Shipper Hell

Figments of Dean confessing his feelings or coming to rescue him, only for it to dissolve into inky blackness until Cas feels hollow and alone.

But there's one thing the Empty can't reach. A small part of his heart; padlocked away in a special place. It's dedicated to Dean. The way Dean smells after a warm shower. The sight of Dean sprawled on the couch laughing at a joke Cas said. The sound of Dean humming along to music in the Impala during a long drive. 

But mostly, it's the feel of Dean's touch against his shoulder or his wrist when they walk past each other offering comfort and reassurance.

That feeling is locked away in Cas' heart, and try as hard as it may, the Empty can't snatch it away.

The tormenting is agonizing. But every time the Empty pretends to be Dean, Cas knows it's fake when those hands grasp at him. Because that's not his Dean. That isn't the touch of a man filled with love.

Cas would know that touch anywhere. Twisting into the clouds of Heaven or submerged into the darkness of the Empty, there would never be anything that could imitate the pure love that Dean imparted with just the graze of a fingertip or the brush of a knee.

So Cas knows when it's an illusion.

But he also knows when it's true. He knows when hands cradle his cheeks and lips brush against his own. He knows when fingers glide into his hair and words are ghosted against his mouth, "I love you, Cas. Come home with me."

That's real. That touch is burning with love and sunshine. That kiss radiates warmth and relief and content. That's his Dean who's come to save him and set him free.

The touch of fingertips against Cas' wrist as he's pulled to his feet is like liquid gold bursting into his veins. Alight with the fire of adoration.

IF YOU ARE COSPLAYING A DISNEY PRINCESS AND YOU ARE GOING SOMEWHERE WHERE THERE ARE GOING TO BE KIDS THAT WILL COME UP TO TALK TO YOU

YOU!!!! CAN!!!! NOT!!!! BE!!!! ANTI!!!! SOCIAL!!!! TO!!!! THEM!!!!

FOR REAL, I JUST WATCHED A VIDEO OF A GIRL DRESSING UP AS ANNA AND SHE WENT TO HER LOCAL MALL

SHE WENT INTO THE DISNEY STORE

WHEN A LITTLE GIRL CAME UP TO HER AND TRIED TO TALK TO HER

THE COSPLAYER WALKED AWAY 

AND LOOKED AT THE LITTLE GIRL LIKE SHE WAS NUTS

THAT IS HORRIBLE

I USED TO DRESS UP AS SNOW WHITE FOR CHARITY EVENTS WITH CHILDREN

I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW AWKWARD IT WAS WHEN OUR ELSA DID NOT TALK TO CHILDREN

SHE WAS NOT INTERESTED IN TALKING OR BEING AROUND THE KIDS AND THAT MAKES THE KIDS UNCOMFORTABLE!!!

IF YOU ARE COSPLAYING A CHARACTER THAT IS POPULAR AMONG CHILDREN, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE NICE TO KIDS

TO THEM, THEY ARE ACTUALLY MEETING THIS CHARACTER THAT THEY LOVE OR KNOW

 My hair is dyed white and at last year’s Ren Fest I was dressed as a water nymph. So i was in all blue, with glittery blue heeled boots on. Personally, I would have never thought that I looked like Elsa. I had leggings on, not a dress. And no ice themed anything. But that didn’t stop the sweetest little princess from asking me if I was Elsa. 

 I’ll admit that I was thrown for a loop, since I thought I was a pretty convincing mermaid on land with my scale print leggings. But I’m not a dick so I quickly recovered and said I was her cousin. Kids are more than happy to accept that and she smiled then shyly ran back to her mom to tell her she met Elsa’s cousin. 

When I cosplay Batman, to little kids, I am Batman. And it is such an amazing experience to have kids run up to me and want a hug, and tell me about how when they grow up they want to fight bad guys too. I can’t fathom someone being so rude as to ignore them.

I have a friend who cosplays Han Solo, and a little girl was so excited to see him that when he knelt down to talk to her, she hugged onto him and didn’t want to let go for ten minutes.

Also, remember IF THERE IS A LOST CHILD AT A CONVENTION, AND YOU ARE COSPLAYING A PRINCESS OR A SUPER HERO, THE CHILD WILL GO TO YOU FOR HELP LONG BEFORE THEY THINK TO APPROACH A SECURITY OFFICER!!!  You have a duty to help that child! Help them calm down, escort them to the nearest safe zone, and inform a security officer that the child has misplaced their parents/guardians. -Never- use the term ‘lost child’ in front of the kid, it’s the parents who wandered off and got lost, not the child.

I hate the sense of entitlement people have, especially in regards to children. I’m personally great with teenagers, but I don’t like small children. I’m very uncomfortable around them and I can’t handle them. I DO NOT owe your child a smile, a hello, a wave, or anything else because they exist. Not every stranger is a safe stranger for your child. As a parent, it’s your job to monitor you child’s behavior and if the costume wearer is uncomfortable or upset, it’s your job as a human to respect that and teach your child to back off and not take it personally. And even people who love small children have bad days or bad moments where they’re upset and just don’t want to be bothered! But if they’re not being paid to wear a costume and play it up to the crowd, then THEY! DON’T! OWE! YOU!

OK SO I WAS BORED AT WORK AND WAS THINKING ABOUT THIS SO I STARTED TO WRITE A DRABBLE DURING MY LUNCH BREAK AND THIS HAPPENED. ENJOY. (theres also some art as well!)

“Wait! Wait, pull over!” Jamie cries, handgripping his round stomach as he sprawls across the backseat of the car.

“Again? Seriously?” Louis sighs, “this islike the fifth time this hour!”

John just sighs from the driver’s seat as the car starts toslow and veer off the road.

“Look, I can’t help it if the car is making me nauseousand the baby keeps kicking my bladder okay! Just pull over already!” Jamiecries a little more frantically this time.

The car pulls off the country highway onto the dirt androlls to a stop as Jamie stumbles out of the backseat to go throw up or pee orwhatever it is he needs to do this time. John and Louis sit in the front seatwaiting for Jamie to finish up and climb back into the car. It takes him a fewtries to get seated with his belly making it difficult to squeeze into the car,but he finally gets settled and buckles himself in.

“Can we keep going, or do you need to stop again?”Louis teases from the front passenger seat, leaning around to grin cheekily atJamie.

Raise Me From Perdition by Sauric Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 68,600 Summary: Dean is an FBI Agent in the BAU, following in his father’s footsteps, when a strange string of murders comes across his desk from Lawrence, KS. He takes the case, returning to his hometown, where he meets the enigmatic and somewhat infuriating Medical Examiner, Dr. Castiel Novak, who is helping out with the case as an expert on what inflicted various wounds on the victims. While investigating this serial killer, dubbed The Demon King, Dean is abducted. Will Castiel be able to save him, in more ways than one?

Dean’s business is understanding serial killers and the first part of this story focuses on just that. I loved the way the case developed and the back and forth between Dean and Cas, the quiet, local medical examiner. But as the story progressed, the revelations, twists and turns were fabulous. This was not one case fic, but two! To say anymore would give it away!

Human!Cas fluffines!

I’m sorry, guys, I usually don’t write meta, but I couldn’t stop thinking about this and had to get it out of my head?

So I’m sure many of you have heard about The Five Love Languages book by Gary Chapman, especially since it’s been around for years and years. 

To quickly summarize, the author theorizes that there are five types of ‘love languages’, which are methods that people use to express their love and affection. The five love languages are:

Words of affirmation (compliments, saying ‘I love you’, telling someone how much they mean to you, etc.)

Physical touch (touches of affection, anything from kissing to hugging to cuddling to just hand-holding, etc.)

Gift giving (giving tangible gifts, giving physical reminders of how much someone means to you, giving gifts that show you were thinking of them, etc.)

Acts of service (doing things/ services/ acts/ chores for someone, taking care of them, lending a hand or helping out, etc.)

Quality time (spending time with someone, giving them your undivided attention, having special ‘date nights’ or time with just the two of you, etc).

The author believes that most people tend to show love in the same way they prefer to receive love (ex: a person who likes to give gifts would be happiest to receive a gift in return), but I don’t necessarily agree with that. Based on everything I’ve seen and also personal experiences, I tend to think that most people have TWO love languages: the way they show their affection, and the way they want to receive affection.

Now again, all of this is theorized and not empirically studied in any way, so you can decide whether or not to buy into this. :) It may have some truth to it, it may not! But, regardless, it did get me thinking about my Supernatural boys and wondering: which of these love languages fit Dean Winchester?

So let’s take a look.

What are Dean’s love languages?

1. Words of Affirmation?

Okay, right off the bat, I’m gonna go on record and say no, nope, noooooope. Dean is definitely NOT a ‘whisper sweet nothings’ kind of guy. It took us 12 seasons to finally get a canon ‘I love you’ out of him, and that was to his mom. In a dream. And she couldn’t even explicitly hear him at the time. 

Now, that’s not to say Dean never says words of affirmation, because sometimes he does. But it’s usually in a tense life-or-death moment, or a someone-just-came-back moment, or a someone-is-brainwashed moment, or some other type of emotionally tense scene, you get the picture. Even then, I don’t think Dean says these things to show his affection. It’s more like he just… says them honestly, because they’re true? Almost like, to him, these are ‘duh’ type statements. Why make a big deal when he’s only stating the truth?

So yeah, Dean isn’t the type of person to show he cares through words. And not only that, he’s also very uncomfortable when anyone else does the same thing for him. Anytime Dean receives a compliment or someone says something affectionate, he tends to scoff, laugh it off, or ignore it.

And God forbid someone actually says they love him.

*crickets* *crickets* Awkward…

2. Physical touch?

A good case could probably be argued for this one, because Dean is actually a pretty touchy-feely guy. He hugs, he gives cutesy forehead kisses to women, he puts his arms around shoulders, he touches faces.

However, I recently read a great post by @thejabberwock about tactile!Dean, and I think this explains it much better, so I’m not gonna go in-depth on this one. :) Basically, I would just agree that Dean is just a tactile guy in general, in all areas of his life, and it’s not necessarily how he prefers to show or receive affection. 

Plus, when he’s the receiver of physical affection and doesn’t actually initiate it himself, it’s almost like he doesn’t know what to do.

3. Gift giving?

There’s only a few occasions where we’ve seen Dean give or receive gifts, and they’re pretty few and far between. In general, I think this is probably part of the hunting lifestyle - there’s just no need and/ or room for material possessions that don’t serve a purpose.

One of the few scenes where we do see gifts exchanged is when Dean stole some Christmas presents for Sam and then received the amulet in return.

However, I’d argue this scene shows that Dean DOESN’T use gift-giving as one of his love languages. For people who truly use gift-giving as a love language, there’s a lot of time and thought spent in picking the perfect gifts for someone. Instead, Dean just randomly takes whatever is under the tree, regardless of what it is. Even the amulet, which becomes so important to him, isn’t necessarily important because it’s a gift, but because it came specifically from Sam.

In this situation, it’s really not about the gifts at all - it’s about Dean trying to give Sam that ‘classic Christmas’ experience. I would argue that Dean is actually performing an ‘act of service’ for Sam here, while at the same time spending ‘quality time’ together, which leads me into the next two love languages…

P.S. I am purposefully NOT including the recent mixtape from 12.19 as an example of Dean being a gift giver, because in my opinion, it’s also an example of ‘quality time’ instead. Here’s my post explaining why I think so.

4. Acts of service?

This one, in my opinion, is DEFINITELY Dean’s love language for showing affection. 

Taking care of the people he cares about, doing things for them, and putting them first is just a huge part of who he is. He’s been taking care of others since he was four years old carrying Sammy out of their burning home. Actually, scratch that - he was taking care of others even BEFORE that, when he was comforting his mom after his dad moved out.

There are literally so many examples of him taking care of others. He cooked for Sammy when they were kids/ still cooks for him now. He raked leaves at Lisa’s. He offers Castiel coffee in the mornings. He fixes things. 

So, I would say that performing acts of service is definitely the way that Dean shows his love. Dean loves others by doing things for them. To Dean, actions speak the loudest. And after all, this love language is perfect for him: no awkward words or confessions necessary, no ‘chick-flick moments’, most of the time he still gets to be tactile and active and use his hands, and it’s subtle enough that he can always defensively play it off as just being helpful if he gets called out.

Alternatively, while Dean shows his love through acts of service, he certainly does not want to receive love through acts of service.

Taking care of others is role that Dean knows well and he’s good at it. It rubs him the wrong way when other people try to take that role from him, or try to take care of him for a change. He enjoys doing things for others, but isn’t so hot on letting other people do things for him.

5. Quality time?

Finally, quality time.

In my opinion, this is definitely Dean’s other love language, his love language for how he wants to be shown love.

Dean has a long history of abandonment issues, so it’s not surprising that quality time ends up being one of the most important things to him. We see this immediately in the very first episode, when Dean shows up to get Sam from college after ‘Dad hasn’t been home for a few days’. But why now? Sam’s been at college for four years. There’s been plenty of hunts in the meantime, John’s probably been on plenty of solo hunts. But as soon as he’s gone longer than usual and Dean isn’t able to reach him, he tracks down Sam. And through the rest of the season, even though Dean is worried about John being missing, it’s also evident that he’s hurt by it.

Dean does not do well alone. He needs the people he loves to be there with him. Hell, he even admits it himself:

So yeah, literally nothing else is as important to Dean as having his loved ones with him. Even if they’re not doing anything, even if they’re just watching crappy TV or drinking beer or driving in the Impala, he just needs them to be there. 

And when they leave or don’t want to spend time with him, it hurts him. We saw a lot of it recently, especially in season 12. Even though things were awkward with Mary at the beginning, he was hurt when she decided to leave the bunker. When Cas went MIA and didn’t answer his phone, he was upset not about why Cas was gone, just that Cas was gone.

That’s also why it’s such a huge deal to him to be accused of leaving - because, in his eyes, being left behind by someone he loves is the worst thing imaginable.

So yeah, I would argue that the best way to show love and affection to Dean Winchester is to just hang out with him, be with him, spend time with him - even if you’re not doing anything important, quality time means the world to Dean.

Also as I mentioned above, I also believe that the mixtape from 12.19 is a perfect example of Dean needing quality time, instead of gift giving, and here’s why (this explanation got kinda long and needed its own post, lol).

TL;DR summary:

Acts of Service and Quality Time are Dean’s two love languages. 

Performing acts of service is how Dean shows love to those he cares about. Basically, if Dean cares about you, he’ll show it by doing things for you, taking care of you, etc.

Perhaps we were Born in the same star. I can feel the space Dust in my soul Hauling us together.

Cas bristled. “I am not a primate. I have no tail. I just…” He trailed off, and Dean laughed again, not unkindly.

“You just appreciate trees? You’re just trying to commune with the bees by getting as close to them as possible? You just like the way my heart nearly stops when I see you swinging like Tarzan and I’m terrified you’re going to fall to your death??”

Cas leapt down from the branch he’d been sitting on, landing lightly in front of Dean. Blue eyes met green, full of a seriousness Dean did not expect.

“I just miss flying.”

Dean sucked in a breath. Of course. Stupid. Of course Cas missed his wings. Why hadn’t he realized? When Cas lost his grace there had been so many adjustments: eating, sleeping, taking showers, wearing different coats. But after the night they watched Netflix until nearly dawn and Dean had unthinkingly kissed Cas goodnight…well, all that other stuff seemed to fall away. To Dean, anyway. Some boyfriend I am, he thought, mentally kicking himself.

“Cas,” Dean said, his voice wreaked with helplessness. “Cas, I’m sorry…”

Cas smiled. Cas’s smile should be bottled, Dean thought distractedly. It could probably cure cancer.

“It’s alright, Dean,” said Cas, running his fingers through Dean’s hair. “I don’t want my grace back. I don’t want to rejoin Heaven’s armies. All I want is you.” He pulled Dean’s head toward him until their lips just met. For a moment Dean was drowning, then Cas pulled away. “I love you, Dean,” he said softly, “but I think I’ll always miss my wings.”

“Okay, Angel. Climb your trees. Just don’t expect me to climb with you. Or to watch when you are higher than the lowest branches.” Dean shuddered. “I’ll just stay here on the ground. And look straight ahead.”

“Some days I’ll climb,” agreed Cas. “But most days I’ll stay right here…” Cas wrapped his arms around Dean, pulling him even closer, “…and you can be my wings.”

*****

@wanderingcas @justrandomspnstuff

A Post-Adventure rest in medbay for the husbands. :) Two adults crammed into the same tiny sickbed is one of my fave hurt/comfort tropes!! Spock probably has some excuse about mystical Vulcan healing mumbo jumbo, but he really just doesn’t sleep well without Jim.

Bonus: