(no subject)
1. I know it's only Wednesday and this may be a slightly premature declaration, but I'm going to go ahead and declare myself winner of the extreme niche crossover post this week for this one about Stephen King and the Supernatural episode "Scarecrow." "Charyou tree," in the gunslinger series lexicon, is a phrase that means "come, reap," and also refers to the practice of burning someone at a stake or tied to a tree as a sacrifice for good crops in the year to come. Most places the actual person has been replaced by scarecrows ("stuffy-guys"), BUT. But. Anyway I am just saying: tying a person to a tree as a sacrifice, especially for crops: charyou tree.
Gee, I wonder why no one had anything to say to me on that one.
2. Last night I had a dream that, leaving a super fancy sushi restaurant, I ran into Katie Holmes, who was also leaving, and told the hostess that the food was so good it made her want to "talk like a moron." Then she and Tom performed some huge romantic song & dance number and I felt really weirded out.
3. The 25_days writing process has been different this time, in that when crimsonclad posts her stories I haven't seen them yet either, and I just want to say, we have talked a lot during the development of this project about how amazing and awesome and brilliant we are, but she really is amazing and awesome and brilliant, and her little odd-numbered stories about Jared are delighting me to no end.
4. I wrote a Sam and Dean genfic for the spn_gleeweek guess-the-writer challenge, which, I know. Unpopular Fandom Opinions Part Seven Million: I just can't get into the Wincest, I'M SORRY. Also, why would I write about Sam and Dean when I could write about Jared and Jensen making out? GOOD QUESTION. Possible Answer: I am super super in love with their relationship as brothers and friends and family and the way they wear button-down shirts with the cuffs rolled up two times. Anyway, I did write about SamnDean, so if that's your thing, you can read this story:
Windows Lean into the Room
Shoutouts to the_oscar_cat for reference questions and causing me to consider writing genfic in the first place; jascott for reading and saying YES and also because I am physically incapable of writing anything and not dragging her name through the mud, as she likes to say
The thing about Sam's nightmares is, they're not new. They come and go and these days they're definitely in a "come" period, but it's not, like, a new phenomena or anything. He is, after all, the only witness to his mother's murder.
Being raised by his dad and Dean was kind of like two grizzly bears trying to nurture a teeny fuzzy duckling: endearing, maybe, but ultimately doomed.
Sam still feels like that teeny fuzzy duckling sometimes, something small and delicate awash in a rough-edged sea he's not capable of navigating. Sam's problem is that he feels too much. Sam's always felt too much.
The nightmares started, this time, about two months after Sam and Jess moved into their new place.
At first it was no big deal, really; nightmares that by today's standards he'd call pedestrian. A burning tree here, house falling into an earthquake fault line there, nothing he couldn't handle. But then shit got personal: his mom on the ceiling; Jess pressing through a boarded-up doorway like garlic through a press; Dean, sans an arm, trying to pick things up and carry them; heads in the fireplace but less Harry Potter and more Braveheart. And what could he do? He couldn't exactly call Dean. ("Hey, big brother, what's up, four years, whatever, so how's your arm? Still attached?" No.) And Jess, she was obviously fine, no shredded bodies there. So the answer was: nothing. He couldn't do anything, couldn't tell anyone. Keep that shit locked away like a Winchester, boy.
Sam can't say for sure, but if confronted with a distressed duckling, a bear would probably not be that affected. Bears and ducklings don't exactly relate. Probably the bear would give the fuzzy little duckie a confused look, as far as bear expressions go, and continue on its way to destroying the spawning trout, or whatever. And the itsy little fuzzy thing carries on with its squawks of terror because the world is big and scary and unkind and full of things that are trying to kill it.
Which is of course a fancy way of saying that Sam has rationalized his family's inability to deal with his literal lifetime of nightmares by considering that his father is a broken, obsessed man, and his brother is his father's son, without a mother. No one ever woke Sam up from a nightmare.
Jess woke him up.
Not from the boring tree-burns-down dreams, whatever, that wasn't worth remembering in the morning, all things considered. But when shit got serious and personal, when Sam started spending his nights watching the ones he loves die, Jess woke him up.
He'd be in the middle of watching his father get dismembered by a corpse with its slit throat still dripping, or unable to reach the water hose as Dean immolated five feet away, and then, quietly, shaking his shoulder: "Sam, shh, baby. Wake up, sweetie, shh, baby." He'd lie there and stare wide-eyed at the wall or the ceiling in the dark, heart racing, while Jess smoothed her hand over his face. He always fell back asleep like that, never remembered any more dreams in the morning.
Sam and Dean grew up together more than most brothers grow up together, but they've never lived in each other's pockets so much as they do now. And it shouldn't surprise Sam that Dean waited so long to talk about Sam's nightmares, and even then, that he waited for Sam to mention it, but come on, Dean. Sam will admit to a certain amount of righteous indignation that, any given afternoon, any given stretch of highway, when he jerks awake with a gasp and stares out the window, Dean just raises an eyebrow. Jess woke him up, soothed him back to sleep, and Dean gives him a look. Like he's doing it for attention. Like, Sam doesn't know like what, he's always felt too much and thought too much and maybe this is just one more time that he's looking for something soft in Dean he'll never see.
"I have these nightmares."
"I've noticed."
Two nights later, when Jess burns on the ceiling again, something happens to stop it. Dean shakes his shoulder and says, "Come on, Sammy, wake up. It's a dream, come on, Sammy, shh."
Sam rolls over. Dean is kneeling on the floor by his bed. He looks worried. Sam smiles.
"Thanks," he says. His heart's frantic race is slowing.
"You'd do it for me," Dean says, shaking Sam's shoulder one last time before climbing back into his bed.
"Yeah," Sam whispers to the ceiling. There's no one there.
Gee, I wonder why no one had anything to say to me on that one.
2. Last night I had a dream that, leaving a super fancy sushi restaurant, I ran into Katie Holmes, who was also leaving, and told the hostess that the food was so good it made her want to "talk like a moron." Then she and Tom performed some huge romantic song & dance number and I felt really weirded out.
3. The 25_days writing process has been different this time, in that when crimsonclad posts her stories I haven't seen them yet either, and I just want to say, we have talked a lot during the development of this project about how amazing and awesome and brilliant we are, but she really is amazing and awesome and brilliant, and her little odd-numbered stories about Jared are delighting me to no end.
4. I wrote a Sam and Dean genfic for the spn_gleeweek guess-the-writer challenge, which, I know. Unpopular Fandom Opinions Part Seven Million: I just can't get into the Wincest, I'M SORRY. Also, why would I write about Sam and Dean when I could write about Jared and Jensen making out? GOOD QUESTION. Possible Answer: I am super super in love with their relationship as brothers and friends and family and the way they wear button-down shirts with the cuffs rolled up two times. Anyway, I did write about SamnDean, so if that's your thing, you can read this story:
Windows Lean into the Room
Shoutouts to the_oscar_cat for reference questions and causing me to consider writing genfic in the first place; jascott for reading and saying YES and also because I am physically incapable of writing anything and not dragging her name through the mud, as she likes to say
The thing about Sam's nightmares is, they're not new. They come and go and these days they're definitely in a "come" period, but it's not, like, a new phenomena or anything. He is, after all, the only witness to his mother's murder.
Being raised by his dad and Dean was kind of like two grizzly bears trying to nurture a teeny fuzzy duckling: endearing, maybe, but ultimately doomed.
Sam still feels like that teeny fuzzy duckling sometimes, something small and delicate awash in a rough-edged sea he's not capable of navigating. Sam's problem is that he feels too much. Sam's always felt too much.
The nightmares started, this time, about two months after Sam and Jess moved into their new place.
At first it was no big deal, really; nightmares that by today's standards he'd call pedestrian. A burning tree here, house falling into an earthquake fault line there, nothing he couldn't handle. But then shit got personal: his mom on the ceiling; Jess pressing through a boarded-up doorway like garlic through a press; Dean, sans an arm, trying to pick things up and carry them; heads in the fireplace but less Harry Potter and more Braveheart. And what could he do? He couldn't exactly call Dean. ("Hey, big brother, what's up, four years, whatever, so how's your arm? Still attached?" No.) And Jess, she was obviously fine, no shredded bodies there. So the answer was: nothing. He couldn't do anything, couldn't tell anyone. Keep that shit locked away like a Winchester, boy.
Sam can't say for sure, but if confronted with a distressed duckling, a bear would probably not be that affected. Bears and ducklings don't exactly relate. Probably the bear would give the fuzzy little duckie a confused look, as far as bear expressions go, and continue on its way to destroying the spawning trout, or whatever. And the itsy little fuzzy thing carries on with its squawks of terror because the world is big and scary and unkind and full of things that are trying to kill it.
Which is of course a fancy way of saying that Sam has rationalized his family's inability to deal with his literal lifetime of nightmares by considering that his father is a broken, obsessed man, and his brother is his father's son, without a mother. No one ever woke Sam up from a nightmare.
Jess woke him up.
Not from the boring tree-burns-down dreams, whatever, that wasn't worth remembering in the morning, all things considered. But when shit got serious and personal, when Sam started spending his nights watching the ones he loves die, Jess woke him up.
He'd be in the middle of watching his father get dismembered by a corpse with its slit throat still dripping, or unable to reach the water hose as Dean immolated five feet away, and then, quietly, shaking his shoulder: "Sam, shh, baby. Wake up, sweetie, shh, baby." He'd lie there and stare wide-eyed at the wall or the ceiling in the dark, heart racing, while Jess smoothed her hand over his face. He always fell back asleep like that, never remembered any more dreams in the morning.
Sam and Dean grew up together more than most brothers grow up together, but they've never lived in each other's pockets so much as they do now. And it shouldn't surprise Sam that Dean waited so long to talk about Sam's nightmares, and even then, that he waited for Sam to mention it, but come on, Dean. Sam will admit to a certain amount of righteous indignation that, any given afternoon, any given stretch of highway, when he jerks awake with a gasp and stares out the window, Dean just raises an eyebrow. Jess woke him up, soothed him back to sleep, and Dean gives him a look. Like he's doing it for attention. Like, Sam doesn't know like what, he's always felt too much and thought too much and maybe this is just one more time that he's looking for something soft in Dean he'll never see.
"I have these nightmares."
"I've noticed."
Two nights later, when Jess burns on the ceiling again, something happens to stop it. Dean shakes his shoulder and says, "Come on, Sammy, wake up. It's a dream, come on, Sammy, shh."
Sam rolls over. Dean is kneeling on the floor by his bed. He looks worried. Sam smiles.
"Thanks," he says. His heart's frantic race is slowing.
"You'd do it for me," Dean says, shaking Sam's shoulder one last time before climbing back into his bed.
"Yeah," Sam whispers to the ceiling. There's no one there.