Shoulders

a-mountain-ash:

Currently studying the musculoskeletal system of the shoulder, so have a love to letter to Dean’s shoulders written by Cas ❤ Probably could have gotten more into the anatomy but it’s as awkward to do that as I expected. Anatomy of Destiel is definitely a work in progress. Here on AO3!

Building Dean’s
shoulders was my favorite part. The shoulder is a miraculous joint, but I
didn’t understand as such until had to reassemble it atom by atom. It might be
assumed that the brain or the nervous system would be more delicate work, but
they were simple. Neurons connected to neurons in tightly woven paths on
intricate trajectories, passing messages amongst one another through carefully
calibrated chemical signals. In a way, it works very much like a microcosm of
heaven, each region serving a role to ensure the greater whole is functioning
well. That is precisely why it bored me. I had no part to play in the wonder
that makes each brain unique. Dean’s soul would do that once I’d returned it to
its body. The shoulders, however, are beautiful, complex things.

In theory, they
shouldn’t work. In reality, they do and they don’t. Evolved with impeccable
complexity to ensure maximal mobility, the shoulder is a thing of delicate
cooperation between a host of competing demands. It must freely swing in
complete arcs of motion, lift heavy loads, and dexterously manipulate objects,
all while hanging from the body connected to a socket the size of a dollar coin
by a host of thin of tendons and ligaments. Beyond the pure biomechanical
enigmas are the sociological ones. The shoulders metaphorically hold all our
burdens, and their pain and their dysfunctions represent the individual
struggles of each human’s path through life. This is why Dean’s shoulders were
my favorite part.

Dean’s soul is a
thing of beauty: sad, dark, loving, eternally willing to change, even when his
mind is not. He carried that heavy soul in the set of his shoulders, wide and
protective. The muscles of his trapezius were knotted in tension from late
nights hunched over books seeking salvation from his fate in Hell. The bone at
the back of his humerus was compressed and fractured from too many poorly
controlled shots with a rifle when he was too young to handle the gun
correctly. The ligaments holding his shoulder together were too stretched and
too loose from one too many demons flinging his body by the length of his arm.
The smooth surface of his left scapula splintered and broken from being thrown
into a wall by his father in a drunken rage after the shtriga almost killed
Sam. That one always catches a little when lifts his arm over his head, the
muscles unable to coordinate their firing just right anymore after the ancient
injury. Often times his right hand falls asleep when he drives his Impala because
the nerves running beneath his collar bone are compressed by the lump there in
the middle from when a ghost through him down some stairs and it set at the
wrong angle because he didn’t go to the doctor.

I dared not heal any
of Dean’s old wounds. I knew not the man, nor how humans viewed these flaws in
their architecture. Within the confines of my old vessels, I’d felt not pain,
nor the physical limitations of a flesh body. My grace had healed all damage
upon habitation, and any natural biomechanical imperfections affected me not.
It was impossible for me to say whether humans held any sort of attachment to
them, and regardless, my job was not to change Dean Winchester, and at the very
beginning, my job was all that I was.

Despite that, I
couldn’t help but be changed by this first encounter and the shear vastness of
its impact showed in the mark I inadvertently left upon Dean’s skin when I
raised him from Perdition. The first time I saw the mark, a woman named Pamela
showed it to me. I sensation I did not recognize at the time flowed through me
and I bowed me head until she forced me to show my face. I know now that that
sensation I felt at the time was shame, at having let the experiences of my
time with Dean overtake my intentions and control. I’d left him branded,
physically marked by the intensity of my time rebuilding his vessel. That
handprint was a sign of the joy I’d felt melding his muscles and bones and soul
all together in one delicate and masterful collaboration. Dean would hold the
world on his shoulders and I had built those shoulders. They were perfect.

And yet they almost
failed.

I thought I had done
so well, blending the four tiny ligaments into the ring of cartilage that
completed the ball and socket. I thought my collar bone and shoulder blade
would work in perfect concert to lift Dean’s fist in rebellion against Michael.
I had almost been wrong.

But Dean succeeded.
He surpassed what his vessel should have been capable of enduring and there I
saw new beauty that I had not before.  It
was a beauty I was incapable of producing or experiencing for myself, and therefore
I was all the more drawn to it. Yet at a time I was most drawn to it, I could
not let myself have it and so I stayed hidden and did what I had not allowed
myself before. I changed him.

When Dean played
catch with Ben and winced in pain because the tendon holding tight to the top
of his humerus got trapped each time he threw the ball, I healed it. He could
play with Ben all he wanted now, and not feel pain.

When he made love to
Lisa and the rough surface of his shoulder blade cut jaggedly across his
ribcage in stuttered motions that should have been fluid, I smoothed its path.

When he pushed and
pulled the rake across his yard until the reds, and oranges, and browns of the
leaves crowded together in on neat pile and the years of wear and tear shot
pain through his bicep with each stroke, I eased its inflammation.

I no longer heal
Dean in the shadows of secrecy. He knows that I’ve erased the evidence of his
father’s abuse and his stolen childhood. He now asks for me to clear the signs
of the most recent monsters. I relish in each moment, finding beauty in
creating a new existence for Dean, free of old pains, open to new futures.

I can’t heal this
new wound though, cut deep through layers of skin and muscle, fractured bone
and severed nerves.  The monster
inhabiting Dean put him back together as best he could, but this wound could
not be healed properly, burrowed too deeply by just the right weapon.

The bones inside are
held together by glue. The nerves trace their intricate patterns through his
muscles and joints, but the impulses are sluggish and congested, blocked by
where the channels and pathways didn’t form together just so. When the muscles
contract, there’s a hitch in their path where they try to work through scar
tissue. Worst is the skin, sealed together by hasty stitches and poorly
dressed, so it bunches up in a keloid formation. Dean sees it every morning and
remembers. I see it and remember, too, for his memory is now mine.

Dean’s shoulders are
still my favorite. They carry his burdens, they carry my grace, they hold me
close when we are finally alone. This time, I cannot heal the evidence of his
traumas, but I can lend my own shoulders in lifting them.