#also i started reading john/dean before sam/dean but i can't remember if the sam/dean was connected and if there's a specific fic

[setyourfireonme]

happy wincest wednesday! what's the fic that converted you to wincest? not necessarily the first you remember reading, but the first that impressed you and stayed with you all these years?

ooh ty, such a good question. and happy saturday, this clearly took me a while but believe it or not i cut out over half of this response lol. sorry in advance for the messiness of this answer <3

i have to say that since that was in 2014 (so the year after i started watching spn), i don't remember what fic really "converted" me (i do remember what finally made me find it compelling in-show: teasers from s10 the summer before it aired), or a fic that has stayed with me since that long ago (my memory is a black hole lol), but i always love a good excuse to go through my ao3 bookmarks and history, so let's see...

the first wincest fic that apparently impressed me the most back when i read it in late 2014 was sight lines by kissyn because it was, and i quote from my bookmarks, "the fic that made me want to use bookmarks". i reread it just now and while i wouldn't have called it an answer to this question before that, it might actually be one after all. and it still works, even when some of my preferences and views of what's IC and not have obviously changed since then. i guess that fic portrays that beginning for me quite well, it's a few months into me reading wincest fic and it shows how i had started reading fic for them, while sharing qualities with what i had read before (heed the tags lol). i was starting to get an idea of what i was looking for in s/d fic and their relationship in general, even if that fic wasn't it yet or now (but i contain multitudes,,,). i’ll let the beautiful opening paragraph speak for itself:

There's something eerie about driving into a small town just as real autumn twilight sets in, especially the kind of small towns you find in rural Appalachian territory. Tall pines loom in close over the winding roads and block all but the narrowest strip of overcast sky with their skinny grasping branches. Sweeping hills and valleys seem to tuck each village into its own isolated world. Impending darkness, already deep in the gaps between trees, makes claustrophobia threaten. Sam is used to long stretches of plains, where he can see on and on over yellow grass. Here, each curve in the road hides the next quarter mile. Gas stations and rundown liquor stores and intersections spring on them with no warning. ––

and i realised that these lines actually have stayed with me:

Sam has a theory that there are two types of people in the world. The first kind are regular people, like him and Dad and Mandy and Nancy the bartender, they're the sort that other people start to love over time. Not that the love is less powerful or real, but it's a growing thing, and it has to be nurtured, coaxed, earned, built into a lasting relationship brick by brick. They're the kind of people that not everyone is going to love, or even want to love. Then there are people like Dean and, Sam thinks, his mother. She must have been like Dean, else where did Dean get it from? They're the second type. People that go through life and everyone around can't help but fall a little bit in love with them. And it's not safe or good, it blows up fast and too often it dies just as quickly, but they barely know they're doing it and even if you recognize what's happening to you, you can't help falling anyway. And when they leave you behind, when you really did love them, that's how people like John Winchester happen.

i can't still really say that or any other fic made me be properly into wincest, it was a group effort with the show and tumblr (and this exploration into those beginnings has just left me more confused lol, this answer is me simplifying a lot), but it's probably the best early example? especially since while i did start reading sam/dean fics a few months earlier and there were some other formative and memorable fics from before, most were honestly pwps that IIRC i didn't read primarily for the sam and dean of it. the lines were blurry, but then another impactful "conversion" for me was maybe a year later when i found authors such as fleshflutter (forever <3 i wish i could link a specific fic but i just blanket bookmarked all of them) and candle_beck (although i never read that many fics from them until last year), who among others definitely left a mark. and then i took an almost four-year break from the fandom and had another ~conversion a year ago, which was especially important when it came to sam and dean's relationship for me. some things changed, some stayed the same...

i'd love to rec some All Time Favourites and give a clear answer so i'm still not satisfied with this, but there are so many deleted ones and ao3 history doesn't work like i'd want it to, not to mention lj... and the fics i read didn't maybe necessarily always reflect my thoughts about their relationship, which i now have a clearer and dearer idea of. and apparently i didn't even end up bookmarking that many sam/dean fics back then (it was one relationship among others for me but also i had some struggles finding fic among all the [redacted] that i came across)? also i could be misremembering everything here lol. anyway @ past me please start bookmarking more fics and also start doing it earlier thanks. this isn't probably the answer you were looking for, more just me pondering than talking about specific fics, but maybe it's something :)

[dean-winchester-is-a-warrior]

Fight Me, Love Me, Save Me Pt. 2

This will fill the Broken Promises square on my @jacklesversebingo card.

Summary: A series in three parts exploring Y/N's and Dean's relationship from bickering children, to love and broken promises, to a plea for salvation.

Warnings/Explicit 18+: Some light smut. Mostly just making out. Kissing, fondling, etc. Some angst, lots of fighting, cause it's them. Also brief scene involving threatening behavior from a creep. Nothing explicit.

Pairings: Dean Winchester x Y/N

Word Count: 4,398

A/N: So this series will fill the last three squares on my bingo card. This part covers "It's Mine, and you can't have it." Part two will cover Broken Promises, (Nov 12) and part three will be for the Isolated/Trapped square. (Nov 19)

I hope you enjoy!! If you do, please remember to like, reblog and/or comment. Means the world to us writers! ❤️

Read Part 1 Here

The dividers included here were created by @talesmaniac89

The first year of dating for Dean and Y/N was a rollercoaster. For the first month or so, they tiptoed around each other. They knew their relationship had obviously changed but they weren’t sure about the parameters of what it was now. So, they were both extra polite to each other, terrified that they were gonna ruin this new thing, and possibly everything that came before it. Y/N didn’t want to finally realize Dean was her best friend one day, only to lose him completely the next.

So they circled around each other, sniffing at the air for warning signs. Their first fight came about a month and a half in. 

They were living in Omaha, Nebraska for the time being. It was fairly centralized and their dads were using it as a bit of a home base for a while. Y/N was hoping she’d be lucky and they’d stay until she graduated so she wouldn’t have to change schools one more time. 

They were renting an apartment together, and it was a nice change from motels and life on the road, but the apartment was tiny. It was only a one bedroom, and they’d turned that bedroom into a kind of weapons/training room. So they all slept in cots on the floor in the living room. It wasn’t ideal, but it still felt more like a home than a motel did.

One evening, Y/N was studying late at the library, determined to graduate on time and with a good GPA, regardless of her constantly revolving education. So, she’d deserted the noisy apartment and headed for some peace and quiet. John and her dad had been arguing about an old hunt, and Sam and Dean had discovered a bunch of old board games, deserted in the hallway closet. They’d found Jenga and had started out playing the game as it was intended to be played, which was loud enough. But it quickly devolved into them simply smashing down everything the other one built and then fighting about it.

She’d called out her intention to go to the library a few blocks down, and had been greeted by four male grunts in response. 

Sometimes being the only female of the group was frustrating. 

After a couple of hours at the library, Y/N was satisfied she had a handle on her history essay, and packed up to leave. As she put her things into her backpack, she noticed an older guy, maybe in his early fifties, in a hoodie and heavy canvas jacket watching her. It was slightly unnerving, but she just added him to the list of pervy dudes she’d encountered in her life, and left the library. 

As she walked outside she saw that it had begun snowing, and it was much darker than she’d expected; she still wasn’t used to the darker days of early winter. As she walked, she pulled her thin, inadequate jacket tighter, and crossed her arms. There was something a little eerie, about the gray-black sky and the snow-muffled sounds around her.

She picked up her pace.

When she was about a block away from home, she heard the snow crunch behind her and suddenly the pervy guy was standing beside her. She jumped and yelped and the guy just laughed.

“Didn’t mean to startle you, honey. You should be careful wandering off places on your own though.” He grinned yellow teeth at her. “Someone as pretty as you could give folks ideas.”

Her fear of this man angered her and her ornery nature spoke before she could think better of it. “Oh really,” she scoffed, “and just what would those ‘folks’ be thinking?”

He didn’t like her attitude, and he scowled. His voice was low and definitely threatening as he leaned closer to her, invading her personal space and making her curl her lip in disgust.

“They could be thinking you were out here alone, lookin’ for trouble. Maybe hintin’ to folks you’re after a good time.”

Y/N felt her heart start to race as the silence and alone-ness of her situation hit her and she realized just how vulnerable she was. She started running through all of her training, just where to kick, just what vulnerable spots to target.

But thankfully, after one more lingering scan of her body, the man decided to move on, leaving her shivering, but not even noticing the cold anymore.

She double-timed it back to the apartment and ran through the door, locking it quickly behind herself. She jumped when Dean spoke.

“There you are.” He said as he approached. When she jumped and spun to face him, he held his hands up in a sign of surrender. “Whoa, easy there sweetheart.” 

He saw her fear and quickly closed the distance between them, grabbing hold of her upper arms. “What happened?”

Y/N shook her head, feeling silly now for letting one old creepy guy scare her so badly. “No, nothing.” She said, looking around at the empty room. “Where is everyone else?”

Dean waved a hand dismissively. “They just left on a burger run. But it’s clearly not nothing. You flew in here like a bat outta hell, and you’re terrified.” He said with a frown. 

Y/N stepped out his hands and shook her head again. “Seriously, it’s fine.” When Dean just folded his arms and continued to stare at her, she shrugged. “Look, it wasn’t anything, okay? Just - a creepy guy got a little close and gave me the jeebs, okay?”

Predictably Dean’s jaw tensed and he immediately reached for his jacket. “What does he look like?” He said as he shrugged it on. Y/N marched up to him and yanked the jacket back down his arms. 

“You are not going out there after him.” Dean wrestled his jacket away from her and started putting it back on. “Dean, listen to me. What the hell is the plan here? Even if you could find him, which you won’t, what are you going to say to him?”

Dean scowled down at her. “I’m not gonna SAY anything. I think a bloody nose will speak volumes.”

Y/N rushed to stand between him and the door. “Don’t be ridiculous. He didn’t do anything to me.”

Dean scoffed. “You came in here terrified, Y/N. Now that doesn’t happen because of nothing.”

Y/N shook her head. “Look, it was just stupid of me okay? I panicked. He was just being gross, and he said that…” She waved away the memory of his predatory look. “I overreacted.”

Dean’s voice was dark and deadly. “Bullshit. You don’t overreact about stuff like this. This guy was obviously trash.” When Y/N shrugged her acquiescence, Dean sighed and then frowned at her again. “What the hell were you doing walking around in the dark, alone, anyway? What were you thinking? You should’ve called me to come pick you up.”

Y/N felt her hackles rise at his scolding tone. “I didn’t need you to pick me up, it’s like four blocks away.”

“Well, obviously you did, because some creep came after you.”

Y/N gritted her teeth. “And that’s my fault now?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “I’m not saying it’s your fault the guy’s a creep, but you should’ve known better than to walk home alone in the dark.”

“Screw you, Winchester!” Y/N exploded, all her pent up fear and adrenaline rushing forth. “I should be able to walk four fucking blocks without some disgusting mouth breather thinking he can come after me, thinking he has the right to…to…and then to tell me ‘people were gonna get ideas’ about me? Is that what this is, Dean? Does me having the audacity to walk four blocks without a goddamn escort make you believe I’m game for anything? That it must mean I wanna be thrown down for a roll in the snow?”

She was breathing hard, her cheeks flushed. Tears started to fall and she dashed them away instantly. Nothing frustrated her more than the fact that anger and fury made her cry.

Dean was staring at her, looking a little shell-shocked. She stomped past him and slammed herself into the bathroom. She didn’t come out until she heard everyone else get back. She and Dean didn’t talk over supper; if anyone noticed their silence, they never mentioned it.

Hours later Y/N was laying in the dark listening to the men around her snoring and she sighed and stood up, walking carefully through the narrow path of cots. She threw on her jacket and shoes and stepped outside. She needed fresh air.

She wasn’t outside very long when Dean stepped outside to join her. He didn’t say anything, just breathed into his hands in an attempt to warm them up.

Y/N shot a look his way. “You out here to make sure I have a suitable chaperone?”

Dean sighed and then reached for her hand; she let him take it. He nodded his head sideways. “Come on, let’s warm up.” He tugged her towards the Impala and she followed.

Dean slipped into the front seat to turn on the car, running the heater and putting the radio on low, but then he climbed into the back seat, beckoning Y/N to join him. She slid into the seat, but sat apart from him, slightly rigid. She felt awkward and unsure. They’d fought - what happened now?

Dean was silent for a while too, until he finally let out a little puff of air and a laugh, shaking his head.

Y/N looked at him warily. “What’s so funny?”

Dean shrugged, and shot her a heart melting smile. “I’ve never apologized to you after fighting with you, I kind of don’t know how. In the past we never apologized for pissing each other off, we just scowled at each other for a few hours and then got burgers.”

Y/N couldn’t help a small smile. “I mean, I could eat.”

Dean laughed again, and pulled her close to him as the tension between them dissolved away. “I really am sorry though, sweetheart. I never meant to make it seem like I thought it was your fault some jackass acted like a pig towards you. I just…” He hesitated before continuing. “Well, I panicked a bit at the idea of you being alone and vulnerable. But, you’re right, doesn’t mean you need a bodyguard. Hell, I know you could have kicked his ass.”

Y/N smiled up at him, but her voice was a little shaky. “Maybe, but you’re right too. In that moment I felt really vulnerable. In spite of all my training, in spite of everything, he really scared me.” She snuggled herself deeper into Dean’s side and he held her tighter. “And that made me really angry, which I sort of took out on you. Sorry.”

Dean shrugged, jostling her slightly. “Nah, I deserved it.”

She climbed into his lap and wrapped her arms around his waist, laying her cheek against his warm chest. They stayed like that for a long time, just savoring the happiness of making it through their first fight intact. They didn’t realize (but probably should have) that it was going to be the first fight of many.

Both Y/N and Dean were incredibly stubborn, with quick tempers, and strong emotions. That often led to arguments, which sometimes led to all out fights.

One of the things they fought about was what Y/N was going to do after she graduated. She was up in the air about her next move, and Dean was horrified by the idea of her living across the country, and going about her life every day without him, and far worse was the idea of him having to live every day without her. He tried to get that across to her but it never came out right, and she always accused him of trying to tell her what to do with her life, trying to hold her down.

They had a few knock down, drag out fights over that subject, before Y/N made the decision to wait on college at least for now. She wasn’t really sure what she wanted to do with her life anyway, so for now at least, she was a hunter. But she wasn't sure if that was what she wanted forever. Their fathers made it seem as though that was their only choice, and she knew Dean believed that, but she and Sam weren't so sure. 

For the time being though, she was satisfied to keep traveling and hunting, spending all her free time with Dean, fighting and making up. 

The making up was worth the fights.

For the most part, Sam and their dads stayed clear of them when they were in battle mode. They’d all been thrown for a loop when they found out Dean and Y/N were dating. When they told their dads, at first the two men weren’t thrilled. But eventually they settled for telling them to just make sure not to let it affect the team. 

But poor Sam on the other hand, found out about them in a much more visceral way - by walking in on them, locked in a heated embrace, in the motel room one day, only a few days after they started dating. 

"What the hell?" Sam exclaimed loudly as Dean and Y/N leapt apart. Sam's face wore a look of deep disgust. 

Dean grinned and shrugged, pulling a blushing Y/N back into his arms. 

"Sorry, little brother, but it's true. Y/N couldn't resist me any longer."

Sam made a retching noise, and Y/N elbowed Dean in the ribs. "Sorry if it's weird, Sam, we probably should have told you."

Sam's expression was still disbelieving and slightly horrified but he shrugged slowly.

"Whatever. Just…" He held up a hand and his voice was pleading. "Never make out around me. Please! And for God's sake, learn to lock a door."

"What good would that do?" Dean called after him as he walked away. "You have a key!"

***

They celebrated their one year anniversary the fall after Y/N graduated. Dean took her out to a nice dinner. He had to wear a jacket and tie, and he fidgeted in it all evening, but he wanted to spoil Y/N a bit, so he just dealt with it.

After dinner though, he chucked his suit jacket in the backseat, loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves before climbing behind the wheel and taking them for a long drive. They listened to music and Y/N even forced Dean to sit through a few of the sappy love songs she’d put together on a mixed tape. He scowled the whole time, but he held her hand and pulled her closer to him on the seat.

Finally, not long before midnight, he pulled down a deserted road and then off the road into an abandoned field. He put the car in park and cut the engine, leaving the radio playing softly in the background.

Y/N shot him a knowing smile and her voice was coy when she spoke. “And what, pray tell, are we doing here?”

Dean shrugged and put on an innocent face. “Oh, I don’t know. I was thinking maybe we could, uh…play some games…twenty questions? I spy?”

Y/N stifled her laugh to nod solemnly. “Right. Okay, I’ll start. I spy…a big fat liar.”

Dean grabbed his chest as though mortally wounded. “Ugh! I spy my very injured heart.”

Y/N laughed softly. “That’s really not the way you play the game.”

Dean dropped his hands from his broken heart and turned towards her. “No? K, then twenty questions.” He picked up her hand and stroked his thumb across her knuckles. His emerald green gaze bore into hers and she felt butterflies start fluttering in her lower belly. 

His voice was low, and rich, and smooth as he asked, “What am I thinking about right now?”

Y/N felt her cheeks flame as she read his intentions, plain as day, in the heated look that spread across his face.

She laughed breathlessly and corrected him. “That’s not how you play that game either. You’re supposed to pick a person, place or thing, and then I have to guess it.”

Dean nodded. “Ah, I see.” He responded, as though this was all new information. “Okay, then I pick person. Guess WHO I'm thinking about right now.”

Y/N bit her lip and closed an eye as though she was thinking hard. “Hmm…is she…bigger than a breadbox?” She asked and grinned.

“Barely.” Dean answered with a chuckle, just before he lifted her easily into his lap, making her gasp in surprise.

She settled herself on his thighs, wiggling against him and eliciting a groan from Dean. She knew the cause of it and grinned devilishly. She asked her next question as she played with his tie. “Do I know her?”

“Hmph.” Dean grunted. “The answer to that is very philosophical.” 

Y/N looked up at him through her lashes. “It has to be yes or no answers.”

“20 Questions is no fun. Let's go back to I Spy.” Dean said as he began trailing his thumb across Y/N's bottom lip. “I spy, a pair of lips I really wanna kiss.”

He brushed his lips across hers like a breath. She sighed and chuckled. “You really suck at these games.” Her gaze was mischievous as Dean looked into her eyes. 

He shrugged and plunged his hand into her hair. “Fine, I give up. I lose.” He said before covering her mouth with his, sucking the breath from her body. 

He pulled back and leaned his forehead against hers. “Wow.” Y/N said breathlessly. “You letting me win, that's a first.”

Dean grinned. “Well, I think we both win, actually.” His grin faded into something softer, and he shifted away from her and lowered his thick lashes, hiding his bright green orbs from view

“And I think maybe…this might be a night to talk about…firsts.”

They were both silent a moment before Dean looked back at her. His gaze was earnest and he was quick to reassure her. 

“I'm not saying we have to do anything or…anything. Just…we should probably talk about it.” He bit his lip and shot her a worried look. “I mean, dontcha think?”

Y/N thought of how far they'd gone recently, spurned on by incredible heat and passion, and an endless need to get closer, ever closer to each other. But they always stopped themselves, pulling away from each other with extreme difficulty.

She nodded at Dean; yes, they should definitely talk about it. 

Yet both of them stayed quiet. Finally Y/N just reached up and kissed him again, pushing her fingers through his short hair to grasp the back of his head and press him tighter against her. 

He licked her lips open and she whimpered slightly. They traded breaths, and tasted each other thoroughly. Dean's hand slid up from her waist to slide under her blouse and trace along the top of her bra. He moved his mouth down the column of her throat and Y/N leaned back to give him easier access.

When she did so, however, her back bumped into the horn, making them both jump and then start laughing. Y/N buried her face in Dean's neck and tried to catch her breath.

Dean pulled her hand up and kissed her palm. “Maybe we should continue this conversation in the back seat?”

Y/N nodded shyly. 

She slid off of his lap and then followed him outside as he opened the back door. He went to the trunk and before they got in, he laid down a soft wool blanket that's smelled just a bit like metal and car oil. 

Dean scooted all the way over to lean against the passenger side door, pulling Y/N back into his lap.

After a minute he cleared his throat. “K, before we go get distracted again, we're gonna talk, yeah?”

Y/N nodded. “Yes, talk.” There was a beat pause. “I think we should have sex.”

Dean's eyes widened at the blunt suggestion. “Like…now?” He asked, his words a little strangled.

Y/N laughed. “Yes, now. Given how rarely we're alone together, if we don't do it now, we may have to wait another entire year.”

Dean chuckled but looked hesitant. “Y/N I don't want you to feel like we're on some kind of schedule here. I mean -” 

Y/N interrupted him. “No, Dean. I just mean, I don't wanna…I mean, I can't wait anymore.”

She reached up and ran her hand down his cheek. “I want you, and I’m…I'm ready.”

Dean clasped her hand on his cheek and pulled her fingers to his lips, kissing each tip. “Me too, sweetheart. Been ready for a long time in fact.”

Y/N smiled shyly and stretched up to kiss the corner of his jaw, cut square and as sharp as glass. Dean curled in on her, unbuttoning the first few buttons on her blouse and pushing it off her shoulder so he could kiss her there. His teeth scraped delicately across her skin. 

Y/N gasped and shuddered. Dean pulled back to look down at her. He brushed the wispy tendrils of hair off her face as he studied her flushed cheeks and shallow breathing.

When she opened her eyes and looked up at him, he smiled at her and spoke, slightly hesitant.

“Are you scared?”

Y/N shook her head. “No, not scared. Just,” she ducked her head, “just nervous I guess.” She met his gaze again. “It's a big deal, you know?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah.” 

Y/N bit her lip before licking them. “You've…um…you've done it. Before. Right?”

Dean looked slightly uncomfortable, but nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I have.”

Y/N was quiet for a moment, then. “How many girls?”

Dean scowled and cleared his throat. “Y/N let's…I don't wanna talk about this. We don't have to talk about this.”

Y/N shifted slightly in his lap again and Dean hissed and clenched his jaw against the movement as she responded. “Come on. You were there in the same health class as me, listening to Coach Ginter tell us we need to know about our partner's sexual history.”

“Y/N.” 

“Come on.” She urged him. “I wanna know. It's the responsible thing to do. You know about all zero of my former partners."

Dean sighed and rolled his eyes slightly. “Okay, if I tell you, you're not gonna freak out?”

“No, of course not.”

“Promise?”

It was Y/N's turn for an eye roll. “Yes, I promise.”

Dean breathed out through his nose and was quiet a moment. “Five.”

Y/N's eyes widened. “You've had sex five times?”

Dean shook his head. “No, five girls. I've had sex lots of times.”

He seemed to catch his mistake and and shook his head dismissively. “But they don't matter.”

But Y/N wasn't listening. “Who were they?”

Dean sat up straight. “Uh uh. We're not doing that.”

Y/N raised her voice slightly and slid off Dean's lap to sit on the seat. “Doing what? This is the proper thing to do. Coach Ginter said that we-”

“Jesus Christ!”Dean barked out and then let out a thoroughly  exasperated laugh. “Would you stop bringing up the image of Coach Ginter is his fucking short shorts and sweat-stained white t-shirts. It's really killing the vibe here.”

Y/N wasn't laughing. “The only thing killing the vibe is the fact that you won't tell me who the scores of women were that you slept with.”

Dean frowned. “Not scores. Five.” He held up a hand full of fingers. “Five.”

“Okay, then who were they?”

Dean dropped his head into his hand. “Y/N!” He growled.

“Just tell me.” Y/N said, in what was clearly a forced calm. “It's no big deal, I'm just curious.”

Dean sighed deeply before looking back at her. “You have to promise, swear!” He said with a raised finger. “That you're not gonna get mad.”

Y/N was shaking her head before he finished. “Of course not.”

“Say ‘I promise’.”

“I promise.” Y/N said, hand over heart.

After a minute Dean took a deep breath. “Tracey Reeves. She was my first.”

The name rang a bell, and Y/N squinted, searching her memory, and then it dawned on her and her face became slack with shock, quickly followed by outrage.

“Tracey REEVES!! You mean that sadistic bitch who tortured me at the start of our freshman year?”

Dean scoffed. “Come on! It was initiation! All the seniors were torturing freshman! I got tortured too! It was just hazing. I mean, it wasn't that bad, for god's sake it was a fucking school event. The principal was there!"

Y/N pouted. “Yeah well, your little sweetie pie dumped that jar of mayonnaise on my head with just a bit too much glee.”

Dean rolled his eyes and then Y/N held a hand up. “Wait, wait. We left there before Halloween. So…” Her eyes got big. “You lost your virginity when you were fourteen?” Her voice was all disbelief.

Dean's jaw clenched. “Is this judgment?”

Y/N looked away and shook her head. “Who else?”

Dean growled again. “Ugh! Y/N, come on!”

“Who?!”

“You don't know three of them, k? You never met them.”

Y/N did quick math. “And the fifth one? Who was she?”

Dean stared at her, and Y/N could tell he was frustrated beyond belief, but her stubbornness wouldn't let her stop. She stared defiantly at him, waiting for him to answer.

He shook his head and spoke quietly. “You still promising to not get mad?” He said sarcastically.

“I'm not mad.” Y/N insisted. 

Dean rolled his eyes and mumbled out his answer. “Sam's tutor, Casey.”

Y/N felt her heart stop. “She's…she was tutoring Sam when we got together.”

Dean stepped on the end of her sentence. “It was before that. Before we got together.”

Y/N squeezed her hands into balls with white knuckles. “How long before?”

“Who cares?” Dean shouted defensively. “The only thing that matters is the ‘before’ part!”

But Y/N was barely listening. She was doing more math. “She was only tutoring Sam for like a week before we started dating.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dean mumbled, “You have the fucking memory of an elephant.”

When Y/N just kept staring at him he heaved a sigh and spoke angrily. “Fine, yes, it was three or four days before we got together.”

Y/N felt her heart begin to hurt. “You said, but you said you liked me then. You said, you’ve liked me since we were kids.”

“I did!” Dean said vehemently, and then amended his words. “I have! I do!”

“But that whole week leading up to us getting together, you said you knew I was jealous, you knew I was interested.”

“No, I said, I HOPED you might be interested. I didn't know anything for sure.”

“And you couldn't wait to find out?!” Y/N asked near tears. “You just slept with some other girl and then three days later started kissing me? What did Casey think about this? I mean she came over at least four or five more times after that. Did you, uh, decide to go for a second round just to say goodbye?”

Dean's face became immobile and expressionless but his eyes were hurt and hard. “If you actually think that, think I'd do that, what the fuck are you doing here with me? Why are you with me at all?”

“I don't know!” Y/N shouted, her temper exploding. “Maybe if I'd known I was dating some kind of man-whore I wouldn't be here!”

Her temper tried to blind her to the way Dean flinched at her words, but she saw it, and it sat heavy in her heart. But her chest was heaving and her eyes burned and she refused to apologize.

Dean didn't say anything. He just opened the door and walked out to get to the driver's seat. Y/N stayed in the back. He started up the car and drove them all the way home in silence.

The night that had started with so much promise and excitement, had been shattered; promises made and broken. But the broken promise of them - what they almost were - that was what cut Y/N the most.

This fight felt different. It felt final, dark. Jealousy and hurt feelings, anger and resentment festered between them.

For days that turned into weeks they avoided each other as much as possible. Dean was gone all the time, and it ripped Y/N's heart out to think of where he might be spending his time. 

She wanted to say sorry, wanted the fight to just melt away between them as they always had before. They'd been so close to something permanent, something binding between them, and now it was ruptured, leaving a crater between them.

She didn't know how to cross it.

1 - Jensen RPF + Any/All characters Jensen plays. @lyarr24 @deans-spinster-witch @impalaslytherin @maggiegirl17 @akshi8278 @candy-coated-misery0731 @deanswaywardgirl @slytherinlyn314 @globetrotter28 @jensensgirl @perpetualabsurdity @tristanrosspada-ackles @djs8891 @muhahaha303 @kayyay1219 @emily-winchester @recoveringpastaaddict @maximumkillshot @mimaria420 @sacriceria @envyaurora95 @lacilou @jc-winchester @spnwoman @mimi-luvzyu @jackles010378

2 - Dean Winchester Fics Only. @carryonwaywardgirl

3 - Any/All Fics (regardless of fandom/character.) @kazsrm67 @sexyvixen7 @alexxavicry @nancymcl @spalady26 @slut-for-evans-stan

4 - Everything (includes fan vid/DOOL edits as well) @unabashed-lover-of-fictional-men @maliburenee @supernatural4life2022 @spn730015 @kickingitwithkirk @waywardbaby @foxyjwls007 @deanwanddamons @deandreamernp @deanwithscissors @myloversgone @snowlovespie @leigh70 @all-alone-he-turns-to-stone @charred-angelwings @hopefuldreamers-world @jensensgotyoudean @thoughts-and-funnies @magssteenkamp @princessmisery666 @eevvvaa @mishkatelwarriorgoddess @waynes-multiverse @mrsjenniferwinchester @bernasaurus @jensenslady79 @courtn92 @avanatural @ellie-andthemachine @this-is-me19 @roseblue373 @katbratsupernaturalwhore @fanfic-n-tabulous @k-slla @stoneyggirl2

[bingbongsupremacy]

Want To Hunt

Pairing: Brother Sam & Brother Dean x platonic!younger sister reader

Warnings: Very cringe and short. I wrote this when I was in middle school. Originally from Wattpad.

Summary: You want to go hunting but your dad won't let you. 

*Not Proof Read* Supernatural

********

Third P.O.V.

" But Dad! I wanna go! Come on, dad. I'm old enough now. You said, once I turn eleven, I could go on hunts with you and the boys! Come on, dad! I'm mature now! " Y/n yells annoyedly. Her dad, John Winchester, had said she could go on a hunt as soon as she turned eleven like Sam and Dean both did. 

" Mature? Ha! You still watch Barbie and Friends on TV! That's mature. " Dean teases Y/n while ruffling her already crazy hair. 

Y/n glares at Dean. " Dean, no one asked for your opinion. " 

" Ooh. Sassy. " Sam chuckles, also ruffling Y/n's hair. 

" Y/n, " John sighs. John rubs his temples. " for the last time, no. You're not going. That's final. " 

Y/n huffs. " Daddy! You promised! Pinky promised! That's the most special kind of promise! What's the big deal?! You let Sam and Dean start hunting a little when they turned eleven! C'mon. I promise I'll be good. I'll do everything you say. I'll even listen to the two buttheads. " Y/n gestures to Sam and Dean. This isn't fair. It just isn't fair. What do Dean and Sam have that I don't? Oh, that's right. They're boys. 

" Hey! We're not buttheads! " Dean and Sam say angrily at the same time. 

Both John and Y/n ignore the boys. 

" Forget my promise, Y/n! I don't want you getting hurt. This hunt is going to be dangerous. Very dangerous. Your brothers are more experienced, that's why they're going. Maybe next hunt you can go with us. Just not this time. " John pulls on his jacket and stands up before looking at Y/n. " I don't want you getting hurt. " 

Y/n rolls her eyes. " It's not like I'm going to be taking on this thing by myself! You three will be there to protect me. " 

" We can't spend every minute we're hunting, worried about you, Y/n. Next time, okay? " John pats y/n's arm before walking towards the motel door. " Come on, boys. Let's go. " 

Y/n frowns. She never gets to do anything the boys do. It's not fair. 

" Don't be sad sis. " Sam smiles gently as he looks down at his younger sibling. " When we come back, I'll teach you how to exorcise a demon. 'Kay? " 

Y/n sighs and retreats to one of the beds. " Fine. I expect you to tell me every detail of this hunt when you come back though, okay Sammy? Dean-o? " 

Dean nods. " Of course, N/N. " 

Y/n watches as her dad and brothers leave. Sam pokes his head into the motel room before he closes the door. " Remember to keep this door locked. Don't answer it for anyone. Not even us. We'll use the key to get in. Keep the curtains closed, and stay here. " 

Y/n nods. " Okay, Sammy. I know what to do. Bye. " 

" Bye. " 

Y/n flips through the TV channels, knowing that this hunt will take a long time.

[winchest09]

Hii! I've been tried to find a fic for DAYS now but I can't seem to remember the name, and since you also write dom! dean x reader I thought that maybe you could have read this one I'm looking for before and can maybe help me out? It's a dean x reader in which they start having this dom x sub relationship and she moves to his mansion, but a while later Sam starts getting feeling's towards her and wants her to himself (sam it's NOT mentally stable/ has a dark past bc he was the one that started the fire that ended up killing his ex girlfriend Jess), also a big characteristic of the series is that dean only ever had these kind of relationships and not a real one so he never even kissed anyone before, bc he never saw john kissing his girls and decides to follow his steps (even tho john don't kiss the girls bc he wants to keep mary as being the last woman he kissed, but dean doesn't get that and just think that kissing would be wrong bc is romantic and those kind of relationships have no romance at all, just "business")

Hey nonnie-roo! Ahhhh I know which one you're talking about - I hope! It definitely sounds exactly like this one anywho... It's by @negans-lucille-tblr and it's called 'His Property' - I've linked it for you Nonnie :) Hope it helps and it's the one you're after! Enjoy reading it again, sweetie! <3

Much love xox

[codenamebooks]

Stand Off Book Review

(Winger #2) by Andrew Smith | ⭑⭑⭑.2 stars | Goodreads | CW: grief, anxiety | Duology and Novel Spoilers

After the loss of his best friend, Ryan Dean takes on his senior year of high school with the impending doom of NATE (Next Absolutely Terrible Experience). Forced to take the next 12-year-old freshman, Sam Abernathy, under his wing, Ryan Dean stumbles through new and old friendships, anxiety, his girlfriend, and maturing.

I want to commend this book for finally reaching the spot of maturity for Ryan Dean West that was promised to us in the synopsis for the first novel. While bringing back the comics! I believe it shows that author either: 1) is very good at his craft in creating a long form narrative or 2) (and the more likely conclusion) that he also matured before sitting down with this second book. I feel like this is a great book for young boys because it can teach them about trusting and caring friendships and anxiety without being overwhelmingly serious.

Full review below the cut!

To talk about the characters, since they're what I find to be most important, I want to make it clear that I loved Sam Abernathy from the start. He is so adorable. His contribution to Ryan Dean's maturity journey is significant and so very important. It was a bit spot on that Sam's situation was the exact same as Ryan Dean's, but it was significant.

Another huge friendship to this plot is with Nico Cosentino. I appreciated Nico's honesty, but there was no way they were going to connect so well and not walk away friends. We can't talk about Nico without talking about Joey, and I'll be honest, I don't know how I feel about Joey being in love with Ryan Dean. It almost furthers a narrative that gay men are in love with their friends (similar to why we hate JP Tureau). Joey had no other good friends, so why couldn't he have this one close friend? I almost want to reread some scenes from the first book because it feels like this could have been added to spice up the plot. I don't remember questioning if Joey was more than a good big brother to Ryan Dean. It wasn't a terrible addition, by any means, but I wasn't blown away by it because I could tell that's where it was headed. And a quick side note; I find it a bit weird that so many people are in love with this kid three or four years younger than them.

I loved Spotted John's entrance into the narrative. He's my bi king, I'll say it. I enjoy the way he actually made Ryan Dean confront ideas about sexuality that he's had. The lack of homophobic jokes was very necessary to my enjoyment of this second book as it was one of the main reasons that I almost didn't continue the duology. But maybe he shouldn't be showing 12-year-olds his birthmark.

A huge part of the plot is Annie and Ryan Dean's relationship. It flourishes even more than past the supportive nature. Just like Ryan Dean, this relationship matured physically and mentally. I will say, I did not love Annie getting mad at Ryan Dean for not wanting to talk about his mental health after they just had (non-penatrative) sex by a creek. Given that she's the daughter of a psychologist, I find it odd that she would give him the cold shoulder for not wanting to do anything about his depression when he's depressed. Luckily, it didn't last long but it's important to mention that it wasn't the healthiest route.

Lastly, I want to say quickly that I love Seanie. His sarcastic and weird nature is so fun to me. I was a bit distraught at his new found relationship (although I'm happy that he's happy) because... I want him to be mine ): I didn't appreciate him enough in high school when I first read Winger.

One thing that I disliked from the first book that continued in this one is the repetitive, supposedly humorous, writing style. The jokes aren't funny enough to continue to call back to them as many times as they are. They very clearly create Ryan Dean as a character but they're so hard to read at times when I'm trying to focus on the plot.

Speaking of the plot, this book was way too long. The plot did not need to be stretched over as many pages as it is. We move very slowly through Ryan Dean's every day and sometimes down to the hour. It could have moved ten times faster and landed in the same spot, a place that I appreciate a lot. Granted, I'm glad that this wasn't climaxed by some terrible things happening, but the plot was very linear.

If you love mental health journeys centering young men, read this book! If you like stories about unlikely friendships, read this book! If you enjoy humor in spite of hard times, read this book!

[mittensmorgul]

Hello! I remember reading some meta a while back about how John wasn't actually tortured in Hell, and that Dean was the only one tortured. And also, Dean was the only one who got the 1 month = 10 years time manipulation, and that's not how time in Hell typically works. I can't remember if that was you or not?? But if it was, do you know what you would have tagged it? I'm looking for it cuz I really like it and want to reference it 😬

Hi there! I have written about this quite a bit, yes. I thought maybe some of it was in the 2.22 tag, or else in the "heaven hell purgatory and the empty" tag, since it was semi-confirmed that Hell Time (and even Cage Time) does run parallel to Earth Time in 15.08. Dean mentions the "10 years" in a cage thing as possibly a reason Adam/Michael would not want to help them, and then Adam himself tells Michael that it's been 10 years since he'd seen a burger before taking a bite of it. So to them, who were in the cage for a decade, it actually felt like a decade.

So... it feels like it's been confirmed in canon that everyone else experiences time flowing at a normal Earth rate in Hell now. I went through my tags and found a series of posts you may find interesting, but obviously these are just my personal thoughts about it. It's never been stated in dialogue, for example, that Dean specifically experienced a time dilation in order to rush him through the process of breaking him from torture in time to bring about the destined apocalypse. Other demons have confirmed it can take CENTURIES to break down a human soul and rebuild them into demons in Hell. Like Ruby in 3.09:

Ruby: Yes, the same thing will happen to you. It might take centuries, but sooner or later Hell will burn away your humanity. Every Hell-bound soul, every one, turns into something else. Turns you into us. So yeah. Yeah, you can count on it.

They were on a timetable. They didn't have centuries (for one thing, Sam wouldn't live that long to fulfill his end of the fated apocalypse deal...). They needed to speed run him through breaking in the very specific way Chuck's narrative needed him to. They did NOT need John to break in this specific way. He wasn't the fated vessel of Michael, you know? DEAN was. And they needed him-- The Righteous Man-- to shed blood in Hell. I.e., to pick up the implements of torture and fall, essentially. And it still took him 30 years of brutal, directed torture to give in to that destiny. Can you imagine him being saved after 40 earth years before being returned to battle it out with 65-year-old Sam? LOLOL no.

anyway, here's some things I've written on the subject over the years. I hope some of this clarifies my personal thinking on the matter. And okay, now that I've pasted all those here, I think I'd recommend starting at the bottom of this list and working your way up, since I pulled them in reverse chronological order from my blog, and the last linked post is actually the origin of this convo on my blog >.>

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/618379181478248448/hi-im-the-wiki-anon-i-was-just-reading-a

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/189903073925/michael-and-adam-talk-about-only-spending-10-years

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/189647525560/if-deans-hell-time-isnt-indicative-of-overall

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/188516632740/re-demons-so-im-thinking-its-invite-only-most

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/186982506615/this-talk-of-the-early-seasons-gives-me-another

I hope that at least clarifies how I think about this!

[villadiodatis]

at this point my brain is just blatantly connecting my thesis to Dean Winchester, so:

Dean and desire.

It's been proposed by queer theorists like George Haggerty that desire and act are equally transgressive. The mere fact of wanting disrupts the social order. The threat to hegemony comes from the possibility of transgression, the suggestion that something might occur, and so desire alone warrants punishment. This blurring of thought and deed has material consequences in works like Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which Dorian wonders if the portrait is changed by the consequences of his actions or his desires and attitudes themselves: “[W]as it indifferent to results? Did it merely take cognizance of what passed within the soul?” The inner self’s desires, once one is aware of them, can wreak havoc without one’s consent or will. 

And this is where Dean comes in. In 5.14 “My Bloody Valentine,” Famine says to Dean, “That's one deep, dark nothing you got there, Dean ... You're not hungry, Dean, because inside, you're already dead.” 

I believe his transgressive desires at this point aren’t absent, they’re just so deeply repressed that they can’t be perceived. Growing up in a world where things like tulpas, which make thought manifest, exist, Dean knows perfectly well that desire is never just desire; it always has an effect on the world. So he subconsciously buried his desires. He didn’t do this voluntarily, but it happened, and that’s how we get Dean, who we know wants things powerfully and viscerally, as supposedly empty.

I also want to talk about what is considered transgressive here. Obviously queerness is part of it, but it’s more than that. In (white, straight, middle-class, mainstream) American society, the expectation is to settle down and be a law-abiding citizen. But in the world of Supernatural, in Dean’s world, his norm, his upbringing, was centered around a nomadic outlaw lifestyle. You get some fraudulent credit cards, you impersonate a federal agent, you do some grave desecration, you kill the ghost, maybe hook up with a grateful damsel, and move onto the next case. Wanting to get out of the life is taboo to John, and therefore to Dean. So transgression here consists of disobeying the way of life he’s always known, of embracing domesticity and being happy in it.

But what about Lisa and Ben? He achieved domesticity for a while with them, and he didn’t enjoy it.

Ah, but remember how he’s suppressed his transgressive desires? He wasn’t aware yet that he wanted to settle down. He only did it because Sam told him to before he died. He wasn’t entertaining or indulging in his desires, he was conforming to more expectations. I’d argue that he wasn’t aware of his repressed desires until Purgatory and Season 8, with the bunker. That’s when we start to see him getting more antsy about settling down and, more importantly, knowing that he wants to settle down, even if he doesn’t express it.

This is also why we see him engaging in supposedly transgressive acts like drinking and sex without truly hungering for them. They're not his desires, they're expectations, first from John and later from the persona he's built. At his core, just above those suppressed desires, as @minor-mendings pointed out in this sublime post, which is what inspired this meta, "dean's a puritan who thinks pleasure is illegal." He engages in acts that could be termed hedonistic or transgressive, but he can't take pleasure in them. For Dean, desire must lead to act, but act does not necessarily imply desire, and it's the desire that's dangerous.

If you've read this whole thing, thank you so much, I hope you got something from it, and I’ll leave you with this: literary/linguistic theory also has a concept called a “speech act,” which encompasses any words that perform an action. This can be a contract, a threat, something as simple as ordering food--or saying that there are “people, feelings that [you] want to experience differently than [you] have before, or maybe even for the first time.”

Or in other words, happiness isn’t in the having, it’s in just being. It's in just saying it.

[supernaturalimpala-67]

I have a supernatural theory that I have been thinking about for a long time and I want to share it and see what everyone thinks.

P.s. sorry it's a little bit long to read but it is so worth it I promise.

So to start off we all know how in the beginning Mary is killed by Azazel and John tries to figure out what killed her. Therefore, him and the boys become hunters and "saving people, hunting things, the family business" becomes their thing.

But there are some other things that I would like to address for what happened after the fire and Sam and Dean's childhood, or lack of.

So we know how John would leave for weeks at a time and how Dean would.have to watch Sam while he was away, but let's go even more before that.

During some of the flash backs of Dean and Mary you see how strong of a relationship they have together. Now keep this in mind because it will tie in later.

In the book 'John Winchester's Journal' by Alex Irvine, there is an entry that includes after the fire that talks about Dean climbing into Sam's crib when he was a baby. After the fire Dean right off the bat had to become a parent figure to him because their father just lost his wife and wasn't stable.

Moving forward a few years, John leaves the boys more often and therefore misses more holidays so now Sam and Dean only have eachother.

Skip a few more years when Dean is a teenager. If you notice in season 9 episode 7, Bad Boys, Dean is arrested for shoplifting peanut butter and bread. There are many things to address in this flash back but I'll talk about this one first. In an episode Sam and Dean were talking about their favorite food and Dean brings up how when Sam was little he liked eating peanut butter and banana sandwichs and how gross he thought it was.

Next in the episode, we see him sitting down on the couch in the boys home in hand cuffs.

Once the police officer leaves Sonny takes off the hand cuffs. When Sonny sees the bruises on Dean's arms he asks what happened and Dean responds with werewolf, skip to season 1 when Sam and Dean were hunting a werewolf for the FIRST time and how their dad had never hunted one either. So that leaves many people to wonder what are the bruises from? Well, as much as I don't like the thought of it there's a chance John could have been abusing his son. In all of the flash backs, 1 John isn't in a lot of them, 2 there is a major personality difference between John and Dean, even though he tries to be like him. But there is more of a similarity between Dean and Mary, they both like same music, and when she comes back in season 11 they bond even more and it shows a lot more of that mother-son relationship between them even though it has been many years.

When you look at John and Sam though you notice there is a lot more similarities between them, even though they constantly fought.

My personal theory is that when Mary died he was sad and angry at himself for not being with her and as Dean got older he saw more of Mary in him and he very badly responded to that and took his anger out on Dean because he was that barrier in-between John and Sam, he always has been even in season 1.

To add to this theory, many times when you see Dean talking to or even about John there's this way the dialog is, or how he will straighten up like a soldier when he sees his father. Also in a other episode (I can't remember what season) but Dean is talking about how he accidentally let sam almost get killed buy a monster, luckily John was there in time. Dean talks about how John was so angry at him for leaving the motel and leaving Sam alone. In some of the dialog he talks about 'what dad did' vaguely and left it at that, and with amazing script (thanks to Kripke) and an amazing actor to play the part and put the emotion into the script (thanks to Jensen) that showed so much in just that alone about what kind of father John was.

Also in this scene:

Dean is having a meal with Sonny, and I know for sure that older Dean doesn't look at John that way. Dean always wanted a normal life but never got that because of what happened with his mom then his dad going crazy trying to figure it out and digging them all a deeper hole to try to climb out of, that they eventually never would. But he gave up the chance to live with Sonny and have a normal life to make sure Sammy was safe.

Also in this scene:

He's in this memory (I think) and he finally is able to say all of the things he never has before and it also shows their relationship too. Dean says "I hate you. I hate you, but I love you" this makes me think that even after every thing he has been through, even if it did start with her, he still loves her, she's still his mom. In the show you can also see how much of a bond there is between Dean and Mary, and how much difference there is from their relationship to Sam and Mary's.

Let me know what you think and if I got anything wrong!

Thanks

[zmediaoutlet]

in support of wildfire relief, @aspiringmehood donated $50 and requested past John/Dean, in which Sam finds out in the bunker era. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post.

When they finally make it to where Michael actually has Dean trapped—a bar, of course a bar, with cheesy neon and cozy wood—Sam feels like he can't catch his breath. There's something snarled and massive and thorned, wrapped around his lungs, his chest full of it. Dean smiles at him, at Castiel, pouring a beer and no shadow at all to his eyes, and Sam drags in air and can't—for a second, physically can't—say a word.

They worked their way through layers and layers of memories. Drowning. Hell. Sam heard Dean laughing, warm and vile, and Castiel glanced at Sam and said, that was in Alastair's workroom, and they didn't look at that memory, like they hadn't looked at so many others. Sam always knew that Dean had been through a lot, just like he'd been through a lot himself. It felt different, hearing it. Seeing it, occasionally, when Cas couldn't tell if the real Dean was trapped in the memory or if it was just an echo, and so they had to check, and the loneliness and the mud and the pain just kept stacking up. A lot Sam had known about; a lot he hadn't. Too much, that he hadn't.

After, when Michael's trapped inside Dean's mind and Dean's shut himself into his room, to rest, Sam goes back out into the bunker and walks past Jack and the refugee hunters trying to clean up the mess, and he grabs Cas, and he says, not quietly enough, "Did you know?"

"Know what?" Cas says.

It's the kitchen. Someone might come in, any moment. Sam stares at Cas for a few seconds and then jerks his head, and Cas follows him, down the halls and down the stairs until they reach—Sam can't help but think of it as 'the Dean Cave.' The den. Armchairs, foosball, cheesy neon. His throat closes up again, seeing the daydream of another life, and he grips the back of the recliner Dean said was his very tightly, and tries to articulate the question better. It's incoherent in the back of his head. Revulsion, horror, anger. Worse than anger.

"You—when we were looking for Dean," Sam starts. Tries to start. Cas is silent, behind him. The neon glows cheerfully. "When we—we saw—"

Jesus. He can't say it.

Cas touches his shoulder and Sam flinches violently. When he turns, Cas's hand is still half-extended, his expression regretful. "I'm sorry, Sam," he says. "I always assumed that you knew."

Sam lets out a breath. That he knew. Like it was just—something that was part of the family, growing up.

Cas searches his face. "It was assumed," he says, more slowly. "That the unusual relationship between you and your brother was a—natural extension of what had happened in Dean's past."

The heat in Sam's chest floods red. He's not aware of swinging until it's too late, and then Cas's head snaps back, and then his hand hurts, and he's dragging in air, desperate, and then he covers his face with both hands. He should say sorry—he almost is sorry—but he's also not, and he's also—out of control, like he hasn't been in years. Years, when he's worked so hard to tamp down reactions like this. The fury's roiling up and he realizes his hands are shaking when Cas touches his forearm, and then his wrist, carefully.

"Sorry," Sam says. Cas pulls at his wrist and Sam drops his hands, taking a deep, chest-expanding breath. Everything still feels too tight.

"No, I am," Cas says. He really looks it, his mouth tight. "I shouldn't have—I know you both keep very secret. I didn't realize Dean had kept more of it a secret from you."

In the face of everything, it's impossible to feel weird that Cas apparently knows about him and Dean. He should've realized that they couldn't really have secrets from heaven. It feels secondary.

The memory. Dad's voice, stern, the words barely audible. Dean had yelped and Sam had frowned, not sure what he was hearing. Michael was obsessed with his own father—maybe he was keeping his vessel trapped with Dad. Sam nodded—Cas's eyes glowed—and then they were there, in a motel room, and it was night, and there was Dean—thirteen maybe—stripped naked and pale in the darkness, sitting in the middle of the bed with his head bowed, and Dad in the bathroom, saying like it was a lecture from any other bit of PT, you know you're supposed to be ready for me, and Dean licked his lips and dashed the back of his hand over his eyes, and he said, sorry, sir, I'll remember next time, and Sam had felt frozen, standing there a foot behind Cas's shoulder, his brain somehow not putting two and two together until Dad came out of the bathroom bare-chested, undoing his belt, saying, I know you will, and there was—on the bedside table—

It turned out that thought-projections couldn't vomit. KY is still the brand Dean buys.

He sits in his recliner. Feels like his legs won't hold him. Cas hovers uncertainly, for some time that passes without Sam realizing, because it feels like an hour or an instant before the door closes, and he's alone, watching the wall, going over it, in his head. He can't help it. All these years, he's been trained—find the evidence, make connections, build a case. Cas took him out of the memory and said not there and didn't sound the least bit surprised, and Sam had barely helped after that, all of him locked into thinking—no. No.

He sleeps in his own room, that night. They usually do, when other people are around. He doesn't expect to actually fall asleep, but he does, and is surprised to find it dreamless. It's after nine o'clock when he finally drags himself out of bed, and when he makes it to the kitchen there's Jack, reading something on a laptop at the kitchen table, and he looks up and smiles at Sam like sunshine, and there, over by the griddle, Dean.

"Morning, sleeping beauty," Dean says, glancing at him. "What, did your alarm not go off or something?"

He's making pancakes. He looks tired. Sam smiles at him and knows it's half-assed, but a lot of shit has been happening and Dean lets him get away with it, just grunting and turning back to the griddle, and Jack says, "I made coffee!" and, christ, okay. Jack's coffee. Sam lets Jack pour him a mug and sits down at the table, too, and lets Jack tell him all about some potential hunt he's found in Jackson Hole, and Dean sits down next to Sam after a few minutes of excited babbling with two plates of pancakes, one of which he slides Sam's way. "Let the guy wake up a little, Jack," Dean says. His knee and hip and elbow brush Sam's side and Sam thinks, again, pointlessly: no. Dean says, "Eat, you look like crap," and Sam says, fulfilling his part, "You're one to talk," but Dean doesn't really smile like he ought to because there's an archangel inside him, and Sam can't—it's too much. He can't hold everything, all at once.

He eats a pancake. He drinks his coffee. He goes for a run, ten miles, the air cold but not cold enough to freeze the roil of feeling into stillness. When he comes back more of the refugees are gone until it's just Maggie, talking with Jack in the library, and Cas is sitting with them like some weird, awkward chaperone. Sam goes to take a shower, and leans his forearms against the wall and his head against his clenched fists while the hot water boils down, and he thinks about the times he'd be sent to stay with Bobby or with Pastor Jim or with Caleb for weeks at a time, and Dad and Dean were alone together, and the thing is that he can't remember. Nothing felt wrong. Maybe more correct to say that nothing felt any more wrong than anything else. When Sam and Dad would argue, Dean would take Dad's side more often than not, and if he didn't then he sat still on the far side of the motel room, and Sam had hated him for that, when he was a teenager. He'd thought, Dad's loyal lapdog. He'd thought, get a life, Dean, meanly, and when they had that last drag-out fight before Sam went to school, Dean had run outside to him, on the road outside that shitty ramshackle house, and he'd said, he doesn't mean it, Sam, and he'd said, don't go, and Sam had pushed away, had started walking right then, and Dean had watched him go, standing alone in the road, the house's dark windows looming behind his back.

A natural extension, Cas said. Sam shuts off the water, dries off. Wraps the towel around his waist and goes to his room, and when he opens the door Dean's sitting on his bed, with a bottle of whiskey on the bedside table, waiting for him.

"Long shower," Dean says.

"Long run," Sam says. The corner of Dean's mouth turns up but it doesn't look happy. It's noon, or near enough, and Sam doesn't even fake an objection when Dean pours them two glasses from the bottle, and when Dean holds out to clink Sam does, slowly.

Dean looks at him, and drains his glass. Sam sips at his. "I asked Cas to take the kids on that hunt Jack was telling us about," Dean says, and refills his drink. "Got the bunker to ourselves."

Sam takes another swallow. He didn't eat enough and whiskey's blooming hot in his stomach.

"You want to talk to me about something, Sam?" Dean says.

A beat. Sam's mouth feels dry, despite the taste of peat.

"Dug through my head, right? To find me? Cas let me know. Guess it took a while." Dean holds his glass in front of his mouth like he's going to drain it again, but then puts it down on the bedside table, and sits forward. His shoulders are hunched, purple bruise-marks under his eyes, and for all that he's springing a trap he just looks—like Sam wants to pull him down to the bed, hold him, sleep for a week tangled together with their skin touching like a promise.

The silence stretches. Dean closes his eyes and looks even more exhausted than before. Sam goes to his wardrobe, tugs on jeans and a t-shirt at least. He holds the wet towel between his hands and can't think. It's still hot and raw inside him, because it's been—a day. Less than a day. How long, he thinks, for Dean, and without his brain attached to his mouth he says, "When," and then wishes immediately to be struck by lightning.

Dean snorts. Sam turns his head and finds Dean shifted around, so his back's to the headboard, one leg extended along Sam's bed. He tips his head back against the wall, eyes still closed. "Suck my dick and I'll tell you," he says, matter of fact, and Sam's stomach flips even if the tone was perfectly even.

"Jesus christ," Sam says, and collapses into his desk chair. He hunches, can't help it—elbows on his knees, his hands in his hair. He keeps seeing it. Dean had been—not scared, but nervous. Like he knew what was coming. The dark, other than the light coming in from the bathroom, and his knees tugged up shyly to hide his nakedness, and how he'd been big-eyed and soft-mouthed and his skin looked—bruiseable. And of course he'd had bruises, all the time—they both had—and Sam had never, never—

"You don't get to be pissed about this, Sam," Dean says. Sam looks up and finds Dean watching him, his eyes tight. "It's nothing to do with you."

"You think—" Sam says, and closes his mouth before he says something stupid. He sits back in the chair and takes a deep breath. Of course Dean thinks that. "I'm pissed," Sam says. "And yeah, I get to be. But—god, Dean, I'm not pissed at you." He pauses, with Dean just looking at him, steady. "Okay, that wasn't true. Yeah, I'm kinda pissed at you. Because you didn't—" He shakes his head. "But I'm pissed at him."

Everything he ever accused Dean of, in his head or out loud. Everything in his head, stained now, like blood seeping through layer after layer of cloth, changing things irrevocably. He thinks, out of nowhere, of Dean's birthday, when he turned twenty and Dad gave him the Impala, and he tossed Dean the keys and Dean whooped and hugged him, tight, and Dad's hand cupped the back of Dean's head, and Sam hadn't thought anything of it, then. He holds Dean's head like that, he thinks. When they're together. When Dean's on top of him, and smiling down in that soft way he'll smile sometimes, and Sam will cup the back of his head tenderly, and bring him down, and kiss him.

Dean's still looking at him. "That first time," Sam says. "You and me. Were you—was it still—"

"What, are you jealous?" Dean says. Laced, just lightly, with acid.

"Just tell me," Sam says, and his voice sounds weird, and Dean's eyes dip, and slant away.

"Yeah," he says.

Sam closes his eyes.

The first time. Sam was eighteen with an acceptance letter in his duffle, and it was June, and Dad had disappeared for a month on some weird hunt. Dean had let him get drunk and he'd been—terrified and happy, nervous and needing, and he'd leaned in laughing against Dean's shoulder, and Dean had thrown his arm around Sam's shoulders and said you're such a lightweight, bitch, and Sam had been so full and glad and it had felt right, to kiss Dean's throat, and when Dean had gasped to lean up and kiss his mouth. Sam still remembers how it felt. Soft and wet, mainly, but with his whole body thrumming like a struck bell. They hadn't fucked for real that night but Dean had gotten him off twice, and Sam had jerked Dean off awkwardly, leaning over him and watching his face, and in the middle of the night he'd said don't freak out, and Dean had been quiet and then curved into his body and said, softly, who's freaking out?, and it had been—okay. Sam thought. It was okay.

If Sam was eighteen, Dean was twenty-two, and if Dean was twenty-two that meant that if Dad had still—if they'd still been—Dean was an adult, and he could've got halfway across the country if he wanted, and he didn't. Now, Dean's forty and Sam's thirty-six, and they've had about fifty lifetimes between here and there, and still Sam feels, in this second, about twelve years old, looking at his big brother and wanting answers.

Dean tongues the inside of his cheek, and says, inexplicably quiet, "Sam, can you—" He works his jaw— "Could you come here. Please."

Dean doesn't say please. Sam gets up, and walks the two steps to the bed, and Dean looks at him with his face drawn and sore and tired, and Sam sits by his hip, and tips forward, and lands with his back twisted painfully with his face in Dean's shoulder. He breathes in Dean's smell, and feels the tug when Dean's hand fists into his t-shirt. It's familiar, from all their years together. His brain flashes to them in bed—to pushing into Dean, his face tucked into Dean's warm shoulder, held safe and close—and then, cruelly, he imagines—their dad—his bulk tucked into the same warm closeness of thighs, Dean holding his shoulders, cupping his head, arching under him just like he does with Sam—

"I was—" Dean starts, while Sam's breathing through the roil of sickness in his gut. He hears Dean swallow. "It doesn't matter, Sammy. I was—it wasn't—" A pause. Sam licks his lips, and goes to sit up, but Dean's hand lands on the back of his head, keeps him in place. His fingers tangle in Sam's hair. He says, again, "It doesn't matter," only of course it does.

"I wish I'd known," Sam says, muffled against Dean's shoulder.

"What good would that have done?" Dean says. It sounds flat, exhausted.

Sam doesn't know. Maybe it would have hurt more. There's so much he doesn't know that's torturing him, now. Things he should've known. Things other people would've hurt Dean with—Azazel, Alastair, Lilith. Ruby. Crowley. Castiel, and all the angels, and Michael, fuck, Michael, crowding up inside Dean, telling him—the same cruelties Lucifer had told Sam, every second, filling him to the brim and saying, always, you're weak, you let this happen, this is your fault, everything is your fault.

They're sick, the questions Sam wants to ask.

"I'm gonna tell you one thing," Dean says. Sam shifts against him and Dean drags his hand down to Sam's neck, warningly tight. "One. And you don't get to ask anything else."

Sam nods, against his neck. Shifts his hips, so he's less cramped, and takes a deep breath.

"It was when you left," Dean says. "He was drunk. I mean, he got drunk a lot, right around then. We were in Colorado, at a cabin, and he got trashed, and he wanted—" A swallow. Dean's thumb drags up Sam's neck, rests soft under his ear. "I wanted it, too. Didn't want to think. It was rough. You know he used to hit me, sometimes? He hit me, during, and I—made fun of him. Said it didn't hurt, wasn't hard enough. Drove him crazy. I'd had a few, too. Parts of it I don't remember. Blacked out, I guess. I guess somewhere in there he broke my nose, and I know I got him, too, because he disappeared for a day and when he came back he had a black eye. He brought back a real ice pack, like a medical-grade one, and he let me take a bath and he patched up my nose, and for dinner we had like honest-to-god steaks, from some restaurant down in Boulder, and he slept in my bed that night, to stay close, and I just kept thinking about you."

Sam's breathing hard. Dean squeezes his neck, comforting.

"I wanted you back," Dean says. "He knew it. We started hunting separate more often, after that. I couldn't stand it but, you know, what choice did I have."

"I wouldn't," Sam says. He pushes up, breaks Dean's hold. His heart feels turned inside-out. Dean's resigned, spent. "Dean, I—"

"You're freaked," Dean says.

"Yeah, no shit," Sam says. He cups Dean's face, feels him warm, hard. Sam's. "But I'm not leaving. Okay? I'm not leaving, I'm never leaving again."

Dean looks at him, and puts his hand on Sam's chest. "I know you won't," he says, after a little while, and Sam takes the chance and leans in and—and kisses him, very softly, just touching their lips together. It's Dean who deepens it, after a few seconds. Selfish, licking and gripping Sam's hair, almost desperate. Sam lets him—of course, he lets him—and it feels like an age before Dean pulls back, his forehead pressed against Sam's and his breath coming fast between them. Sam cups his head, ignoring the nastiness that flickers in his belly. The past doesn't get to ruin this.

"Sam, you know I love you, right?" Dean says.

Sam laughs, shakily. "Yeah, I know that," he says.

They never say it. Not like it's necessary. Dean cards his fingers through Sam's hair and holds on, tight, his body tense. Sam wraps an arm around his shoulders, not knowing what comfort to give.

"Good," is all Dean says. He leans his temple against Sam's and sighs. Their bones sit hard against each other, but Sam doesn't move. He can feel Dean's heartbeat, like a pounding drum.

[supernaturalnovelsandmore]

Supernatural Novel: Heart of the Dragon

Welcome to my not-quite review of the fourth Supernatural novel, Heart of the Dragon.

Author: Keith R.A. DeCandido

Timeline: Set after Episode 5.08 Changing Channels

Location: San Francisco, California (Chinatown)

Synopsis: An old foe has come back to terrorize San Francisco, but what is the connection between the Campbells, John Winchester and Sam and Dean? Read to find out!

Warning: Spoilers abound!

Oh, where do I start? Heart of the Dragon has a very different feel to it, one that I'm not entirely on board with. Basically, it's a flashback book that spends the first third on Samuel, Deanna, and Mary Campbell, the second third on John Winchester and the last quarter on Sam and Dean. In fact, out of 28 chapters, Sam and Dean were only featured in about 7 of them. It leaves the book feeling hollow and me, a little meh. But, there are some additional insights into the Winchester family history which I'll try and parse out.

One more thought, I'm glad this is the last book from this particular author. Once again he has utilized a culture/race to tell the story, and not well. When the story is in 1969, he utilizes the world Orientals to explain Japanese and Chinese characters. He might have been trying to use the wording of the day, and that's fine if it's in dialogue, but to use it as a descriptor is problematic, at best. He also plays up multiple stereotypes from the Chinese mob to the Japanese Samurai. I'm hoping this book is the Route 666 of the novels and that they can only get better.

I decided to sort my thoughts within the different timelines, so here we go:

1969: Samuel, Deanna, and Mary Campbell

We open with the family hunting a vampire and Samuel using 15-year-old Mary as willing bait. It turns out to be a nest, but they quickly dispatch them without casualties. Deanna appears to be quite the hunter in her own right (her skill with a Claymore outstanding.) Within this hunt we learn a few things about Mary and the Campbell family.

The Campbells have a strong link to their Scottish heritage.

Samuel hates Christmas

Mary is willful, annoying, and disrespectful, but an amazing hunter who was raised practically from birth to how to hunt and defend herself. (Sam parallels, perhaps?)

Mary learned about monsters at 11 when she saw her parents dispatch an avenging spirit.

Samuel hates the idea of Mary hanging out with any boys, though she has a particular fondness for a John Winchester who works as a local auto-mechanic.

Samuel owns a dry-cleaning business and Deanna substitute teaches to help maintain some kind of income.

Mary often wondered about having a normal life, but would dismiss it knowing she couldn't have that and still know monsters are out there. (Seems like a combination of Sam and Dean here).

Other than that, the hunt they go to San Francisco for seems fairly perfunctory. They do a bunch of research, talk to a few locals. Samuel dons his FBI agent schtick, they locate the source of the problem, and quickly dispatch it. There's nothing too dramatic there, just a lot of backstory.

1989: John Winchester

There's a bit more insight here because now we're getting some insight into Dad John, as well as 6-year-old Sam and 10-year-old Dean. I'll touch on a few points.

Leaving his boys with others: We open with John returning to his kids whom he left at Bobby's while he took care of a hunt. He left them long enough that they were enrolled in school and he planned on keeping them there for the fall semester. He felt bad about using Bobby's hospitality for so long.

Training his boys: "John knew his boys would need to be able to defend themselves against whatever was out there - he'd already started that process with Dean... Dean was a crack shot with John's M1911 and could load the shotgun with iron rounds and fire them off in one smooth motion. Eventually he'd need to train Sammy too. But not yet."

Loving his boys: When he arrives at Bobby's, Sam runs out to meet him and wraps his arms around John's legs as he walks in. Sam also tattles on Dean for eating the last donut.

There are also some fun moments between young Sam and Dean, mostly sibling bickering.

Dean and Sam enjoy playing hide-and-seek among Bobby's car on the weekends and Sam enjoys going to school during the week. Dean, not so much.

Sam proudly shares that he's doing 3rd grade work in 1st grade and then teases Dean about also doing 3rd grade work even though he's in 5th grade (Dean then sticks his tongue out at Sam and says "Screw you, Sammy.") At this John calls them out and both boys are chagrined.

Later on, when John calls Bobby for more information, we find Dean holding a pen out of Sam's reach and teasing him with it.

Of course, that call means we also get this heartbreaking line moment from Dean, who wants to talk to his Dad, but can't before John hangs up. Bobby tries to explain: "'Sorry, Dean, he, uh, was on his way out the door. But he told me to tell you both to behave yourselves and do what I tell you. And that he loves you.' Dean: 'Did he really say that?'"

When Bobby presents the next case, John is torn between wanting to spend time with his kids, but going after something that could cause people to burn spontaneously, in the hopes that it might lead him to the demon who killed Mary. I think the book did a good job of capturing John's struggle between revenge and caring for his boys. He's not the abusive, neglectful father people tend to think he is. He's someone struggling to make things right.

"John didn't answer at first. Instead, he looked over at Sam and Dean in the dining room, playing that oh-so-common game of 'I touched you last.'

Christmas was coming up and he did want to spend it with the boys..."

Finally, when John returns and Bobby and the boys meet him at the airport, we get some additional insight into 10-year-old Dean's thoughts regarding his father and his place in the family.

"Waiting there in the airport, he understood how important it was for Dad to be away so much - more than Sammy ever could. Sammy hadn't really known Mom, since he was just a baby when she died. Dean couldn't imagine that his baby brother would ever truly understand what had happened to her.

If he was honest with himself, he didn't really understand it, either. There were some days - though he'd never admit this to anyone - when he couldn't even remember what she looked like.

Some kind of monster had killed Mom, and Dad wouldn't rest until he found that monster and killed it. Along the way, he'd kill any other monsters who tried to kill other people's moms...

Dad still fought the bad guys and saved people, but he also cared about his sons.

Because Dad was a hero, and that was what heroes did."

2009 - Sam and Dean

There isn't much to write about here, because they weren't featured in the book. I will just add a couple of notes.

Dean recognizes Samuel Campbell in a newspaper article about the killings. (He'd already been sent back in time and met his grandfather).

It's seems reasonable to Sam that Mary and her parents were hunters. What freaks him out is that he and Dean were named after their grandparents and John never told them.

Sam's been a nerd about the American Interstate system since he was 10 and loved poring over maps.

Sam feels more guilt from trusting Ruby over Dean than starting the apocalypse.

Final notes:

This book introduces Castiel who brings the case to the boys attention. We get the same stuff in here that you see on screen, he has issues with personal space, comes and goes at will, and Bobby's still mad at him for not being able to heal his paralysis. He's only there for a few pages, and then disappears again.

Bobby gets a bit more screen time, as a pseudo-dad to young Sam and Dean, and later as their resource when researching the case and it's history. Favorite quote: "As he went into the fridge for butter to spread onto the pan, Bobby decided it was the entire Winchester family that was making him bald."

We briefly get Hurt Sam who is punched repeatedly by a hulk of a man, but with no lasting consequences and very little caring Dean.

We find out at the end that Zachariah orchestrated the whole thing by planting the idea in Castiel's head.

So, like I said at the beginning, not my favorite, but hopefully I was able to share some of the more interesting parts. Read at your own risk!

[espejonight28738]

15×09 "The Trap" Meta

Warning: As always, Destiel and Saileen positive so don't like don't read.

OMG guys I can't even this episode was something else. Like, for real.

First of all, it looks like I was right about Eileen being part of Chuck's plan.

"I helping to Sam the Bunker. To Sam. To Romance." Thanks Chuck for proving me right, but if you could please not hurt my baby Eileen and Sam while you do it would be awesome ;-;

Now if only I could be in the right about the happy ending...

But whatever. Let's talk about the prayer first, because I could talk about it for hours. Everything was so wonderful.

First, when Dean looks he only have 29 minutes left to find Cas, you could see all the trauma resourfaced. You could see how he was imagining ending up without Cas again. Having to go back home (although he didn't seem to be going to the portal when right before he found Cas, but I have no certainty about it) and leave Cas behind, and he imagined himself reliving the guilt and the hallucinations and the hopelessness.

[Gif by the amazing @agusvedder because I want you to look at him and tell me that ain't the look of a man who just imagined losing the love of his life again]

And, above all, Dean imagined having to live through it all knowing he never fixed their relationship. Rowena's words about not waiting until it was too late must have been ringing in his ears. And he knows that he needs Cas to know.

Purgatory's pureness gave him a new understanding of his emotions, and I'm not talking about the anger (it's obvious Dean already knew he had that problem), but the need for Cas.

"Cas, buddy, I need you." That same need, mixed with the possibility of losing Cas yet once again was enough for Dean to just break down in the middle of a land of abominations.

And the first thing he says. "I should've stopped you." Can you see how he is telling us we were right all along? Cas said "I left but you didn't stop me." And now Dean knows he could have.

If he had tried to talk, if he had asked Cas to stay, maybe he wouldn't have left. Dean put himself through that depression (the even heavier drinking, comfort food, the coldness) .

[And as an author note. How was that real? "You didn't stop me/I should've stop you" The Brontë sisters WISH they could write that levels of angsty romance.]

And, having Dean finally admitting to his very real anger issues gives me very high hopes for everything else. It's not like his problem will disappear, it does was kinda beaten into him, but having him admitting it is recognizing it as a standing problem between Dean and a Happy Future, so we can assume that will be another one of the problem they'll tackle in the rest of the season.

(Or maybe they'll forget about it. But s15 has been so good until now that I'm hoping they won't ignore it.)

And Dean calling Cas his best friends. Holy mother of God. I know I made several jokes about it, but it truly is so significant. Because words like "Family" and "Brother (and sister for Charlie)" are ones Dean had given other people. But Best Friend is only for Cas, it puts him in a special place in Dean's live no one else shares.

Maybe it's not exactly the place we want him to be in (yet), but the fact alone that they recognize once again how Dean and Cas' relationship is different to the one they have with anyone else.

So when did found Cas and said "Okay, Cas, I need to say something", I agree we wasn't about to repeat his prayer.

The Prayer (the fact that Dean got on his damn knees, for god's sake) was a moment of absolute vulnerability and emotion. Dean grew up in with a "no emotions" mentality tought to him by John, and so we seldom see him show this kind of raw vulnerability by choice. Considering that the Winchesters (as always, I include Jack and Cas in there) are an experts in 'I screw up and you got angry but then we had a bigger problem so we kinda left it behind us bc we are family and I love you anyway, or we just move on without never really discussing it' but not in actually apologizing, I would go as far as to say this was probably the most heartfelt apologize we've seen in the series.

I've watched the scene like a million times, and he just carries an attitude of doing something big. Like a big reveal, not like repiting himself.

Because he knew Cas heard him. The reason he said "I hope you can here me, that wherever you are, it's not too late" it's 'cause he was afraid Cas had died. That is was really too late. Once he saw Cas was alive? I don't think Dean doubted for a second Cas had heard him. He was hoing to say something else.

Cas clearly didn't want to take the risk of Dean telling him what he truly wanted to hear- what he had wanted for years. The risk of his deal with the Empty hovering behind hime. He couldn't be so selfish as allowing himself to hear it, just to abandon Dean right after.

Then Cas interrupted him.

Or abandoning Sam when he was at God's mercy, or leaving the World SavingTM to them. He couldn't. Dean doesn't even now about the deal.

I cannot tell you how much I loved it. Not in a "I want this to happen" way, of course not, but in what it means.

That's why Dabb said this episode wasn't the resolution. There's still much unsaid between them, if you believe there is an 'I love you' somewhere there. I think that's what has my hopes the highest. Because if they are only bff, then why didn't this solve everything? What is left hanging? I don't want to clown but it's literally the only thing that makes sense in my opinion.

And now, let's talk about the future Sam saw.

Sam and Dean don't need only each other to be happy, they need other people. That's basically what that future said.

"What's happened to you Dean? Ever since..."

"Ever since what? We lost pretty much everyone we ever cared about?"

[There is like a 2 second pause here that I feel very important andd significant. The separation between what 'everyone' and 'Cas']

"Ever since the Mark made Cas go crazy? Ever since I had to bury him in Ma'lak box? Ever since then? Yeah." [Jfc you can hear it pains him to say Cas' name]

"Bobby had a death wish and you know it. And Jody? Ever since what happened to Donna and the girls, she does too.

And after Eileen? So do you."

He's acknowledging everyone's breaking point. Jody's was Donna and the girls (we don't know exactly which one was the last straw, as we know that at least in Claire's case they died at different times). Sam's was Eileen. His was Cas.

And he is very clear in that. We can't know what happened first, but we know that Sam asks what happened to *him* and he says it was Cas going crazy. It was having to bury Cas alive what made him lose all hope. Because at least he can hope they ones dead can find pace, but Cas? Dean, and for how he said it he probably did it alone, had to bury Cas knowing he was going to be there for the rest of the time. Suffering alone. Dean knows how it's like to have the Mark.

That broke Dean. And having Sam wasn't enough to put him back together.

And after Eileen somehow died again, Sam just stop caring about living, he just care about taking down as many monsters as he can before he dies. 'Death wish' Dean called it. He would know about that, he is Dean "You wanna die" Winchester, after all.

Having Dean wasn't enough for Sam to want to keep on living.

"We lost, brother. We lost. I'm done."

They still have each other? Yes. Is that remotely enough? No. That's what the future told us. They need more than each other, they need other people.

But there was a little something else that made it even more beautiful.

"The Dean who raised me [...]"

Let's be clear about something, I think the show never gives enough recognition for having raised same pretty much by himself since he was 4 years. The situation was totally unfair to Dean and yet he never once took it out on Sam, he just look out for him, cooked for him, and make sure he could be as much of a child as the situation allowed, that is a lot more than Dean ever could. In his own words, he wasn't just a brother, he was also a father and a mother.

I just want to cry for thinking how hard that was for both brother. And Sam knows it, even if he doesn't always acknowledges. So the fact that he chose the words "the Dean that raised me" when "the Dean that I know", for example, would have conveyed the sentiment as well, is significant.

They wanted to remember how important they are for each other, how much they love each other. They don't dismiss that, they are making sure we remember that, at the same time they are telling us the alone aren't enough for a happy ending.

They are telling us what we need for a True Happy Ending.

Dean and Sam still being close brothers and loving each other, but allowing themselves to love and need other people.

Okay I'll go to the point.

A HAPPY ENDING IS SAM AND THEN HAVING OTHER PEOPLE IN THEIR LIVES WITHOUT LOSING EACH OTHER.

A HAPPY ENDING IS THE END OF THE TOXIC CODEPENDENCY AND THE START OF A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP THAT INCLUDES THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER PEOPLE.

You guys now I've been saying they are hinting at it since my meta of "The Rupture" but this ain't foreshadowing THEY ARE SCREAMING IT. Like I can't come up with a radically different interpretation.

So this episode only got my hopes for endgame Saileen and Destiel (the destiel maybe not at canon as the saileen, but heavily hinted at least) even higher. Specially for the parallel with Eileen having Dean's doubts ("I don't know what's real") and Sam making kinda answering the same ("We are"/"I know that was real"). Btw I'll be screaming because of that for the rest of my days.

[BONUS: Random questions I can't seem to answer.

Does the angels even know God's going bersek? I mean, Belphegor didn't know it was God the one who broke hell... but even Lilith's been brought back. Do they know Micheal's back? God I don't know.

Was that really a possible future? Or it does was like a Zacharaiah tactic? Why does Chuck's abscence makes monster go crazy? Wasn't the point that it didn't unblanaced the powers?

Story-wise, why ain't Cas in next episode?

Was that the last mention of Claire? An off-screen hypotetical death? Please someome let me see my girl again.]

Tagging: @metafest @verobatto-angelxhunter @agusvedder @legendary-destiel @that-one-fandom-chick @studio-hatter

[verobatto]

You've changed me

You are always on my mind.

Destiel meta (14x10 spoiler)

Ok! Third meta from 14x10, the first one you can read it here and the second one here.

How are you dear fandom? I'm discovering more and more clues from this episode... Yockey is a real genius!

Ok... I want to start from here...

First Encounter and how Castiel changed Dean

We've talked a lot about this, but did you imagine the impact in Dean's life being saved by this beautiful Supernatural powerful creature. And the words Castiel said to him, we know now, are making echo all the time in his life, in his head... Michael knows it, and maybe Castiel is so present in his mind that must be overwhelming, and the Archangel is unable to understand that, bc as I said before, he can reach the deepest feelings for Castiel.

So he is mad, and that's why he is mocking Castiel and Everyone else important in Dean's life, but in Castiel's case is different, is doing it because he knows something is there between this Seraphim and this hunter going on causing the Archangel not being able to complete the bond with his vessel.

Gif set credit @magnificent-winged-beast

Thanks @magnificent-winged-beast for this beautiful gif set! Michael looks really good! She made this specially bc I asked her for this meta!

Gif set credit @shirtlesssammy

So ok, we had seen this last seasons how the writers were using classic Destiel quotes in other characters to show us different meanings or to show us the singular/plural receptors. But this time, this time is so different... Because Michael is using the classic quotes (with so much meaning in Dean's heart and mind) to mocking them.

"Yeah, so he is important to you bc he rescued you from hell? Big deal..." So he doesn't understand the depth of Castiel and Dean'd relationship, he is like a child, and bc he has afraid of it too, something that he doesn't know... Can't reach.

That's why he is trying to break every bond Dean has with his family, and with this Angel that, for him, must be a mystery. As it was for Qareen and Amara (season 11).

Gif credit @casclaire

This time this means DESTIEL.

Because as I said in my color meta about Mint Condition, Castiel is literally everywhere for Dean, in his mind, but also in his heart. And that's why when Dean remembers him, the blue light is showing us this graphically.

Smiling... Smiling all the way remembering Castiel, not just here, when he was talking about LOVE and STABBING THE HEART, he was smiling saying love can be more crazy than that. And more smiles in 14x06 too, when he touched the rooster, fondly, placing him apart, when the waitress said "Sometimes you only have the sex", he smiled in disagreement, but then fondly, because that's not what love means, he knows now.

Then... Is poetic how this is written... But most poetic is see the huge changes that Castiel provoked in him... Is Castiel aware of this??

Not just this Seraphim has changed a lot because of Dean, Dean had changed a lot too bc of him. But still... There's more work to do...

Still fighting against Toxicity.

So, here is the second part from the Rocky's bar analysis... It has to do with the title I wrote bc... He was literally trapped, locked up in this Emotional Prison (the bar) with time loops, monster that came for revenge, and the avoidance of all that means getting out from there...

The monsters there are the Hunting, FB (Family business). The one that was drunk and sleeping it reminds me to Mint Condition too, remember when they were scaping from the monster, they went into the morgue, and the monsters surprised them bc he was one of the corpses. Ok so this is the Sam, the drunk one surprised Dean and the others too. And now... Beware with the monster that is trapped inside Dean (Michael). Is like saying... The monster was always inside.

And this...

👆Here is like a prison inside a prison, Sam and Cas couldn't reach Dean when he was inside this room. And if you pay attention to the pics on the wall, there's a voluptuous anime girl and a couple of women. And Pam brought him booze to keep him drowned in alcohol. This is his toxic masculinity, in all his splendor. And here is where they have this boyfriend/girlfriend talk and the YOU DON'T WANT ME YOU JUST LIKE TO FLIRT. Is toxic!Dean not wanting to get out. His inner battle between hetero normative and his truly bi self.

So still fighting... But self acceptance will win!

Let's see what happens with the introduction of John! Could this fight end?

To conclude...

The first encounter in the barn is celebrating the 10th Anniversary, and that's why the writers are calling back to the 4th and 5th season that much, and also bc all the issue with Dean and Michael's Possession is one of the centric topics from this season.

Every word and memory related to Castiel, Dean has it present in his mind and soul all the time. The day he came back from Hell rescued by Castiel is the most important turning point in his life.

Castiel came to Dean's life to bring him hopes, faith, and love. Dean began a new path of self knowledge and self acceptance from the day he met Castiel.

But the inner war he has between Healing!Dean and Toxic!Dean needs to stop, we will see how the introduction of John Winchester (representing toxic masculinity and guilt heritage) can heal once for all .

Thanks for reading!

Tagging @emblue-sparks @cheerstofandomfamily @magnificent-winged-beast @mrsaquaman187 @castiellover20 @agusvedder @casualpandabeliever @whyjm @wolveswingsandwrenches @gneisscastiel @metafest

Buenos Aires January 19th 2019 01:28 AM

[go-diane-winchester]

WHY TWIST AND SHOUT IS TRASH.

I am writing this post, because I am sick and fed up of hearing about this story.  It has some socio-political issues that the writers trivialize in order to use them as a masturbatory tool.  Its all about ambience darling.  The book is going to be published.  Lets wait to gay men to get their hands on this things.  The insults are likely to fly. 

The summary of Twist and Shout is as follows: 

What begins as a transforming love between Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak in the summer of 1965 quickly derails into something far more tumultuous when Dean is drafted in the Vietnam War. Though the two both voice their relationship is one where saying goodbye is never a real truth, their story becomes fraught with the tragedy of circumstance. In an era where homosexuality was especially vulnerable, Twist and Shout is the story of the love transcending time, returning over and over in its many forms, as faithful as the sea.

This story is made from the usual destiel template complete with bad editing, and, like a typical destiel story, the focal point is Castiel, Misha's character.  To put it in a nutshell, local bad boy high school drop out  Dean, goes to Ellen's café or local teen haunt [cant remember] where the high schoolers are celebrating the last day of school.  Cas is a big academic achiever.  So high school fic.  That is the usual destiel template.  There is a reason why there are so many high school verses in destiel fanfiction.  There writers are kids and high school is all they know.  There is no real point for Cas being a big achiever.  He makes stupid decisions further on in the story.  They probably just wanted him to be important.   

Dean beelines to Cas [instead of the other way around, because Cas is apparently nerdishly irresistible] and they start talking.  Cas realizes that Dean is not a bad boy.  He had to sacrifice school so Sam could go.  Dad is a drunk or abusive or some such thing and we have another regular feature from the destiel template:  Bad John/abusive John/homophobic John - take your pick.  They can't make John good in their stories or meta, because their headcanons will fall apart. 

While Dean and Cas hit it off, war breaks out.  The two people who wrote this story should be ashamed of themselves.  Setting your masturbatory vehicle against the backdrop of the Vietnam war is in poor taste.  The war is not fictitious.  It is one of the bloodiest, more horrible battles in America's military history.  The USA didn't just lose the war.  They lose 58, 220 soldiers.  Those who returned were physically or psychologically damaged.  A further 9000 committed suicide.  Couldn't they make up a war, instead of leeching from history?  The day will come when 9/11 will become a backdrop with a slash fic.  The lack of good taste is in overdrive.  Why not just leave out war, and PTSD because these are not tropes.  But expecting good taste from destiel shippers is kind of difficult.  They can barely recognize canon. 

Dean gets drafted, and Cas is [as usual] too inadequate to be a soldier.  Dean returns from the war, damaged and hurts Cas because of PTSD.  So he leaves.  In real life, he would have killed himself but the sympathy focus would shift from Cas to him and we don't want that, do we?  Cas, the doormat, waits for him [for nine years, would you believe] but does a spot of drugging in the meantime to ''deal''.  Whilst, sharing a needle with Meg, he contracts HIV from her.  When his condition progresses, a mutual friend [Baltazar] runs into Dean and notifies him that Cas is dying.  Dean returns.  Cas dies.  The End.  Very sad.  Snot and tears. 

I don't know why the most intelligent boy at school was stupid enough to take drugs.  He didn't go to war.  He was not suffering from PTSD.  He just got dumped by his boyfriend.  And he waited two whole years before starting his drug taking adventure.  Its makes no sense.  But lets just throw it in there so it can facilitate Cas getting AIDS because of a needle.  Cancer is not dramatic enough, anyway.  Also, it will allow us to keep a shitload of the focus on Cas, because that is the whole point of reading a destiel story, right?  Why focus on Jensen when you can focus on Misha?  SMH.  Drugs are such a good trope to use too.  Its not like it kills anyone.  Even Cas, in this story, doesn't die from drug addiction.  He died from something else.  Stupidity.

A gay man who lived through the AIDs epidemic, will be insulted by this.  First of all, I don't think the writers are gay men.  And yet they want to write about gay characters and do it wrong.  Case in point is AIDS.  This disease was called GRID [gay related immune deficiency], gay plague and gay cancer.  Gay men were seen as the plague carrying rats, and were ostracized.  Movies and television often depicted gay men succumbing only to this disease.  The gay community had to fight to make them stop that because everyone gets AIDS, not just gay men.  And now, years later, here are a couple of thirsty girls flushing their efforts down the toilets, and apparently making money from it too, because there are talks to get this trash published.  First 50 shades and now this.  Publishing houses are apparently being run by apes with no taste or common sense.

Citation for suicide estimates: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2343923

[caranfindel]

Recap/review 14.06: “Optimism”

THEN: Starts out pretty ominous, with clock-ticky music, Jack's grace getting sucked out, "this is the end of everything," and Jack considering himself useless. We're reminded that New Charlie exists (aw, Dean looked so pretty in AU Land) and Jack has "the mind of a hunter." Michael hurting people and Dean feels guilty (aw, Sam's Beard of Despair, how I miss you). Sounds like we're in for a real downer of an episode, friends.

NOW: Nebraska. Happy music. A cheerful librarian opens up shop, and she's cute as can be but I wore that blouse in the 80s and it needs to stay there (JUST SAY NO TO THE RUFFLED YOKE, LADIES). Her name is Harper, and she has a kind-of-date with a guy named Winston tonight, though she is clearly Not Into You, Winston. An (apparent) coworker named Miles hears her "scream" and comes to her aid, brandishing a stapler, and is reminded that he needs to mind his own business. Winston leaves, clearly walking on air, and then STAYIN' ALIVE STARTS PLAYING and we focus on Winston's feet just like the iconic opening scene of Saturday Night Fever (if you're too young to remember, watch this, IT'S IMPORTANT CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE and there WILL BE A QUIZ LATER) and y'all don't even know how much I love this song. YOU DON'T KNOW. I can't help it. My mom was a huge Bee Gees fan, partially because she was very into Barry Gibb.

Coincidence?

What can I say? I am my mother's child.

Now, where were we?

(Pretty much where we always are, so could you please just move this along?)

Sorry for the digression. Anyway. Now I suspect this isn't going to be a downer episode after all. (Turns out it was directed by Richard Speight, which would have been a clue if I'd known that earlier, bless him.) While I've been digressing, Winston has happily bopped down the street, only to have a hand cover his mouth and drag him off-screen. There's a record scratch and a squirt of dark goo and a scream, so I guess it did turn out to be a downer for Winston, but not for me.

Title card!

{Sidebar: I didn't realize Saturday Night Fever was directed by John Badham, who went on to direct several episodes of Supernatural.}

Jack's drinking coffee in the bunker. He takes a sip and then pours a huge amount of sugar into it, which immediately makes me think of this scene from The Fly when Jeff Goldblum, who does not yet realize that he is turning into a fly, does the same thing.

(Spoiler alert: Ahem.)

Dean walks in and asks what he's doing, and Jack explains that everything tastes different without his powers, and he can't get the coffee to taste the way he likes it. That's because coffee is nasty, Jack. (And also, thanks to the Continuity Fairy for remembering that food tasted different to Cas when he didn't have grace.) Dean asks if Jack has seen Sam, because that's what Dean does; he probably walked in the door and felt a disturbance in the Force and realized he didn't know where Sam was. From Jack, we learn that (1) Dean went on an overnight run to Mobby's love shack cabin and (b) Sam went on a hunt with Charlie without telling Dean. Is Dean okay with this? Are we gonna okay with this? Couldn't he have at least sent a text message? He's supposed to be setting an example!

"Explain to me again how you just let Sam LEAVE."

I guess Sam had to go himself, rather than send someone else, because this is one of those times when there's no random hunters in the bunker. (And where's Rowena? Did Charlie abandon her in the Southwest? Did they have a fight?) Jack imagines Sam and Charlie are doing something "really exciting."

Cut to Sam and Charlie sitting quietly in a truck outside Memphis, bored out of their minds. Hee! It's the kind of crappy old truck I always want Sam to drive, so I love it. They're staring at a bus stop with an ad for Pete the Pestinator, who seems to be an insect exterminator. (Spoiler alert: ahem again.) Sam confirms that "this is where all those people went missing," although if he's been sitting in that truck long enough to be bored, he really should have nailed that down by now. Charlie says "yep." More silent sitting.

Back to the bunker. Dean seems surprised that Sam left Jack there alone (where's Cas?) and Jack says "Sam wanted someone around when you came back. He's worried about you."

"Yeah, that sounds like him," Dean grumbles, and hello, kettle, the pot just called, and said you're black. Jack offers some encouragement, telling him no one blames him for Michael, and Dean says "Cool. Well, I blame me, so." His self-flagellation is interrupted by Jack's Cough of Great Concern. "Maybe I'm allergic to sitting around doing nothing," Jack snarks.

Dean sits down for a heart-to-heart, and Jack says he's been hunting with Cas and wants to do more. Dean says "No offense, Cas is an insurance policy on those hunts." Jack looks hurt. I don't understand this at all. Why wouldn't Jack already know that Cas is there to protect him? And why would this hurt his feelings? I'm so confused. But I immediately forget it, because Dean says "Sam's just trying to keep you safe, okay? He's a smart guy." AND THEN WE CUT TO THIS.

Bless you, Richard Speight, writer Steve Yockey, bless you both.

I literally did burst out laughing at Sam and his fidget spinner. Charlie is not amused, and Sam puts his toy away with some embarrassment.

Bunker. Jack's found a report on our dead friend Winston, who seemed to have human bitemarks taken out of his corpse. And others have gone missing in the area. We skip part of a conversation, but whatever it was, Dean says Sam won't like it. "Sam's not here," says Jack. Oh, no you don't, Jack. Don't you go ignoring the Chief's directives just because he's not here. Dean says he'll go check it out alone, but Jack suddenly remembers Sam's Law and reminds Dean about the Buddy System.

We can be hunting buddies!

Okay, uh, (a), don't call it that, and (b), YOU'RE gonna back ME up?

Oh, Dean. You didn't do the (1) and (b) thing that I love so much. Jack gets to be the one to bare a little bit of his soul now, telling Dean that he also feels guilty about Michael, because he could have killed him but he was "distracted and stupid." He doesn't want to sit around feeling guilty all day, he wants to hunt.

Looks like that was the right button to push, because we cut to Sam on the phone, clearly not a fan of the plan and telling Dean to be careful. I assume his reluctance is because he doesn't trust Jack to watch Dean's back. But Sam, if you can trust Maggie to hunt alone, you can trust Dean with a novice backup. (I know, I know, Dean is more important than Maggie.)

Sam asks again if Charlie is sure this is the right place, and she says it's where four people disappeared. And while she was scouting around, she found a mason jar full of goo. Is this the same goo we saw when Winston was killed? (Spoiler alert: no.) And now she's trying to figure out what they're hunting, so she's reading. I'd have done my reading before the stakeout, but that's just me. (I'd also have done some reading instead of sitting there glaring at Sam while he enjoyed his fidget spinner, but that's also just me.)

(I also might have thought of more interesting things to do while I was stuck in a car with Sam, but they would have interfered with the stakeout. And they aren't anything Charlie would have been interested in anyway.)

Cut to Dick's Red Rooster Diner (ha ha, I see you, Speight). According to Winston's obituary, he had breakfast here every morning. Jack agrees with me that it's an odd thing to put in an obituary, but Dean says that when someone dies young, you don't know what to put in those things. (Oh, think of 20-something Dean's obituary.) He introduces them to the waitress as Agents Berry and Charles, and the only thing I can think of is Chuck Berry, so if someone has a better idea, let me know. He asks for details about Winston, and the only detail she can provide is that he's dead. Jack dutifully writes that detail in his little notebook. (BLESS.)

This waitress is wonderfully snippy, knows her rights, and isn't the least bit interested in talking to these FBI agents, but when Dean hands her some cash she changes her mind. She says they should should be more interested in Harper, who Winston just started "courting," and Jack is confused.

What's courting?

It's what you do before you start dating.

Ah, and that's the thing you do before the sex.

Sometimes you just have the sex.

Okay, Dean's wrong, courting is what you do instead of dating, but this is still a wonderful exchange. And the next part is wonderful too, cutting between the waitress and some customers explaining that Harper was popular in high school, but her boyfriend ran off, and now all these men connected to her have died, and she's really into romance books, and ending on I've heard too much Dean and I'm confused Jack.

Love this.

Back at the stakeout, Sam's biting his nails, which I also love for some reason, and of course the only time we've ever seen him bite his nails was when he was worried about Dean. New Charlie picks right up on it. She tells him Dean will be fine, and comments that he's got other friends, right? Which I don't understand, because it doesn't matter what other friends he has, he's not hunting with them. He's hunting with Jack. "He used to have a pretty damn good wingman," Sam says, and I think no, Sam, what are you saying, he still has you. She says he should call "that guy" to check on him, and Sam says "that guy was you." Charlie gives him a look. "No, it wasn't." And she's right, Sam. SHE IS NOT YOUR CHARLIE. And also, was Charlie ever really Dean's wingman? I don't think so. Sam, of course. Cas, literal wingman. But not Charlie. Charlie was the little sister.

Sam apologizes, and then says "I'm just saying, I'm not surprised you survived the apocalypse." Which isn't what you were saying at all, Sam. Charlie is surprised she survived, because she was just a programmer at Richard Roman Enterprises (Dick Roman! I wonder what happened to your AU version), living with the love of her life, Cara. My heart skipped a beat because I was so ready, guys, for the love of Charlie's life to be Dr. Cara Roberts from Sex and Violence, but apparently not. {Sidebar fic prompt: Sam. Charlie. Dr. Cara. Three-way.) Charlie's Cara was a baker. Charlie tells a sad story about waiting for help that never came, and Cara eventually being killed by people, not angels. Society falls apart. (Or, as Dean once said, demons I get; people are crazy.) Sam insists society isn't falling apart here, and Charlie says "not yet."

Just like last week, we're getting some needed differentiation between the characters we lost and their AU counterparts, which I appreciate.

I also appreciate pretty, attentive, sympathetic Sam.

Diner. Dean calls Jack "Mighty Mouse," for some reason, and congratulations him on finding a case. He tries to teach him about the importance of pie, but Jack's more interested in courting. He's never been exposed to off-screen romance, unless Gabriel and Rowena counts (Dean assures him it doesn't, but how would Jack have been exposed to Gabriel/Rowena anyway, since it happened while he was in AU Land and Gabriel didn't make it back?) Dean promises he'll give him The Talk when they get back, but right now they need to concentrate on finding Harper. {Sidebar fic prompt: Dean's and Sam's versions of The Talk. Would Dean's be like Dean's speech from Rock and a Hard Place?} Jack speculates she might not be human, and Dean says they're going to find out, and it's going to work like a romance novel. Hmm!

Cut to the library, where Harper is working. Dean enters and identifies himself as FBI, with questions about Winston. She doesn't want to talk, and he pushes. Then Jack shows up, asking for a book about the area's history, and defends her against the big mean FBI guy. Dean says "why don't you back off, kid" and Jack responds "No, you back off, old man" and DEAN'S FACE. This was clearly NOT IN THE SCRIPT. I love it. Dean slinks off, dejected, to examine his gracefully-aging face in the rear-view mirror. {Sidebar: I honestly think Jensen is aging a lot better than Dean is. Dean looks tired a lot of the time, and I'd like to believe Show is doing that on purpose, but I don't think it's the case. Jensen always looks awesome.} Harper is delighted, and apparently smitten, judging by the music. Jack introduces himself as "Jack Smith" and she invites him to her apartment, where she has the perfect book.

Why does this library have those convenience store perp measurements at the door? Does it get robbed a lot? Also, how many episodes have signs in the background with the title of a different episode? Not very many, I'm guessing.

As they leave, Miles the Stapler Guy follows and asks where she's going. It must be close to closing time, because Harper says she'll come back and lock up. Miles, who's carrying a bag of trash, refuses to shake Jack's hand. As Jack and Harper go one way, he stomps off in the other direction. I'm suspicious, and so is Dean, who gets out of the car to follow him. As Miles puts the library's trash in an inappropriately small residential bin, he hears a noise. We then cut to Dean, who hears Miles scream but just keeps walking? But then a trash can is knocked over and that gets his attention. He finds Miles dead, and we get a monster POV shot watching him.

Stakeout. Charlie's still reading. Apparently she brought all the books. She says she hates hunting, which surprises Sam, because she's so good at it. She points out that she's good at it because the alternative was death. "I mean, no offense, but who wants to be a hunter? This job, just a lot of tears and death."

Sam says "you said something like that to me once, long ago, about hunting." He quickly apologizes for once again conflating her with Our Charlie. At first I was annoyed at him, but then I started thinking about how awful Our Charlie's death was for him, with the MoC, and the fear, and the worry, and the guilt, and his brother saying he should be the one on the funeral pyre instead, and you know what? I'm gonna cut him some slack for trying to forget all of that ever happened. A lot of slack, in fact.

Charlie casually drops that she's glad this is her last hunt. Did you give the Chief your two week's notice, Charlie? I DON'T THINK SO. She plans to get away from monsters and people, and "live on a mountaintop or something... as long as there's good wifi." I'm sure Sam can get you set up with his magical wifi, Charlie, if you stay on his good side.

Harper's apartment. She seems to be all about love, with a decorative "amore" sign in the kitchen and a big red heart hanging on the wall. She suddenly realizes it's weird that she brought him to her apartment, though she's thinking "putting the moves on you" weird and I'm thinking "inviting a potential serial killer into your home" weird. But maybe I listen to too much My Favorite Murder.

She leaves the room to get the book (odd that it's not on the stuffed bookshelves in her living room, but they're all full of romance novels). Jack asks why the FBI was "hassling" her, and she tells him about Winston's death as he surreptitiously puts a silver coin on the floor and splashes holy water all over his hands. A call comes from Dean, but he ignores it. When she comes back with the book, she notices the coin on the floor and picks it up. She touches his hand when she gives him the coin and notices that it's wet. I would have put the holy water on the coin, although a wet coin on the floor might be as weird as wet hands. He just laughs weirdly and then does a fake cough AND SAYS CHRISTO. SOMEONE FINALLY REMEMBERED CHRISTO. Oh, my heart. I've been waiting 13 years for this moment. She doesn't react to it, so she seems pretty human. He says he's nervous, so she sits on the couch and pats the seat next to her.

Stakeout. Charlie has found something in the books called a Musca. Sam already knows it's a man-fly hybrid (IT'S THE FLY; OUR MONSTER IS JEFF GOLDBLUM) and that no one's seen them, so if they do exist, they keep to themselves. She's impressed with his Sammy smarts. He says he's read all the books, but if he'd read this one, he'd know that every few hundred years a male Musca can't find a mate and he "abandons his community and starts using people's bodies to nest, binding them together with a viscous goo." Ew.

As they walk, in the background we see a figure approaching the two women who are sitting on the bus stop bench. It's clothed in black, carrying a black briefcase, and it has a giant head. At first I think it's literally a giant fly's head. But when Charlie notices it, we get a closer look, and it's a large black hood, like a beekeeper's outfit. It sits down and then casually scoots closer to the women, who scoot away, and it's hilarious.

Harper's apartment. She asks Jack where he's from, and he tells her he lives in Lebanon, Kansas. NO, JACK. DON'T TELL ANYONE WHERE YOU LIVE. Jack coughs some more and then notices a picture of Harper with her boyfriend, Vance. She says he left town after high school because he wanted to see the world, and Jack seems astonished that anyone would leave her. And that was when her bad luck started, but she tries to stay optimistic. "Me too," Jack says. "I had some not-so-great stuff happen in my past. Trying to be positive... it can be hard." Oh, Jack, sweetie. They gaze into each other's eyes and it looks like they're going to kiss. Jack's phone buzzes with a text from Dean that says CALL ME NOW.

Jack? Do you believe in love at first sight?

Do you... (music swells)... mind if I use the bathroom?

Ha!

Jack hides in the bathroom to call Dean. He tells him Harper isn't a monster, and he thinks she's in love with him. Although Dean's sure that's not the case, Jack says "but if she is, I need to know everything about sex. Go." Ha again! Dean tells him about Miles's death, which makes Jack wonder if she's cursed. Dean says it's more like all the guys around her are cursed. "Like me," Jack ponders, just before we get another monster POV shot and a strangled shout from Dean. The phone goes dead.

Jack comes back into the living room and Harper asks if he's okay and if he wants to go for coffee. Then the door bursts open and Dean comes in, and I wonder why she's freaking out until I remember that Dean is Bad FBI Guy to her. He quickly blocks the door and tell her they're here to save her from... whatever it is that's suddenly growling and banging on her door. "At first I thought it was a ghost," he says, "but then it punched me in the face." She's freaked out about a ghost, but Jack reassuringly (NOT!) tells her that he's saying it's NOT a ghost. Dean recognizes a photo and it turns out the monster is her old boyfriend Vance, who she didn't even realize was dead.

For some reason Dean isn't carrying a lot of weapons, but he has a silver knife and finds a silver letter opener on Harper's desk. Silver will slow it down, he tells them, but there's only one way to kill the undead boyfriend. Vance breaks the door down before we learn what that is. Dean starts fighting with the silver knife and tells Jack to get Harper out of there.

Stakeout. It's nighttime now. A lone man sits at the bus stop as Sam tries to convince Charlie that she can't drop out of society. She needs people, and also, it's hard to walk away from being a hunter. "I tried. Our Charlie tried." You know, for someone who did want out of hunting, and did try to get out of it, Sam spends a lot of time convincing others to do it, or at least enabling them. I mean, Dean was all "Patience, if you can live a normal life, do it," and Sam was all "well, Claire, if you're gonna hunt, I guess I should show you how to hack." Although that (and teaching Ghoul!Adam to shoot) was more about protecting someone determined/forced to be a hunter than recruiting. So maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Anyway, if anyone recognized the futility of getting out of the life, it would be him.

Jeff Goldblum shows up again and sits by his next victim. Charlie wants to go for the kill, but Sam thinks they should wait for him to make his move, in case he's just into weird fashion. Look, Sam, if a guy likes wearing a black beekeeper's bonnet and sidling up to random strangers at bus stops, he deserves to be hunted, whether or not he's actually part bee. When the bus shows up, it blocks their view of the duo. When it leaves, the bench is empty. Which could mean they just got on the bus, but we see something disappearing behind the stop. Sam decides it's a go after all.

Let's stick with this story, rather than cutting back and forth between them like the show did.

Sam and Charlie find a door with a bunch of goo on the handle. Sam says Charlie found something in the books that theorized a brass nail dripped in sugar water would kill a musca. Because yes, of course sugar water, WHICH FLIES EAT, would kill a fly man. (Rolls my eyes at this otherwise delightful episode.) Charlie reminds him they have neither of those things. "So we get creative," Sam says. I'm expecting some kind of MacGuyvering involving a can of Coke, or Sam's sugary coffee. (Spoiler alert: I'm wrong.)

{Sidebar: Why are all the methods of killing monsters so weirdly specific? Chopping off the head should kill ANYTHING.}

They go through the door, which surprisingly leads them into an abandoned warehouse. It's full of flies (normal ones, not half-man flies) and smells like pine cleaner and rotting meat. Yum. Eventually Sam finds the briefcase, which is full of what looks like candy wrappers and also has a white cloth, which he sniffs to discover chloroform. Dude. Don't sniff the chloroform rag. Charlie finds the most recent victim, still alive, by a pile of bodies. Something grabs Charlie's hand. She pulls loose, but falls off a low platform (seriously, it's like two feet high) and... loses consciousness? Okay. Maybe he chloroformed her and I missed it. I'm old and decrepit and this would have barely bruised me. He must have chloroformed her.

Sam tries to wake her up, but is interrupted by the WORST MONSTER COSTUME EVER. Oh god, you guys, this fly man head is so bad. SO BAD.

{Sidebar: Did you know that you don't see much of the shark in Jaws because the model was so bad, Steven Spielberg decided he wanted to shoot it as little as possible? And it actually made the movie better because the unseen monster was so much scarier? Just saying, Speight.}

(Um, have you watched any movies that were made before 1980?)

Well, that was uncalled for.

Jeff Goldblum attacks Sam and gets goo on him, and if this were really a fly, wouldn't that goo be digesting him? Isn't that how flies eat? (Why yes, it is.) Charlie regains consciousness and stabs it with something, which gets it off Sam long enough for him to shoot it in the head. Creativity in action! So, I guess I got my wish. Interesting that, just like last week, the guys figured out that there are actions that will kill anything.

Aftermath! Charlie and Sam are driving, and Sam says he feels bad for the Musca, which could have been happy if it had stayed home with its people. Subtle, Sam. Charlie's all, yeah, okay, I'm like the bug, except not so much. As we see the Musca family coming to retrieve their brother's body, Sam asks Charlie not to leave. "If we help people, then maybe they'll help people, and all that, and that's worth it. Even with all the tears and death, it's worth it." Oh, Sammy. {sniff} She says she'll think about it.

Back to Jack and Harper. It was broad daylight when they got to her apartment, so I don't know why it's nighttime now. How long did he spend in the bathroom? No wonder she asked if he was okay. Cut to Dean gleefully fighting the zombie, who suddenly stops fighting and runs off.

Jack and Harper run to the library, where she struggles with the keys until Jack remembers she left without locking the door. They scurry inside and he locks it. As they hide behind the counter, they see Zombie Vance run by. Jack tells her not to worry, because he locked the door, and she asks if he flipped the switch under the lock? Obviously he didn't, and she goes to do it herself. As she stands, looking out the door, Vance shows up. She unlocks the door, which Jack obviously DID lock, and opens it. He hands her the history book - I guess Jack dropped it - and they kiss.

Um. whoops. Vance is actually still Harper's boyfriend. And he has to eat human flesh. Like, Jack's, for example. Vance lunges for Jack, who hides in the stacks as Harper gives him the villain dialogue over the library's PA system. She likes Jack, but he's obviously a hunter, and she comes from a long line of necromancers, so it would never work out between them. She killed Vance to keep him from leaving after high school, and killing every other guy in her sights is just a fun little romantic roleplay for them. We get a little scare when a hand appears on Jack's shoulder (been a lot of that going around lately), but it's Dean. He tells Jack they have to get Vance back into his grave and then drive a stake into his heart to keep him there. And they're going to convince him using another romance novel method.

Jack tells her he wants to do things Vance can't do - walk her down the aisle, raise a family. This draws Vance out, who lunges at him but finds himself facing Dean. Vance gets Dean against a wall, and Harper calls out to him. Dean thinks she's going to call him off, but she says "Baby, kill him!" and Dean's "huh" look is precious to me. Instead, Dean slaps a handcuff on his arm and cuffs him to a pole or something. Jack cuffs his other arm to a library cart, I think, which is mobile and therefore defeats the purpose of cuffing, but good try, Jack. The cuffs burn Vance, so they're silver or enchanted or something. Seems like a successful hunt, but when the guys look up, the door is open and Harper is gone.

Later we see Harper and her suitcase at a cafe, writing a letter to Jack. So she had time to go home and pack a suitcase, and Dean and Jack didn't go to her apartment and look for her? Guys. Come on. She's sorry she's going to have to kill Jack, but it means she can bring him back to life and they'll be together forever. See you soon, she writes, sealing the envelope addressed to Jack Smith, c/o the Lebanon, Kansas post office. I TOLD YOU NOT TO LET HER KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, JACK. Is Harper going to be a Big Bad this season? Or maybe a Little Bad? I wouldn't mind seeing her again. She's a charming little villain.

Finally, Jack's drinking coffee again, probably with a lot of sugar, in the bunker. This scene, with them facing each other, is a nice callback to the beginning of the episode. Dean tells Jack he did good, and Jack pushes for more hunts, because he was right. It's not about being right, Dean tells him, it's about what you do after you're wrong, after you've made a mistake. And about not beating yourself up, Jack points out. Dean tells him he's pretty smart, and Jack smiles and coughs and Dean promises to talk about getting him on more hunts when Sam gets back (BECAUSE SAM IS THE ONE TO ASK, YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT) and Jack lies about being fine and then coughs some more and shows Dean his bloody palm and collapses on the floor with blood oozing from his mouth and nose and WELL. THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY.

And the episode ends, without Sam and Dean sharing a single scene. Has that happened before? It's unsettling. I like the ep, though. I liked the relationship focus - Sam bonding with New Charlie, Dean bonding with Jack. I liked the humor. I liked that Sam wasn't ignored, even though the brothers had separate storylines. I liked the continuation of things that have been happening this season, the gentle reminder (but not constant siren) of Dean's guilty feelings and Sam's leadership and Jack's issues. And, of course, CHRISTO!

And there was one weird thing I noticed on first watch, but it didn't jump out at me on rewatch so I don't remember when it happened... Dean said "Son of a B." This is the second episode where they said something weird instead of bitch. What's going on there? Is Dean never going to say "son of a bitch" again? Because that's not good.

What did you guys think? And please help me stay unspoiled; thanks!

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hi! Sorry to bother you with a bit of a dumb question...but I've been seeing the phrase "the story became the story" a lot in the past few weeks on my dash, and I never understood what exactly it means? I think it was mostly on some other blog but I can't seem to find it. Just very confused ^^'

It’s from 9x07:

SAMSo, what was that all about, ‘Dee-dawg’?

DEANYou remember when we were kids that spring in upstate New York? Dad was on a rugaru hunt. We, uh – we crashed at the, uh … the bungalow colony with the ping-pong table?

SAMYeah. Uh, y-you disappeared. Dad came back. You were gone. He shipped me off to Bobby’s for a couple months and went and … found you. You were lost on a hunt or something.

DEANTHAT’S what we told you. (as if Sam’s story refreshed his memory) Right.

SAMI’m sorry? That’s what you told me?

DEANTruth is, uh… I lost the food money that Dad left for us in a card game. I knew you’d get hungry, so … I tried taking the five-finger discount at the local market and got busted. I wasn’t on a hunt. They sent me to a boys’ home.

SAMA boys’ home, like a … reform school?

DEANYeah, more or less. It was a farm, and the guy who ran it – Sonny – he, uh, you know, he looked after me.

[…]

SAMHey, Dean … I mean, why didn’t you just tell me you went to a boys’ home?

DEANI don’t know. Uh, it was Dad’s idea. And then it just – you know, the story became the story. I was 16.

I copied most of the exchange (that’s the end of the scene, with Dean using that last line to end the argument) because I think context is sort of important… Basically a lot of meta writers since this episode have picked up on it as a really important phrase to explain a lot of things all round the show, where people have been holding onto ideas and stories which helped but really aren’t that great long term for their development and all. 

This one exchange summarises the entire point of this episode before you even get into it, and basically anything where they were holding onto an idea for safety or denial out of their childhood. Most John Winchester focused episodes have an element of it, this is just the most overt (I think it’s the key episode really for all Carver/Dabb era John-related stuff) so it gives us this great line to explain everything.

Now Mary’s back it’s even more critical because it’s basically explaining everything where there’s difficulty communicating, and Mary was still in the “story” up until Toni told her to her face that there was a different truth to the one she’s been clinging to. (I just scrolled past this great gifset with some side by sides) 

Essentially the entire story of Mary to Sam and Dean has been, well, a story. She has a whole history of being their tragic saintly mother, they never got to knew through anything but hazy memories and stories. Ever since then her image has been challenged, I mean, like, in 1x09 she apologises to Sam for what happened/will happen (not that she remembers this now) - but at the time it showed there was maybe something more to what Mary knew. Still, going back in time and meeting her, whatever we learn that she’s a hunter etc never changes who she IS to Dean and then Sam - they both look at her like she’s a flawless angel and permanently with tears ready to fall just to be in the same room as her. 

As much as John stuff has stories that became the story - the things they say to explain how bad it was to themselves, that they can focus on him being a great hunter, a hero who sacrificed himself for them, who had his noble tragic quest to avenge Mary, doesn’t really cover that he neglected them and raised them poorly, messed up, with too many expectations and dangerously. Which again is a theme since season 1 - if nothing else shows it clearly, then 1x18 with John sending Dean to clean up his mess with the striga… Which John blamed Dean for despite him being a kid, it was his fault for messing up the hunt not John’s for expecting this tiny child to protect his brother with a shotgun from a terrible monster. And I’ve never been certain he wasn’t using them as bait if he had left them alone in the same town as the monster knowing its pattern was to feed on kids.

So they have their stories about John - stuff where Dean accepts the blame or things where they can kid themselves it wasn’t all as bad as that, because they DID love him and he loved them and all that stuff is apparently what family does for each other - all the selling their souls etc.

Of course then it turns out Mary was the one who started it not John, which is the narrative asking us to question her, to allow her to be more human, as messed up as them, etc.

But actually having her back is difficult to get over the image, so for them the hurdle with Mary has been seeing past the story that became the story, that she is miserable and human and messed up as well (hence all the drama she’s put them through so far)… And they’re struggling with the image of John, where the story became the story and they haven’t exactly conquered that yet EITHER so asking them to be upfront and comfortable discussing it with Mary? She’s been folded into their perception of John and though they very very gently poked at the idea to start with, she was making essentially the same error as Henry Winchester:

HENRY You’re also Winchesters. As long as we’re alive, there’s always hope. [DEAN and SAM look at each other.] I didn’t know my son as a man, but having met you two… [HENRY takes DEAN’s hand with his right hand and holds out his left hand to SAM] …I know I would have been proud of him.

He ALSO read all of John’s journal and was horrified by what had happened to him, but for his own sanity drew a nicer picture of John as a hero and a good man (because, on a cosmic level, he was and his actions were good and he saved people and sold his soul for Dean and didn’t even break in Hell when Dean did, like, what a great guy). Mary as a character with a full season long arc has a chance to learn more and get past that same introduction to what she missed while skipping ahead in the story to what to both Henry and her is essentially after the story ended, and to understand what’s underneath the story - that this upbringing by a crusading hero was not exactly a story of great parenting when it came to her sons. And even the only thing she doesn’t know yet after Toni’s attempt to tell her a version of the truth to upset her is that cupids connected her and John, and that her whole story THERE is also a half-truth because unlike the story Dean told her in 12x01 about how she met John, there is no cute love story - there’s manipulation from Heaven and in the end the same love that made her make that deal wasn’t all her fault because it came from a cupid’s arrow not just from her own heart. And it all “had” to happen because of the apocalypse.

Anyway, that’s the sort of thematic thread that has been running through the entire show but since 9x07 had really easy words to put to it to mean anything where this messed up family has constructed an easier truth over its darkness. 

(I have to say as I just watched 10x05 last, I really hated the Winchester Family Story as presented there with them all singing Carry On Wayward Son, and I think it was meant to be fake because Adam was there and they had to ask who he was… But the whole take away from the episode even for the actual Sam and Dean was a very very glossy idea of what they do and how their family is. Works great as a 1 off episode completely in isolation to actually celebrate the show and fandom as we love it, but in context 2 episodes after demon!Dean was laying into Sam about how they were raised and the real dark heart of their family, before trying to kill him…. it’s so fake, and watching those 2 episodes side by side like I did, without the werewolf melodrama in the middle… It’s so obviously a “the story became the story” to smooth over the whole demon!Dean incident so they can function for most of the rest of season 10… If you need another example of seeing it in action :D)

[semirahrose]

1/2 : Hi, first of all I love all your feelings you've written about Sam, your blog is one of my favorite in this fandom. Um, so there's a lingering question in my mind and I'll be genuinely grateful if you can answer. The first time I watched SPN by accident, I thought Sam was the older brother. I can't recall which scene leaded me to this conclusion (I do know it's S1), but I remember having this impression until I really started watching, and was quite surprised to find out that Sam

2/2 : is indeed the younger one. Since then I always wonder what will have changed in their relationship, if age reversal? What difference will it makes and what will remains the same? What personality traits do you consider that makes Sam to be Sam, and Dean to be Dean? If you’ve already replied to messages on this topic before can you show me the link please? Thank you!! Have a fantastic day!!

This is such an interesting observation, Anon! Thank you for these messages, and for the kind words! Sam’s sense of responsibility and academic aptitude might lead people to see Sam as a first-born child, I guess? 

I read a piece of meta a long while back about how Sam seemed like a first-born child and Dean seemed like a youngest child, but the meta writer was looking at it from the perspective of an average American family. In the hunting world, Dean displays most of the traits of a first-born son, and Sam’s “academic aptitude,” rather than being a mark of the high-achieving nature that is supposedly common in oldest kids, is actually a rebellion against the family business he never found a place in. I also disagreed with the meta writer’s conclusions about what that meant about Sam and Dean, namely because the writer was trying to imply that Sam’s childhood was ideal/easy or something, which wasn’t at all the case—far from it.

But I ramble.

I honestly have no idea what would change if Sam were the first born. All of this is just off the top of my head. Are we assuming that he never would have been given demon blood, or would all the other events remain the same? If it’s the latter, I think he’d have some of the same issues and a multitude of different ones. He likely would still have never found a place in the family business, but the pressures to perform as a hunter might have been more intense. He probably would have been brought on hunts more, and considering that he empathized with “monsters” like Amy from a young age, he may have rebelled sooner. He might not have the same issues with neglect/being an “object” to be protected while John and Dean did all the protecting, but he still might have felt out of place. 

If Sam retained his love for lore and knowledge and Dean retained his adventurousness and desire to get out and do, I imagine that they might have fallen into some of the same roles in hunting that they do now. Sam would still be at odds with most hunters, but the dynamic would be different. Maybe he’d feel more guilt and more pressure to perform as the eldest son? Maybe his younger brother Dean would have gone with him to Stanford? Maybe not. I dunno.

It’s really hard to think about, because their roles are so central to who they are in a lot of ways.