highfunctioningflailgirl

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Damage Control: 4x02 Are you there God? It's me, Dean Winchester

Bathroom sink vs. Sam’s head isn’t a fair fight, and Dean knows he should be more careful with his probably-concussed brother when he pulls him up from the dirty floor and manhandles him out of the gas station’s bathroom. Sam’s unsteady on his feet and a heap of uncoordinated limbs as Dean lugs him to the Impala, his inarticulate moans giving Dean cause to worry about a more serious head injury. But they have a vengeful ghost coming after them, so Dean bundles Sam into the passenger seat of the Impala and they haul ass.

He gives it a couple of miles until he pulls over for triage, letting the Impala idle, just in case.

“Sammy, you with me?” 

Sam’s got one hand clutching the left side of his head, eyes squinched shut.

“Hey! Sammy!” 

To Dean’s relief, his brother looks at him when he grabs his shoulder.

“Dude, don’t yell! I’m fine.” 

“Yeah? Lemme see.” 

Sam grunts reluctantly, but Dean won’t be deterred, and he peels Sam’s palm away from the injury. It’s not too bad, considering. A bruise is forming around his swelling left eye, and the blood’s coming from a small cut on his brow. Probably won’t even need stitches.

“You nauseous?” Dean asks, trying to see both of Sam’s eyes to check his pupils, but his brother swats him away, and it’s too dark in the car. 

“No. I’m fine, Dean, lay off me and drive! I… I really don’t want another run-in with a pissed-off Henriksen. Jeez, death really didn’t improve his mood.” He blinks cobwebs away.

Dean leans across Sam’s lap, opens the glove compartment and roots around in it for his pocket maglite.

“We’re not going any further until I’ve made sure you didn’t break your head.”

“Dean…”

“That was a hard knock - two, matter of fact, and I’m not risking driving you around with a brain- hah! Got it!” He’s found the small flashlight and flicks it on. “C’m here.”

Before he can shine it into Sam’s eyes, though, his brother stops him with a swipe of his hand. His eyes go round as he stares at something across Dean’s shoulder. “Dean…!”

“What?” 

“Rearview mirror.”

Dean swivels and stares. A thin coating of ice is forming on the rear view mirror. Simultaneously, the temperature in the car drops to freezing cold, and when Dean exhales, he can see the cloud  of his breath.

“Fuck.”

“Where-“ 

Something flickers in the back of the car, and when Dean turns his head, he sees the ghost of Victor Henriksen materializing in the back seat.

“Dean!” Sam yells. “Drive!”

Dean drops the flashlight into Sam’s lap, grabs the steering wheel, throws the Impala into Drive and floors it. It’s instinct more than common sense; ghosts don’t follow the laws of physics, and speeding away may or may not be entirely useless. But, for once, they get lucky: Henriksen’s translucent body gets sucked out of the car through the rear window as if fastened to strings. 

“Whoo!” Dean exclaims. A nervous grin of surprise flashes across his face. 

“I can’t believe that worked!” Sam gasp-laughs, ending on a wince. His headache must be murder.

They both keep casting anxious glances at the back seat while Dean pushes the Impala to sixty miles per hour and lets it hurtle down the deserted highway. The engine’s throaty roar feels reassuring. Dean’s rarely spooked by a ghost encounter anymore, but Henriksen? The guilt over the agent’s death still haunts him, and Sam, too, judging by the harried look on his face - although his concussion may have something to do with that as well. 

Dean had liked Henriksen, once the FBI agent had come around and stopped hunting them down like a bloodhound. The man had been determined, unafraid and relentless when it came to doing what was necessary - traits that would’ve made him a great hunter but turned him into an extremely dangerous vengeful spirit now. He wouldn’t give up. He’d come after them wherever they ran. Whatever this was, whatever was going on - they’d have to end it quickly, or Henriksen and his postmortem rage would find and kill them.  

Dean tries to relax his hands that are clamped around the steering wheel, white-knuckled. From the passenger seat, he hears his brother’s nervous voice: “I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him, Dean. This isn’t over.”

Shifting tensely, Dean lets his gaze flicker between the road, the rearview mirror and his worse-for-wear brother. “No, it’s not. But we’ll figure it out. Bobby’ll know what to do.”

Bobby.

Sudden fear tightens Dean’s throat. He’s in danger, just like they are. After decades of fighting the supernatural, God only knew how many pissed-off ghosts were lurking in the veil only waiting for a chance to get back at the old hunter. They’ve got to be lining up by now, for sure. Steering one-handed, Dean grabs his cell and speed-dials Bobby. He’s not picking up, and Dean’s heart stutters in his chest. When Dean showed up at Bobby’s after returning from hell and told the old man that he was the closest thing to a father he had, he wasn’t lying.

“Bobby’s not answering,” Dean says into the darkness of the car.

“We gotta hurry,” Sam comments gloomily from the passenger seat.

A shiver runs down Dean’s spine. ”I know.”

Sam still sounds groggy, and Dean is itching to check him out properly, but they don’t have the time. He’ll just have to triage his brother on the way.

Speed-dialing Bobby again, he floors the gas.

xxx

Many hours later, when they have figured it out and sent Henriksen and the other Witnesses back to wherever the hell they came from, Dean finds it very ironic that incorporeal beings can beat the shit out of corporeal ones. He remembers, from his own astral projection days, how difficult it was to even touch things when you were no longer existing on the material plane of reality. Ghosts, thin as mist, shouldn’t be able to hit you. They definitely shouldn’t pack a punch like that. 

But as they clean up the mess that Meg, the twins, Ronald and Henriksen made of Bobby’s study, Dean feels like someone ran over him with a truck, and, beside him, he hears Bobby grunt and moan like an octogenarian. Sam, too, is moving gingerly as he picks up books and debris, although, to Dean’s relief, his balance seems fine and his pupils (Dean checked) are equal and reactive. Kid had a skull made of steel. 

“You alright, Bobby?” Dean asks when he hears the older hunter groan and sees him painfully arch his back. 

“Crazy bitch tried to rip out my spine,” Bobby complains woefully. “Or my heart, can’t be sure. Wa’nt comfortable. But I’ll be fine, don’t worry.” He reaches for an uncapped bottle on his desk and takes a hearty swig, sighing with relief.

“Still, you should sit down,” Sam chimes in, leaning on his broom and resting for a second. “Dean and I’ve got this.”

Dean shoves the couch back into place with his thigh. “He’s right, you know?” he says, casually. “Nothin’ wrong with takin’ a knee while we finish this.” His own ribs and chest are sore as hell. After all, Meg tried to rip out his heart as well, but he’s not gonna bring that up. He’s had worse. So much worse. Shit, he’s had his heart ripped out of his chest for real in Hell. This? Child's play. “Come on, grab Johnny and take a seat.” He waves at the bottle and at Bobby’s creaky old desk chair that miraculously survived the rampage. “Start reading up on how to deal with the Apocalypse or something. Might come in handy.”

Sam winces at the mention of the end of the world, but he nods in agreement. “Yeah. I’ll help you dig into the lore as soon as we’re done. Why don’t you go and get a head start?”

Squinting, Bobby makes a sound somewhere between disgust and disgruntlement. “I’m not old yet, you know?” he grumbles, but, limping a little, he grabs the whiskey bottle and begins to walk past them, to his library. 

“And you better not touch the bottom drawer of my desk,” he warns them over his shoulder. “Might find yourself back a century or two if you do.”

Sam’s split brow arches when he exchanges a wondering look with Dean. “What the f-”

“We better not ask,” Dean waves him off. Bobby never ceases to amaze them, and he’s learned to accept that he’ll never hold a candle to the old hunter’s knowledge and skills. “Let’s just get on with this, or it’ll take all night.”

While Bobby hits the lore, they quickly and efficiently clean out the debris, re-stack Bobby’s books and paper piles and stow away the spell casting ingredients that are still usable. They work quietly, and Dean more than once suppresses a hiss when his ribs - cracked or not, who knows - complain about their recent abuse. Casting wary glances at his brother, Dean wonders if Sam is as shaken as he is. It doesn’t look that way. The appearance of the angel - if he really is an angel (Dean still doubts it) somehow seems to have put Sam at ease.  

To Dean’s bafflement, Sam’s always had faith. In spite of everything they’ve been through - or maybe because of it? - Sam always believed in God and Heaven. Dean remembers his little brother kneeling by their too-big motel bed when they were kids, praying. He also remembers their father’s anger when he caught Sam doing it. When they were on their own, their father off on a hunt, Sam would sometimes ask Dean if they could go to church. While Dean never saw the point, he sometimes gave in and took Sam. His kid brother’d had an imaginary friend as a child (What was his name again? Olli? Sully?). If praying for their father’s safety to some imaginary higher being gave Sammy comfort, Dean was not going to deny him that.

Dean has a hunch that, to this day, Sam’s held on to that faith. When Dean told him about that Castiel guy, and that he claimed he was an angel of the Lord, something lit up in Sam. He seemed calmer, surer. Even now, after barely surviving a serious haunting, after clear hints that the friggin’ Apocalypse is on them, Sam exudes reassurance while all Dean feels is doubt and - to be honest - fear. 

The Apocalypse. What does that even mean? Swarms of locusts, blood raining from the sky, the dead rising from the ground? All the horrific stuff that’s written in the Bible - it’s two thousand year old fiction, isn’t it? It can’t be real. They may have seen a lot of weird stuff in their lives, and it turned out that Hell was every bit as bad as advertised, but the Apocalypse?! The hairs on his arms are standing on end as he tells himself that, no, this can’t be happening. 

“You good?” Sam’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts. His brother, a trashbag in hand, throws him a questioning look. 

Dean realizes that he’s frozen mid-motion. “Uh…” he stammers. “No– … yeah, I mean.” He pulls a smirk across his face. “I’m fine. Just a little sore. You?”

Sam frowns but doesn’t prod. “I’m good.”

Of course he is. They both always are.

xxx

Sleep doesn’t come easy to Dean that night. Sam’s out like a light on the couch, somehow having folded his overgrown figure onto the old piece of furniture and still making it look comfortable. Bobby’s asleep upstairs or, rather, passed out drunk. Dean can hear him snore through the ceiling. 

Dean himself tosses and turns on the thin mat he’s rolled out on the floor, but it’s not the hard ground keeping him awake. He’s used to sleeping rough. In fact, sleeping in a real bed’s still something he’s getting used to again. In Hell, if he slept at all, he slept on the cold hard ground, and the softness of a mattress still feels foreign to him, unsteady, unreal. 

Hell. His memories, scattered at first, are returning with a vengeance now. Maybe the Witnesses triggered them. Or the thought of the Apocalypse approaching. Maybe his ability to shove things down and lock them up tight somewhere in a staunch part of him was eroded when the torture masters stripped him of everything. Even of his humanity. If the End of Days is coming, and if he dies in the melee, will he go back? Is his escape from Hell only a temporary reprieve?

Dean shudders, and his heart beats too loudly in his chest. His ribs protest when he rolls onto his side and repositions the pillow under his bruised cheek. Images flash behind his closed lids every time he closes his eyes. Blood red and searing, memories take him in a chokehold, scenes so violent that Dean himself barely believes they’re real. But he knows they are. As is the guilt that rolls through him in a black and shameful wave.

At some point in the night, he finally drops into exhausted slumber, his body demanding the rest his mind wants to deny him. It’s less like sleep and more like oblivion, empty and merciful. He doesn’t hear the quiet fluttering of wings when Castiel arrives. He doesn’t notice the angel approaching him with a frown on his face, displeased at seeing something broken that he only just fixed. Doesn’t sense the palm that hovers above his ribcage or see the bluish flow of grace that heals his cracked rib. The bruises on his body light up without him noticing before they fade away.

When he wakes up, before dawn, to find Castiel standing in Bobby’s kitchen, he will wonder at the absence of pain in his chest, but he won’t linger on it. Many strange things have happened in the last few days, and odds are even stranger ones are just about to begin. In any case, he has more important questions to ask, and it’s time for some answers.

The Damage Control Series Masterlist

Read the entire series on AO3 here:

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3886306

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Soldier Boy | The Boys 3x05 “Last Time To Look On This World Of Lies”

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Look what arrived today! My copy of The Art of Green & Blue by @winchester-reload. I am so happy and so amazed by your talent, JackieDeeArt!😍

(I’ve had a crap week and this is a beautiful band-aid.)

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Dean Winchester | 9x12 Sharp Teeth

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Jensen Ackles as Mark Meachum COUNTDOWN (2025) | 1.09 – “10-33”

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Oh, you sweet summer children. Let the elders tell you how gaming started out, fighting evil at the dawn of the 80s on a Commodore 64, pixel by pixel.

We were the pioneers secretly playing Wizard of Wor on our dads’ computers while our parents left us home alone.

also pls tag the first game you remember playing

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

HE'S SO FINE, SO GORGEOUS.

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Countdown || 10-33 (1.09)

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

"Aramis is my penance" is an actual sentence Athos canonically said. Just throwing it out there.

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

OMG... Amber and Mark, the way they look at each other. Screaming!!*

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Supernatural 11.10 | The Devil in the Details

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Prompts for AI-less Whumptober 2025

It was tough to pick from all you guys' amazing suggestions, but we managed to end up with a lovely list of prompts to work with, AND not a single repeat prompt from last year which we found quite important. Additional info + plain text versions of the prompts can be found under the cut.

FAQ and Rules

What sort of content can I create for this event?

You can create whatever you want (fic, art, edits, etc). Any fandom is allowed, as well as OC stuff. NSFW is allowed, but please tag your content accordingly! The only thing not allowed is AI-generated content.

Do I need to make 31 things to participate?

Oh heavens no! You can make as much or as little content as you like, skip days when desired, or combine prompts (so for example, write something that covers a prompt from day 1, 2, AND 3). You don't have to do the days in order either, go wild! To be considered a 'completionist', you only have to make sure that at the end of the month, you've covered 31 prompts from 31 different days, but whether you do that in 31 works or just 1 is up to you. Your works can be separate onshots or one continuous fic.

How do I interpret these prompts?

Creativity is the name of the game here! If you don't understand a prompt, feel free to send us an ask about it. However, the important thing is you're free to interpret the prompts however you want. For example, 'heat' could be literal (fever, heatstroke, burn wounds) or figurative (somebody getting heat for something). The dialogue prompts are allowed to be slightly rewritten to fit better for the character whose mouth it's coming out of. As long as you're having fun!

What are these alts about?

If none of the three prompts of a particular day are your cup of tea, you can swap them out for an alt prompt of your choice. This will count as having covered that day for completionists.

How do I tag and is there an AO3 collection?

It suffices to tag your work with #ailesswhumptober for us to see and reblog it! Please also tag nsfw, since we'll be using that tag too. Tagging the day is optional but does help the mods along.

There is an AO3 collection to add your fics to. It will be revealed and linked here closer to the start of the event.

That should be all. If you have any additional questions, check our pinned or hit us up in the ask box. Or join our discord maybe, whumping can be a great group activity!

---

Plain text versions of the prompts:

October 1

Collapsed lung, Contusion, "Well, that shouldn't have happened."

October 2 

Amputation, Gunshot, "It's not worth your life!"

October 3 

Secondary drowning, Compartment syndrome, "Please don't leave me!”

October 4

Frostbite, Heat, "I can make it all better."

October 5

Torture, Withholding aid, "How do you want me to punish you?"

October 6 

Self-inflicted injury, Rocky recovery, "If I tell you what they made me do, you won't be able to look at me the same."

October 7

Starvation, Foodborne illness, "They put something in my system, I can't think straight."

October 8

Hit and run, Adrenaline, “I can’t stop!”

October 9

Emotional manipulation,  Cassandra truth, “You asked for this.”

October 10 

Blood poisoning, Hypoxia, "What were you thinking?"

October 11

Sleep deprivation, Whiplash, “Be careful, they’re watching us.”

October 12

Dislocation, Dizziness, “Don’t pass out on me.”

October 13 

Ransom, Tranquilizer, "I trusted you!"

October 14 

Self-surgery, Unconsciousness, "Look who's awake."

October 15

Came back wrong, Cannibalism, "You weren't supposed to die first."

October 16

Leashed, Painful shapeshifting, "Hold them down."

October 17

Drug side effects, Desperation, "It's fine, I can walk it off."

October 18

Captivity, Loss of powers, "Do you even know how to use that?"

October 19

Broken bone, blood loss, "When I finish patching you up I swear to god I'm gonna kick your ass for making me worry about you."

October 20

Irredeemable, Before it starts/After it's over, "I didn't react the way I should have, I'm sorry."

October 21

Stranded, Search and rescue, "You really think they're gonna look for you?"

October 22

Estranged, Changed dynamic, “Who did this to you?!”

October 23

Restraints, Obsession, “Aren’t you feisty?”

October 24

Denial, Working through the pain, “What have you done to yourself?”

October 25

Magical bind, Pinned down, "And what do we have here?"

October 26

Defanging/Declawing, pulled feathers, “This should teach you to behave next time.”

October 27

Sensory overload, Catatonic, "Don't pretend to understand."

October 28

Hospital/Doctor’s visit, Medical power of attorney, "Why can't I remember?"

October 29

Childhood trauma, Guilt, "I didn't mean to."

October 30

Cleaning injuries, Labored breathing, “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

October 31

Body horror, Enucleation, "I am the monster you made me!"

Alt prompts:

1) Mutation

2) Knife/Gun to the throat

3) Nonhuman pet whumpee

4) Chronic condition

5) No-win scenario

6) Blinded

7) Memory trigger

8) Mercy

9) "This isn't how I wanted you to find out."

10) “Get yourself out of here! I’ll be fine.”

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Jensen ‘Where there’s a wind machine there’s a Michael Jackson moment waiting to happen’ Ackles every one:

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

You know, my whole life, I always believed that what we do was important. No matter what the cost, no matter who we lost, whether it was Dad or – or Bobby or –. And I would take the hit. But I kept on fighting because I believed that we were making the world a better place. And now Mom and Cas… And I – I don’t know. I don’t know. I just need a win. I just need a damn win.

SUPERNATURAL 13.05 Advanced Thanatology

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Started a new show 😁

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

He just did it. *swoosh*

On my BBC Musketeers rewatch I suddenly remembered how in this fight scene Tom Burke is fully just wearing Nikes.

The rare and exquisite 17th century Nikes.

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Jensen Ackles | Men's Health, July 21, 2025