#THIS POST IS NOT AN INVITATION FOR WINCESTIES TO GET WEIRD

[jackandclairearesiblings]

Every damn day with this show

[missroserose]

Summertime Thing

Okay, so really I should be working on the first chapter of this (which I actually have a hard deadline for on the 18th, sorta—more on that later), but I promised @laveracevia and @redmyeyes and @notwhatiam (and also an anonymous Tumblr person) that I'd post the bullet point outline for my angsty wincesty teen Sam novel so here it is, all three-thousand-plus words of it. Still tentative and with a fair amount to fill in, but that's what makes it an outline. (Has anyone yet beatified the SPN showrunners for setting the bar for research so ridiculously low? Praise be unto them! 😂) So, without further ado:

• It’s the summer of 1999 and Sam is sixteen.

• They’re living in rural Arizona for the summer, in a little town in the Chiricahua Mountains called Bisbee that I definitely didn’t live in for three years.

• Bisbee’s a weird place. It used to be a wealthy mining town, but in the ‘70s the company pulled out and the economy crashed. Some of the residents are old mining families, some are old hippies and artists who moved there due to the picturesque scenery and bargain-basement real estate, some are early baby boomers looking for an inexpensive place to retire. There's a surprising amount of live music, an absolutely thriving conspiracy scene, and the local police blotter is a smorgasbord of weirdness.

⁃ John picked it because it’s the county seat (which means lots of local records) with cheap housing and residents who don’t ask too many questions. Dean loves it because it’s straight out of the a Western—several famous movies filmed on Main Street, and the theme-park-town of Tombstone is half an hour’s drive away. Sam hates it, but in fairness, Sam kind of hates everything right now.

• Sam’s getting regular beatdowns with the puberty bat—he’s growing what feels like an inch a week, his voice is randomly cracking, he’s ravenously hungry all the time, and his moods go from happy-go-lucky kid to moody teen to full-on young-adult angst on the turn of a dime.

• Most terrifying of all, his relationship with Dean is fracturing. Dean can tell he’s having a hard time of things, of course, and tries his best to cheer Sam up. Sometimes they get on great; other times, even being in the same room as Dean makes Sam feel like his skin is three sizes too small.

• The frustrating part is, no matter how much of a shit Sam is, Dean won't give up on him entirely, just gives him space for a day or two and then reaches out, like—“hey, come keep me company while I give the car an oil change,” or “hey, sounds like there’s a hell of a party going on up the gulch—let’s go sneak in, I bet they have booze, maybe we can get you laid,” or “hey, Dad said we can take the car, let’s drive to the new mall in the next town and go see a movie. Anything you want.”

⁃ Sam definitely picks Cruel Intentions, intending to make Dean sit through something he’d find boring, but it backfires—the incest subplot ends up making him even more uncomfortable and Dean, predictably, digs watching Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair make out onscreen.

• Dean is having the time of his life this summer. The town is picturesque, the bars don’t look too closely at his fake ID, Sam’s old enough to fend for himself mostly, and he even gets an evening gig as a bar back a few nights a week, which means he has a little cash. Sure, Sam’s been weirdly moodly lately, but it’s just puberty, it’ll pass.

• Sam, meanwhile, is on his own a lot, with John either out working, out drinking, or buried in his notes; he spends a lot of time walking down to the library over the post office, which is surprisingly extensive, but more importantly, air-conditioned. If he has a couple bucks he might go to the new coffee shop by the library and buy an iced tea for lunch.

• At some point when John’s gone, Dean brings home Tina, a local bartender. Weirdly, they don’t seem to be sleeping together, at least initially; mostly they just hang out, easy with each other in a way that makes Sam jealous.

⁃ Sam hates it when Dean brings home girls (for the obvious reason that he gets kicked out of the house, of course), but he actually hates it more when Tina starts hanging around regularly, all the more so because she’s always very sweet to him—but Dean’s into her and that means Dean’s attention is on someone other than him.

⁃ Tina keeps working on Sam, and eventually he confides in her—he hates their life, hates lying to people, hates the ceaseless travel and string of anonymous motel rooms and constant scrambling for cash, but Dean loves it and he loves Dean. She mentions having a sister that she has a complicated relationship with, too.

• One day John announces that they’re taking a day trip as a family together, and they drive up to the Portal-Paradise area, which is a sky island—a mountain forest surrounded by desert, surprisingly lush and peaceful, with stunning views from the peaks.

⁃ It’s also a fairly cursed place, with bullet-riddled “KNOWN HUMAN TRAFFICKING AREA” signs and a cluster of boarded-up hovels from the ghost town of Paradise that definitely don't look like a Bender compound waiting to happen

⁃ After they've wandered around a bit, taking in the gorgeous landscape and sheer relief of being amongst so much green after months in the desert, John has them all pile back into the car and takes them up to Sugarloaf Peak. As they're climbing the mountain, he mentions that the fire watch station at the peak is a great place to watch for {insert signs of supernatural phenomenon here}. Sam gets upset at that, accuses John of using their family time for hunting. Dean points out (quite reasonably) that their family time has always been hunting together. John goes into Marine mode and shuts down the conversation, Sam grumbles something about "just because it's always been that way doesn't make it right," and goes into a sulk.

⁃ As he's sulk-climbing up the peak, Sam becomes convinced at one point that he hears running water. John tells him that’s unlikely before monsoons start, and to keep climbing. Sam keeps hearing it, though, and asks Dean whether he hears it; Dean listens, but doesn't hear anything. Sam falls further behind, trying to see the source—he catches a glimpse of something shimmering amidst the few trees and strikes off looking for it—but there’s nothing there, only a cliff that he nearly goes over. Dean comes up behind him a minute later, urges Sam back up the trail.

• The next day at the library, perhaps driven by Dean giving him shit about hallucinations, Sam starts looking into the history of water in the area—they’ve driven over the San Pedro River but it always just looked to him like a muddy creek. He learns about the 1877 earthquake that broke the water table and reshaped the water in the area, lowering the San Pedro's level and transforming St. David from a malaria-ridden swamp into a town of artesian springs.

• Later that week, Sam’s sitting outside the coffeeshop possibly reading Flowers in the Attic when he hears the older woman at the table next to him insisting that mutants are living in Paradise, only coming out at night, kidnapping people and murdering them, mutilating their bodies and leaving them for the sheriffs to find (and cover up, naturally). Sam is only half-listening—conspiracy nuts are a dime a dozen in this town—until the woman's friend asks patiently where they're getting water from, and the woman says something about haunted springs in the forest. He pretends he’s Dean for a moment, cuts in on the conversation, says he’s doing an independent study project over the summer. The woman fills him in on not just the one disappearance, but several over the past decade, mostly border-jumpers and itinerants.

• Reading between the lines, Sam starts to wonder if there’s a vampire nest in Paradise; he takes down some names, starts putting the research skills he's been learning to good use. He looks up some of the newspaper records on microfilm, finding records—occasional mentions in the Bisbee Observer (and before that, the more legitimate and much less typo-filled Bisbee Daily Review) of people missing, reading up on the history of Paradise.

• He comes back from the library, excited to tell Dean and John what he’s found, only to find John gone and Dean and Tina halfway through a case of beer she brought; they invite Sam to join them, and Sam does. Drunk!Sam ends up talking a lot about how cool the sky island forest is and trying to convince Tina to come with them to see it, but Tina seems oddly resistant. She changes the subject, tells them about her sister, how she was so dominant that she couldn’t tell where her sister ended and she began. Sam starts to feel a sort of kinship with her.

• The next morning he wakes up, discovers that Tina and Dean are gone. He wanders out to where John’s working in the living room, tells him what he’s found. John, who got in late the previous night and is singularly focused on demon activity, is a little condescending towards Sam—there’s dozens of conspiracy theories circulating through town, and besides, if there were actual vampires in Paradise he'd have found some direct evidence by now, they’ve been here more than a month.

• Sam is adamant about going anyway—"you always say it's our job to look into things nobody else will"—and maybe John's a little swayed by Sam's passion (or maybe Sam threatens to steal a car if John doesn't take him). As a sop, John gives Sam the keys to the Impala and tells him to come back if he needs help; as he's about to leave, John calls Sam back, gives him a tenner and reminds him not to head out to the middle of nowhere without supplies. Sam stops at the Circle K, packs a couple jugs of water and some nuts and jerky, and takes off; he’s a little pissed at Dean for ditching him the previous night (and also for, he assumes, sleeping with Tina) so he doesn’t bring him along.

• A couple of hours later, he’s jouncing up the road. The road is empty, as usual, the sun is hot, as usual. Sam gets to the border of the sky island, where the sun is less ferocious, and pulls off at the first group of abandoned houses. He goes to investigate; the first two are empty, barely more than hovels. The third looks empty, but he spots a table with no dust on it; looking closer, he finds a trap door down to a cellar.

⁃ Sam knows he should go get Dean, but he’s still feeling jilted, so he goes and grabs a machete from the Impala’s trunk

⁃ Carefully, he makes his way down the rickety staircase into the basement, shining the flashlight around—and is nearly jumped by a middle-aged woman, yelling at him in Spanish. He has some high-school Spanish but not much; he manages to ward her off, convince her he’s not ICE or Border Patrol. She still doesn’t trust him, but he notices the two children in the corner, the chains holding them there. In Spanish: “Why are they held?” “Coyote,” the woman spits. “Went to demand more money from my family. Should have been back three days ago. Probably drowned in a bar.” Sam doesn't 100% understand but gets the gist—the empty water jug in one corner and stinking bucket in another tell most of the story. The disappearances, the mutilated bodies—it's nothing supernatural, just people doing awful things to each other.

⁃ Sam picks the locks on the chains, tells the woman to wait a moment; he goes out to the Impala, gets the food and a jug of water, gives them to the woman. She’s still wary, but accepts the gifts. She tries to give him a warning, something about water, though his Spanish isn’t quite good enough to make it out; she also presses on him a small figurine, clearly very old, something that looks like a mermaid.

• He gets back around twilight, finds Dean and John bent over photocopies of local records. John sees him come in, asks him if he found anything. Sam opens his mouth, intending to tell him about his day…then decides against it. Just says there’s no vampires. John grunts in acknowledgement, mind already elsewhere.

• The next morning, Dean's missing again, so Sam stalks off to go swimming at the community pool. He’s doing laps, trying not to think about anything, but Dean keeps coming to mind, the way his eyes met Sam’s when Tina was talking about her sister, the way they felt almost hungry. It keeps haunting him, something about that hunger—he's walking back down Main Street, past some of the shops and galleries that sell local art to tourists, when he sees a large painting of La Tlanchana that bears some resemblance to the mermaid figurine—the woman’s warning comes to him again, and two pieces click together in his mind.

• He starts researching La Tlanchana and her various legends and beliefs about her over the years, particularly drawn by the darker and more vengeful incarnations that the Aztecs worshipped. He starts formulating a theory about the disappearances, that they’re linked to…what? A haunted spring? A mermaid? He’s so tantalizingly close…

• He comes home when the library closes, all excited to tell Dean what he’s found and get his input, but John and Dean are both gone; Dean’s bed is rumpled, and the sheets smell like…well, they smell like Dean and Tina, in a way that makes Sam’s stomach flip with jealousy. It's not that he hadn't guessed that they were sleeping together, but...he’d thought Tina liked him. He’d thought…Dean belonged to him. Little things like the hollow of his hip when his jeans rode low, or the way his knees bowed out when he walked, or the tightness around his eyes when he was trying to hide something—

⁃ —does horny uncomfortable 16-year-old Sam sit on the bed and envision his brother and Tina together and end up desperately rubbing one out right there on the bed? Oh yes he does. Afterward, roiling with several emotions (of which only some are shame), he half-considers going to the bar to look for Dean—but he has more trouble passing for twenty-one, and besides, what is there even to say?

• The next day, Sam intends to sleep late to avoid Dean, but his brother comes in at ten or so, in a disgustingly good mood. “Come on, Sammy, you’ve been cooped up in that library too long. Tina was telling me about a cave up on Mule Mountain, supposed to be a great place for a picnic.” John is still gone, and Sam’s in no mood, but can’t really say no to Dean.

• The brothers strike out over Mule Mountain, watching out for snakes and wildlife, looking for deer. Sam tries to explain to Dean his half-formed La Tlanchana theory, but Dean just humors him. Sam, nettled, starts griping about Dean’s navigation skills, about the way he sounds like their father, about all the time he’s spending with Tina, etc.

⁃ Dean deflects, but Sam’s upset about a lot of things he can’t acknowledge, so he starts in on the major sore point in their relationship—ripping on John for trapping them here, for never letting Dean be a kid, for always demanding their unquestioning obedience and loyalty, etc. Dean tolerates Sam’s griping to a point but once he starts in on their father it’s only a matter of time before he’s threatening to kick Sam’s ass; when Sam gets to the “he’s never let you be independent” part, Dean informs him with no small amount of anger that John has offered to give him the Impala, let him take jobs on his own—but he refused, because he’s been taking care of Sam—

⁃ They’re so caught up in arguing that they miss the way the sky’s going dark—it’s not until the first crack of thunder splits the sky overhead that they shut up and look at the sky, which is incredibly threatening

⁃ Sure enough, a moment later it starts pouring, with all the ferocity of a full-on faucet. Dean whoops, shedding his shirt like it’s an old skin, and dashes for an overhang that might shield them from the worst of it

⁃ Sam swallows and follows, soaked to the skin and shivering as much from fear as from cold. Cue the most miserably sexually-charged moment possible—Sam tryiing desperately not to notice all those little intimate physical things about Dean that he loves, Dean oblivious and in his element watching the storm transform the landscape

⁃ There’s a moment—maybe Dean says something like “Whatever it is that’s been eating at you, spit it out, Sammy—“ where Sam almost confesses. But cowardice, or perhaps intuition, hold his tongue—some secrets don’t need to be told. So instead, he passes it off as moodiness, apologizes. Dean confesses that he’s not actually all that into Tina—she’s fun, and all, but he knows they’ll be moving on soon enough. He lets slip that John’s halfway convinced that there’s no case here, anyway; they’ll probably be moving on in a week or two. Reluctantly, they allows things to revert to the status quo; as a consolation, they find a waterfall and eat slightly soggy sandwiches alongside it.

• The next morning, Sam wakes up to an entirely different town—the hills are starting to turn green, people in town are making plans to picnic by the waterfalls, everyone’s mood is lighter. Sam realizes he’s already looking at the town differently—as yet another place that’ll be in the rear view mirror soon, not as a place he inhabits. He’s coming to terms with that—glad for it, in some ways—when something tips him off that things aren’t right. Maybe the crackpot dude tells him the cycle is beginning again, or he overhears some gossip about how Tina didn’t show up for her shift last night, or sees something in the police blotter. Regardless, he ends up convinced that Dean and Tina have run off to the sky island and that Dean is in danger. Sam once again channels Dean, steals a county truck and floors it out to the sky island, this time forgetting to bring any supplies.

• Sam arrives in Paradise but sees no sign of Dean or Tina. He realizes he's parched (even flooring it out to the sky island, it's a good hour's drive); he listens for the water sounds. Instead, he hears Dean’s laughter, low and beckoning. He follows it, finds Dean standing shirtless in a spring, the version of Dean that terrifies him, untouchable and threatening and irresistible. For a moment he's almost taken in—but he knows Dean like nobody in the world, and thus knows a copy when he sees one. Not-Dean smiles, shimmers, reforms into the more familiar mermaid form.

• La Tlanchana (or this version of her) tells Sam how he puzzles her. She usually kills violent men, and Sam has a lot of violence in his past, and a destiny of violence in his future—but he was kind to the migrant mother, and undid some of the horror she’s seen done in her land. She sings for him, a lullaby of sorts, luring him away from his life of violence and yearning—

• Sam’s about to submit to her song when Tina appears, tells her to stop, that Sam’s destiny is his own to choose. La Tlanchana sneers at her, the same way you did? and Tina says yes—I’ve chosen you. It’s been more than a hundred years, and you’ve seen so much horror, grown vengeful—but I still love you, your kindness, the way you give life in the desert. They sing together, their voices intertwining, until they turn to water, melding together.

• Sam shakes off the daze, goes back to the truck; a few minutes later, he finds the Impala, bogged down in the rutted post-monsoon roads. He shakes him awake, questions him to see what he remembers—Dean appears to have been hypnotized, or something similar. He uses the truck to pull Dean out of the rut, tells him to return to the town, everything's over. Dean will have questions later, but for now he goes.

• Once Dean is gone, Sam goes back to the pool, now a perfectly mundane little monsoon-fed spring. He takes out the little figurine of La Tlanchana, sets it on a rock nearby, tells both Tina and her sister goodbye, and thanks them for their help.

• Epilogue: Sam is beginning his junior year in yet another new school. The smell of the school is the same, as are the lights (flourescent) and the lockers (stamped metal that echoes when it slams); he finds the guidance counselor’s office, lets himself in. The counselor looks up at Sam, comments on both his excellent grades and his peripatetic record. Sam: “So, if I wanted to go to college…”

[brainrotmeta]

You are so so annoying. I don’t care if you ship wincest or if you think it’s validated by the text or if you think it’s a fun way to view the show! good for you! I don’t expect you to stop shipping wincest but you coming onto active deancas fans posts that you WERE NOT TAGGED IN is so weird and honestly a violation of boundaries! You aren’t even sending asks so it’s just you and their audience you’re showing these people who didn’t even mention you and putting them in front of your audience of wincest fans?????

Actually while I’m being a hashtag hater let me just say the way you Own The Hellers by being like Cas and Dean are not gay. Cas isn’t even gay. If anyone is gay it’s Dean and Sam. Ummmm but Dean is straight it’s just allegorical wincest to showcase a messed up relationship in a horror show. But I will still use this as combative evidence to trash anyone who likes Dean and Cas’ relationship ☺️

Like. I don’t care if you ship wincest. But you are interacting with people who didn’t even ask with your frankly dumbfuck meta. If you think Sam and Dean are in an emotionally incestuous relationship, that’s fine. I even agree with you! Very much, actually, and I agree that is good for horror aspects because it’s uncomfortable and requires a restructuring of the relationship as the show goes on that I find very interesting and compelling!

What I don’t get is why you use this in your responses to Destiel fans when you’re owning them with your Reading Comprehension 101. Because it’s one thing for you to like, be vagueing or whatever. Or doing this fucking debunking on your own with other wincesties who agree with your analysis, like clowning on the hellers. You are trying to start a dialogue with people not working from your same incest shipping framework and it makes me like. Lmao. you look dumb!

I was actually in a semi emotionally incestuous relationship with my sibling who I had to somewhat parent. Go to family counseling with them and everything about it. (we are normal now and I care about them very much). It’s not incest like sexual attraction or even being committed to each other platonically in a way that sublimates attraction or desire! Sam and Dean in early seasons are for sure for sure emotionally incestuous in many aspects (not all I don’t think though) In later seasons they slip back into it when shit is hitting the fan and the regression is great for horror, because it’s uncomfortable, like you said. You aren’t wrong about that in any way.

But it’s so fucking STUPID to think this works counter to Destiel. To be clear I am a big fan of Deancas. I think it’s validated by the text. I don’t care to go into it right now with you, because I’m just astounded that graduate from supernatural studies and the decider of what is Correct and Textual over here has such shitty shallow takes and delivery about the textual incest, which you’d think a wincest shipper would be good at! But no you’re awful. it’s not even interesting. Watching the brothers get better a little and then just nosedive back into insane emotional incest when things go wrong and it never getting better until the relationship is just super bad is… I can see why that would be compelling for some. it’s horror. it’s a valid way to recontextualize the show and I am not even mad about it! But it’s not what happens in canon

Their emotional incest as the show goes on gets better, not worse. Deancas in this context compels me a lot, and it’s part of the reason I like it so much but I won’t go into that unless you’re curious or want to yell at me about how stupid it is and ask. But it compels me because I want Dean and Sam to get better in the incest aspect, and I want their relationship to improve. Dean is abusive largely in other ways by the end of the show and I enjoy it because it’s fucked up and interesting. I’ll even throw you the bone that the finale takes a super sharp twist back into emotional incest and it’s insane and compels me! It has a very unreality feel to it and I enjoy it.

I went on so long here but TLDR I think you sound really REALLY stupid talking about Dean and Sams emotional incest as some kind of own to the hellers. they can coexist and in my opinion make each other even more interesting to engage with (textually!! even just friendship. it’d still fascinate me if they were platonic). If you want to be mr Shapiro of supernatural tumblr I’m begging you to at least make even an ounce of sense because your ‘meta’ isn’t interesting in the least. it’s fucking boring and frankly insulting! As someone who has dealt with emotional incest (this isn’t important like I’m also uncomfortable with your literal incest shipping but it isn’t about me and I don’t expect you to like. Stop posting about it just because I say I’m uncomfortable)

You are so so annoying.

fair

you coming onto active deancas fans posts that you WERE NOT TAGGED IN is so weird and honestly a violation of boundaries!

If you post something in public, especially something tagged meta, you're inviting people to respond to it. It's not a violation of boundaries, it's just shitty web design. People can and have blocked me. Which is good. Less destiel nonsense to run into when I'm trying to enjoy spiderman gifs or something.

You aren’t even sending asks so it’s just you and their audience you’re showing these people who didn’t even mention you and putting them in front of your audience of wincest fans?????

I actually think most of my followers are DeanCas shippers rubbernecking.

Anyway I'm cutting this for length

Cas isn’t even gay. I've actually stated that I think that while Castiel's confession was plausibly deniable, I think a romantic reading was the one with the most merit. Can you at least drag me for stuff I said? Unless you're going mad as hell that I pointed out angelic gender doesn't map onto human gender?

If anyone is gay it’s Dean and Sam. I haven't stated my opinion on Sam's sexuality.

But I will still use this as combative evidence to trash anyone who likes Dean and Cas’ relationship. I don't care if you like Dean and Cas' relationship. I'm annoyed by massive misreading, in particular trying to fit Cas into Sam's narrative role.

But you are interacting with people who didn’t even ask with your frankly dumbfuck meta. No one has the right to universal praise when they post meta.

What I don’t get is why you use this in your responses to Destiel fans when you’re owning them with your Reading Comprehension 101. I don't, as a general rule. I often have to bring in Sam because of Destiel meta's annoying habit of trying to replace Sam and Cas' roles.

Because it’s one thing for you to like, be vagueing or whatever. Or doing this fucking debunking on your own with other wincesties who agree with your analysis, like clowning on the hellers. I'm disagreeing with people's meta posts.

You are trying to start a dialogue with people not working from your same incest shipping framework and it makes me like. Lmao. you look dumb! I usually don't even bring up the wincest lens. It's only important to episodes like Sex and Violence. But most of my asks are people angry I'm acknowledging the intended subtext written/directed/acted in the show.

Their emotional incest as the show goes on gets better, not worse. ...no it doesn't. Season ten ends with Dean mock executing Sam and Sam releasing the darkness to save Dean. What happens it that Sam becomes more passive and less likely to resist Dean's controlling nature. Jack becomes the big sticking point because Sam might not be willing or able fight for himself (as much) anymore, but he tries to fight for Jack.

I mean, yeah, there are highs and lows in season 12-15, and it never gets as bad as season 9. But I think Sam and Dean in season 1-2 are waaaaay healthier than Sam and Dean in season 14, where Dean pressures Sam to tick Jack into a box to live out eternity.

Deancas in this context compels me a lot, and it’s part of the reason I like it so much but I won’t go into that unless you’re curious or want to yell at me about how stupid it is and ask. Go ahead.

I think you sound really REALLY stupid talking about Dean and Sams emotional incest as some kind of own to the hellers. No. It's funny to point out all the Incest Content in the canon to people who pearl clutch and threaten to kill people who enjoy said content.

I’m begging you to at least make even an ounce of sense because your ‘meta’ isn’t interesting in the least. it’s fucking boring and frankly insulting I'm not convinced you actually read it seeing as you are pointing to things I never said.

I’m also uncomfortable with your literal incest shipping I'm uncomfortable with Destiel Hot Takes. I made a side blog to complain and you write to me anonymously. I feel like we're both living our best lives here.