Demon, angel, and two wayward brothers, and who looks the most like they should have a halo here? The King of Hell.
Is this thing even on…?
(This Crowley was a warmup BEFORE the rest of the pic, but when I took the layer off invis he just looked like he was checking the camera. So we have an “outtake.”)
Summary: Dean falls into a heat unexpectedly in the early morning. Reluctantly, he follows Cas’ pleas for him to give in to his omega instincts to help him get himself through the heat.
Dean scoots his chair closer to my bedside, and he has that anxious look like I’m hurt. I guess I am. Still not in any pain, though.
“You were in an accident,” he says finally, eyes flicking to my forehead and back to my face. He forces a smile, but I can tell it’s serious.
“H-how long was I out?” I ask, coughing again slightly. “Water?”
“Right! Here, here you go.” Dean has a cup of water already on a tray nearby. There’s a few empty ones on the counter next to that. And that’s when I start to get uneasy.
“Dean,” I press him, sipping at the water. “How long?”
A shadow practically falls over his face.
“They said you were awake when they brought you in, but by the time I got here you were unconscious. It’s been three weeks.”
“Three — that’s impossible!” I sputter and nearly drop the water. “That long, I wouldn’t wake back up.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, his voice cracking. “You wouldn’t.”
This is cover art for a one-shot fanfic of mine, No Time At All. Here’s the summary and more info:
Sam is in a coma. An experimental drug lets him wake up for a few hours at a time, though, and be able to visit with his brother. Dean is helpless to change Sam’s situation, so Sam decides to try to change Dean’s.
G-rated, 3616 words, Implied Major Character Death, No-supernatural AU, Nurse Castiel, Background Destiel, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Brother Feels, Time Skips, Sam POV, Hopeful Bittersweet Ending
Here’s a post I did about Dean’s self awareness, as part of my dean is not emotionally stunted series, but honestly there could be much more added to that set. Like you said, the way he apologizes. His self awareness is part of his emotional intelligence. And I was thinking the other day: How in the world did that man get his emotional intelligence because it wasn’t from John, and it wasn’t from Bobby. I think it starts with his innate empathy.
Check out this comparison from s5 where both Dean and Bobby are depressed and hopeless at different points and Dean’s reaction to Bobby in 5.07:
Compared with Bobby’s reaction to Dean in 5.18:
Don’t think Dean learned a lot about empathy from Bobby.
And I know people like to speculate that Dean was forced into being a person who cares about other people because John forced him to take care of Sam. But there’s an important distinction that I’ve talked about before. John forced him to take care of Sam but he didn’t force him to care about Sam. Or even to take care of Sam well. Mostly it was about keeping him from harm. It wasn’t about making sure Sam had his mac and cheese with marshmallow fluff (gifs from 10.12).
or a nice fourth of july (from 5.16):
He did that purely because he liked seeing his brother happy. Because of his natural empathy. His empathy is definitely innate. He’s been comforting people since he was four years old. We saw in his memory rom 5.16 that he was able to recognize when Mary was sad and comforted her.
Standard caveat, he shouldn’t have been in a position where it was his job to be his mother’s emotional support. But because he’s innately empathetic, he wants to comfort people, and make them happy. He sees how his mother responded to comfort and he’s not only learning about her emotions from things like this, but his own as well. More of the same, as he went on to exhibit empathy toward Sam and John in the same way.
(2.01) And since no one else was paying attention to Dean’s emotions, that became another job for him. He had to learn ways to hide them in order to keep functioning. Because the burden was just too great for a child to bear otherwise. This level of emotional care for others was extremely damaging to Dean, because while he was busy being empathetic and taking care of everybody else, no one was taking care of his emotions:
(2.22, 5.16)
And that’s why he dismisses his own feelings. He understands them perfectly well. He just doesn’t think their worth consideration and care from others. Because they never have been.
But his empathy (from which his self-awareness grew) was never snuffed out, despite everything that he went through. The lack of any emotional care? All that talk about being a good soldier? John punishing Dean by leaving him at a boys’ home for months? None of that snuffed it out. I think about that a lot.
I wrote my first two ficlets with Jack in them, but Ao3′s not loading. 😦 The Universe is telling me the world doesn’t need baby Jack but I don’t want to listen!
It started working so I uploaded them as quickly as I could:
Sort of an art master post for my illustrations in my new fluffy little Destiel merfolk AU fic Seashell Hearts. ♥ It’s only 776 words. If you like fairytales and soft, soft fluff, please check it out!
Karate, SPN Demonic Octopus Guardian 