cas as the life partner dean doesn't have to parent, the person he can love without being responsible for
responding to @deancity's tags on this post of mine, because it got way too long to add to the original post.
tldr: you're completely right. cas is someone dean can love without having to parent or coddle or protect. he's someone dean can open up to and lean on and be leaned on in turn, as equals.
longer stream of consciousness meta under the cut!
i feel like this post sums it up really well.
obviously dean does often worry for and about cas, because he cares about him! someone he loves is frequently in danger, of course he worries. but he doesn't feel responsible for cas's well being the way he does with so many other people in his life. cas is stronger and so much more powerful than him! cas is immune to bullets, cas can smite demons, cas is supposed to be immortal, cas has been around for millenia! dean can be vulnerable with cas, he can let cas take care of him. he and cas watch out for each other, but cas is stronger, cas can protect them both.
dean can put things on cas, can share burdens with him, without worrying that he's gonna have to manage the weight of it all for both of them. and that's something pretty rare among dean's close relationships. he lets himself have it to varying extents with friends, acquaintances, civilians of the week, but he takes care not to put too much on any one person. (there are lots of examples of this, dean's go to approach when connecting with people is sharing his own experiences and that often includes opening up about what he's struggling with, though usually in a filtered way).
some of this has to do with physically protecting people. dean grew up being told constantly by john that his only purpose in life was to protect sam. that his body was a tool to use to save others. that his own feelings of safety and his well being were not a priority. this is summed up perfectly by the scene in home where dean calls john crying, desperate for help, and just gets a message telling him to call himself. and cas is strong, cas pulled dean out of hell! cas can heal him and cas protects him and the people he cares about. cas can take care of himself and he considers dean worthy of protection! so some of it is physical safety and strength. but a lot of it is also emotional burdens, and that's what i'm gonna dive into more.
when you grow up as the peacekeeper with an unstable parent, you learn to think carefully about what you ask for help with, about how and when you reach out and open up about what you're struggling with. because the absolute last thing you need if you're having a hard time is to now ALSO be managing someone else's feelings about whatever you're dealing with. and there's not much space for sharing your own problems when you're always triaging someone else's. this is something i think dean learned very early in life.
it's also something that gets reinforced over and over in his relationship with sam. when dean does open up to sam about what he's struggling with, sam SO often makes dean's feelings about himself (i'm thinking about the secret about john's dying words, about dean's memories of hell, but it shows up in s8 too, etc). he does want to help dean! but when he tries to get dean to open up because he wants to feel trusted and he wants to be the big brother for once, he rarely stops to think about whether that's actually what dean needs most. he gets better about it eventually but even then he falls for dean's performance too much to see dean clearly and know what he needs for support.
there is also, of course, the fact that dean raised sam. even as they get less codependent over time, that barrier of "don't want to dump my problems on my kid, it's my job to support them" never completely goes away. and sam never stops expecting dean to take care of him in a lot of ways, and continues to have blindspots about his own behavior that reinforce their parentified dynamic.
and sam is far from his only relationship where support should be mutual but instead dean is the one taking responsibility for the other person's well being, taking care of them without them returning that equally. this is also his dynamic with john and mary (as a 4yo AND when she comes back). even bobby, who cares deeply and is a reliable parent for dean, is... not great with handling dean gently when he's really struggling.
and some of this is on dean, he has to choose to break this pattern and not always put himself in the position of caretaker. but also when he DOES try to reject this role he often has his boundaries trampled (bobby telling him he has to reach out and be the parent john wasn't to sam at the end of s4, most glaringly dean being pushed into parenting jack in early s13). but regardless of where the blame falls, the fact is that dean is generally doing the brunt of the emotional labor in his closest family relationships.
except for with cas.
the scene i think you're talking about in s7 is in the born again identity, when cas is still emmanuel allen. and it's a perfect example of this.
dean opens up to "emmanuel" about how hard of a time he's been having since cas's betrayal, and how much he's struggling. when he's tried to open up before this season, to bobby and frank and even eliot van ness, he's been brushed off and told to suck it up and stop whining. cas is the first person to listen, to tell him it's alright to feel what he's feeling. to tell him that he's only human and he's allowed to grieve and hurt and give himself that grace and emotional space. that it's okay if he can't just bounce back, and he doesn't need an excuse.
cas isn't always the perfect listener, nobody is, but he's someone dean can rely on and turns to more than anyone else (a few examples off the top of my head are after gadreel kills kevin, the diner scene in 10.09, the phone call about how dean doesn't know how to interact with mary, the diner scene when dean is still keeping michael locked up in his head). he sees straight through dean's performance and offers him real connection and reassurance. dean can confide in cas without fear that his feelings will be minimized or his boundaries ignored. and this is reciprocal!!! cas opens up to dean right back, often in the very same scene, and dean listens for cas like cas does for him.
none of this is to say that dean never opens up to or leans on anyone else, but cas very clearly falls into the place of a spouse—his chosen partner for weathering life, his first choice when he needs aa confidant. i think this is why they feel so damn married in the later seasons, and it's something i fucking love about their relationship.
