my only contact with spn is through your fics, so idk shit about the actual story and characters, but it's my understanding that dean/cas is the more popular ship of the fandom. why'd you go with dean/sam instead? i just think it's funny you've written a fic of dean with a seemingly secondary vampire guy but none with cas lol
(great work btw reading your fics has awakened multiple things in me)
oh it's because I hate dean/cas with a passion lmao. I think the only world where they have any chemistry or any basis for a sexual or romantic relationship is a world that destiel shippers have made up in their heads starring two guys who don't exist in canon. it's more popular but it's got zero merit or interest for me. I would write it if someone paid me good money and not a moment before. glad you like my fics and good luck with the awakenings
My impression of you….I really want to see you succeed, dude. You’re very talented, but you’re very talented in the way someone like Anaïs Mitchell struck me as talented 20 years ago way way before she was famous. Like “look at this raw material!! What are they going to do with it??? When is everyone going to notice???” and I’m simultaneously on the edge of my seat and in it for the long haul. You have been so generous and friendly to us internet folks as a fanwriter, and I really hope you extend that generosity and friendship to yourself, too. Whatever you need, I hope the universe pushes it your way at the right time.
wow I did not expect anyone to be so sincere. thanks man. I hope I live up to those expectations. it is crazy to have a stranger (I assume) tell me to be kind to myself based on my internet presence alone. I honestly think I am too kind to myself. it's time to lock in
please watch half man and then write fanfic for it. the finale aired thursday and im so frustrated that there isnt enough fic yet. calling all dead dove authors!!!! alert your fic writing friends too!!!! i really need someone on this tbh!!!!!!
aha yes I have seen half man. it was incredible. I won't be writing fic for it though because I cannot think of a way to improve on what happened in the show. that last scene was more intimate than penetrative sex and nothing could be more narratively fascinating than compulsively swallowing pen caps you've chewed on because you're worried your stepbrother, who is in prison, will find a way to frame you for a crime using the dna from your chewed pen caps. nothing could sound better than "it's the only thing I've ever felt."
I think fic comes from a place of wanting to explore gaps in canon, and I did not find any gaps in half man. like yeah they could fuck, but I love what the show says about sex being easy and cheap and thoughtless, and love, obsession, compulsion, idolatry and fear being this scorchingly intimate, towering thing that makes sexual attraction feel small. this isn't to shame you ofc, I hope you find the fic you're looking for.
For the director's cut ask game: ⭐️ for anything about Matryoshka Dolls.
I absolutely love your fics and MD destroyed me in the best way. Hands down one of the greatest johndean fics of all time.
ohhh man that's a good one. that is heavy! this might be heavy! warning for talk about abuse!! let's get after it!!! this is so long I am so sorry.
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I forget what gave me the first inkling to write this but I think I'd already read johndean and found it either horny fluffy daddy kink stuff, which isn't my bag, or super violent reprehensible abusive stuff, which is also not my bag. and I've been in some bad relationships and they're more complicated than that, so I thought, why not try writing something that, for me, feels realistic.
He also had a tan line on his left ring finger that Dean wished he hadn’t noticed.
of course I give that hardcore opening to this commentary and then open with: wedding ring tan line is sooooo sexy.
The thing that had made Dean’s pupils dilate from across the dark, grungy bar was his curly mop of black hair and his boxy canvas jacket.
a frequent (overused!) theme in my fics is sex by proxy. you want someone you can't have, so you fuck people who look like them. it is just so devastating.
“I mean, Jesus,” the guy rasped, panting against his mouth, “I’m old enough to be your—”
[new section: 1994]
“Dad,” Dean choked out, “slow down, I’m fine.”
this transition makes me think about Austin Powers every time. not consciously when I wrote it, but that's 100% why I did it. big austin powers fan lmfao
He looked every year of forty under the fluorescent lights, but to Dean, it was cool, all grizzled and tough. No sleazy old guy ever told John Winchester he had a pretty mouth.
Love to touch on Dean's fraught relationship with his prettyboy looks. there's a line in some other fic where Dean thinks "his supermodel to Sam's action hero" and that's how I've always thought of them. which would be shameful for a young roughneck
Dean tipped his head down. It put their faces close together and he could see the new flecks of silver in John’s eyebrows as he looked back at him, and his long lashes, and he found the word for the embarrassing twisty-hot feeling in his stomach. It was intimacy. It was intimate, cripplingly so, to be shirtless in a tiny bathroom with a needle in his arm and his dad kneeling between his feet, his hand on his bare skin. It wasn’t something they did.
sexual or otherwise, there is a very BIG feeling that comes with being closer to someone than you have been before. even in a nonsexual relationship—as dean is thinking about it here—it's horrifying to be so close to his dad. I felt the same way seeing my dad cry. just like "ohhhh this is fucked up, I shouldn't be here for this."
At his silence, Sam ventured, “You want help?”
Yes. Dean had to shut his eyes against the sting behind them.
John taking care of Dean taking care of Sam. John shutting out dean, dean shutting out Sam. Matryoshka dolls, baby!!!!!
The guy was looking back at him. “Uh. Your…?”
“No, no. Brother.”
how many old dudes have seen Sam at a bar with Dean and been like "is that your boyfriend" and Dean has been like no but I can be yours and then blows them in the bathroom? almost not worth thinking about
“Do you have any idea how fucked up our relationship is if you think you can say shit like that to me and not get your teeth knocked out?”
laboured over this line, and this exchange. like yes their lives are already fucked up and they have very few boundaries but HOW to make this sound even halfway believable? asking your brother if he's fucking guys who look like your dad? I feel sick because I've always thought marc Maron was hot but as he's gotten older he looks a lot like my dad. it's highly yuck
His mouth was raw from a night spent sucking dick and drinking whiskey, skin greasy with dried sweat.
my other other goal in my writing life is to write eloquently and honestly about hangovers. I spend like 40% of my life hung over and I need to capture that feeling for people smarter than me. you wake up and your mouth is raw from acidic drinks and liquor, like you got punched in it. it's horrible
Jennifer
when I need an NPC name, I figure their age, get their birth year, then look up popular baby names for that year. this is in 1997, a high school sr would be like 17, she'd be born 1980, and depending on their rough personality I pick one. popular cute girl gets the #1 baby name of 1980, Jennifer.
He slid his hand down her side, gripping hard, but it wasn’t— something was different in him lately, and it wasn’t all good. High school girls weren’t doing it for him. He was eighteen and just grateful to be getting laid, but he’d gotten a few slaps to the face for being too rough. He felt guilty as hell over it, but it was just… different. It was like he couldn’t get there, wherever there was, not just coming or making a girl come, but to— he didn’t know what to call it. To lose his mind for a while. To have someone hold him down. He’d been having dreams, one every few months, where he woke up sweating and hard. They were specific. They didn’t help the guilt. He thought about the dreams when he caught some guy looking at him over the top of a diner booth, or in the parking lot of a motel. He didn’t know what kind of beacon he was putting out, but there was a question in their eyes he was terrified of answering.
this is maybe my favourite paragraph I've ever written. I'm a narcissist at the best of times but this is really it. being bi myself there are a lot of different Kinds of sex you can have, even just looking at genders. wild stuff
Dirty Harry
I remember I'd seen it recently. a real dad day afternoon movie. John would be like man this guy rules. dirty harry does not rule
It was a proxy war type thing, Dean always thought. They didn’t fight about it or even talk about it, but they both knew. There was no way John didn’t know. Dean would watch him do push-ups when he was supposed to be sparring with Sam. For a long time, Dean passed it off as a sick kind of jealousy—John could grow a beard, John was big, rugged and rough; Dean was pretty, Dean had trouble keeping on weight—and once he couldn’t pretend anymore, it was just another thing he shoved down inside him and ignored so he could take care of his family.
I always knew I wanted them to dance around it. again, trying to capture the absolute ENORMITY of the thing. I have never been in such a taboo fucked-up relationship but I know what it's like to not be able to look at something fully and lie to yourself. when I was 23 I spent months convincing myself I didn't have bed bugs even though there were blood specks all over my sheets.
There was never a time when his father’s attention didn’t make him dizzy and sick and pleased, and he had no illusions, he knew it had something to do with how often he got that attention—how often he caught John looking back, watching him—but what did it matter if they were broken in the same way?
It was very important for me to land this sentiment early and often: Dean thinks they're on level ground. like in sssoooo many abusive relationships, it's like, "well we were both wrong" NO, you are a child and he is your father, those things are not the same.
“I’m at some diner trying to eat my breakfast, and I look up and catch my kid staring at the tits of a waitress twice his age. You got a weird type.” [...] “Come on, I’m just having fun,” John said. There was a hiss as a bottle cap came off. “You don’t want me to see it, don’t do it.”
such an excruciating bit of old-man-bullying. I got bullied a lot as a kid. John, being the big man, knocking Dean down. ugh
Dean could see the shape of his dick in his sweatpants; half hard or just big, Dean could never tell.
I've never resisted a gray sweatpants no boxers opportunity no matter how terrible the situation
He shut his eyes again, it was excruciating, half turned away and he could smell him, different from the cold, earthy way he smelled in winter when he was all leather and metal. Summer was sweat and Old Spice and beer on his breath.
you might think I'm gross for saying this but I think it's just part of being a writer: I do draw on my own dad for some pieces of John, as a character. my dad worked outside and always stunk. he was always greasy. that's a dad thing now to me. who tf has a clean dad
There was an exact second, somewhere in there, where it changed. It wasn’t a fight. Dean could feel it in the air like a static charge, under their skin, in the way John stopped pulling on his shirt and leaned his fists against his chest and put his weight on him. I wouldn’t. I’m not.
I wanted this to be the terrible tipping point. there are two Johns inside of you. one wants to bully and beat his son to keep it all macho and distanced. the other wants to kill himself and maybe dean can save him.
The first second made Dean think of being a kid, what choice did he have—his mother’s lips on his cheek, and his father’s—John picking him up, being carried in his big arms— fucking sickening, unrecognizable from here.
if you've ever had intrusive thoughts, this one's for you. it is exhausting to be alive.
He wanted to drive until he passed out behind the wheel, run until his legs broke, burn himself alive, but— there was no forgetting. This would ruin everything if he let it, both of them and everything they had. He could fix it. He had to.
I think in this moment dean realizes that if he doesn't make this ok for John specifically, John would kill himself or just make things very worse for their family in general. he WANTS to fuck his dad but he does, on a subconscious level, also realize that he HAS to now. if he takes the blame, John doesn't need to.
Age six, pressing a blood-soaked rag to a gash on John’s arm while he fumbled with bandages. Age twelve, easing an empty whiskey bottle out of his numb fingers. Age eighteen, holding his face in his hands and giving him absolution for putting his tongue in his mouth. All variations on a theme.
I always found this hamfisted and melodramatic but couldn't make myself remove it. don't do this.
To call it good would be glossing over too much, he couldn’t even come close to thinking of it like that, but it still wrecked him worse than the best kiss he’d ever had.
this is a line I tried to toe throughout this whole sex scene because like... yes it is sexy, probably, or it was to me, and at the same time being like "haha yay they're fucking!" isn't right either. not GOOD but it is... sexy.
the wooly scrape of his beard
an overused ron-ism lol. many such cases
He spat in his palm and Dean’s panic kicked up to a fever pitch.
John being about to go in bare really sets the whole thing I think. not to put too fine a point on it but you're a bad dad lol
There weren’t any guys, not even a kiss and sure as hell not sex. John was never great at telling when Dean was lying; he did it so rarely, he figured, that John never got a read on it. It was valuable when he really needed it, even if lying made guilt rise in his gorge like bile. He could say it because it was what John wanted to hear. I didn’t break it, it was like that when I found it.
I cribbed this from American Beauty, honestly. when he finds out she's a virgin. it feels ssssooo powerful, this idea that this child you want to fuck has already been around so it's not your problem, and then on finding out that they haven't, bailing. it was broken when I found it.
He twisted and spread and crooked his fingers in a way that made Dean’s imagination run wild—who, and when? He couldn’t have, not him, but—maybe during the war, bored and lonely—he assumed Dean had, so he must have done it himself—maybe something more recent, stuff in locked bar bathrooms while his boys slept—
fic headcanon: John absolutely did lol. at least a couple times. drunk self hating highly homophobic hookups. not that he was kind enough to finger those guys.
“It’s okay,” John mumbled, hardly words. Sweat dripped from his hair onto Dean’s cheek. “You’re okay.”
so gross
“Dad—”
ssssoooooo gross. I am trying to gross you out. I am thinking what would be the most difficult to read.
How did he ever think doing it would be better than wanting it?
this is kind of a big thing. it's all fun and games (not really) to want something horrible, but then you GET something horrible and you think it'll free you but it's just bad in a new way.
The bell above the door jingled as he opened it and the elderly woman behind the counter looked up, said nothing, and went back to watching a Korean soap on a small TV mounted to the shelf that held the smokes. [...] He sat in one of the three plastic lawn chairs under the greenish fluorescent lights across from the machines and stared at the one that was his. It had a glass front and he watched the white sheets slosh around in the sudsy water. He thought he could see the flash of red every so often. He spun an unwilling fantasy where the whole thing filled up with red, and the lady at the counter came over and asked him about it. Whose blood is that? Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone?
memories of a laundromat I went to for a long time in van. about the blood: I remember being a sad kid and just wanting someone to notice how sad and lonely I was. I dreamt about being in the hospital a lot. you guys are learning more about me than my therapist lmao
He didn’t want to hug Sam back. It felt like a privilege he’d lost.
making the connection between touching his dad and touching his brother. viewing HIMSELF as sick and not worthy of trust, for what they did. tied into his omnipresent fear of losing Sam to cps.
Robocop
I had watched Robocop recently. I love robocop. most movies I mention in fic I saw recently or love. ask me about my fic movies lol.
“Fuck”—Dean choked out, pushing back on him, hands clawing at the sheets—“Dad—”
This always felt a bit contrived to me but I've never been in this situation specifically but I have absolutely said some very cringe shit when I'm drunk.
He was probably in his late fifties, heavy and hairy with a belly and big thighs.
fat hairy older guys are sexy. he's got curly thick salt and pepper hair too.
“You probably know this, but you’re astoundingly beautiful. That entitles you to things other people don’t get.”
I won't get on my soap box about how beautiful people have an entirely different experience of life than us uggos, for better or worse, but this is the thesis.
He couldn’t tell this stranger that John died to save him, and that despite every fucked-up misstep that made up Dean’s whole life, he’d been trying. He loved him. Reducing John Winchester to some con man who touched his kid made Dean feel sick and unclean.
I wanted to give John some amount of slack. within the logic of spn, he did try, and Dean not being able to tell this guy the full breadth of who John was would be highly distressing
Dean and John maxed two credit cards paying for motel damages, one place in Salt Lake City and another in Baltimore, from smashed TVs, broken mirrors and holes in the drywall. The rest of their money went towards pills and whiskey, which were more than a little responsible for the motel damages.
I'm obsessed with men punching holes in drywall. I also think they would have abused prescription medication. you're telling me these guys aren't doing oxy, with their broken bodies?? not taking ketamine to sleep and adderall to wake up? c'mon now.
“Sit. I got your boots.”
Another grumble out of John, but no real fight. “We got any whiskey left?”
wanted to immediately establish that they were now comfortable with each other, however that would look. John lets dean take care of him. they are a long way away from that first time.
grabbed their shitty plastic bottle of whiskey from the counter where they’d left it the night before
I don't see enough writers taking note that cheap hardbar comes in giant plastic bottles with a lil hand divot in it lol. that can't just be Canada.
Case in point: a few weeks ago, after splitting a fifth of drain-cleaner vodka, John spanked him. It was just a few loud, cracking slaps, but he was bent over his knees and everything. It made Dean hard enough to pound nails. Any tact or sanity or sense of self-preservation they’d been clinging to had left with Sam, with nobody else around to hold it together for. They slept in the same bed and shared shirts. When they fought, things got broken. Dean called Sam and it went straight to voicemail, John dialed and never made the call. Dean got spanked. Life trudged on uncaring around them as they fell apart.
the spanking thing came to me like a bolt of God's own thunder but I didn't have the courage or opportunity to write it. sometimes I think mentioning it and letting readers imagine it in their mind palace is better than anything I could do. also indicative of them going completely off the rails in Sam's absence and BECAUSE of Sam's absence. all the fucked up shit they'd kept a lid on now free.
Their thing was a balancing act, sometimes. He was supposed to be tough, but not talk back. Be ready when he wanted it, but don’t just roll over. Take what was given, and give liberally. Be soft—John holding him just then, the arm across his chest, nuzzling his shoulder—only when following a lead. It wasn’t so different from when he was a kid, watching for John’s signals and reading him as a kind of self-preservation, only the stakes were higher now. [...] There was a rarely-heard playfulness in his tone. It was the highest rank on the John Winchester risk-reward spectrum: if Dean played it right, he was in for one hell of a night. If he played it wrong, there could be another TV screen shattered by a chair leg.
abusive relationship thesis. you walk on eggshells and try to read their mind. the rules don't apply evenly. take care of yourself out there.
he’d only commented on Dean’s appearance point blank a handful of times ever, the most notable being on the kind of night where they were so drunk it was remembered only in snatches. They were in a booth at some wood-paneled dive bar, and John leaned across the table, grabbed Dean by the face and said, you’re so beautiful it makes me sick, then kissed him. It wasn’t the kind of place where two guys kissing would be received well, let alone two guys with thirty-plus years between them. It got a hell of a lot worse when John let him go after the kiss and said, I can’t believe you came outta me. Dean was the more sober of the two of them and got them out of there pretty quick.
big fan of this anecdote. John only being sweet when he's drunk: another horrible flag. not that this story is a cautionary tale but my god.
Dean imagined leaving Sam a voicemail about it: I started making Dad wear a condom when he fucks me, is that what you meant when you said ‘boundaries’?
very proud of this lol. this second sex scene has more levity, more sexiness. also the ghost of Sam being much more prominent.
Dean went through the checklist: maybe Dean came too quick or stopped too soon. Maybe he made John use his leg too much, kissed him too much, came on him, missed something. It was an endless checklist, and it was always better to ask than to get it wrong.
more eggshells and mind reading. I wanted to show that this has happened before and that they fight often and that Dean now tries to prevent fights before they happen.
“I think you’re doing it,” Dean said carefully. “I think you don’t do things you don’t want to do.”
“Is that what you think? You think my life’s been so fucking perfect, Dean? It’s all worked out for me?”
the way abusers turn things around on you. they are very good at it. dean feels bad at the end of this scene even though he did nothing wrong.
“Every day, I pray to God you start telling me no.” His voice was like gravel. He swallowed hard. “Other than that… I got nothing to say.”
I think John believes this. maybe he would take no for an answer if Dean ever said it and left, but he's put dean in a position where he is incapable of saying no, or even thinking about what it would mean to say no, so it's a moot point and an empty sentiment.
Sam asked, “Did he make you?”
I tried to think of what the first thing Sam would say was, what was the most important to him. he's clearly thought about how he'd phrase it, and even if he knows they're fucking, he doesn't know WHY. from here on, he's the audience surrogate, seeing how incredibly sad this is for dean and how they were never equal and he didn't ever really have a choice. and just loving dean anyway.
there's a version where it ends with more of a fight, but with such a tense piece I just wanted it to end with some comfort. throughout the piece, Sam's on his side, and I wanted it to stay that way.
also, goes pretty much without saying, but I meant to hint at the samdean after this. dad smell, brother smell. it takes some time but they would get together in the future.
Hi! Do you have any good book recommendations you'd like to share?
GOOD book recommendations? you're asking too much (kidding). I'll rattle off some faves off the top of my head but I'm not really going to give a synopsis because no synopsis sounds good.
American psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. I cannot believe how funny and great this book was. the movie is good but loses a LOT of the odd manic humour of the book. I didn't expect it to be funny. haven't read any of Ellis's other stuff yet but I've got a few in the hopper.
I've spent the last year(s) reading [checks watch] 10 of Robin Hobb's books, the farseer books or the elderlings or whatever you want to call them, starting with Assassin's Apprentice. a very cool world, very whole characters that fuck up and live and age and you get very attached to them. it's about... the bastard son of a prince who gets raised to be an assassin I guess. barry read them first and now a friend is reading them too and we call it being hobbled (like Robin hobb) when you can't put one of her books down. here's a photo Barry took of me while I was hobbled. I spent hours reading like this because it was so intense.
read Ubik by Phillip k dick recently, really enjoyed that. great short punchy sci fi as one expects from PKD.
a fire upon the deep by vernor vinge is an absolute classic and one I think about very very often even though I read it years ago. it's got.. aliens. war. big scale but also character driven.
the name of the wind by patrick rothfuss, and its sequel, is so good I want to reread them. be warned: there's a 3rd book "due" that he will never write. but I named my cat after a character in this so that's something. great "garbage shitboy wizard who becomes grizzled and regretful" stuff, not unlike the farseer books and also the OG, Ursula le guin's Earthsea series (also a high recommend)
The left hand of darkness by Ursula le guin is probably one of the best books ever written, while I'm at it. also due for a re read. or anything of hers, you can't go wrong.
ok that's all I can think of and I have to go to work. best of luck.
EDIT oh my god I forgot hyperion by Dan Simmons. THAT is one of the best books ever written.
I also have a goodreads where you can see what I'm reading but I haven't added every book I've ever read nor do I write good reviews, just like, a log going forward
⭐ on any of the fucked up family shit fics,, I love them so much they're so good
thank you! gonna combine a couple requests here and do drywall dust, my first pre-series wincest fic! circa 2021. wrow
—--
I wrote this early on in my wincest journey and I'd been telling myself I wouldn't write underage wincest but then I did anyway. I dunno, man. I write it, you read it. not much else to say on that. my authors notes says it took me 4 days to write, which I believe. I was POSSESSED in 2021. acid and that very first fic with Crowley knowing Sam loves dean (I forget the name) also took days.
Dean picked up day labour shifts doing farm work or ranching or paving to keep them in groceries and quarters for laundry.
I'm very attached to the idea of Dean occasionally doing honest day labour work. a longtime partner of mine was frequently out of work and went to work-today-paid-today places to get gigs sweeping at construction sites or doing other menial stuff. not an easy life but it fits Dean well.
Their place was on the edge of town, an unfinished farmhouse that was started when the county experienced a brief boom when a pulp mill opened, and later closed.
I live in and grew up in a region full of lumber and pulp mills closing and opening and closing or being sold to corporations overseas. it's crazy to see a mill town deflate after a mill closes. I'd also always wanted to see Sam and Dean squat in an unfinished house, it always made sense to me.
He had one of John’s .22s, an old lever action he’d been told he could use for target practice because the ammo was cheap and it jammed half the time anyway.
barry and I own a lot of rifles! and shotguns and one handgun. all legal, all stored correctly under Canada's strict and healthy gun laws. he comes from a hunting family and I'd never held a gun before I got my license, but it rules. target practice at a range is very fun. it's a big cultural thing where we live. this was all new to me in 2021 so the gun talk showed up in this fic.
Dean was leaning on the car beaming at him, wearing his work clothes; a filthy gray t-shirt and too-big jeans, big brown steel-toed boots.
I'd forgotten how regional this story is to me, haha. this is a roughneck young dean of my imagining. this is a carhartt dean.
They were both touchy by nature, Dean especially, but they didn’t talk about it; they were raised in a car, which didn’t leave a lot of room for not touching. Dean carried him around everywhere when he was a kid, piggy back rides and sitting in his lap, but that stopped with puberty. Anything that remained—headlocks, hands on shoulders, knees knocked together—were things they didn’t talk about.
love the idea—not novel, of course, a weecest standard—that they have very few physical boundaries growing up. just a lingering “too close to be normal” feeling that grows into something sexual
He padded down the creaky stairs in his socked feet and made for the coffee maker, which had his thrift store Someone Who Loves Me Very Much Went to Niagara Falls and All I Got Was This Stupid Mug mug waiting next to it. Sam’s mug said Marriage Is A Workshop: Husband Works Wife Shops.
I forget where I got the mug text from but they are both real lol. love the workshop one.
He stole a piece of bacon off the sizzling pan
I'm so attached to this imagery. I think I first used it in an fma fic where Ed is sitting on the counter while Roy cooks and uses his metal hand to steal from the hot pan.
A group of guys he hated were sitting just ahead, some entitled ranchers’ sons that made fun of him for being poor or not knowing anything about quads or trucks or livestock or fishing, like most of the bullies did.
this is a reductive view of rural young men. If I'd known then what I know now I would have put the emphasis on quads and trucks and sleds (toys) and not on livestock or fishing. it's cool to know about livestock and fishing. the guys who suck are obsessed with their toys.
The girls at school liked him because he was six feet tall
I always imagine young Sam as young Jared Padalecki, not the young Sam spn actor, and young Padalecki was tall and reedy. I like that better. a stringbean of a boy. the guys I knew in high school who were tall got insane pussy on that fact alone.
Sorensen
no idea where I got this name, which is annoying. I usually have a story for names.
“Jesus, Ryan, what?”
Ryan, Tyler and Kyle are my favourite Dumb Normal Boy names. or Trevor.
The muscle car guy? Carries a fixed-blade?
Very attached to roughneck dean carrying a fixed blade. in a leather belt sheath.
Sam’s anger spiked like a solar flare, an uncontrollable whorl of rage for his unimaginable and unbridled brother, so thoughtless and petty that he didn’t know the surname of someone he slept with which, to Sam, seventeen and incurably idealistic, seemed cheap and weird and sad.
I have only slept with a few people whose last name I didn't know, even hookups. I've always thought it was a weird, funny thing.
It wasn’t a friggin’ date.
a rare dean “friggin” for me. I am generally in camp Let Them Say Fuck, so I don't know what I was thinking here. I don't know if I've ever done that since.
Only then did Sam realize what he’d said: the things you do embarrass me, and I want you to stop doing them. Put like that, he was overcome with regret, childish and entitled and cruel.
I got my first girlfriend in grade 8 and when my older sister saw us holding hands at school she didn't talk to me for like two weeks. we have a good relationship now but womp womp.
“He’s always like this,” Sam said quickly. The other, unspoken part of that was you’re not special, which he wouldn’t admit to thinking.
big fan of their possessiveness and latent attraction, especially when young, showing up as “you're not good enough for my brother.” so sexy.
And don’t put me in the middle of your fucked up trailer park bullshit, because that’s when he talked about you, and it was fucking uncomfortable. Whatever sick thing you’ve got going, it has nothing to—”
I've always felt that Dean talking about Sam in bed felt a bit contrived/indelicate as a catalyst, but, sue me. it would be weird as fuck if that happened irl. also, re “trailer park bullshit” in this fic especially, I like to bring class into it. they grew up so poor and spn never really touches on it, or not in the depth they should have. really compelling.
Dean crushed canned tomatoes in his fist.
Barry does this with the whole canned tomatoes. they're slippery and weird. it's lovely.
“You’re seventeen, not five, you little freak. I know you’ve gotten drunk.”
“Still.”
“What, you don’t wanna drink with me? It’s Friday!”
maybe this is a Your Experiences Are Not Universal but I started drinking at 14 and it always throws me off when we see a pre series fic where Sam is like 17 and hasn't drank. doesn't ring true to me. everyone in high school was going to bush parties at 15–16.
Dean found Lethal Weapon only a third of the way through
I love lethal weapon and I miss the experience of catching a movie halfway through on tv. not to be old but kids will never have that now that we have streaming. I have seen two thirds of so many movies at 4 pm on the couch next to my dad.
“Like you’d know, dropout.”
isn't there a line in canon about dean getting his GED? I hate that so much lol. a GED would mean nothing to him and I’d love to know what they were thinking when they wrote that in there. virtue signaling? “stay in school, kids?” fuck that. maybe I'm making this up.
He wasn’t, just buzzed, enough so that he was maybe too confident for his own good.
I overuse drinking or some form of intoxication as a plot device in everything I write and it's a crutch for sure. probably it is because I don't know another way to see the world. you have difficult or risky conversations while drunk, period. bit sad of me to admit.
“I can’t imagine big hands,” Sam said quietly, staring down. “During. Yeah. It would be different, I guess.”
when I started having sex with girls this struck me so much. their little hands!!!! their little faces!! so sweet. haha
he could see Dean’s mouth, pillowy lips parted.
my favourite way to describe Dean's lips. pillowy. it is so fucked up how nice his mouth is lol
He made it twenty minutes before jacking off,
here is a rare instance of “jacking” in an older fic of mine. I didn't think about jack v jerk back then so I wonder if I changed this years after on review. hmmmmm
CONFIRMED! A very kind soul bound this series for me years ago and we've got an original jerk here.
A gunshot. Something huge. A chunk of wall-plastic on the right hand side of the house shook with the force of it.
if you have never been near a large calibre rifle when it went off it's fucking INSANE. it physically hurts if you're not wearing ear protection. at the range in Vancouver there would always be rich teens shooting 50 cal rifles and the feel of it is unbelievable. we call it “shootin toonies” here cause the ammo is so expensive.
“Tinnitus-haver.”
I have bad tinnitus. if you only take one thing I've ever said to heart: wear ear protection. at shows, shooting guns, during anything loud. I will never experience true silence ever again. dark beautiful forested cabin in the middle of nowhere, I hear tv static and a high constant beep. protect your ears.
Dean was flirting with a guy who looked like a linebacker and Sam didn’t know what to do with it, not in a thousand years.
I was especially tittilated here by this roughneck dean also being a pretty concrete bottom. very enjoyable to me.
The backs of Dean’s bare shoulders pressed against the upholstered ceiling.
another piece of imagery I use a lot: how when you're in the back seat of the car, there's not enough space, so when you're kneeling on the seat your full back is usually pressed to the ceiling. it's a farce anyway because I'm thinking of myself and let's just say I'm not quite 6 ft tall.
Hell isn’t real for other people but they’re making a special one just for you!
I still chuckle at this
“Did you just kiss me back?”
“No! It—it was a jerk, a physical thing! Like a reflex!”
I haaaate this exchange. not realistic dialogue, so awkward. killing me killing me killing me
This thing with your teacher got you messed up. You’re confused, and—and horny, because you’re fucking seventeen—so maybe you like guys, alright? That’s fine, we can talk about that.
THIS I like. dean shifting the focus from himself to “ok you like guys, let's deal with that.” the “it can't be me” of it all. whewwwff
“If you want it, and I want it, what does it matter if—”
a similar sentiment to that bit in Matryoshka dolls: Sam thinks they're on even ground and Dean knows they're not cause he's the older brother. tragique
His pupils were huge in the dark and he said Sam’s name like a dying man begging for a second chance
I stole this from a berserk comic I made some years prior. the original line was “i worshipped you the way a dying man begs god for a miracle” which doesn't really make sense now that I think about it but it sounds good doesn't it?
Dean wore a different deodorant than him and that’s what he smelled like, this spicy, masculine scent he could drown in.
again with the deodorant mention. again, it's old spice original. just a peek behind the curtain for ya lol. go smell it at your local pharmacy and you will know what all my fics smell like.
“How long have you been up?”
“Yup,” Dean said again.
I like having someone avoid answering a question by answering a question that is not a yes no question with a yes no answer. I don't know why. I think my dad did it.
If we do this, we’ll always have done this, even if it’s just once. When we’re thirty or forty, we’ll still have to—”
this is so heavy to me, with childhood incest. the WEIGHT of having to be older and grow up knowing you fooled around with your sibling? truly sickening to imagine. wow.
“It’s huge. I hate you.”
I have never written Sam with even a normal sized penis. it's always comically large. I don't write all characters with big dicks, I don't think dean has a big dick, but Sam does. it's lore.
The wet sound of it was obscene in the quiet room.
I mention the sound of blowies a lot but it's because it's insane. what's that post about a cat cleaning itself at night sounding like an old man eating chili in the dark? it's like that.
Dean breathed stuff like yeah, that’s it, just like that,
another pretty consistent hc of mine is Dean having porno brain. he's a talker. “suck that cock baby” lmfaoooo
“What if I’m in love with you?”
“You’re not in love with me.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t. I got no idea what love is, and neither do you.”
this is an ancient memory but I think I cribbed the line “no idea what love is” from… some Netflix show? the get down?
can i get a director's cut on hangdog... fic of all time
oh absolutely!! I got a couple requests for hangdog. it is still to date my favourite thing I've written, so excuse me if I pump my own tires a bit.
I'll do chapter 1 here and then rb again with ch 2, for readability's sake. it's long and I did the whole thing. fun to think about it again.
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this fic is the only present tense fic I've written in recent memory. just checked my list of works on AO3: the last (un-orphaned) present tense fic is from 2016. I don't remember the exact moment I decided to write this one in present, but likely just whatever passage I had written down first came out in present and then I built the rest of it around that. it suits the show, certainly. I know that after I wrote this I tried to write my next fic in present tense and it was dogshit and I had to go back and remake it into past. who knows with this stuff.
“You think with your dick,” Rust says, and shakes Marty’s arms. “You wanna fuck me same as you wanna beat the shit out of me, just to see if you can.”
I THINK this line was the catalyst for the whole fic. I think I came up with this first. which is why it's the summary. it's a load bearing line.
You got curious, right? College, maybe high school. Traded a few handies with the boys after a case of beer and told yourself it didn’t count.
this is absolutely a lasting hc of mine for Marty. the blurred line between sports guy jock bonding and gay behaviour. doing a circle jerk as a joke. ha ha it's just a prank bro. now suck it.
the sickly sweet steam smelling of mildew and Irish Spring coats his lungs.
a good friend of mine who is single, and a mechanic, uses Irish spring, which has always stuck with me. it is a single working class male smell. to me.
It feels like he’s falling when he comes, a juddering slip like the world’s dropped out from under his feet.
I don't know when I got so attached to the word juddering, but it's happened. fake word that you never say in real life. I love her like a sister.
His bush is trimmed too short to look good.
male bush is complicated. mostly when I was like 20 I learned my sister made her boyfriend shave his balls and that was so funny to me. keep it neat, sure, but there's also something bizarre and ugly about when it's TOO short. to say nothing of the balls.
He swallows some chew by accident and pukes that up, too.
is Marty dipping like every moment of the day? we never see him put any in but his mouth always looks like he's got dip in his lower lip. I've always assumed yes, but realize now that I might be making that up. but anyway, just on the theme of being disgusting in this paragraph, yeah, accidentally eating some. puke city USA.
Rust’s apartment block looks about as bad as some flophouses Marty’s found himself in; motel-style, with a cracked asphalt parking pad and a sad square of dead lawn outside each.
I (probably unnecessarily) went through each ep to see if we get a clear shot of the outside of rust's place, and I don't think we do, so I made something up. this description of it is a friend's mum's place when I was a kid. and we know he enters through a non-main door, and has an upstairs he doesn't use. both very funny facts.
He’s wearing one of his stained wifebeaters, slacks, no belt. Bare feet.
it's intimate to see someone's bare feet for the first time I think. and no belt! slutty. undressed and rumpled.
“You—you do that often, with guys?” Marty asks, pointing in some direction, back to that morning, the before. “You do that shit with the guys we work with?”
“This go down easier if you think I’m tricking myself out to the whole squad?” Rust drawls. “Or you wanna be my first?”
I loved this idea of Marty being furious at Rust but not being clear why, which Rust calls him out on. is it worse if Rust ISN'T screwing anyone else? what does it mean if it's just marty? but he also wouldn't respect Rust if he were fucking everyone on the force. this terrifies Marty
Marty smells vomit and realizes there’s some on his sleeve. He doubts himself, briefly.
even fall-down drunk, Marty only doubts himself briefly. I love him and I love writing him. there is a simplicity to being Marty Hart.
“I didn’t do nothing in that locker room you didn’t want me to do,” Rust murmurs in his placid, even drone. “Coulda said no. Coulda smacked me. You got off on it, big time. That’s on you.”
I'm pleased with the ease of this. Rust not having any denial about it. I think there's a worse version of this where they dance around it for longer, like what happens in fic sometimes where you're like "oh god just say what you mean," but here Rust is just like: of course you didn't have to let me blow you, but you did. so.
He catches Marty’s other wrist and gets both his arms behind his back. Marty tries to buck out until he feels the precise, white-hot points of pain at his elbow and wrist that tell him not to. Rust is snug up behind him, his chin hooked over Marty’s shoulder, ear crushed against Marty’s neck. [...] Rust slowly moves Marty towards the door with his arms still trapped behind him. They stop in the doorway.
never sure if I conveyed the movement and space of this properly. Rust has Marty's arms behind his back, trapped between Marty's back and Rust's chest, and Rust walks him to the open doorway and jacks him off there, facing out. not sure if that tracks.
Marty looks like he’s got more beer than blood in him and Rust’s not sure he can get him hard, until he does
it's erotica-logic that Marty could get hard here, surely, but I did like mentioning it.
ALSO: the POV flips on this line, mid scene. it is sloppy and inexpertly done. it flips in the locker room scene too. normally I do it where the reader is only privy to one character's thoughts at a time, but I played it fast and loose in this to make things more compelling, I guess, but I don't like it. it's unintentional and lazy, but idk if readers notice.
I see you looking at me all the goddamn time, you’re like a fucking kid. You even know you’re doing it?”
this is not touched on again but what a thing for Rust to casually throw out. Marty is lucky he's blackout right now and does not remember rust saying this. he would kill himself
The muscles in Marty’s stomach and thighs jump as he tries to hold it back, like that’s the point. Like coming makes it any worse.
I liked the idea here that Marty is managing to do a bit of macho posturing even while getting jacked off in a doorway while blind drunk. can't come too quick, that's not manly.
He grabs the front of Marty’s throat and his windpipe wheezes under his hand, more than enough pressure to keep him from breathing
I do the choking thing too much in my fics, it's embarrassing at this point. but the main thing is that I forget I've done it in other fics and I'm like hell yeah Marty could get off on this, sure. just like dean winchester and carmy berzatto? you fucking moron. clown behaviour
Rust strokes him through it and turns his face down to watch. It’s a thin load. Marty’s had a big day.
my friend Lauren is my only irl friend that reads all my fics (Sadie if you're reading this, idk what you do or don't read but I acknowledge you) and I remember when she was reading this, she texted me the line “Marty's had a big day” and lost her shit lol. very sweet.
pinpricks of old light
it is saccharine to call stars “old light.” this is a reference to a line in the Regina spektor song Samson, somehow, when I have not listened to her since I was a teen. why do I still remember lyrics to this and to every song on Eminem's 2002 album The Eminem Show?? how about I remember my mum's phone number or my friends birthdays instead?
The pink pre-dawn sky scares the shit out of him when he expects to see a ceiling
“Pre-dawn” is another overused ron-ism. I just love the way light looks when it's not strong enough to even really cast a shadow. everything is flat and cool and blue.
Marty looks out to make sure nobody’s listening, works his jaw and says, “Seemed like you liked me just fine last night.”
Marty misunderstanding situations is so important. or not misunderstanding, but like, grudgingly saying this embarrassingly earnest thing, and Rust's just sighing and going “that's not strictly what happened but ok”
Rust comes back and hands him the mug; it’s burnt and lukewarm
I worked at timmies when I was 14 and the smell of burnt shitty coffee is seared into me. when a carafe timed out and we were supposed to remake it fresh, we'd just wipe off the grease pen and write a new time.
“You’re a car crash of a human being. And against my better judgement, I’ve slowed right down to rubberneck as I go by. Gawking at the fiery wreck that is your life.”
I love the word rubberneck. I want to use the word rubberneck as often as humanly possible.
also, now that I think about it, this is another piece of self plagiarism. I use it in my venture bros fic, doc says something like “I think I inspire a certain kind of morbid curiosity, like rubbernecking a car crash.” maybe one day I will have a new thought
Still wandering closer, Rust grabs the hem of his wifebeater and pulls it over his head, bare shoulders hunching in, arms flexing. He drops the shirt on the floor.
Rust is very straight forward despite the flowery way he talks. I liked the idea of him just taking his shirt off as a kind of “do you like what you see.” on anyone else it might be arrogant, but Rust doesn't SAY that. just lets Marty look at him, like he's helping him make his decision. lol
he’s having fun with it, spurred on by the pathetic hangdog look on Marty’s face, looking like a chided schoolboy.
SAY THE LINE, BART! here we get the title. I love the word hangdog, it's so specific and weird. also, unrelated, a climbing term: where you get slack taken in so you just hang on the rope and figure out what to do next.
Marty ducks in and crushes their mouths together. It’s off-center and he comes in so hot their teeth hit but Rust groans anyway, keeps a hold on Marty’s face and slots their mouths together, kisses back all stale cigarettes and Marty’s old vomit, mouth-taste and sour beer. Marty kisses like he’s not leaving witnesses. He jams his thumbs up under Rust’s jaw and runs him back until he hits the wall, and Rust bites into his mouth, drags his hands spread wide down Marty’s shoulders; he’s got the body of an aged jock, old muscle under this layer of bulk that wants to be grabbed and torn into.
I am a big fan of this kiss. worth noting that I tend to make characters NOT kiss immediately, and yes they didn't kiss in the locker room, but they kiss before having sex. I'd think it's Marty's doing. at this point Rust could take it or leave it.
Rust hacks out a laugh and tips his head back, tingles all over.
Rust is having fun. he is having so much fun right now, making Marty come apart. I don't know if he'd call it fun, but he is loving this.
“You don’t tell anybody about this. You take it to your fuckin’ grave, you—”
“Shut the fuck up, Marty. Jesus.”
more marty posturing lol. so funny to me
Rust mumbles, “How you want it, cowboy?” and fucks his hips in. “You feelin’ brave?”
it is so insanely sexy and homoerotic to call a man cowboy. imagine this in Rust's voice! good lord
sidebar: I am always cognizant of how a conversation about who tops will go. you think about, like… do they know the words top/bottom? here, probably not. how bold are they about it, IS there a conversation, or does it just happen? this one felt good to me. tongue in cheek, they both understand.
There’s a perfect tanline shape of where his shirt sits, and paler where his pants go.
the tan line mentioner has once again logged on. BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK
“The body’s a knife,” he says. “Best to hone it.”
from the body is a blade by Japanese Breakfast. “the body is a blade that cuts a path from day to day”
He’s cut, which Marty doesn’t expect for some reason. It curves a little to the left.
I don't have a real philosophy for who's cut and who's not because I haven't found a pattern in real life and I don't have kids so I've never made the decision to give a kid the chop. I prefer uncut in my partners and I think circumcision is barbaric, but those are personal values that I don't put into writing. lotta guys are cut.
He lifts Rust’s balls and huffs in deep, inhales it, noses at the base of his dick and its scratch of pubic hair, mouths at his sack. The smell is strong and ripe and human, rank, masculine and violently alive.
I don't remember making this decision but I gotta say it does feel inspired. such a base thing for Marty to be into, and it would feel highly taboo for him because it's so shameful and so specifically GAY, to like the smell of a guy's junk. he does not like unwashed pussy stink because he's got fucked up expectations of women. also, we've switched back to Marty's POV without me noticing. fml
“I’m not taking you to emerg if I split you in half.”
Behind him, Rust drawls, “Promises, promises.”
Rust would, and has, absolutely taken dick without lube. horrible man. lacks the constitution for suicide.
He takes one last deep drag on his smoke and kills it, then leans over and stubs it into an ashtray. Marty snorts.
“This finally worth your undivided attention?”
it is so funny to me that Rust has had a smoke on the go for all of this so far. making out with Marty, having Marty huff his balls: cig dangling from his fingers.
Rust wheezes a laugh. “Hell if I know. I’ve stuck my dick places you wouldn’t go in full hazmat.”
a play on “I've followed my dick places I wouldn't go without a gun” or whatever the saying is
Rust, who’s so fucking unpleasant, the human equivalent of a pile of broken glass, finally quiet and letting Marty of all goddamn people do this to him like some convoluted murder-suicide, mutually assured destruction—
a favourite (overused) sentiment of mine: fuck you for trusting me with this. fuck you for making me see you like this. are you trying to kill me? the shame in seeing someone else in what you perceive to be a shameful position.
“You waiting for a fuckin’—handwritten invite, or—”
this is Rust's version of Marty's machismo. he's been with guys and probably takes some kind of pride in being able to take it. probably also does like it rough, but he's being tuff here.
Rust bucks back on him and Marty’s not good at holding back, not good at moderation and could never handle being wanted
I think insecurity is always the root of infidelity, and that is very clear with Marty. he can't handle being wanted because when someone wants him, he throws it all to the wind and goes after it.
He hopes to God that Rust’s clean.
never forget that STIs can be oral as well. isn't that a wild thought? oral chlamydia.
the mattress underneath is yellowed and stained, dotted with little blue flowers.
a strangely precise childhood memory: the yucky slick sticky cloth material that spring mattresses used to be made of. I hated when the fitted sheet rolled up and exposed that horrible stuff.
“The French call an orgasm la petite mort,” Rust says, his voice hoarse. “The little death. Closest we get to dying, coming apart like that. The stab of bliss, that split second of ego death. Like going over.”
I forget where I first learned this but it was definitely FROM something. wish I could remember.
It’s animalistic, humping and grunting and sweating, fucking anything that’s warm and wet because your body needs you to fill or get filled, because it’s in your blood. It can’t be a little death when it’s the only time Marty feels alive.
a guy like Marty would put an unnecessary amount of profundity on sex, tied into his ideas about masculinity. what do you call that, like… the heavy emphasis on “biology” and “nature” that some people seem obsessed with. men and women are hardwired to make fuck.
His hangover’s back, temporarily abated by better things, or anyway, more strenuous things.
it is so funny to remember that Marty is hung over as fuck during this scene lmfaooo. if I wrote it again I'd make him stop mid-fuck to puke into something.
“It was high school,” he says quietly. “Got it outta my system by college.”
I imagine this going exactly like Rust said. Marty in high school drunk with the boys, starting with jacking off together and later escalating into one on one secret blowies and stuff while they were high or drunk.
Rust says, also to the ceiling: “Good thing you’re not the jealous type, or I could see this getting weird.”
going back to the the thing of, which is worse to Marty, Rust fucking everyone or Rust fucking no one, and Rust calls him out on it here. we know Marty is jealous and possessive and even though he is so ashamed of what he's done with Rust, he's still also like, who else have you fucked you son of a bitch lmao
He recites the girls’ birthdays in his head, which is something he does, after.
I meant this to be “something he does after he cheats” to like, ground himself. not sure if that came out.
There’s also his wedding ring, which pinches his finger at the best of times because he’s put on a few pounds since the wedding, and worse now because he’s hot and swollen all over.
I wear a lot of rings and the feeling of having hot swollen hands and you can't get your rings off his the worst
Rust roots through a cardboard box for clothes, taking out shirts and slacks and smelling each in turn.
that man does not hang his clothes
The look on his face is, as usual—maybe worse than usual—indecipherable.
After a long moment, he asks, “You wanna go again?”
Rust would have gone again if Marty said yes here, but he asks knowing that Marty won't. he is prodding at a metaphorical open wound to see how bad it is.
Marty recites the date of his wedding anniversary, and his parents’ anniversary.
a kind of hetero mantra. hetero words of affirmation. he wants to fuck Rust again very badly.
It feels like they spend an hour there, Rust’s chin tipped down to look at Marty, Marty’s lip stinging.
I love that Rust is a bit taller than Marty and I mention it often because you KNOW Marty thinks about it. Woody Harrelson is not a tall man. under 5'10 I think. normal height for a man, but not to Marty. his ass would be lying on tinder.
He doesn’t think about it. He leans in and kisses Rust.
I wonder exactly what I was trying to get at here. I think Marty is flooded with hormones and endorphins and he is probably grappling with having some actual feelings for Rust here, however briefly. a last minute stab for closeness, knowing that he is VERY closeted and is about to leave a situation where he can actually be with a man. one last kiss.
or, maybe he's trying to see if Rust wants him back, like a power play, which he fails spectacularly. Roll for BIG DOG: (1) Critical Fail. he doesn't kiss you back.
“All I’m sayin’ is, these ain’t sparks.”
suggest that Marty has feelings for you. Roll for BIG DOG: 19. Marty kills himself in front of you.
I originally intended to end this with just the first chapter but, as I do, got an idea and kept writing. just looked at the publishing date on this and it turns out I was writing it as my dad died, which I forgot. I remember watching true detective on my phone in the family-house-room next to the hospital while we waited for him to die. published this like 2 months afterwards, SOMEHOW. all kind of a blur.
I'll do more commentary on chapter 2 as an rb to this post, thanks for readingggg
for a director’s commentary: any scene in pine sweat that you’d like to talk about 👀
I didn't think I'd have anything special to say about pine sweat but I do!! 🏕️🌞
at random, we’re doing chapter 2 drought, the one where the kids first find out about Sam n Dean and at the end, young dean kisses old Sam.
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He was wearing a different black shirt than yesterday, some image on the front that was too cracked and faded to make out, and the same jeans. Sam was in gym shorts again, and a giant white T-shirt that nearly covered them. His knobbly knees were scuffed up. Sam remembered always being mildly damaged at that age.
for some reason I have the kids’ outfits very fixed in my head despite not mentioning it much. dean is wearing a very old black band tee (pink Floyd? idc), 90s-appropriate blue jeans. I forget what shoes he's wearing, maybe chucks. and young Sam, when I say “gym shorts” here I mean big and1 basketball shorts lol. swishy blue. and crew socks, and big dirty white sneakers. very important to me.
He’d felt like Gollum at the time: bony, hunched and pale. It didn’t help that Dean looked like a Tiger Beat centrefold.
anyone remember Tiger Beat? looking at old photos, Jensen Ackles was an insanely beautiful kid, would be horrible to have as a brother. luckily my sister and I were both very ugly kids.
Dean’s giddiness increased when Sam put four jugs of kerosene into the cart.
the brief shopping scene was something that changed a lot between inception and final. I forget the details but I did NOT know what their plan was gonna be exactly. my advice to anyone publishing a multi chapter fic is to have it done or very nearly done by the time you start publishing. this would have been a dog's breakfast if I couldn't go back and edit earlier chapters to make it make sense as I fleshed out the plot.
Who’s president? Is it hotter all the time? What does gas cost? What do cars look like?
I tried to think of what a precocious kid would ask about the future. I don't think these nail it, it but I honestly couldn't know. wish I had kids in my life to ask. I don't remember being a kid but my mum says I never believed in Santa claus so I think there's something fundamentally broken in me.
“No! No, not that bad, not, uh, rapey, just—”
“Okay, back up. Now you’re super not allowed to be alone with Sam.”
this was something my beta grace suggested I add in, which works really well. she pointed out that if they don't know these two guys, and then they hear there's a sex-pollen-adjacent thing, young dean would INSTANTLY be like wait a minute you fuckin pervert lol
in some ways he was unrecognizable through the lens of adulthood, so nervy and unsure. He’d never known Dean to be unsure, but he’d only ever seen Dean in a certain light. He wore a mask, and, Sam was realizing, Dean had always made sure that mask was perfect for him.
I really loved the idea of Sam recategorizing their childhood immediately. 4 years older is SO much when you're a kid! but looking at it as an adult you'd be like, oh that's not my adult older brother, that is a young 17 year old boy, with so much pressure on him. it would be clear to Sam as an adult everything that Dean did for him when they were kids that he took for granted in the way that young kids do. entitlement, etc. dean gave up a lot to raise Sam.
splitting the log with a neat snick
my snicks and clicks strike again. great sound
Sam would have bet money that Dean would laugh it off, or have some kind of over-the-top indignation at the thought of it, a haughty I don’t swing that way.
I'm openly bi so I had to imagine what kind of response you would expect from someone asking if you're gay if you weren't, but I think it would be like this. I don't think your average guy would get mad, nor Dean, if he weren't hiding something. at most it would be like "haha yeah fuck you too buddy"
Dean heated up beans in his small carbon steel pan
I love carbon steel. great camping pan. costs zero dollars, you season it like cast iron but it's light as hell. I like cast iron too but don't let the fanboys steer you away from carbon steel. she's my gal friday
The sky was still pink where it peeked through the trees and the scene of it was beautiful: a rugged, shirtless guy down by the crystal stream, jeans slung low on his hips, washing up at dawn like something out of an old western.
was thinking of Brokeback mountain for this. Ang Lee has gorgeous cinematography.
All he heard was his younger self babble to his brother, amulet he’s got the pendant no one else does it’s not it’s not he couldn’t it’s yours what if it’s yours—
I remember grace and I went back and forth a lot on this scene re: how quickly a kid would realistically recognize their future self. I think we did ok. the amulet being the catalyst made sense, but I do also think that it would be VERY hard instantly clock someone as your older self. it's not something you'd look for in real life.
We. Sam was still hovering next to them, unnoticed while they all stared at Dean. He waited for the other shoe to drop. Three, two, one—
The younger Dean’s eyes slid off his older self and onto Sam.
I looooved the idea of them freaking out about dean so much that they forget about Sam, especially because he's so big. very funny to me
Whittling
I have a whittling knife I have always meant to use camping but never have. I've always been obsessed with whittling as a concept, don't know why. I feel like I'd be good at it even though I've never tried.
[Young] Sam had his face in Dean’s chest and an arm thrown over his side.
it was an intentional thing to be sure I wasn't sexualizing the kids. it wasn't difficult not to, but I have written underage stuff and this isn't that. just wanted it to come across as an uncomfortable, notable closeness. especially this early on in the fic, it was very important for me to establish that there would be no kid-fucking.
“Did you have to get them in the same spot?”
“That was a stylistic choice.”
I think it is so funny that they got their ward tats in the same spot. like ok gayboys
Sam always felt like he was better with teenagers than younger kids because his gawky adolescence felt like it lasted a lifetime. Dean, on the other hand, went straight from four to forty. He was sweet with kids because he raised one. That specific one, in fact.
It felt natural to make each boy more comfortable with his brother than with his other self. made sense to me for the reasons listed here. and the gentle self loathing they both feel for themselves at all times.
“He’s got five free minutes, he’s probably jerking off somewhere.”
since writing pine sweat I have started to vary my jerk off vs jack off language but pine sweat is ALL jerks and I hate it. he should have said whacking off here.
The line between his sunburnt nape and the skin below the collar of his shirt was sharp, pink and white.
another overused ron-ism: t-shirt tan lines. I live in a very sunny hot place and I love when someone who works outside takes off their shirt and they have very stark tan lines. roughneck outdoorsy blue collar sexy. I use sunscreen like it's my job, to protect my tats, but it's sexy when other people don't.
Dean said, “But you still hunt with him. Me. Whatever. If you left, you came back.”
this is young Dean fishing for hints about his and Sam's relationship, obviously. maybe even trying to figure out if he ever told Sam about his feelings in the future, like, “was there a fight you mended”
the boyish smell of his deodorant
I wear old spice original so Dean does too. I remember there was this guy I worked with like 10 yrs ago who smelled so good and one day I asked him what the smell was and he said 'old spice original, chicks love it and guys hate it.' which I have found to be true.
Two long seconds passed and lips slid dry against his, taking a shallow, shaking breath, pressing in closer so carefully, shy—
I do think it would take a second of being kissed for you to be like, what the fuck is this. I don't think I've ever been unexpectedly kissed so I don't know, but it felt softer and nicer for Sam to not immediately fling him away. and also: we can all admit it's a bit sexy. we're all friends here.
Dean fumbled his way to standing, holding his hands out as if to show see, look, not gonna hurt you.
I pictured this as a half-crouch with the hands up like when someone at gunpoint asks the gunman permission to pick something up. or like approaching a scared animal. dean protecting Sam even when he's half his age.
