Dean: * Walks In Wearing A Shirt Saying ""I'm Dean Fucking Winchester"" *

Dean: * walks in wearing a shirt saying ""I'm Dean fucking Winchester"" *

Sam: What are you wearing?

Dean: Wait for it.

* a blushing Castiel walks in wearing a shirt saying ""I'm fucking Dean Winchester"" *

Sam: Oh... That’s... cute?

Thinking about how, when Cas was working with Crowley, only Dean believed in him. And he was so sure that Cas was innocent, and his only reasoning was, "It's Cas, man." He believed him with every fiber in his being, even when all the evidence was stacked against him. He didn't believe it until Cas admitted it to his face. He believed in Cas' innocence over Bobby and Sam, his surrogate father and brother, you know, the one person he loves most in the world. He wanted Cas to be innocent. He didn't want to have to face the prospect that the man he believed to be an angel, both literally and figuratively, wasn't 100% on their side. He wanted to believe that Cas had changed, and he did, but not all the way. One moment in particular sticks out to me, and it's when Dean confronts Cas, even before all this, and says, "What happened to you, Cas? You used to be human, or at least like one." And I think it's such a stab to the heart. He wanted Cas to be human, to feel things, and experience things that he hadn't before. He just wanted to believe in him.

It finally occurred to me that adult Sam’s obsession with healthy eating is his reaction to years of eating whatever Dean could steal and whatever he could warm up on a hot plate. Years of cereal. Years of canned beans. Years of greasy diner food. All because John was gone and child Dean did the best he could to make sure his little brother was fed. And Sam swears he’s not going to eat like that again because it reminds him of never having a mom or a real home other than the Impala. Of not having a dad stick around and raise him and his brother.

I wonder if Dean giving him a hard time about his smoothies and rabbit food comes from the guilt of not being able to give it to Sammy when he was little. I wonder if it’s why he so proudly sticks to his junk food and diner offerings, like it’s a salve to his ego. Sort of a, “Hey, it’s still good enough.”

One of my favorite Malec scenes has got to be after Magnus was swapped with Valentine and he tells Alec about his mom dying and killing his stepfather. Alec desperately tries to cheer him up and make things better, so he tells Magnus it wasn't his fault because he wasn't in control of his powers. But Magnus tells him that he was, and then Alec is at a loss because he's never had to do that before. The only person he'd probably have cheered up in the past is Izzy, and there's a very big difference between cheering up your warrior little sister and your centuries old warlock boyfriend that's carrying some serious family trauma. Alec treis so hard, and Magnus understands, but it still doesn't help much.

And probably the worst part of all of this is this is the first time Alec has ever seen Magnus cry. And then in the middle of crying, he calls him Alexander, which he usually only does during an emotional moment (sometimes not but usually).

---- Part 1 ----------------------

Cas makes his way into the kitchen after Dean hears him apologise and make an excuse to leave the table. His gaze flicks to Dean’s shoulder as he walks into the room, in a familiar gesture that’s so quick Dean’s sure he’s seen him do that before and just dismissed it.

“Dean?” Cas says with concern, eyebrows scrunching together endearingly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, but you mind telling me what’s up with this?” Dean gestures at where the handprint should be – which to him still looks like normal skin.

For a moment Cas says nothing. His eyebrows scrunch impossibly closer. He takes a longer look at Dean’s shoulder, then straightens up, clears his throat and says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” in a stilted monotone that would fool absolutely nobody.

“Oh come on! You’re a terrible liar, I know that you can see there’s a handprint.”

Cas sighs. “Yes. There is.”

“What the hell, Cas? When were you going to tell me about the friggin’ mood ring on my shoulder?”

“Mood ring?”

“Patience said it was glowing brighter than ever and I guess I was feeling really happy and uh-”

The corners of Cas’s lips twitch up into a smile. “It was glowing that brightly?”

“Hey, nope, not the important thing right now,” Dean says, heat crawling up the back of his neck remembering why he’d been so happy. He gestures back at his incredibly normal looking skin. “Who else can see this?”

“Psychics like Patience…” Cas begins, a little hesitantly, “and other Angels.”

“Okay, this is starting to make sense ‘cause they’ve always looked at my shoulder funny.”

“And Demons,” Cas continues quietly.

“Wait, are you kidding?”

“And probably ghosts. Though I’ve never asked one.”

Dean takes a deep breath. “Okay. That’s great. Everyone but me can see my sparkly my little pony cutie mark-”

“I don’t understand what ponies have to do with any of this.”

Dean smiles before he can help it and Cas’s eyes flick back to his shoulder. Dean grabs at the skin there, but he still can’t see anything different. “Seriously? Just from you doing your,” he lowers his voice when he mimics, “‘I don’t understand that reference’ bit?”

Cas turns his head away, but Dean can see the crinkles at the corners of his eyes from the smile he’s trying to hide.

Dean sighs, knowing the warmth in his chest will only be making the mark glow even brighter. Damn it. “And it's always been like this?”

Cas turns back to him, the smile gone. “I healed the physical scar as soon as I could, but that mark was made on your soul. The glowing print it left behind can’t be healed away,” he says softly, “I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Figures.”

“When I made it… it was the only way I could bring your soul back with me.” Cas’s shoulders tense in that way that means there’s more, he just doesn’t want to say it.

Dean catches on. “Wait… it means something, doesn’t it? What does it mean?”

Cas holds his gaze but says nothing, lips pressed into a thin line.

“Cas? C’mon man, what does it mean?”

Cas closes the short distance between them (Dean hadn’t even noticed they’d been standing so close) and gently lays a hand onto the skin of his shoulder, over where the handprint would be if Dean could see it. He gasps when a hot jolt of something electric shoots straight through him and leaves his entire body tingling.

Cas finally says, “It means you’re mine.”

this has been said countless times already i know. but it still absolutely astounds me just how powerful, how phenomenal, how profoundly, breathtakingly, earth-shatteringly monumental the story of Dean and Castiel is. and a decent portion of it somehow wasn't even intentionally written as a romance. there are people out there to this day who still deny that it was a love story in the end.

i mean, look at it objectively. it's about a literal Angel of the Lord rescuing a human from the depths of Hell, accidentally developing emotions because of him, sacrificing everything he ever knew for him, willingly dying over and over and over again for him, and being fundamentally changed and ultimately saved in return by his own burning passion and unwavering devotion for that one human. Castiel fell for Dean in every sense of the word. what could be more tragically, heartbreakingly romantic than that?