“You know I didn’t mean it, right?” Dean says one night.

Cas squints in that way he does as he looks up at Dean through his lashes across the library table. He tilts his head in question.

“What I said that night. Before you left…after Mom.”

And that’s all it takes for the wind to leave his sails. Deflated. The memory is still fresh in his mind, even after all this time. And despite Cas’s best efforts, yeah. It still stings. He lets his eyes fall to the names scratched into the mahogany of the table. He stares at them: at Jack’s name and his, at Sam and Dean’s initials.

At Mary’s.

Why does that something always seem to be you?

You’re dead to me.

He lets his index finger trace the letters of her name. Grief, guilt, and loss unfurls from behind his rib cage and grips around his heart like tentacles.

He’d said he was sorry. Cas knows he is. Logically, at least. He’d be lying if he said doubt didn’t sometimes reside quietly in the corners of his mind, in the chambers of his heart.

His forefinger is tracing the ‘W’ next to the ‘M’ when he tries to hold his stiff upper lip, tries to conceal the raging inner battle from Dean.

“Of course.”

And it’s the best Cas can do in that moment. He regrets it almost instantly, because it sounds like bullshit, even to him. So he tries to deflect, to end this conversation before it begins. He rises from his seat and takes both of their scotch glasses in hand.

“I’ll go get us some more,” he says, plastering his best attempt at a smile on his face as he starts heading for the kitchen. Dean’s footfalls are quickly behind him.

“Cas,” he calls out, and Cas tries his best to steel himself against the ache in his chest as he continues walking.

Being human sucks sometimes. He used to be able to flip on a proverbial robotic switch whenever he needed to avoid feeling, to avoid emotion, because angels were soldiers first and foremost. And because emotions were always the doorway to doubt, it was important to be able to turn them off in order to preserve the objective of the mission at hand.

Now though, after Jack pulled him out of the Empty, grace left behind, he’s finding it exceedingly more difficult to hide behind a mask. Especially now that his built-in armor is gone.

He feels everything so much more intensely now. And he hates it, particularly in moments like these. Because he doesn’t want to feel insecure, he doesn’t want Dean to feel guilty, he doesn’t want to rock the boat.

When he steps down into the kitchen, he notices how Dean’s footsteps don’t follow his over the threshold. He puts both glasses down on the counter as he reaches for the bottle of Macallan 12 in the cupboard. He unscrews the cap and begins pouring.

“Don’t do that.”

Keep reading

honestlydarkprincess:

how many times does one have to refresh tumblr dot com before their mental illness is cured. asking for a friend

lilaccatholic:

lilaccatholic:

It’s Fourth of July Eve so make sure to leave some milk and cookies out for Captain America

I THOUGHT AFTER FOUR YEARS YOU PEOPLE WOULD LET THIS DIE AND YET AGAIN I OPEN THIS CURSED APP TO FIND MORE NOTES ON THIS POST

whitepeopletwitter:

hungwy:

I like saying “I’ll allow it” only in contexts where I have no power or authority

siir-poesia:

musicalsilence:

my-s-a-g-a:

hotvampireadjacent:

The book is 1984, which is neither. It’s anti-authoritarian, which tells you a lot.

Ya know, sometimes I wish the joke *didn’t* write itself.

actual-changeling:

not-so-mundane-after-all:

Something that isn’t talked about enough - Joel tackling Ellie to the ground and covering her with his own body when he noticed the bomb. Like literally curling around her entire body, acting like a shield, ready to take the worst of the explosion onto himself.

Such a little moment, and yet it never fails to make me a mess 🥹😭

Also with the way he does it, this is 100% not the first time.

Definitely do not think about all the different times that Joel ignored his own health to make sure she doesn’t get as much as a scratch on her while he ends up with bruised ribs and cuts all over his back.

He probably hid them from her, too, and just pretended to be fine after sliding three feet on gravel to make sure she wouldn’t get hit by whoever was aiming at them.