For months now, I have been flocked by dozens of anons asking me why I ship Destiel. Some of these asks are rude and malicious, while others have been completely respectful, and only had good intentions. However, I felt it was finally time to fully address the question with the respect it deserves – because I’m tired of needing to defend my point.
For all intents and purposes, I’ll start out by saying that when I finally decided to take on watching Supernatural, I was dead-set against Destiel, in any shape or form. For the first three seasons I was perfectly content with thinking Dean was, and would only ever be, interested in women. I could not grasp then, how a relationship between Dean and Castiel could be so popular.
Then, in season four, we met Cas.
Of course I was still skeptical. One episode is, quite obviously, not enough to decide as to whether or not one truly ships something. However, I will admit that I was less against the idea of Destiel than I had been when I first started watching the show – due in part, to Castiel’s honesty.
Castiel is a character that intrigued me from the get-go because of how blunt, how painstakingly honest he was. When Dean asks why Castiel saved him from Hell, Castiel does the one thing that, to me, made my feelings about a friendship or relationship between the two shift.
Castiel, with a mere look at Dean, understood one of the key driving forces behind the hunter’s character. Castiel realizes, in a few simple and short seconds, that Dean’s self-worth is minimal at best. In these seconds Castiel manages to bring into the light one of Dean’s deep-rooted personality traits that he has never fully been willing to talk about out loud.
More telling than that though, is Dean’s reaction to Castiel’s simple observation. Where I expected him to deny Castiel’s words – he didn’t, but instead tightened his jaw and met Castiel’s gaze. I think, in all honesty, that Dean realized in this moment that there would be no point in lying to Castiel. And maybe, just maybe, he was relieved to finally be understood, and to have been called out on his issues by someone other than his family.
Well, I desperately wanted to remain against Destiel – but each episode where Cas (and let us not forget that this nickname comes from Dean, without any real on screen familiarity prior) and Dean interact, I found it harder and harder to ignore their growing relationship.
There’s plenty of meta, plenty of descriptions detailing many ‘Destiel’ moments throughout the seasons, so I don’t find it necessary to analyze everything now.
What I can do, however, is admit that I didn’t chose to ship Destiel. The show made me ship it.
I was so against it – so determined to hate the pairing, to believe that fans were just imagining things.
But they weren’t. They aren’t.
Castiel and Dean’s relationship was not intentional. It was not, in any way, planned. Cas was supposed to come and go – make his way out of Dean’s life with no more than a glance behind.
But that isn’t what happened. In Castiel, Dean found someone that he didn’t have to put up a front with. He found someone that he could trust, could confide in. Found someone that he could love without feeling as if that love was owed.
Dean and Cas – they’re similar in personalities, as far as the deep-rooted character traits go, that is. They both are harboring some self-loathing and self-doubt. They both need, at points, someone to help guide them down the right path.
Their relationship will never be perfect. They will fight, they will push each other away, and they will scream at each other until their throats are raw. But they’ll never stop trying.
In this way, Cas and Dean’s relationship is completely organic. It is raw, it is true – and it is immensely heartbreaking and bittersweet. In the end, Destiel is the story of two men that were not supposed to need each other or let each other in.
Now, though, they’d rather have each other, whether their relationship is cursed or not.
And if that loyalty, that unending devotion and trust – if that’s not love, then I don’t know what is.