SPN Fic: The Difference Between Night and Dark (Gen, PG-13, Pre-series)

[dodger_winslow]

Title: The Difference Between Night and Dark
Author: Dodger Winslow
Challenge: Bat out of Kansas Ficathon
Prompt: When the day is done, and the sun goes down, and the moonlight shines through; then like a sinner before the gates of heaven, I’ll come crawling back to you.
Word Count: 5,500
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG-13 for language
Spoilers: No Exit
Disclaimer:

Comments

[ultraviolet9a]

Ah... *happy purr* Enough pain and enough heat and enough gritty...ness at just the right amount, and smartass Dean and pissed off John.

Phrase that wins cookies: "I know you don’t. But you are. You did it to yourself, to me, to Bill. You made us a family by needing us. We made you our family by being there."

For me, this is what brings the fic together, like the centre where a web meets. But that's just me.

[dodger_winslow]

Thanks so much. It was fun writing Ellen with John for a change, instead of Ellen outside of John. I love both those characters so much, and think they would have made awesome friends (being the sort who feels, as this story might show, that John wouldn't ever really hook up with anyone other than Mary).

[lissa_bear]

This is a really, really fantastic John voice! I love the entire interaction between him and Ellen.

And I love this line: Dean’s mutinies were always small. They worked better that way, were more effective at getting him what he wanted than big stands on important issues would have been.

So Dean!

Very, very nice!

[dodger_winslow]

Thanks! I see Dean as someone who REALLY knows how to deal with his father, and deal around his father when necessary. And that he gets a LOT of attention from John when he does raise an issue simply because he does it so rarely. So I can see how he'd be the kind of kid, especially as he got older and more sophisticated, who would know how to pick small battles to get what he wants from his dad rather than taking him to task over the big things that John's ego won't play so nice with.

I don't think Sam ever figured that out, but I suspect Dean had it locked down by the time he was 10.

[rillaotvalley]

I love the conversations you write between Dean and John. They're so telling and nuanced...always written so deftly. And as for Ellen and John and their mutual hug-athon...ya...more of that please. :)

[dodger_winslow]

Thanks so much. It was fun writing John and Dean talking as adults for a change, rather than as father and son. Playing his age here around 20 gave me all sorts of avenue to play different dynamics, as did OPEN YOUR EYES, which plays him at 24. Those aren't really ages I've considered much with Dean and John, so it was fun to explore how their interactions might differe there as compared to the 5 and 10 year old Dean I tend to write more often.

On the subject of John and Ellen ... heh. You're gonna like what I'm writing for the Secrets ficathon. :D

[arliss]

I had literally no idea where this was going. From the atmosphere you established, several hairbrained ideas presented as possibilities.

How adult, how deeply ingrained the grief, how strong both Ellen and John are, though John's is the strength of iron, that knows to bend at all will be to shatter.

Beautifully done.

[dodger_winslow]

You rock for saying this. The whole concept of grief is an important dynamic to pretty much everything I do with John and Dean, and it is almost always on the subject of grief that I find most angst fics failing. For me, it is a pervading, overpowering emotion that gets heavier with time, not lighter. And just because you find ways to work around it or live in spite of it doesn't mean you aren't still suffering from it

[koyote19]

"You think that’s what mom would want?" Dean pressed when his dad didn’t respond. "For you to spend the rest of your life on the sidelines instead of eventually looking for something to make life a little easier? A little more livable?" When John opened his mouth to answer, Dean cut him off to add, "Or is that what you think Sam and I want? Because if you do, it isn’t."

"Not about what she’d want," John said. "Or about what you and Sam might want. It’s about what I want. Now hand me the remote. There’s got to be something worth watching on one of two hundred odd stations."

This part, right here, just killed me.

[dodger_winslow]

Thank you. I can see Dean wanting his dad to be happy, and thinking perhaps his dad isn't pursuing something like that because he feels Sam and Dean aren't up for it ... Dean in particular. And him wanting to make sure that, if John is thinking that, he finds some way to tell his dad it would be okay. In a very Dean way, of course, which can't ever be just straight out. Cause, you know, it's DEAN. :D