Sastiel Love Week Day III – Outsider POV: Never Had A Full House

rodiniaorzetalthepenquin:

From the moment Jack had laid eyes on Sam, he had seen it. There were tangles of Grace wrapped around the burning brilliant light that made up this person, Grace that matched what pulsed inside him and other Grace that matched what he had Felt while still inside his mother, the Grace she had told him belonged to Castiel.

“Father?”

The man denied the title, yet he still knew his name, the name his mother had whispered into his heart with her dying breath. The man felt fear, and there was thunder and anger, and so Jack fled, looking for his Father, for Castiel… and the man came for him again. Sat with him in the small room with three walls and a line of metal bars. He felt fear, but he spoke with and even voice that kept the fear behind a wall of kindness. Gentleness. He spoke of Castiel with warmth, and with pain, admitting to Jack that his Father (not Lucifer, though now Jack wondered if that was the name put to the other Grace, the Grace within him that matched the other traces inside Sam which were different from Castiel) was dead.

When the angels came, their Grace harsh and hostile against his own, Jack was not so overwhelmed that he was unaware of how Sam reacted to protect him from the angels despite their greater strength and power. The banishing sigil that Sam used felt so strange, pulling at that deeply-rooted part of him that was an angel as if it might rip him in two, but Sam’s hand on his shoulder grounded him, helped him focus and pull himself quite literally back together. The blade that other angel shoved through his chest hurt, but not as bad as hearing Sam’s brother talk about killing him had. If an angel blade couldn’t kill him, though….

He kept those thoughts to himself, even as he watched the burning pyre where his Mother and his Father’s bodies lay and listened to Sam explain what people might say at funerals. Saying goodbye seemed like it would be a good thing to do, but the words got caught behind the lump in Jack’s throat over never having gotten the chance to say “hello” first. He was grateful that neither Sam nor Dean seemed to notice as they grieved the loss of his Father… their friend.

And so it went. Sam continued to help him, to teach him and encourage him. Dean continued to hold himself apart from Jack, critical and unwelcoming despite the way he stopped Jack from stabbing himself. The hole left behind in their family was imperfectly filled by Jack, but he knew it was an imperfect fit, though he had no idea how he could make himself fit better, or even if he should. Even with the fighting that he couldn’t help but overhear, Jack didn’t truly understand what it meant for Sam and Dean that his Father was dead… until he wasn’t.

Castiel’s return showed Jack just how much he had missed, how much he had been acting on incomplete information. Watching Castiel and Dean interact was so much like watching Dean and Sam interact that Jack occasionally had to blink to be sure he was seeing the correct beings in those places. Watching Castiel and Sam just stand next to each other, however, was entirely new and different.

Sam relaxed in Castiel’s presence, the tension leaving him in a way it never had around Jack, or even around Dean when Jack wasn’t in the room. His shoulders lost some of their constant readiness, and the light inside him glowed more brightly. Castiel, by comparison, seemed to burn more brightly, his wings more animated whenever Sam was near. Jack was fascinated to watch how they would spread open whenever Sam appeared, how the tattered feathers seemed to try to fill and fluff up, how whichever wing was nearest to Sam seemed to try and curl around his larger frame in a way that made Jack think of a hug. Jack started trying to mimic those gestures, just a little, but his own wings were still very small and didn’t have very many mature feathers.

When the man died on the case, when he realized that the greatest threat to his Father and his Dad was himself, when Jack realized that he would have to leave to protect them, he hoped that by the time he had control of his powers enough to not be a danger to anyone, he could greet his family as both a human and an angel.

Jack is THE BEST.  A total angel.  Except not because so many angels are dicks.  Sam and Cas’s alternate reactions to each other, Sam letting go to relax and Cas perking up to comfort and protect and show affection… I LOVE THIS.  It’s perfection. ❤