SPN Fic: Never Enough & It Breaks Me
After having such great meta conversations about Dean and John and their relationship and how they view one another, especially in the context of John's expectations being a source of emotional trauma for Dean, I found myself running full throttle in two different directions on the same challenge, so I decided to finish them both and see where they went.
The challenge was a Supernatural100 challenge of "Failure," (which, of course, totally begs for angst, doesn't it?), and I started out writing a drabble, it turned into a poem, then it went back to a drabble, and then it kind of blew up and splattered all over everything, at which time I found, while picking up the pieces, that there was actually both a drabble and a poem in there, both on the same subject, both with very much the same POV, but both being rather different in the articulation.
So just for the hell of it -- and because I haven't yet decided which one I like better -- I'm going to post both of them for your consideration and ask for feedback from y'all.
For reasons I can't go into without rendering them more-or-less irrelevant, it is important that you read the drabble Never Enough before the poem It Breaks Me. (Don't make me explain why, just trust me that this is the right order in which to expose yourself to the subject matter.)
What I was ultimately trying to accomplish is, I'm sure, better accomplished by Never Enough. That is where I started, and where I ultimately returned. However, the crux of my point is more clearly made, I suspect, by It Breaks Me, which allows for a little longer development of a thematic element that I think may get a little lost (or ignored) by Never Enough.
So here they are. Please share your thoughts in detail ... especially if you prefer one over the other, or if you see a significant difference in the message they convey (since both are about the same thing, I'm interested if they communicate the same thing, or if they hit the same subject matter in a different enough way that they communicate different things). Thanks!
Title: Never Enough
Author:
dodger_winslow
Challenge: Supernatural100 #27 Failure
Genre: Drabble
Rating: G
Pairing: None
Spoilers/Warnings: None
Summary: No matter how hard I try, I can’t be what he wants me to be.
Never Enough
I fail him every day. He expects so much more of me than I have to offer. No matter how hard I try, I can’t be what he wants me to be.
Never good enough.
Never strong enough.
Never brave enough.
Never smart enough.
I try not to let him see how much it hurts. I try to be what he needs and pretend I don’t notice when I fall short. I don’t tell him he’s the only reason I hunt: for him, not for her.
Because Dean needs a hero more than he needs a father. And in that, I fail him every day.
Title: It Breaks Me
Author:
dodger_winslow
Challenge: Supernatural100 #27 Failure
Genre: Poem
Rating: G
Pairing: None
Spoilers/Warnings: None
Summary: And it breaks me.
It Breaks Me
He expects of me
so much more of me
than I can ever be.
The way he looks at me,
the way he sees me,
It breaks me.
I try so hard to be
what he needs of me,
what he wants of me.
But I’ll never be
what he sees as me.
And it breaks me
All these years to see,
just by being me,
how I fail to be
the man he thinks is me.
The man I’ll never be.
And it breaks me.
Brings me to my knees
to have him look at me,
to look but never see
the man he used to see.
The man I used to be.
And it breaks me.
Breaks my heart to be
all I’ll ever be.
This man he cannot see.
A man that’s only me.
And it breaks me.
It breaks me.
It breaks me.