The Cookbook, first edition (outdated)

The Soul Cascade

The fish debate

The body tangent, revised + via 5x06 + via 5x16

Dimensional differences

A timeline of creation

ANGELS (raw and untoasted, sourdough starter)

Angel physiology

Castiel [pending]

Cherubim mini

The angel tablet + the spell that made the angels fall

Anna Milton

HUMANS (bun in the oven, bake at 37° for 9 months)

Human physiology [pending]

The strength of vessels and the importance of submission + part 2

Dean Winchester [pending]

Sam Winchester [pending]

DEMONS (burned, charred, and setting your house on fire)

Demon physiology [pending]

Purification [pending]

THE IN-BETWEENS (fusion cuisine)

The half-humans

'Human' angels [pending]

Jumping the cascade, revised [pending]

Jack Kline [pending]

MONSTERS (you may be growing penicillin)

The monster problem, revised [pending]

Cures [pending]

Leviathans [pending]

Eve [pending]

ADDITIONAL (season to taste. made w/ UcAM in mind. not required reading)

Celestial suicide squad

The scam of paradise

In defense of s9, revised [pending]

Solving s12 [pending]