not a gh0st writer

This ship is actually a DARKSHIP and you SHOULDN'T be shipping it here's ALL THE REASONS why (proceeds to list reasons that actually make the ship more appealing)

Whenever Junior asked about his uncle, his dad just gave him a strained smile and made some excuse to leave the room. The only time he ever answered a single question was one night when Junior was a teenager, sometime in late January when he came downstairs for a midnight snack and found his father slouched drunk at the dining room table, bottle of whiskey in hand.

“It’s his birthday today,” his father said, unprompted and without glancing up at him. “He’d be sixty-one. Old man.” He gave a joyless chuckle and took a swig from the bottle.

“…Dad?” Junior hesitated in place, unsure. He’d never once seen his father drink, had overheard once that they didn’t keep any alcohol because he ‘had a history’ with the stuff. “Um, who are you talking about?”

“Your mother wanted you to have siblings, you know,” his father said suddenly, again apropos of nothing. He snorted. “Could never tell her why I was so against it, but…well. I know most siblings don’t end up like us, and thank god for that, but…” He shakes his head, whiskey sloshing loudly in the bottle. “Well, better not to risk it, I thought. Plus, there was always the chance I’d, y’know—you live the worst-case scenario and you start to see it everywhere, get paranoid, suspect…bad things that are all in your head. Or you overcompensate and tear everything apart or end up a making yourself some kind of…a self-fulfilling prophecy…”

Junior stayed frozen in the doorway, his father’s drunken rambling having completely lost him. He was just about to slip back to his room, snack forgotten, when his father cleared his throat and finally turns to him, face serious and eyes searching when he asked, “But I—I wonder sometimes if I did the right—Junior, are you—are you…whole?”

Stupidly, Junior looked down at himself, like he might suddenly discover some gaping hole in his chest or missing limb, but the question just seemed so nonsensical…

But of course it’s nonsense. His father was drunk, it’s all nonsense. That’s what he’ll use to reassure himself for years to come, every time his idle mind turns over and over this bizarre interaction and comes to more and more disturbing conclusions (what exactly is ‘the worst-case scenario’ for siblings?), that his dad was so drunk that this is essentially word salad, able to be entirely dismissed. But he knows, deep down, that there’s some essential, awful truth at the center of his father’s rambling.

“Yeah, Dad, I’m…whole,” Junior assured his father after a minute, because his face had been creasing more and more with worry after each passing second.

Dean pays attention to him though. Dean hangs onto every word he says. It seems like he wants to know everything about him, every thought he’s ever had. It’s like he’s trying to subsume Sam into himself, fuse them together. It’s all the attention he could ever want.

i just—

Sam who didn't even mention having a brother for months, the thought too painful. Eventually admitting to Jess a couple years later that they don't talk anymore. His story matching up weirdly well to the one she had heard second hand from Brady of the rough breakup he had before coming to college when Sam had finally admitted why he constantly moped around like he was heartbroken.

Sam who gets a compliment for being a good kisser during a drunk game of spin the bottle and sweetly responds that Dean was a good teacher, not noticing the silence in response as the room is filled with the thought of, "I thought Dean was his brother?"

Sam who mentions not getting out much as a kid, his big brother liking to keep an eye on him. Who doesn't see the looks when he mentions showering with him or sharing a bed to save money.

Sam who will drunkenly ramble about how much he misses his brother, and how much he hates him- how he just wanted to be normal and why couldn't he get that.

Sam who jokes about being present for a lot of his older brothers sexual escapades when his roommate apologises for bringing a girl back when he thought he was out.

Sam who never got angry and defensive with his friends before, not till one of them joked that Dean seemed like a creep, not till the others pitched in that it did seem weird how close they were. Sam who got scarily tall suddenly, and went quiet, tense.

Sam, whose friends learnt not to mention all the weird things about his past and his brother.

I am once again begging people to realize that AI checker doesn’t work. it’s never worked. it’s notoriously known to have flagged human-made works as AI and AI-generated works as human-made. and by feeding it people’s works, you are feeding more works to AI, because apparently the machine itself is AI.