#grieving cas

[found--family]

actually one thing i will never forgive is the way they bogarted the opportunity for cas to express his grief as a father when jack is sick and then dead in season 14 bc they focus on sam and dean separately and wrote cas like he was just another background character- like excuse the fuck???? 

[deletingpoint]

He wanders through the hallways of the bunker, not being able to sleep. Not able to even be still or do the research like he does some nights. The world has changed, yet some things remain the same. The way Dean looks like he wants to say something, but ends up clapping Castiel’s shoulder, lingering a little, and closing his eyes before leaving the room. The way Sam powers up his computer, a worried look on his face and how are you doing, but accepting the answer fine. The way Cas himself keeps touching the books and the tables and door knobs with just a tip of his fingers. Needing something for his hands to do.

He ends up in the kitchen. He always ends up in the kitchen on nights like this. Sometimes Dean is here. Most of the time even the kitchen is filled with emptiness. He slumps to a seat letting himself feel exhausted. Sometimes Mary sat with him like this, as restless as he was, as scared to belong but wanting it anyway. One time he showed her how to make a hug emoji and she told a story of Dean hugging her when she’d had a fight with John.

He sighs and rubs a hand to his face. When did he start feeling so much…. His eyes land on a colorful package hidden behind flour and sugar packs. His fingers itch to touch it, to drag it out to the daylight. They had gone after Jack’s body to burn him. It hadn’t felt real. Not the pyre, not him as an empty husk, not the fire or smoke. Sam’s sniffs, Dean’s hoovering close to him. Perhaps the same way Cas had tried to be there for him during Mary’s funeral. He didn’t look at him so he wouldn’t know.

This though… a happy bear smiling, a handful of cereal still inside. No one has touched it since. Krunch Cookie Crunch it says. Castiel slips a hand to his pocket, but the decoder ring isn’t there anymore. He’d left it with Jack. A human sentimentality, leaving things to the dead like they could ever use them. It had burned with all that they had.

He outlines the bear, fingers tracing every turn. Jack had been good at gluing them all together. But more than anything, he had just been good. Hugging him the very first time they met face to face. Clinging to him, not hiding his feelings, smiling, proud of himself. Pushing them away to protect them, feeling useless without powers, destroying his soul because he couldn’t lose people he loved. Their son. His son. He had been so very good. Full of love and trust and honesty. Even in the end just wanting to be good.

“He just wanted to be good,” Cas hears himself say with a whisper, not seeing the smiling bear anymore. He didn’t notice when he’d started to cry, but the tears are there and for the first time it feels painfully real.

[found--family]

correct me if i'm wrong, but.... cas never saw dean die, right? dean saw cas die multiple times, but....