I wrote this ficlet before even knowing/thinking about Dean's birthday. But I think it fits well, especially because it's called "My old man". So, there it is (also available on AO3):
Claire came to the bunker this morning telling she was working on a case not so far from Lawrence and needed help especially about lore. Plus it was the occasion to see everybody.
She spent the whole morning with Jack working on finding things about her case. Jack got involved really fast as soon as he thought it was a kind of zombies. They are not sure what it is exactly so far, but they are still digging into the books in the bunker’s library right now, sitting side by side, and Dean joined to give them a hand, sitting across the same table, since Sam is out on another hunt with Eileen.
Claire is starting to be bored with all this research and decides that annoying Dean would be funny which it usually is. She notices him squinting while looking down at the book in front of him and takes the opportunity.
“Do you need some glasses to read, old man?” She asks, winking at Jack who lifted his head once he heard her talk, then she looks back at Dean to see his reaction, because that’s the fun part. Dean is bewildered at first and Claire does anything to hold back her laugh.
“I – no – I’m not THAT old. I – I don’t need glasses.” He stutters, frowning at her.
“Yeah sure, like you don’t ask Cas to bring you coffee because your old man’s knees hurt.” She adds and then looks back down at her book after she sees how wide Dean’s mouth opened.
“Wh – no.” Dean starts, frowning even harder, and looks at Jack, probably searching for back up here but he just looks back at Dean questioningly.
“You should stop frowning though because it’ll just add more wrinkles to your already wrinkled face.” Claire shouts, holding back another laugh that threaten to go out. It’s so easy to tease Dean. She loves doing it, especially to see his reactions.
“She’s right, you have lots of wrinkles around your eyes.” Jack observes, his gaze focused on the corner of Dean’s eyes. And Claire starts chuckling but turns it into a cough. But Dean didn’t notice because he is too focused on what Jack said. He doesn’t know what to say anymore, he is familiar with Claire messing with him, but he is also aware of Jack’s usual honesty, which hurts him more. Because if Jack says he looks old, then it must be true.
“I – I –“ He stammers as he touches the corners of his eyes with his index on each side of his face, when Cas enters the library with two mug filled with coffee in his hands.
“Come on Jack, I need a break, show me your room.” Claire suggests, getting up already, because this is not a question. Dean frowns at her knowing she is fleeing from Cas but then he remembers about the wrinkles and soften his face even if he still feels annoyed. Claire and Jack disappear quickly in the hallway, when Cas approaches the table where Dean is sitting.
“What’s wrong?” Cas asks, as he puts Dean’s mug on the table and sits beside him.
“Cas, I’m old.” Dean says, trying to flatten his wrinkles around his eyes.
“Yes, and?” Cas answers, tilting his head, because he can’t find what is the problem here.
“Gee, Cas. Please, don’t lie.” Dean throws in an ironical ton, Cas knows how to recognize it now. He got to experience it more than once through the years they spend together.
“Dean.” Cas’s voice is serious but soft.
“Claire told me I have wrinkles around my eyes and Jack agreed.” Dean explains, trying to keep a straight face to avoid having more of those.
“You do –“ Cas observes smiling, and adds “I love them.”
“What? You – you love my wrinkles?” Dean asks, making a weird face because it’s hard to be surprised while still trying to keep a straight face.
“Of course I do. Especially the ones near your eyes, those are witnesses of your smile.” Cas says as he leans forward and cradles Dean’s face, his fingertips stroking the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes.
“That still makes me an old man.” Dean states jokingly, not being able to control his face from smiling at Cas’s cheesy comment anymore.
“But you are MY old man, Dean.” Cas answers, fondly looking at the hunter.
“Well, can you heal my knees and my eyes, please?” Dean asks, flustered, lowering his face because he can’t look at him. “Of course.” Cas leans even forward, grabs Dean’s chin with his hand to lift his face up and kisses Dean’s mouth. It’s tender and warm. The angel’s healing grace shines between their lips and Dean feels Cas’s grace invade his body, feeling warm behind his eyes and in both knees. He also perceives a strange sensation in his stomach and heart, but that has nothing to do with the healing. It still comes from Cas but totally for another reason.
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because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
aren't you happy yet?
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Something I haven't seen discussed yet is not only did buck and Tommy kiss, but they JUST kissed. Tommy kissed him once, just communicating that "okay is this what you want us to do?" And then he set up a real romantic date where he's going to pick buck up at 8 and everything.
Buck who has a shit load of trauma from partners wanting him for nothing more than his body. From always having to be the person adding the romance into every relationship to convince people there's more to him then sex.
Baby boy just got asked on a wholesome date and got promised romantic helicopter flying lessons and he won't even have to drive and goddddvdhebusjabsjsjdnxns
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at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"
like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.
"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."
... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.
and i'd still keep writing.
i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.
i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley
"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"
and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.
it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.
you create because you're greedy.
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