#SERIOUSLY THOUGH AFTER BILLY DIED THEY WOULD NOT LET HIS BODY TOUCH THE FLOOR THE ADORATION THE LOVE EXACTLY WHAT BILLY DESERVED | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spicycreativity · 3 years

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Soft-Shoe Shuffle - Ch 7

Chapter: 7/12 Additional Notes: See Ch 1 for more information. Read on AO3 under "WizardGlick." Any formatting/italics errors are holdovers from AO3 that I was too lazy to fix. Chapter Content Warnings: derealization/delirium, fainting, general depictions of illness Excerpt: It was quiet in the hall, but that didn't mean much as of late. Still, it didn't matter. Janus' days of skulking around in the shadows were well and truly over. Now he would stand tall in the light so intense it didn't even let him cast a shadow.

Mhm, a monster's here Mhm, you plug your ears But hey, you might just listen to it sing Please let the Devil in

Janus awoke with a single-minded focus and a fire raging in his chest; it burnt away the distractions and fears he built for himself. He had to talk to Roman and it couldn't wait another second. He'd already put it off for far too long.

Getting out of bed was a struggle; Janus' blankets were all tangled up in his legs. He threw them on the floor and got up, bypassing the folded paper on his nightstand. He had neither the time nor the patience for another one of Remus' awful poems.

It was quiet in the hall, but that didn't mean much as of late. Still, it didn't matter. Janus' days of skulking around in the shadows were well and truly over. Now he would stand tall in the light so intense it didn't even let him cast a shadow.

He knocked on Roman's door with a bare fist and listened for the shuffling of feet on the floor. No sound came. He knocked again. "It's Janus," he said, lest Roman mistake him for Patton and bury his head deeper in the sand. "I've come to apologize."

The door flew open and would have bounced off the wall had Roman not caught it with his hand. It left his chest wide open, vulnerable, showed Janus all the bleeding wounds he hadn't seen before. "Great," he said, glowering at Janus. "So you can run back to the others and brag about how much better of a person you are than me?"

Janus blinked hard. The lights from Roman's room formed a halo behind his head and surely that wasn't symbolic at all.

"No," Janus said with difficulty. His mouth was dry and his tongue didn't seem to want to work.

It had been warm in the hall but as he stepped over the threshold into Roman's room, a creeping chill made his joints stick.

"Are you coming in or not?" Roman asked.

Janus shut the door behind him and fought to regain his wits. The simple act of standing left him breathless and sore, but it made the fog roll out a little. "Aren't you going to offer me a chair?"

Roman glared at him. With choppy, deliberate movements, he grabbed the back of his rolling desk chair and thrust it at Janus.

"Thank you." Janus sat and fixed his eyes on Roman's hazy, angry features. The ceiling light made his eyes ache, but he refused to flinch. He had to get this right.

"Well, Billy Flynn-truder." Roman held out his arms, again opening up his chest. Janus blinked. There had never been any blood on him at all, had there? "What do you really want?"

"What?" Janus asked through numb lips.

"Like you'd ever apologize to me. That was just another lie to get me to let you in, and guess what? It worked. You got me again, Deceit."

"Janus."

Roman scoffed. "Spit it out already, Horrorboros."

Janus squinted. Hadn't he already said? Maybe he hadn't. He pulled his elbows in tight to his sides and shivered. "I came to apologize."

"Fine, we're sticking with that." Roman towered over him, anger blazing in his eyes.

For a split second, Janus was worried Roman might hit him, never mind the fact that, for all his boisterousness, Roman had never been the overly violent sort. But now the possibility loomed in Janus' mind and made him shudder and pull his arms tighter around himself. "I'm sorry."

"There, it's over." Roman turned away from him. "Run and tell Patton and Tho-- and the others what a good boy you are. Everyone loves a reformed sinner."

"I'm sorry," Janus said again. "I--" Shame made his face hot even as icy shudders ran through his limbs. "Roman, I n-never meant to hurt you."

"Never?" Roman asked, low and deadly.

"Well, at the end--" What was wrong with him? It was a struggle to get words out, any words at all. Even the wrong words. The walls tilted sickeningly. "It was wrong of me to use you. The courtroom scenario-- I told you what you wanted to hear."

"I know."

"And I'm sorry. I shouldn't have played with your emotions. I didn't-- I didn't know better at the time; I was scared, and... I-- I would have done anything to get you to listen to me."

Roman whipped his head around so sharply it made Janus' own neck ache in sympathy. "You're lying."

Despair rose in Janus' chest, trying to escape in the form of one desperate, broken sob. He swallowed it down. "Not this time."

"Why should I believe you?" Roman demanded.

"Because I mean it!" Janus shot back at equal volume. It sent waves of agony pulsing through his head. "I'm sorry I lied to you. I'm sorry I used you. I'm sorry I hurt you. I just wanted you to listen to me. That's all I ever wanted."

"That's. Not. Good enough."

"It's all I have. I gave you my name, Roman. I don't have anything else to give." Janus' chest ached as he took in frantic, shallow gasps. Tears welled up his eyes, not of shame or penance, but fear. What if he wasn't good enough? What if he lost his place?

"Spare me," Roman said, voice sharp with disgust. Janus looked up at him, fighting exhaustion with every muscle in his body.

Roman frowned. "That's not going to work."

"What?" Janus sighed, feeling his posture worsen with the prolonged exhalation.

"Stand up," Roman demanded. "Stop looking at me like that."

It was the least he could do. Janus stood even though his legs shook underneath him.

"Where are your gloves?" Roman asked. He sounded very far away. "Where's your hat?"

"I don't know," Janus said numbly. He could feel himself shivering even though he could no longer feel the cold. He tried to stop and couldn't, and that fact bothered him less than he thought it should.

"Janus, seriously. I'm not buying it. Drop the act."

Janus just shook his head. Roman didn't have to keep rubbing it in, although he probably was revelling in Janus' failure.

He would crawl back to Remus, then, except… He couldn't seem to move.

"Fine!" Roman shouted. "You're scaring me. I'll-- I'll hear you out, just stop--"

His words faded under the sharp hiss and roar of static in Janus' ears. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath. White and red crowded his vision; his face connected hard with Roman's sash.

Then, just like the end of the movie, everything faded to black.

Aside

Roman's voice sounded in Logan's dreams and ripped him back to reality. His body moved before he registered what was happening, a fight-or-flight response he didn't usually exhibit.

He ripped the door open and came face to face with Roman, who…

Logan's stomach dropped.

In his arms, Roman cradled Janus' unconscious form. His chest rose and fell with shallow breaths and his face was frighteningly pale where it wasn't stained an angry, feverish red.

"I swear I didn't do anything to him!" Roman said frantically. "He was in my room and we-- He-- I don't know what happened!"

"Roman," Logan said. "I need you to breathe." He paused and made a split-second decision. "Follow me."

He stepped around Roman, careful not to bump into Janus, and strode down the hall toward Janus' door.

"When did that happen?" Roman asked, seeming to forget his panic in his surprise.

"After…" Logan said. "Well." He didn't usually shy away from difficult topics of conversation, but he thought it best not to upset or overwhelm Roman at the moment. He took the handle and opened the door for Roman. "Put him on the bed, please."

"Right." Roman entered and hesitated, letting out a shaky breath through his nose as he looked around.

"Roman," Logan prompted.

"Sorry." Roman swallowed hard and gently set Janus on the bed. "I just-- I don't know what happened."

"He's sick," Logan said, taking care to keep his voice even. It wouldn't do to further upset Roman.

"I can see that!" Roman snapped.

"Roman. Breathe. You didn't do anything wrong." Logan needed a scan thermometer, and one manifested in his hand. The readout forced him to swallow down a wave of concern. "I need ice," he said. Ice packs appeared under Janus' arms and legs where they connected with his torso.

Janus yelped and thrashed, tears forming in his eyes. Logan held him by the shoulders until his struggling died down into the occasional flinch and shudder.

"You're hurting him!" Roman shouted. He took a deep breath. "Sorry-- Sorry, I know--"

"It's okay," Logan said. "Sit down." He held eye contact while Roman sank down into one of Janus' leather armchairs. "He's going to be okay, Roman."

Roman braced his elbow on one armrest and cupped his forehead in his hand. "I keep messing up," he said in a strained, thin voice.

Calling Patton for backup would only add more emotions to the situation and make it harder to look after both Janus and Roman. Logan had to handle this himself. "Roman, Janus has been sick since last night. Whatever happened wasn't your fault."

"I can't believe his door moved!"

Logan sat down on the edge of the bed, apprehension increasing his heart rate. He had done all he could do for Janus. Now it was time to put his underdeveloped interpersonal skills to the test, as adding anyone else to the equation would only make things messier and less efficient.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"He apologized to me!" Roman looked angry. Logan couldn't fathom why. He had felt a nearly overwhelming sense of relief when Janus had apologized to him. Relief and responsibility to correct his own mistakes. Why was Roman angry?

"You didn't want that?" Logan guessed.

"I don't know! I'm confused." Roman sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, Logan, I know emotions aren't your thing."

"I…" Logan adjusted his tie. "I'm working on it. Please be patient with me."

"Jeeze, what all did I miss?" Roman asked, touching his forehead.

"Quite a bit," Logan said, before realizing that the question was probably rhetorical. "Roman, to be completely honest, I don't know what you need right now."

"I know." Roman sighed and shifted positions so he could rest his elbows on his knees. "I'll-- I'll figure it out. I'll go back to my room and get out of your way…"

"I want to help you," Logan said. His own emotions were distant, abstract, confusing things, so he used broad terminology to better make his point. "I feel… worried." Roman took a breath to interrupt, but Logan held up a hand. "I'm not done."

"Sorry," Roman mumbled

"I'm worried about you," Logan said. "And it was Janus who helped me reach the point where I can tell you this now: I care about you, Roman. I don't want you to go back to your room."

"But I'm… I don't--" Roman swallowed hard and tears welled up in his eyes. "I don't deserve--"

"Roman," Logan interrupted. Guilt reared up at his having done so, but he couldn't allow Roman to further agitate himself. "It's not about what you think you deserve. It's about trying to be better than you were before. Hiding away in your room accomplishes nothing. I know that's not who you are. You're brave and headstrong and I've never known you to run away from a challenge."

Roman sniffled and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. "Wow, Teacher Feature. That was really…" He sighed and seemed to lose interest in what he was about to say. "Thank you, Logan. I'm just… Embarrassed. I acted like…"

Logan physically bit down on his tongue to avoid suggesting a few vocabulary words.

"Like Captain Hammer," Roman said.

Logan frowned. "You beat up Janus in an attempt to win Patton's and/or Thomas' affections?"

" No, Specs," Roman chuckled mirthlessly. "Well. Not literally. But I did make fun of him in front of everyone. And not in the fun way, like when I tease you guys." He flashed Logan a smile. "And then he apologized to me! Or tried to." Roman ran his hands through his hair. "But that makes me the villain of the story!"

"Ah," said Logan, thrown for somewhat of a (metaphorical) loop. "Well. Are you planning on building a giant freeze ray?"

"No."

"Do you seek world domination?"

"No…?"

"Do you believe that you are entitled to hurt others or that their desires are somehow expendable in service of your own?"

"No?"

"Then you're not a villain, Roman, super or otherwise. You're just human. Well, as human as any of us can possibly be. You made mistakes. So did Patton. So did Janus. So did I. The best thing you can do, in my opinion, is to work to make things better. I believe that's what Janus was attempting to do when he visited you "

"Ugh!" Roman ran his hands down his face. "I can't believe he beat me to the punch!"

Logan squinted. "So you did hit him?"

"Just an expression, Spocktor Who."

"I see."

Well… If Janus did it first, I'm going to do it better ," Roman said.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #sickfic #spicywrites #spicywrites soft-shoe shuffle #song featured: monster - dodie

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nellie-elizabeth · 3 years

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Supernatural: Despair (15x18)

I'm having an out of body experience, I cannot believe this. Last night was legitimately one of the weirdest nights of my life, and not just because of *gestures broadly* but also because of *gestures broadly* and myriad other small but still totally bizarre personal things coming at me from all angles... strap in, y'all, I've got some shit to say.

Cons:

We're gonna talk about it. Ohhhh, we're gonna talk about it. But let's start with some other shit before we get there.

So... are we ignoring "Dean was willing to let Jack sacrifice himself" or something? Like there was that moment with Sam and Dean where they talked about it, and Dean apologizes for pulling a gun on Sam, and Sam is like "oh it's okay Dean, no worries." But at the beginning of this episode, Dean seems to be just as worried for Jack, and as protective of him, as the others, with absolutely no acknowledgment of what happened in the last episode. This... should have mattered. There should have been some regrouping and some serious talks about this. Seriously.

The Thanos snap thing... guys, when Infinity War did it in 2018, it was kind of fun and shocking and cool, and we knew the deaths wouldn't be permanent but it was still wild to watch our heroes react to such an immense loss and then leave us all in limbo for a year. This... is not that. The sheer tone-deafness of having this episode contain a moment of domesticity for AU!Charlie and her cool egg-making girlfriend Stevie, only to have Stevie vanish... and then to end the episode with the biggest queer-bait/bury your gays moment imaginable... like...

Okay, sorry, no, saving the Destiel thing until I've sorted out the rest of this nonsense. The point is, seems pretty clear that the deaths in this episode (other than Cas') are temporary, and Supernatural already has the biggest power creep problem of any show I've ever seen... they really couldn't think of another way to up the stakes for the ending, other than doing the thing where everyone gets killed? Didn't... Crowley... already do this to them several seasons back? Am I hallucinating? There's nothing new under the sun with this show.

Why does this show introduce things and resolve them in a single episode? Like, big, huge things? We just figured out Death was trying to double-cross them, and now by the end she's dead? This show either limps along and does nothing, or speeds through plot stuff at lightning-speed. These last two episodes were big and dramatic and full of Plot but in a way where it all feels kind of unreal. Pacing issues like whoa.

And speaking of. Ahem. Okay. Let's... let's do this. I have some things about the Destiel scene that I'm going to put in the "pros" section below, and hopefully as you read on you'll understand why it's really hard for me to be black and white about it. If I had to, if I had to determine whether I am "happy" or "sad" or "grateful" or "angry" I'd say... sad and angry, 97%? Like? Let's dive in, here.

Setting aside the larger context, a couple of smaller notes:

Acting-wise, what the fuck was Jensen doing in this scene? Misha was acting his whole heart out and Jensen gave him nothing to play off of. I don't understand how Jensen accidentally played Dean so obviously in love with Cas all this time, and then in this moment, no-homo'd it so fucking hard. Even the stage directions in the script page that was floating around said that Dean didn't reciprocate. That's dumb, like, in a shipping sense it's disappointing, but also... Dean, what was your face doing while Cas gave his whole monologue about how amazing you are? What a great and loving man you are? Even if he hadn't ended the whole thing by saying "I love you" and then dying right in front of your eyes, surely you would have been feeling some kind of way about the whole situation?

Also, the scene was shot so awkwardly, there was too much space between them, and then Cas pushes Dean out of the way and he just sits there on the floor with Pikachu-face while The Empty opens up and takes Death and Cas away, making these weird shocked noises... Supernatural often has awkward pacing when dramatic things are happening in action scenes, where certain people have to stand still like it's not their turn on the initiative order in a D&D fight or something, and this was one of the more embarrassing and awkward examples of that.

Cas' deal with The Empty has not been brought up practically since it happened. Cas has been sidelined as a character a lot this season, the past couple seasons, really, but we had this hanging over our heads, right? When Cas says "I've figured it out, true happiness isn't in having, it's just in saying it", the moment doesn't really work on a character level, because we didn't get to see Cas do any of that figuring out. We didn't know he was curious about his true happiness, we didn't know it was an internal struggle/debate for him, wondering what it could be. A lot of Destiel people wanted it to be Dean confessing his love to Cas, and that being the true happiness... but of course that would never happen in a million years. Others thought it would be "yay we defeated the big evil, we can all be a happy family together," oh snap, I'm too happy, goodbye. Which would have been... weirdly anticlimactic, but at least would have made some level of narrative sense. This idea that telling Dean how he feels would bring Cas peace is... well, it's okay, it's fine in isolation, but there's no buildup to it, no tension to his moment of "realization."

And now to fry some bigger fish...

Let's forget about the fact that we never thought this would happen to begin with. Is it actually... worse that it did? Seriously, queer angel man confesses his love to stoic human man who stands there without making a single expression, and the act of confessing said love, knowing it's not reciprocated, knowing he won't get to be with Dean or even be near him ever again, is enough to make Castiel so truly happy that he's willing to die peacefully and forever, all in the act of saving Dean's life? Is that not... like... textbook homophobia? People toss around "bury your gays" a lot and I think what they're missing is that the trope doesn't automatically apply just because a queer character dies. It means a queer character dies because of their queerness, or they are revealed to be queer but can't get any measure of happiness and then they die immediately. This is textbook that. The act of confessing his GAY LOVE is what KILLED CAS. It's a one-to-one sequence of events. It's not a coincidence that Cas died right after saying this. Saying this is what made him die. That's... appalling. Truly, in a very real sense, it's appalling.

Another thing I haven't seen people talk about much is the manufactured nature of this sacrifice. We just found out Billie was going to turn on them at the end of the last episode. If Cas was going to die in a sacrifice-y way, did it have to happen now when Billie was basically just knocking on the door trying to get at Dean for a last-minute revenge thing, even though Billie was already at death's door? This was so contrived, like, can Cas not whoosh them away to somewhere else? Keep them running until Billie succumbs? I get that it wouldn't have been easy, and maybe Billie could have caught up to them anyway, but my point is, they manufactured this moment to be "the only way" that Dean could survive, making Cas' sacrifice so noble and necessary or whatever... but I was sitting there thinking there's got to be another way. If they'd wanted to write in another way, there could have been. The inevitability felt so very contrived. And, as mentioned, the impact of dying on this show has lost all meaning, so even Billie trying to kill Dean, squeezing his heart in his chest, did absolutely nothing for me. I knew he'd be fine, because there are two more episodes left. And if Cas hadn't been there to do what he did, Dean would still have been fine because he's Dean. Am I making any sense?

We have two more episodes left. I am... fairly confident Misha won't be in those episodes. All context, both within the show and without, points to that. I truly think that after all this time, he gets the only ending in the whole show that's unambiguously unsalvageable and tragic. We have a world where the afterlife exists and people can hang out there, but The Empty is a different beast, and this means Cas is... gone. Permanently. Like, his consciousness no longer exists, he's caput. They could bring him back from The Empty, in fact, they've already done it once... but if they decide not to, that's just... where we leave things, and that's brutal and unnecessarily grim. The other characters, even if we get an end-of-show TPK (which would be STUPID, more on that later), could at least have canon or implied-canon reunions in the afterlife. If we don't see Eileen again, we can get the implied ending of her coming back to life, or Sam dying and joining her in Heaven. Same with Charlie, with Charlie's new girlfriend, with Bobby, with Donna, with every other character that's died along the way, including Mary Winchester and OG Charlie, OG Bobby, whatever you want. The fact that Cas gets this, after everything, is truly the part I'm the most sad about, setting aside love confessions entirely.

So as I said, two more episodes. I'm worried that Cas dying is gonna get swallowed up with everyone dying and not get its due, thus making the confession completely isolated. Like, here you go, gays, have this one scene, which, in isolation is quite heartfelt from Cas' perspective, but can be carefully boxed up and not touched for the last two hours of the show. If they don't want to touch on how this would affect Dean specifically, they don't have to. He can be generally angsty and sad about Cas, but they could get away with never bringing it up again, and that is some grade-A level bullshit right there, my friends. At minimum, Dean needs to tell Sam about this. He probably won't, but he should, if the show has any sense of integrity left in its bones.

Ahem. Like I said, I have... lots of thoughts. More on Destiel later, but let's turn to the "Pros" section and talk about some other aspects of this incredibly crowded episode.

Pros:

Despite my issues with everything that didn't get resolved re: Dean letting Jack die, I did kind of like the "to somehow" scene, because it was a nice little breather for the brothers, it solidified them as being on the same side to the bitter end, that despite all the crazy shit they've been through, that they've put each other through, they'll have this as a bedrock at the end of the day. I'm not a brothers-only sort of fan, at all, in fact, I think a brothers-only ending betrays most of what's beautiful about this show in its good moments. But they are the stars, they are the protagonists, they should be the center of their own story, and I like it when we get check-ins like this, that shows how unshakable they are underneath all the other crap.

Charlie and Stevie... okay, cute that their names are like that, cute that Charlie said: "I liked the way she handled herself" and that's how they got together... eggs are cute, whatever... and if these deaths are impermanent, which... come on... they have to be, I do like that Charlie gets to have a girlfriend and be happy as a hunter and as someone's partner.

I liked the tense car ride with Sam texting Eileen, with Dean, Jack, and Cas all silent in the car with him... that was a nice moment of solidarity, all of them entirely on the same page about being there for Sam and helping Eileen however they could... even knowing the futility. What were they going to do when they got there? That was a great tension-building moment, in isolation, even though the deaths are likely temporary.

Cas and Jack's talk was good, I'll admit I've definitely been won over by Cas and Sam as Jack's dads... Dean too, once upon a time, but dude needs to do some groveling before he gets to be Dad again, seriously. It's nice that in the midst of all the chaos, there was a check-in moment. Jack is the embodiment of a lot of our end-game themes, here. He had a noble destiny to sacrifice himself, and then it fizzled out and didn't work, and now he's just left in the aftermath, not sure what to do with himself. It was important that Cas tell him that Jack is worthy of love and family, even if he's not "useful" in the way he thought he could be. Definitely nice to have that nailed in.

If we're following the Infinity War/Endgame line, the last two episodes will be majority Sam, Dean, and Jack, but at the last moment there will be a way to reverse it, and everyone else will come back in a moment of triumph. But probably not so much Castiel, which... well... see above complaints. The point is, seeing Charlie, Bobby, Donna, Eileen, etc. all burst forth for one final moment of glory could be really cool, if they manage to stick the landing with it. It'll be an incredibly manufactured sense of triumph and nostalgia, but it will probably work on me because it's been... guys, I don't know if you know this, but it's been kind of an emotional year. :)

I will say, working under the assumption that the dead characters will come back, I'm actually oddly... not mad about Donna dying. It was actually a legitimately shocking twist. A rule was set up: if a person had died before and been resurrected, or if a person was from another universe, they could be Thanos snapped by Billie. Makes sense. Sam and Dean are in danger because of all their deaths, Jack and Cas aren't safe for the same reason. Charlie, Bobby, Eileen... sure. But Donna should have been safe, given the parameters we started with.

And then Dean and Cas are confronting Billie, she says she's not killing anyone, we realize it must be Chuck... and then Donna, who isn't from another world, who has never died... GONE. I gasped.

And the hits kept coming... Billie is dying because Dean killed her with that small wound, and didn't even know it. That's another excellent twist. The past two episodes, back to back, have kept me on my toes about who to ultimately be afraid of. Chuck? Billie? The Empty? It's so much better than this slow march to Chuck vs. Sam and Dean that we've been getting all season, even if we do loop around to Chuck again as the final Big Bad.

The Empty is actually quite a complex, interesting idea for a villain, this entity that doesn't get involved in petty squabbles, doesn't have personal vendettas, but actually just wants to sleep and be left alone. Having Meg be the Empty's face here at the end is also a nice touch. I wish we could have had more of this, truthfully, and I'm curious how The Empty will play a role in how things shake out, if at all.

So... I want to go back to something I've been saying these past couple episodes, about how if this show has a grimdark ending, it will be a betrayal of everything they've set up. It will be so stupid that my anger will manifest in yet another round of hysterical giggles. What I suspect is that we'll get something peaceful, something where trauma will linger but people will get to start anew. Maybe Jack creates a new world outside of Chuck's power. Maybe Sam and Dean take over as God and the Darkness, as some people suggested, and Jack is the new Death. Maybe maybe maybe. Bottom line, I could be satisfied with the majority of this ending, and I can even (obliquely, reluctantly) understand that they wanted one final perma-death to really make the stakes feel higher. If they aren't killing off the Winchesters, that leaves Castiel. So what I'm saying in this paragraph is basically that I'm not guaranteed to despise the ending of this show yet. They could still get it right.

God, that sounds pretty bleak, doesn't it?

Before I end this, I want to talk about, as promised, the few Destiel-related points that I'd classify as "pros", albeit with a big asterisk.

First off, Misha clearly found the moment very cathartic, and he pulled out all the stops, and, in isolation, the confession was hella romantic and quite poignant. Without context, just reading these lines? "The one thing I want, it's something I know I can't have" and "because you cared, I cared. I cared about you, I cared about Sam, I cared about Jack, I cared about the whole world because of you..." like, that's some premium content, I won't lie. I also kind of enjoy the idea that Cas finds happiness in saying the words out loud, in being true to who he is. I hate a lot about what happened to Cas here, but if Cas' arc, in its totality, is about embracing humanity, and Dean is the anchor to that, this really does come full circle. He pulled Dean out of Hell, he saved him, he loved him, he'll die for him, and in accepting that love, that human love, he is finally at peace with who he is. Now, mind my comments above, I'm still not happy, but I can see how in one sense, this is narratively poignant. And if others are satisfied with it, I'm happy for them.

(Added bonus, while Jensen's acting was WACK for the majority of that scene, I did like the ending shot, the silence, him not answering Sam's call, crying silently into his hands. That was very nicely shot and acted, I thought.)

Secondly, and this isn't actually praise for the show, it's more a... meta experience? I have to say, the idea that Destiel became sort of canon, but in the most homophobic way possible, in the year 2020, while we're all still waiting for election results to come in is... one of the wildest, most hilarious things to ever have happened to me. I mean it, last night sitting alone in my house I kept cackling loudly to myself, in complete and utter disbelief. I saw Tumblr explode in a way that hasn't happened in years. I was transported back in time nearly a full decade, to the person I was when I started writing these reviews, or even before that, when I was new to Supernatural, new to the whole concept of being truly involved in a fandom.

Here's the thing... I never. Ever. EVER. Thought we would get any sort of textual confirmation. I thought at most, if they went for a happy ending for everyone, we'd get Dean and Cas as hunting partners, and we could all fill in the post-canon gaps. I once told my sister that I'd be happy with a one-sided love confession from Cas to Dean, because that part was practically canon before last night, and in a way, I am happy. I'm happy that this crazy thing actually happened, and if nothing else, all of those clowns can put away their makeup. I was never with them. I never believed, and there's this sliver of me that's happy to have been wrong. It's completely bogus how it happened, but the fact that we live in a reality where it happened is still kind of tripping me out in a major way. So I'm happy, I'm... flabbergasted, but I'm experiencing a very unique, unprecedented soup of emotions this morning and I never would have felt like this if Cas had died with a no homo parting.

And that's the thing, they let it be unambiguously about Dean, not just in that one moment, but all along, and that's really satisfying in a meta narrative sense that when everyone was reading it as "Castiel is in love with Dean," they were... correct. It doesn't really matter when they decided this, in last night's episode they made it crystal-clear that it wasn't a whim, wasn't a recent development, in-universe. This has been Cas' truth from very, very early on, his entire experience since meeting Dean has been shaped by him, he's loved him all this time. That... I don't know, it's absolutely bonkers that this is all we're going to get, but it does mean something, if you want to let it.

Welcome back to 2012, Tumblr. Last night was a wild ride, I won't deny.

I'm giving the episode a bad score, but I just want to say the Destiel scene gets a simultaneous infinity-out-of-ten and also zero-out-of-ten, imploding the multiverse instantly. That's where I'm at, folks. Insert gif of Chidi dropping Peeps into a big pot of chili. I'm gonna go take a nap.

6/10

#review #supernatural #supernatural review #spn #spn 15x18 #destiel #i'm experiencing actual shock #i keep laughing #but like #you know how sometimes people laugh or smile inappropriately at funerals?#it feels like that

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themoonandotherslikeit · 4 years

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What the Rain Can’t Wash Away - Chapter 21

*FINAL PIECE IN THE LOOK IN HER EYES TRILOGY*

Sixteen years after Lucifer rose and Dean lost his wife, he finds himself with a teenager, a Nephilim, an angel, and his brother living out a Full House rerun with some seriously dark undertones. How will he be able to raise his daughter, fight monsters, and deal with the loss of the love of his life? Sometimes moving on is the hardest part, but with the Winchester’s there’s always something harder around the corner. Isn’t there?

Chapter Twenty-One, I Can See it

Ava

Dean held me against his chest, and I could hear the quick beats of his heart softly against my ear. He was stroking my hair and the space between my shoulder blades. It was disorienting how much he still smelled exactly the same, just like I remembered him smelling. Even after all of this time. It made me hurt. It made me want to cry. He pulled me closer, maybe sensing my pain.

“I can feel it,” he murmured against my hair.

“Feel what?” I asked. My voice was barely above a whisper, it was all that I could manage without falling apart. I worried that if I spoke too loud it would shatter my heart like glass.

“This.” His fingers blindly felt for my face and settled on my lips, tracing my frown. “You’re sad.”

“Yes.”

“Sex with me made you sad.”

“No,” I responded, my lips curling into a small smile against his fingers. “May be the only thing that doesn’t make me sad right now.”

“I’m sorry that this is what you came home to,” Dean said, his voice breaking. It was rough and deep with emotion, with the same heartbreak that I was feeling in my own chest.

I tangled my leg with his in response and buried my face into his chest.

“I’m sorry I’m what you came home to…”

“Dean,” I whispered, moving my face away from his chest to look at him even though he couldn’t see me. I touched his cheek. His plastic eyes stared forward, his eyelids blinking. Castiel did a good job healing the scarring around his eyes. They were minimal considering. My thumb ran across his cheekbone, and I sucked in my breath, trying to swallow the emotions bubbling inside of me. “I don’t remember where I was before I was here, and I don’t want to. A parent should never lose their child. Ever. It’s unnatural… it’s horrible.”

His arms tightened around me, snaking around my back, capturing me in an almost-suffocating hug. He was listening, his eyebrows furrowed. I didn’t need to see the softness in the iris of his eyes, because I could see the focus in his jaw, the gentle, unconscious nod of his head as he understood my words. He was a stubborn ass, but he always listened to me. Time hadn’t changed that.

“But I’d still rather be here with you than dead.” My voice broke with a sob, trembling, unsteady. My fingers curled into a fist against his cheek and slid down to rest above his heart. “We never had enough time. We never…”

“Hey,” he said, pulling me back down. “You don’t have to.”

“She’s our baby, Dean.”

“I know.”

My face was in the middle of his chest, breathing in the scent of his skin with every sharp intake of breath. My chest, throat, and nose burned like my tears were made of glass. Every edge was pointed, jagged. The loss cut into me like razor blades. His face was in my hair. He was mumbling something that I couldn’t hear over the shattering sound inside my chest that echoed like an empty cathedral. I never believed in God, but somehow knowing that he is out there and that he doesn’t care was somehow so much worse. I hated him with the little bit of fire I had left inside of me.

My hair was wet from Dean’s tears, and I pulled my face back to his. The world blurred and bled together, and I kissed him. It was wet, sloppy, and tinted with the salt from our tears. One of his hands found my cheek and held my face there. He was drinking me in, deepening the kiss, drowning me in exactly what I’d needed since I lost Eleanor, since everything broke in a way that couldn’t be repaired.

Ella

Billie leaned against her scythe. She had a scythe. That couldn’t be good. She wore a long leather coat that hit her mid-calf, and all I could think was that Claire would love it. My chest ached for her, and I hoped that she would be okay. I hoped they all would.

She was watching me, waiting for me to do something, anything. I just sat there. What a fucking disappointment I must be. “So as fun as it is to just stare at each other…”

“I was giving you a minute,” Billie said, pursing her lips. “You’ve had an eventful day.”

“To put it mildly.” I watched her for a second, waiting for a movement, anything, but she was still. She was poised and patient. She looked like she had all of the time in the world. “So who… what are you?”

A smirk grew on Billie’s painted lips, amused and a little taunting. “I go by many names.”

“Cryptic, but it’s fine.”

“The most famous is Death.”

“Death?”

“Death. With all capital D.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Death? The Death? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“If only,” she said, almost sounding bored.

“You probably know my dad then.”

“I know him well.” Oh she knew him alright, and it didn’t sound like it was fondly. She walked towards me slowly before planting her scythe on the ground at the foot of my bed. “You’re dead Eleanor.”

“I know,” I said with a frown. Does she think I’m dumb?

“You died, because Jack pulled Michael from you.”

I shifted uncomfortably, a hot itch starting deep in my throat as she spoke. I didn’t like it. “Yeah thanks for the recap but I think…” I tried to stand up, but she held out a hand, halting me in place. I was frozen completely, paralyzed. I couldn’t move my arms or legs. My bottom lip trembled.

She shook her head disapprovingly. “We aren’t done talking.”

Dean

I could kiss Ava forever. If it was up to me I would. We would never leave the bed. It was easy for everything else to melt away as her lips bled into mine, her warm, soft mouth. The tickle of her fluttering eyelashes against my cheek made a chill run up my spine. I stroked a raised stretch mark next to her belly button with my thumb. I tried to bring her body back to my mind. I tried to picture it, to see it, but I couldn’t.

My jaw set mid kiss. Fuck, I’ve lost it all. I wanted to scream, to fucking hit something.

“Dean?”

I took her hips in my hands and moved her off of me carefully. I could feel her muscles tense against my hands, but she said nothing. I swung my legs over the side of the bed as I sat up. My feet touched the floor, the cool concrete grounding me. I put my face in my hands. My elbows rested on my thighs.

“Dean,” she whispered again. She pressed a kiss to my shoulder blade, and I winced. “Is it me?”

I wanted to laugh, but it all hurt too damn bad. I didn’t have it in me. “You’re crazy if you think it is.” I let out a heavy sigh.

“Then what…”

“I can’t remember what you look like. Your body… fuck, I dreamed about it every night after I lost you.” I pulled my head out of my hands and faced out in front of me. It was all dark. I could’ve been in a cave, motel room, in the middle of the fucking street, and I wouldn’t know the difference. “I won’t be able to remember her either. I won’t be able to remember what she looked like. What kind of man… what kind of father am I if I can’t remember what my wife and daughter’s faces look like?”

“Dean.”

She just kept saying my name like she didn’t know any other words. It should’ve annoyed me. Jesus Christ say anything else! It didn’t annoy me, though. It grounded me. My name coming out of her lips was like an anchor tied to my leg. It was solid. I wouldn’t fly away. I matched my breathing to hers. Steadily in and out with a woosh. She said my name like she invented it, and I was starting to wonder how I ever existed without her.

“You don’t need to see me to know me,” Ava said gently. She took my hand in hers and fuck they were so soft. Her hands weren’t like mine. They weren’t worked to the bone, damaged, rough. Her hands were the opposite of mine. She was the opposite of me and somehow that connected us together. She completed me in a way that I didn’t even know wasn’t whole until I met her. She filled a hole that I didn’t even know I had. “You know my body, Dean Winchester.” She ran my hand along her body slowly, tantalizingly. My breath hitched in my throat as my fingers trailed along the length of her neck, soft and endless. A ridge where her neck ends and her shoulder begins, collarbones poking through a thin layer of skin.

She slowly guided my fingers across the fullest place of her breast. I tested the weight in my hand. I ran my thumb along her nipple from the outside in, feeling it harden under my touch. The sound of her sucking in her breath was magnified. Holy fuck. I guided my mouth to her breast, recalling purely by muscle memory how she liked to be touched. I took her nipple between my lips and gave a gentle suck eliciting a dangerous sound from Ava. She was coming undone, unwrapping for me like a present.

My grief was still there as I guided myself inside of her. It was still present in the back of my mind as I felt her spine curve, back arching as I flipped her over. I held her there hovering just above the comforter. The pain deep within us would always be there. I think I knew that. It fucking hurt worse than any pain I’d ever felt, but we couldn’t let it rip us apart. I held Ava there with the arch of her back in my hand, and I worried that she would fall through my fingers like sand and disappear where I could never find her again. I couldn’t lose her too, and I’m such a fucking idiot, I almost did.

Ava

My head fell back, and I let out a frustrated breath. He was withholding, bringing me close and letting up, drawing it out as long as possible. My thigh was twitching and I was barely able to keep up, to move along with him, because my bones felt like jello. There was a sudden pressure on my body, something foreign and light. It felt like I was being watched, like eyes were on me. My eyes opened lazily, my eyelids heavy with euphoria.

“Dean!” I squeaked as I grabbed for the comforter, anything to cover up with.

“Yeah, Ave, fuck… say…”

“No, no, ” I said, reaching up and pressing my fingers to his lips to stop him from making it any worse than it already was.

He looked confused, his eyebrows coming together. “What…”

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel grunted. He stood in the open doorway, the light from the hallway bleeding into our bedroom.

“Cas?! What the fuck man?” Without missing a beat Dean pulled me up against him to shield me from view, but keeping himself planted firmly inside of me. I could feel him twitch deep within me, almost sending me toppling over the edge even with the angel’s eyes locked on her naked back.

Castiel made a noise of discontent. “I wouldn’t normally interrupt, but I thought you may be interested in hearing about your daughter. Maybe I’m wrong though,” he said sharply. “Maybe you don’t really care.” He turned on his heels, his trench coat whipping around as he slammed the door behind him.

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ave I’m…”

“No,” I said, moving off of him. I pulled the comforter to my chest. We were ignoring reality, playing pretend. It couldn’t last forever. “He’s right. We need to see what he found out about Nel.”

“Okay,” he said quietly.

It was dark, but the look on his face was as clear as day. Eyebrows together, jaw set, eyes wet along the edges. “Here,” I said, reaching down and getting his shirt. I placed it in his palm, and he curled his fingers around it.

He put his shirt on and stood up, fumbling to his dresser to pull out a pair of sweatpants. He felt along the waistband for the tag to make sure they were oriented correctly and slipped them on.

“Dean?”

“Yeah?” He asked, resting his palms on the dresser. I could see him in the mirror, his face facing forward, his plastic eye was completely blank.

“It was nice,” I murmured. “While it lasted.”

Even if it was all a lie.

Dean

I could feel her eyes on me like a pressure on the back of my neck. She was disappointed, and fuck so was I. We were living in a fantasy world for just a second, we were living in a world where everything could be made fine with the brush of her lips. It wasn’t reasonable.

I didn’t wait for her to finish dressing. Instead I just stumbled out into the hallway alone. “Cas,” I grumbled, cranky and rough. “Come on, don’t leave a blind guy stumbling around.”

Just like that a hand curled around my forearm, and I knew it immediately. I turned my face toward where I knew Cas was, and I offered him a smug smile. “What’s the news?”

“Let’s go sit down, Dean.”

“Don’t feel much like sittin’.”

“But I do,” he said sharply. His voice was staccato, pointed, and a little mean. I probably deserved that.

He lead me down the hallway to the kitchen. I was getting a pretty good handle on my directions inside of the bunker, but only because I couldn’t let Sam bring home a seeing eye dog.

“Sit down, Dean,” Cas said, placing my hand on a chair. I let out a grumbled noise and lowered myself onto the chair. I folded my arms across my chest.

“Why are you so pissed, Cas?”

“You’re infuriating, Dean. You’re a child. Even after all of this time, I am still shocked by it. Perhaps that’s my folly, though. I shouldn’t be surprised anymore.”

“You came here to lecture me?”

“No.”

“Then why?” I gritted my teeth.

“I spoke to Eleanor.”

“What?”” Ava’s voice was soft. I didn’t even hear her enter the room.

“How?” I asked, clenching my fists. I felt like I wanted to explode. How was he getting to talk to her? Why him and not me? Why is she dead and not me?

“I went to visit her in heaven,” Castiel said carefully.

He may as well have stabbed me in the fucking chest. I cleared my throat, trying to swallow back the pain inside of me. It felt like swallowing hot coals.

“She wanted me to tell you that she’s okay. She doesn’t want us to stop being a family.”

My jaw tightened, and I let a tear roll down my cheek. I didn’t bother to wipe it. What was the fucking point? “Oh yeah? That’s the big update? What am I supposed to do with that, Cas? Huh? That supposed to make everything better?”

“No I…”

“Just fucking stop, okay.”

“She knew it wasn’t Jack’s fault,” Cas said insistently. “She wants us to find him. She wants us to…”

“I said fucking stop!” I stood up, shoving my hands out to signal him to shut the fuck up, wherever he was. “I don’t want to hear it, okay? She wants us to play nice, well she’s the kid, and I’m the parent; and she’s not here to make me.”

Ella

I looked at Billie cautiously. “Just spill it. You want to punish me for my Dad evading death over and over again, right? You want to pull me into the nothingness or whatever. Blip me from existence. I get it. Just like… can we hurry up with it?”

Bille pursed her lips and eyed me. “Your bravery is admirable, but no. quite the contrary, actually.” She leaned on her scythe and smiled at me. “You died with angelic grace still inside of you. Turns out heaven doesn’t have a leader. Before Jack came to see you Duma had an unfortunate accident. Now there is a position to be filled.”

“What are you saying?”

“How would you like a promotion, Eleanor?” Her eyes narrowed challenging.

“What’s the offer?”

“I think we can work it out in your favor.” She lowered herself to sit at the edge of my bed and tilted her head. It softened her expression. “I know how you Winchester’s operate. I think you’ll be happy with the offer.”

“We’ll see,” I said cautiously. “If you know how we operate then you know that I was taught not to negotiate with monsters.”

“I’m hardly a monster,” she said, almost sounding offended.

“Sure thing, Death.”

“Touche.”

—————

Chapter Twenty-Two, Happy Birthday Eleanor

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