Read, reblog, and resonate!
Thinking about falling in love with Castiel after he loses his divinity. After he’s been kicked out of the bunker, he loses his best friends, his family, his home, and the man he loves, all in one fell swoop. He’s lost his power, his defense, and he’s lost in a world that wasn’t his home, and he has no one to rely on. Not only that, but he’s learning how to do things that he’s never needed to do before. Eating, drinking, sleeping, even holding a job, just as a means of survival. He’s learning what it’s like to actively live in a human body; to take care of it and survive in it, instead of just inhabiting a body like we would clothing or an apartment.
Falling in love with his quirks and social oddities. Getting to watch iconic movies with him, and enjoy his reactions as he sees them for the first time. Loving him as he struggles with this new, human identity and holding him through the times it all becomes too much. Getting to watch as his self-worth gradually begins to sprout, as he realizes he is priceless because of who he is, not because of what he can offer others. Listening to him talk about things that confuse or enamor him about being a human being. Listening to him talk about the things that make him feel, and getting to see his eyes shine as he takes on a task that he enjoys. Getting to be the person who loves him when he doesn’t feel like he deserves it, and loving him even when he struggles with loving himself. Becoming that comforting safety, that only someone you love can offer, for him.
Loving Cas as he navigates being human would have heartbreak and hardship, but sticking with him and loving him through it would offer loyalty and love that is hard to fathom. The heartbreak of hearing his story, and the way that he was treated by the people he loves would be one that haunts you, even when he has long since healed and moved forward from it. The sting of that heartbreak would be the very pain that pushes you into Dean’s path as he tries to reach out to Cas again, and it’s the same thing that makes you rail against each hurtful word and cutting expression that he throws Castiel’s way over the course of the years. That haunting pain that Cas bears in his heart is what makes you fight to stay by his side when he inevitably agrees to return to help the Winchesters, and it makes you protective of him, and his heart, angelic or otherwise.
Dean Winchester, who holds the weight of the world on his shoulders, who is self-sacrificial, who hides his anguish between snarky sarcastic jokes and a flirty, I-know-I'm-hot smirk, who is protective and loyal to those he loves to a fault, is not immune to bad days. In fact, Dean has them frequently, but the bad days, and I mean the really bad days, where the weight he holds and tries to shoulder alone finally comes crashing down on him, and all he can think about are the people he couldn't save, and the people he thinks he's failed all flash through his mind, and all the ways he's let down the people that matter most to him are all that he can see when he takes in his desolate reflection, are the days that he falters, and the days where he needs you the most. Those days that he pushes everyone away the most, those are the bad days I'm talking about.
Sometimes they'll start off ordinarily, or as ordinarily as a day in the life of a Winchester, or of a hunter, can. Those are the days when the angish sneaks below his feet, circling in the shadows and ensnaring him on Sam's pointed jab, or a flash of deja-vu as he catches a glimpse of a face that looks like someone he couldn't save. The days that start off mundane for Dean are the ones where the hair trigger could be anything from a misinterpreted joke, to a hunt gone sour, could send him into a spiral that would take even the strongest archangel out of commission for months at a time. Other times, the days will start with a heart-stopping jolt, with a cold sweat drenching the back of his shirt. On days when his morning starts with a anxiety-riddled, gasp as he stretches his arm across the bed, desperate to find the grounding comfort of your sleeping form beside him, he is surly and mean, and does everything in his power to isolate himself and push everyone away. Not out of a vindictive anger, but out of a deep-rooted self-loathing that makes him believe that he deserves this pain, that he deserves to be forgotten, abandoned, and hated by the people he holds dearest.
These are the days where he needs you most. Don't get me wrong, he wants you, and needs you every day, but when he's in a spiral, on the days where even basic kindness seems like something he doesn't even deserve to dream about, these are the days that he needs all of your love and concern. All of the worry that he teasingly tells you is wasted on a strong man like him, that he gets into shouting matches with Sam and Castiel over because damnit he is not an incapable child!
So on days like that, hold him a little tighter. Dote on him a little more. Tell him that you love him, and that he deserves kindness and love and he is not evil, hell he's not even bad. Remind him that for every mistake he's made, he's fixed a hundred others, and for every person he feels he's failed, he's save a thousand more.
On days when Dean Winchester feels like the world would be better off had he never been born, remind him how glad you are that he was. Remind him of how loved he is, and cuddle a little closer to him, and pretend not to notice the way your shirt grows damp when he buries his head in your shoulder and finally, finally lets himself feel, lets himself cry.