i'm sorry i keep getting stuck on the fact that people legitimately think that sam and dean did not share a heaven in 5x16.
let's review some items established during the episode (mostly via ash and cas):
during this episode (and most of the show) heaven is someone reliving their greatest hits aka memories.
souls in heaven were not moving beyond their own heaven except for ash himself, and he was able to because he found a "practical use for string theory."
ash comes and finds the brothers in their heaven while they are being hunted by zachariah, and uses a sigil to open a door back to his own heaven. he also eventually collects pamela from her's and then sends them off on a path to the garden through another sigiled door.
everyone has their own personal heaven*, except for "special cases," who share. *this is beared out by depictions of heaven in future episodes.
taking a moment to suppose that sam and dean were in separate heavens, and applying what we learned from ash, there seems to be no way for dean to have wandered out of his heaven and into sam's. dean doesn't have the knowledge or power to do this. all he did was follow the road in his heaven (as cas instructed him to), and it eventually lead him to sam. cas didn't say, do this and then this and then you will find sam's heaven. he said, just follow the road. plus, once they find the road, both of them move onto each memory. they don’t have to find each other again.
ergo, sam and dean both died and went to a shared place - winchesterland, as ash put it. he had the opportunity to call it by separate names - samland and deanland, like he did ashland, but he phrased it in a collective kind of way. plus there's this:
Sam: And you said this was your Heaven?
Ash: Yup, my own personal.
Sam: And when the angels jumped us, we were--
Ash: In your Heaven.
sam uses a collective we, as the brothers so often do. when ash replies, it seems he is also talking about the two of them, in one heaven. sam follows it up by saying, ok so there are two heavens, one for him and dean, one for ash, again indicating they were a unit.
now we talk about the reason for sharing; we learn about the billions of heavens, and ash's travels and his figuring out that for the most part, people have their "own private idaho." it can be assumed however that ash has run into at least one pair of soulmates while exploring, to have figured out how it all works.
this is because during his explanations, he mentions that a few people share heavens. when pressed by dean, ash specifies that an example of special cases are soulmates.
as an aside: we have two pieces of information on this scene , one being the aired episode, the other being the script.
in the episode, ash tells the brothers about soulmates, pauses, looks at sam and moves on. sam and dean blink a little as if startled but otherwise do not speak or look at each other.
in the script, ash tells them casually about soulmates, then breaks eye contact with the brothers, (ash politely looks away) while they react. the beat in the script specifies that dean and sam have an awkward moment as they glance at each other and take in this information. why? because they know they were sharing, their souls were together on the same stretch of road, and so they take a moment to consider the next logical step:
a + b = c
a. sam and dean were sharing a heaven
b. special cases aka soulmates share heaven
c. sam and dean are at least a special case, which is to say, probably soulmates.
the script (available on the spn wiki for this episode) is not 100% accurate in terms of the dialogue, since some things changed during filming, but it does show the beats and writer’s original plan. based on things that have been said by the writers and producers regarding this ep, it seems the slight adjustments in the final product were to allow the soulmates reveal to be more subtle. but the script makes it pretty clear that the intent was for sam and dean to be considered a special case/soulmates
all in all, ash seems like he's had this conversation or a similar version of it with the brothers before. he references their many deaths only to be reminded they do not remember them. he seems to know he will find sam and dean together if they are both dead. he treats this casually, this is not gross or weird information, it is just a fact of death for the brothers.
so having addressed the shared heaven argument. the last piece of the puzzle that people seem to glom onto is the idea that sam and dean can't be soulmates, because of sam's memories. his memories were:
when he was 11 and went to a real thanksgiving at someone else's house (likely a girl he had a crush on, or who had a crush on him).
the time he ran away in flagstaff and kept bones the dog for 2 weeks.
the night he left for stanford.
dean's memories were:
he and sam celebrating 4th of july in 1996
dean comforting his mother after she fought with john on the phone. this is sometime in 1983 (may or later) as mary references both boys when she is arguing with john. dean would be 4, sam some number of months.
of these 5 memories, only dean's first memory is a good one. everything else is kind of average for both of them. one could argue that all of dean's memories of mary are precious bc he has so few, but to be honest he absolutely would have had better ones, maybe even when sam was born or his 4th birthday, which they likely celebrated. why would mary being upset and needing a hug be one of dean's greatest hits? another memory of young sam would have been happier also (getting the samulet for example). this was chosen for a reason. dig at sam maybe?
sam should have had better memories too. when sam says, "I can’t control this stuff!" in regards to what memories he relives, this is a clue. someone else is controlling what comes up.
so, dean was shown a good memory, proving that this is what's going on (they are reliving happy memories). sam is given a decent memory at first to support this, though it does not include dean (purposefully). it is probably one of his better ones without him. the without dean part is important. and then he is shown 2 other memories that are happy if you squint but more importantly, guaranteed to hurt dean because they feature dean's biggest fear - sam leaving the family and more importantly, dean.
also, rather than continuing to alternate memories, once dean is upset, they immediately go to another memory of sam’s, this one guaranteed to push all his buttons that he has left to push.
finally, when zachariah captures them, we are shown that he is controlling the memory version of mary, in a pretty gross fashion, but only after she says all kinds of hurtful things to really fuck with dean.
but! this means zachariah very likely has the ability to control sam and dean's ENTIRE heaven and has been dictating everything other than their sojourn over to ash’s heaven. if sam and dean were not so emotionally fucked up because they'd been killed and then shown those memories and then forced to face guilt in the form of old friends, they might have figured that out. but they don't really get a chance to work through it. it's almost worse that joshua saves them, because given more time with zachariah, he probably would have gloated and one or both of them would have gotten there.
instead they get told a load of crap about god not wanting anything to do with humans or the apocalypse and to back off. and then joshua's like ok byeeee you will get to remember this yay! so of course when they get back to their bodies dean is pissed and broken and believes that sam does not hold him in the same regard he holds sam. and sam, still feeling so guilty over everything with lilith and ruby and the apocalypse, doesn't have a good argument to combat deans assumption. how can he argue with heaven, especially because those probably were not bad memories for him, they just weren't his best memories either. zachariah mind gamed him as well.
this entire episode is about him fucking with the winchesters on his turf (he flat out tells us this). he played them both off each other as he’s been doing since last season (see the voicemail, and dean being stuck in the green room).
so in the end zachariah got what he wanted even though he didn't get to torture their souls first. he successfully shoved yet one more wedge between the brothers and broke dean a bit more in the process. all towards his goal of getting the winchesters to accept their fate as vessels.
and if you think that this part of the post and my interpretation is far fetched, i would like to reference a 2016 tumblr post, where a fan described a convo they had during their photo op with jared. he was asked a question about this episode, and he went on to say that zachariah manipulated sam's memories in heaven, to exclude dean.
obviously this is not definitive, but i trust and believe jared and jensen more than anyone when it comes to the show and their characters. it also fits the rest of the data.
in conclusion: sam and dean do share a heaven and are a special case. according to ash, one way to describe them would be soulmates.
The first thing that startled Robby was just how long it took him to realise what he'd done. He'd strode across to meet the incoming ambulance, heard what info the EMTs had to pass on, walked the gurney into Trauma One, supervised Cassie and Nazely's assessment and stabilisation of the patient—gunshot wound to the abdomen, lower right quadrant; congratulations, you've just won the hopefully-once-in-a-lifetime chance to have Yolanda Garcia rummage around in your insides—and only then did it hit him.
He'd been out in the ambulance bay on the phone with Jack when he'd heard the wail of an approaching ambulance. Their discussion of whether to try the fancy new pizzeria with the odd toppings around the corner from Jack's place, or just to stick with the tried-and-true option for watching the game tonight, would have to wait. "Gotta go," Robby had said, distracted as he tried to estimate how far out the rig was, "see you later, I love you."
Robby stood there in the trauma bay and the full horror of the realisation slowly dawned on him. He'd told Jack he loved him. He'd told Jack he loved him, and then he'd hung up on him.
"Fuck," Robby said.
He snapped off the nitrile gloves he was wearing, binned them, and pulled his phone from his pocket between his thumb and his forefinger, as if he was handling some kind of medical waste. Nothing. No missed calls, no voice mails, no texts except for a scam one trying to get him to pay an imaginary FasTrak toll in California. Nothing at all from Jack, and Robby couldn't decide if that was better or worse.
Hand-off to Shen and Ellis was its usual clockwork, and on the drive over to Jack's place Robby went through various stages of bargaining with the universe. Maybe Jack hadn't heard him. Reception in the ambulance bay could be spotty. Calls sometimes dropped. Or maybe Jack would laugh it off, treat it as just the kind of brain fart you sometimes got near the end of a long but humdrum shift—like how a little kid in elementary school might absent-mindedly call their teacher 'mom' in front of the whole class.
A little voice in Robby's head, one that sounded suspiciously like his therapist, said what are you bargaining here for, exactly? Which was one of many reasons why therapy was doing a number on his temporomandibular joint, because clearly Jack had been getting along just fine with Robby not saying anything, even though Robby had surely been painfully, mortifyingly obvious, and wasn't the whole point of the therapy sessions for him to learn how not to leak his feelings all over everything and everyone?
And really, Robby thought as he parked in front of Jack's building and sat there rubbing at the hinge of his jaw, would we even call what Robby felt for Jack love? Or if he did, well, there were lots of different kinds of love. It didn't have to be that kind. Did it? Robby strained to recall all those ancient Greek words for love he'd studied in a long ago philosophy gen ed course. He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, one two three. Who was to say that Robby hadn't meant brotherly love? Philia. That could have been what he meant.
It's still bargaining if you're splitting hairs and looking for get-out clauses, his little internal therapist pointed out.
"Fuck," Robby said.
In the elevator ride up to Jack's condo, Robby wondered if there was scope for him to invent some sudden emergency. If he could just text Jack and say, Sorry, can't make it tonight, my condo's flooded or Cafeteria food gave me food poisoning, see you in 24-48 hours. But part of him felt like: well, hell, face the music. Play stupid phone games, accept stupid phone prizes.
See you later, I love you.
"Fuck," Robby said, with emphasis.
Right after he knocked on Jack's door, Robby realised he'd been so distracted by what he'd said that he'd totally forgotten what he'd promised to do in the first place. As soon as Jack appeared, in shorts and a ratty old t-shirt, Robby blurted out, "I didn't bring any pizza."
Jack looked at him, slow and steady, and then said, "We're working on our conversational segues, huh?"
"You heard it, right?" Robby said as Jack stepped back to let him in.
"Heard it, yeah," Jack said, closing the door and used one of his crutches to point in the direction of the living room. Robby obeyed, glum. The pre-game show should have started by now, but Jack's TV was switched off. A glass of whiskey sat on the coffee table. Robby had the distinct impression that he wasn't going to be watching the game that night. "Heard it, thought about it. Processed," with that precise, Dr-Abbot-y enunciation that could be terrifying when turned on a wayward med student and that now made Robby wince.
"I'm sorry," Robby said, hoping Jack would also hear the sincerity in his tone. "It was a lapse, it doesn't have to mean anything, I can keep a handle on it."
"Oh my god," Jack said, in tones of disbelief as resonant as if Robby had just confessed to liking low-fat popcorn, or thinking that the Pirates had a chance of winning the World Series this year.
"I can go," Robby offered. "If you don't want—"
"Sit," Jack said, and pointed at his couch. Robby sat. Jack picked up his glass and knocked back the last of the whiskey in one big gulp. Robby winced. That boded."Okay."
"'Okay' what?"
Jack squinted at him. "You think you're getting to steer this conversation right now? Because that happened earlier, and look where that got us."
"Jesus," Robby said.
"Let's leave him out of this," Jack said and, setting his crutches down, moved to straddle Robby's lap.
"Um," Robby said.
"You didn't need to woo me with fancy pizza," Jack said, "because brother, surely you know a sure thing when you see it. But I will say—"
Robby was long familiar with that particular tone. He rolled his eyes, preemptively.
"—as first declarations of like, undying passions or whatever, you could do with a little more finesse."
"Undying passion?" Robby echoed.
Jack stared impassively at him and raised both his eyebrows. "Well?"
Robby took a deep breath and fought not to close his eyes. Surely he could be brave enough to say this to Jack face-to-face? "I love you. I'm in love with you. I don't know when it first started but I do know that I can't imagine myself now without that fact of loving you. I'm not… I'm not good at words, I don't sing love songs well, but for you, I wish I could."
Jack leaned forward, rested one hand gently on Robby's chest, right over his heart. The expression on Jack's face now terrified Robby; made him want to keep being brave.
"I said it because it's what I'm always feeling. When I say hello to you, I mean I love you. When I say good night, I mean that I love you. When I—"
Their first kiss was a slow thing, a tremendous thing, with as much weight and heft to it as Jack had in Robby's lap. Robby's hands came up to settle on Jack's hips, and his head swam like he was the one who'd drunk the whiskey, instead of just having licked the taste of it from Jack's mouth.
"How about now?" Jack murmured, voice gone raspy. "Do you mean it now?"
"Yes," Robby said, and he'd never wanted Jack to believe him so much about something as he did right now. "Jack, I—"
"I love you, too," Jack said, and he was smiling like he'd just discovered the map to some undiscovered country, and the only thing that startled Robby now was how long it had taken them to speak.
I love how it seems like, after he's been pushed about Destiel and Cockles, Jensen seems to quadruple down on "Hey, you know who I love? Jared. You know who's my BFF? Jared. You want to hear something motivational? Let me tell you about the bestest human being I know, who's presence changed my world forever for the better... Jared Padalecki."
jensen ackles commencement speech may 2026 - orig source - hd full speech from green farms academy
But having that partner; someone to rely on, someone who would rely on you, is sometimes the only thing that got us through. But when someone needs you like that, showing up for that person matters more than anything else.
Jensen can't let a day go by without talking about Jared. 🥰
At every solo panel.
At every film set to his co-stars. (To the point that when said co-stars finally meet Jared they're like "we've heard so much about you".)
And now at a commencement speech at his old high school. Yep, he found a way to squeeze Jared in there too. And not just a little throwaway line. No, he talked in detail about his wonderful partnership with Jared and how important it is to both of them. ❤
every spn convention they try to waterboard jensen into saying he loves deancas and this time he gasped "wincest" when he could finally come out for air. yeah okay why not
The main reason why I like Rabbot is that neither man is young. It is so rare to have a pairing where both characters are middle-aged. I get you people who like Whitaker. He is a sweetheart and pretty much a cinnamon roll but Jack is a man who has seen a lot, gone through a lot and still cares. Both Robby and Jack are damaged individuals who were forced to endure so much...they just fit.
If anyone is interested in some Rabbot whump, I have a delicious collection of one shots for you! (They also come with fanart for each oneshot)
Suicide Machines by @akathecentimetre (art by @agarthanlaboratory)
Prompt fills for The Pitt Whump Week, 2026, all Rabbot-themed. With art by @agarthanlaboratory!
1 - tied up - "This isn't Jack. Where is he?"
2 - insomnia - On the fourth morning he sits up, looks back over his shoulder, and Jack is a corpse.
3 - overwhelmed + "Don't touch me." - "Hell of a thing to contract malaria on your vacation, Robby."
4 - flashlight + pupillary response - "You take your third dose yet? Had to come back and keep you on time."
5 - unhappy customer - "People're staring." / "Let 'em."
6 - oxygen - "You always like this when you're high, Robinavitch?"
7 - all alone - Four bullets left, a nasty whisper says in the back of his head.
Every single oneshot is super good, and the art is also incredible!!! Some of the fics are a little dark, especially the last one, so mind the tags. Make sure to leave a kudos or comment if you end up reading this!
