#utterly absurd

[18thcenturythirsttrap]

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It seems that Benjamin Netanyahu may be a 'senior Labour Party source' these days.

Hamas get about though, don't they? First they were in tunnels, then hospitals and schools, then UNWRA, and now apparently they're in the West Midlands. [sarcasm alert]

[ieattaperecorders]

Catching up on the bonus Patreon episodes for the Hotel. Up to The Ship, and the implication that the Lobby Boy reads is absolutely absurd to me.

[definite-human]

Thinking about the concept paying rent and how it's basically just feudalism 2.0 like ffs they're still literally called landlords

Anyways, if you want to really mess with people's heads, instead of asking how much their rent is, ask how many hours of labor they have to do for their landlord each month

[museaway]

(This prompt is from thisisthestuffthatilike, and comes in at a whopping 1k: "new human!Cas discovering that he’s attracted to men and then like blatantly bringing it up with the boys and Sammy is all tactful and scientific and Dean probably chokes on whatever he’s eating or drinking." This isn't...quite that. But it's kinda/sorta close. Features ABSURDLY OBLIVIOUS AND JEALOUS!DEAN for your pleasure. This references S10 but presumes human!Cas? IDK, just handwave.) 

Tucked in a rundown bar about a half hour outside of Lebanon, Cas accepts the beer that Dean offers and says, before Dean has even had a chance to reclaim his seat, "I believe I'm attracted to men."

Sam coughs mid-swallow but nods in a way that could only be construed as encouraging. He visibly struggles to keep his expression neutral, even smiles a little. Dean, however, spews beer all over the table.

"Cas, you don't just say shit like that," he grumbles, and quickly looks around them, to see if anyone heard. Thankfully, no heads have turned in their direction. 

Cas scowls at him, cups his hands around his beer, and asks with irritation, "Why not?"

"It's just…it's not the sort of thing you say when you're out with the guys."

"Would you mind if I talked about women?" he snaps, and for reasons Dean doesn't want to contemplate, Sam looks smug. He locks his eyes on Dean, tilts his head, and quirks an eyebrow.

"That's a good question, Cas," Sam compliments. "Don't you think that's a good question, Dean?"

"If I'm not allowed to talk about this with you," Cas says in a quieter tone, though no less gruff, "then who am I supposed to discuss it with?"

"Dean's being a jerk," Sam offers consolingly. "You can talk to us about anything."

"Fine," Dean concedes through a sigh. "Alright. What's got you thinking this way?"

"I don't want to talk about this with you if you're only going to make fun of me."

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose. "Look, man, I swear I won't make fun of you. And sorry about my reaction, okay? You just caught me off guard."

"Well," Cas begins, looking at the table. "I'm experiencing strong physical reactions in the presence of a certain person."

Dean stares at him between his fingers. "You're seeing someone?" he accuses. Cas wets his lips.

"No," he says. "At least, I don't think so."

"What do you mean, you don't think so?"

Cas is a while before he replies. "I have reason to believe this person…cares for me. Romantically. That's why I wanted to talk with you both about it."

"Well, without meeting him and seeing how you act around each other," Sam says, leaning his forearms on the table, "it's hard to know for sure, but maybe you can tell us a little bit about him? How'd you meet?"

"Through work," Cas says and fidgets.

Dean scowls. He didn't realize Cas met someone at the grocery store. He's only worked there a couple weeks, hardly enough time to form a meaningful bond with anybody. Cas better not be having casual hookups in the stockroom.

"Alright," Sam continues. "And what about his behavior makes you think he might be…interested?"

Cas takes a breath. "Sometimes he looks at me the way I see people look at each other in movies," he says wistfully.

"He checks you out?" Dean asks, and he doesn't like this. He doesn't like this at all.

"I think so," Cas says. "He looks at my mouth, sometimes. Is that common?"

"No," Dean insists.

Sam appears to consider this, glances to Dean, back to Cas, and nods slowly. Dean's frown intensifies. He looks at Cas's mouth. Who the hell is this asshole?

"We've even," Cas says, clearing his throat. "I believe we've been on a date."

"Cas, you either have or haven't been on a date," Dean says. "There's not really middle ground there."

"We had lunch," Cas says. Sam makes a funny noise, like he's laughing into his beer bottle. Dean is annoyed and ignores him.

"And?" he prompts.

"We had burgers," Cas supplies.

"Okay."

"He stole mine."

"Well, he's a dick," Dean says definitively. For some reason, Sam now appears to be choking into his forearm.

"He sat next to me," Cas continues. "Just like you're sitting now, even though there were other chairs."

"Did he pay?" Dean asks. Sam has turned red.

"Yes, but--"

"No buts," Dean interrupts. "That was a date, Cas. Congratulations. You're dating an asshole."

Sam catches Dean's attention and shakes his head reproachfully, but his eyes are watering with laughter.

+

When Cas gets up to use the bathroom, Dean elbows Sam in the ribs and mutters, "Can you believe that shit?"

Sam stares at Dean like he might really be the stupidest person he's ever met. "Oh my god," he says.

"What?"

"Think about it, Dean. Think about it real hard." Sam stands up, claps Dean on the shoulder, and relocates to the bar.

Dean nurses his beer. He's got to do recon on this guy, make sure he's good enough. The last thing they need to deal with is Cas with a broken heart, sulking in the bunker. He wonders where they got burgers in town, if the guy even knows how Cas likes his, with lots of cheese and onions. 

Met through work. Whatever. Dean met Cas through work, technically.

If this guy thinks he's gonna use Cas for casual sex, he's got another thing coming. Cas deserves...he deserves dates. And hand holding. Movies on the couch. Drinking coffee together in bed and all that romantic shit he used to do with Lisa. He deserves somebody that brings him roses, like he was going to bring to that woman in Rexford. He deserves somebody that's going to love him, and oh. God. Dean might really be the stupidest person on the planet.

He catches Cas coming out of the bathroom and grips his arm.

"Can we talk? Outside?"

+

They sit in the front seat of the Impala, in awkward silence.

"You were talking about me, weren't you."

Cas dips his head. "Yes."

"You think I have feelings for you."

"I…I hope that you do. I wasn't sure how to approach it."

Dean rubs his lips and looks to Cas's hands, balled up on his lap.

"You're not seeing anybody?" Dean says, just to check.

"No," Cas murmurs.

Dean feels something in his chest loosen. "Good," he mutters.

Cas turns toward him, hopeful. "Good?" he repeats.

Dean reaches over to take his hand, and it's not as weird as it should be. It isn't really weird at all.

"Yeah," he promises.

[spideromanoff-archive]

I'm having possibly the most emotionally-detached meltdown possible and it's actually kind of impressive that I'm managing to keep up such a paradoxical state.

But then I felt sick (physically) and finally, after a few hours of misery and pep-talks, convinced myself to emerge from my room to get some medicine, at which point my mother made fun of me for getting super stressed about a situation that is 0% stressful for most people, and criticized my eating habits.

So I retreated back to my room to wait for the medicine to kick in and try not to stew over what she said, and then I fucked up the tags page on my sideblog - the tags page that I had been lovingly curating for MONTHS - and accidentally saved it because my computer is a piece of shit and didn't load the fucked-up changes fast enough for me to see them before hitting 'save.'

After that I couldn't handle being on the computer any more (even though that's what I'm doing with 99% of my waking life at this point because it's one of the only things I can handle), so I decided to actually cook a respectable dinner for myself (because it's midnight and somehow that'll definitely show my mother - like, what even are you doing, self?), realized I'd be out of my room for like 45 minutes (which is asking for a miracle at this point honestly), and so I decided to put on an episode of Agents of SHIELD on the living room tv to deal with the strain.

Now, I have been saving Agents of SHIELD on the DVR for months. My mother is the only other person in the house and promised not to touch it. At first it was school that kept me away from home and too busy to view it, and then it was the pervasive blanket of apathy I've been living under - I didn't want to watch a show (ANY show - I have many good ones saved up because of this) that I knew I'd otherwise like, because that would be utterly wasting the emotional richness of a first viewing on the ungrateful, static lump that I am now. Also, before I became said lump, I had really been looking forward to watching it on the BIG living room tv as opposed to the laptop screen on which I watch everything else.

So it takes me like an hour of swearing and snarling to figure out the fucking system because I am technology dumb and impatient even when I haven't already hugely fucked up something technological just minutes beforehand. Mind you, my stomach is growling and on top of everything else I have hit full hangry (which is apparently most powerful emotion I am capable of producing anymore) because midnight-snack-dinner has been abandoned in favor of figuring out how to get my Marvel security blanket working and nothing is working and everything is awful.

And then I find that half the unwatched episodes are missing.

That's when I looked down at the remote in my hand and literally thought to myself: 'This is the part where I would normally cry.' I even kinda scrunched up my face to see if that would get it going. Nope. Nada.

So I just. Uh.

It's 3 am.

The tags page is still utterly fucked.

The thing I was saving/looking forward to for months and had built up in my mind as the only salvage for the evening is literally gone.

And I still haven't eaten.

Like I want to/know how to fix all of these things and even if they're not perfect the answers are there.

Rebuild the tags page. You have the template and a list of the tags you were using. It'll be a pain in the ass but it's doable.

Watch the episodes that are available on the DVR on the big tv. Make due with your laptop for the rest. It'll be disappointing but at least you'll get some of them the way you wanted. Do it fast before the system spontaneously deletes some more episodes.

And. And. Just make some fucking food. Like literally this is the easiest thing to do. It's right there in the kitchen. It's just sitting there. You don't even have to cook anything. You could literally just pick something out of the fridge and put it in your mouth. Chew. Swallow. Like you don't even have to hunt it or anything because you are a human fucking being. If you were out in nature you would literally starve to death because your food isn't just fucking waiting for you. But it is waiting right there and you???? Just???? Can't go get it????? Like that's too hard??? You have no desire to get up and walk to the kitchen???? Even though yOu KNow ThAt YOur STOMaCH iS EMptY?????? JUST. JUST GO? FEED? YOURSELF?!?! No? Oh. No, then. Okay.

WHAT. WHAT. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU.

And I'm not even upset? I'm not crying like I normally would if like half of these things happened all in the same night? I'm just sort of distantly amused/frustrated at my own absurdity? What the actual fuck. I'm almost impressed by my own ridiculousness.