Season one was like. You can never go home. Season two was like. Grief is rage is grief. Season three was like. No one can save you. And then season four was like. He can. You’ve been waiting. You didn’t know it. But you have been. So has he
obsessed with the way cas isn’t afraid to be soft. like. it’s the way that his heart is always exposed, and yet it’s his biggest strength. things like vulnerability, fear, compassion, he feels these emotions with his whole being and learns how to express them and use them to his advantage, all without care of being judged. and really, it’s the way that he began to develop beyond dean’s tactics of repression and defense, and started to inspire dean’s own softness instead. dean seeing someone he loves radiate so much warmth that he can’t help but take comfort in it too.
something about how dean equates male intimacy with violence and about how cas learned intimacy from dean. something about I’m hunted I rebelled I did it I did it all for you.
something about how dean stabbed cas in the chest as soon as he met him and cas, who had already seen dean’s soul, smiled at the knife
Ok I was ranting to my wife about this but just. Dean does not do anything for himself. Like. Nothing. Except over indulge in sex and food and booze. But those aren’t FOR himself those are to cope because he doesn’t truly do anything for himself. He lives his life for his father’s orders, to avenge his dead mother/earn his alive mother’s love and attention, to keep his brother safe. Any and all things Dean does are rooted in that. But loving Cas, and being loved by Cas, is selfish. It doesn’t serve a purpose, it doesn’t fit the carefully constructed narrative Dean surrounds himself with/deludes himself with. It is just for Dean and he loves that. Post good-version-of-supernatural Dean thinks about that constantly and it makes him greedy. He hoards Cas’s love like a dragon hoarding gold. He runs his hands over Cas reverently and thinks “mine, mine, mine”. He drapes Cas in his clothes and feeds him everything and anything and takes care of him when he’s sick because he is the most precious thing Dean knows.
Adding Sarah’s other comments because she’s too shy to but: Dean is so angry at the beginning of season 13 because he loved Cas and he misses him but also because it was the only thing outside of obligation that he had and it was taken from him.
and god, how must Dean have felt in s4 that this angel, a warrior of god, was interested in him? Not even from a romantic angle or anything. But after years of being told by his father that his only value was in keeping his brother alive and helping John on his revenge mission, this angel cared about HIM. Looked straight into his soul. Trusted him with secrets he’d never told anyone. Believed in him, prayed for him to do the right thing, listened to him in defiance of heaven. Sam had always been the golden boy but this angel burned his mark on DEAN.
dean and cas harbor this peculiar little trust in one another from the very start. it’s strange because dean has long been established as a character who does not trust outside of his very small circle, and he especially struggles with the idea that anything supernatural could ever be good. and by the time we meet cas he’s learned that he cannot tell his siblings about his doubts without the threat of punishment. but they clearly recognize something in one another to indicate they’re cut from the same cloth. “can i tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?” objectively an absolutely fucking insane thing to ask of anyone let alone someone you just met but cas trusted dean to keep his secrets and he was right to do it. cas shoves dean up against the wall of the green room with a blade in his hand and it takes dean one look and approximately two seconds to realize that cas isn’t gonna hurt him, of course cas wouldn’t hurt him, so he nods into the hand covering his mouth and cas just lets him go. it’s an interesting thing to introduce into a story that has so far been based around secrets and things unspoken and is a clear indication that there’s just something different about their relationship
can you believe that dean and cas broke up in season 15 and then cas spent the next few eps avoiding everyone’s texts and calls while he ran off to a cabin alone and tried to fish while thinking about how dean loves to fish longingly, but trying to convince himself he’s over him? meanwhile dean is trying to pretend like he’s totally fine but in the next two eps he’s breakup eating in every scene and brings the flask back out during a hunt and spends the entire next episode eating, drinking, wearing his bathrobe, and binge watching netflix alone in his room? all of this was written with the full knowledge that they were going to end the series on a romantic note for them.
