Do you guys see how goddamn emotionally charged this hug is for both of them? Deans holding on for dear life. This hug is the physical embodiment of “I need you. I’ve always needed you.”
Is this hug not a confession in itself?? This hug feels like Dean finally admitting to himself the depth of his feelings for Cas. Because if he doesn’t, Cas might leave again, and that’s unacceptable.
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It's fascinating to me how much I've changed my mind about Dean in The Trap. I'm waaaaay more sympathetic to the whole Cas-being-forgiven aspect of it, because yes, Cas apologized initially, but the root of the issue was Cas's painful withdrawal of his partnership and his withholding of critical information. Full stop. He and Dean are NOT equally culpable in this one.
It's not just about Mary and Jack, and yet Cas keeps pivoting to "Dean blaming him for Mary." Which oversimplifies the whole thing in a terrible way. Yes, they're all culpable, and yes they all saw that things were wrong with Jack, but next to Donatello, Cas is THE authority on souls and physically the strongest of TFW. To make matters worse, he all but demanded Dean to parent Jack and take care of Jack's emotions, even though Dean expressed discomfort over his memories of soulless Sam. Dean has repeatedly expressed how he wants Cas to be open and honest with him, especially now that they're co-parenting, and although Cas demanded Dean parent Jack, he then turned around and hid Big Parenting Stuff from him and went off to meet Anael.
Barring Cas's one feeble and poorly-timed, "I tried to fix it on my own because I was afraid of losing this family," he doesn't really spell out his part in the communication failures or apologize very well for withdrawing from Dean, specifically. He sorts of sulls up and say, "I already apologized and I'm not doing it again." Yet, Cas has a continued, longstanding pattern of withdrawal from the partnership. I'm floored that my Cas goggles kept me from seeing it before, and maybe I'm a little embarrassed, too. I mean, honestly, it's amazing that Dean takes him back at all. :/ Once you look past, "Oh no! Dean said mean things!" anyway.
I think by The Trap, Dean has given up trying to get Cas to change or hold him accountable for his lack of communication. Cas sort of gave Dean ultimatums over it, if you squint, and Dean rolled over. And Dean wants to get back together. He needs Cas's support and Cas need his. He looks at everything Cas is and decides that Cas's avoidance and want to protect the family is just woven into the fabric of him, and Dean decides to accept that. It's something he loves about him as much as he resents it. Cas's chivalry is a feature and a bug. Dean loves him for it. It makes his life a Hell sometimes.
Occasionally, I still see people harping on how horrible Dean was for "forgiving" Cas, like Cas doesn't need to be forgiven. And with some distance and clarity, I find that pretty baffling now, but I also remember feeling that way when I wasn't looking at their partnership equally and giving Cas too much leeway on his continued absence from the partnership. I almost...respected Cas more. That thought makes me wince. But his bad decisions I was way more likely to stamp as protective or tactically genius, at least compared to some of Dean's similar decisions. Dean's things I tended to group as "too angry/emotional/irrational." :(
I guess I've come a long way when it comes to holding Sam and Cas accountable for their actions, too. Much of the time, my issues with Dean devolved to unfortunate tone policing or not liking him to express his anger and be angry at his boundaries being breached over and over, even when he was taking his anger out on inanimate objects. I balked just because it made a loud sound that made Sam wince (oh noes, not the wincing).
///
On the other hand, I'm quite impressed that Dean and Cas were finding their way back to each other after the Death of a Child. That's about the hardest thing a marriage can go through, and they were getting back together and trying to heal even before Jack reappeared. Clearly, it's a stress-tested relationship. WAY more stress-tested than your everyday marriages; they've been through multiple apocalypses. On the whole, they often have good communication, even when they disagree, they knew where they stood (like with Donatello). It's just these huge, incredibly unusual horrible earth-shatteringly terrible things that throw them. Chuck's grooming is such a bitch.
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so the thing is. in the trap, when dean says “i hope it’s not too late.” it is. it’s too late. cas already made the deal. they’re doomed.
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