#firestiel

Supernatural. Dean/firestiel!Anna. 1100 words. M. CW: suicidal ideation.

Also I think I only see Dean and Cas as sometimes romantic, or just left-of-center of romance. That is to say, romance is only one aspect of their complex relationship, and the relationship itself tends to fluctuate between signifiers of several things: duty, loyalty, friendship, human urges, vulnerability, awakening, ascension, descent, misunderstanding, faith, trust, expectations, love. We can say that love encompasses all these things, sure, but I think we can as easily say that faith encompasses all these things including love, that ascension encompasses all these things including love, etc. It's about which one of them we assign as thesis concept and which ones we assign as supporting arguments, and my preferences tend to fluctuate on any given day.

Maybe these AUs are more about how Dean reacts and what it does to him, because Cas is Cas is Cas even when he's a tiger or a flame. He still orbits Dean. What would be especially interesting is the S5 where Cas starts to lose his grace so he becomes more like his vessel. Function loses out to form. No grace to stop the fire from burning Dean. No grace to quell adolescent hormones. No grace to stop the tiger from hungering after prey. Eventually it all becomes a metaphor for need/love/devotion/etc. You are consumed, you are immolated, you are drowning, you lose control.

I'm not sure if Dean/Clairestiel can be truly romantic because Dean'd think it's creepy because she's so young, so if sex happens, he'd feel like shit about it. And I'm not sure if Dean's discomfort would be something Clairestiel can understand. I also think Dean's caretaker instincts would kick in more because even though she's an angel, she looks like a kid. In 5x03, he wouldn't take her to a brothel. He'd take her to a carnival and they'd eat cotton candy and ride the ferris wheel.

Tigerstiel is like the polar opposite because if an angel looks like a tiger, it's more difficult to forget it isn't human, which is what Dean tends to do in canon. This creature is dangerous, it can kill you, and it's both humbling and terrifying to realize you have somehow won its heart, whatever heart it has. You wonder if it can turn on you at any moment. The connection you have to it can overwhelm you, but you work through the fear and wonder to try to meet it halfway because somehow you trust it anyway, and you trust that it trusts you. But you never forget it can rip you apart. As for whether it's sexual, well, IT CAN BE. Maybe it's more erotic? It's not really Dean getting fucked by a tiger and yelling "OH YEAH HARDER HARDER", but more like Cas licking Dean's wound and resisting the thrill the taste gives him? 

Firestiel has all sorts of fun hell associations! Like, Dean can never seem to escape the theme. Fire took his mother, it took forty years of his life (or death, depending how you look at it), then it took his brother, but fire also raised him from perdition, like the only way out is through. He can walk through these flames and not burn. He has walked through these flames and been burned to ashes. I like the interpretation of Firestiel as a cleansing fire, but I also like it when it can't help but burn Dean when it loves him most. It doesn't mean to, but what is fire if it doesn't burn? Shouldn't you have known better? Should he? As for whether it's sexual, you got the burnplay kink, hey hey. But like Tigerstiel, the sexual acts aren't endgame. Part of the appeal of Tigerstiel and Firestiel is the trust it takes to open yourself up to a powerful thing who doesn't always keep its powers in check, the horror of seeing it backfire, and what are you even feeling when it breaks the world/itself for you?

So idk, sometimes it's romantic, sometimes it's horror, sometimes it's kinky, most of it is the profound bond between a man and various things that shouldn't be sentient and/or young girls.

OMG WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ROBOSAM? Does Robosam run cold because too long in the cage with Lucifer? What does it mean for soulfisting? What does it mean for resouled Sam? I think it means that in 7x01, he pockets Dean's zippo when Dean is too drunk to notice, then he goes out to the junkyard. He inspects it, trying to remember where Dean got it. It's just always been one of the things he took for granted about his brother, like the car and the attitude and the devil-may-care smile. He thought they'd be around forever. Sam looks at the sky, then back at the lighter, and then he flicks it on.