#but maybe love is this big all encompassing blanket snd you're always in it so you don't alwYs notice it big like that ykwim

[hauntedpearl]

because I process everything through dean and cas. i think. i think dean doesn't know what love is really supposed to feel like. the forever kind of love. the kind he thinks cas feels.

i think it felt like heat and hunger when he was twenty three and there was this girl with the dangerous smile and a look in her eyes like she could kick his ass and he better know it. and I think it felt like something that didn't quite fit right but fell across his shoulders all the same when he was with Lisa and he thought, well, it keeps me warm, this, whatever it is. it keeps me happy.

but then there's cas and he can't put his finger on what it is he's supposed to be feeling. and he thinks it should be big. after the dungeon and death and the empty and everything. after. after. he thinks it's supposed to make the world feel different. he thinks it's supposed to do something to his bones, the way cas talks about it. and it doesn't. and dean thinks, maybe, he's not meant for things like this. maybe it's just that he's empty. maybe cas is missing out by choosing him. and it's selfish, but there's something in there, and he can't let go, because it hurts, hurts like a heart attack, and he'd know because he's had a few. and he thinks, whatever it is, this broken, bent, useless thing, it wants him to stay still, for once, and he listens.

and it's the little things, i think. it's how he knows to spear tomatoes off Cas' plate or maybe it's how he knows to make time to tie his tie for him when they go out. how he switches the radio in the car to whatever cas wants to listen to — knows a frown means pop music, and a sleepy heaviness in his eyes calls for the oldies and there, that soft light, that makes dean think of the summer and the sea, that's when he knows to pick his own favourite mixtape.

i think it comes slow, this realisation, that there isn't dean's life anymore, not really. it's deanandcas' life, and they fit together, seamless, and dean's been worried about how he is not enough, but he thinks about how he's slotted into place here, in Cas' arms and his home, and his habits, and he thinks. he thinks maybe that's what it is supposed to feel like. or maybe it's what it feels like to him. and it's not a feeling that lifts his feet off the ground, but it's this soft thing in his chest, something like his mother's hug when he was young, truly young. like watching his infant brother's fingers curling around his pinkie for the first time. like walking into a house and seeing a place where your shoes are supposed to go, putting them there, almost unthinking, your mind already on the food at the table. like the smallest shift in your being. a settling of sorts.

he doesn't think he loves cas like cas loves him, doesn't think he could if he tried. cas' being is the breadth of the world and his love is bigger than that. it's hard to compete with that sort of thing. but dean's heart is full, and he thinks he fits nicely, at the center of it, this big, wonderful, impossible thing. thinks he makes it happy, too. thinks maybe that's kind of the whole point.

#from the drafts #hahaha....*softly* what the fuck #i do not. remember writing this #doe's writing adventures #spn posting #destiel stuff #dean is some flavour of aroace to me #anyway. ANYWAY. I THINK. sometimes you fall in love and it doesn't feel like the movies znd you're like maybe that's sth wrong w me #but maybe love is this big all encompassing blanket snd you're always in it so you don't alwYs notice it big like that ykwim