If you're still up for the writing meme ask game <333
The eye is staring at Dean like it can peel back layers of his soul, but Cas still isn’t moving. Dean wants , and Cas isn’t giving, so Dean takes things into his own hands, and starts undressing. Or, he tries to. His hands shake and fumble at the hem of his shirt as he tries to pull it over his head.
Then there are more tentacles, pushing off Dean’s shirt, pulling off his shoes and socks, undoing his jeans and sliding them down his legs. Dean sighs in relief as they slide against his newly exposed skin, both as smooth as glass and as soft as down.
“I know you’re still holding back, Cas. I can feel it,” Dean says, even as his head lolls back against a cradling wing.
I don’t want to... overwhelm you, Cas says, and Dean knows what he really means is that he doesn’t want to scare him.
“Maybe I wanna be overwhelmed,” Dean says. He can feel Cas’ eyes on his naked body, the delicate caress of tentacles, and it’s not enough. “C’mon Cas. I want you. I want all of you.”
(sorry to come into your inbox and post tentacle porn but you DID write it and i'm obsessed with the emotional dynamics in this scene)
For anyone wondering this is in response to this meme:
Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any fanfic I’ve written, and stick that selection in my ask/fan mail. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what’s going on in the character’s heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.
About this fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32586472
First of all: no need to apologize! I did indeed write that, and am happy to talk about it.
The fic in general is about Dean feeling like there’s this barrier between him and everything else, which in my experience is a depression thing, and him overcoming that. In a very literal way, dispensing with any boundaries between him and Cas. What has been this issue for Dean is suddenly removed, and that's something that's freeing for him. So of course he wants to feel that way more.
The thing with this specific bit is that I was being very, very careful to avoid any vibes of dubious consent. Like, I wanted Dean to feel drunk on affection, but not in a sex-pollen kind of way. That's the Doylist explanation for why there's emphasis on Dean taking the initiative.
But also, like I said, this is Dean feeling something that he’s been afraid is missing from him. And wanting to latch onto that feeling and get more of it. Like if you're used to going hungry and you're presented with free food you'd eat as much as you can. That's Dean.
I think of this fic as both being about depression and not being about depression. Because Dean’s depression is The Issue. It is something that keeps you from fully experiencing the world and keeps you feeling isolated, even when you're not. I got a comment or an ask about the story where someone said they mentioned the line about Dean feeling empty and filling himself with other people's wants to their therapist. So in that sense, it's about depression. But it's also not, because it’s never dealt with as an issue in and of itself. It's just -- Cas is magic, and that magic allows him to circumvent Dean’s issues, and when that happens all bets are off and they go nuts with each other.
As for Cas, he doesn't get any POV in this fic. But he has been so, so careful up to this point, and setting his expectations so low, that he’s thrown off by Dean’s behaviour. I think getting what he wants would be disconcerting for him at first.
