[ if any of that was supposed to reassure jack that dad #3 is fine, dean's missing the mark by a long stretch. intuitive as jack's always been, most of the time, dean's a mystery to him, but sometimes, like now, it's painfully clear.
jack isn't family still rings, bright and stinging and crippling, in the back of his mind, but he's come to see dean through castiel's eyes over the short years of his life. melded with cas once, before he was born, the love there was bright, like a beacon, a lighthouse on a battered coast. cas loved dean down to the individual atoms and molecules that he'd carefully pieced back together from hell. whether or not dean felt the same, jack could never tell - deciphering dean winchester has always been a difficult puzzle for him, but he tries.
careful, his hand covers dean's on the shoulder it landed on, and jack brings the other to pillow under his head where he's lying parallel to him on the cool library floor, a clock ticking away on a distant wall, the bunker otherwise silent. ]
Castiel, he said— [ saying his name hurts, a rawness in his throat, and jack misses him more than he can say. so much of what he knows about the universe, about life and free will and family and love he learned from castiel, and from sam and dean, but cas he knew before he was even truly alive. he was his first father, his guardian, his safe place, his home. what he meant to dean, jack will never completely know, but he knows the miserable ache and emptiness that's left behind, sees it clearly in attempts dean's making to look totally fine. if castiel can't be here to help dean keep his head above water, jack will do the best he can. ] He said he's still far from happy, that he didn't think it'd happen any time soon.
[ 'it', whatever 'it' was, that happened in a room with dean, cas, and death. whatever made cas so happy, so fulfilled, whatever castiel gave himself permission to finally do, to feel... jack thinks he knows, but dean has to say it. whisky won't drown it out of his head, he has to get it out. jack's voice goes soft, a whisper between them, the empty whisky bottle, and the library floor. it sounds almost like an apology. ]
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jack isn't family still rings, bright and stinging and crippling, in the back of his mind, but he's come to see dean through castiel's eyes over the short years of his life. melded with cas once, before he was born, the love there was bright, like a beacon, a lighthouse on a battered coast. cas loved dean down to the individual atoms and molecules that he'd carefully pieced back together from hell. whether or not dean felt the same, jack could never tell - deciphering dean winchester has always been a difficult puzzle for him, but he tries.
careful, his hand covers dean's on the shoulder it landed on, and jack brings the other to pillow under his head where he's lying parallel to him on the cool library floor, a clock ticking away on a distant wall, the bunker otherwise silent. ]
Castiel, he said— [ saying his name hurts, a rawness in his throat, and jack misses him more than he can say. so much of what he knows about the universe, about life and free will and family and love he learned from castiel, and from sam and dean, but cas he knew before he was even truly alive. he was his first father, his guardian, his safe place, his home. what he meant to dean, jack will never completely know, but he knows the miserable ache and emptiness that's left behind, sees it clearly in attempts dean's making to look totally fine. if castiel can't be here to help dean keep his head above water, jack will do the best he can. ] He said he's still far from happy, that he didn't think it'd happen any time soon.
[ 'it', whatever 'it' was, that happened in a room with dean, cas, and death. whatever made cas so happy, so fulfilled, whatever castiel gave himself permission to finally do, to feel... jack thinks he knows, but dean has to say it. whisky won't drown it out of his head, he has to get it out. jack's voice goes soft, a whisper between them, the empty whisky bottle, and the library floor. it sounds almost like an apology. ]
What changed, Dean?