MORE THAN LIVING
✿ ao3 ✿
geto suguru/reader
summary: A year of retirement from being a jujutsu sorcerer finally pushes you to call someone you willed yourself to leave behind. Groceries are bought, a meal is shared, teeth are bared inches from skin, and hands are held back from tearing apart.
Reunions have never been either of your strong suits.
tags: Mentioned Gojo Satoru, Mentioned Ieiri Shoko, Mentioned Nanami Kento, Mentioned Haibara Yu, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Codependency, Pining, but make it gross and a little scary, Past Relationship(s), Complicated Relationships, blood and teeth and love
notes: hello! thank you for reading. this one took some time but im liking it lots. suguru is so fun to write for, ive really liked exploring him so far. always feel free to leave any questions or comments, they always make me happy!
Resigning from jujutsu society is easy enough to have you second-guessing yourself. It frightens you a little, how easy the process is; you almost turn to the nearest suit to ask if this is really allowed.
Sign here, don’t forget to perform an exit interview tomorrow afternoon, and make sure to resubmit all the cursed tools you may have checked out of the armoury; negligence to do so will be considered a severe infraction. Remember that you can always come back to us.
In the span of a day, you quietly retire at the age of twenty. The first thing you do is your laundry. The dried blood washes out nicely enough; you throw away the uniform all the same.
Retired life is easy. You eat, you drink, and you try to live. Maybe you dream about killing. You rise out of bed every morning without sparing a glance at your hands until you’ve reached the bathroom and thoroughly scrubbed them in the sink. It makes you remember him as a clean slate, something you never touched.
It really is no use, you think of him all the same, but tradition only dies with someone.
A year into this and you still manage to forget to go grocery shopping at the end of each month. You’ve once more run out of money for takeout and the fridge has been empty for two weeks. All that sits inside are bottles of your favorite drink and the brand of candy Satoru handed you the night you retired. It was his favorite so naturally he thought it was your favorite too.
The candy is too sweet and too waxy, but you shove it down for breakfast before starting your day. The bag is empty before you know it, light enough in your hand to be blown away with a breath. You lick at the sugar stuck to your lips before trading the empty bag for your phone.
This should feel like a horrible idea, but your hands all too eagerly wrap around the frame of your phone, the pads of your finger pressing into the screen like they were meant to leave marks on skin. You pretend you aren’t sure what it is about this morning that has you wanting to hear his voice.
The ring only echoes once.
“Suguru,” you greet familiarly. He had always said your voice came out scratchy over the phone, arguing with you for years about getting a new one because he never heard you clearly when you delivered information about missions. You argued that it was just the way he chose to hear you. Eventually, you both settled on messaging each other instead. You wonder if you sound any different now, if he’s even searching for that sort of thing after so long.
He says your name back. So neutral that it's polite, so detached from himself that you’re starting to think he might be back to normal. Your mind flashes to the night of your retirement, the awkward shapes of his hands, and how they’d tried to bite into the fat of your arms: desperate. It feels important to remember that you couldn’t completely decipher him in your last moments.
It’s been a year since then.
“Come shopping with me,” you propose. “I’ll cook for you.”
You never cooked much in your life, things never exactly called for that sort of thing. Though, Haibara would always praise you for your simple meals. The two of you had picked up the nasty habit of heading to bed too late, often caught in meaningless conversations in the kitchen.
Suguru has never had any of your cooking before, always so polite to refuse.
“Is retired life really that lonely so soon?” he asks.
“You sound like Satoru,” you note, more to yourself than anything, but you’re aware of how it will irk him.
“It was just a simple question.” An unkind one, but he chooses not to mention that part when he pauses and lets a silence hang in the static. “I can find some time to come along, but there’s no need to cook for me.”
To anyone, it would seem like he’s saying it to be kind, but, deep down, he says it so that he can get away from you more quickly. The idea of him sharing a meal with you sticks to the front of your mind all the same.
You pick at the leftover candy stuck between your teeth with your tongue and swallow the leftover pieces away. “Ok,” you say. “I’ll send my address.”
“Alright,” he bids simply. Then, almost as a calculated afterthought, “See you.”
“See you.”
You hang up and maybe that’s finally living.
The pants you decide on wearing tend to drag along the floor even after you cuff them. They’re well-loved because you take good care of them. There’s a stain on the left side of the waistband, a mended hole in one of the pockets, and the fabric is soft enough to want to drown in. They weren’t always yours, it’s what makes them even better.
The sky is gray tonight and matches the color of Suguru’s loose shirt well. You bite down the urge to tell him he looks good, and that the two of you are matching. It would have been easier over the phone, with him not being able to hear your voice as much as your own. He could mistake you as a stranger and start all over again instead of seeing something so rundown and full and yet completely barren.
“The supermarket’s only open for another hour, let’s be quick and not inconvenience the workers.” Suguru walks through the automatic doors and is immediately illuminated by the fluorescent lights. The bags under his eyes are highlighted enough to seem like they were painted on. The suggestion is more of his polite code: Let’s make this quick so we can head back to our separate lives.
Because how wrong of you was it to have called him after an entire year of no contact? How wrong was it to want to have the weight of his arm against yours while you both stared at different kinds of produce you aren’t able to afford? You wanted to see him again. You want to ask why he looks so tired, why he keeps looking down at your shoes and not at your eyes.
Why is it that ever since leaving all you have been able to do properly is reminisce? You must have forgotten how to make anything new of yourself, how to hold anything softly.
“Hey.” You find Suguru in the candy aisle. He’s staring at the same brand of candy you grabbed out of your fridge this morning. “I’m ready to leave. You done?”
Despite your words, he doesn’t move, and you only walk to stare at the rows with him. It’s colorful, full of bright cyans, electric yellows, and eye-straining magentas. It’s almost funny, the way the two of you look so dull in comparison; the gray of his shirt and the black of your sweats are bland in comparison.
Your arm extends against your will, grabbing a random brand and unceremoniously chucking it into your own hand-held basket. You then reach again to pick Satoru’s favorite flavor and gently place it into Suguru’s.
If he looks at you any differently, you miss it completely while turning toward the cashier.
Suguru must forget about not accompanying you back to your apartment. The way he extends his hand out for you to offer him the keys is natural and fluid.
He had carried your grocery bags along with his own the entire walk back, silent, only looking back at you when he was unsure of where to go. The only words out of you were directions, niceties, and asking if he’s sure about carrying all those bags for so long feels out of place. You’ve seen him lift heavier with just one finger.
The sound of the door closing should shift something in the atmosphere, it should make things feel heavier. The sound of it locking should have you wondering why this man is in your house, why this stranger has invited himself in. You catch his eye as you're slipping off your shoes. He’s in your kitchen, organizing things like he belongs there, like this is his hundredth time visiting instead of his first. Your grocery bags are already separated from his and halfway into the fridge. Your shared look is just that: shared, nothing else, and nothing more.
The two of you fall into preparing a meal without noticing.
Your rice cooker is ancient and covered in stickers that have no coherent theme. What looks like hundreds of awful renditions of cartoon characters you no longer recognize and fading “THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING WITH US!” labels cover the appliance like armor. It makes it look even more aged. You push down the itch to scratch away at them, telling yourself you don’t want to deal with all that leftover sticky residue. But really, you just like to remember who placed them there.
The cloudy water of the washed rice pours out into the sink loudly. You hear Suguru cutting something but don’t remember giving him a knife or a cutting board. He must have found them on his own. The both of you move around each other like second nature.
He’s cutting the sausage he bought into small slices. They look like red blood cells.
“Planning on cooking those?” It’s the first thing you say after what feels like hours.
“You never ate them raw,” he recalls. He’s right. You find a pan for him and place it on the small stove. But before he can turn anything on you stop him.
“The smell. It’ll get in your hair,” you caution. Have you been speaking in whispers this entire time?
Suguru only brushes his bangs aside, not looking at you as he slides the cut-up meat into the pan and lets the stove warm. “I’ll just shower after. You have one, don’t you?”
You’re struck dumb for only a second; the eggs you’re whisking are beginning to foam up from your non-stop whisking. “Ok then.” Your voice comes out a little flat.
The both of you end up with bowls of food and on the couch. Rice and eggs and cut sausage. It reminds you of being in school. Your tiny television feels like a much-needed buffer, there's a movie playing that you two have watched at least ten times already. You put it on purposefully because it leaves room to talk.
When your bowl is half empty, Suguru finally picks up the conversation by the arms and drags it from one grave to another. It distracts you from the fact that he’s hardly touched his own food.
“The apartment suits you,” he compliments.
“Does it?” It’s rhetorical, but you know he’ll give half of an elaboration.
He hums, makes a point of looking around and then at you. “It's nice.”
“I am nice,” you agree.
“A little selfish, too,” he adds bluntly. “But yes, nice.”
And there’s that word. Selfish. After years of the word lingering at the edge of your tongue, he ripped it away from you in a breath, like it was never yours.
“That’s alright. I like the sound of both.” You set your half finished bowl of food on the coffee table, next to the old bag of candy you completely forgot to trash this morning.
You look at him. His expression is back on the screen. He’s glowing and you’re trying to remember how to look at him normally, not like he’s just dropped from the sky and offered you a ride home.
“Is that why you think I left, because I’m selfish?” you ask. The taste of that candy sticks into the roof of your mouth.
He stirs, still not looking at you. When he speaks you barely hear any of the sound or dialogue playing on your TV. “I think leaving was the best way for you to forget.”
“No,” you correct. The tremor in your voice finally has him turning. The left side of his face is lit up by a scene you have memorized. The protagonist is on the verge of tears as she is forced to choose between love and power. The people around her are yelling about which one they want her to choose. The coloring of the terrain she is stuck in splashes across Suguru’s face like paint. You can make out the trees and the sky on his skin, the blood on the protagonist’s hands stands out the most on his cheeks. She will choose love, and it might kill people.
“Selfishness had something to do with it, but I never wanted to forget anyone.” You look at him, pushing him to look back before confessing. “I never wanted to forget what you were before me.”
You remember countless late nights and even earlier mornings, the way your hands felt after a difficult day, Satoru making you laugh so unexpectedly that you coughed up blood, Suguru handing you a tide pen to get the mess off your uniform sleeves. You remember the streamers that were hung up when Haibara and Nanami were introduced as first years, the confetti you had to pick out of Shoko’s hair.
You burned your bloodied uniform the first day you left but kept the buttons. You kept all the clothes Suguru let you borrow and you pretended to forget to give them back. An old digital camera sits on your bedside table, filled with photos of Suguru and the mundane. Of him simply walking ahead of you, having a conversation with someone else, of his wrists, his eyes, of him smiling, of him sleeping: just him. Maybe that’s when your hands started to itch a little more; could anyone blame you for wanting to reimagine the circumstances a little?
The sewn initials of Suguru’s name scratch at your ankle, the pants had become uncuffed since the walk back from the grocery store. The tag is branded into the fabric forever, having survived multiple wash cycles at your laundromat. Moving to tuck your legs beneath your weight, you swiftly cuff them again and watch him catch the movement. He hadn’t been staring at your shoes. Before he turns his head, you catch him biting his lip with enough force to draw blood.
Hypocrites, both of you.
Your eyes swerve back to the bag of candy, crumpled and a husk of what it used to be. You ravaged it after a year of letting it sit in your fridge, after a year of only remembering. You wish Suguru could have seen you do it. Maybe you did kill something today. Would a softer love be easier to reject?
When he gets up from his seat, it startles you. He takes both bowls to the kitchen. The realness of his body has you somewhat hyperaware, too mindful of the fact that he’s no longer a picture at the top of your desk drawer. You watch him like a movie, afraid of missing a detail and wishing so terribly that you could reach out to him like it was nothing; lunge out just to keep him in your hands. The faucet turns on and it nearly sounds like the beginning of an abstract soundtrack, like someone behind the scenes finally realized that only hearing your voices amongst the silence of the room was too overwhelming.
“You sounded different on the phone.” He speaks over the white noise of the running water. If you didn’t know any better you might have missed the way he masked his voice. It’s almost funny; nostalgia always seemed like something too juvenile for him to entertain. Mature Suguru: you’ll never catch him looking back at the camera when he’s walking away.
“What was different?” you ask, basked in a suspense that has you reeling.
The faucet cuts and you see Suguru’s shoulders tense up over the sink. His palms dig into the metal, and you can’t see it, but you imagine he’s gripping the edge of the counter tightly enough to leave a brand, heated with his youth.
Then his shoulders drop, you aren’t sure where his energy goes, if he’s just pushed it somewhere else or if it expelled from him in a way you couldn’t see. He moves back to the couch, back to you. You twist your body then, meeting him halfway, your ribs digging into the hard back of your cheap furniture. You feel like a siren calling him out to sea, except what you’re offering isn’t anywhere near as pretty, and he actually might be drowning without your help.
His hands, large and wet, cup around your damp cheeks. His thumb brushes at something underneath your eye and things are more right than they are wrong, not perfect, but right.
“You sounded like you missed me,” he says finally. His head is bowed, inches from your own and you can sense the sincerity on his lips, the subtle catch in his breath before his eyes squeeze shut and he continues. “Apologize.”
“For what?” you whisper, not challenging, simply begging for a chance to do it perfectly.
He finally looks at you dead on, the color of his eyes going dark with the rest of the room: they’re infested with you.
“For a while, it really did feel like I had everything figured out,” he says instead. His thumb doesn’t stop its insistent caress, his hands have begun to dry onto your skin. “If you had called sooner, I might have thought of you less.”
Your ribs hurt, a dull pain that you’re sure has made your chest red. And Suguru, his neck must hurt from bending down this low. All of this is very taxing.
“I’m sorry,” you apologize.
“Don’t,” he chokes out, even though he had just told you the opposite. His forehead collides with your own and your noses brush against each other. His eyes glide, pulled by a gravity you know too well, and land on your lips. His hands have cupped over your ears and tangled in your hair.
Suguru kisses you like he’s starved and you kiss back. He drags your bottom lip through his teeth, something you’d only seen in movies. Things are wrong, things are right, and things aren’t perfect; you’re afraid your hands have been drenched in blood, a permanent splatter of paint. They’re hidden underneath your own weight, trapped, held back until Suguru’s hand leaves your face and melts into the curve of your neck; he drags you impossibly closer, enough to have you nearly falling.
“Your hands,” he demands softly, almost dazed. “Hold onto me.”
But you feel just as drunk, so what comes out of your mouth is protest, completely contradictory of your body throwing itself onto him and letting him lift you over the wall of the couch and onto your feet. He kisses you while you’re up in the air, while you’re half in the middle of your sentence, while your hands wrap around his neck for support and squeeze. All of it’s engulfing enough to have you spinning at the thought of his strength. You never used to think of it much.
“I think I might be killing you,” you warn him deliriously, once he leaves enough room for you to breathe.
You think he might have not heard you if not for the look you catch on his face. Suddenly— alarmingly—it becomes so full of love that it feels like you’re being devoured whole. You don’t know how you’ve missed this starved expression for so long. It matches the intent of your hands: both are guilty, both are lovers, and both are a little violent.
“Yeah,” he replies hoarsely. He says it plainly, like you’ve just told him the weather, like you’re not obviously holding back from touching him again.
“Yeah?” you echo, a little more than mocking at his answer.
“Yes,” he replies more formally. His face pulls away from yours, and all his bending makes you forget how tall he really is. He grips your arms and puts some distance between the two of you, it feels like miles. There’s that bite in his hands again, awkward, too wretched for even him to hold onto on his own. “I don’t want to stop,” he declares. His grip tightens, a comforting gnaw, and he bends down to ghost your lips; Suguru swallows your breath of surprise like it might be his last meal on this Earth.
And maybe you need him because the two of you are able to kill and be killed a little more easily than most. Maybe you need him because he remembers how you like things cooked and answers all your calls. Maybe you need him because that’s a simpler part of living.
72 notes
·
View notes
Boy King AU | Vettonso + Martian | 1.3k
There's something about putting the future emperor of the Holy Realm on his knees like this. About how easily he goes, how willingly, how obediently. What would his adoring public think if they could see him now. If they saw their beloved king pressed down like this, in the cramped space between Fernando's legs. When they realized their little boy king took it like he was a little concubine instead.
Fernando's bitterness is lifted away in moments like these, like taking off a heavy cloak on a winter's day. It was hard to feel humiliated about his own situation when watching Sebastian debase himself like this.
He always gives himself up so easily. When Fernando threaded his fingers through his thick curls. When he pulled them, and then when he pressed his face down further down into the vee of his legs. Sebastian rubbed his cheek into the coarse fabric of Fernando's breeches and blinked up at him. Fernando had to smother an embarrassing sound; he was just like a little cat!
Sebastian quirked his lips up into an odd little smile and slightly rose up on his knees, "What's funny?" Fernando swallowed lightly and schooled his face back into being impassive, "Nothing. As you were." Sebastian simply smirked at him and let himself be pushed back down by the fist clenched in his hair.
Fernando scoffed internally, there was only so much pleasure in putting the other man in his place when he instead acted like this, this degrading action, was his birthright. He took to ruling and indulging in carnal pleasures as if they were of equal gravity. To be privileged to hold such high station and also let himself be taken apart like this…Fernando felt embarrassed for him.
He is dragged away from his musings when Sebastian moved to settle his hands in Fernando's lap, clutching his hips over the fabric and slightly squeezing; Fernando fought against the urge to shiver. Sebastian pushed up the skirt of Fernando's waistcoat and smoothed his hands over the opening flap of his breeches.
His eyes darted up at Fernando again, a daft smile on his face. Fernando scowled at him, "What?" Seb's grin sharpened, "You could stand to be a little more gracious. This is your future emperor, and future husband might I add, kneeling for you on this dirty, depraved, derelict- ah–" Fernando tugged on his hair again and hissed, "Well then, why don't you show me how eager you are to perform your marital duties?"
Seb licked his lips, completely unconcerned by Fernando's annoyance, and unbuttoned one side of the closure to Fernando's breeches and moved to open the other–
The door to the carriage flew open, arrival announcement dying on a wheezing breath as the servant took in the image the two kings made. One splayed across the seat, exuding power, the other kneeled, debauched, between the former's legs.
One would be hard pressed to determine which was higher on the totem of power and titles.
There was something gratifying about this to Fernando, about being caught. He had been humiliated enough throughout the entire courtship, what was one more thing? And, certainly, what was one more thing if he could drag Sebastian down into the dirt with him.
"Oh Mark, don't act so abashed! It's nothing you haven't seen before, in fact, we have been in this very position not even a fortnight ago!"
Oh. Yes. That.
It was hard to be completely pleased when he remembered how Sebastian had already spent years prior to their engagement sampling the palace's ample selection of fellow high-born men. And how all those men seemed to be completely and utterly wrapped around his little finger.
Fernando released his hand from Sebastian's hair as if it had burned him. He did not understand why he felt ashamed with Mark looking in on them like this. Fernando was the one marrying Sebastian, not Mark; Mark was just a lowly courtier who had the esteemed duty of spending practically every waking hour with the brat…something he himself was decidedly not looking forward to.
Sebastian stayed kneeling, staring impassively up at Mark, still fiddling with the clasp on Fernando's breeches. Fernando gritted his teeth and looked up from where he was watching Sebastian's clever little hands; Mark stared back at him placidly.
Mark's indifference made the entire situation worse. Fernando now felt as if he was not doing anything unique, not doing anything particularly new. How many other men had Mark caught Seb with in this exact position? Fernando felt like he was just another plaything of the boy king, soon to be boy emperor, except his position was forever, permanent. He was the "Kept King", the king who only kept his throne due to the whims of a boy who doesn't even understand what power is.
Mark coughed, "Well," he says, "Your Majesty, I do believe you have a meeting to attend." Seb pouted at him and whined, "We were just getting to the main course," but still braced himself on Fernando's thighs and got up off the carriage floor.
Seb pranced down the steps Mark had placed next to the carriage, miming tripping sown the stairs, snickering when his action made Mark reflexively reach out to grab him, and then playfully skipped off the final step.
Fernando couldn't help but stare as Mark made the weirdest grimace in response, and he inexplicably felt all his mortification seep away from him. Huh. Maybe Mark is-
Seb then turned around and frowned at him, seemingly disappointed, but his eyes are deceivingly sharp, "Fernando, I regret to inform you that I have other duties I must attend to, you will simply have to wait." He then grinned up at Mark next to him and giggled as the other man stiffened when Sebastian looped both of his arms through Mark's.
He leaned all his weight on the other man, Mark not so much as shifting his weight, "Oh Mark, won't you carry me back to the palace? I'm so very tired after all the horse riding," Seb looked up at him imploringly.
Fernando observed as Mark rolled his eyes and shrugged off the man, though notably not pulling his arm from Seb's grasp, and he got the distinct feeling that this exact scene had been played out countless times before.
Fernando clenched his jaw as he watched Seb turn and saunter off, Mark trotting alongside him like a loyal dog. Fernando was supposed to be the unaffected one in this partnership, the unflustered one, the unconcerned one. And yet here he stood, in broad daylight, in a foreign kingdom, on the steps of a carriage with his breeches half unbuttoned and his cravat in disarray.
He heard a cough from beside him, jolted and looked to the side. Sebastian's loyal Horse Master stood there, lounging against the side of the carriage. Fernando had forgotten who had even been driving the carriage in the first place. After Seb has let himself be pushed down, his hair still windswept from their ride together, everything else seemed to fade away. His thoughts were reduced only to how he could mess up the younger man's hair further.
Jenson grinned at him wolfishly, and casually crossed his legs, "First time?" he inquired. Fernando glared at him. The other man laughed openly at him, "What? He's a busy man with big prospects. You're not his majesty's only conquest, you know. Now your throne on the other hand…"
Fernando seethed, it was one thing to be humiliated by the future emperor, but to be patronized by the king's horse boy? No. It would simply not do. He closed his eyes in annoyance, pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaled, and prepared a speech about how he was not about to be talked down to by a man who didn't even have a throne to speak of!
But when he opened his eyes again and opened his mouth to begin his tirade, Jenson was already wandering away to tend to the horses. Dios mío, Fernando was not mentally prepared to spend the rest of his life with all of these impertinent morons.
62 notes
·
View notes
why do I keep seeing these people who want to believe sam is the more violent one of the brothers? I can't believe I actually have to write about this as if the truth is so elusive.
yes, sam is capable of violence because hunting and killing are what he was raised to do. he is a very skillful hunter with a built up body, so if he wants to intimidate anybody with it, it's gonna work undoubtedly. it has worked countless times in the show. but the point is that sam always tries to avoid violence until that's no longer an option. he chooses not to be violent. sam has all the reasons to be violent and evil because he was literally made for it, yet he always tries to do the right thing. I mean that's the whole point of this character. despite being cursed before he was even born, sam has always believed in the power of choice more than anyone else in the show. and that actually changed something. dean locking sam up in the panic room didn't change anything, so lucifer got out, but sam's trust in his brother made dean refuse to become heaven's weapon, so he was able to be sam's anchor in swan song. the literal fate of the world was once in sam's hands, and he could have let it end but he didn't. he fought the devil till the end to save it. this show always emphasizes free will, but some people completely miss the point by not being able to distinguish mere capability from the actual choices that were made.
yes, sam decapitated a vampire, but did he have other choices? nope. if he didn't do that, then he and his brother both would've died. and did you look at his face after that happened? did he look like he enjoyed what he just did? sam did what he had to do to survive, and he was able to do it. that's about all. but in dean's case, well, I'll just quote him: "when I killed that vampire at the mill, I didn't even think about it. hell, I even enjoyed it." you people gotta do something with your media literacy ASAP. sam let gordon live when he tried to kill him the last time. he stopped dean from killing gordon there. sam's mercy always backfired on him, forgiving always brought him more trouble, but he never gave up on anyone's second chance.
sam being aggressive in mystery spot? he was emotionally tortured for months by gabriel and he ended up just pleading with his puppy dog eyes. (I actually have a lot to say about how people perceive this episode) in s4, sam was addicted to what was force-fed to him when he was 6 months old, so you can't count this as a real choice. plus, sam was happy that he could save possession victims when he used his power. he wanted absolute power to end all the violence at once, and this is part of the revenge cycle. I've talked about this here so let's move on. and of course, being soulless was not his choice either. soulless was just a body made of the facts and experience that sam had known, there was no soul to guide the body. and in wendigo, the show indicated how jess' death affected sam through dean's line, "since when are you all shoot first ask questions later anyway?" this means sam is not that kind of person in nature. sam's anger was always been towards abusers and never towards just happened to be next to him yet people say he has anger issues. I think he's having a normal human reaction, guys. so tell me, when did sam ever choose violence out of sheer pleasure or act upon violence as if it's his nature? he's big and tall and strong, he knows how to fight and is good at it, but violence is simply not one of his favorite weapons or shields. If sam really was such a violent person then everyone would have fucking died at s4. besides, he can be dangerous without being violent. like how many times has sam provoked someone who kidnapped him just by talking while being tied up? lol
dean, on the other hand, has admitted more than one time that he enjoys violence--and I liked him when he was ashamed of it and struggled with it. because that meant he could be so much better than the person in the mirror whom he loathed. but this just stopped happening and that's the real shame here.-- he thought soulless sam was acting like him, he felt pure in purgatory. and I've posted about his physical abuse towards sam before. the tragedy of dean is that you'll never know whether this violence is in his nature or carved into him because of his trauma. (but even if it was only caused by trauma that's not an excuse for his fucked up deeds, it just explains it.) if I were dean stan I'd rather explore this than try to make him a poor innocent victim. because anyone who's ever watched the show would know this kind of perspective doesn't make sense. can't you see the cruel contrast that the big brother who enjoyed torturing souls in hell is meant to be the strongest archangel's sword, but the little brother who used to pray every day is the devil's vessel? what's the fun in wiping out all of dean's flaws and faults? dean is a loyal hero who saved countless lives, sometimes he can be just a silly little guy, but you must admit that even his love comes with violence and violation. it is that indispensable for his character. ironic enough I think if the show had for once stopped justifying dean and punished him even half as much as they punished sam, then more people would have actually seen dean's flaws as something interesting rather than trying to erase them or just hate him for it.
once you stop taking sides and really think about it, it is all very clear. the apocalypse started because dean failed to be a righteous man and sam was used as a final key to it. both of them didn't know their part in it. and it stopped because dean finally learned to respect sam's choice--sadly this only happened once here and then never again-- and let the most important person in his life go, and sam never gave up on hope and sacrificed himself into eternal hell. but the show didn't actually show us how "a righteous man sheds blood in hell" and all we got was dean's tears of guilt, so people conveniently forgot he broke the first seal. they also didn't show us what it was like for sam to start drinking demon blood but showed us only after he got addicted and made him look like an evil force out of control. the material itself was good, but the narrative failed to balance it. so everyone blamed sam for embracing and using the curse running through his veins to save the world. sam had made mistakes like everyone else, but his heart was always in the right place. that's the tragedy of this character. supernatural didn't know what they were doing, yet they created the character of all time. 😔
I also want to talk about manipulation. simply lying about something or hiding things, which everyone does all the time in the show, is not always equivalent to manipulation. but jesus christ, some people think even sam crying is his manipulation tactic. sam can't even cry in peace without weirdos trying to twist his feelings. well yes, sam is capable of manipulation but it doesn't mean his whole characteristic is *a manipulative person*. like how could you pick this one out of all the words to describe sam? it's such a weird take. the real manipulation is what heaven and hell and his brother did to sam, not him pleading crying begging praying and being suicidal. I know some manipulators use them as tactics but sam doesn't. and also, sam probably has the lowest manipulation count in the whole show? I don't think it matters much but I also want to point out that none of them was for his own good. I'm genuinely asking, let's consider sam is such a manipulative person. so when did he ever get what he wanted? what did he gain from such manipulations? all I see is everyone busy running around stripping sam's autonomy away.
sam is no stranger to violence or manipulation but he never really adopted them especially compared to the other characters in the show. and sam always tries to be a better person. he learns from his past. unfortunately, the same cannot be said for dean. to paint sam as an active participant in violence and manipulation is a strange thing to do because a)it's not true, b)those are inflicted on sam in the worst way possible by others consistently in the show but people who pull this mental gymnastics don't seem to care.
I think sam's weakness when it comes to violence is that he excuses anything for dean. he's okay with getting killed by his brother, and he goes to extremes to save dean. sam is a martyr who can only be corrupted by the love for his savior. how tragic and toxic yet tasty. and I could criticize dean all day but I also know there is no pure evil or absolute saint here. sam and dean are trapped in a church to play heaven and hell's favorite tragedy, but they are just humans underneath the costumes. people need to stop covering their faces with the masks of the righteous man or the boy king of hell or whatever, and just let them be and see as they are.
24 notes
·
View notes