second person pov strikes back

[whynot]

I sat down to write my finale reaction post, then wrote episode tags instead. Oh well.

459 words for Lisa:
lisa

Dean Winchester shoehorning himself into your life, Attempt #3: showing up at your door talking like a condemned man, warning you about a condemned world. He's called you a couple of times since then, strange phone calls incoherent with things unsaid. He just keeps telling you that there's bad shit going down, and you and Ben need to stay safe. Just tell me what's going on, but you're relieved when he refuses you a straight answer. He says just be careful. These phone calls set you on edge, and you're not sure whether you're more worried about him or yourself.

What if he shows up on your doorstep one night and axes you and Ben in your sleep?

Ha, oh god, don't even think that. Dean's a little crazy, but he's a good man.

What if he shows up and--

What. What if what? You don't even know. What if he shows up and does something as bad as how he sounds on the phone? Meandering despair cut through with angry conviction: what if he does something like that?

You don't have the heart to shut him out, this man who's on the brink, this man who saved your son, this one night stand. Ah fuck, Lise, I shouldn't have called, all slurry and blurred, and you say Don't worry about it. You think This guy is gonna get himself killed as your gut goes cold. Dean's world is crumbling, and for some reason you're the one he calls.

He calls you one more time this afternoon and tells you he's gonna be passing through town. It's over, it's all over, he says, so you ask what's over, and he says Everything.

He shows up on your doorstep looking like shit and sounding like hell, Attempt #4, and gives you one of those hugs that scrabbles for purchase at every point of contact. You don't ask what happened. You don't ask where Sam is. You tell him it's never too late for that beer, and then Ben comes running in from the living room and goes Dean! and Dean's face lights up. Hey buddy.

You microwave leftovers as the men discuss new Transformers versus old-school Transformers, and you sit at the kitchen table, letting Ben captain the conversation as every smile of Dean's, every joke, every resurfacing of his old wisecracking tone loosens the knots in your stomach. By the end of the meal, your smile is genuine. After Ben goes to bed, you massage Dean's shoulders, but when he turns his head to kiss your wrist, you stop. Look at the time.

He sleeps on your couch that night. It's the least you can do. Maybe it's the most.


270 words for Sam:
sam

You drive around and around the lower forty-eight, and you think maybe you should check out Hawai'i one of these days. Why not? What's stopping you? You are tethered to nothing. Not this boosted car, not the false identities you carry around in your wallet. You can go to fucking India, or Johannesburg, or the Pyrenees. Nothing is holding you down.

You start your own journal, fill it with monsters. Aswangs in Walpole and chupacabras outside of Reno: you think maybe this is how Dean felt when you were in Stanford. This is what he was doing. Blood and ichor on his hands, staining his clothes, motel rooms with just one bed. An empty passenger seat. This was his everyday, and this is your penance. You drive across America haunting your brother's old life, and it's only fitting.

You're okay. You can do this. You can do this, so you're okay.

There's a payphone in a bar outside of Milwaukee, and you think maybe you'll call him. You won't say anything. You'll just be a creep and hear him say hello. Maybe you can get away with that. Bartender asks if you want another one, sugar, and you wonder how many times Dean wanted to call you but then changed his mind.

Bartender says honey, you want another one?

You would, but you should save the money for food. You think Dean would probably get the booze instead of food. Fucking Dean. What an idiot. You down the rest of your beer, and the lamp above you flickers and flares.

+

That's all for now. FOR NOW.

The following showed up on Fuck Yeah Merlin and now my heart is equal parts LOL and :(


In other news of beautiful symmetry, castielfest has 42 members and 24 sign-ups thus far omg yay \o/

[originally posted at http://whynot.dreamwidth.org/21848.html | comments]

Comments

[lexhibition.livejournal.com]

Lisaaaa. Trying to do the right thing in a situation that's all wrong. Thank you for making her more than a reward.

And Sam hunting while Dean ties to be normal, and Sam being aware of the role reversal. <33 BOYS. They make me sad.


CAS AND MERLIN COULD TOTALLY bond over how annoying it is continuously having to use their badass powers to save ungrateful jerks. And then maybe Cas could give Merlin some hair styling tips.

[kimboosan.livejournal.com]

YAY Casfest! I pull out hair trying to write up my entry. Really. TOUGH MEANINGFUL LIFE QUESTIONS like, "what tropes do you prefer?" *whimpers* But I did it! Woo hoo!

Loved both the codas - I like the way you have Sam, listing and rambling and not really connected. I mean, I like how you portrayed it, not that I like Sam that way. Wait, more coffee. *slurp* Okay, so, if Sam is back to being mostly-human or whatever, I can see that this is how he would be, acting grief stricken and disoriented, and latching onto what he knows which is, ironically, "Dean in absentia".

Also enjoyed the take on Lisa. As I told one friend, "don't hate Lisa! She's just a tool of the patriarchy!" But you made her more than that - especially with the phone calls Dean was making, and her doubts, and the way she is playing it cool. Nicely done! Thank you so much!

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who's been screaming (in my head) about "What about what LISA wants?"

Dean might or might not be a family man in the long run, but right now he's all screwed up in the head, and he's no good for Ben or Lisa. Lisa's had her life together for a really long time now (ten years). She can be his friend, offer him a place to crash for a while, but I never ever got the impression she wanted him to come back and be her One True Love™ or whatever.

It's just ridiculous, and God bless Sammy's well-meaning little heart, but in his desperation for Dean to have "normal and happy" he's willing to torch the life Lisa built so carefully for herself, and that is so many kinds of wrong I don't even know where to start.

[marycontraire.livejournal.com]

I love Lisa so much! I hope she's a in the next series more. Like, it would be cool if that shot that we saw at the end was "several months later" and Dean was living with them. I have also just decided that Lisa never did do a paternity test (where would she get the sample anyway?), and she lied about it to let Dean off the hook, but Ben is actually Dean's kid, just no one knows it.

Also! Castiel! ASSBUTT! I love you! But I can't decide if I'm happy that you have your powers back-- it was pretty funny when you were human.

[deedlit50.livejournal.com]

Pretty. I loved the Lisa fic especially- thank you for giving her a personality other than being Dean's "dream girl."

[chibifrieza.livejournal.com]

So I'm kind of done with anything resembling meta or analysis because 5.22 wrung me out like a sponge, and I'm mostly avoiding the fic tags because cannot really deal, but I keep seeing that awesome people have written them and somehow I am magnetically compelled. Like yours, for instance. You are so terse and succinct and don't try to make anything better, and that makes it better. Like ripping off a bandaid or setting a bone all at once. I don't know. Thank you.

Oh, and. Line that hit me hardest:

You're okay. You can do this. You can do this, so you're okay.

[roque-clasique.livejournal.com]

baaaaah i'm so sad for everyone, christ.

then Ben comes running in from the living room and goes Dean! and Dean's face lights up. Hey buddy. -- it's the ONE happy line that is the most gutting to me.

SAM call your damn brother. fuck.

[roque-clasique.livejournal.com]

separate comment to address the above commentfic:

OMG.

[labseraph.livejournal.com]

I think your Lisa here rings pretty true. I don't think she sat around waiting for Dean for anything; not to mention that apart from the fond memories of the amazing one night stand, I doubt she's highly invested in him.

Being kind to someone who had saved her son made sense; being kind to a person who looked like he was on the brink of something so drastic made sense. But OTP love forever after? Ew, no.

Your Sam breaks my heart. 'nuff said.

[blubird-pie.livejournal.com]

Man, Lisa! I know its reiterating what everyone's been saying, but the more wonderful fic about her I read the more annoyed I am on her behalf. I like how in yours she half pities and is half afraid of Dean- considering his behavior, not unreasonable. And, for the record, I would read the Ben-Clair-Jesse spinoff in a hot second!

I also really liked the Sam POV one, for the S1 sort of feel that also worked in all the issues and melancholy of the later seasons, and for how Sam's freedom to go anywhere in the world is contrasted with his self-imposed restrictions. The line about the phonecall broke my heart!

[zempasuchil.livejournal.com]

LISA YES YES oh man. I think the parts that sum it up most for me are You think This guy is gonna get himself killed and of COURSE the last line. What is she supposed to do, anyway. Does she know about Sam's dream for Dean, Dean's dream, the deal they made with the universe and each other? Of course not. She's incredible to give Dean a hug and dinner and a couch.

I do not even know how to think of Sam and Dean after that happened to them. fucking traumatized, yes? I guess I don't get whether they want Sam to be running around hunting without Dean, staying away on purpose, or if Sam is wandering, looking, and just finds his way out and to Lisa's house when we see him lurking outside. And how much time passes? Some interview with Jensen had him saying a few years, but I also read that it was a mistranslation...? aflfsdkljfsd these are really important things to knowww!