“No matter what choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up… here.”
Cas
summed it up with one word: “Life.” Really though, I feel the more
accurate answer would have been: “You.” Because essentially that’s how
kind of everything started for Cas as the “famous spanner in the works”,
the “one with the crack in his chassis”, the “one with too much heart”.
Dean happened to him. Dean, the one person that Cas experienced
humanity by for the very first time in millennia. And he fell for him,
yes, as Hester said “in any way imaginable”.
In 2014 we see Cas in jeans and henley, scruffy cheeks, sarcasm and defeat written over his features, a bottle of
wine in one hand, a bottle of pills in the other. He’s the very mirror
image of all the very human things Dean struggled with at his core and who he – to say it with endverse in the back of your mind –
used to be. Especially when thinking about the end of S10 and the
situation they are faced with right now, which is framed as a sort of
apocalypse reloaded, looking at 5x04 “The End” one can’t help but think
that Cas kept the promise he gave Dean in 10x22 “The Prisoner”, that
he’d be the only one still by his side even if everyone he knew and
cared for would be long gone.
Of course Dean never spotted a mark on his arm in endverse or became a
demon, but he lost touch with his humanity just the same. First he lost
his brother – not to Gadreel or because of the mistakes he made when he
was at the end of his rope, but Lucifer. Then he lost his father figure
– not to leviathans, but the croatoan virus. Dean for all he knew and
cared was alone in the world, his family “dead” – for all except one.
One, who remained by his side - who said “No, I can’t. Because I’m your friend.” in another timeline - even when he started to turn to violence,
became the hardened version and broken shell of the man he assumed
him too be when they first met, when Dean slowly but steadily muted his
humanity a little more, bit by bit.
I love the difference between this Cas and the Cas we have now. Like when Misha first started on the show I think he did such an amazing job of portraying something alien inhabiting a human container. Like back in seasons 4/5/6 whenever Cas talks or moves it looks like he is having to make a conscious effort to remember to at least try to look a little bit human.
Like in the second gif here - and we see it a lot in the first few seasons - Cas starts to talk and then remembers you’re supposed to look at people when you talk to them - and he doesn’t always remember to do that, something he just keep on talking to the air in front of him - so he turns his head and then it looks like a split second later he’s like, “Oh, right, the eyes, gotta move the eyes too.” so his gaze turns to Dean but it’s a fraction delayed from the movement of his head.
I dunno, I always noticed that about early Cas but it’s bled away now, he’s more comfortable in his body and moves more naturally.
04x22 “Lucifer Rising 11x02 “Form and Void” Fall and I’ll Catch You
Excuse me while I drown in a puddle of the Dean Winchester and Castiel feels here and overread things, but I am just really really emotional about how 4x22 “Lucifer Rising” marked the moment that Cas for the very first time and with more certainty and conviction than ever before chose the Winchesters, chose Dean over Heaven. And it gets introduced with Dean tipping over the angel statue, causing it “to fall”. Just like Dean inspired Cas’ fall. And now 7 seasons later we have the episode 11x02 “Form and Void” in which Cas is tortured for siding with and choosing the Winchesters over Heaven. Every. Single. Time. He is given the choice. And he does it again just moments later rather choosing to endure terrible agony than giving up Sam and Dean. And miles away, there is one Dean Winchester, desperately trying to reach Cas on the phone, desperate to “save Cas”, but there are complications and things getting in the way. And so he ends up in an house filled with angels any- and everywhere, angels Jenna sends crashing, shattering to the ground. But there’s one that’s saved, one whose fall Dean catches, saves. The one who later ends up in the bunker, with the Winchesters - his true family - begging them “to help him” or should I say “catch his fall”. If the angel statue Dean catches is anything to go by, Cas is in the most literal sense of the term in good hands…
One of the most remarkable parts about this scene for me is that Dean had already been talking on the phone. This wasn’t the first time that Dean had spoken in this conversation. But it was the first time that Dean spoke and sounded more like himself…the first time he spoke and it wasn’t all business.
Cas made the remark about the honor bar and Dean couldn’t help but respond with his snarky “everything” and then Cas smiles like… “Oh there you are, that’s my Dean…that’s the Dean that I fell in love with.” And you can see that love written on his face…see that love written in his sweet smile.
They’ve already been talking to each other but Cas chooses now to ask Dean how he is. Dean, never one to be honest about how he’s actually doing, replies with his standard answer of “okay” or “fine” or “I’m alright” but you can see on his face that he’s not okay. He’s tired. He’s worn out. He’s fighting battles inside and out.
How long has it been since we last saw Dean truly smile? And yet when he asks Cas how he’s doing and Cas responds and is being all Cas-like, we see this small but beautifully real smile from Dean.
These two weary warriors that are battling heaven and hell and their own inner demons, that are tired and down-trodden, and yet they can still smile like this because of each other. And if that isn’t love, then I don’t know what is.
dean has freaking angel warding carved in his ribs, which means he can’t be found by angel radar. so, based on the information we’ve gathered until now, how could cas locate dean after he got out of purgatory in s8? by sensing dean’s longing.
i repeat: dean winchester’s longing was so poweful that a weakened castiel was able to pinpoint his exact location on motherfucking planet earth.
While your mileage may vary, I’m pretty sure this is way too many buttons. You may not notice at first because you were looking at his face.
Yeah, this is clearly too many buttons. Cover yourself, man!
Look at how much man cleavage Cas is rocking. Have we ever seen Dean wear his shirt like that? Hell, we start squealing when we see him in so much as a Henley.
And then Cas immediately does his buttons back up again when Nora leaves (and look at him, he’s much more presentable and date-worthy, imo). He wasn’t wearing his shirt open like that by his own initiative, but entirely because Dean told him to do it.
Hell, why make him unbutton at all? It looks fine. Just give him a rubber and a pat on the back and let him go.
This is Dean in a button-up shirt proving that yes, he does know what a reasonable amount of buttons is supposed to look like. Again, it may be difficult to notice the buttons at first because his face is distractingly pretty.
*side eyes Dean* What the fuck are you playing at, Dean? Is he trying to sabotage the date by making Cas look sleazy? Trying to sneak a peek? Is he legitimately unaware that we can see 70% of Cas’ chest? What?
Guys, at this point I’m 99% positive that this is just Cas’s sense of humor coming out.
I think Cas fully understands what Dean means when he asks “What’s the word, Cas?”
Cas’s sense of humor = amusement at absurdities. The tower of Babel was a pile of dung. I comforted the pig before the slaughter. The coyote is man and the roadrunner is God, trapped in an endless cycle. What the hell? Guess again. You breed with the mouth of a goat.
Cas understands language and Dean’s slang just fine. This is his idea of a joke.
And his delivery is always so deadpan that it’s hard to tell when he’s making a joke. Cas’s sense of humor is really rather subtle, and I find it freaking hilarious that people think he doesn’t understand sarcasm or jokes. Sure he does. He uses sarcasm several times over the course of the series. Granted, he doesn’t always use it correctly, especially when he’s having trouble actually communicating what he’s trying to say - I think he gets flustered - but he gets it.
His sense of humor is just a trifle offbeat. I think that’s probably just what happens when you’re thousands of years old. Obscure things start seeming really fucking hilarious.
And Dean’s reaction? I think he kinda looks like he’s not sure if Cas is joking or not, but just to be on the safe side, he goes ahead and rephrases his question.
The real tragedy of this show is that nobody gets Cas’s jokes.
Yes! And I just remembered that in “Survival of the Fittest”, Dean says:
Dean: Hey, there. So, Cas, what’s, uh, what’s the word? Cas: Well, Dean, I’ve been thinking. Monkeys… are so clever, and their sensible in that they leave the skins on the bananas that they eat. Is it really necessary to test cosmetics on them? I mean, how important is lipstick to you, Dean?
Personally, I think Cas takes the question, “What’s the word, Cas?” as an open invitation to troll the shit out of Dean Winchester.
Ben Edlund is pretty much the only writer who really keeps Cas’s sense of humor consistent, in my opinion. So many of the other writers assume Cas is just completely literal-minded when that’s not always the case. Cas is a real wiseass. Remember his exchange with Raphael.
CASTIEL Are you joking?
RAPHAEL Do I look like I’m joking?
CASTIEL You never look like you’re joking.
That’s angel humor for you, because Cas never looks like he’s joking either. Like this.
DEAN You know, I’m starting to think junkless has a better sense of humor than you do.
CASTIEL Uriel’s the funniest angel in the garrison. Ask anyone.
Cas is the funniest angel in the garrison. Nobody gets it. That’s the joke.
Think of future Cas’s snarkiness - that’s just Cas’s normal sense of humor on vitamins and with an extra dose of passive-aggressiveness. Which is why I sometimes think that orgy comment was simply Cas, as flutiebear puts it, trolling the shit out of Dean Winchester.
YES! And I don’t get the whole “Cas doesn’t get sarcasm” thing either. This is the guy who deadpanned that brilliant line about Uriel being the funniest angel in the garrison; the same one who deadpanned bitchiness at Dean’s self-centeredness with his “your problems always come first”. Why have we forgotten about that?
Castiel is the funniest angel in the garrison and he also thinks it’s really fucking hilarious that nobody’s noticed.
It’s not he first time we see Dean praying to Castiel, but the difference is that the other times he needed his help. We know that he did pray like this in Purgatory (every night) but we didn’t get to see it. So, I loved seeing how Dean called Cas because he needed him.
Niether his knowledge or powers, just him. Because Castiel had already told him that couldn’t cure Sam’s wounds, so what use would he be there besides comfort Dean with his presence?
But Castiel doesn’t answer and it breaks my heart because Dean doesn’t know that he is human now, he just thinks that he’s not listening, that he’s not coming because he has something more important to do, not because he can’t.
