Thesis: the rise of fanwank and anti culture correlates directly with diminished understanding of what “romantic”, in a literary sense, actually means.
It doesn’t mean “this is ideal or healthy or even realistic”. It means “this is beautiful, this is tragic, this is grotesque, this stirs emotion”, even if it’s not, as @starryroom puts it, something you would be comfortable seeing play out in front of you at Taco Bell. It’s about grandiosity and mythology and heroism writ large. It’s about playing with the id, as beautiful and terrible as it can be.
Took twenty minutes and Dean was melted into the ground. On his back with his spine forming against the grass and the shadows creeping away. He was burning from the waist down. He called out Sam I'm dying here down the slope and Sam yelled up So come in idiot! and slapped his hand across the water, a great silver arc leaping and falling, twenty feet from Dean's boots. He grinned at Dean, hair stuck to his face, thigh-deep, fingers trailing in the water. Naked.
"Kidding me," Dean muttered, and let his head hit the ground. He turned his hand palm-up, empty in the dry grass, ran his knuckles over the dirt. Right up above him through the pine needles was the bright blue sky. A cloudless summer day with the flies buzzing and the river chuckling sluggish and nothing between Dean and the sun but three sticks of ponderosa pine and the vague hope that maybe an elk would come along and sit on him and put him out of his misery. This feeling was too old; he was too old for it. He had too much shit going on. He oughta be up in the car losing mobile games to his mother.
Something predatory was floating, circling, a long way away, riding thermals up the horizon. In Dean's head was that bird cry from the movies. The valley stretching wide and quiet, unbroken. Unreal, all of it. Sam was saying something about a trout. Dean closed his eyes and saw it all again, his brother in the green river cradled by the mountains. The trunks of his thighs, his broad and sculpted chest, his flank as he turned; his ass. White in the sun. He'd used to be so golden.
Footsteps splashing up the bank. Dean lifted his head and squinted; what else could he do. "Cold in there huh," he said, and Sam laughed, hobbling across the rocks, junk dangling between his long legs. He swiped up his t-shirt and rubbed at himself half-assed and then tossed it down and sat on it, stretched back on his elbows, a handsbreadth distance, and the turning sun took the last shadows away from Dean and he was breathing fast and shallow and his breath hurt in his throat. He lifted his knee to give himself some cover in case his dick betrayed him, and put the back of his wrist over his eyes and thought why did you do this to yourself. Why. Sam had said pull over I feel rancid and it had been so hot in the car. That was why. Both of them nothing but sweat. Balls stuck to his shorts. All he could smell was Sam. So he found the backroad and pulled over.
"You're gonna burn," Sam said. Quiet and easy. By the sound of it, talking up to the sky. "You should come in."
Dean grunted. "Just burn in the water."
"You reek."
"Ah," Dean said, and showed his teeth. "Sounds like your problem, little bro."
The flies buzzed some more and the bees buzzed and all sorts of quiet things kicked up a din, talking back at the water. Sweat in the crease of his elbow, picking up grime on the back of his neck. He licked his lips, tasted salt. He couldn't get his breathing under control. Felt like his hand was missing his gun.
He had to pack it in.
"You done communing with nature?" he said, and beat a fly away where it was crawling against his mouth. Sun leaking in around the corners of his eyes. Sound of Sam scratching at himself and shifting around.
"They drenched me in that basement." His voice was still easy but this time coming straight at Dean and Dean opened his eyes, startled, shading with his palm, blinked into the too-bright light. The shape of his brother resolved. Sam was watching him. Bare in the sun. "I was freezing. You know, and I didn't care. I thought you were gone."
Dean swallowed. It hurt. "I got you."
"I know." Sam tilted his head. Water dripped from his hair, tracked down the channels of his neck. His collarbone. His chest. "Jesus, Dean," he said, and sighed, moved his head like a shrug, exasperated, but he was smiling, his eyes amused, and he twisted onto his side propped up on one elbow and reached out so simply that Dean didn't have time to duck away. Put his palm to Dean's jaw, warm and damp, huge, shocking, and then his gaze dropped and his thumb brushed Dean's lips. Panic. Dean grabbed his wrist and tugged, pulled him away, but Sam twisted in his grasp and tangled their fingers together on Dean's chest over his heart and bent down like it was gonna be a-- a kiss, but it wasn't, he put his face to the corner of Dean's neck and sniffed, and Dean got his other hand fixed into Sam's wet hair and gasped under him, flooded, and Sam-- groaned.
"You reek," he said, low, lips on Dean's skin, the shell of his ear, nose brushing Dean's temple, and ducked from under Dean's hand and pushed himself upright, pressing into Dean's chest as it cracked open and stood, rising up into the sun, ten feet high, his goddamn brother. He looked down at Dean, naked, sweet and easy, so easy, his life unfurling into ease, and nodded down at the river, and smiled. "Ready when you are."
♥Help Milana Auction Winner for Art Offer #1♥ (placeholder): 🐟Ocean Fishing🐟
*Do not Repost, Alter, or Use without permission of @wetsammywinchester.*
This work was inspired from @wetsammywinchester 's J2 fic Enthrall
(For better viewing on desktop, click the image, then right click the enlarged image, and then click "open image in new tab".)
For more stuff from me please check out my “myart” tag here on Tumblr or my AO3.
👇( wip screenshots and notes below the cut) 👇
For more detailed notes: [AO3 link]
Art Notes:
In early Oct 2019, a section of the creator community held/organized a fandom charity auction to help out a fellow creator who had fallen on hard times (for more info on the past auction click here). I offered three commissions towards the auction. Paula was gracious enough to bid for and win my 1st offer for $30.
The details of that offer was: One title card and one illustration for a fic.
Because life events and burnout got in the way we didn't finish talking out all the particulars, but I just decided to go ahead and make two illustrations for now, and if the particulars ever get fleshed out in the future, I'll do the official title card and illustration that more closely fits the story of the scene and overall feel that Paula would like to be depicted from the fic.
So these works are more a placeholder. I made these because it's always been in the back of my mind for 5 years now to complete the offer because that was 30 dollars donated with nothing given from my side to show for it. So at least now it has something to show for it even if it's not the official work that was supposed to be done.
WIP Screenshots:
This was the first sketch idea that I abandoned because I felt like I didn't know how to actually make it and Jared's face would be mostly hidden, which was not a good thing in my book. I succeed more with Jared's face than I do with Jensen. So I had no confidence going in for this idea:
I ended up settling for a sketch of mer!Jared in the water and then I later thought that just doing Jared wasn't fair so I made another canvas for a Jensen fisherman companion piece to the mer!Jared one. Also, I tried to make Jared look 14-ish because I was told Jensen was around 18 in the fic, but up to the view if the attempt translated well. And this is the wip of both of those:
The mer!Jared illustration obviously was more intricate so that process took longer and had more wip screenshots than the Jensen one. I admittedly was getting burnout when working on Jensen's so I took some shortcuts with the t-shirt decal and the bags and containers surrounding Jensen. I just found some images on google and traced them instead of eyeballing it which saved me time and effort that would have made the burnout worse to the point that I might have finishing this work a lot later than now. So I'm not upset or ashamed about doing it for that reason.
I started this project around Feb 8th this year and finished it all March 14th (today). And that's it for now. Thank you for getting this far and-
genuinely, supernatural's most impactful theme to me is the elevation of sam and dean's relationship not just to the same level of importance as any of their romantic relationships, but above them. that we are told time and time again that they will pick each other over any potential love interest, for better and for worse. it would have been extremely easy for the show to sideline that at any time, but it sticks to its guns all 15 seasons (even if the quality of the writing around it. suffers.) sam and dean are the most important people in each other's world, they are blatantly each other's chosen life partners: own a home — adopt a kid — go to heaven together. when they are paralleled to actual married couples, it's the show shaking you and going 'what they have is just as important as a marriage, as a romantic partnership. do not discount it because it is platonic. do not underestimate that love.' it is fantastic.
I drew this one a few months ago. I like the light in it. I don’t think the line of his chin works, though - it's too definite a line when it should fade to nothing because of the curving-away shape. Most of it I love, though, and really haven't much of a clue how it came out so well. Must have been in the zone, I suppose.
We know that one of Dean's trauma responses is selective mutism, and that Dean didn't talk for a year after his mother died. I think it would've been nice if we got a chance to see Dean's nonverbal episode on the show. After what traumatic event do you think Dean should have gone nonverbal again?
After Sam's death in season 2
After John's death
After his resurrection from Hell
After Sam's death in season 5
After Bobby's death
After Cas' death in season 7
After Charlie's death
After Cas and Crowley's deaths and Mary's disappearance in season 12
After being possessed by Michael
After Mary's death in season 14
After Cas' death and everyone's disappearance in season 15
