Endverse Castiel - Tumblr Posts
"If I load a headcanon where they've already been lovers in the past,"
Please share the past lovers headcanon?Season/episodes?
I didn't have anything specific in mind when I wrote that. I remember getting to the early season 8 episodes before actually thinking, "Wait...did Dean and Cas fuck in Purgatory?"
Then I got overexcited about Naomi brainwashing Cas and the meta-storyline and all the lovely hurt/comfort/whump/angst, and my slash braincell wandered off for a bit.
Season 9 pinged my slash radar too, human-feels!Cas and distracted!Dean, but that season could've been intentionally written to keep the two of them physically separated. It's like a season-long chastity belt!! Nothing a determined slasher can't overcome with tenacity and a Jedi handwave, spinning time for them out of a pause for breath in the narrative (9x03 I'm No Angel and 9x06 Heaven Can't Wait being obvious choices with a smidge of offscreen unaccounted-for time), but I'm still at the stage of noodling over why the Supernatural creators made that choice for their story and characters. Cuz it plays like they just plain got spooked by the 'profound bond', there (!).
If you like a canon-compliant fanfic setting (which I usually do), most of Supernatural is thin gruel as a setting for any sustained 'shipping - for any pairing. I can think of a dozen good moments where I could shoehorn in a feels-raw PWP without difficulty, but anything lasting and exploratory between them... They're just so ridiculously occupied the whole time!
I bet there's a ton of 5x04 'Endverse' Cas/Dean fanfic, because it's one of the few opportunities to really get stuck in for any sustained smutty storyline - to give them days/weeks/years to play with. And because those two were so very obviously doing the deep rugged nasty anyway, obviously.
And then I get this awful feeling that endverse!Cas actually wound up being the only one who survived the suicidal shitshow with Lucifer, cuz he wasn't quite as human as he thought after all, and...
every once in a while i think about endverse destiel and feel like throwing up btw it drives me insane. theoretically since they only have each other they should be closer than ever. but in this world they aren't. cas has given up on life and spends every second stoned out of his mind so he can remain in blissful ignorance because he feels like he can't be useful to anyone without his powers. dean's crumbling under the guilt of failing everyone and the pressure of having to lead. he's forced to make harder and harder decisions for the sake of the group, not even realizing that he's becoming more like john with every passing day
it's just a worse, even more unbearable version of their dynamic in late season 5 because cas doesnt think he's even worth keeping around anymore. he's fallen for dean but it's cost him so much that he'd rather bury his head in the sand and wait for death to take him. he'll still follow dean anywhere but he doesnt know why he even wants him around at this point when he cant do anything to help. and dean knows that it's his fault that cas is human now, knows that he dragged him into a losing battle with nothing to show for it and he hates himself for it. hates that no matter how angry and ruthless he gets cas will stay until the bitter end
endverse destiel--- fucking nasty or sweet?
Both? Both is good.
You think endverse Cas was really human? I mean was he a reliable narrator in that script or doing this whole performance to hide himself in plain sight while being more than human less than angel?
Good question! I didn't come away from that ep believing he was fully human, personally - his ability to both instantly spot time-travel!Dean and effortlessly identify what must've happened to him speaks to that. His senses aren't fully human, maybe - at the very least, he retains a mind free from the confabulation and confusion that humans can't avoid when perceiving the world. He sees - and trusts - exactly what's actually there in front of him when the 'wrong' Dean walks in. No hesitation or bewilderment because his brain's telling him two different things - just a few pertinent followup questions to get the context of Dean's time travelling. He still has the uncomplicated, uncomfortable clarity and directness of angel!Cas.
It says a lot that this timeline's Cas describes being human as a step down. Endverse!Cas equates his relative lack of power with becoming human, but losing his angel powers isn't enough to leave him fully human, I don't think. Mortal, maybe, and functionally diminished as a warrior, but not human. It's like he's using it as a catchall word for his fall from grace, and as a derogatory label for his own limited capacity to make a difference in their fight. I don't think he thinks less of humanity than he did before, but he thinks a lot less of himself. Not because he's human, or humanlike, but because he's failed.
I'd suggest that Endverse!Cas's ability to function as an ally who Dean can tolerate (or even allow to live) means that he's less affected by the substance abuse than a human would be. I can't see that version of Dean tolerating any liability in his ranks, let alone in the leadership tier. Maybe Cas walks a thin line with it, always a misstep away from Dean having to take decisive action about him, but he seemed ultra-competent, and trusted, for a guy mixing uppers, downers, and probably sideways-ers, with apocalyptic stress levels and the loss of his very identity.
I do think hiding in plain sight could be a really big part of what we saw from Endverse!Cas. Hiding from himself as much as anything else. Hiding what? Despair, I think. We see hints of that same bitterness and acting-out in regular Cas later in S5, when he thinks that Dean's about to surrender to Michael; that his faith has been (once again) misplaced and the fight is lost. Cas needs something to believe in and fight for because that's how he's made. He takes failure very hard and very personally. There's something defensive about Endverse!Cas, prickly and difficult, even when he's smiling and appears body-comfortable. That easy geniality vibrates with an edge of, "Just try me", like a neon warning sign. I doubt anyone but Dean ever gets the opportunity to see past it.
The End is such a brilliant script, such a well-made episode that it feels like a complete 'verse, but there are so many unanswered questions about how the characters ended up where that story found them. It's a headcanon and fanfiction goldmine because it's so sparing, and I love it. (But I'd just about kill for a Camp Chitaqua or Sam-as-Lucifer spinoff serial to tell me much, much more about it.)
Did you figure out why Endverse Cas "enchants" you?
Nope! I know why the episode does - it's right up my storytelling alley. It could've been made to hit my every ficcy spot. And it's brilliant. But why I have a feral response to images of Endverse!Cas, when I can be perfectly sensible about regular Cas and would pose no threat whatsoever to the person of Misha Collins... not a clue. I've joked about it being the facial scruff, but while I do appreciate some flattering facial topiary, I'm really not that easily swayed by a performer's physical attributes. [*]
* Exception to rule = the 10/10 perfect backside of Mitch Pileggi for some reason.
endverse!castiel owns my brain right now