Dean had never been the romantic kinda guy. He wasn't into candle lit evenings or long strolls in the park, it was just never going to be him. When it came to wooing a woman for an evening, he didn't need fancy parlor tricks, just a flawless smile and cheeky pick up line, maybe even some fantastic story about how he was a Hollywood producer looking for the next pretty face to plaster on billboards. He could write the book on one night stands, but Tom Hanks style romance? He was nothing if not clueless.
But despite not being a romantic guy, Dean had to admit that if some outsider was to look on what he and Sam were doing right now, they'd probably peg him for a dewy, sensitive kinda guy. It was sunset - the time of day when the sky is painted oranges and pinks and looks like something tropical even when you're sitting in the middle of nowhere in some hick town in Nebraska.
They'd been driving all day before both boys had decided it was time for a break. Even without saying anything, Dean knew when his brother’s long legs were cramping to the point of being incredibly uncomfortable so he figured it was a fine excuse to break from their 16 hour driving haul across country. And somehow, they’d wound up on the hood of the Impala, Sam’s body leaning into Dean’s while the elders jawline rested lightly against the top of Sam’s head, his arm wound around his younger brothers waist. No matter how it looked, Dean would fight tooth and nail to make everyone believe it wasn’t cuddling.
Everything seemed calm, not just the scenery but the way Sam’s body felt against his own. He was relaxed, tension and stress gone from not only his body but his face too. And for a moment, things didn’t seem as shitty as they actually were. Sam was still the soft, hazel eyed little kid that Dean remembered. He’d never seen the horror that Dean knew he had, wasn’t blemished by darkness. He was just Sammy. Dean tightened his arm around the younger man’s waist unconsciously, desperate to keep him just like this.
“Dean-“ Sam spoke up, having noticed the change in his big brother the moment his arm had constricted around his waist. “Hey…” He turned his head up, eyes landing on Dean’s. “You okay?”
Dean nodded, eyes trained forward. He couldn’t protect Sam from something in his own mind, and that was the hell Sam was facing now. Despite Sam telling him that he was okay, that he knew what was real and what wasn’t real, Dean couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t being truthful. The thoughts playing through Dean’s head obviously hadn’t been hidden well on his face, because Sam leaned up, forehead pressing lightly into Dean’s jaw. “Stop thinking.”
“That’s like tellin’ a fish not to be wet, Sam,” Dean snorted under his breath but relaxed a little bit as his brothers nose brushed along the underside of his jawline and up to his temple.
“I’m okay, Dean. Really. I know this is real … I couldn’t imagine something this good.”
Despite everything, and all the bad shit going out around them, Dean smiled.
Since English's not my first language, please feel free to indicate any language mistake I might (must) have done.
Growing Fruits
Light Wincest (for now ?), 700 words, PG-13, might be continued
Dean hasn’t always been that good of a hunter. The first time he met a ghoul left him with teeth marks on his butt and a toe half ripped off. Dad would have been shaking with laughter if he hadn’t been so pissed off.
First time Sammy met a massively vengeful spirit, he had slowly loaded his shotgun and pulled the trigger while discussing Lincoln economic politics with what turned out to be a Civil War veteran, sharp 250-years-old cavalry sword pressed again his throat all along. Dad had been pissed off too, and Dean couldn’t find anything funny about what had just happened. He didn’t speak to Sam for hours after that, even when his brother demanded he stopped staring.
Sammy was obviously gifted. I mean, who can keep being a straight-A student while transfering every two weeks, skipping half the classes and sleeping thirty hours a week ? Sam was good at academics, awkward but effective at socializing, was even invited a few times in the football team and once, memorably, in the girls changing room (not that he went, poor bastard), but what he was damn right brilliant at was research. Latin and Greek and late-Aramaic slicing through his head, and french fat early-modern books, dust on their covers melted to a paste with what was left of oil lamps’ grease. Sam could make old ladies and young cops mellow within minutes, listening to their « well, it’s just a story, but… » with bright eyed expressions, smile tugging his lip upward, downward, dimples flashing and eyebrows lifting in the middle when needed.
What Dean knew he was good at was killing, even if sloppily, and shagging. Flirting, picking up the girl and shagging her, that he seemed to know how to pretty well, according to feedback. He liked it : liked to be tenderly strong with them, liked to impersonate their prince charming fantasies, dampening them with bad boy vibes (or the other way around). He knew exactly what he was doing. And how. He scored every single time. Flawless.
That’s why he was fairly impressed when he met Jessica and her Smurfs. He wasn’t lying when he said Jess was out of his brother’s league. Because, well, Sam didn’t have a league. If Dean owned a fucking international corporation of hitting on and bringing girls home, little Sammy wasn’t even the craftman’s apprentice in Butthole, Iowa.
That’s why he had to blink a few times as he saw him kiss Sarah. Because, well, Sammy actually looked like he knew what he was doing, judging from the way the chick pressed against him from hip to breast, from Sam’s middle thigh to sternum, palming his biceps, gripping the side of his worn jacket. Must have something to do with the muscles Sam grew like some grew tits, or pimples. Or fruits. A good hundred daily press-ups seemed to make girls behave like you were a good kisser.
That’s why, a few years later, when Sam decided to go clean with what happened during those four months without Dean, and began to fully confess, confess to the point of describing minutely the way Ruby has pressed against him, that he had grabbed her and lifted her on his lap and ripped her clothes, Dean had to stop him.
He didn’t need this much intel, that part was true. But he lied about feeling feel dirty. He felt surprised, curious. He felt wary. Because Sam had obviously come to play in his league. And he obviously brought a whole new style to the game. A style that Dean would never have suspected he’d play.
Dean liked playing to count the points, hold and compare scores, win. Playing and beating his brother at anything was the ever-so satisfying proof he still held the highground. And Sammy suddenly seemed to have some skills in his game. His field of expertise.
Challenge always helds powerful appeal to players, and it sounded right like one to him.
Soo Wincest Week is over.....I know tragic......but still I wanted to thank you all guys for your contribution,YOU ARE FANTASTIC GUYS!! THANKS THANK THANKS FOR MAKING THIS WEEK A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE!! :')
Also big thank to the wonderful Ela for all the support and the help with the organization and promoting,this wouldn't have happened without you!!
and one last thank to my perfect Ally for loving the idea when I first told her,and for the help with the graphics and the also the promotion and for being amazing as always!
I've never written a "why I ship Wincest" post so far, so I thought that Wincest Appreciation Week was a great occasion. Actually, this is more of a partial analysis of Wincest through canon, since some friends of ours (my soulmate and me) asked for it. Many thanks to her for all the quotes, my memory sucks so hers works for the both of us.
It seems more than evident that Dean and Sam's relationship is not what two siblings normally have. It's been stated and reasserted by several characters on several occasions (by Lisa in 6x06, "But I didn't expect Sam to come back. And I'm glad he's okay. I am. But the minute he walked through that door, I knew. It was over. You two have the most unhealthy, tangled-up, crazy thing I've ever seen. And as long as he's in your life, you're never gonna be happy. I'm not saying don't be close to Sam. I'm close to my sister. But if she got killed, I wouldn't bring her back from the dead!"; or by Zachariah in 5x18, "You know Sam and Dean Winchester are psychotically, irrationally, erotically codependent on each other, right?", just to quote some). So, it's not a normal relationship, but the thing isn't just dismissed with this general concept, it's made way more explicit: they are "dangerously codependent", said by nothing less than a psychiatrist (5x11). And being codependent doesn't mean, like many mistakenly think, a simple "I need you". There's nothing wrong nor dangerous in needing someone you love, in getting desperate if something happens to them, even in willingly giving your life for theirs. That's not codependency. Codependency is "I'm not a whole being by myself; without you, I do not exist".
That's what's been said about Dean and Sam, that's how canon defines them. Even in death they can't be separated, and canon also said that this is what happens with soulmates. In fact in 5x16, despite being separated at first, Dean gets to Sam on his own, not with Ash or Cas' help, because he and Sam share the same Heaven. I know not everyone believes this, but it is clear in the dialogue between the brothers and Ash, and pretty much unequivocal:
(from the episode's script)
Ash: See, you gotta stop thinking of heaven as one place. It’s more like a butt-load of places all crammed together. Like Disneyland except without all the anti-Semitism. (Dean and Sam still look confused.)
Sam: Disneyland?
Ash: Mm-hmm. Yeah. See you got Winchesterland. (He holds up his hands to indicate the bar.) Ashland. (He points all around outside the bar.) A whole mess of everybody-else-lands. Put them all together: heaven. Right? At the centre of it all? Is the Magic Kingdom. The Garden.
Dean: So everybody gets a little slice of paradise.
Ash : Pretty much. A few people share - special cases. What not.
Dean: What do you mean 'special'?
Ash: Aw, you know. Like, uh, soul-mates. (Silence greets his statement. Dean and Sam don’t look at each other.)
Ash talks not about "Deanland" and "Samland": he talks about "Winchesterland", so one land, the land of Winchester brothers. And the script explicitly underlines their embarrassment when Ash mentions the soulmates thing.
Dean and Sam have grown up defining themselves in each other. Their unique life has added other elements to their brotherly bond, elements that no other couple of siblings on earth could have. Those elements have created a massive, tangled 'thing' that has no name for it to be defined (Dean himself proves to be incapable to give it a name, "love, family, whatever it is" he says in 5x04, consciously distinguishing their brotherhood from their 'love'). It forcefully breaks limits of any category. Defining it simply as "brotherly love" is reductive and just wrong, 'cause brotherly love is what normal people have, people who in their lives have had other persons to cover all the figures a human being's relational sphere consists of. Dean and Sam didn't have this. Not even John was completely a part of that sphere, Dean has been Sam's actual parent. They were growing up and there was no place they belonged to, no person they really got close to, there was only their world, the two of them, Dean building his whole life on the need to protect Sam, Sam building his on admiration for Dean and need to be accepted by him.
That dimension put a line, a confine between them and the world outside, and at the same time it took away any confine between the two of them, so that they eventually reached a symbiosis so deep that they can't conceive to exist without one another.
Personally, I think that sharing a physical intimacy is an intuitable consequence of all of this; but even without reaching that point, a relationship like this would still be kind of "incestuous", not literally but still, 'cause Dean and Sam literally are the love of each other's lives. Which doesn't mean they can't care for other people, or become infatuated with them or even fall in love with them, because a bond like theirs doesn't need a physical exclusiveness. It's got a different kind of exclusiveness, impossible to erase, it goes beyond anything; by now, anyone on their path can just be a guest who'll always stay on the outside of the barrier of that world which is only theirs, where they are and always will be one whole. Friendships, love for other people, anything can come and go, but nothing of what they have between them can ever end.
Soulmate and I both think that all of this has been wonderfully described by a woman who didin't know Dean and Sam but would have loved them no doubt: Emily Brontë. Here's how Catherine, from Wuthering Heights, explain her relationship with Heathcliff:
"I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of creation if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger; I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees — my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath — a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff — he's always, always in my mind — not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself — but as my own being — so, don't talk of our separation again — it is impracticable."
And Heathcliff's words after his beloved Catherine died, don't they remind you of Dean's grief and desperation for his Sam's death?
"Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you — haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe — I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"
And this whole (damn long) post is basically just the top of the iceberg. So yeah, we've now reached the point when I shut up and LET'S MAKE WINCEST. ♥
