⚠️ Major Spoilers Ahead ⚠️
This chapter is meant to be read after completing Still Stuck (in the Middle) With You. It contains Dean's and Castiel's perspectives on key story moments and concepts. It's short, humorous (and yes, Dean is being Dean), and sheds new light on their relationship. Please read the main fic first!
The entries: True Form, GraceWave, Burnish the Hosanna, and Blue-Eyes Motif.
SECTION 1: FOUNDATIONAL CONCEPTS
The basic building blocks of Castiel's being
True Form (Dean’s Version)
Look, man, if you’re expecting me to explain what an angel’s True Form is, you’re outta luck. I’ve caught a peek of it once or twice, and let me tell you—it’s not exactly user-friendly.
Best I can figure? Cas is a cosmic rainbow light show wrapped around a nuclear explosion, crammed inside a gyroscope on steroids. There’s spinning, there’s singing, there’s blinding light and eardrum-shattering noise. He once told me his True Form is a “wheel inside a wheel inside a wheel”—yeah, thanks, Prophet of God, Ezekiel, super helpful. I told Cas it sounded nauseating, which, let’s be real, it does.
Also, apparently, his wavelength is as long as the Chrysler Building. Of course it is. Because why not.
But here’s the thing: underneath all the holy migraine-inducing geometry and ten-thousand-decibel hosannas, it’s still Cas. He’s got his own frequency. His own spark. His own…Song, if you believe that kind of thing. And I guess I do.
Sometimes he hides it all behind that trench coat. Sometimes I catch a flicker of the real deal—a flash of Grace, a burst of light, that weird wing-shadow thing he does when he’s feeling extra moody. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, he’ll show you something truer. Closer to the real him.
Not human. Not even close. But still Cas.
Castiel’s Clarification (Appended Without Dean’s Permission)
Filed under: Corrections, Misconceptions, and Gentle Rebukes
Dean is not…entirely incorrect. His depiction of my True Form does approximate certain truths—if one filters them through a haze of sarcasm, mild anthropocentrism, and beer.
Yes, my True Form is radiant. Yes, it defies three-dimensional logic. And yes, the “wheel inside a wheel” motif does originate with Ezekiel, though his terminology lacked precision. I once attempted to clarify the geometry for Dean using gyroscopic diagrams and a scale drawing of the Chrysler Building. He responded by calling me “nauseating,” my True Voice as earsplitting as an air raid siren.
Still. My True Form is not a threat, not to him. If anything, it attenuates in his presence, harmonizes. There are frequencies of my Grace that resonate only when he is near—tones I once believed were lost in the Fall. I would not describe that as nauseating. I would describe it as…profound.
And while Dean insists he is “not built for this,” his soul—with its fire, fury, and emotional complexity—has long since left an imprint on every harmonic of my being. Even in silence, he echoes.
SECTION 2. GRACE IN ACTION
How Grace manifests and operates
GraceWave (Dean’s Version)
I can’t, I can’t even talk about this, man. You know that “peace that passeth all understanding” crap the preachers yap on about? Yeah, it was that, it was that—only more. It was, it was like, I was touching my fingertips to stars in a velvety sky—and that was his singing, or his wings singing or something. I was touching stars and tasting colors, I was, I was—
And then, I just was. I was like, eternity itself—I don’t know how to explain it better.
It was too much for me. I know I hurt Cas when I didn’t, I didn’t show him I appreciated it more—this, this gift he gave me. But I didn’t deserve it, man.
I didn’t deserve it.
Castiel’s Response (Appended Without Dean’s Permission)
Filed under: Bewildered Observations
I didn’t know. I should’ve known Dean would interpret things this way. How do you convince Dean Winchester he’s wrong about himself? He deserves everything I can offer him, and more.
SECTION 3: SONG & RESONANCE
Angelic songs and Soul songs
Burnish the Hosanna (Dean's Version)
[Note: It appears Dean read the corresponding entry in the Glossary and has... opinions.]
Wait, what? My soul’s a crucible? Like a damn spell bowl? And you pop Angel Grace into it, set it on fire, and, voila, shiny-new angel? Nah, let’s be real. I’m just your average messed-up guy that got dragged off to Hell by a Hellhound, and angels got it in their heads—er, wings, whatever—to rescue me, thinking they could use me in their Holy War against Lucifer. Now, I’m not blaming Cas for that—he had soldier mentality back then, you know?
But this burnishing business—searing, polishing, re-making—yeah, no, I don’t remember anything like that. All I remember is this ginormous, horrible thing swooping at me, its innards opening up to swallow me, innards that were...spinning? Like looking down into a nauseating vortex. Jeez, were those his ad nauseam wheel-thingies? If I’d been in my body, I would’ve shit myself.
But somehow...somehow this immense, powerful, scary dude-thing was giving off a vibe—I dunno, maybe that’s the resonance thing Cas claims we got going between my soul and his Song. If you want to believe in that sort of thing. Anyway, this vibe made me think the dude-thing was offering me an escape. So I jumped right into the center of all those spinny wheels—though I had a moment of panic and nearly bolted right back out.
But, Hell, better the devil you don't know than the devil you do—Alistair—am I right?
But this “changing him” stuff? Nope. I told him this before—he changed himself. And it started right away! Soon as I jumped in, there was a different…feel…to the vibe. Less alien. More…more Cas-like. Totally his doing.
Castiel’s Response (Appended Without Dean’s Permission)
Filed under: Willful Misunderstandings and Deflection
Dean describes this as if I were some random angel who happened to grip him. But Anna had ordered us to retreat—and I couldn’t. His soul had called to me, in tones resonating with my WingSong. And I couldn’t abandon that soul to even one more Hell-second of suffering.
And he “jumped in” because he recognized the resonance between us, too.
The instant I gripped him—swept him into the center of my Ezekiel-form—“a wheel within a wheel within a wheel, ad infinitum (not ad nauseam, Dean)”— Dean’s bright, swirling tones seared through my True Form and burnished the Hosanna of my WingSong till it gleamed—
Every note crackling with Light and Fire. Every note pulsing with Wild Life. Every note blazing in a million Colors beyond the Celestial.
It ripped me open, reshaped me, made me more—
It changed me.
It saved me.
We saved each other. I’ve lost the security of binding my purpose to Heaven’s orders, true, but I have a wider purpose now—making this world, this fragile world, a better place, at Dean’s side.
You taught me to care, Dean. You taught me to love.
Whether or not you know I love you above all else.
SECTION 4: VISUAL & SYMBOLIC MOTIFS
Recurring imagery and cosmic symbolism
Blue-Eyes Motif (Dean's Version)
You know that freaky-deaky glow that sometimes shines in Cas’s eyes, turning his blue eyes into floodlights? Yeah, I never know whether to run or to melt to the floor in a puddle of relief: half the time he’s getting ready to smite something, half the time he’s gathering his power to heal someone. Usually me.
And then there’s those times I don’t want to think about—when he’s getting smited himself, or nearly exorcised, like by Alistair. And this light comes exploding out his eyes and mouth, and his Grace is just…losing hold of his vessel, vaporizing. Nearly lost him for good, a few times.
Ah, jeez, I didn’t mean to go there.
But that GraceWave time—I didn’t know my eyes glowed blue, too. That would’ve been cool to see. But the feeling…it was nice. Super nice. I didn’t deserve it, but it was real nice.
Wish I could’ve seen my blue eyes, though. Bet they were something.
Castiel’s Response (Appended Without Dean’s Permission)
Filed under: Massive Understatements
But the exorcism attempt, the smitings—the agony of my Grace ripping from the fragile mesh binding it to my vessel, the sheer terror of annihilation…
Most unpleasant. I’m sorry Dean had to witness that.