CASTIEL: I can’t help. You understand? I can’t. I destroyed… everything, and I will destroy everything again. Can we please just leave it at that? DEAN: No. [He gets up.] No, we can’t. SAM: Dean… DEAN: We can’t leave it. You let these friggin’ things in. So you don’t get to make a sandwich. You don’t get a damned cat. Nobody cares that you’re broken, Cas. Clean up your mess!
Dean and Cas // Survival of the Fittest (7x23)
God I love this exchange. Because Dean's right: In real life, when you fuck up, nobody cares that you're broken. You take responsibility for your fuck ups anyway. That's what being an adult is all about.
It says a lot about Cas that the first time we see him truly feel guilty, he runs away from the feeling, like Anna did -- like a child would, really. This is how a child behaves. A child wants Mommy and Daddy to clean up his spilled juice for him. A child thinks that by giving Mommy and Daddy enough hugs, or telling them he loves them, he won’t have to clean up his juice. And a child whines that he feels bad when Mommy and Daddy get angry at him for throwing the juice in the first place. A lot of fans got upset when Dean accused Cas of being a “baby in a trenchcoat” in 6x19, but c’mon, that’s exactly what he’s acting like here at the end of Season 7: a child dressed in a superhero’s clothes.
Of course, it only makes sense that Cas would behave this way, because until opening the door to Purgatory, he’s never really made a mistake he felt was so large he needed to hide away from it. (Which, if nothing else, should confirm that no matter how passive aggressive he gets about it sometimes, Cas doesn't consider leaving his garrison for the Winchesters' sake a mistake. Unlike 2014!Cas, he doesn't feel guilt over the action, or remorse, or regret. But that's another discussion for another time.)
But just because it makes sense doesn’t mean it’s gonna fly. I see a lot of fans getting angry at Dean for this exchange, and I don't get it, I really don’t, because Dean has every right to be angry. His best friend (and probably more) is acting like a spoiled brat. Cas does need to nut up. It doesn't matter that he’s broken. I'm broken. You're broken. We're all broken. We're all cursed. And that doesn't absolve of us our duty and responsibility to fix our messes and to make the world a better place than what we found it. Even though we hurt, even though we feel guilty, somehow we just have to figure out a way to function in the society anyway, and no, you don’t get to sit on the sidelines and make sandwiches and play board games with yourself while someone else does it for you.
Earlier in the episode, Sam tries to coddle Cas into “getting better”, but the truth is, there's no "better" for Cas to get to; because there's no getting better from your own mistakes, and there’s no getting better from your own maturity. Part of growing up is being shattered and gluing yourself back together. Not having someone else do it. Not pretending that the broken bits are their own excuse. And unlike Sam, I think Dean accepts that this is just how Cas is going to be broken. He doesn’t try to backpedal or deny Cas’s pain; he merely asks Cas to own it, like a real man does, and move forward anyway.
That’s why this exchange is so important. Because like with everything else about being human, it once again falls to Dean to teach Cas about what it means to be an adult – a man—and that means taking responsibility for your actions. And this message has to be harsh and direct, because children don’t listen to anything else; and it to be Dean who says it, because Cas won’t listen any other way.
I actually honest-to-god pumped my fist in the air when I first saw this exchange, because this is just what Cas needed to hear, when he needed to hear it, and this show is just so, so good sometimes, and I really loved what it became under Sera Gamble’s reign. If the first five seasons are about becoming an adult, then Sera Gamble’s run is about how to behave once you’ve become one, and this is a conversation I’d been waiting for ever since Cas stepped into that lake. Because an adult doesn’t get to sacrifice himself to make things right when he makes a mistake, and he doesn’t get to shy away from his own guilt, either; an adult steps up and deals with the consequences, whatever they may be, and then lives anyway.