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hellomynameisbisexual · 2 years ago

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It is 2018 and I am sitting in the Neptune Theatre, Halifax, Canada. I’m watching the Canadian premiere of the musical theatre adaptation of The Color Purple directed by Kimberley Rampersad—the first time the show has been directed by a black woman. It is also the first-ever positive representation of my own sexuality that I have been able to witness in the form that I have spent almost two decades studying, researching, and writing about: musical theatre. As I watch the character of Shrug Avery (Karen Burthwright) delight in the fluidity of her own sexual desire, a desire above and beyond gender, it feels like a space has been made. I’m crying but it’s complicated. Joy? Sadness? Recognition?

I am writing from the perspective of a bisexual+ cis-gendered white British woman, so it is important to note the many kinds of privilege that shape the experiences I am talking about, especially when addressing this musical. The Color Purple (2005) is especially important in the space it makes for PoC, and women of color. This has been written about both in reference to the musical (Edney; Lovelock) and the novel (Bealer), and by Alice Walker herself. For me, it is the first time I have seen what it is to be bisexual on a stage, while I recognize this musical does many more important things than that in connection to race and sexuality. Its powerful story makes ripples.

***

In June 2000, about a month after I finished my secondary education in a small school in mid-Wales, the infamous “Section 28” (a British law that banned the “promotion” of homosexuality, introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1988) was repealed, first in Scotland and three years later in the rest of the UK. I would like to say I remember this event, but I don’t. If I even knew about it at the time, it would have been because my parents’ copy of the Daily Mail was “Cross and Appalled.” It was almost always cross and/or appalled, though, so it doesn’t stick out in my memory. I don’t even remember when I first heard the word bisexuality. It certainly wouldn’t have been at school, because Section 28 had made it illegal for schools to discuss LGBTQ+ lifestyles, as it would risk promoting them. The teaching of the “acceptability of homosexuality” was explicitly forbidden by Section 28 from 1988 to 2000, while bisexuality was not even mentioned (UK Local Government Act 1988).

Even in my early twenties, when I joined a dating site and ticked the box “interested in men and women,” I still didn’t really identify as bisexual because I don’t think I even understood that was ever an option for me. Bisexuals were the people who hadn’t made up their minds . . . right? And then to cap it all off, I fell in love with a man who I married within a year of meeting, so I had to hand in my badge of not quite knowing how I fitted in. Some fifteen years later I am still married to him, and my relationship has given me huge amounts of privilege (we could get married; when and if I’d have fallen in love with a woman at the same time we would have to have waited until

2014 to do the same; if I’d have fallen in love with a nonbinary person, we still could not in a way that recognized both of our gender identities). But despite these many privileges that I have clearly benefited from, my innate queerness did not simply go away.

***

Late June 2016. I am at the Circle in the Square Theatre, New York City, watching Beth Malone and Michael Cerveris in Fun Home play the characters of Alison Bechdel and her father in a car. The mass murder at Pulse Nightclub, an LGBTQ+ hate crime targeted at the Latinx community, had taken place on June 12th. Everything hangs heavy in the air. That week I had stood behind a cordon, watching the Pride march being led by elders in the community, carrying photographs of the forty-nine victims. Like many of the queer people in the audience of Fun Home, I cried, heaving sobs. When the house lights come back on the theatre is full of red-eyed people who get it, nodding in encouragement.

***

It is September 2016 and I now try to acknowledge my queerness in front of students when studying representations of sexuality in musical theatre. I hear myself say, “I’m speaking as a bisexual woman.” After one of these classes a student excitedly approaches me and says, “You’re the first ever bi grown-up I’ve ever met in real life!” All of this matters and it keeps mattering. I was encouraged by a colleague, a lecturer who as a gay man advocates for LGBTQ+ student experiences. At the LGBTQ+ research group that he runs, I heard depressingly similar school experiences from students finishing school twenty years after I did, and after the end of Section 28. There are some more positive ones, but with the difference that these undergraduates know the word bisexuality in a way I did not in 2000.

Each time I repeated the words, I became more convinced that not only is being bisexual part of my identity, but more importantly, being out as a bisexual could be a positive experience for all my students, and especially my LGBTQ+ ones. To be clear, bisexuality+ is used as an overarching term for a group of named descriptions that people may use to communicate their identity—one of the most used of these terms is pansexual. All of these terms suggest a person who is attracted to people of more than one gender—a person who is in effect not monosexual (attracted to one gender). While people may use bisexual or pansexual to best identify their own sexuality, bisexuality+ as a theoretical concept is a useful tool proposed by Surya Monro to employ the word bisexual as a “strategic move that overlooks the binary composition of the word” (2).

In the UK, the Office of National Statistics found that people ages 16–24 are more likely to identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual than any other age group (4.4 percent against a national average of 2.2 percent): within that subsection a larger group identify as bisexual rather than specifically gay or lesbian. In my own age bracket, only 0.6 percent of people identify as bisexual (ages 35–49).

Despite what is a growing identification with bisexuality+ to name our sexual identities, myths and misconceptions about bisexuality continue to shape how the “B” in the LGBTQ+ identities are represented in popular culture. Bisexuals are confused, “halfway to gay,” promiscuous, greedy. . . . I mean, some of us might be, I can’t be left alone with a selection box. But chocolates are not people.

Invisible Bisexuality in Musicals from 2000 to 2020

While all LGBTQ+ people suffer from “minority stress” (Meyer), bisexuals have a uniquely poor experience because they are the target of distrust from both the heterosexual and homosexual

communities (Brewster and Moradi). One major Australian study notes the widespread and “con- sistent evidence that bisexual people have poorer mental health than heterosexual people, gay men or lesbians” (Taylor et al.); this also has been addressed in terms of intersectional oppressions (Dyar et al.). The invisibility of bisexuality in popular culture has very real consequences to an oppressed community.

Maria San Filipo, in her important study of representations of bisexuality in popular culture, argues that it is “both visible and invisible . . . due to the slippage between its representational pervasiveness and the alternating measures of tacit acceptance, disidentification, or disavowal that render bisexuality discursively un(der)spoken” (4). Mainstream musicals—that is to say, Broadway and West End commercially orientated musicals—have tended to minimize bisexual content even in material that openly acknowledges bisexual desire. Just as Steven Spielberg’s movie adaptation of The Color Purple (1985) removes the bisexual utopian possibility from Walker’s 1982 novel, several productions of the musical since its 2005 premiere have emphasized the relationship between Shrug and Celie as that of sisters. Bisexuality is, to borrow from San Filipo, rendered “underspoken” (ibid.).

The removal of bisexual desire is common in musicals, even in that contemporary behemoth, Hamilton (2015). Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton may not look or sound like the mega- musicals of the 1980s, but its success echoes the scale of the phenomenon of shows like Cats (1981) and Les Misérables (1985). Hamilton is based on Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography of its eponymous politician, the first treasurer of the United States and a prolific writer and thinker. The musical uses traditional Broadway storytelling to dramatize the struggle between two men, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, both trapped in personal and political rivalries. Hamilton owes a notable debt to Les Mis, since both shows tell epic stories about two men locked in a conflict that will only be resolved by the death of one of them. Just as in Les Mis where we see Valjean and Javert’s moral battle play out over the decades condensed into two acts, admittedly quite long ones, Hamilton traces the two men’s respective rise and fall over a thirty-year period. The main tension is not in the “will they/ won’t they” of a romance or sexual tension, but rather in the unfolding of their relationship that the audience already knows will end in disaster (fig. 1).

Fig. 1. “The Bisexual Flag and Alexander Hamilton.” (Source: © Mat Dalgleish.)

Of course, there is a straight love story in the musical—the marriage between Eliza Schuyler and Alexander, and his attachment to her sister, presented as his intellectual equal. However, there is another love story that is barely noticeable in the musical, albeit something that bisexual fan com- munities have responded to: namely, the physical and emotional attraction between Hamilton and his close friend and fellow aide-de-camp to George Washington, John Laurens. Their friendship is documented in letters that have been the focus of discussions about whether there ever was a roman- tic or sexual relationship between the two. Clearly, the idea of a bisexual character in this musical offers the tantalizing possibility of putting us in “The Room Where It Happens”—at the center of a Broadway musical. It is clearly ahistorical to suggest that such physical or emotional desire would have made a person identify as bisexual in the mid-eighteenth century. However, Hamilton as the character in the musical has been confirmed as bisexual by the author of the musical.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, its composer, lyricist, and performer, is a celebrity in his own right, with an extensive social media presence and around 3 million followers on Twitter––something he uses both for social activism and musical theatre nerdery. He is essentially a hero for musical theatre geeks everywhere. In 2015, when doing an impromptu Q&A with his followers while waiting at an airport for a connection, Miranda responded to a question about whether he thought Hamilton could have “maybe been bi” by replying, “Yeah. Read those letters man.” For bisexual people this is a complex feeling, because to be seen and at the same time not seen really hurts. Despite the throwaway nature of tweets in general, never mind tweets sent from airport lounges in one-off Q&As, the complete disregard of how it actually feels to be bisexual and constantly outside of the story is painful. The creator of a cultural phenomenon, which will be around for decades to come, says, “Yes, Hamilton was bisexual,” but that is not included in the musical itself. There is more to say here in the staging

of Laurens and Hamilton and the argument that it does show some kind of love story; however, this is something I am currently writing about at more length elsewhere (forthcoming). For now, I wanted to consider the stakes of erasure in comparison to musicals that do actually feature prominently bisexual characters, because it can feel easy to dismiss those who say “#representationmatters” as stereotypical keyboard activists. But to have the tantalizing possibility of being seen and understood in the form of theatre you love the most and for it not to happen . . . breaks my heart.

Problematic Representations

There are bisexuals in musical theatre, it’s just that many musicals have featured them through well-worn tropes about bisexuals. The dangerously detailed TvTropes lists a number of stereotypes around bisexuality that also appear in musicals, such as “Depraved Bisexuality” (the bisexual villain); “Anything that Moves” (the greedy bisexual); “Suddenly-Sexuality”; or perhaps the rarest trope, “Bi- the-Way” (a character whose bisexuality is incidental to the story).

Anything that Moves as a trope has underpinned many bisexual representations in musicals. While this might be an accurate representation for some bisexuals, we are not inherently non- monogamous and/or insatiable. It has also been used to imply that bisexuality is indicative of sexual impropriety––of a society or culture that does not have tight moral controls on who can have sex with whom. The character’s bisexuality only exists as a shorthand to communicate sexual excess.

Perhaps the most famous example of this is The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1973), which, through the genre of a sci-fi B-movie-style musical, presents a radical version of relaxed sexual behavior. Although in the musical Frank-N-Furter could be read as a “depraved bisexual,” it is worth bearing in mind that he is also an alien who gets vaporized by another alien at the end of the musical (namely, by Riff Raff). His desire for humans, specifically for the buttoned up all-American preppy inno- cents Janet and Brad, is part of the musical’s broader representation of sexual excess rather than any detailed representation of bisexuality. However, it is worth noting that Richard O’Brien, who wrote the book, music, and lyrics of the musical, identifies as bisexual, and has explained that he used the aliens purposefully to show the exclusion of non-heterosexual and heteronormative people (Jones).

Some productions of Cabaret (1966) have similarly used bisexuality to indicate times of sexual freedom: the musical is set in the last days of the Weimar Republic in Berlin. In all versions of the story, there is a character who acts as an audience conduit, the writer (originally Cliff and renamed Brian for the movie). He shows us into this simultaneously glamorous, depraved, and dangerous world. The author of the semi-autobiographical memoirs upon which the musical is based, Christo- pher Isherwood, was a gay man. However, in both the 1972 movie and the 1993 Broadway revival directed by Sam Mendes, the Cliff/Brian character is explicitly bisexual. Cliff’s importance to the overall story is fairly minimal, and reviewer Ben Brantley wrote that he “remains one of those artist- as-cipher characters that it’s hard to do much with.” Cabaret demonstrates the By-the-Way culture, again, rather than making bisexuality central to the plot.

In Jonathan Larson’s rock musical Rent (1994), the then-edgy cast of characters includes the Anything that Moves kind of bisexual, Maureen. She never explicitly identifies as bisexual; we are simply told that she has had many relationships with men and women. In fact, this is one of the first things we know about her, because we hear about it before we even meet her through the frustrations of her current girlfriend Joanne (Fredi Walker) and her ex-boyfriend Mark (Anthony Rapp). Together, they sing the “Tango: Maureen,” expressing jealous frustration at Maureen’s sexual antics, setting up our expectations for a character who is both an untrustworthy nightmare and a diva. We are told she cannot be content in a monogamous relationship; both Mark and Maureen complain about her cheating. When Maureen (Idina Menzel) does appear and sings about her relationship in “Take Me or Leave Me” (a duet with Joanne), she joyfully sings that she is who she is, attractive to both men and women. While bisexuality is not named, Maureen fulfills the trope of the greedy bisexual who will inevitably break the hearts of those who love her, because she is incapable of monogamy. Whether this is due to Maureen’s character or her sexuality is not exactly clear, although the fact that Maureen and Joanne are allowed a relationship in the 1994 musical is an important step forward.

Toward Positive Role Models and Better Representations?

Part of the problem is that showing multiple kinds of sexual desire either requires a direct mention in the plot, perhaps some kind of coming-out song, or the inclusion of sexual attraction to people of more than one gender in the story. The musical If/Then (2014) has the perfect structure for representing bisexuality in its “what-if ” story, which runs two simultaneous timelines in Elizabeth’s life (also played by Idina Menzel). In one timeline, the character of Lucas has a relationship with a woman, and in the other with a man. The casting calls to Rent, since Lucas is played by Anthony Rapp and Elizabeth by Menzel. Elizabeth is dismissive of Lucas’s sexuality, telling him that it is equivalent to being a political independent. However, Lucas does get to have loving relationships in both timelines, and he addresses his own bisexuality in “Some Other Me”: “I found myself a woman, or a man, and had a son.” Again, it is not perfect, but it is some kind of representation.

Being bisexual doesn’t mean that your love story is necessarily complicated or tragic. You don’t have to have had lots of relationships or even have had sex with people of other genders to qualify. To be representative, musicals do not have to portray some kind of tangled or torrid affair; they have to include bisexual characters as part of the story, and those characters should have believable inner lives. It should not be a throwaway joke either, as in Be More Chill’s (2015) final scenes, which makes bisexuality “the butt of the joke” (Clarke); or in Groundhog Day (2016), with Phil’s throwaway gag that he was so bored in his endless day in Punxsutawney that he slept one time with a guy.

There are more positive bisexual characters in contemporary television from the same period, but these roles can be limited. Meyer notes that bisexual women characters of color like Callie Tor- res (Grey’s Anatomy) and Anna Tagaro (One Tree Hill) “serve to stabilize heterosexuality and open discourse for White characters” (675). One important exception to this may be the sensitive way in which Brooklyn 99 worked with bisexual cast member Stephanie Beatriz, to show the character

she plays, Rosa Diaz, coming out as bi to her colleagues. Beatriz reflected that “the main thing for me was that the character said ‘bisexual’ and that she said it so many times” (qtd. in Jung). Bisexual characters, where their sexual identities are part though not all of their stories, are becoming more prominent in television; for example, Eleanor Shellstrop in The Good Place, Adam in Jane the Virgin, and Toni Topaz and Cheryl Blossom in Riverdale.

Television musicals have written inclusive bisexual stories, such as Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015) including three bisexual characters, Maya, Valencia Perez, and Darryl Whitefeather. While Darryl does sing the fantastic coming out number “Getting Bi,” Maya mentions in passing during that song that she is also bisexual, and Valencia is seen in relationships with both men and women. Some musicals bridge this genre gap; for example, the YouTube and stage success Team Starkids, with Firebringer (2016), which features characters with sexually fluid desires.

In turn, stage musicals are shifting toward more accurate representations of bisexuality. Bare: A Musical (2012) reflects a teenage experience of sexuality and can be read as coming to terms with being bisexual through Jason’s song “Once Upon a Time” and “A Role of a Lifetime.” This is particularly notable because the potential bisexual reading is an addition, since the musical is a revi- sion of the earlier Bare: A Pop Opera (2000), in which Jason is closeted as gay but in a relationship with a woman. More recently, & Juliet (2019), currently in the West End, features François, who is pansexual, as a central character and love interest for Juliet, who has survived her escapades with Romeo. Writer Max Martin explained that “it was really important to me that our cast of characters reflect the diversity of the world around us as much as possible, and that included gender, age, body type, ethnicity, and sexual orientation” (qtd. in Connelly).

***

It is March 2020 and new musical theatre events are quickly being cancelled. Years of work are on pause for a while as the world’s arts scene is on lockdown and we all stay safe indoors at home. Last month, although it feels like a lifetime ago, my students performed at an LGBTQ+ concert at the University of Wolverhampton. Some of them sang their own work, as in the case of Abbie Cobden, who sang a song from a musical she is writing called “Give Me a Label” with music by James Lovelock. They have kindly agreed to share it here:

In a space where there were so few representations of bisexuality, much is changing quickly and queer stories are taking center stage. Importantly, many of these stories are about QPoC. Two new musicals in development of note include Interstate (forthcoming) by Kit Yan and Melissa Li, which features queer and trans characters, and Asian Pirate Musical (2020) by Nemo Martin and Zhui Ning Chang, with its queer space revolutionaries.

There are two bisexual and pan characters in the British musical The Phase, currently in devel- opment, by Meg McGrady and Zoe Elle Morris. It was meant to be shown at BEAM2020 but the event was cancelled because of Covid-19. You can learn about its development in this video of its song, “Sex Education.” Twenty years later, the song mentions that Section 28 is no longer in effect, adding, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t see its effects.” As new musicals tell better stories about the bisexual community, each moment of inclusion still matters and makes a space for the next.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Meg McGrady, Joe Geoghan, Abbie Cobden, James Lovelock, Nemo Martin, Mat Dalgleish, Emily Beaman, Joash Musundi, Kirsty Sedgman, and Emily Garside.

Works Cited

Bealer, Tracy L. “Making Hurston’s Heroine Her Own: Love and Womanist Resistance in The Color Purple.” Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Ed. Kheven LaGrone. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill/Rodopi, 2009. 23–42. Print.

Brantley, Ben. “Theater Review: Desperate Dance at Oblivion’s Brink.” New York Times. 20 Mar. 1998. Web. Brewster, Melanie E., and Bonnie Moradi. “Perceived Experiences of Anti-Bisexual Prejudice: Instrument

Development and Evaluation.” Journal of Counseling Psychology 57.4 (2010): 451–68. Print.

Clarke, David. “Musical Adaptation for ‘Be More Chill’ Is Fun, But Troubled.” Out. 13 Mar. 2019. Web.

Connelly, William J. “& Juliet Is Max Martin’s New Musical Boldly Giving Queer People a Voice.” Gay Times. 13 Nov. 2019. Web.

Dyar, C., et al. “Physical Health Disparities across Dimensions of Sexual Orientation, Race/Ethnicity, and Sex: Evidence for Increased Risk Among Bisexual Adults.” Archives of Sexual Behavior 48.1 (2018): 225–42. Print.

Edney, Kathryn. “Adapting and Integrating: The Color Purple as Broadway Musical.” Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Ed. Kheven LaGrone. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill/Rodopi, 2009. 225–47. Print.

Jones, M. F. “Richard O’Brien: Lucky Man.” Exeunt Magazine. 10 Jan. 2013. Web.

Jung, E. Alex. “Stephanie Beatriz’s Bisexual Awakening, Onscreen and Off.” Vulture. 21 May 2018. Web.

Lovelock, James. “'What about Love?': Claiming and Reclaiming LGBTQ+ Spaces in Twenty-First Century Musical Theatre.” Reframing the Musical: Race, Culture and Identity, edited by Sarah Whitfield, London: Red Globe Press, 2019, pp. 187–209. Print.

McGrady, Meg, and Zoe Elle Morris. “The Phase Musical: Our Journey to Beam 2020.” 27 Mar. 2020. Web.

Meyer, Ilan H. “Prejudice, Social Stress, and Mental Health in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Populations: Conceptual Issues and Research Evidence.” Psychological Bulletin 129.5 (2003): 674–97. Print.

Miranda, Lin-Manuel. “Yeah. Read Those Letters Man.” Twitter @lin_manuel. 26 May 2015. Web.

Monro, Surya. Bisexuality: Identities, Politics, and Theories. Genders and Sexualities in the Social Sciences. Palgrave, 2015. Print.

Office for National Statistics. “Sexual Orientation, UK 2018.” 3 June 2020. Web.

San Filippo, Maria. The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television. Indiana University Press, 2013. Print.

Taylor, Julia; Power, Jennifer; Smith, Elizabeth; and Rathbone, Mark. “Bisexual Mental Health: Findings from the ‘Who I Am’ Study.” Australian Journal of General Practice, 48.3 (March 1, 2019): 138–44. https://doi.org/10.31128/AJGP-06-18-4615. Print.

Whitfield, Sarah K. “Putting Bisexuals in ‘The Room Where It Happens’: The Hamilton Fandom’s Fight for Bisexual+ Representation.” Theatre Fandom. Ed. Kirsty Sedgman (forthcoming 2021).

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caplanbuckybarnes · 17 days ago

Text

In The Lonely Shadows (2/2) Dean W.

Summary: Crowely's always there to help convince you everything's going to be okay after Dean leaves with Lisa & Ben.

the first part of this was requested by my beloved wife @midnight-moonlight-and-mars sometime back in March.

Request: I've got a Crowley request! It can be platonic or romantic. It takes place the year Sam is resurrected and dean is living with Lisa. The reader was close with the Winchesters but after the fight with Lucifer dean abandoned the reader to be with Lisa and cas never answers ( unrequited love maybe?) so the reader teams up with Crowley and becomes like a bounty hunter for him for Lucifer loyalists.

A/N: It's technically not Crowley x reader since she's pining for Dean. Oops, but I hope you enjoy this all the same, my love.

A/N #2: people were rabid about asking me for a part two. So please, enjoy!

WC: 1.7K

Warnings: mentions of loneliness, and blood, the reader feels abandoned and unloved, crowley’s nice, dean returns. sassy & protective crowley

[READ PART ONE HERE]

Read on Ao3!

Dean watched as your chest heaved up and down with every breath you took. The wind was howling outside, with rain pouring down. He was only partially soaked, having run for cover under teh pitiful awning above your hotel door. A suitcase was tucked into one hand and a backpack filled with supplies slung over the shoulder. He'd wanted to say goodbye before he left. But he couldn't. He was a coward, after all. He'd had a few visits from Castiel and Crowley, neither of them saying a word about you.

Though, he asked. He hasn’t spoken a word about Sam, either. The horror of watching Sam fall into the pits of Hell with Adam devastated him. So he ran away. He ran away to the person who would get him away from the hunter’s life, Lisa and Ben. He played pretend for as long as he possibly could.

Until he couldn’t keep up with the facade anymore. All he did was think about you, and the life the pair of you could have had. He’d find himself hovering over your name in his cellphone but never pressing the call button. Oftentimes, he’s stay up late at night, while Lisa laid peacefully next to him sleeping. He knew he couldn’t lie to her forever about what - or who - truly had his heart.

Oftentimes, when he dreamed, it was about you, your face and your hands wrapped tightly in his as you started behind him on hunts. Thats what he loved about you the most, how much you trusted him to protect you.

So months after he departed, he located you in this dingy motel, where rodents and garbage littered the parking lot, and a few street lamps flickered dangerously in this damned storm. He’d gotten a replacement key to your room, claiming to the sketchy old man at the kiosk that he was your husband and you didn’t leave the key outside for him. So, on the threshold of the hotel room is where he stood, his fight or flight response kicking in the moment he laid eyes on you again.

He hadn’t seen you in months, far too long. But not long enough to forget the way your cheeks puffed out while you were embarrassed or the way your hair always fell into your face when you’d laugh at his stupid jokes. He couldn’t forget the way you would shuffle into his warmth at night, either.

God, did he miss the way you infected all of his clothing with your perfumes.

He hesitantly stepped into the room, only to stop midway through in almost a panic. What if you moved on? What if you didn’t want to see him? What if you shot him? He wondered at that moment if you held any protection on you, or if you’d thrown all of it away.

But he took the chance anyway and stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind him quietly. He quietly toed out of his shoes and turned around before fully surveying the room. He couldn’t see any other person’s belongings in the room, so he assumed you were indeed alone.

Nervously, he tiptoed to the bed and studied your face for a long moment. He remembered everything about you-- your eyelashes, the dimple on your cheek. He wanted to reach out to you, nearly stopping himself as he felt his arm move without his command. He brushed his fingers against your cheek before he knew what he was doing and stepped back as your eyes had flung open in terror.

“Y/N,Y/N, it’s me, it’s Dean,” he said, reaching behind him for the pistol he always carried with him, though, he would never attempt to hurt you in any sort of way. “Hey, hey.”

“Dean?” you blinked through the darkness of the room. You must have been sleeping. Because you thought you heard Dean’s voice. And you thought you seen him standing mere inches away from where you slept on the bed.

Before he could get the chance to respond, another voice filled the room, a voice you’d come to recognize and acknowledge throughout these last few months.

“She doesn’t need you, Squirrel. She’s doing great without you.” Crowley’s voice echoed in the small room.

Pulling yourself into a sitting position on the bed, you wiped at your eyes before switching your gaze between the pair in front of you. Crowley had been watching you over the weeks, which you had grown weirdly accustomed to, so it was no surprise that he had appeared out of the blue. What had startle you, was the other man standing mere inches away from you. If you just lifted your arm a few inches, you would be able to clasp your hands together.

“You left her high and dry after Moose had fallen into the depths of Hell, where, mind you, he’s been shacking it up with Lucifer. You should hear the agonies and woes from him.”

You could see the agitated twitch in Dean’s cheekbones, even in the poor excuse of light shining through the cracked window curtains.

“But now, back to the matter at hand, hmm?” Crowley snapped his fingers, and the two-night lamps turned on, casting the room in sudden brightness that none of you was prepared for.

“How’s Lisa and Ben?” Crowley smirked as Dean looked entirely uncomfortable at the jabs. “Didn’t want to be a family man anymore, huh? Did she decide she didn’t want your baggage?”

“It’s none of your business, Crowley,” Dean quipped. He snuck a look towards you and almost melted at the sight of tears in your eyelids. He wanted to erase the heartbreak he had caused you. He wanted to erase the pain away from you.

He only wanted you to forgive him. He wanted you and only you. He wished he hadn’t run off after Sam had gone to Hell, but he was broken and insecure. He was scared that you would leave him as well, so he did the only thing he could think of doing at the time: He ran away.

He begged for Lisa to forgive him, and she did. She took him in immediately, even after he explained all that went down with Lucifer and Adam and Sam. She took care of him. And for a while, he could forget all the pain. He could mourn the loss of his brother in peace. But there had always been a hole in his heart that Lisa nor ben would veer be able to fill.

He hadn’t known it at the time until he had sat up the night before and wallowed in misery after having nothing but dreams and nightmares about you for months.

“No harsh words, Not Moose?” Crowley taunted as he took a step toward you, causing Dean to nearly topple backwards onto the bed you were still sitting on. “No quips? Nothing? What do you have to say for yourself? Because while you were playing house, I was left to pick up the piece of her broken heart! How noble of you. Leave her behind to wallow in misery, and now what? You expect her to swoon because you're back? Pathetic."”

You never thought you would see the day when the king of hell would be red in the face at the Winchesters. But here he was, pointing a threatening finger in Dean’s direction while the other man looked like a kicked puppy.

You wanted Crowley to stop the insults at Dean. But the fact that he was protecting you in this way meant so much to you. You never knew how much Crowley actually cared about you.

"I bet she’s just thrilled to have you back. Nothing says 'I care' like a good old-fashioned abandonment, right?" Crowley scoffed.

“Crowley, enough,” you sighed as you finally pushed the duvet away from your body and stood up, causing Dean to look at you with hope. With your request, Crowley quieted down, though he didn’t cease the glare or scowl on his features. Ignoring him, you took a breath, taking Dean’s height in stride. “So, what? You show up at my doorstep and nearly scare me to death, for what?”

“I was wrong,” Dean swallowed, blinking slowly as tears piled against his eyelids. “I never should have left you the way i had. You were mourning Sam as well, and I was a coward for leaving you. I never once stopped thinking about you. I never once let you out of my mind. Lisa knew it, Ben knew it.’

“I’m not forgiving you, Dean.” you held your ground, even as you had to wipe the tears away from your cheeks. “How could I forgive you? Do you know what the hell I’ve been through? You weren’t the only one to lose a brother, you know? Sam was my family as well.”

He opened his mouth, only for you to cut him off.

“It’s been fourteen months, Dean—fourteen long, terrible months. I celebrated Sam’s birthday without you. I celebrated your birthday without you. Crowley was the only one to check with me. Do you know he saved me from death on numerous occasions? That could have been you.”

He looked utterly defeated at the mention of the birthday celebrations. He could only imagine you singing to yourself with some cheap cake and a gas station lighter, wishing for the family you once held as you blew out the candles.

“Dean, I don’t know whether to hit you, kiss you, or put a bullet in you.” you scowled, pushing past him to walk over to the bathroom to wash your face. Leaving the door open, you heard Dean shuffle around Crowley to get to you again.

“I can’t leave you, not again. Never again,” he watched your reflection as you grabbed for a hand towel and wiped the water from your face.

Glaring at him momentarily, you sighed heavily before turning around and leaning against the counter. “Crowley will kill me for this. But I can’t help but think that I’m still in love with you. We can talk more about this in the morning. I had a long few weeks, and I’m absolutely exhausted.”

Eagerly, Dean followed you out of the bathroom, barely noticing Crowley’s absence as he tucked you into the bed before he climbed in himself.

**totally up for a part three IF people want it. So please, please, please, if you enjoyed this reblog this & leave comments.