i don’t even want to look at my dash, i…i don’t know if i can ever talk about this? i don’t know if i can ever possibly put into words the enormity of the heartbreak and grief i just
it sounds insane but fifteen years ago, my entire life as i knew it had ended. i couldn’t go back to school because i was sick. i couldn’t have anything i dreamed of having. i was terrified and alone, and so ill we didn’t know if i was dying. and this show started, and Dean came into my life. on my birthday, no less, like a gift from the stars. and Dean was this…mirror, for me, which is hard to understand on a surface level because I’m so overtly feminine (putting aside the feminization and nurturing qualities and tenderness in him for just a moment, if we’re talking the “surface,” which of course is never what his story was, it was never that surface) and soft-spoken and not an obvious fighter, but there were things I found in Dean, I saw in Dean that lived in me, that were an aspect of me…and all that self-loathing and all the trauma and the visceral anger that I didn’t know how to cope with or carry, how to live with, Dean showed me that I could survive it. Dean showed me how resilient and immeasurable love is, and how light is never ever quenched by the darkness, and how you should keep swinging and surviving and loving with all your heart and soul, that there’s an inherent worth in it, a quiet, steadfast courage. he’s been like the talisman that I cling to in the cold, keeping my heart warm. or…no it’s more than that. he…god i can’t word this? he was part of me and beyond me, he was someone I loved so fiercely that it was like willing him to be alive with me. like me surviving every fucking thing was worth it. he kept going. he kept standing up. he kept loving. and he felt real somehow, as if there is another universe where he was holding on and I could feel him through the ether.
when I’ve been drowning in suicidal ideation, I literally told myself…live for Dean. around the time Abandon All Hope aired in S5, when I was in the worst pit of depression, when I wanted a plan to end it, I didn’t, and a significant portion of that was for Dean. it was for my mom and it was for Angel first and foremost, of course, but it was also for him, in a transcendental way. when Angel died last year, and I felt my heart had been crushed under losing her, I told myself…live for Dean, to see that sunset he’s going to have. because he would want you to. so I did. there were days when I didn’t think I would manage to make it down the road, there were days when I was actually afraid I wouldn’t live to see the ending (sorta wishing I hadn’t…?)
I love fiction and art and stories and characters, I over-empathize and I overattach, I always have. never ever ever was it like it was with Dean. it was something miraculous with Dean.
so I thought…all that trauma and devastation and pain. the point of it was going to be recovery. the point of it was saying, you are not this hurt. you are not the live wire of rage buried under your skin that makes you want to scream in the night. you are not the things you’ve lost, or the dreams you didn’t achieve, or the terrible moments you’ve endured. that’s not the measure of a soul, a heart. it was stated EXPLICITLY - everything you’ve done, the action you’ve taken, is for love.
naive little me assumed this would mean he’d earned a life, a real one, one with a sense of contentment, one with a sense of self-worth. something he’d never gotten to have, he’d earned it. through that, it was going to say all of us who cared for him, identified with him, cherished him, deserved that too.
and instead they shoved a piece of rebar into his back and were like…sorry, it’s all about the trauma. you get nothing after all. everything they went through. THE SCOPE OF IT. heaven, hell, purgatory, endless fights, countless monsters and demons and angels and a corrupt God himself, and he got. a piece. of rebar. to the back. I don’t give a damn that he went to heaven and it’s shiny happy peaceful people, HE DIDN’T GET TO LIVE FIRST. heaven is a reward, NOT A DESTINATION.
(what was that sacrifice of Cas’ for, by the way? what was that moving, poignant speech even for? this negates Cas’ ending too, and makes Sam’s entire life shaded with misery. everyone deserved better.)
Dean, my darling, beloved heart, I am so, so sorry. Jensen, who poured his blood and spirit and time and fathomless consideration and care into this character, who tried in his way to warn us about the ending, I am so, so sorry.
I feel like they murdered one of the people I’ve loved best in the world, for the entirety of my adult life, right in front of me and want me to be okay with it. I feel like they ran that piece of rebar through my chest. my heart physically aches in a way that it only has when I’ve experienced death in real life, and there’s no ritual to satisfy it when it’s someone you can’t really give a ritual goodbye to or let go.
(PS: THEY ACTUALLY LET HIM HAVE MIRACLE THE DOG FOR WHAT, A FEW WEEKS? I REALLY CAN’T)
I know the point maybe should be that he’ll live eternally with me. I know the point should be the bravery he taught me and the acceptance he showed me and the love he gave me. maybe I’ll get there someday. but not now? my heart is utterly utterly shattered
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