#this is tumblr let's all pretend this post is as professional as it gets and that i don't have any obsessive compulsive disorders at all

[racxnteur]

Incomeless; will proofread your fics! (Or anything else.)

I'm not sure how to head this with a snazzy, attention-catching image given I'm not offering an obviously graphic service like art commissions, but let's give it a go...

Hello, I'm your friendly neighborhood disabled unemployed transgender queer on the internet. I have not posted a great amount about the details on this blog for privacy reasons, but I am currently in an untenable familial/financial living situation, which I am actively working to get out of. My primary barrier to disentangling myself from the pertinent parties is a lack of income. I've been unable to pursue traditional means of work due to being multiply disabled (slash chronically ill, slash treatment-resistant, et cetera...), but I do not qualify for SSI or unemployment, so I am stuck trying to find other ways of making money.

This is where you come in... If you'd like to help, you can:

$$ Hire me $$ to proofread your fics, essays, and more!

Click below for info! (I also may add separate posts for diversity reading and/or other writing- and editing-related services.)

For $0.00855/word *OR BEST BID*, I will vet your work of writing before you publish it, checking for mistakes in spelling, capitalization, & punctuation, missed words, inconsistencies of tense, formatting, & POV, and miscellaneous grammatical errors. Never again need you fear posting a finished chapter and discovering a slew of typos after the fact; no matter how sleep-deprived or late at night the state of writing, I will ensure your text is ship-shape. Or, if you happen to be interested in having other types of writing proofread before submission--essays, comics or webtoons, letters, transcripts, compositions of a personal nature, so on--I will happily take these on at a comparable rate.[1]

Qualifications:

Bachelor's degree in English with a minor in writing

Initiate of international collegiate honors society for English scholarship, Sigma Tau Delta

Active member of the International Association of Professional Writers and Editors (IAPWE)

Former lit editor for award-winning university literary arts magazine

Prior employment in tutoring and teaching English, as well as copy-editing and content writing

Nearly 20 years' writing experience

Previous experience as both fic writer and beta

Incisive eye for typo-hunting and tenacious attention to detail (I have high standards and will make those everybody else's problem... now for pay!)

I will read for content of any genre and all ratings, and am broadly[2] open to any subject matter, kinks, et cetera. I'll also post more detailed guidelines (booking process, any exclusions, additional criteria) on a separate, unrebloggable post so that any edits and updates are always current.

Message me via the chat feature on Tumblr, or send me an e-mail (I will post it on my more info post) to request a quote, bid for a slot, or just to see what I can offer for whatever project you have in mind. And please feel encouraged to share or boost this post! I am in urgent need of any income I can get, and every share counts 😭🙌

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Proofreading Full Details · Other Services · Support Me (alternatively, Tip this post!)

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[1] There will be some exclusions to this, such as academic assignments/papers that have style guide requirements; i.e., I will not be your online MLA style checker or anything.

[2] As with anything, there will be sporadic exceptions to this as well, but I will always be up-front about such cases.

[ihavedonenothingright]

An Update to the Shendex

Hello all!

A little while ago, I made a post asking people to send me a list of main characters or love interests in danmei with the surname "Shen" in order to create a comprehensive list. That received a bit more traction than I thought it would, but not much in the way of new Shens. I am happy to announce, however, that I have googled the hell out of this and found an additional 20+ Official, Honorary, and Supporting Character Shens to add to the prospective Shendex. Here is the list (at present).

The Current Shendex

Seven Seas Danmei

Shen Shiliu/Gu Yun (Stars of Chaos)

Shen Qiao (Thousand Autumns)

Shen Qingqiu/Shen Yuan (The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System)

Shen Wei (Guardian)

Shen Zechuan (Ballad of Sword and Wine)

Novel Updates

Shen Ci (Vase Cannon Fodder Is Pampered by the Group Again)

Shen Gurong (Transmigrated Into The High-Risk Profession Life As A Master)

Shen Jin (After Being Moved to Tears by the Sworn Enemy’s Pheromones)

Shen Jin (Agreement Mark)

Shen Jue (A Hundred Ways To Kill A Heartthrob)

Shen Junci (Insights of the Medical Examiner)

Shen JunXi (Transmigrated into the Pastoral Scenery)

Shen Ke (Dandy Escapes From Marriage)

Shen Kong (The Professional Three Views Rectifier [Book Transmigration])

Shen Li (After the Accident, My Boyfriend Got Straight)

Shen Lin (Welcome to the Game Room of Supremacy Luck)

Shen Mofeng (No Money)

Shen Qi (Applaud for Happiness)

Shen Qianling (Everywhere in Jianghu is Wonderful/The Jianghu is Full of Local Tyrants)

Shen Qingcheng (Please Stop Pretending To Be a Cute Newcomer!)

Shen Ruo (Turned out I am a Scheming Little Cannon Fodder)

Shen Tanqi (The Male Lead Ran Away With My Ball)

Shen Tingzhou (I’m a Family Doctor in a Domineering Boss Novel)

Shen Ye (Accidentally Marked The Archenemy)

Shen Yu (Silent Concubine)

Shen Yunxing (Pregnant With The Pup Of A Wealthy Old Man)

Shen Zhixian (It's Not Easy Being a Master)

Honorary Shens

Fu Shen (Golden Terrace)

Lu Tian Shen (Dramatic Fake Young Master Holds the Group’s Favorite Script)

Luoshen (Let Me Go, I’m Not Pregnant)

Tang Shen (The Kingdom That Never Sleeps)

Xu Shen (Transmigrating to 1983)

Supporting Character Shens

Shen Jiu (The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System)

Shen Xingtang (Genius Mechanic)

Shen Yi (Stars of Chaos)

Shen Yuanting (Transmigrated as a Cannon Fodder Who Married into a Wealthy Family)

Now Onto Business...

Now that I have enough Shens to justify the existence of the Shendex, the question becomes how to format it. I'm not the best with this sort of thing, so anyone who wants to help is completely welcome (just DM me). As for how it should look... let's put it to a vote.

My aim is for every entry to include the characters used for each entry's name, a picture if possible, and a quick description of their story as well as a link to it. This could take a while, so I think I'll update it in bits and pieces. As always, you are welcome to send in a Shen if you please---just make sure to stick to danmei because otherwise this thing is going to get looooooong.

See you all next update!

[wormlette]

smaller than everyone chilchuck being understood by autistic laios. is this anything. (i am small and autistic and felt deeply represented by your post)

Oh my god I spent so long writing a FUCKING RESPONSE and tumblr deleted it kill me. ANYWAY “is this anything” friend this is everything. 🤝

I think the two of them are uniquely able to understand each other bcuz in summary, the things they are both most vulnerable and affected by, the things that have probably damaged their lives most, are things they cannot conceal from others. Laios’ autism and Chilchuck’s size. There’s VERY good discussions on whether Chil is totally normal, autistic but very good at masking, somewhere inbetween, or even whether he’s cis, and those would all INFORM this conversation but whichever way you read him, he is socially aware enough to see that Laios is NOT. And it drives him crazy and he is constantly frustrated and trying to teach him to be more aware of himself as the party leader and just “be more normal”. In my opinion this is because Chil KNOWS how much it hurts to live with a part of yourself you can’t control that makes it hard to make your way through the world — in his own way, he is trying to take care of Laios. This may be both for selfish (he wants a good stable party and that requires a good socially savvy party leader) and selfless (chilaios…) reasons, but either way. It’s essentially just there in the text To Me.

Chilchuck is probably extra frustrated because, at least as he seems to see it, Laios COULD choose to shave off those rough edges of himself and “pass” as respectable/“normal”. (Another reason I kinda think Chil has his own autism thing happening. In my experience, shamefully, I’ve been least patient with people who I see as like me but they just haven’t figured out how to stop the world from hurting them like I have.) (I imagine chil often thinks things like. why don’t you just change. Don’t you see how much easier it would be for you. Don’t you see how much you’re letting the world hurt you. Don’t you know what that will do to you, over time.) meanwhile Chilchuck cannot stop the rest of the world from seeing him as either childLIKE or just straight up a tall-man kid. No matter how professional he is or how scathingly he can insult people or how much he can drink — he can’t stop what people SEE when they LOOK at him (this also makes him a great trans character To Me). I think Laios knows exactly how this feels. He’s not seen as a kid, so it’s not exactly the same. But despite having everything Chilchuck would like to have (tall, looks manly, socially respectable in appearances)… Laios is never going to pass as normal once people get to know him. He ISN’T socially aware. He CAN’T pretend to be someone else anymore, not once the story starts.

So autistic Laios keeps bumbling through social situations that make people want to fucking hunt him for sport. He can’t say the right things, and when he has tried to be himself, we can assume it’s been very poorly received in the past, both when dungeoneering and prior as a little kid. When he’s not being manic about his monster special interest he seems to constantly be doing an Autism Stare that serves to keep people away from him and his sister.

The fact that Chil and Laios both, to some degree, can’t hide what they hate most about themselves, makes them uniquely able to understand each other. And treat each other with sympathy/empathy underneath it all. Laios is the one out of their party who most treats Chilchuck as an adult with agency (understands the stress of his work, defends him, lets him steer situations, listens to his advice, never demeans him or gives any indication he thinks he’s a child altho he did assume Chil is younger than him). If the daydream hour extras that give rough indications of who joined the party when are canon, Chilchuck is the party member who’s been with the party the longest, almost since Falin and Laios founded it, despite thinking of Laios as “the party leader comma I GUESS”. He keeps trying to beat lessons about leading parties into Laios’ head despite many ppl around him considering him a lost cause. As I’ve said in other posts…. He could probably just fucking walk out at any time and either retire or get a different party, and we know Chil has no problem hitting da bricks, but he doesn’t.

The things about themselves that make them most able to relate to each other are also the things that sometimes make them grate against each other (Chil berating Laios in the way only a guy with a major complex can and Laios pouting about it lmao. Laios continuing to be a big cute socially inept dummy anyways.) BUT THAT’S LOVE, BABEY!!!

[cyberphuck]

The Patreon Post

SO HERE'S THE DEAL: I do not want to make anyone have to pay to see my art.

Let's be real: there are like fifty bajillion other, more skilled, and better-known artists on Patreon putting out more detailed, more unique, more in-demand, and just more art than I am (or want to). I'm a self-taught, frequently distracted amateur who's had an iPad for a year. I'm not gonna pretend that I am going to be able to pull in more Patreon subs-- or keep them, for that matter-- on the strength of my random doodles alone. I have never really thought or even hoped that I could do that, because it would mean Doing Art As A Job, and I absolutely do not want to associate "drawing" with "work." (I also don't have the means, time, motivation or experience to self-promote and/or keep a small community of followers entertained, and even the thought of having to do all that on top of having to Draw For Work is terrifying.) There's the self esteem-destroying gutpunch that someone with BPD (me haha!) receives when they ask if something they created is "worth" a certain amount and are answered with silence. (If you have BPD, you know that 'silence' is so much worse than 'no.') I don't think that anyone is actually saying my work is worthless any more than I think stairs were invented to fuck over people with bad knees, but I want to avoid one for the same reason I avoid the other: hurts and bad for healing. And also, maybe most importantly, most of the fans of my work are my friends, and most of my friends are poor people. I do not ever want someone to have to choose between "Eggman weeping as he cradles a slain Speedy Gonzales" and "rent." Lots of people I know just don't have any money to spare even for professionally made entertainment, or, like me, sometimes they have money (yay, beginning of the month!) and sometimes they don't (booo, end of the month). I'm not gonna put a paywall between my friends and my art. So, as always, you can view all of my art on Patreon for free, without an account*. (*you will have to have an account to view NSFW stuff but this will be in the 'free' tier as well.) H O W E V E R. You guys I am so fucking poor. If you follow my blog you know the whole story already-- mental illness, chronic illness, chronic mental illness, surprise rescue puppies, surprise fines from the city, the fukken recently concussed clown show that is social services in my area-- and you've seen me having to crowdfund for everything from food to gas to dog emergencies. We budget down to the cent and have cut out so many things (like the meal replacement shakes for my eating disorder lol) and we're still not making ends meet. I've got friends who help, and they help a lot, but I hate the miserable, humiliating task of asking for help every single month. (You guys also know that I don't have family that can help me, even if shit goes critical. I was on my own while I was a homeless sex worker, on my own when we lived in a shed with no windows, on my own when we were in a house with no heat and only one source of running water, and definitely on my own now, in desperate need of mobility aids, house cleaners, and a god damn break.)

So here's where I'm at: I can't ask a few people for a lot of support, but I can ask a bunch of people for a little bit. If you like my art and want to help me keep making it, want to help me make shitpost replies to people on the internet, want to help me do free askbox art challenges: Put your doodle prompt requests in the askbox. You can even request stuff anonymously! Participate in polls about what prompts you wanna see. Reblog the art you like, show off the doodle you got, leave keysmashes in the tags. The more people see the post, the more statistically likely it is we'll find the one person on Tumblr with disposable income. Also, people should know they can get free art when the prompts are live! Sub to the Patreon if you can spare three bucks a month (you can also do Ko-fi if you don't want to make a Patreon account). Ko-fi is also a good place to just plunk something into the tip jar once in a while. There are Artcards and Monthly Sketch sub tiers on Patreon for a little bit more, but I will send an Artcard to pretty much anyone who asks as long as I have some left. The art is free, it will always be free. But if you can, spare a dollar (or three).

[uncouth-the-fifth]

one of these nights - Dean Winchester/Reader

read it on ao3. masterlist.

Pairing: Dean Winchester/Reader (vaguely post-s3) with some Sam Winchester & Reader.

Tags/Warnings: friends-to-lovers, Fluff then Angst then Smut, Sex on/in the Impala, implied/technical cheating, drinking, Reader is a Hunter.

Words: 20k.

Notes: a lovely little commission for the lovely lacilou on tumblr. this was my first shot at writing a dean-insert (as a hardcore samgirl), which was an absolute blast!! hope u enjoy!!

Ask to be added to my taglists for future posts!

All your life, you’d never been keen on cliques. But there’s a certain magic in rolling up to a small-town Massachusett dive with yours.

It’s a little funny, calling Sam and Dean your clique. You know that, yet it’s true. You breeze inside the bar like the most popular kids in school, slow-mo strutting down the hall in the movies. Even with them behind you, you can picture it in your head on film: Dean’s jacket swinging with his saunter, Sam’s hair falling in his face, your jewelry swishing at your neckline. Tonight is already a movie. The thud of your boots together makes this pleasant rhythm, parting the Friday night crowd around the three of you, and you lead the boys to the counter with a sense that today has been perfect. The hunt you’d just spent three weeks on had been tied up with the prettiest, cleanest bow. No casualties. No scrapes that couldn’t be fixed with some whiskey and a bandage. Dean is snickering at his joke, and you and Sam are pretending it’s not as funny as it actually is. Things are perfect-perfect.

Even with your two gigantoids as buffers, the bar you’d picked to commemorate a hunt well done is packed to the brim. You gather around the only empty stool at the bar to get the bartender’s attention, and as you wait, you manage to worm your wallet free from your pockets with only a little elbowing. After so long the boys have zero mind for personal space. It’s kind of cute.

“I’ll cover the tab tonight, boys. Call it an early Halloween present,” you beam, and over your shoulder Dean whistles.

“Damn,” he says, “you really are in a good mood.”

You turn your grin on Dean, wiggling your wallet at him so the coins inside rattle like a tambourine. “We’re celebrating! And you wanna know how I know?”

Another group of people squeezes through the crowd behind you, bumping Dean even further into your personal bubble. He tries to be subtle about it, gliding in like an air-hockey puck, but you can tell that he lets the momentum carry him a little further than it needs to. If you brought it up he’d just explain it away as a product of how damn loud it is in here, _____, you can’t fault a guy for having shit hearing! But you know it’s on purpose. Tonight is good for so many reasons, but the first is Dean being relaxed enough to do that. To walk that line with you.

“How do you know?” He asks below the roaring bar chatter. Dean does have shit hearing, since he’s spent so many years behind a pistol, so he tips his face toward your cheek to make out your voice. A wave of gasoline and aftershave floods your senses.

You share a conspiratory look with him, side-eyeing Sam and hiding your smirk behind your hand. “‘Kid told me he plans to have two beers instead of one.”

Dean lights up, because while teasing Sam is fun, it’s ten times funnier when you both gang up on him. “Two? Break out the balloons,” he snickers, and drops a hand on your back to lean past you. There, he drawls at his brother, “You sure you can handle partying with the big kids, Sam? Me and _____ are kind of professional post-hunt drinkers…”

You pump your fist in solidarity because, hell yeah, what a healthy coping mechanism. Over a decade of training has made you a master of the Winchester sense of humor, so just this kills Sam a little—he’s in a ridiculously good mood too, and you can tell because he’s being even more of a tight-ass than usual.

“Cut that ‘kid’ shit out and maybe I’ll throw in some jäger,” Sam grumbles. Or, he tries to, but he’s still smiling to himself.

Again, you share a look with Dean that goes over Sam’s head (metaphorically, of course). Two beers and some jäger in him could end in only one way: you and Dean dragging over two hundred pounds of giggly man-boy the three blocks to your motel. Dean makes a face like that’s the last way he wants to end tonight, but you know from experience that being carried home piss-drunk is way more fun than it sounds. For you, at least.

Last time, you’d been laughing too hard for either brother to keep you on your feet. It was great. Whenever you complained about something, one of your best friends in the whole world appeared to magic the problem away. You were laughing too hard to walk? Dean scooped you up and carried you all the way to the Impala. Your heels were murdering your ankles? Sam wiggled them off you, trailing behind you and Dean with them slung over his shoulder. You fell asleep to the soft jostle of Dean’s walk and the low timbre of his voice humming Folsom Prison Blues. Sometimes you still caught yourself singing it when you got ready for bed.

“Hold on—that table’s opening up. I’m gonna steal it for us,” Sam notices. He slaps Dean on the shoulder as he goes, “Order for me.” Realizing the troublemaker he’d just handed that responsibility to, Sam wheels back, and asks you instead. “Actually, _____, can you—?”

You raise a hand before he can finish. “The cheapest pale ale they have, I know. Now, go, before we’re forced to sit on the pavement outside all night.”

Sam gives you this trusting nod that’s just golden, because the second he’s gone you twist to Dean, your partner in crime, and squint in thought. “...So. You think he’ll hate the peach daiquiris or the malibu cocktails more?”

The smile that hasn’t left Dean’s face once since you walked in only grows. You feel the hand on your back loop around to your waist, squeezing you against his warm side in appraisal. “God,” he sighs, wistful, “you’re my brand of evil genius, you know that?”

You sputter out a laugh instead of something clever, because, well. When Sam is in a good mood, he digs his heels in and sasses back to everything you say. When Dean is in a good mood, he squeezes the bare skin where your jeans meet your shirt, carries you home, and gazes at you with big glittery eyes and rumbles, I hear the train a-comin', it's rolling 'round the bend…

Apparently, you do about the same thing on your good days too. Gliding into him with that same air-hockey puck subtlety, you squeeze him around the back, asking in your sweetest voice, “Can you go see how many songs are in the jukebox’s play queue for me? I wanna dance to—”

“I know what song you want to dance to,” Dean smugly finishes your thought, so certain of your preferences that your heart does a little jig. “You know what d—?”

“—yeah, I know what drink you want,” you finish for him, just like he had for you.

Dean’s face glitters with open fondness for just an instant, then disappears into the constant flux of people, leaving you to suck down the gasoline-aftershave-leather fog that follows him. You can still feel the friendly pinch he’d given your waist by the time your drinks arrive, the ache of it fading into your skin. The leftover adrenaline from your accomplished hunt was still pounding through your system, so the haze of Dean's affection layered on top has you skipping back to your table.

You can taste it mingling with the cigar smoke in the air—something’s different with Dean tonight. Him and you. Sam had noticed, too, because after he accepts his peach daiquiri with an unphased huff, he waits to speak until he’s safely hidden behind his laptop’s screen.

“That was a lot of touching up there,” he says, as if he’s talking about the weather.

You take the same tone, shrugging like he’s pointed out it’s gonna rain later. “S’ been a good week, Sammy.”

Any attempt to come across as tame is useless. You’re an open book. A part of you wishes you were less obvious, but Dean’s pinch still tingles in your side and the left side of your body is alive with phantom leather jacket sensations. Shit.

“Your hands are shaking.” His brows bounce once at you over the article he’s reading.

You have nothing smart to say at this, and instead choose to scoop up your own daiquiri and clink it against his. Distraction tactic. Sam cheerses with you, but doesn’t drink from his glass, clunking it down next to him and simmering with you in your crush-pumped silence. He gets this particular look on his face when it comes to you and Dean. It’s squinty, knowing, and not an inch different from when he was a little kid. You remember the cool girlfriend that your own older brother had had in high school, and what your relationship with her had looked like. She was awesome, and every day you prayed she never left. Sam has always had that same quiet hope in his eyes—please stick around forever and take care of my dumbass brother. I’ll pay you.

Many, many times, too many times to count, the swirling threads of your feelings and Dean’s had crossed, but not once had they ever knotted together permanently. He would swing into your life and then swing out. You would live in his for a little while, threads looping and weaving, but nothing ever came of it. Putting it into terms more complicated than that usually made your chest ache like a rail spike had been driven through it. Tonight is one of those nights where the ache feels good, where loving Dean is a special secret you can whisper behind your hand to anyone you want.

Words swim in your head. There is no easy way to explain to Dean’s kid brother that Dean is the best man in this room and this world, that he bleeds goodness like other men bleed mud, that he’s the best thing that ever happened to you. Sam would probably roll his eyes. You are rolling your eyes at yourself. But on the up-and-down rollercoaster of your relationship, these last few months have been the strongest climb to the top yet. Maybe that means you’re going to hit a big drop. You’re a hopeful person, though, so you can’t help but read Dean’s eyes in the rearview mirror differently. This is it. He’s not looking at the lonely girls by the bar or the pretty ones on the dancefloor. His eyes are on you.

Blinking yourself out of your head, you putter out the lamest version of your buzzing thoughts.

“I get the feeling tonight’s different,” you say, talking into your glass and avoiding Sam’s laser-focused gaze. On instinct, you stare at the vague clump in the crowd where Dean should be. “All these months of…” you gesture broadly, “I think… something could happen.”

Sam pulls a face. “Ew.”

You kick him under the table. “Shut up,” you laugh, “I’m being serious, dude. Dean—”

…appears right beside you. In your mind’s eye, he emerges from the crowd bleeding with easy cheer, glistening gold at the edges in the bar light. “You rang?” he says. “Got your song going for you. Should be the next one.”

Dean slinks out of his jacket like a tomcat, all casual slyness, and hip-checks you when he slides into your half of the booth. It’s practical—he would have to squeeze, sitting by Sam. With you, Dean has all the room in the world to manspread his thigh against yours and toss his arm over the back of the seat behind you. The flesh of his arm never actually makes contact with the back of your neck, but it could. He survived off those little almosts.

Just as the three of you get settled into conversation, the last song dies out, swaying into the first bluesy chords of One of These Nights by the Eagles. The second that first brassy note plucks off the lead guitar, a match sparks in your chest. Dean spins to catch your eye, gleaming with excitement. The old urge to get up and conquer the dancefloor becomes irresistible. You can still feel your last case in your weary bones a bit, but there’s a certain grime to hunting that can only be scrubbed off by a good time. Dean knows this, too, so you’re led by the wrist out of the booth before the lyrics even start. He steals a sip of peach daiquiri and then you’re off for the open space between the tables. You’re laughing so hard your cheeks ache.

You’re chased by Sam’s playful shout. “Don’t have too much fun out there!”

The race to the lyrics is literal. You know there’s only a few seconds of interlude before they start, and Dean, after decades of being your one and only dance partner, knows precisely when they kick in. One of you decides that you must be in the middle of the sparse crowd the second Don Henley starts singing, and the other accepts this without question. You end up laughing, scrambling, and shoving a couple of people to get there, but god—the supporting piano lands and the bass struts and the lead guitar just stings. Like always. You break through into a clearing at the heart of the bar’s dancefloor, and for a second all you can see is Dean. He skids to a stop in his boots and laughs his ass off the whole time, stumbling inwards and making a mad dash to get your hands in his. His grin shines and his eyes crinkle with glee. The fire and anguish from your earlier hunt is gone. Now it’s just him, as you’ve always remembered him.

“One of these nights…” you laugh to each other. With your hands scooped in his, Dean starts funnily salsaing you back and forth with him to the beat, which instantly splits your sides. You’re laughing too hard to sing with him, “One of these crazy old nights…”

Through giggles, you dryly comment, “Excellent starting move.”

“Why thank you,” Dean replies.

You shift his salsa dancing around in a circle, then follow the spin all the way out, wing-span wide and only one hand tethered to Dean’s. With the ease of practice, he whirls you back in. Each move is unrehearsed and mostly random, but you and Dean have listened to this song in particular at least a hundred times, and danced to it just as much. Some beats of it you can’t help repeating from other nights spent dancing in bars. For example:

You’re wrapped in one of his arms, hand still held, while Dean’s other seamlessly lands on your waist on time with the next line. “We’re gonna find out, pretty mama,” he drawls with purpose, leaning in close enough to make your neck tickle, “what turns onnn your lights…”

He does this every time. Every time, it makes your chest tight with this shivery warmth you just can’t shake.

Dean used to be pretty shit at dancing, but after a hundred bars with a hundred names you’ve forgotten, it’s the one piece of him that you’ve pried loose from John’s influence. Sam isn’t looking and nobody knows who the two of you are. For once, Dean lets loose. He slides his hands down your arms and hooks your fingers in his, calloused and thick, rocking you back and forth with the rhythm. You think to yourself that Dean would make a great musician. He keeps time with ease, falling into a relaxed four-step (you’re pretty sure that’s what it’s called) and losing himself in the words. The swinging openness of it makes him look just gorgeous. Dean’s cheeks are rosy with exertion, the hollow of his throat shines with sweat, and he never looks away from you even once.

Every other day of hunting season, Dean… compartmentalizes. He takes the fever the two of you feel now and packs it down where nobody can find it. You see those feelings shake loose from their reigns every once in a while, but there’s only one time he ever relinquishes his control over them out in the open: here, cupping your lower back and crooning lyrics.

“...been searchin’ for the daughter of the devil himself,” he murmurs, throwing you a playful eye-roll at the symbolism you’re both tired of living. “I’ve been searchin’ for an angel in white…”

You drop a wrist over Dean’s shoulder and he rocks in close, tilting back and forth on his feet. Together, you mumble along with Don Henley and sway in a cozy circle. You take the rare opportunity to relish how he feels pressed against you. Saying anything will spoil the magic, so you just let it wash over you, purposefully coasting away from the few rational thoughts your brain is producing.

It’s unfair that he feels the way he does—and you know Dean does, he’s told you and you’ve told him and it’s all been laid out before—and still strings you along like this. You know. You should be pissed at him every time you think about it. But it’s Dean, and having a piece of him you don’t see is better than having none of him at all.

“...One of these nightssss…”

The Eagles eventually seep into another band’s song, which you assume is your signal to quit. Your vision loses its luster and the glittering lights of the world dim back to normal. Dean will have his one lucky dance with you, then, since you’re a bunch of old people, you’ll retire to your table and shoot the breeze until someone calls it a night. That’s how this always goes.

You pull your cheek from where you’d laid it against his shirt. It takes you a bit to put your thoughts into words, so you’re slow to assume, “Wanna get back to our drinks?”

When you meet eyes, Dean’s are soft, and he smiles with this quiet pleasure roving all over his face. Dimly, you register that Burnin’ For You by Blue Oyster Cult is chiming through the bar now, but. He runs his hands down your arms—sort of planting you in place, like he wants to keep you here with him. Your whole body zings with millions of little electric pulses that pump into your head like a fog too thick to see through. More than anything, you want to stay too.

Around you, the dancefloor is alive with people. But Dean has a habit of making you feel cinematic, so you can almost see how the extras fizz into the background as the camera settles on you and him alone. The bar lights hang overhead, hazy and warm. Your soundtrack is lively and familiar. The moment hangs… neither of you wants to give it up.

“Yeah. Why don’t we, uh,” he clears his throat, “grab a few sips and then head back here, huh?”

Suspended in place by the pound of your own heart, you slide your palms off his chest and put on your slyest grin. “Dancing is way more fun when you’re tipsy.”

Dean slips on a smile of his own, then turns to lead the way out of the crowd. For just an instant you feel like you can’t get your feet off the floor, and you watch him go, head spinning. Deep down, you worried that you might’ve been pushing your enthusiasm to its limit thinking tonight was the night. For the last decade of your life, you’d been waiting on Dean. But something really is different now, because, true to his word, Dean snags a few sips of his drink with you and then you’re back out on the dance floor.

The next few songs fly by. Everything is Dean. The heavy thump of boots on the worn-smooth floor, the growing buzz of alcohol in your system. You’re at the center of his stage, and he doesn’t even try to hide it. If anybody but you came up and waved a hand in his face, you doubted Dean would even notice. You talk about your favorite albums and he laughs at every joke you make, giving you that big-eyed, pirate-smile Dean Winchester look that melts your insides. His eyes are on you.

You swim your way through Double Vision by Foreigner, you on lead air-guitar and Dean supporting with some seriously impressive air-drums. Neither of you consider yourselves professional singers or anything, but there’s a moment in the chorus underneath all the noise where you swear you and Dean harmonize. All the rowdy guitar and drum-playing smooths into The Police’s Roxanne. Your face is immediately sizzling hot the second you hear the starting chords, since every time, without fail, Dean pulls out all the stops to dramatically croon the song to you. The last time it’d come on the radio, he’d chased you all over Bobby’s house, serenading you with a beer bottle microphone. He does it this time too. When you laugh and squirm away, he finds your wrists and guides you back into him, palms everywhere, making kissy faces and everything.

You suppress the urge to seek revenge and huff, “You don’t even know what this song is about, do you?”

Dean snorts, but his eye contact with you is purposeful. “Course’ I do. S’ about a guy who’s so into his girl that he doesn’t want to share her with anybody else.”

Instead of having an apt response for that, you internally shrivel up into a ball and lose any fire left in you. Dean, satisfied he’s shut you up, noses your ear and sings, “...Wouldn’t talk down to ya… I have t’ tell ya just how I feel, I won’t share you with another boy…”

The mushy impression he’s doing of Sting fails pretty quickly, so Dean softens into his own voice. For the millionth time tonight, you’ve found yourself with your arms around his neck and his face hovering around yours. If you mention it, Dean will drop everything and run. You know that. So you don’t sing that particular song with him. Allowing him to sing it to you is much sweeter, anyway, and the slower the music gets the closer you’re allowed to be.

And boy, every guy in the room must be aiming to get a slow dance with his girl, because soon the steady flow of rock n’ roll on the jukebox drizzles into Elvis and The Temptations. You joke about this to Dean, giving him a small out. Just in case.

“You hate mushy music,” you tell him, even if you both know that’s not exactly true.

Dean’s warm palms coast over your waist and you draw your nails across the flannel on his back, soaking each other up. A memory pierces your train of thought in a hot flash. You’d seen Dean dance with other girls like this, hands all over, seeking. But tonight they rest on your hips or hook through your belt loops without intention. Dean’s just here, and he wants you here too. For now, you’re his first choice for who he’s spending his time with tonight.

He doesn’t take the out you gave him.

“S’ not all bad,” Dean shrugs under your hands. “...I like this song.”

It’s Elvis’s Love Me, which effectively scrubs the dancefloor of any non-couples. Besides you and Dean, that is. This fact hangs in the air, supercharged, but neither of you mentions it. Dean draws you into him and you slide eagerly into his hold, your head under his chin. A few other pairs skip out onto the floor and take up space beside you. Soon, the molecule of space left between you and Dean disappears. You’re pretty sure if a few atoms went missing from the universe something crazy would happen, like a nuclear explosion, and that’s exactly what occurs in your belly. Dean sways with you like he’s in love with you, like it’s a secret everyone can see. If anyone in the bar glanced over at the two of you now, you know exactly what they’d think.

The best part of this was that Dean doesn’t end it after two dances, three dances, or four. You go all night like that, shittily waltzing to love songs and grooving along to faster ones. He had an opportunity to escape every time you took a trip to throw back your drinks. But if it crosses Dean’s mind at all, he never, ever takes it. One of you starts talking then neither of you can stop. Almost three hours later, you’re halfway through Just What I Needed and a street racing story that never fails to blow Dean’s mind, when your hundredth round of drinks runs dry. Since you’re both past tipsy now, it’s unanimously decided that there’s more work to be done.

“S’ a good night,” Dean tells you, beaming, “we can do another round, right?”

“Hell yeah,” you shrug, and raise your empty glass, “Here’s to alcohol poisoning, baby.”

“Yeah,” Dean echoes, almost slurring. “Baby.”

You take his empty glass, too, and Dean tips back toward your table to bother his brother. Both times you glance back Dean is following you with his eyes. It’s like hearing scratching in your attic and walking through cold spots for months, then suddenly seeing a full apparition right in your living room. Bobby claimed Dean had perfected the art of admiring you from afar, but you’d always figured he was exaggerating. Instead of chasing the ghost of one of his big-eyed stares, you actually see it first-hand—the big-eyed stare. Dean blinks prettily at you over his shoulder, then sways back toward Sam, unembarrassed and flushed a happy drinker’s red. In the flesh. Wow.

You’re so distracted you almost skip into two patrons, so you start watching where you’re going and add a few more drinks to your tab. While you’re waiting on them, you rock on your heels, brimming with buzzing energy. Years and years of buildup and something might finally happen. The prospect is so sweet that you giddily dance in place, bobbing to your own content music. The bartender gives you a funny, amused look and so do the people you squeeze past to reach him, but you ignore them all, scooping up your drinks and floating back to the table. Your grin is so bright that it makes your cheeks ache.

“Alright, gentlemen, I crossed two deserts to get these drinks, so you better—”

It’s just Sam at your table, looking sheepish.

You squint at him. Sheepish. Why is he sheepish? You set down your glass and Sam’s, then awkwardly release Dean’s beer from where it’d been trapped between your elbow and your ribs. The corner where Sam has shoved all your empty drinks has since expanded—there are at least five more new drinks there, completely outside the realm of anything you know Sam or Dean would order.

You stand. “Damn. Who ordered these?”

Sam stiffly brushed the hair from his face. “Um… a table in the corner sent em’ over. As a gift.”

“Free drinks? Really? That rocks,” you brighten.

Sam was avoiding the eyes of someone at said table, so you turn to intercept the stares and instantly feel the cloud nine you’re floating on drop out from under you.

“...Dean’s over there thanking them,” he clarified.

It’s a big group of women. Your reasonable-self could follow the logic: Dean and Sam were pretty, the women had noticed they were pretty, and then bought them drinks for being pretty. Your reasonable self would pull up a chair and toast to those women. The Winchester spell made everyone want to give them stuff for just being gorgeous and alive, and though you weren’t a Winchester, you reaped the rewards just as often. Sam’s puppy look paid the rent, and more than once Dean’s dazzling smile had won your way into concerts and r-rated movies. You should’ve been stoked.

If you were completely sober you’d probably put together that it was a bachelorette party, but all you see is your Dean, center stage among them and putting on a show. Even drunk he does a convincing performance of a “modeling agent” passing out his card. Cards. To all of them. The booth of girls giggle and lean closer, all swaying in the direction of Dean’s sly grin like snakes to a snake-charmer. A swath of mothy bitterness starts to eat holes into your stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Sam mourns. He says it with so much genuine remorse that you realize how crushed you must look—and wow, isn’t that an embarrassing cherry to top this sundae off. They’re just girls. It’s just talking. Still, Sam tells you, “I tried to stop him.”

“So have I,” you answer, bitterly.

The hours of dancing suddenly burn in your legs. You steady a hand on the table to slide into your seat, but there are so many glasses that it feels too full to occupy, and Sam noisily scuffling them out of your way doesn’t help your raw ears. Resigned, you shove into your side of the booth and tell yourself that you’re overreacting. Thanking people (a group of women) for sending over free drinks (because Dean’s too pretty for his own good) is perfectly normal (to non-jealous people, at least). Because you’re not at all a resentful person, you slide over the closest glass and choke it down.

Sam raises both brows. “Maybe you should slow down a bit. Unless you want one of us to carry you home—?”

You pull your glare away from the other side of the bar and focus it on the table, answering Sam’s question for him.

“Right,” he realizes, “I can go and—”

You’re already shaking your head. “Don’t. Let’s see how long it takes ‘im.”

As it turns out, drunk Dean is an incredibly social butterfly. For the first ten minutes he’s engrossed in his conversation, you aimlessly stir your drink and dodge Sam’s glances. Fifteen and you’re glued to your seat. Twenty and Dean still isn’t back, a handful of songs you know he’d kill to dance to coming and going. Past that you’re spaced out too far to care, and have failed to not let your mood be killed. The neon electricity that’d been pumping through your system all night is cold and lifeless. On top of that, you’re furious with yourself for staking all your hopes and feelings on a premise so stupid, for trusting Dean. Again. You know you’re drunker than you want to admit, but this nasty swirling bitterness burning in your stomach isn’t alcohol. You sigh into your half-finished drink. This was exactly what happened last time.

Since you’re already feeling sorry for yourself, you punish your naivety by stealing glances at Dean’s table. In the half an hour he’s been gone, he’s taken a seat at their booth, cozied up to the woman closest to him, and captivated each of them with a story. You can tell which one from across the bar. With five sets of happy eyes feasting on him, he puts on his best smolder and gestures suavely with his hands—recounting the time he heroically pulled some civilians from a burning building last year. You know he doesn’t tell them it was for a hunt. You wonder if he mentions you being there at all, or leaves out the part about you hauling him from the fire in the end.

Against your better judgment, you lift your eyes from the hole you’d bored into the table and stare at Dean’s profile until your vision blurs. Please, please just look at me again, you pray with all the faith you have left.

…It looks like you’ve misplaced it. Dean stays at their table for another insufferable ten minutes. After all, pushing you away has always come easier to him than dancing.

Ready for Love by Bad Company plays next. Your mind apparently has a bone to pick with you too, because just hearing the song drops you back into the motel room you and Dean had shared in Tulsa years ago. Jim—your father—had passed that summer, speared by the same thing you’d been hunting. Sam was at school. It’d just been Dean and whatever feeble parts of you that’d survived losing your dad. For weeks, you tortured yourself chasing his killer and tortured Dean as stress relief. You were truly rotten to him then. He should’ve left you in Tulsa, but he’d kept you standing and fed til’ the hunt was long over. He endured every fight you picked and every apathetic apology. Nothing could kill his instinct to nurture, not even your grief, and you came out of the ordeal with Dean’s warm hand brushing your hair from your face. You loved Sam, but you missed the days when he was at school sometimes. Only then could Dean open his stitches and let his inner sweetness bleed out. The night you killed the thing that’d taken your dad from you, Dean had carried you home, washed the blood from your hair, and sang that song until you were safe and half-asleep in his arms.

You’re strong, he’d told you. Stronger than me. Stronger than your dad. You’ll get through this, easy.

Paul Rodgers starts to sing. The woman closest to Dean snuggles in to ask him a question, brushing her nails down the back of his neck. He tilts his head toward hers to listen, and whatever she says makes him turn the blatant flirtiness in his grin to 100%. Her shiny dark hair rolls down her back in perfect spirals, and the swish of it around her neck as she stands from her chair, blushing giddily, brands behind your eyes. Dean stands too.

Your stomach drops. She wiggles her fingers for him to take, and Dean, the lottery winner, follows her onto the dancefloor.

That’s about when you should force yourself to stop watching. But you’ve never had the keenest sense of self-preservation, so you keep stealing glances until your stomach is in knots—until this very lucky girl wraps her arms around Dean’s neck and summons enough liquid courage to kiss him.

Dean kisses back.

You sit there until your throat burns with stifled tears. It doesn’t take long for you to notice Sam looking at you, and when you do your whole body instantly flares with dark embarrassment that writhes up your legs like snakes. You barely have to guess what he’ll do next. He stews on the pitiful sight of you alone on the other side of the bench for another beat, then shoves himself to his feet and slams his laptop shut—and it’s nice, having somebody go through all these motions of defending you, but you don’t need it from Sam. You don’t need it from anybody.

“Don’t,” you warn him. “Don’t. ‘Only make it worse.”

“I know what he’s doing,” Sam starts, lip curled in disbelief. He’s disappointed in his brother. “Dean’s—testing you. Seeing if you’ll stick around. But you’ve more than proved you will, even when he pulls this shit, so I don’t see why you’ve gotta—”

“He’s drunk and stupid,” you cut him off. “We both are. I’m gonna let it go, n’ so are you.”

Sam stills, one unsatisfied hand on the tabletop. “...If I just talk to him—”

“Fucking don’t,” you tell him, and wow, you’re a mean drunk all of a sudden, huh? Pressing your fingertips against your eyelids does nothing to make the world stop tilting. Wilting, you pull your hands from your face and try not to burst into tears. “Sorry. Sorry. M’ not upset with you. M’ not upset with anybody.” Pathetically, you beg, “C’n we just go home?”

Sam gives you an uneasy nod. “Sure thing. I’ll grab Dean and pay our tab.”

Well, shit. Miserable as you are, you did promise to pay for drinks. A night of fun celebratory drinks, to be exact, which had gone completely sideways instead. Great. Sam hastily packs up his bag like he can escape before you remember, but you send him off with a wad of your own bills so he doesn’t go broke feeling bad for you.

Since waiting for him and Dean out on the curb sounds stupid, you choke out, “Bathroom,” and go hide there to dust off your pride.

God, does a thin, shitty motel mattress sound gorgeous right now. On shaking fawn legs, you bruise your way out of the booth and through the crowd, silently hoping that a loose elbow from a rowdy passerby knocks you out cold. Unfortunately, you barrel into the women’s restroom still conscious. It’s mostly empty too, so you’re free to meet your reflection without courage.

When Dean had given his yes for your second dance, you’d imagined this moment. After dancing the night away, you’d complain about your aching heels and Dean would scoop you up, all gentleman-like. He’d joke and hum all the way home—and what a funny word that was, since the only thing in your life permanent enough to call home was him. You’d kiss him goodnight and Dean’s gaze would follow you all the way to the bathroom. And there, once the door was shut and you were alone, the magic of the night would glow in your reflection. You’d sink into your happy, exhausted feet. The heat of his fingertips would be all over your waist and neck and chin. Best of all, when you’d slink into bed and pull the covers up to your face, Dean’s stomach would slot against your back and he’d spill it all to you in a whisper. I couldn’t take my eyes off you tonight, he’d say. I never could, sweetheart. Didn’t want to.

But the truth was that Dean could take his eyes off you so damn easily. These days it felt like you lost his attention the second you got it. Again and again you gave him these chances, and every time he wasted them. Tonight you had sworn something was going to be different, felt it ringing in your soul like a promise, and the second your back is turned he’s found a better dance partner. Was this a sign? Now, you glared at the mirror you’d chosen, feeling the familiar needles of self-loathing start to creep between your ribs. When was it going to happen? When were things going to change? Every time you’d hit this point in the past, Dean had cut those threads before they could tie. I’m not good for you, he’d say. He’d remind you of what had happened to Jess, which had always scared you straight—but that fear came with a finish line. Hunting wasn’t the end of the road for you. With you and Dean, there’d always been a vague idea of something “after,” something over the horizon too far away to see.

You’d held fast to that “after” for so long. Even on the third, fourth, or fiftieth round of Dean’s eyes landing on someone else, you took in a breath and reassured yourself of that “after.” After everything was over and there were no worlds left to save, Dean would look at you and never stop looking.

But this was the hundredth time you’d saved the world. The road to that horizon was endless, and you’d waited so, so fucking long.

Staring at your puffy eyes and spinning reflection in the low flickering light, a dull realization started to connect inside you. You couldn’t care anymore. You were so tired of waiting. One of these days, Dean was going to glance away and never look back. Maybe…

Maybe it would be better for you to pull away first.

The bathroom door banged inwards, startling you into a moment of sobriety. You were whirling around and palming the pistol handle in your waistband before you could think, only to relax. It was just Dean. In the women’s restroom. Fucking hell.

“Dean! What the hell are you—?”

“M’ savin’ our party,” Dean clarifies, and woah, he cannot hold his liquor like he used to. Without a hint of shyness, he saunters into your bubble and dares—fucking dares—to power on his doe-eyes. “Why’d’ya wanna go?” He pouts. Sam must’ve told him. “S’ not even midnight yet.”

“Jesus, you’re lucky s’ just me in here. Could’ve scared the pants off some poor girl,” you curse.

Everything after that is a tightrope act to keep hold of your restraint. Taking his elbow, you pluck the beer out of his hand and toss it into the nearest bin. Dean, of course, squawks in protest, but doesn’t fight when you push him into the narrow hall outside.

“Why on earth did you just stroll in? Just wait for me next time!”

“Maybe you were the girl whose pants I scared off,” Dean chuckles, sounding dizzy. He’s not steady enough to stand in place for too long.

Any other night you’d happily let him lean on you, but just seeing him makes your chest feel split open. The second he’s propped against one wall of the little hall, you’re on the other side, twisting around him and making a beeline for the exit. But Dean is still the guy you were on the dancefloor with an hour ago, so you’re not a step away before two big arms catch you around the middle. Giggling, Dean lassos you back in, and all at once he’s draped across your back with his cheek smushed into yours from behind. The happy little snickers seeping out of him rumble warmly through your back. You’re cozily squeezed around the middle with all the love in the world, and the worst part is that you revel in it. Dean sways a bit with you in his arms, big warm hands folding across your belly, and every stupid cell in your body melts into the contact. He’s only ever like this when he’s drunk.

“If you even get scared,” he hums into your ear, amused. “You’re s’ tough I dunno if you even can. And y’know what? I think…” he turns his lips into your cheek, his stubble rubbing the skin there just right, “I think you’re tough enough to get back out there with me n’ show em’ how it’s done.”

You should resist. You honestly should. But you’re drunk and hollowed out and lonely, so you compromise with yourself and stand dead still. You don’t touch him or lean into it. Yet you don’t squirm away, either.

At your silence, Dean wuffs out a breath down your neck and pouts into your shoulder. “C’monnn,” he urges, “dance with me more. Party! We’re celebratin’. N’ you’re such a great dancer, I wanna take you out there n’ brag ‘bout you. Everybody was lookin’ at us before. You and me. Didja notice that?”

“I did,” you swallow. “But I think m’ all partied out. I just wanna go home, kay? Sam’s out there waiting for us…”

Dean hears this and shifts his face into your neck, pretending to search for a comfortable place to rest his cheek when really he’s just nuzzling. “Boring. What? Pretty princess too tuckered out?” Dean teases. “I’ll tell the kid t’ walk back without us, he’ll be fine. C’mon. I’ll even say please.”

You remain silent. Anxious, Dean fills it. “Just a lil’ while longer, _____. Y’know I can only flirt with you when m’ like this.”

The ache in your chest hits a searing point, and the breath you’re holding breaks. He always, always has to hide.

You squirm out of Dean’s bubble. He makes a gentle attempt at fishing you back in, whining in the back of his throat, but you rip your hand free and peel around the corner before he can react. The mental picture of Dean left hurt and confused in your wake is satisfying, but you know it’s not a faithful image. Instead, he and his words chase you all the way to the curb outside. C’mon! Don’t be lame, ______! The yelling is embarrassing, but what really stings is how he does this in front of everyone. Sam. The bachelorette party, who make your skin crawl with mixed stares of jealousy and sympathy. The woman he kissed. And worst of all, everyone else in the bar, who only recognize you from the hours of slow-dancing you’d done with Dean.

You burst out into the chilly amber night, scrambling for any sense of backbone. A hot flash of unwelcome tears locks your throat shut. Like the unshakable hunter you’re supposed to be, you grit your teeth despite them and ignore Dean’s shouts.

“Sweetheart, c’mon,” he calls. The hurt in his voice surprises you. Dean’s voice is thready with genuine, mounting panic, flooding your brainpan with oily pleasure. Good. “Didn’t want this t’ go this way. We wer’ havin’ fun, weren’t we? M’ sorry. Come back inside. Whatever I did—”

You feel your resolve snap next, splitting apart like a guitar string under scissors.

Then you’re whirling toward him at collision speed, a mangled mess of snarling teeth and tear-caked cheeks. Yelling feels fucking great. You bare your fists, flying at him in a rage.

“Come on come on come on—you know what you did! You know! You have to know!”

Dean skids to a stop. By the street lamp light, he’s still golden as ever, looking soft and beaten. His expression crumples. His visible pain feels good for one glorious breath, then it all shatters as you realize what taboo you’ve brushed up against—and why. Over a few girls. Over a little talking. Some dancing. A silly tipsy kiss. You know everything gets heavier when you’re drunk, but god, this burden weighs more than the fucking sky sometimes. You’re so tired of carrying it. You want an out.

He drags a calloused hand down his face. “...I was just messing around, talking to them… dancing with her. Needlin’ you.”

“Well,” your breath rattles unprettily between words. “I’m needled. Are you fucking happy? Are you? Does it—does it—” you have to talk through harsh, sudden sobs, “—do you like playing with my feelings? Hanging that bone over my head, over and over and over again, just to rip it away?”

You don’t get to see how your desperation lands on Dean, since it’s then that Sam comes between you. “It’s okay,” he soothes, “you’re okay—just—” and lays your jacket over your back.

Then, Sam gets his hands on your arms to steer you the opposite way. You thrash away from him and his brother, furious. But you’re coherent enough to know that this is a bad time to wield the contempt you’ve kept stored. Roiling with fresh horror, you stifle your sobs into your sleeve and dart fast out of the parking lot, toward your motel.

“That didn’t involve you, Sam,” Dean barks over your shoulder, but it comes out more feeble than he intends. Your words were so much so suddenly that it sounds like he’s been shocked sober. Hoarsely, Dean pleads, “_____, wait. Hold on a second. Think about this—!”

…And you’re thrown back in. Supercharged with all the ferocity of a whirlwind, you twist around again. Sam’s already intercepting you, hands up and calm, but after years and years of second chances, you’re sick of waiting for something that’s never going to happen. You love Dean. It aches in your chest and bleeds out your ears, chewing away at your survival instincts.

You’d been right. Something was going to change tonight.

“You have no fucking idea how much I’ve thought about it,” you snarl. “Every day I think about it! Every night! So, no, I’m done thinking and—an’ watching and—”

The tank of crazed energy you’re running on immediately saps. Your voice cuts off with it, so you’re forced to gasp for breath and broil in your bone-deep exhaustion. Though this isn’t the first time the boys have seen you this hurt, they stand frozen on coltish legs, wide-eyed. Your effect on them lands hard: Sam’s mouth is drawn into a firm guilty line, and Dean, who usually fills whole continents with his authority, shrinks miserably into his jacket until his hands are lost in the sleeves. Finally, he takes me seriously.

You give Sam a look. Shell-shocked and unsure, Sam shuffles aside to face his back to you both.

With no one between you, it’s clear in Dean’s eyes that there’s another element to this for him. He’d known this was coming. Having his brother as a barrier was just one more way Dean had softened the blow. Between the awful, sinking guilt seeping out of him at the seams, there was resignation too. On one of those slow nights in your motel in Tulsa, he’d told you himself.

Everyone leaves, Dean had shrugged. Sam. My dad. Some day, you’ll leave too. And I won’t even blame you.

Back then, you’d laid your cheek against Dean’s sweat-tacky arm, the two of you trying to stay cool on a boiling Oklahoma night. You’d wondered to yourself how anyone could do that to the man you loved. Dean’s instinct was to give, to point both fans in that boiling room at you instead of him. How could anyone look at all the things he’d sacrificed and not give the same in return?

Well, you’d smiled at him, I’m not moving an inch, cowboy. You’re stuck with me.

Now, after years and years of sacrificing to no end, you knew that Dean’s prediction had come true. He had been waiting for the other boot to drop for so long that he’d already decided what it would sound like. A part of you wanted to cling to him and the promise you’d made him until your nails bled. But that dead limb was the one that’d been killing you, and tonight was the final proof you needed to amputate it.

You had to leave.

“I love you so much, Dean,” you hiccuped. “But I can’t wait for you anymore.”

You knew you were breaking a promise, no matter how good your intentions were. For that, you weren’t going to allow yourself an easy exit. Instead of whipping around and running for it like you wanted to, you let the slow, ugly acceptance in Dean’s silhouette brand your memory.

Statue-still, all Dean could manage was a tight nod.

He just stared and stared at you, gutted and appalled. You waited for him to say something, to fight this even a little, to make any of this easier on you both. Hating him wouldn’t be so impossible if he screamed you off the street or started throwing your stuff in the gutter. Instead Dean just hung there, frozen in that heart-stopping moment where the blade sinks in to the hilt.

Wielding that knife, you turned on your heel and left.

_

By the time you’ve frozen your ass off getting to your motel room, you’ve lost much of your steam. All the anger has washed out of you in one surging flush of misery. You get to the door almost gagging on your own tears, and pathetically slump down on the curb when you realize Sam has your room key.

Sam, who’s two blocks back helping Dean get home.

The cement stings your legs through your jeans. Betrayal throbs through your whole body, and unable to go anywhere, its barbs turn inward. You try to scrape up any backbone leftover from your tantrum, which is about as easy as splitting atoms. Since that didn’t work, you try to fold in on yourself for some warmth instead, and shiver stupidly on the sidewalk. A pair of late-night road-trippers give you sad stares as they pass. The soft heat of their room as they shuffle inside gushes out onto the stoop, calling your name.

Suddenly, the seething need to be as far from here as possible disappears. You want Sam to get back with Dean. You wish this night could’ve gone any other way, so the three of you could fumble into your room and straight into warm, cozy beds, too lazy to change into pajamas or to kiss goodnight like usual. Sam would check the salt lines and Dean would shuck off his jacket. With the last of your strength, you’d stretch a hand out from under your comforter and Sam would do the same to squeeze yours over the beds’ gap. Goodnight, Sam. G’night. Dean, close enough to kiss in your bed, would tilt you toward him by a gentle hand on your shoulder. He’d smush a kiss into your temple. Night, he’d hum. Together you’d snuggle down into your blankets and crash, content. If this was any other night. Maybe it still could be. Maybe you’d been overthinking this.

You’d had so much to drink. It was you who’d created these imaginary stakes for Dean to follow, and you who wigged out, blew up on him, snarling in his face and breaking a promise in the same breath. No matter how much you wanted it, you had no claim on him. If Dean wanted to dance with more than one person on a night meant to be fun for him… If he… wanted to kiss someone else…

Two tall shadows appear at the end of the parking lot. It’s too late to stand up and look put together, so you pull your knees to your chest and make an attempt at silencing your sobs. You press your lips together, watching Sam help a sniffling Dean across the lot and toward your room. Dean doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t tell you he’s sorry, he doesn’t pick you up off the pavement, and he doesn’t tell you that he loves you even though you both know it. It makes all of your lashing anger bubble up to the surface again, and you sit with it until long after the boys are inside.

These feelings feel petulant at first, then simmer into righteous ones. The hunt had robbed you of so much—your parents, your normalcy, your childhood, and more than once, the love of your life. There was no reason it had to take Dean from you this way, too. Those sticky-sweet nights in boiling Tulsa could be every night for you and him.

You could still taste him, and the syrup of old blues songs on his lip. You’d told him back then, you’re stuck with me, cowboy, and Dean had believed you, really believed you, because he’d rolled sideways in your bed and touched his fingers to your chin. Just the rough tips of them, burning hot. There’d been this irresistible magic in his eyes, like he was learning it was possible to break his own rules as long as he kept them later. His breath was sweet with ice cream when he kissed you. Just one kiss had him shakily sighing through his nose, and with his same trembling hand, he’d cupped your face—in the weird sort of way Dean did affection, the slope of his palm around your jaw and his thumb turning up your chin. It’d felt so special, like a promise to hold out. You’d savored each one with your nails tickling the nape of his neck, your dose of love potion refilled. The two of you had passed out curled nose to nose, Dean’s grin hidden in your pillow.

You could be living every night like you’d lived that one. But there was one barrier in the middle of that road: Dean. I’m not good for you, he’d say, even if you’d never had enough of him to tell.

After years and years of holding out and dosing on your love potion, it occurred to you, pathetically curled up outside a random motel room, that Dean would never be with you. Even if the monsters had been hunted and the world had been saved, he just didn’t have it in him to believe in something so good. Deep down, you’d known this. You were a naive optimist hoping for a different future, but the truth was that Dean hated himself too much to see that future too.

Slowly, you unfurled your hands on your knees, staring at them without taking anything in. All you could feel was the uncomfortable, surging ache in your chest, which choked your throat shut and burned stinging tears around the curves of your nose. The last few hours felt weirdly layered in your memory, like film cells from different strips laid over each other. This had been going on for so long that it’d officially crossed into deja vu. Years and years of moments just like these pressed upon you in the ringing silence of the parking lot. But you could only hold up the sky for so long, and tonight your grip had finally slipped. You were sure of it: if these circular, pathetic dives for an answer were the only thing in your future, it’d kill you. It had been killing you.

What else could you do but leave?

The question itself felt rash, but you were struggling to breathe past your tears and you wanted out—away from the constant want, away from Dean. He could bang whatever girls he stumbled upon, so why couldn’t you do whatever the hell you wanted, too? What the fuck was stopping you? Freedom—from years and years and years of that ugly stirring weight you’d once loved—was only a bus ride and one boosted car away. It’d be easy.

The door creaked open behind you. You held your breath at the sound of footsteps, praying it wasn’t who you wanted to see.

“Come on inside. Don’t like you being out here by yourself,” Sam called.

The breath you let go of didn’t make you any more relieved. It hadn’t felt good to yell at him, either. You opened your mouth to respond, but a thought slammed on top of you with all the malice of a blow to the head. The next words out of your mouth could be some of the last you ever speak to him for a long time. Instead, you scuffed your running tears on your sleeve one last time, then hauled yourself onto your feet.

The plan was to dart past him fast enough to avoid the look you were sure Sam was giving you, but it fell on the whole lot bright as stadium lights. You made the stupid mistake of catching eyes with him, and the intensity there was enough to root you to the spot. You froze. Sam’s face was solemn, but when he finally got a good look at you it shifted into calm, haunted understanding, since you weren’t the only one who’d cried on a curb like this. He knew exactly what leaving looked like.

After a pregnant pause, Sam stole a glance into the safe darkness of your motel room. Whatever he saw inside bolstered his nerve, and before you could argue he’d swiped his coat and stepped out into the cold with you. Here we go, you braced yourself.

“...I need to punch something,” you confessed, just to have something to say.

Sam stopped awkwardly hovering around the sidewalk to spread his arms wide, and how he had the energy to smile, you had no clue. “I’m open,” he offered, only half-joking.

You sputtered out a laugh. It trailed off where you couldn’t follow it, and unfortunately, neither could he, leaving you both shivering side-by-side in silence. You started to stutter out something intelligent, but the open sympathy in his eyes took all the nuance out of you. Renewed tears squeezed down your face. Instantly, he was there, a big warm hand coming down to rub your shivering back.

“I know you already know this, but it’s worth saying,” Sam murmured. “Everybody leaves him. It’s all he’s used to.” (...I know, you breathed between sobs). “Dean doesn’t… hang these other girls in front of you because he’s, y’know. Trying to play with your feelings. He’s scared. It’s wrong, but it’s his messed-up way of testing if you’ll stick around.”

You want to listen. Sam’s tone makes this all sound reasonable and easy, but that bitter crawling thing eating away at your conscience reminds you, Of course it’s his brother out here trying to fix this. Of course he can’t pick up his own mess.

“It sucks. Trust me, I’ve taken a good chunk of it myself,” Sam chuckled, but his heart wasn’t really in it. “I dunno what it is that makes em’ think he deserves it, but… he’s so used to everyone leaving that he rushes to push em’ away first.”

Swallowing around the bitter taste in your mouth, you tell him, “Well. I think it worked.”

That weighs on Sam for longer than you expect, strangling the lot with a heavy silence. Compelled to fill it, you wrap your arms around yourself and spit out your confession.

“I-I think I,” you managed. “I think I gotta go, Sammy.”

As soon as you say it, the reality of your decision hits you. This isn’t a light move to make. Leaving wouldn’t just shred things between you and Dean, but your friendship with Sam, too—it would mean turning all of your memories with them into kindling. In all your time on the Winchester family road trip, you’d seen all sorts of people take up the space in the back of the Impala. Psychics. Some angels and some demons. Good, good friends. Alive or dead, they all got off at their own stop eventually. You’d been riding in the backseat for so long, not once had you thought there’d be a stop for you, too. But here it was; Dean had hit the breaks himself, and Sam was readying himself to open the door for you.

You thought of the girl you’d been when you’d first met them. She’d still had room in her for friendship bracelets and brown sugar, for mystery novels that never ended, always chasing the next adventure. At the end of all this, that’s what Dean was: your next grand adventure.

Being hunter-born had put you in the strange middle-ground between sheltered and grotesquely exposed; you’d seen how purple and putrid a corpse could get before you were fifteen, but were more than acquaintances with a sum total of five people at the same age. Dean was your worldly opposite. He’d find the towns you landed in like you were his homing beacon, fresh out of the thick of it with a fantastical story to match. He’d hang half-out of your bedroom window, fierce-eyed, and singing, and you’d roll right out of the monotony of your life and into the magic of his. You’d mention him to friends in high school like a made-up boyfriend—Dean lives out of town, but he swears he’s gonna visit next month—because even you weren’t sure he was real. He was this untethered cowboy you’d somehow lassoed in, swinging into your life with all the colors and life of the wild west. Not so much a knight in shining armor, but. Dean, your Dean.

You would miss that. You would always miss him.

Sam tamped down his panic. “Are—are you sure?” He turned you by your shoulder to look at him, and Jesus, those kicked-puppy eyes should be considered a weapon of war. “You don’t wanna talk to Dean about this…?”

You were already shaking your head. “For the hundredth time?”

Sam pressed his lips together. You knew he thought this was a cowardly, drunken decision, but in the middle of it all, you felt like you’d earned the right to be cowardly and stupid. The last decade of your life had been wasted being reasonable. When Dean kicked you out of your motel room to share it with a stranger, you found another place to crash without complaint. When he’d told you he loved you, you gave him the space he asked for, neither of you sure how to handle something so big so young. You waited. When you sat him down and spilled your guts about the future you wanted him in, you’d respected his answer. I’m not good for you had translated to I’m not ready yet. You waited. When Dean was ready for other girls, though, Julie, Ava, Cassie—you started to press back. Since then, your feelings had become the ugly “it” that lingered in every room you shared with Dean. Every argument you’d ever had orbited around it somehow, along with every relationship. Spats turned into arguments, and arguments became second chances and third chances. It really had been the hundredth time Dean had played with you like this.

And even if he’d had nothing to do with it, it was killing you anyway. Being around him, good or bad, had sapped your adventurer’s spirit.

Sam goes still, conflicted. “This is your life. You know that I of all people understand that. But… but just… please. Please just give it one more shot. A month. Or a few weeks, if you need it. Please.”

“You think I’m overreacting,” you assumed, swallowing against the drying film of alcohol on your teeth.

“No, no, I think you’re drunk,” Sam answered, instead, and as blunt as it was it still came out soft. “And tired. But you’re not overreacting, ______. Dean’s done this and worse a dozen times before,” he sighed. Realizing that wasn’t exactly convincing, Sam scrambled for a foothold. “...He really does love you. Just needs to see reason.”

Reason, he says, like that had anything to do with this. Sam starts to clam up, desperate to glue the situation back together.

You feel the need to explain, “...Me leavin’ would have nothing to do with you. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Sam said, thickly. “But I’m pretty sure it’d break my heart if you did, so I can’t imagine what it’d do to him.”

At that, you couldn’t resist the magnetic pull of the door to your motel room. It waited over your shoulder with all the gravity of a neutron star, dragging you to face it and wonder at the man on the other side. Knowing Dean, he might’ve managed to kick off his shoes before crashing into bed. Knowing the love of your life, he’d probably roll onto his back and sink like a rock, the hard lines of his face softened by sleep. His was probably puffy from crying. After long nights out, there’d be times when he’d accidentally wake you up by slipping under the covers. Dean would curse and hush apologies, clumsily pawing in next to you, but the intrusion was always welcome. You remembered him always having to pat around for your face in the dark, just so he knew where to place his goodnight kiss. Sometimes he’d miss on purpose and playfully pinch your cheek or lay a gross, sloppy kiss on your eye, which never failed to make you squirm away giggling. Good night, pretty girl. What would it do to him, to watch you go?

Your chest flared with ugly guilt. You weren’t sure. But you knew what would happen if you stayed, and Dean, in the long run, would be proud of you for looking out for yourself for once. He’d always said you put yourself last too often.

You imagined him asleep on the other side of that door, muffling his tears into his pillow, and the last of your hope and optimism just shatters. Swallowing your own cowardice, you steel yourself. “I’m sorry,” you tell Sam.

Sam laid a hand on your back. “Look at me a minute.”

Somehow, you did. Seeing Sam’s devastation hurts even more than you thought it would, but nothing compares to knowing that you’ll be leaving him behind. “C’mon,” he steps off the curb and toward the street, trying and failing to smile. “Let’s walk to the gas station or somethin’.”

You shook your head, heaving for breath, and confessed: “I really gotta go, Sammy. At least for a little while.”

Sam set his jaw. He teetered back toward you, thinking fast, and padded down his pockets for his wallet. “Okay. Okay. I know. But, but make a deal with me—let’s take a walk, get you sober. Then when you have some food in your system, you’ll tell me if—i-if this is still what you want. Kay?”

“Sam,” you grimaced.

“Please,” he begged, full-voiced, then snapped his mouth shut. When Sam was sure he could keep his feelings in check, he held up his wallet. “My treat. C’mon.”

Without hesitating, Sam started walking backward to the nearest corner store. Just the thought of eating made you nauseous, but not only did Sam have the keys to your room, but he’d also taken his stubbornness with him on this walk too. Thawing yourself off the stoop, you took one last look at your door and started after Sam. You knew that he was going to use this time to rally, to convince you, and that it would definitely work—so you steeled yourself. Sam couldn’t win. You had to leave.

It was just one dance. One kiss. You knew that. But you were stupid, drunk, in love, and weighed down by years of Dean’s reminder: I’m not good for you.

You hate that he’d been right.

_

Dean woke up sometime after dawn, but his body was so thoroughly glued to the mattress that he didn’t physically move for at least another hour. Even his routine where am I panic set in later than usual, and Dean was sluggish to answer it:

He was in a motel. That rarely changed. This time it was in… Springfield? Right? Yeah—they’d had fun little town postcards at the front desk, Dean remembered. _____ had studied them while Sam had got them the room, making that funny little hum sound she did when she thought something was quaint. It’d taken Sam only a minute to get their key, and Dean managed to fill that whole minute with nothing but spiraling. She loves kitschy crap like that. Maybe I should swipe one for her. Start a collection or something, make all this back-and-forth driving fun for her. She’s been so patient with us lately, deserves somethin’ to perk her up. Would she like it? Or was that too weird?

Dean groaned at himself—not only was he dealing with a hangover for the record books, but a heavy dose of embarrassment too. God. That woman. Nobody twisted him up like she could.

He kicked at the blankets, wiggling backward onto her side of the bed where the sheets were nice and cold. Usually the two of them cooked under the covers together, but she must’ve been hanging off the other end of the bed to leave so much cool space between them. He reached around with a foot. Nothing.

Huh. He hoped the gut rush of shittiness seeing her side empty was from whatever he’d been drinking last night, not something serious he was forgetting. Since getting up was so, so much uglier than being smushed comfortably in bed, Dean closed his eyes and thought. Counted back. The three of you had just wrapped up for a hunt… gone out for drinks to celebrate… and past that things start to fuzz. There might’a been a screaming match. Dean really wants to lean toward no, but he distinctly remembers being inside while Sam comforted you outside and sort of hating that. It was definitely Dean’s fault. But still, he remembered bitterly stuffing his face in his pillow hearing the soft lilt of your voice through the door—he should’ve been the one to fix things.

He would. Today. Dean laid in bed for a little while longer, but the guilt clawing around in his gut was making it impossible to do anything but overthink. How’d he fuck things over this time, huh? As sucky as it was, his best shot was to get the story from Sam, then figure out where to go from there. With how patient you’d been with him when he’d snapped his collarbone in Illinois, Dean was willing to grovel for forgiveness. This wasn’t the first time he’d hurt your feelings being coarse, but… c’mon. This was you. The only person who knew Dean better was Sam, and his forgiveness was the price of family. Yours was untethered, free, and lovingly given, so Dean tried to cool his mounting panic. You’d talk it out. You’d forgive him, because Dean was stupid lucky to have such a fucking saint in his life.

You loved him, Dean reminded himself, and forced himself to sit up.

The second he’s up and looking at everything, he’s pinched by this sense of wrongness. His duffle’s where he left it at the foot of the bed, the salt lines are clean and uninterrupted, but it’s like everything’s been moved an inch to the left. The pinch turns into a pang. Dean trudges out of bed, suspended in the limbo between his bedside and the open bathroom door. Something is wrong.

Some of your things have been moved, Dean rationalizes. You must be out grabbing breakfast. On stiff legs, Dean moves into the bathroom because, obviously, that’s where your shit would be if he’s not seeing it. Ignoring the bile that rises in him the second he’s moving, Dean purposefully avoids the mirror and hangs in the doorway. All three of you occupied the motels you lived in like you were ready to bolt any second, so there isn’t exactly any toiletries to take note of or clothes to notice… Until Dean circles back to his duffle at the foot of the bed. There’s a set of clothes thrown on top that he hasn’t seen since high school—some ratty sweats, holey winter socks, and two or three tees and shirts lost to time. It takes him an embarrassing amount of time to realize that they used to belong to him, and just as long to connect them back to you.

These, Dean realized, were your most prized war trophies. Over the years you’d borrowed so many clothes from them that you’d probably modeled the entire Winchester closet. At first just the sleep shirts, but that graduated into tees for casual days and layers to add in wintertime.

By junior year, the half you’d pilfered from Sam was all too big to wear practically. That left Dean’s half, which you essentially lived in. A few of his shirts in particular had become main stays, so Dean had neglected to ask for them back and you’d comfortably forgotten to return them. You had a thing about wearing them around his flings, too, which Dean figured was your cute girl-way of reminding them who’d still be there when they were gone. True to form, they’d always left and you’d always stayed. Dean liked things that way, too.

A real pang of panic rang in his chest. Were you so pissed at him that you’d returned everything you’d borrowed? Or was this something worse?

His panic finds its legs. Not only had your pilfered clothes been returned, but Dean couldn’t find your travel bag. If his duffle is thrown at the end of the bed, and Sam’s is zipped up on the table, then yours had to be in the Impala. It had to be. He picks through the backseat and then graduates to tearing apart the trunk, both of which are void of your things. Your phone isn’t plugged into the wall. Your shoes aren’t by the door. Even the pistol you’d duck-taped under the coffee table was gone, along with the knife behind the headboard. Dean still can’t find your bag. Maybe it’s out in the open and I missed it, he tells himself, but the bathroom and the dressers and under the beds and the front lobby carry no sign of your stuff. Of you ever being there.

His last resort is that you have to be with Sam, who usually goes for a run this early—Sam, who walks in alone, twenty minutes into Dean’s full-body meltdown.

He should assume that you left. Logically, that is what missing keys, phones, toothbrushes and wallets mean, but this is Dean Winchester.

Instead, he assumes: “______’s been taken.”

Right away, Sam deflates. Which is impressive, since he walked in looking pretty wilted already. There are dark smears of purple under his eyes, which are puffy from crying. But that’s not exactly the reaction you want from your brother when you share this kind of thing with him, so the lack of response just spurs Dean into tearing their room apart even more, stone-faced.

“...Dean,” Sam manages.

Dean starts ripping the drawers out of the dresser, like finding one of your socks will be proof that you’re still here.

“She was fucking taken, Sam,” his throat feels tight. “I woke up and all of her shit was packed up and gone—somebody good had to do this, s’mbody who knows what the hell they’re doing, cause’ they knew to make it look like she’d left on her own. May—maybe she went out by herself after we went to sleep? N’ that’s how they took er’?”

His hands are shaking, fighting to get the next drawer off its track. Looking at Sam will just make him fucking implode, so he ignores him, shredding through the room inch by inch. The wheel on the dresser’s track snaps so hard that Sam flinches where Dean can’t see. Somehow, the urge to find expands into something an inch more logical, and he rolls seamlessly into escape mode, tossing his duffle on his bed and shoving the returned clothes inside. In a never-slowing storm, Dean flies around the room and hunts down what isn’t already ready to go in their bags. The adrenaline was starting to cut into his nausea, and the two mixed uncomfortably inside him, each knowing in their own way that something was terribly wrong.

After a long silence, Sam collapses onto the end of his bed and confesses in a small voice, “She left a couple’a hours ago, Dean. On her own.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Dean snorted.

Something patted Dean’s shoulder, and it was a miracle that anything in his bubble didn’t immediately dissolve into molten lava; reining himself in, he turned. Sam was holding a letter.

He shrugged, swallowing thickly. “She said she, uh, needed some time. Not forever, just… time. Wrote you this.”

Dean hung in place. Too quickly, he recovered, and managed the gentleness to take the letter from Sam instead of yanking it away. There was no envelope. Just your tri-fold notebook paper and the bubbly curve of your handwriting on both sides. In the clean white space at the top of the page, you’d written Dean’s name. If he flipped it over and opened it, there would be more bubbly letters strung together in words. Words Dean didn’t have the strength for, right now.

It was easier, much easier, to succumb to the sudden slosh of sickness in him and follow his hangover into the bathroom.

After he empties his stomach and Sam gets some water into him, the crazed packing continues. Your letter goes straight into Dean’s duffle, unread, because Sam asks him what he’s doing, and Dean curtly interrupts him, “What else? We’re gonna go find her.”

Sam avoids his eyes. “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

Reasonably, Dean knew that Sam had helped you. He’d felt it, seeing him walk in late, seeing him pass off the letter. But it only starts to press on him now, with the alcohol sickness becoming a different kind of sickness within him, the full weight of what exactly Sam has done.

“You fucking didn’t,” Dean snarls. “Tell me you didn’t.”

There’s a flicker of rebellion on Sam’s face, but he subdues it for Dean’s sake. He shrugs, “...She wanted to leave.”

The nearest lamp on the bedside table shatters against the wall with a fierce pop. Dean’s close to tears, he’s so upset, sucking down anguished breaths. This is his worst nightmare. It roars off him all at once, and Sam, the nearest target, takes the brunt of it.

“How could you do this to me? How could you do that to her? She—she can’t survive on her own—!” he lies to himself, “—she needs us—and-and I need her! Why would you just let her walk away? What the fuck, Sam?”

“What was I supposed to do? Handcuff her to the radiator?!” Sam snaps, spreading his arms wide, “It’s her life!”

“With us!” Dean roars. His throat grates with acid and tears.

“With whoever the hell she wants! You should’ve—” Sam argues. He realizes how fruitless all the yelling is, especially with tears smeared in the creases of Dean’s face. “...I can’t speak for her. Read the damn letter.”

“No,” Dean grates. He gets his duffle over his shoulder, his whole body coiling with betrayal. “Get your shit and get in the fucking car. We’re finding her. Where’d you drop her off?”

Of course, Sam refuses to answer. He gives Dean this quiet, desperate look neither of them is good at processing. Dean’s not exactly in the mood to process much of anything, nevermind this, nevermind the mountain of shit he’s messed up between last night and today.

He snarls. “Where, Sam?”

Sam still doesn’t answer. His stubbornness forces an old ugliness out of Dean that he’ll regret later, but, what’s one more thing for the pile, right?

“What?” Dean whips on his brother. “You give that little of a shit about her? You pick up brunch and a smoothie after you left her to fuckin’ rot?” Baring his teeth, he spits, “She’s not running off to Stanford, kid. This is different and you know it.”

The blow lands so hard that Sam bristles, but if you left a couple of hours ago, then he’s had plenty of time to brace himself for the grave Dean had planned to dig himself. After a long, treacherous silence, Sam finds an answer:

“Train station,” Sam’s lip curls. “But she made sure I drove off before I could see if she even walked in. She’s just like you n’ me, so she’s probably two states over by now—”

Dean slams the front door before he can finish.

-

It takes Dean four miserable hours to chase the specific bus you’d taken over the border to Connecticut, two days to pinpoint the lousy 83’ Mercury Capri you’d bought, in cash, from a dentist in New Hartford, and another to find it trunk-first in the Connecticut river, stripped entirely of your things. Sam fights him all the way to Brooklyn, which turns out to be a last-ditch distraction tactic. Dean had figured you’d head somewhere busy to shake them, but instead, you’d turned West, to Tulsa.

At the end of the week he finds you waitressing in a little dive just outside town. It’s a long chase, by their standards. As anguished as Dean felt, he couldn’t help nursing a warped sense of pride: his girl was good. Lesser hunters would’ve never caught up with you.

The Impala coasted along the buckling sidewalk framing the lot and stilled, idling on anxious wheels. Dean left sometime after Sam fell asleep. A whole week of non-stop pursuit had almost burned the spirit out of him. Sam’s moral needling never stopped, not until the silence burning up between them was as light as a slab of concrete. Twice now Dean was tempted to cut and leave without him, but the dark swimming part of Dean’s mind knew he deserved the constant backlash. She doesn’t want to see you, Sam had spit once, she needs time.

But the thing was that you’d never needed time before. The only time you’d needed in the past was the minutes it took for you to say, you’ve hurt my feelings, Dean, and the time it took for him to drop into your lap and bemoan his apologies until you were in stitches. He’d clutch your pantleg in his fists and fake-sob, Oh, baby, I’ll never forgive myself fer hurtin’ you! There was a familiar dance to it. At first, you’d stifle your smile and shove at him, all tough n’ girly-like. Dean would hunt down your nearest ticklish spot until your anger was a funny thing you’d both forgotten about, then sink into an apology he really meant. It worked every time and you knew it worked every time, but. Dean would drop his head into your lap and the first thing he’d feel was your hand on his back, keeping him there.

You’d never needed time before. You’d never needed space, because Dean was your space, with no room for anyone else to squirm in between.

It’s been days, man, Sam had said, endlessly. Just read her letter. Just read it.

He’d tried. More than once, he’d steeled himself enough to find it at the bottom of his bag and open it up, but beyond those steps was a whole new hell. He gets three words in and is immediately split open like a deer carcass in the sun. I’m sorry, Dean. Just that is enough to make him carefully re-fold the letter back on its seams.

There, in the parking lot of your bar in Tulsa, Dean finally finds the endurance to shovel past that first line. Originally, his plan isn’t really a plan at all—he’ll swing inside, convince you to come home, get some dinner in you and give “making things right” his best shot. But those are just ideas with no ground to stand on beyond what Sam has told him. And what Sam has told him sounds like, l-like horseshit, something Dean would hunt one of your shitty ex-boyfriends down for. To him, it sounds like something irreparable. That feeling is starting to find its roots.

By the flaxen street light, he spreads the thin notebook paper out on his thigh, careful not to smudge the hurried pen with his fingers. He reads it once and only once, unable to stomach any more.

The Impala pulls out of the lot and slinks back to their motel.

-

The next day, Dean loads his brother into the Impala, picks a direction, and drives.

His instincts settle back onto their monotonous track, and within a week he and Sam are cutting down vamps in Montana. Only once does Sam ask about what happened, and Dean only shuts him down once for the two of them to return to the Winchester default: not talking about it. Sam clearly wants to, squirming with unspoken questions when they find your spare boots kicked under Baby’s front seat or dodge hunters who’d ask around for you. Dean feels like ripping out his own entrails every time Sam itches to bring you up, but draws blood from his lip instead. When Sam’s out of resolve and Dean’s alone, he presses his face into the shirts you’d borrowed, soaked all the way through with your perfume, choking down tears that don’t do nothin’ for nobody. Especially Dean, who hasn’t cried in front of anyone but you since he was nine.

It’s like he’s lost a limb, left only with the phantom grasping feel of it. Dean definitely copes like a man who’s lost a leg. Sam leaves the issue alone, for the most part, trying to trick himself into being content with you being where you want to be. Meanwhile, Dean’s flask graduates from his duffle to his jacket. Hunting stops being a distraction and gradually opens up into a dangerous sinkhole.

The following weeks reek with deja vu. Silences stretched, gaps in their routine yawned wider, every inch of their never-ending road trip scrubbed raw with impressions of you. Dean must’ve checked the rear-view a thousand times, running on that same old instinct to steal looks at you in the backseat. The whole universe had been kicked off its axis by the aftermath, causing a run of bad luck worthy of a horror movie. Dean’s gun started jamming inexplicably; they’re caught by cops in Indiana and have to circle back two weeks later for the car, which is stripped of everything they’ve got; he almost loses Sam getting their arsenal back from an evidence lockup in Fort Wayne. Scrubbing his brother’s caked blood out of the steering wheel one afternoon, Dean knows that it’s more than luck he’s lost.

When you were stressed or feeling stuck, you’d lay out all their weapons on the bedspread—reminding Dean not to plop his ass down without looking first—and clean them each meticulously. The way you did it sort of reminded him of sewing. You’d count under your breath, so versed in the steps you’d created that you didn’t even have to watch your hands. Sometimes this ritual collided with the nights you polished up your poker skills together, and if Dean listened between hands, there was your counting. Four. Take off the slide. Five. Scrub the frame. If Dean’s pistol landed in the pile, you’d forget you were winning altogether and sink into deeper focus, pretty brows furrowed and your lips in a soft line. Dean’s gun never jammed if you’d been the one to clean it.

You were stealthier, more unassuming, with the kind of easy smile that policemen looking for fugitives glossed over. The cops in Indiana would’ve glossed over you, too. You were the third support beam that kept them sturdy—with you at Dean’s six, he and Sam would’ve smuggled back the arsenal with no problem. And even if there’d been trouble… well. This was you. Lose-a-car-in-the-river-on-purpose you, who Dean could always rely on to back his play.

When Sam has to drive him home from the bar one night, Dean slurs, Everythin’. Everythin’ goes to shit without ‘er.

Those thoughts crept up on him again and again, preying on him in low moments. He buried them under everything close enough to grab, keep the salt lines clean, call Jody, fix the car, but everything thrown on top of his memories of you swayed and shuddered, demanding to be dug up. Dean knew that he’d betrayed you. Already that was unforgivable, but by hurting you he’d broken a blood oath as old as your friendship. At fifteen Dean had sworn to protect you, only to turn around now and wound you so viciously that you couldn’t even bring yourself to say goodbye to him. Not in person. Not in the letter.

It was the one detail his heart couldn’t stop fixating on, no matter how deep Dean buried you. He knew you better than anyone, and you never said goodbye unless things were truly over.

He’d heard you sob it into Sam’s shoulder before he left for school. When the hellhounds came for him in New Harmony, you’d resisted, clutching Dean’s jacket in both hands and weeping instead, “I’ll see you.”

You’d never said goodbye to him.

This turns into a notion, then a stupid idea, then a plan that Dean rolls around in the bottom of his glass, considering. He could get that goodbye from you. He could knock on your window like he’d done when you were kids, say his piece, and then let the grass eat his boots as he waits for you to truly finish this.

He could get that goodbye from you. It’d kill him, but Dean wasn’t sure he could go on without it.

-

Five minutes into his drive to DeLancey’s Pub and Bar, the slimy dive you waitressed in around the dicier ends of Tulsa, Dean realizes that he’s not even sure if you’re working tonight.

The drive was long—long enough to swerve Dean’s confidence in every single direction possible, until the revving toughness he’d gathered had swan-dived into gut-clenching fear. Two hours ago he’d been combing through articles for a case. Something had compelled him into the car, something bone-deep and inescapable, and if Dean was being truthful with himself it had everything to do with the strange adrenaline he got just being in the same state as you. Twice, he swore he’d seen your face among the officers at the station and blending into the diner crowd at breakfast. He knew that you were a whole town away and intent on not seeing him, but. Dean could sense the divide between you like the childhood home he’d never known. It was a distance he could close and map in his sleep, and after another night jolting out of a nightmare and into a bed empty of you, Dean was exhausted. He missed you so much he was sick, choking back mouthfuls of guilt just thinking of you. He missed you so much that the drive to you could’ve been measured in inches, and the walk to the Impala was even smaller, calling to him.

Waking up, he’d sensed it. Tonight was gonna be different.

Things had started off strong. The second Dean had turned the key and pointed the Impala toward Tulsa, his hands on the wheel were sure as all hell. I’m gonna tell her all my cruddy fuckin’ feelings and get all this cruddy fuckin’ honesty out of the way, then either we make up or she gives me the boot. Simple as that. Nothin’ to it. That was as far as his planning went, since that’s as far as Dean could handle thinking into your future. By the time Dean was off the highway his plan had started eating itself, circling constantly back to your letter to him. But he was already halfway there, then over halfway, and giving up became an increasingly spineless option.

Along the way, I’m gonna give it to her straight, slowly, bloodily evolved into, I’m bringing her the fuck home.

Dean’s propelled himself forward so hard just to get here, so the Impala’s still rolling into park when he clambers out and onto the gravel. His heart is pounding like thunder in his ears but it’s nothing compares to the screaming silence that stands between where the Impala’s sitting and where you must be. DeLancey’s is the only kind of place Dean could picture you working; somewhere low and unglamorous, like any other bar you and Dean had skulked around in your twenties. You lived for skeevy places like this, the shabbier the better, and privately Dean had always thought you were too pretty to exist in places like those. But he’d seen you under neon beer lights so often that you’d sort of claimed it for yourself, this strange brand of cigar-smoke beauty that made Dean’s ears warm.

He thinks of that image and can’t help but need himself to be there, to be with you like he always has, and that’s what gets him across the gravel and through the door.

Either this is a hunter’s bar or the place is packed full of demons, because the second Dean bangs inside, making a few heads jerk up with the noise of it, those heads immediately swivel to whisper to each other. What’s that Winchester boy doing here? Anyone who knows you knows there’s only one answer. The bartender looks up from the drink he was making. The host awkwardly shrinks behind her podium, freezing like everyone else in the room. For just an instant he has the whole saloon itching toward their pistols, and Dean lives off the warped satisfaction he gets from that until the kitchen door swings open for a huge tray of drinks.

Hefting it over one shoulder, you slip easily out from behind the bar and pass the drinks over to a table of hunters. There’s a resonating shock that sizzles through Dean’s system, seeing you. It’s the strange pleasure of confirmation, of knowing that you’re real, that you’re someone he can lay eyes on instead of a slow-fading memory. In your element, you’re… Dean swallows. You’re still you. One of the hunters says something to you, and you snap back in a way that has them all roaring with laughter. All doubt left Dean’s body, and standing there, he’s winded by the single-minded purpose that got him there in the first place. He’s getting you home.

At full tilt, Dean bee-lines for you.

The harsh sound of boot steps makes you glance up, and with it the chatter of the hunters dies away. Your expression doesn’t shift from your usual calm, arrow-eyed look, empty of anger or loneliness or happiness. Just calm, like you knew he’d find you, you’re just surprised it took him this long. You take a cool step away from the table to stand at your full height, and an old shivery warmth flutters down his spine. Yeah. There was his girl, tough as a fuckin’ tank.

“Dean,” you murmured, a greeting.

He wants to murmur your name with the same sweetness. He wants to scoop his arm around your waist like he used to and shove his face in your neck like he used to, spilling his guts in ways he’d only spilled to you. He wants to do this the easy way, but that’s not exactly his default.

Dean swings in, snapping, “Get outside. I’m telling you something whether you like it or not, n’ don’t think I won’t drag you if I have to.”

Your brows fly up your forehead. “Wow.”

Right along with you, the hunters with the front-row seats to the scene Dean’s making bristle in tandem. Some of the guys at the bar twist around on their stools to throw Dean barbed looks, and really, he shouldn’t have underestimated your ability to assemble so many minions like this, since he and Sam had been your minions from day one. The guy closest to Dean makes a big show of scraping his chair back and growling, which Dean pities him for. Get in line, pal.

“That’s my friend you’re talkin’ to, chisel chest. If you know what’s good for you, I’d get the fuck outta’ here,” says Asshole #1 of 4, and the threat hasn’t even landed before you’re neatly cutting through him, “—mind your damn business, Tommy, he has just as much a right to be here as anyone else.”

At your request the other hunters simmer down, and, ignoring Dean, you scoop up your empty tray and deliver it to the bar. All the energy he’d rationed in the car starts to seep out of him, since. Well. Still, after all this time, you didn’t hesitate to bare your teeth for him. With the wind successfully taken out of Dean’s sails, he tries not to twitch in place as you round’ the bar, brush past him and gesture for him to follow you out a side exit.

Your silence terrifies the hell out of him, so adding the hanging quiet of the parking lot to the equation makes Dean’s nerves crawl. He hadn’t realized how loud it’d been in there until you were isolated outside, the rowdy Friday night chatter softened behind the door. Swaying next to you on legs he’s forgotten how to use, a dart of something mean and cold hits Dean in the chest. On the other side of the door, where the lights are dim but warm and the air sings with the tang of alcohol, Don Henley floats into the first lyrics of One of These Nights.

Even now, your magic sways over him. Across from him on the gravel, you stuff your hands under your arms and huff a strand of hair out of your face, glowing gold by the creamy moonlight. If this was any other night of the year that the two of you had fallen out of a bar together, Dean would ask you to dance with him right here by the dumpsters. You’d say yes. He knew you would’ve said yes, then.

“You worried me sick,” is the first thing Dean manages to say. “Wakin’ up, finding you gone—I thought someone had fuckin’ took you, y’know that?”

This is apparently the wrong thing to say, because the coolness in your expression coasts straight into bitterness. Regardless, Dean rolls right past it and right into nervous, emotional ranting.

“I know what I did. I know I don’t deserve shit for it,” he chokes out, “but you could’ve at least said goodbye t’ me! I deserved to know you’d be safe! If you couldn’t… If I was hurtin’ you too much, and if I wasn’t listenin’, you had every right to get the fuck out of there and make your own life somewhere else. But after—after bein’ with me for so, so damn long, so long I don’t even remember how we met, you couldn’t even say goodbye? Nothing? I just have to live with the fact that I don’t even ‘member the last time we fuckin’ talked to each other? Don’t even get to see my best fuckin’ friend one last time?”

“No,” you scowled. “No, you fuckin’ don’t. Because we’ve never been just friends, Dean, and even if you knew that you still played with my feelings. Why the hell would I even want to look at you again? Why do you deserve that?”

Dean flinched. He sputtered on his answer, of course, because he’d never been able to keep his head straight around you. Not now, not ever. “...I guess I don’t. But, um… I know this doesn’t mean much anymore, but…” He closed his hand into a fist, like it was possible to draw in raw courage from the air. “You’re right. We’ve never really been… just plain friends, and—”

“We’ve said I love you,” you scoffed, “We’ve kissed! We’ve spent four whole years on the road together, with nobody but each other, and even years after that you still can’t even admit it to my face! Can’t even say it!”

Dean’s hands are shaking, and in a rush he says, “Yeah? And you wanna know why? Cause’ the second I do, the second it’s out of my mouth, you’re dead. You hear me? A target drops on your back so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

Honest to God, you start laughing, the scary hunter’s laugh that only bled out of you in the thick of a chase. “I’m already dead!” You budge him with your fists, almost pushing him back a foot, “We’re both already dead! None of that bullshit matters! Wouldn’t you rather we use the fucking time we’ve got instead of sitting around with our thumbs up our asses? Dean, come on!”

“Of course I do!” He roars. You’re close enough to grab, so he does, ripping you toward him by the wrists, “That’s all I’ve wanted!” He sucks down the cool night air and the little breaths puffing out of you, panting, “You’re all I’ve fucking wanted. Since the last time we were here. Since way before then. But the minute—the second they know that, Hell or—o-or whoever’s after us now, they’re gonna take advantage of that.”

The look on your face is frozen still with mute shock. Choking down another dose of guilt, Dean drops your wrists and suppresses the urge to pull you back in, to squeeze you against him, to kiss you stupid like he’d done years ago.

“Don’t think for one second that I don’t want you,” Dean rasped. “But I’d rather have you livin’ than be with you dead, you get me?”

You closed your eyes. Tears squeezed down your face, rolling around the curve of your cheeks. You grit, “I’m sick of having this argument, Dean.”

Then, the pull to reach out for you grew too great, and Dean couldn’t help but cup one side of your neck. He swallowed, thickly. “I know, baby girl.”

Starved for contact, you dug your nails into the material of his sleeve and did your best to speak. “If I go back with you,” you rattled out. “If I go back w’ you, sittin’ with this is gonna kill me. Can’t wait anymore. Can’t sit in the damn car while you run off with other people. I have t’ go. I love you, but I gotta go.”

Dean was sick of having this argument too. After years and years of it weighing on the two of you like a black hole, of this same old story returning every so often to throw a fresh gap between you both, Dean had hit his limit. There wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t do to keep you living and happy. But this pressure on his heart was heavier than the damn sky, and now more than ever he wanted to let it go. Find another way. Choose you.

He overspills.

“I love you too,” Dean gushed, and from there, poured the rest of his heart out onto the wet asphalt. “Love you so much it makes me damn sick. Makes me all stupid and mushy on the inside, which is probably half the reason I’ve made it this far. Having you gone has just made it worse—the road’s too quiet and the backseat’s always cold, like everything else’s sick too. S’ made me realize that I—I-I can’t do this without you. Everythin’. Livin’ like this. I tried for your sake, I honestly did, but god, baby, I need you home. I need you to come home.”

“Dean—”

“Let me finish!” Dean barked, and the sloping misery on your face paused. “I know why you left. Shit, I’d leave too if the one person I… if that one person kept treating me the way I was treatin’ you. Fuck, _____, if this was some other guy? Doing this to you? I’d kill him. Acid bath, hit him with my car, something. I’d kill him. And I’d—”

Dean stops himself, realizing the spiral he’s throwing himself down. “You’re everything t’ me,” he gasped. “So get in the damn car and just come home.”

In the thousand-foot-drop-silence that follows, the only sound capable of puncturing the space between the two of you is, as always, One of These Nights. Inside DeLancey’s, there are a few couples swinging along to the beat, but all of the real fever is out here, thundering in Dean’s chest. There’s only one time he ever relinquishes his control over his feelings out in the open: here, as the Eagles sing your signature song. Dean’s eyes are only on you.

“C’mon, _____,” he pleads, one last time. Again, he’s compelled by something beyond himself, and with nothing left to lose he starts to sing, smiling without feeling. “Oooh,” Dean croons, “loneliness will blind you, in between th’ wrong and th’ right…”

Here it is. You drag in a breath with all the weight of the world on it, and Dean knows what will follow. The goodbye.

Despite yourself, an amused little smile presses through the seams of your composure. You sober yourself. “... Things are gonna have to change, Dean.”

He’s not sure what that means. But it sounds good, and there’s still an optimist swirling around in him somewhere. “Yeah. Of-of course, anything. We can talk about it more, but… I’m willing to put you before anything. I should’ve put you before anything, before.”

You nod. “...Okay. Lemme go tell the other girls on shift.”

That’s good. That’s good, Dean realizes, and without meaning to he beams, blinking hard. You’re coming back with him. That’s what that means, right? Relief rushes through him so fast that he almost faints. Not so prepared to trust it, Dean’s eyes roam across your face for hesitation or displeasure or anger—and some of it’s there. There are still things to fix, still changes to be made, but. On top of all that is beautiful, sweet-tasting relief that Dean feels like collapsing under. You’re coming home.

“Just like that?” Dean asks, and he really shouldn’t be grinning, not until he’s sure and you’ve said it, but he can’t help it.

The tears still beading in your eyes slip into the pressed line of your lips, where a guarded smile is growing. You start nodding and then you don’t stop nodding, sobbing in earnest, and since it hasn’t screwed him over yet Dean follows his instinct to scoop you into a deep hug. You’re a little chilly and you smell a bit like pub food, making Dean’s heart squeeze with nostalgia. God, he fucking missed his girl. You grope around his back for something to cling to and fist both hands in his jacket til’ your fingers ache, and Dean explodes with gratefulness so pure he sways in place with you, squeezing you tight around the shoulders. You’re here and you’re alive and you don’t fucking hate him. Dean would take that and this stilted happiness over anything.

“This is all I wanted, D,” you hiccup. “You never say it, n’ I-I just need to hear it, okay? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I did this to us.”

“You ain’t got nothin’ to apologize for,” Dean soothes, but you interrupt him.

“I was too much of an idiot to say goodbye,” you shook your head, smooshing your face into his jacket. “Too scared,” you confessed, and your voice was even scratchy from crying. “I didn’t want it to be over for real. Didn’t wanna close that door forever.”

Dean sloped his palm down your hair, your back, your arm, soaking you in every way he could. “M’ glad you didn’t. I’m sorry I pushed you to any of this, darlin’. I’m sorry too.”

You peel yourself off him just far enough to flash him a wolfish, tear-streaked grin. “Oh, I know you are. Are you ready to be makin’ it up to me for the rest of your life, Winchester?”

Dean makes the mistake of indulging your taunts with a chuckle, which puts this light in your eyes that he never wants to let go of. You swish in real close to his face, threatening with a big, 1000-watt smile, “Pucker up, cowboy, because you’ve got a lot of ass-kissing to do.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, wetting his lips. His belly warmed at the nickname. “So come here, ass.”

It’s not often that Dean has the pleasure of making you so flustered your face steams. He never gets to see it this close, either, so he leans further in to put it all to memory, which just makes your cheeks hotter. Your eyes dart across his face, wild and nervous. Dean’s smile sinks into a nasty smirk because, there you are, tough as nails and melting into your shoes at the thought of kissing him. It’s a lucky thing you’re so distracted. Maybe if you weren’t you’d notice how Dean’s hands are trembling, how his mouth’s watering. His whole nervous system flips when you reign him in by a fist in his collar, and he’s pretty sure his soul levitates out of his body when you kiss him.

One kiss turns into two, then three. Your lips are smooth with vanilla chapstick, and it only takes a minute for it to be all over Dean’s face—his mouth most of all, but the corners of his lips and his chin, too. You’ve always been the sweet one, but something about finally being subject to it melts the iron ball of anxiety in his gut. He kisses back like it’s his damn job, pouring his confession, his apologies into you, cupping your face, dimpling your cheeks with his thumbs. You’re softer than he remembers, and the fact that he could be forgetting anything at all about the last night you spent in Tulsa together makes him starved to remember this.

By some twist of fate, Bad Company’s Ready For Love plays next on the cue inside. With you cozy in his arms, his body works on muscle memory, and soon you’re swaying back and forth as you kiss, dipping in close for sweet pecks of each other.

“I love you,” he thinks he hears you say.

Playfully, Dean budges your nose with his and sing-songs, “Can’t hear you!”

“I said,” you took in a big breath, “I LOVE YOU TOO, asshole.”

Dean dissolves into chuckles, which are happily interrupted by more insistent kisses. You’re almost ten whole feet from where you started, and scooping up your hand, Dean starts the trek backward to where the Impala is parked. It’s your home as much as it’s his, so you barely need him to take the lead to find it among the other cars.

“Hm,” you say, “Maybe the girls will just figure out for themselves why I’m gone, yeah?”

“They’ll survive without you,” Dean shrugs. “You got other people who need you.”

“Need me,” you say, just rolling the unfamiliar words around in your mouth. Dean feels another pang of guilt; he could’ve sworn he’d told you that more, could’ve sworn he showed his love to you every day. Another thing to change.

“Yeah, need you,” Dean mutters, and he doesn’t mean to expose the desire rolling around in his belly, but there it is. He wants to take it back as soon as it leaves his mouth, but the second you get a taste of it, you’re hooked. A beat later he’s being pushed up against the driver’s door of the car and kissed stupid, warm and wet and so much of what he remembers. Fantasizes about.

In the next kiss a gentle hand grabs at the clasp to his belt buckle. Instantly, Dean pulls back to speak.

“Sweet pea,” he manages, trying so hard to be reasonable and good and everything that you deserve. You laugh at the nickname, which eases his mind a bit. “...You sure you don’t wanna wait? I think I got other things to prove t’ you, first.”

You draw him into a deep, lingering siren’s kiss that leaves his knees threatening to lock and his common sense threatening to bend.

“Can’t wait any longer,” your eyes burn like cigarettes, all heat. Quietly, you ask him, “Prove to me I’m your favorite. That m’ the only girl you’re looking at.”

There’s the underlying desperation to your voice that goes beyond just wanting to have sex with him. This is confirmation of something to you, something you need to hear, to feel. So Dean guides you into the backseat and proves it to you.

This is not at all where he expected this night to go, and he’s grateful that he’d lost the opportunity to overthink himself into his grave. There’s no room for Dean to worry if he was really good enough for you, if he deserved this, because these things are proven to him too. You slot so perfectly into his lap that he knows the moment you’re out of it he’ll be battered with homesickness. For long breaths there’s no kissing at all, just Dean nuzzling his face into your neck and committing each second to memory. When you do kiss him it’s like nothing he’s ever felt before, this grand, surging happiness that ripples through him head-to-toe. Each kiss has a new kind of gentleness, and before either one of you starts to strip Dean knows that you want more than what he’s about to give you—you want him, and that feeling is an old comfort.

Knowing your famous attitude, Dean would’ve bet money on you taking control, but for whatever reason you step back and let him make the first move. Again, it tells him that this is his chance to tell you something, to make it clear that he wants you and he’s going to show it. So he does. Your fingers in his hair are all the invitation he needs.

Dean scrapes his palms up your back as you kiss, soaking up every naked inch of skin he’s allowed. You’re making all these soft little noises that make the pressure in his jeans unbearable, so with the next drag of his hands he’s intent on seeing what you’ll feel like naked in his lap. When your uniform is nothing but a memory and your throat’s slick with hickeys, you try out a new way of teasing him, murmuring in that caramel voice how long you’ve wanted to feel him inside you. After that he doesn’t even care about being fully naked—but you clearly do. He puts your roaming hands on his belt. I want you to do this part, I want it to be you who opens me up. You kiss him so intensely that Dean doesn’t even remember when or how his belt comes off. Or his shirt, or his jeans, or his boots, gulping down your love potion by the gallon.

All he knows is pretty girl, his pretty girl, and swaths of hot sweat-tacky skin on top of him. You hesitate to close that final gap between you once the condom’s on, so Dean whispers whiskey-warm assurances in your ear as he cups the curve of your ass and slides you onto him. The moan that presses out of you pours right into your next kiss, then the next, and the next. It takes everything in him to start slow; Dean gives you two deep, fulfilling grinds across his lap. The rippling squeeze of you around him is too good to be real. You press your lips into his, then his nosebridge, his forehead, urging him on, and that’s all Dean needs to let go. He cups the dip of your back, shoves his face in your neck and just loses it.

Dean rocks you across his lap at a vicious, pounding tempo, giving you his all. The whole time his head bumps against the height of the seat, craning to watch the perfect little shifts in your expression. You’ve got your eyes squeezed shut and your lips parted. His lap is slick with you, making the grind, the chase, the rush to the finish come faster and faster. He could’ve gotten off on the sounds you were making alone. They turn into full-on squeals when Dean slides his fingers between your legs, and a flush of I love you I love you I love you bursts out of him when the hot silk wrapped around him clamps even tighter. You cum almost sobbing his name, and Dean coos you through it, his thighs cramping with effort. But it’s all worth it—you’ve always been worth it.

He finishes with your hands combing through his sweat-damp hair, echoing back to him the three words he’d been chanting the entire time.

-

It’s a few hours before dawn when you land in Sam and Dean’s motel a town over. Dean had wanted to get back earlier, intent on having you back as soon as possible, but it’d taken a bit to pack your stuff into the Impala and drive home. You’d commented on being hungry on the way back too, which ended with Dean pouring an entire gas station’s worth of snacks into your lap at three in the morning.

By then it’d gotten too cold out to be comfortable, so it was tempting to succumb to sleep in front of the Impala’s heaters. But robbing yourself of any time with Dean wasn’t an option, so you pushed through, feet aching after an eight-hour shift and body glowing with Dean’s affection. You nibbled on twinkies in the passenger’s seat, happy that he was happy. He kept the radio off to hear you, but hummed when the conversation peacefully faded. I can hear the train a’ comin’, it’s rollin’ round the bend…

Sam was waiting for you on the stoop outside the room when you pulled up, and did an impressively poor job at containing himself. He’d gotten his arms around you before your door was fully shut, and when you were back on your feet his brother took up your other side. Together, you herded each other into the cozy darkness of the motel. Someone said something about unpacking your things; but all three of you were tired, so that thought was saved for tomorrow.

Dean tossed his jacket on the back of a chair. Sam rearranged the salt lines on the window sills with a careful hand. You fumbled into the first pajamas you could find (aka, the hoodies in Dean’s duffle that rightfully belonged to you), and crash straight into bed, too lazy to kiss goodnight like usual. When the lights were off and the boys were down too, you stretched a hand out from under your comforter and reached across the bed’s gap.

“Goodnight, Sam,” you told him, wiggling your fingers.

His whole hand engulfed yours in a warm, I missed you squeeze, and then he was rolling onto his stomach and sinking like a rock into sleep.

When you twisted onto your other side, Dean was already there, propped up on an elbow. His broad hand on your shoulder smoothed across your belly to pull you into him. Once you were close enough to kiss, he disregarded your cheek and your forehead entirely, dipping in for a real kiss that tingled all the way down to your toes.

“G’night,” Dean whispered.

Welling with too much emotion to put into words, you willed it all into a simple and loving, “Goodnight, cowboy.”

Together, you snuggled down into your blankets and crashed, content.

-

tags: @samssluttybangs @cookiemumster1 @cevans-winchester @leigh70 @seraphimluxe @emily-roberts @emme-looou @aloneatpeace @williamstop @ornella0910 @chaoticshepardplaid @dakota-dream @lcvecstiel @goghkiss

[transmutationisms]

do you think vaccines should be mandatory? my view has always been that public health would outweigh personal choice in this instance but i also see the bodily autonomy argument, though ultimately i think it’s flawed and weird to compare, say, abortions with vaccines. i was wondering if you had an opinion or any resources on this topic?

this is one of those questions where i think the framing conceals a lot of unspoken premises and social/political assumptions. what do we even mean by a vaccine mandate in the first place? the truth is that in many contexts, vaccines are already mandatory—the trick is that these mandates are generally designed and first enforced by employers, schools, and private business establishments, rather than coming through direct state intervention. incidentally, most censorship works similarly, despite it also being positioned discursively as a matter of direct state intervention. the truth is that you are far more likely to run into problems if you, say, have an employer who requires vaccination—which makes your paycheck (that is, your ability to continue living) dependent on a medical intervention—than you are to face some kind of right-winger fear fantasy of a shadowy government agent showing up to your doorstep with a syringe. these things happen by economic coercion far more than through direct state command.

with that in mind, to me the issue that 'vaccine mandates' point to isn't so much an idealist conflict between 'safety' and 'liberty' or however nyt is framing it these days—rather, it's the fact that employers have the structural position to impose their will on employees, who often must comply or face, literally, starvation. i am willing to say this is a bad social structure despite the fact that in the case of vaccines i obviously agree that the particular intervention in question is a good thing, and is something that anyone who is medically eligible should be getting. in order to make vaccines mandatory, you need an enforcement mechanism—the one we currently primarily rely on is economic coercion in the form of threatening loss of livelihood (again, this also applies to most censorship cases). while i, again, strenuously think that people who can get vaccinated should do so, in order to make such a thing compulsory you have to confront the issue of what power structures make the compulsion possible and actionable. prisons? relying on the political whims and economic threats of employers? too often, a 'mandatory vaccine' is presented as though it could be ethically debated in the abstract, without reference to these conditions!

anyway, i'm not going to pretend that i can solve vaccine hesitancy in the next 90 seconds in a tumblr post, but off the top of my head here are some factors i think are major contributors to this issue:

ableism (eg, andrew wakefield preying on the fact that many parents would rather risk their children catching preventable dangerous diseases than let them be supposedly exposed to a greater chance of becoming autistic)

public distrust of physicians and public health infrastructure, for reasons ranging from medical racism and eugenics to discomfiting and traumatic experiences with the inherently (in this system) power-imbalanced relationship between medical professionals and patients

the massive gap between expert and lay knowledge on medical topics, enforced by mechanisms like paywalls and benefitting the prestige and pecuniary enrichment of physicians and public health experts (this provides fertile ground for grifters and liars to prey on people's confusion and difficulty verifying information)

possibilities for lies about vaccines to lead to financial enrichment, as in the case of social media grifts, heterodox and alternative medical practitioners, or eg andrew wakefield trying to sell his own vaccine after publishing his now-retracted paper on the supposed link between autism and the mmr vaccine

these are all bad things; they are also all actionable things. i do not think that it's some kind of transhistorical condition of humanity that we must choose between either passing each other dangerous diseases or designing coercive or punitive measures to force compliance with public health recommendations. i think all of these things are in fact very directly resultant of capitalism, the way it values bodies and health (biopolitics), and its politics of knowledge and expertise.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Taskmaster New Year’s Treat was more fun than I’d expected, same as it was last year. This was largely down to Kojey Radical, it’s always fun when you get proper Taskmaster fans on the show. He made me laugh several times. The inclusion of an underage minor was pretty odd, and I wasn’t sure it was a good idea (especially since they’ve just created a special Taskmaster all for the children), but then the child actor turned out to actually be quite fun. He was good on the podcast, too.

I think it helped that the tasks themselves were really funny. I enjoyed season 16 a lot, but some of the tasks were a bit lackluster (they really need to slow down on the “do some other distracting thing at the same time as doing the regular task”, they get diminishing returns after a while), and I thought all the tasks in the latest NYT were great. I sort of see why they’d save the funnier tasks for an NYT episode, when the contestants aren’t comedians so there has to be more humour in the format. But also, I’d love to see them give the tasks with the most comedic potential to the people who extract comedic potential on a professional basis.

I’d enjoy a Champion of Champions: NYT edition once they’ve been doing this for five years. Though I guess the point of NYT is to get people who are too important to commit to more than one episode, and even the regular Taskmaster hasn’t been able to get all its champions make their schedules line up for a COC, so presumably getting the extra special celebrity stars from NYT free on the same day would be a challenge.

I’ve come around on that COC thing, by the way. I was really annoyed when I first read about Mae not participating, to the point where I didn’t even make a post about it because I knew how annoyed I was was too disproportionate to the situation to be worth posting. Not just because I really really like Mae Martin and was looking forward to seeing them, though of course there’s that. I was annoyed because it compromises the integrity of the competition of Taskmaster, if you can just throw anyone in there. Look, Alex, a large amount of my enjoyment of your show and/or general mental health is riding on me being able to maintain the suspension of disbelief, and view Taskmaster as a genuine competition. If you start admitting that they’re just a bunch of performance artists trying to make room in their schedules for this TV gig (no, come on, surely the Taskmaster contestants don’t get paid, they do it for the love of the game), the curtain starts to slip and it all falls apart.

In frustration, I said to a friend that this ruins the sporting aspect of Taskmaster, because it’s not like a sport will have a championship with a qualifier, and then just let someone else in because the date doesn’t work for one of the people who won their qualifier. But as soon as I said this, I realized: Yes they do. That’s exactly what they do. That’s why important qualifiers have challenge rounds at the end between the second and third place finishers, to determine the true alternate. Because if the winner gets an injury or a career in the States or some shit and can’t go to the championship, the alternate goes in their place. Kiell Smith-Bynoe was the second-place finisher in Taskmaster season 15, and is therefore the legitimate alternate, so it’s all fine! Integrity restored! I go back to maintaining my belief that Taskmaster functions as a genuine sport (I can come out of the delusion long enough to admit to knowing the reality on a Tumblr post – the disbelief that I can really never stop suspending is in the idea that genuine sports are also just made up and their results only matter because we’ve all collectively agreed to pretend that they do, no one’s allowed to talk about that (except Andy Zaltzman, who’s got some good material on the subject and is actually quite funny when he talks about that)).

And by the way, I’d like to state again that I hate the idea that it’s a (North) American thing to watch panel shows like they’re actual competitions. If I didn’t know much about British culture, I might believe that it’s just us North Americans who have this toxic competitiveness so entrenched in society that it comes up in even our entertainment TV shows, and the British are more enlightened about it. But I have heard the British cultural references. I have heard how wildly, blindingly competitive they get about something that we in North America consider a children’s game called soccer. And even aside from how deeply they get into (sort of) real sports, you can’t tell me that British people don’t get overly competitive about things that are not sports, treating them like they are a sport. I’ve heard how British people talk about pub quizzes, and darts, and snooker. We all like a good competition to distract us from the things with genuine meaning in the world! And I have chosen Taskmaster.

Anyway, when I decided to just view the Kiell situation as sending in the legitimate alternate, I got over my existential disappointment at pulling the curtain back on the realities of Taskmaster, and became only annoyed about not getting to see Mae Martin, whom I like. But that’s not so bad, because Kiell is fun too. And I think it’ll be a good episode. I can’t wait to see Dara O’Brien and Sarah Kendall up against each other, I think that’ll be an interesting matchup. Sophie Duker is a strong contender too. I think my money might be on Sarah Kendall to win, but I might be blinded by my large crush on her.

[a-weird-cryptid]

My opinion on "self diagnosing"

...and the nightmare of trying to go to therapy

[Part 1/3]

Why I care so much about this topic:

For many, mental health might not be something they think about a lot. For me, though, it has been a very important topic since at least 2019.

I've met my fair share of "self diagnosed" people, fakers and professionally diagnosed ones during the time since. This series is based of my experiences with those people, but also the struggles of someone who's mental health has been bad for years, but couldn't go to therapy so far.

Topics I'll talk about

Part 1: Fakers

Part 2: The dos and don'ts of "self diagnosing"

Part 3: Pro/Con self diagnosing + Getting help

Fakers

Table of content

TikTok, Insta and Co; the impact of social media on mental health

Munchausen Syndrome, Nocebo Effect and more; possible explenations for faking?

All in the name of education and destigmatisation?

Why faking mental health problems is problematic

Faking or not? Should "fakers" be called out?

(This is an extremely long post. If you're not interested in that, feel free to move on and/or skip parts of it.)

Disclaimer:

I'm just trying to put my own perspective on this matter on here, because it has been a topic I've wanted to talk about for years. I'm not a mental health professional, nor do I have any professional education about the matter. This is not a scientific paper, analysis, essay or similar.

It is solely based of my subjective view and opinion, as well as my own experience, research and observations. I'm not speaking for everybody of the mental health community. Some might share my opinion, some won't. And that's fine.

I've made this series for the purpose of friendly discussions and similar. Do not harass anybody because their opinion differs from yours. Try to understand the other's perspective instead. Thanks.

Fakers

When talking about "self diagnosing" the first thing that gets brought up, as an argument against it, is the amount of fakers it brought. People who pretend to suffer from mental illnesses and/or disorders, in order to gain attention. Be it positive or negative. So I thought it would make sense to cover it first.

TikTok, Insta and Co; the impact of social media on mental health

I think by this point it's a well known fact that social media has a massive impact on mental health. Especially on children and teens. Be it the faked Instagram pictures, that promote an unhealthy figure (leading to EDs), or the countless TikToks of people claiming ordinary behavior as OCD, anxiety, etc. But Tumblr doesn't get away from those problems scrot-free either.

In this part of my "essay" I want to go through some of the reasons why social media has such a huge impact on mental health and why certain sides are more prone to become "faker hotspots" compared to others.

First, let's try to tackle the question of why we're all so prone to be influenced by social media. Including our mental health.

Humans are social animals.

No matter how introverted and antisocial you are, you'll always be influenced by others. Wether you want it or not. Even if it is entirely subconscious.

No piece of art came without any inspiration or influence of other pieces of art, no mind blowing discovery came without building upon what others have found out.

Before the internet was a huge thing, social circles and therefore their influence on individuals was a lot smaller. Social media, however, makes it possible to connect with people all over the world. Mostly even completely anonymous.

The pressure to fit in and go with the newest trends doesn't come from a small circle of friends and family, but from a global scale this way. If you present your online self in even a slightly bad way, people all over the world are able to cyperbully you for it or similar.

"Going with the stream", trends or similar became one of the only ways to stay popular and liked by the internet. The rush of dopamine going through your brain whenever you see someone liking a picture isn't a mythos. It can boost your confidence, but it also puts more pressure on you. More pressure to be perfect. More pressure to be the hottest. The best looking. The most talented. The most extreme.

Which leads to many editing their pictures and videos to fit the social expectation to be perfect in every way. You have to make sure that every single flaw on your body is taken care of and erased and every "good" quality of your body is exaggerated to an unnatural degree. You only show your most expensive piece of clothing on screen, only show the high lights and best moments of your life. All in the name of Fame and that dopamine rush that comes with attention.

If you now expose impressionable children and teens to those pictures, videos, etc, it is no wonder that they assume this is the norm.

Children are extremely easy to manipulate, because of their lack of life experience and their brains being far from fully developed. If you constantly tell a child the sky is green and not blue, they will believe you at some point.

Teens might be better at understanding that those are unreal and inaccurate norms shown on the internet. However, their need to fit in, have social validation, "be special", find an identity or similar is way bigger than during any other time of life. Your body changes drastically and so does your brain. The chemicals and especially hormones of your body are on a constant rollercoaster during puberty. All of which leads to body dysphoria and other mental health problems being extremely common. Especially if fueled by social media "norms".

All of that and more has most likely also lead to the increase of people, especially teens, faking to have mental health issues. So let's find some potential reasons for what exactly makes certain social media platforms to "faker hotspots". For that, I'll use TikTok as an example and I'll quote from a Reddit comment I once made, which got a lot of positive feedback. The comment was to answer a question of another user, who asked:

"i dont understand how tiktok became the faker central. is it because its the most popular amongst younger people, like tumblr was a few years back? easier to reach a wider audience? very curious."

To which I answered:

"Probably, yes. [...]

TikTok gained a lot of popularity and many downloaded it during the pandemic, especially amongst teens (myself included). Most likely because people were bored and looking for ways to socialize or get a distraction from all the bad things happening in the world.

The short video format makes it very easy to make a lot of content in a short amount of time. Especially because I've noticed that app seems to be build on quantity over quality. I'm not saying that all videos on there are low quality content, they're plenty of highly talented people on there to prove otherwise, but I've seen my fair share of "lazy" videos. Which, sadly, get a lot of likes, shares, etc as well, making them more and more popular. And pushing them on your "for you page" as well.

All of that makes it very easy to only scratch a complex topic, such as mental health, on a surface level. Leading to a lot of misinformation spreading very fast, because many will take it 100% serious without a second thought and, again, push it onto fy pages, etc. Which, just like you said, make it easier to reach a wider audience.

Another thing that most likely makes TikTok such a "faker hotspot" is the fact that it is very easy to get stuck in an echo chamber. The algorithm will quickly adapt to what you like, comment on, share, search, etc. Meaning that, if you only like a few videos of fakers, chances are high that you'll only see that kind of content on your fyp.

Combine that with teenagers who are in general more prone to have identity issues, in need for social validation, etc and seemingly "perfect" opportunities to get those things via faking mental illnesses, and you end up with... well... "faker hot spots". On top of that, if you keep being told that you're something over and over again, the chances are higher that you'll believe it as well. Especially if you're already struggling with mental health issues due to the pandemic, your relationship with your family, body image issues, etc. [...] "

Social media does have it's bright sides, yes, but ignoring the dark sides isn't helping anybody. Especially those who suffer because of it.

Munchausen Syndrome, Nocebo Effect and more; possible explenations for faking?

First, let's define what Munchausen Syndrome and the Nocebo Effect is, so we're all in the same boat here. I'll quote good definitions I found on the internet:

"Munchausen syndrome (factitious disorder imposed on self) is when someone tries to get attention and sympathy by falsifying, inducing, and/or exaggerating an illness. They lie about symptoms, sabotage medical tests (like putting blood in their urine), or harm themselves to get the symptoms. Diagnosing and treating Munchausen syndrome is difficult because of the person’s dishonesty."

"By definition, a nocebo effect is the induction of a symptom perceived as negative by sham treatment and/or by the suggestion of negative expectations. A nocebo response is a negative symptom induced by the patient’s own negative expectations and/or by negative suggestions from clinical staff in the absence of any treatment."

Now that we all have a very basic understanding of those two things we can start to work with them.

Many people who talk about the "faker pandemic" propose that said fakers might have Munchausen Syndrome. I don't know anywhere near enough about this condition to give a professional opinion about it, but I can give a unprofessional guess. I think that some fakers, especially those who can't stop coming up with and creating new issues, as well as those who obviously exaggerate their issues based of misinformation, do show typical symptoms of Munchausen Syndrome. I'm not diagnosing them, I'm not saying they most definitely suffer from it. But I can see where those who argue for this hypothesis are coming from.

Something I believe might be far more likely than Munchausen Syndrome, however, is the Nocebo Effect. I don't think everybody who gets called out as a faker doesn't suffer from anything. They might have another mental health problem that lead them to "faking". I understand how easy it is to become extremely misinformed and accidentally spreading misinformation, simply because you don't know it any better. I know how easy it is to get stuck in an echo chamber on the internet, being surrounded by people who keep telling you there's something wrong with you. And, as previously mentioned, I know how easy it is to manipulate especially children and teens into believing things. So I see it as far more likely that "fakers" fell victim to the Nocebo Effect and can start to actually develop the symptoms of something, because they believe they suffer from it.

They may have exaggerate and pretended to suffer from mental health issues at the beginning to gain attention, yes. But I believe that far more of them started to actually experience those things. Which is why, I think, there have been so many reported cases, from mental health professionals, of people developing tic disorders due to TikTok and similar.

And when it comes to those who are really just faking those symptoms, I once again think it has it's roots in peer pressure, self identity issues, etc, as I mentioned in the previous "chapter".

All in the name of education and destigmatisation?

Every time someone brings up this debate of self diagnosing, one argument gets thrown around over and over again: "I'm just trying to spread awareness and educate people!"

Here are my personal thoughts on that:

I believe that people on the internet talking about their mental health problems has helped towards destigmatize them and bring awareness. Many of my friends who never considered going to therapy, because they were too afraid to get judged for their problems, are now more open towards that idea.

If you get professionally diagnosed with something it can be extremely helpful to connect to others and realize that a diagnosis isn't a death sentence. It can also help a lot to find new copeing mechanisms and find solutions to common problems amongst people who suffer from those issues.

But even if you aren't professionally diagnosed, connecting with others and using free resources to help yourself to get better can have an extremely positive impact.

I don't think it matters if you're diagnosed or not, when you're suffering from a mental health issue and you look up solutions to help yourself. If you've recently lost a loved one and feel sad because of it, it can help to look into everyday copeing mechanisms people with depression use. If you get extremely fidgety in situations that make you nervous, I don't think there's any harm done if you look up how people with ADHD deal with their hyperactivity.

A common argument against that is "undiagnosed people are taking away resources from diagnosed ones". Which honestly isn't true in most cases.

If the sources you're using are publically available, such as the internet, books about the topic or similar, you're not taking away any resources from diagnosed people.

One thing you'll have to keep in mind is that most mental health institutions which offer therapy priotice people who have more urgent and extremely problems, over those who don't. So even if you seek out therapy because of extrem stress due to your current situation or similar, you're not taking away any resources from diagnosed people. Or people who "have it worse".

A friend of mine who suffered from a servere ED immediately got help, no questions asked. Another friend who got diagnosed with PTSD had to wait slightly longer, but got help as soon as possible as well. Meanwhile someone I know who only suffered from mild depression and anxiety had to wait for about a year to even get a first therapy appointment.

And I'm sure people who don't suffer as extremely as others do tend to seek out help these days more than they did before. Simply because of the subject not being such a huge "taboo topic".

However, there is a fine line between destigmatisation, education, etc and achieving exactly the opposite (by accident).

I like to imagine any kind of "taboo" and extremely stigmatized topic as a hill. At first, people bringing more awareness to it, fighting for their rights, demonstrating for it, etc, helps to go up the hill. The more people join those movements, the more attention is brought to it. And the more education, awareness, etc is brought to those topics as well. People become less afraid of talking about them, etc. However, at some point the peek of the hill is reached and everything they wanted to achieve is achieved. Yet, people still want to keep going. People still want more and more and more, leading to extremists groups forming and so on. And it only takes a few loud extremists, misinformed or simply rude people to re-stigmatize the topic. "Falling down" on the hill again.

I'll take "climate change" as an example to explain what exactly I mean with that. Greta Thunberg helped a lot with her climate activism to bring awareness to climate change and the impact of living unsustainable on our planet. Thousands of Fridays For Future demonstrations were held all over the planet and this worldwide issue gained a lot of attention. Politicians got pressured into changing things and making plans and statements about climate change, pollution, etc. Many of those things lead to positive results.

But some of those climate change activists we're happy with just that and started to use more extreme ways of protesting. (The "Last Generation" is a perfect example for that.) And because of those few, loud extremists, the entire movement seems laughable these days, with many people becoming more negative towards it.

The same thing, I believe, is happening with mental health issues as well. At first more awareness had a positive impact, but because of how many people spreading misinformation, or faking mental health problems for attention, it became more stigmatized again. Leading to many being too afraid to seek help and talk about their problems again, fearing they'll immediately get judged and called "fakers".

Why faking mental health problems is problematic

Besides all of the reasons I've mentioned earlier, such as misinformation, stigmatization, etc, they're also other problems caused by people who fake mental health issues. Here, I especially want to focus on service dogs and the impact faking has on mental health professional and people who seek out help.

Let's start with service dogs. Service dogs are specialized dogs, trained for performing different tasks, in order to make life easier for their owner.

Because of their special training, they're extremely expensive and a privilege not everybody has. However, they're essential for some to function in day to day life and/or not get in dangerous situations.

A service dog for a blind person may be trained to help them navigate traffic or crowded places. One trained for wheelchair users might help them to pick up stuff they dropped on the floor, or reach things the owner can't. One trained for diabetics usually detects a too high or too low blood sugar level and can alert the owner.

Likewise, service dogs specialist for mental health issues also help their owners in various different ways. A service dog might be trained to help with intrusive thoughts and stop the owner from self harming behavior. Or they might make a person with severe anxiety help to feel saver and protected, being able to find a quick exit if needed.

They're trained to stay calm in situations that would usually be extremely stressful to ordinary dogs. Which is why not every dog is suited for this kind of job.

I can understand that a pet can act like an emotional support animal. I get that some people would love to take their pet everywhere, even in places where they aren't allowed. Service dogs owners get this privilege. But needing constant assistance (in the form of a service dog) on a day to day basis because of your (mental) health isn't one. If a service dog gets distracted from their job by a non-service dog/animal, it can lead to dangerous situations for both the owner, as well as the dog.

I've never experienced my next points and I haven't seen many talk about it either. However, I have heard of some cases which is why I bring it up.

Some mental health professional apperently get heavily misinformation about mental health because of them searching for resources on the internet. Some even get stuck in echo chambers themselves, similar to what their clients might experience. I can only imagine what happens if those professionals (accidentally) treat their clients with wrong methods due to this.

I also wouldn't be too surprised if this entire dilemma leads to people who seek out help not being taken serious. Especially if they come to therapy with a suspicions of a mental health problem that might be worth looking into.

Faking or not? Should "fakers" be called out?

In my opinion, yes and no. I don't think you can nor should judge anybody based of their internet presence alone. After all, what they post is most likely a scripted narrative.

I also don't think that you should judge people based on their appereance (e.g. alternative style). Do many of them dress the way they do to gain attention and see a mental health issue as a fun and quirky "add on"? Yes, absolutely. Does this automatically mean that every person with an alternative style who talks about their mental health issues is faking? I don't think so.

If you know someone who you believe is faking mental health issues in real life, instead of bullying them, harassing them or similar, I think a far better approach is to educate them. Show them the harm they do and maybe even get professional help for them.

Be kind, be understanding and try to see where they're coming from and why they're faking something so serious. Especially if they don't seem aware of the harm they're causing.

However, I do believe that fakers should be called out if they spread misinformation and you should kindly correct them. Even more so if you have scientific facts and studies to back your claim up, being able to site your sources when asked.

Part 2: The dos and don'ts of "self diagnosing"

Part 3: Pro/Con self diagnosing + Getting help

[i-wear-the-cheese]

Okay so I just saw a tumblr post from February getting aggy about books which are marketing using phraseology like 'queer polyam disabled vampires' and then saying 'but what are the themes? Why should I read it?' And look, I didn't want to drop a huge essay on OPs post but like, here it is, here is a thesis on why you should read a book about queer polyam disabled vampires, or what the other options are instead of throwing this entire marketing technique in the bin.

From the outset, so you know I've put some thought into the matter, I'm going to admit I have a masters degree in critical and creative writing, then worked in a bookshop, then went into publishing, and then got engaged to an author (who I will be marrying). So pretty much all levels of book marketing are things I've looked at professionally and academically. Okay credentials established, here is why I think that's not only okay but actively good as a marketing method AND totally necessary:

Genre is a key feature for selling books. When one says "I'm into cozy crime", they needn't say "I'm into books which have themes of subterfuge , greed, and death; frequently featuring small towns and family drama but ultimately in a setting or narrative style that makes the reader feel safe and provides catharsis". That whole long thing has been handled by Genre. In the above example, vampire is the genre! This means that themes of lust, dominance, power, and taboo are implied or even expected. This is true of Dracula, The Vampire Diaries, Carmilla, and Twilight. Vampire novel fans know what to expect from their genre. This alone means you can recommend a book just on "vampire novel" but it also means if you wanted to market a book containing none of these themes you might say "not your average vampire novel" to deliberately let them know that's being subverted.

Marketing is a battle against attention spans. When you're reviewing a book or talking to a friend about why they should read something, you absolutely should go into more depth and detail and certainly anyone looking at it critically should go further still. But "what are the themes" is a question we've all been taught academically but which holds generally little use on its own. The majority of readers don't respond well to "this book deals with the complexity of familial relationships in a cult setting and with regards to long term polyamory". Now that may have been the exact style of sentence original OP wanted and I personally love those sorts of descriptions when I'm getting into the nitty gritty, but I don't need or expect them from book marketing when I know marketing copy writers (often the authors themselves) have to be brief in a wide range of modern marketing formats. Scroll culture basically means if you can't catch someone in the first half second you've lost them.

The main issue I think that the original OP of that post was getting at was the sense that 'queer disabled polyam' was tokenism and was using those minority groups to sell books. This is a multi faceted bit so hold tight. From the outset: everything a marketing person says will be to sell a thing. They're not going to say 'it's got disabled characters but they're a bit shit so don't read it'. Let's not ever pretend that honestly and sincerity are the goal here. That being said it still isn't by tokenism and that's because of the actual definition of tokenism. Tokenism is a concept which arose during the mid 20th century in the civil rights movement and pertained specifically to parading around one or two examples of a minority person being included in a group to show apparent societal progress without affecting the genuine underlying issues or making things better for all. So tokenism applies to things like Disney claiming 7 separate times that their first gay character was in a show or film, because the purpose of that was to market media for which the main focus was NOT the gay characters. But if someone tells me that a vampire novel is about a 'queer disabled polyam' it is a fairly safe assumption from the language use alone that the MAIN character is queer, and disabled, and involved in polyamorous relationships. Main characters are not tokenism, they are representation.

So why does representation rather than tokenism make it an acceptable marketing method? Because that is precisely how you reach the audience who need it! People who are craving literature which makes them feel seen, and reaches the place within their own identity that mass media tends to conveniently ignore will absolutely be looking out for those sorts of buzzwords. So many people fish about for years and years of their lives for a little blip of representation that it really isn't fair to ask them to have to wade through the initial description of the themes of the novel when they are searching for the single book in 10,000 which will have a disabled lesbian as the protagonist. Representation is not an indicator of quality, but quality is subjective anyway and I personally think I'm really picky about book quality but you can bet your arse I have read books which were recommended on such pithy lines as 'Arthurian legend but in space in the future and wlw' because I love books set in space and I love retellings and I love queer shit. But the next stage is to go 'oh that has a load of things I love in it, I should see if it fits my vibe'. Check out some reviews, or read the first chapter, or ask for some opinions, or just take a fucking chance on a book that ticks some of your boxes. OR (and here is the most important bit) ignore it, and accept that sometimes advertising and marketing is NOT targeted at you and if you aren't in those demographics or you are both that's not what you base your reading choice on, you weren't the target audience for the marketing.

In conclusion, there are a fuck ton of reasons this is a perfectly acceptable and even highly useful method of marketing a book and individual preference shouldn't put authors and copy writers of using it. Fin

[finnlongman]

Couple of thoughts on the changing social media landscape etc...

This blog is, and always has been, a public/mostly professional space. The nature of Tumblr means I can have sideblogs for personal venting and off-topic posts, as many of them as I want, and this blog is fairly carefully curated to be a public-facing page. My mum looks at it sometimes, after all, so anything I post has to be something I'm willing for her to see.

(Note: I think sideblogs and stuff are very important. Everybody needs a space on the internet where they're not being observed by colleagues, supervisors, managers, readers, anyone to whom they owe professional responsibility. A place to be Weird and know that it's not going to impact on their job the next day. If you don't yet have those spaces and you're someone who uses the internet in a professional capacity, I recommend creating them; it's freeing. If you think you've found somebody else's sideblog and they haven't indicated that they want to share it with you, it's polite to pretend you don't know and let them have their Weird Place Space in peace.)

This is a LESS professional space than, say, my website, and I have different rules for myself than I did on other social media. My Twitter policy has long been not to swear on there, and to keep my account reasonably suitable to be read by teenage readers, current/future employers, and other authors alike. Here, I tend to keep my own swearing to a minimum but I'm more relaxed about sharing others' sweary content, and I'll reblog slightly more risqué things (usually relating to the vampire novel).

I've been happy with that balance. It's a place people can follow me as an author, as an academic, and as a person, and get a reasonable mix of my research, my thoughts, and updates on my books, without being unduly formal and without me ever feeling like I couldn't be myself here. And it's a place where I both create my own material and share that of others, tending towards sharing things that are educational or that relate to my own work, but also just vibing.

I've always known, though, that this was not a space for publicity per se. While I do share links to my books here and I know that a few people have bought TBA, I've never been under any illusions about the possibility of Tumblr as a place to advertise myself. Nor do I WANT to do that. Honestly, I've come to resent the pressure to use Twitter as a "brand", as a "promotion" opportunity, when for years it was just a place I hung out as a person. But I'd rather do that there than here, partly because it actually worked there.

If this truly is the decline of Twitter, I don't mind my online socialising becoming more Tumblr-focused. I'm sad about the loss, because I think I'll lose a lot of academic community and opportunities to learn that I previously found on Tumblr, and it's going to be a lot harder to connect with other authors, but it won't be impossible; I have both academic and author friends here. But what I DON'T want is for Tumblr to have to become my Professional Space to the detriment of the fun, low-key vibe I've had going here for the last 11 years.

I'm worried that, if all of my professional contacts migrate here, I will have to start putting a mask on here as well, and I'll feel more pressure to self promote. It'll start to feel like the chore that other social media has become ever since I got published and have had to start using the internet As An Author and not just as a person who also writes books. I am very happy for more people to join this site, but I don't want the side effect of that to be that suddenly all my colleagues are here and I'm in Work Mode all the time.

One of the things I've found hardest about the internet in recent years is the switch from what it was in my teens (place to be weird and unique and unselfconscious) to what it is now (place where I'm expected to be professional and might be observed by my boss, academic colleagues, publisher, readers etc at any time). And Tumblr was for a long time the last bastion against that, even if my mum looks at it. I'll be sad if that goes, because all the sideblogs in the world won't help if actually being here starts to feel like something I do for work.

Crucially, I think the problem is that for career reasons, I need something that does for me what Twitter was doing, but also I was not enjoying that aspect of Twitter and it was not feeling like a fun place to do that, so what I REALLY need is for my career not to rely on me managing to virtually hand-sell my book to people on the internet while I'm just trying to live my life...

Anyway. Just something I'm thinking about as I face down the possibility of this being the main place where I as an author can communicate with potential readers. I don't really want it to be... that, but it might have to be that, and I'm going to be thinking hard about how I navigate that.

[brooklynbear32]

Chapter 7: Kitchen

Pairing: Chris Evans/Reader

Rating: Explicit

Read the full fic on AO3 or view the tumblr masterlist

It’s hard to go to work the next day like the world hasn’t dissolved and rebuilt itself around you. You stayed with Chris in his hotel room overnight, your body overlapping perfectly onto his as you slept more soundly than usual. You showered together in the morning, but the need for efficiency prevented anything more than a quick and giggly grope. He drove you to your place and waited for you in the car while you ran inside for fresh clothes and to use your own toothpaste. And then you were off to work together, to pretend like nothing happened.

You hadn’t really talked about it - whether this was going to happen again, whether it was a secret - aside from when you told him to hang back five minutes while you got a head start going into work. He didn’t disagree with you. For the first time in your life, you weren’t actually worried about where you stood with a guy. You were able to trust that he had enjoyed your time together - there wasn’t any doubt in your mind, really - and that, at the very least, he’d also wanted a chance to see how things might play out.

You find yourself alone shortly after arriving at work and take a moment to think things through. You daydream a little and then decide on a plan of attack: steadily warming up to Chris while in public so that no one notices the abrupt change in your relationship. You don’t like the idea of going back to being detached and dismissive, but it still sounds better than inviting the gossip that would occur if you suddenly acted too cozy with him.

You wish you could send him a text as a head’s up, and let him know what you’re thinking. Prevent the potential for him to think something is actually wrong. But you’d been so busy getting, you know, the living daylights fucked out of you, that you didn’t get his number. The digits, Sunshine, always get the digits!

So when you bump into him next, you give him a cool, calm, “All set, Evans?”

He looks up at your voice, and just as a crease appears between his eyebrows, you give him a subtle wink. Or at least, you hope it’s subtle; you’re known for having an overly expressive face, and you don’t know the last time you actually winked at anyone. But he must understand, because he gives you a quick nod before replying.

“Great, thank you. You can let them know I’m ready whenever.” It’s exactly what he’d normally say, the same way he’d normally say it: polite but still authoritative, and if you thought that voice was sexy before, it is devastating now that you’ve heard it speak to you in much more intimate contexts.

You nod back, and hurry away before your face has the chance to turn red or your legs remember that they like to go weak around him.

_______

Things get busier, as they always do in the last few weeks of filming, and as much as you’d like to spend all of your time with your mind (and your body) back in Chris’s bed, you have a job to do. You can’t ignore the changed energy between you, or even the way you feel personally changed as you move through your day with a different level of confidence and determination. But you don’t have time to focus on either, tapping into that professional part of your brain that overrides whatever goes on in your personal life. You do your job and you do it well.

A couple days go by, with barely the chance to do anything more than catch Chris’s eye and share a quick glance, and you’re honestly pretty proud that you haven’t given in and showed up at his door at two in the morning, desperate to have his hands on you again.

On Saturday afternoon, you flip a page on your ever-present clipboard and see a post-it note with ten digits. Your stomach tightens, a rush of warmth moving through you. There’s no doubt in your mind whose number that is, though you don’t know how – or when – he managed to leave the note without you or anyone else noticing.

You make it to the end of the day, when everyone’s told to go home and come back on Monday, before pulling out your phone and sending off a text.

Hey, I’d like to order some catering. Is it true that you’re a four star chef?

The reply comes just a few minutes later.

I have referred to myself as such, yes. Not sure if I can do anything too fancy at this short notice - pizza, maybe?

You smile.

Perfect. Extra cauliflower, please. I still need a location for this rendezvous. Can you check for availability at a small, tidy place with a casual ambiance and a surprising number of books on the dining table?

Sorry, we’re all out of cauliflower today, you monster. Otherwise, that’s perfect. It’ll be ready in an hour.

Thanks, Chef. So will I.

_____

You hurry home to have a shower, and actually take the time to do the things you’d normally do to prepare for a date – or a hookup. Mostly, you scrub your skin raw to make sure that the sweat of running around all day is well and truly gone. You’d never admit it, but each time you’ve showered since your previous encounter with Chris, you’ve taken extra care with your grooming, making sure everything is shaved and trimmed and plucked to your personal standards. You don’t dress up, just throwing on a favorite sundress, but you do make a point of choosing one of your nicer bra and panty sets, and throw on the quickest application of lipstick, mascara and that perfume you never wear. He’s seen you - all of you - in your rawest state, so you’re not trying to hide your flaws. You just want to present a slightly more polished version of yourself.

How are you still overwhelmed every time you see him? He’s wearing his own clothes this time, not the clothes that, while similar enough to his style, are still a costume. Something about the fact that he's wearing his own t-shirt and jeans makes him seem more comfortable. His hair is a little damp, swooped back on his head, just long enough to start to curl. You try to open your mouth, but there aren’t any words ready to come out.

Then you’re back in your car, driving to the hotel, trying to stay calm. Trying not to run red lights or get pulled over for speeding. You make it to his door 59 minutes after his last text, and you’re just considering whether he might want that extra minute to get ready, when the door opens.

Eventually, you do let his lips leave yours, if only so you can catch your breath.

“Hiya, Sunshine.” He says, grabbing your hand and pulling you inside. The moment the door clicks shut, his mouth is on yours, his hands roaming your body. You gasp into his mouth, surprised, but so okay with it. You grab his head, running your fingers through his hair, and when he tries to pull away, you hold him still, making him stay in the kiss longer.

“Fuck, Sweetheart,” He tells you, his eyes dark. “It’s been killin’ me not getting to do that.”

“I appreciate your restraint,” you reply, “and also your lack of it now.”

He smiles and leans in to kiss you more. You’re starting to lose yourself in it, your hands grabbing at his shoulders, considering trying to get one of his thighs between yours –

And then your stomach growls. You groan, embarrassed and impatient. Chris just laughs and tugs you over to the table, where there are, wait, four different boxes?

“You expecting more people?” You ask, unable to help yourself. “Is this an orgy now?”

He laughs again, “No, I – uh – I just wanted to be sure I got something you like.” He looks a little bashful, like he hadn’t considered that he might have gone overboard until that moment.

You reach up and touch his face. “That’s very sweet of you, Chris.”

“Yeah?” He asks, unsure.

“Yeah,” you reply. “Ridiculous, but very sweet.”

You smile at each other and dig into your feast. You chat lightly about work, about the scenes that took more or fewer takes than expected, and laugh about a line Chris kept flubbing. He gets up to grab a beer, offering you one, but you turn him down and ask for a soda instead.

“Don’t like beer, don’t drink, or don’t mix booze and sex?” Chris asks, coming back to the table.

You decide to mess with him and look away as though uncomfortable. “Oh – uh – you think I’m here to hook up?”

His eyes get huge, as horrified embarrassment floods his face. You must be a terrible person because not only do you find it hilarious, you’re weirdly touched by the fact that he doesn’t seem disappointed or mad. You can’t help it; you start cackling and then nearly fall off your chair as you watch his face journey through dawning comprehension.

“You’re the worst!” He yells at you, but he’s laughing, too. “Fucking, hell, Sunshine!”

He’s got a hand on his chest, not like he does when he finds something really funny, but like he’s trying to keep his heart from jumping out of his chest

“That nearly killed me!” Thank God he’s laughing, because otherwise you might be starting to feel bad about it. “I was like, ‘I’m going to hell. How can I ever look at my mom again?’ but you were just fucking with me!”

“I am here for the sex,” you promise him, “and the pizza and company, too, but definitely the sex.”

“Thank fuck for that.” he says, weakly.

“Hopefully it’s not a deal-breaker, but I don’t actually like beer.” You tell him, wincing. “I do drink, but I’m a super lightweight, so I have to pick my moments.”

“Not a dealbreaker,” He says, taking a sip. “More for me. How much of a lightweight are we talking?”

Part of the way through the question, his voice changed, deepening. He’s got that mischievous smile on his face.

“Uh, like, if I have two glasses of wine at a bar, I’d better drink a bunch of water or I’m done for the night?”

“Aww!” He croons at you, like you’re a baby or a dog. “You’re like a thirteen year old!”

You’re used to being made fun of for this, and often you do find yourself quite embarrassed, but God knows, Chris has seen worse parts of you by now.

“Yeah, half of our crew thinks I’m in recovery because of how cagey I get about drinking.”

“What happens if you have a third drink?” He asks, intrigued.

Oh, wait, this is another worse part.

“I'm not sure what I'd do nowadays, but historically, I'd try to find someone to go home with, someone who might be able to “fix” me?” You say, scrunching up your face, turning your sentence into a question, like you might decide to disagree with yourself if he reacts badly. You know he’s slept around - he told you that himself - and you know he’s a feminist, but something in you still expects to be shamed.

“Aww,” He says again, but it’s not teasing this time, just - sad? “Like, “fix” you sexually?”

“Yeah,” you say, "I didn't do it a lot or anything. There was just a stretch after college where I thought maybe I needed to experiment more, or maybe I wasn't relaxed enough… I'm not really proud of it."

"Hey, you took a chance." He's leaning in, making sure you're looking at him. His eyes are so fucking sincere. "The only way to learn about your sexuality is to have sex, and sometimes you learn more when things don't go the way you wanted them to. I've definitely found that some things in life just have to be learned the hard way.

He smiles but doesn't further engage with your joke, doesn't let you distract him.

"I feel the need to make a joke about the hard way." You reply dryly.

"Yeah, well, if only I’d met you a decade earlier…” you say, rolling your eyes, but Chris shakes his head.

"I just want to make sure you know that you don't have to feel bad about it. Maybe the way you went about things wasn't the healthiest, but only an asshole would try to make you feel gross about it."

“I wasn’t worth meeting then.”

You scoff. "Yeah, right."

"No, really! I had a lot of learning and growing to do!" You can tell he actually means what he's saying. His hand reaches out to yours. "I'm not proud of some of the things I did then, mostly because I didn’t always treat people as well as I should have. You know how you freaked out a bit after round one last time?

Ugh, of course you do. You'd worked yourself up into a state where you were sure he was gonna slap your ass, say "good game," and call you an Uber.

"You would have been 100% correct with everything you were worried about." Chris says, regretfully. "I mean, I wouldn't have been as good in bed to begin with, but afterward, I would have sent you home without recognizing the connection we had. I would have thought back on it as a fun afternoon of unexpected sex, but I wouldn't have thought as much about how it affected you."

"As opposed to now?" You ask, more direct than you'd planned to be during the potentially inevitable, "What are we?" conversation.

"Now, I was able to recognize that this wasn’t just a quick fuck for you. You were going through something emotionally and the sex was part of it. It was more than just a hook-up for you, unless I'm extremely mistaken." He answers evenly, undaunted by the loaded question. You nod, agreeing with his assessment of things. "You had a different emotional investment than there’d normally be from spending just one day with a person."

Your mouth goes dry. "And would you say that investment is mutual?"

"Sure," he answers, without hesitating. "I'm really enjoying getting to know you, both in the bedroom and out of it. Plus, I'd actually had my eye on you even before your big confession. You have this warmth to you. I saw it when you interacted with everyone else, and I really wanted the chance to experience it for myself."

Your heart melts. "And now that you have?" You ask, flirting.

"Oh, I'm the menace?" You reply. "You're the one that spent five minutes rubbing his hands up and down his corduroy pants today and then had the audacity to wink at me while I was talking with the director!"

"Now that I have, I know that you're actually a menace." He teases you, and you're happy to follow suit.

Between your fingers, you can see Chris's eyebrows arch in surprise.

"Yeah, well, you wore a shirt yesterday that kept riding low enough that I got glimpses of the mark I sucked on your tit."

And oh fuck that hadn't been on purpose. You didn't even notice, but how many others had? Your face flushes and you cover it with your hands. You whisper a quiet and horrified, "Oh, God."

"Shit, I thought you knew, Sunshine! I thought you were trying – never mind, it's not important." He's frowning now, thinking about it without the lens of horniness. "It really was just a glimpse. Anyone else would probably think it was just shadow, because, uh, they wouldn't know to be looking for something."

You let your hand slide off your face, and manage a weak smile.

"Next time, don't assume I'm trying to tease you, and send me a text to let me know, okay?" You ask.

"Sure, Sunshine." But then he gives you that mischievous smile. You scowl at him, playfully though, inviting him to share his thoughts. And he does. "Next time, huh?"

"Sure, Sunshine." He says again, and now he's getting up and walking over to loom over you. "So you're saying that you don't want me to mark you up more tonight?"

"Nuh-uh," You say, and actually waggle a finger at him. "That was hypothetical. That was not an invitation."

You huff out a breath, annoyed, or pretending to be, at least.

"I didn't say that." You reply, momentarily distracted by the fan of his eyelashes. "Maybe you're just going to have to pick more private places."

Your brain short-circuits. How the fuck are you supposed to answer that? Your mind overflows with ideas, each filthier than the last. This must be obvious on your face because Chris chuckles, smiles.

"Okay, now that was an invitation." Chris says, leaning in to kiss your lips. 'What else do you want from me tonight?"

"I've just realized," he says, kneeling down in front of your chair, "That I never even asked you what exactly you fantasized about all those times you got yourself off thinking about me."

A moan sneaks out of you. You’re a little shy and a lot aroused as he stares at you, waiting for an answer.

"I, uh, there were a bunch of different things." You answer, not knowing where to start, or if you even wanted to.

"Of course, of course." He says, thoughtfully, taping a finger against his lips. "There'd have to be, wouldn't there? If thinking about me was the only way you could come, you must have had a lot of different fantasies."

You nod, trying to gather your courage. Everything you’ve done together has been so fucking hot and he's staring you down now like he wants to eat you alive, but the words are caught in your throat.

"I want to hear all of them." Chris says, and you gasp loudly, mortified by the idea. "I want you to start with one of the things that made you come the hardest. If we can, we'll give it a shot, and while we do whatever made you come, over and over, you're going to tell me everything you've dreamed of."

You nod again, because fuck if you don't want that, embarrassed as you are.

He kisses you, open-mouthed and filthy. You melt into it, considering your options.

"Uh, okay, I think I've got it." You tell him. It isn't especially scandalous or kinky, but it sure has worked for you in the privacy of your bedroom.

He sits back on his calves, visibly ready to listen to you. You pick at the hem of your sundress.

"Um, I've always liked the idea of you seeing me in a dress like this and–" His eyes are dark. He wants this, maybe almost as much as you do. You can say it. The words speed out in a rush. "You pull off my panties and just fuck me."

"Fuck, yeah, Sunshine!" Chris says, crowding up against you now. He kisses you. "We can definitely do that. It sounds super hot."

He plucks at the shoulder of your dress. "You even came prepared." He teases you. "So talk me through this a bit more: where do you want this to happen? What position?"

"Right here?" You say, gesturing towards the kitchenette. "Either bending me over the counter or holding me up against the wall? Like you just walked in, saw me, and couldn't wait long enough to get us to the bed."

"Okay, yeah, this is gonna be good." Chris says, and he's looking around the room, an expression on his face you see from directors at work: he's setting the scene. You smile at him, charmed by the thought he's putting in.

"I should mention, before we get started," he says, holding out a hand to help you stand. "Wall sex isn't always what people dream it to be, at least, in my experience. We can try it! I'm completely on board for it; I'd just hate to ruin one of your favorite fantasies."

You stand up and trail your hands up his chest. He's looking at you with dark eyes. "I'm not worried about that in the slightest."

"Huh?" You mumble, confused.

You kiss him, pushing yourself flush against his chest. He groans into your mouth and grabs at your ass. "You picked a good one; I don't have to pretend at all," he tells you.

"I really did think of fucking you against the wall the moment I saw you in that dress."

You smile, thrilled to be desired so much.

"Come over here," Chris says, steering you over towards the counter of the kitchenette. He turns you so you're facing the counter. "Put your hands down, yeah, just like that."

He moves to stand behind you, his enormous chest pressing against your back. You turn your head so he can kiss you. He holds your face with one hand, the other running up and down your side.

"This is perfect. You look perfect. We’ll start here, and once we hit our stride, we’ll move to the wall. First, though, you stay real still, and I'll be right back." You're confused, but you do as he asks. You hear him walk away, but after just a moment, he's back with a crinkling sound. Ah, a condom.

He leans against you again, but now he's got both hands on your hips. "Fuck, Sunshine, what am I s'posed to do with you? How can you be so sweet and so sexy at the same time? You look like you're ready to go on a goddamn picnic even as you're waiting for me to get my dick in you."

You moan, "It's a gift."

"It sure fucking is." He agrees, his breath against your neck, and his hands slide down your thighs to the hem of your dress. "And now I get to unwrap it."

He pulls up the skirt of your dress and groans when he sees your lace-covered ass.

"Oh, fuck, sweetheart. That's one of the best sights I've seen in my life." He rubs a hand over your panties, sliding it down to where you’re aching for him. "I know I’m supposed to take your panties off but what if I left them on? Just pushed them aside enough to get in you?"

"Your call." You tell him.

"Hmm, well, in that case. Let's leave 'em on. Can I touch you?"

He's so respectful that it's a little silly; he's literally rubbing your vulva through a thin layer of fabric, but he's still waiting to be sure he has your consent before he doesmore.

"Chris, if you don't get your fingers in me right now, I'm going to explode." You growl at him.

"Can't have that, now, can we?" He chuckles. He pushes aside your panties, and two fingers slide into you immediately. "Oh, yeah, you are ready for me, huh?"

"Uh huh," you agree, biting your lip. His mouth is back on your neck, one hand on your stomach as the other moves inside you. You’re already overwhelmed by him.

"When you imagined us like this before, did I take the time to make sure you were nice and wet, or did I just fuck right into you?"

"Uh, both." You answer. "Depended on my mood. Sometimes, you'd lick into me first."

"Hmm," His voice rumbles against your skin. "And your mood today?"

"Oh, I definitely want you to just fuck me." You answer with a laugh.

"That's what I hoped you'd say." He whispers, and he pulls out his fingers. You hear the jingle of his belt opening and then his pants hit the floor. There's a crinkle of foil as he puts on a condom.

And then he’s pushing up your dress and pressing back against you, his lips at your throat and a hand on your hip. “You ready for my cock, baby?”

“Fuck, Chris, yes!” You tell him, exasperated. “Just fucking fuck me!”

He laughs but lines himself up and pushes into you. “Gotta say, Sunshine, I like hearing you so desperate for me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” You tell him, trying to suck in a breath and relax to let him into you. “You're less chatty in my fantasies."

"I don't believe that for a second." Chris says, swirling his hips as he slides deeper inside you. "You can pretend you don't like my dirty talk, but I can tell that you do. I know you want me to tell you how much I love the idea of you in your bed, touching yourself and dreaming of this."

He’s nibbling at that spot by your ear that makes your knees weak. “I know I’ll be dreaming about it now, too.” He whispers. “Can’t wait to hear everything else you’ve fantasized about.”

It’s so fucking hot except the angle is… not the best. You hold onto the counter and try stretching up on your toes, shifting your weight from one foot to the other, trying to find the best way to settle him inside you.

"What d'you think?" He asks as he bottoms out. He slowly starts thrusting in and out of you.

"I think I shoulda wore a pair of heels." You joke. You love that he's taller than you, you do, but it might be making this position a little trickier.

He stills inside you and rubs his cheek against yours. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think so." You answer. "It's just a different feeling than I'm used to."

"Do you – I could find something for you to stand on?" He offers. "Or – give me a sec."

He slides most of the way out and -- you're not sure why but when he pushes back in, it feels different.

Better.

You let out a moan. "What did you do?"

"Bent my knees a little more." Chris says, and his voice is rougher now. Every time he fills you up, he pauses for a moment, and you realize he's not just thrusting his hips; he's basically doing shallow squats to push up into you.

"Putting your gym time to good use, huh?" You tease him. You start rolling your hips to meet his thrusts.

"Fuck, that's good, Sweetheart. Keep doing that." He's clearly working harder, as he doesn't pick up his normal thread of dirty talk. Instead, he's started grunting with the rhythm of his thrusts, hands caressing your lace-covered hips.

You turn your head so you can kiss him. You’re both breathing hard, so it’s messy, sloppy. Your past fantasies couldn't be further from your mind. Why would you spare even one thought for them now, when reality has so entirely surpassed everything you dreamed of? Eventually, Chris breaks the kiss to ask, "Do you still wanna try the wall, or d’you wanna just stay like this?"

You groan. "Maybe try the wall, then back to this if it’s not as good?”

He answers by pulling out of you all the way, pinching the condom at the base of his dick so it doesn't come off inside you. You turn around and meet him with a kiss, luxurious and dirty. His hands slide under your skirt, squeeze your ass, and then pull off your panties. You respond by grabbing his shirt and tugging it over his head.

Then you wrap your arms around his neck, and when he places a hand on each of your thighs, you jump up, wrapping your legs around his waist. He walks you over to the wall beside the door, where he'd kissed you when you arrived, and gently presses you against the wall.

With the wall helping hold you up, he leans back a little and uses a hand to guide himself into you. He pushes into you and moves his hand back to your thigh. You both groan, feeling him slide home and your pelvises meet. And – oh, right, now you can see his face, and you feel a warm rush go through you at his expression.

Later, you’ll try to describe the look on his face. You’ll try to tell him just how hot he looked and how it made you feel like your whole body was blushing. You won’t be able to find the words. Intense doesn’t capture the way he looked like nothing else existed in the world but fucking you. Ravenous doesn’t capture the way he looked like he was making plans to devour you, body and soul. Wicked doesnt capture the way you know, deep in your gut, that he's planning to do things to you that you’ve never even imagined.

You can’t describe it, but when his eyes fix on yours, you are consumed by him entirely. And maybe wall sex isn’t supposed to be good in reality, but it isn’t long until he ruts against you, making his pubic bone rub against your clit. His cock hits the perfect spot and you really didn’t see your orgasm coming, but there it is. You catch the surprise on his face right before your eyes close, pleasure exploding through you, all of your muscles clenching around him. Your legs tighten around his waist, making sure that he stays just right inside you.

When your muscles start to relax and your eyes open, you see his expression change and then he is fucking into you, holding nothing back, pushing you up the wall with each thrust. You sag on him, letting him use you to chase his own release.

“God, that was so fucking hot, Sweetheart.” He replies, groaning into your mouth. “You’re good right? You can hang on until I come inside you?”

“Fuck, Sunshine, what was that, huh?” He asks, crashing his mouth into yours. “I didn’t even know you were close – did you?” You whimper, shaking your head against him.

You nod, and bite at his lip a little. “Mmm, yes please.”

“Fuck, Sunshine.” He says again, and then he’s hammering into you, and if you thought you’d experienced his strength before, it’s nothing compared to this. He’s holding you like you weigh nothing, his whole body moving against you. One hand leaves your thigh to grab your chin. You hold still and stare him down.

“Do I ever get a little rough with you in your fantasies, Sweetheart?” He asks, his eyes dark.

“Yeah,” you manage to gasp out and he smiles.

“Good,” he says, and his hand moves to your neck, not choking you at all, just holding it gently. “I do when I fantasize about you.”

And when you gasp, his hips impossibly speed up and then he’s coming inside you. The sound he makes sounds more like a roar than anything else, and if you weren’t so overtaken, you’d worry that everyone on the hotel floor would hear him. His hand on your thigh is almost painful as his fingers dig into you, and as his thrusts still, you wonder if you’re still throbbing around him or if you can feel him pulsing inside you.

He’s coming down now, kissing you gently on your lips, his forehead resting against yours. His arms move to wrap under your ass and then he’s carrying you into the bedroom, laying you so fucking gently on the bed. He takes off the condom with a wince, throws it out and then lays down beside you. You snuggle up to him, your head on his arm. His hand rubs up and down your back, smoothing the fabric of your sundress.

Tag list: @whiskeytangofoxtrot555

[emojeesus]

People, you would be surprised how far being an unapologetic mess of a person will get you. I will now give you some insight of why Idgaf who knows my tumblr and that it's me.

Ok I have a very bad handle of boundaries (I try!) and also I feel like in my country a potential employer requesting "all lf your online writings" or "every social media" is wildly unacceotable and likely very illegal (they are not even supposed to google your name, not that it can be enforced very well) but also...

When people started panicing about people tagging them on facebook because "My boss will see my party pics!" I could only think "Yeah, and?" Like yous guyses bosses expect you to never get drunk with friends? To not do or say stupid shit sometimes? To not live at all?

"It's so unprofessional! Think if you knww your dentist/GP/kid's teacher/prime minister/accountant/the person who sells you a car shitposted on Tumblr?"

SO WHAT. I do not gove fuck as long as they do their job. And my friends? I also do not give a fuck about their personal chaos as long as they are good friends.

I am tired pretending some people with a position or skillset are somehow better in any other way than their chosen field of expertice. That ministers don't go and get drunk at football games or have a wild night out sometimes to let oit steam. Like my doctor doesn't laugh at memes about stupid patients. Like a teacher is or even should be some sort of fucking perfect model of an adult for the children of our society.

Dear fellow shitposters, I quarantee to you that every single smart professional person you have ever met anywhere is a hot mess sometimes. I think we should see it more often. It would do us all good to just remember that even people we respect are human beings. Capable, skilled and wise human beinhs worthy of all professional respect they merit even when they can't hide every little imperfection in their life from all world.

I will say I have likely had many professional doors close on me because of this attitude. But I do not have it in me to keep data of my life out of the web in today's world. If you go ouy there are gonna be pictures, no matter how much you try to tell people not to post them or tag you. There's always that one asshole.

But I also find that once I let go of that frar of seeming stupid a bit, I am so much less stressed out. I will not evern try to hide my tracks that much anymore. I am not committing crime. I am not hurting anyone.

For doing stuff sometimes just because you have fun is not a crime or even a shame. It is human. We need it. And sure you don't need to disclose everything. But neither should you ever, ever be ashamed if someone happens across your party pics and shitposts. Furthermore you should never be afraid that you'll be professionally ruined for such things. I know the way it works right now is that employers own us and even control our image. That needs to change.

Do not give over that leverage. Own your whole life. If others cannot reconcile the fact that we all are stupid sometimes, it's a them problem.

okay tumblr’s exclusion from the twitter social media ban list is hilarious but genuinely we do not belong on there. if a real human person asks “where can i find you on social media” and your choice is a swift death or revealing your tumblr, most of us would simply expire. half of y’all change urls every week like you’re in witness protection. just imagine for one second attaching your wholeass government name to your latest two am clownposting and tell me that didn’t send a cold chill down your spine. the only place i ever want to see the words “connect with me on tumblr!” is on the ao3 profile of an author i’m actively stalking. anyone in the world can follow me except anyone i personally know. antisocial media.

[theirealnvisibleblogger]

Again, no replies.

Hey secret tumblr; long time no talk.

Let’s come clean about a few things before I get to this:

1. I lost 50 pounds. I’m really proud of myself, but I still have a long way to go (about 100 more).

2. I had a crush on a guy. It was the first one since high school and I had it bad. He has absolutely no feelings for me, which is for the best. Throughout the year, he got really angry at me and seemed uncomfortable around me. I know it’s my fault and it got to a point with him yelling at me over getting him chocolate because he was having a bad day. That was so so stupid of me. Never doing that again. I’m over it, but it has forced me to realize “shit, I might be pan,” so there’s that.

3. No one replies to my texts anymore or they take a really long time to reply. Or in a group chat, no one acknowledges what I say. When I feel like I’m hassling or annoying someone, I give that person space. I know back when I was a kid, I’d have moments where I was too much. So, I’ve learned to show people myself and my interest in bite sizes. I’ve been trying to make myself more quiet, including lowering the volume of my laugh (unsuccessfully). And I notice people are getting annoyed with the bite-sizes, I retreat. Call it a defense mechanism.  No one can get annoyed with me if I say nothing and I’m not there. or I can at least pretend that’s true.

4. I’m done dating. Every time I think about dating, I only think about the worst parts of every relationship I’ve ever had, and it makes dating unappealing. I can do things by myself that others can do for me. At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna die alone. Every once in a while, it kind of sucks to think about, but I’ve mostly made my peace with it.  people who, like what’s inside tend to not like with outside, and the people who like what’s outside, usually are repulsed by what’s inside.  I can’t imagine anyone wants to date someone who likes stuffed animals at my age anyway.

5. Everyone forgot my birthday this year. I left work crying. My work friend was a real jerk that day and everyone else really tried to make it up to me once they realized what happened. It was bittersweet, but still sweet none the less. Sometimes I forget my coworkers are just that: coworkers, not friends.

So the story is I have a chat going with three of my coworkers. We all play Wordle every day and post our stats. I wanted to twist things up and tell them about this new place i discovered that I figured at least two of them would like. No one replied, except to post their Wordle stats. God I’m so so stupid. Why do I even bother? No one wants to talk to me. My friends don’t even reply to my text messages anymore, so why would I think my coworkers would? I have to keep things professional with them from now on.

God, I’m so stupid and wish I wasn’t so annoying.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I'm into the live episode that make up the last five episodes of season 3 of the Ray Peacock Podcast. Then one more season and then I can move on and pretend none of this ever happened and that'll be for the best. They did make me laugh pretty hard on the bus today. But this is definitely not a healthy part of a media diet.

Anyway. It is really weird to listen to this show from 2007-2008, and so much of it is so different. Ed Gamble is, mostly, borderline unrecognizable. The world they're in is borderline unrecognizable, the references and the talk of the media landscape are so wildly different.

Do you want to know a change that I like, and didn't until today manage to put my finger on what exactly that difference is? That they can say horrible things without prefacing them with "I bet this'll get me canceled by the wokes" every time. They could just say horrible things because they genuinely believed it would be funny, rather than these days, when people say horrible things because they can brag about how they say cancel-able stuff and that'll get them attention and let them sell tickets/views to horrible people who will put their money toward supporting anything that's horrible. It's hard to hide behind "but I was just being ironic!" when you do it like that. I realized I've grown so used to the "Oh my God you'd better come listen to me say something cancel-able!" grifters that it now actually sounds weird to me to hear someone be edgy without the grift.

Anyway, this podcast is so rife with big and small clues that it existed in a totally different world to ours, it's actually escapist as I re-arrange my brain to temporarily inhabit this other world while I enjoy the podcast, that I found it amazingly jarring to be suddenly pulled back into reality by something that is amusingly still exactly the same today:

This reminds me of when I was listening to Lee and Herring on the radio in 1994 and they started talking shit about Bruce Dessau, and I asked, how long has that guy been going? Not just that he was doing this in 1994, but that by then, he was already so well established that he was a go-to reference for comedians who talk about reviewers. (Although I guess I can't consider it that weird, since Lee and Herring were established enough to have a radio show by 1994, and they're both still going.)

I obviously knew that Chortle existed in 2008, since for one thing, it hosted The Ray Peacock Podcast at the time (I don't actually know when Chortle started, but I've found a Chortle review of John Oliver's first stand-up hour in 2002 - Steve wasn't impressed - so at least that long). But for some reason it really, really surprised me to hear how little has changed. I find it genuinely baffling how someone can get away with running a largely text-based web publication for a living while constantly making mistakes in the technical side of writing, and I think on some level, I must have assumed that he was good at it in the early days, and then just got well established enough to not have to care as much. Standards for proper spelling on the internet in general were higher in those days too (for professional publications, that is - they were probably lower on forum posts and things). I didn't even consciously realize that's an assumption I was making about Steve Bennett, until I heard he couldn't spell in 2008 either, and I found that shocking. How does he have his career then? Why doesn't someone stop him? Apparently Steve Bennett's inability to spell is the one thing that connects all parallel universes. In this entire podcast so far, it's the only reference they've made that hasn't dated.

(Obligatory note, and I know I say this every time but I still can't leave it out because hypocrisy bothers me, of course my Tumblr blog is full of errors, I'm writing it for free, I would have this shit polished and pristine if someone were paying me for it.)

[weidli]

SORRY FOR BARGING ONTO YOUR POST LIKE THIS but i started rambling in tags and then realized that 1. i wanted to add photo evidence 2. it was gonna be way too fucking long for tumblr tags. i shall put it under a cut at least

long story short i have thought about this lots and i have strong opinions but i cannot remember if i ever talked about it on here before. my thesis statement is they started falling in love about the same time, basti was quicker about it, but thorsten was aware it was happening first.

let me elaborate. (dangerous words from a law student)

ERSTER TITEL: initial meeting. i am sure we are all more than familiar with their first scene in hart an der grenze:

single beat of silence.

(and then basti backs off and asks why thorsten's come to stuttgart and thorsten, being thorsten, gives an entirely truthful and incredibly unhelpful answer, and sebastian gives the champagne thorsten didn't take to alvarez. great start, boys, you're doing splendid)

(there are only two kinds of stories a man goes on a journey and a stranger comes to town and thorsten has committed fully to being the stranger)

Okay. those of you who have seen the terror. i'm not saying it's the same thing. but there certainly are Similarities. young pretty dark haired fellow. has everything you'd think a man like him could want. gets along well with nearly everyone. achieved a relatively high position at a relatively young age and not particularly shy about it. and then there's this OTHER fucking guy blond and short and solid and definitely a chunk older who walks in and takes one measuring look and suddenly.

Look, I don't think there's much inside of Thorsten left alive at this point. He died on that sidewalk in Hamburg. He died when the doctor gave him the news. He died on impact. It's just that his heart's beating after all, and he still has his mind and all his limbs and so he takes the transfer south and doesn't change his name and resolves to do his job. he's not prepared to be emotionally invested in anything, let alone in love.

and Sebastian thinks he's won life! He's thirty-one! His colleagues like him! He's great at his job! He's handsome! He has a lovely wife and two lovely kids and a lovely little house and he doesn't even have nightmares! and then this WEIRDO from fucking hamburg walks in and stares at him and talks in that quiet mild reasonable way thorsten has and makes basti feel like he has to justify himself, like he has to prove something, that he's good enough for this job, that he's earned this place and this life.

okay, he thinks. i'm a fucking professional. i'm going to do this, and i'm going to do it GREAT, i am going to be a model coworker.

oops.

(what's wrong with thorsten is that he's realizing that he's not going to be able to stay cool and distant and professional, that he fucking cares about this now whether he likes it or not. what's wrong with thorsten is that the last time he saw a blond little girl lying still like that he was watching his daughter die, when he didn't even get to watch her grow up. not that he's going to do himself the favor of explaining this to anyone.)

so we've got this vaguely antagonistic relationship, which the weisungsbefugnis drama certainly doesn't improve. and i don't think it's improved by the pretending to be gay, either; i think sebastian suggests it 1. out of a sort of LOOK AT ME I HAVE GOOD INNOVATIVE IDEAS TOO OKAY!!! sort of situation 2. he got really nicely laid last night okay he's in a good mood and 3. because he wants to see if thorsten will a. take the suggestion b. back him up on it in front of alvarez c. go through with it. which thorsten does! and it certainly improves sebastian's opinion of him somewhat, and sebastian's in a good mood from the aforementioned getting wonderfully laid anyway, and we get this:

sebastian's having a WONDERFUL day. weather's great. fortschritte in the ermittlung. now knows that he can actually work together with thorsten properly and also got to annoy him a little bit. possibly the getting to grope a pretty man's thigh also helped but if that contributes to his good mood i don't think he's noticed this about himself or at least noticed that it means anything. everything's nice and dandy.

and thorsten just looks at him with that very particular thorsten look and i don't think it's love, or even affection, but there is a sort of - god, he Is pretty when he smiles to it. not even in an ever going to take action on that sort of way. just a distant quiet sort of fact.

from then on it softens, slowly. this moment is important:

sebastian's realizing that thorsten is willing to listen to him, that he actually enjoys having a partner, that he enjoys having thorsten around. and it's not scary to him to admit that, not at all - liking his partner is fine, playing gay with him is fine, all of it is fine and safe, because he's got a wife and kids and a home to go back to every evening. it's not a risk.

and thorsten just came off four years of undercover that ended up killing his family and ended with the guy he was probably closest with in those four years (even though he was lying to him the whole time) trying to kill him and thorsten nearly letting him succeed. he hasn't got ANYTHING. completely unmoored. and at that point, letting himself get attached to anything or anyone again is the biggest fucking risk in the world.

sebastian opens up a little, because he's getting to like this now: a partner, someone he can listen to, someone who listens to him. says: here's something i don't want to do, here's a weight i'm carrying. i'll do it for the case, but it terrifies me.

thorsten gives up on living outside his body, living outside his life. says, let me carry it for you. that's why i'm here. hand it over and i will.

and sebastian does.

ZWEITER TITEL: wende.

in this scene (dubious ethics of it all set aside for now, we're looking at this from sebastian and thorsten's perspectives) thorsten puts himself between sebastian and the monster, and sebastian lets him do it. (i also think thorsten pulls chris gabriel back on like an old comfortable coat to do it, but that's a different essay)

they go through the house on rotweg shoulder to shoulder with guns out, and find nothing, and:

that's not QUITE what ends up being thorsten's classic big soft eyes look that he uses only on sebastian but it's getting DAMN CLOSE. he likes him now!! he's gotten attached! and thorsten being thorsten and as such very self aware (i don't think you can do the kind of undercover work he did and NOT be, at least if you want to survive it) but not very inclined to talk about Knows this is happening. he knows himself. he knows what love feels like. he knows what affection feels like. and this isn't it, not yet, but he can feel it coming the way you feel a train coming down the track long before you can see it. and probably there's an element of. well. a voice in his head saying. go ahead. love him, or try to. nothing will come of it, but it's not like you've got anything else.

and what cements it is this moment:

sebastian says look, the guy's right. this is where our duty stops. this is where the law stops. where the rules tell us to stop. and thorsten says Do i look like i fucking care? I followed the rules, such as they were, and it killed my daughter. I'm saving this girl, or i'll die trying. is that all you're made of? rules? and he goes over the border without looking back.

and sebastian (who won his perfect life by going by the rulebook, every time, by doing it right!) goes after him. with a quiet whispered arschloch, but he goes after him, and he's there in time for what i think is one of the single most fascinating shots in the early episodes:

(woof. i could write yet another essay just about this. god. the girl face down on the floor like lilli was and thorsten takes in a breath and picks her up and holds her close and sebastian's gun swings up like clockwork and blocks out thorsten's face. GOD. anyway)

the smuggler guy tries to appeal to sebastian's sense of law and order again. sebastian says

no. i´m in this now, head and heart. says to thorsten, go. i've got you. i've got you both.

and thorsten, for the first time, doesn't just like him (something he did with victor, too), but lets himself trust him.

beyond duty and beyond the law. lets sebastian put himself between thorsten and danger, this time, which is harder than being the one to do it, because it's not what he's used to doing.

and then there's this look from sebastian, which i think is - sebastian realizing what he just did, what he's going to do. he went over that border for the child and for his partner and he wants to understand him now. wants to KNOW him.

that's not love, either, but it's something.

DRITTER TITEL: pre-divorce

the developments between in eigener sache - spiel auf zeit are less easy to track individually, and if i went into detail we'd be here forever, but i think more or less they spend the whole time circling each other quietly and coming ever closer. thorsten saves sebastian's life, sebastian trusts him to do it. they end up per du. thorsten tells sebastian about suzanne and lilli. sebastian watches thorsten kill. thorsten drags sebastian into the elevator and holds the blood into him with his bare hands. buckles his seatbelt. they gay flirt again. lie to alvarez together. thorsten takes sebastian and sebastian's daughter to a concert for her birthday, is there at sebastian's son's. save each other's lives. laugh. touch.

for thorsten - Well . just fucking look at him.

LISTEN i'm not a big fan of the "there's no platonic explanation for this' sort of rhetoric i think it's annoying and also bullshit. i hung around in 911 fandom for a while and they say this a lot about buddie and i just sat here like guys. i DO ship them. don't get me wrong. but of course you can flirt platonically. of course you can raise a child together platonically. of course you can be at home in another person's house platonically. of course you can feel like another person is a part of you and it would break you if they died and have it still be platonic stop having such a narrow fucking conception of what love can be it's ALL POSSIBLE. it's just also not what's happening here. look at his face. to me, that face says i love you. god help me, i love you, i'll keep loving you as long as i'm alive (even if you're not, i've got practice with that, too). i won't ever do or say anything about it unless you ask me to. but i love you, and i'm here.

and i think he's okay with that! he's not in that place he was in 2008 anymore. he knows he has sebastian as a partner and as a friend. he knows he has a place in stuttgart. he gets along with his coworkers. he got his unfinished business taken care of. he could live like this for a long time, and it would be okay.

for sebastian - well it's not that thorsten isn't IMPORTANT to him. of course he is, we can all see that. but it's still not any sort of risk, to look at him a little too long, put that hand on his shoulder, on his knee, make that flirty remark. everyone knows sebastian's married. and if you asked him, he'd say he loves her, too, of course he would. that's why people get married, isn't it? And probably he does. and what there is between thorsten and sebastian - well, he doesn't really think about it. he doesn't have to. he goes home to his wife. that's what people mean when they talk about love. and thorsten - that's thorsten. that's different. it's not comparable. why are you asking, anyway?

and then the thing sebastian didn't expect happens, and julia leaves him.

VIERTER TITEL: not so fun and games anymore

spiel auf zeit the episode you are. i've rambled about this episode before and i've rambled about how i interpret what happens in this episode as pertains to sebastian and his relationship with his masculinity (see this post for further information) and i shan't repeat myself here because this is already far too long but suffice it to say: i think the divorce forces sebastian to RADICALLY rearrange his perception of himself, and i think it's a masterful move storytelling wise because what it does is it puts sebastian nearly in the position that thorsten was in in hart an der grenze. how the turns have fuckin tabled, mr. bootz. up until now he did everything in life secure in the knowledge that he has a wife he loves who loves him so it doesn't MATTER if he jokes about how the alternate universe version of him totally cheated on her with thorsten. maybe he means it maybe he doesn't it doesn't MATTER. he's a husband and a father and a kriminalhauptkommissar and then suddenly he's only two of the three and he doesn't feel like he's doing right by his children and he's the one floating lost and untethered and -

well. thorsten's still there. thorsten's the one solid thing left. sebastian isn't sure of himself and isn't sure of what he's doing but he IS sure of thorsten. which is why this marks the phase where sebastian gets noticably 1. more obviously jealous (sure he was a little bit jealous about that one guy in grabenkämpfe but mostly he thought it was funny, i think) 2. more protective (see: spiel auf zeit at the end, how quick he is to put himself between thorsten and victor even though victor just killed a man FOR thorsten and is unlikely to do anything to him, the bit in happy birthday sarah where thorsten puts himself in front of a gun and sebastian quietly panics in the background, sebastian running in to rescue thorsten at the end of freigang, and then. Frage des Gewissens. which is yet another whole different essay.) and 3. much less CASUAL about all this. because none of it is fun and casual anymore. it all means something, or could, and it's just OUT THERE, and thorsten could take it to be serious and want it or reject it and either way is fucking scary.

i'm not actually sure if sebastian knows he's in love with thorsten at this point. i'm sure he IS. i think maybe thorsten knows it, but also knows that acting on it before sebastian's ready could not only make a mess of their relationship/partnership but could also ruin sebastian because yeah!! it's the last solid fucking thing sebastian's got!! so sebastian's in love but can't think about it or look it in the face and certainly can't do anything about it or at least not yet except potentially sink his whole career and choke out a guy who put a gun to thorsten's head and try to live with it. and thorsten's in love and is there. doing what he can. the end of frage des gewissens is almost a happy ending.

FÜNFTER TITEL: what's this? IT'S PREIS DES LEBENS WITH A STEEL CHAIR.

👆 Me whenever i think about preis des lebens too much

if i start talking about preis des lebens/im gelobten land now i'll never stop so let's just say. god those are two really good really painful episodes and we could've had it all if not for niki stein and FUCKING hal.

This has been my ted talk thank you for attending :) follow up questions are welcomed but be warned they may be answered by More Essays even though i should really be working on a paper for school

Not sorry for spamming the Tatort Stuttgart tag, and maybe this has been discussed extensively by the fandom, but:

Do you think that Basti fell first, but Thorsten fell harder?

Or is it the other way around????

[destielfanfic]

Destiel Fic Starter Pack

Never watched Supernatural but wondering what all the hype is about? Then this is the post for you. If you have been on tumblr for some time or just from November 5, 2020, you may have seen a gif set or two or a hundred with destiel aka Dean and Castiel from Supernatural. @fandom​ even made a Destiel Is Canon post with short overview of basic facts! Are you interested but have no idea where to start? We know, we know. Life is hectic, 2020 is taxing and Supernatural has too many episodes to watch. 15 seasons and 327 episodes to be precise but who’s counting? Say no more, we got your back, fam!  You don’t need to have ever watched SPN to enjoy the fics on this rec post.

For fans who have never watched SPN, some basic facts - 1x01 starts with Dean Winchester (26 yo) professional monster hunter, picking up his brother Sam (22 yo), student at Stanford, and going on a one off monster hunt. For the next 3 seasons they travel around the country in their black Impala 67 hunting monsters, saving people. Castiel, Angel of the Lord and the multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent, arrives in 4x01.The rest is shipping history. Check this 36 min YT video, The Story of Dean and Castiel  by deansbansee with all the best destiel scenes from S4-15. And now, fics!

All title links go to our fully tagged reviews.

1. If you want to read fics that are set in Supernatural universe but are not canon specific, your best bet is pre season 4 (our tag) and solo hunter Dean (our tag) fics where young Dean meets Castiel differently from the show, and fics that are very loosely tied to a specific season. And, if you’ll decide to watch the show later, you still won’t be spoiled!

A Distant Mirror by zatnikatel [NC-17, 14,700 word count, time travel, humor, smut, posted 2013]

Ad Astra - latin; “to the stars” by nhixxie [T, 17,400 word count, Castiel is a Star, posted 2013]

Broadway Musical by Griftings [M, 12,400 word count, humor, Heavenly Host, posted 2014]

Carnival Oasis series by violue [NC-17, 47,000 word count, 10 works, creature!cas, posted 2016-20]

Convenient Husbands by Annie D (scaramouche) [NC-17, 39,000 word count, garuda!cas, hurt comfort, posted 2012]

Do What Feels Good by catchclaw & cymbalism [NC-17, 12,500 word count, smut smut smut, posted 2014]

Everyone Is Trying to Get to the Bar by balder12 [NC-17, 8,400 word count, true form!cas, posted 2012]

Good One’s Gonna Be by remmyme [NC-17, 37,000 word count, professor Cas, posted 2017]

Kiss You When It’s Dangerous by zoemathemata [NC-17, 58,000 word count, FBI agent Cas, posted 2012]

Professional Couple Only by saltyfeathers [M, 37,000 word count, pretend boyfriends on a case, posted 2015]

The Request by cloudyjenn [T, 36,000 word count, wing!fic, posted 2012]

Some Assembly Required by narrow_staircase [M, 47,000 word count, student Cas, posted 2016]

Unknown Quantities by xylodemon [NC-17, 8,600 word count, fluff, posted 2014]

2. If you don’t want to bother with Supernatural canon at all, then you are still in for a treat. With 92,500 fics (December 12, 2020) and counting, destiel is currently the biggest ship on AO3. Destiel fics cover a lot of popular tropes and kinks but some are more popular than others among destiel fans. Angst, miscommunication, exploration of Dean’s low self esteem, Cas’s rusty people skills and general otherness are a staple of AU fics. But also exploration of one’s sexuality - internalized homophobia, coming out, bisexuality and asexuality are common themes.

All the Way by cadignan [NC-17, 81,000 word count, college AU, posted 2013]

Cinderwings by bendingsignpost [M, 182,000 word count, wing!fic, masquerade ball, posted 2017]

Kiss the Baker by ltleflrt [NC-17, 111,000 word count, rom com, posted 2015]

Not Part of the Plan by Annie D (scaramouche) [NC-17, 338,000 word count, 8 works, arranged marriage, posted 2013-18]

Oh What A Beautiful City by moosefeels [M, 27,200, a/b/o, omega Cas, arranged marriage, posted  2014]

Passing Ships by quiettewandering [M, 78,000 word count, not traditional soulmate AU, posted 2017]

Peace and Good Luck To All Men by kismetjeska [T, 32,400 word count, humor, Xmas fic, posted 2013]

The Return Policy by castielrisingabove [M, 32,500 word count, incubus!dean, ace witch!cas, posted 2018]

The Sawdust Men by linoresearch [NC-17, 123,000 word count, dystopian angst, posted 2014]

Scars by lemonsorbae [NC-17, 148,000 word count, young adults - punk!dean, nerd!cas, posted 2018]

Three Funerals and a Wedding by engaldnwouldfall [M, 25,300 word count, friends to lovers, LARPing, posted 2016]

True as It Can Be by whelvenwings [NC-17, 72,000 word count, modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast, posted 2016]

Unsolicited verse by dangerousnotbroken [NC-17, 68,700 word count, 5 works, posted 2016-18, smut smut smut]

Unwritten by porcupinegirl [NC-17, 75,800 word count, a/b/o, alpha/alpha pairing, posted 2015]

3. Lastly, for all fans who watched SPN finale and were left with a raging wtf was that? feeling, here’s 4 fics where Dean and Cas did a better job at restoring Heaven and 2 fics where living with disability was not the end of the world.

The Dance of Inanna by peppermintwind [NC-17, 106,000 word count, humor and adventures, posted 2012]

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by amarillogrande [M, 22,200 word count, Dean arrives in Heaven and meets his loved ones, posted  2014]

Holy!Dean Verse by bunnycaccool [NC-17, 120,300 word count, 5 works, very Dean centric, posted 2011-15]

These Are Not Real Problems by Annie D (scaramouche) [NC-17, 30,500 word count, post godstiel Cas arrives in Heaven, posted 2011]

The Breath Of All Things by kismetjeska [T, 65,400 word count, Dean in a wheelchair, posted 2013]

Kingdom Come by cheesewithmy [M/NC-17, 97,700 word count, Dean has a prosthetic arm, posted 2014]

4. Other fun things to check out. Destielfanfic has been a part of destiel community since 2012, and while we used to be much more active (see this post), we are still kicking around. Please visit our Tags Page and explore all the goodies there. We even have separate tags for every season so you can avoid spoilers when necessary. Some useful links:

Tags Page 

ask about iconic destiel fics for folks who just joined fandom

thematic fic rec lists with art (college, creatures, a/b/o, Hogwarts, Christmas - you name it, we have it)

check out our Pride posts for more fics that explore sexuality  - Pride 2017, Pride 2018, Pride 2019 and Pride 2020.

Still can’t decide which destiel fic to read? Try this brand new random fic generator created by @deanwinchestergender​  (not affiliated with DFF) or try Random button on our blog - top right corner and the sidebar (see this post )

also, check out the latest destiel fanart at our sister blog  @destielfanworks​ - Cas with rainbow wings can be found on #cas with wings tag and fanart that was created after 15x18 can be found on #destiel 2020 and #theysilencedyou tags, we also have a general #season 15 tag.

and here’s another destiel fic rec list for new fans by a destiel fic writer and a long time contributor to our blog, our friend  @no-gorms​ aka Annie D (scaramouche)

And last but not least. Thank you, Elena, @purgatory-jar​, for letting us to use your beautiful art! Link to the original art post. 

If you enjoyed the fic, please drop by the archive (AO3) and let the author know with your comments and/or kudos!  Please support artists by Liking and Reblogging their art posts! And if you found our recs useful, let us know by Liking and/or Reblogging our posts!

To our new followers - our anon is switched off for good but we are happy to answer your fic related asks privately. Don’t be shy and tell us which destiel fic made you into a shipper. We may even make a rec post if we get enough fic suggestions!