Oh, I get what you mean about Lisa. But when you said Dean wasn't able to *do* a relationship functionally, I thought you meant emotionally.

I think with Cas, on the road, he would do fine. Well, fine with qualifications. I think Dean is always going to do relationships fairly dysfunctionally. But I think he would be willing to try, for the person he really loves.

I think Dean might have thought at one point that he wanted that house and life, but I don't think he would actually be very happy attempting it. And his Djinn dream was a different thing -- his happiness there was all rooted in Mary's happiness, his childhood home intact, which is a different thing.

The relationship I envision on the road and still needing Sam with him isn't properly functional. It's decent, and he can be happy, but not just "My brother comes first" but "Love my brother like you love me except the nookie part" is pretty much in my relationship definition for him.

Also, continued fragmented self-esteem and associated urges to sacrifice himself and all those lovely little things that Cas can totally handle and Lisa has better things to do than to deal with--I don't want them to go away.

I don't think he would actually be very happy attempting it.

Yeah. I'm realising that's pretty important to my vision of the character, and why I avoid so much Dean/Lisa fic (but I feel guilty reading Dean/Lisa Dean/Castiel, because it's like championing homewrecking).

The relationship I envision on the road and still needing Sam with him isn't properly functional. It's decent, and he can be happy, but not just "My brother comes first" but "Love my brother like you love me except the nookie part" is pretty much in my relationship definition for him.

I think my only problem with that is that parity thing. I don't know if Sam would be happy never having someone in his life, not just for nookie but for a kind of intimacy and comfort he had with Jess, and probably Ruby to some twisted extent. So that seems a little unfair to him.

But! Not real people. I need to keep that in mind more. Or ever.

So that seems a little unfair to him.

Gabriel!

Okay, no. Honestly, I don't need Dean to be involved with Cas. I'm just willing to allow that much. My main requirement is Sam in the passenger seat.

I am so not in it for their ultimate emotional health and fulfillment.

I think part of the problem is that a stable relationship with a single mother and her kid requires huge changes in Dean's on-the-road hunting lifestyle with Sam, which is really the basic premise of the show. Castiel (and Ruby, as horribly as that turned out) fit into that premise a lot better than Lisa—who's going to be living a normal life in one location and probably either pushing Dean to spend lots more time there or making him feel guilty because he can't.

I am so not in it for their ultimate emotional health and fulfillment.

You're a hard, hard woman.

I think the romance world conditioned me to the idea of some sort of reward. And if anyone deserves one for the shit they've been through, it's Sam and Dean.

For Dean, I'm not sure he really needs more reward than simple rest, for all values of rest that equal Sam safe and alive, millions of innocent people *not* dying, and some pie and Casa Erotica from time to time. So maybe you're right about that.

You're a hard, hard woman.

I feel bad about it, honestly. For most of my other favourite characters, I want the HEA. I love Dean to itty bitty pieces, but I'm not interested in his total healing. Am I just using him for his brokenness?

CAS: You got what you asked for, Dean. No paradise. No hell. Just more of the same. I mean it, Dean. What would you rather have? Peace or freedom?

What did he get? Not what he wanted, but what did he get? Can he have either peace or freedom without Sam? I never quite got that line.

So, yeah, peace within parameters I'm good for if they ride off into the sunset. But it makes me sad to think of him living in a separate house from Sam, even when the story is over. The stories where Sam goes off to find himself and leaves Dean alone? Ouch. Find yourself with your brother beside you! Please! For me!

Crazy bench all full up, boys and girls.

I never quite got that line.

I've tried to parse that line a million different ways and I'm still not sure what was meant, precisely.

Peace, I guess, means apocalypse averted, which they did, more or less.

Freedom here means to me that they chose, which ... they also did. Dean said no, Sam said yes with a plan.

So I still don't get it. Unless he meant freedom from all of it, hunting, the life, the responsibility, but certainly that's always been his to walk away from if he chose to, right?

I'm sure there's something incredibly obvious I'm missing. But instead I usually just think more about Sam's hands and Dean's bowlegs, and forget about it.

• Bowlegs
• Bowlegs
• Hands
• Hands

That's cheered me up a bit.

Instead of me thinking I'd prefer the boys dead to married on opposite sides of the country.

That first bowlegs shot is one of my all-time favorite pictures of him anywhere. That whole shoot is crazy good, though.

He really also has the loveliest back ever. Mrph.