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A/N: Balance of Days
Some thoughts on my story Balance of Days and why I wrote it and why I didn't post it for so long. So, obviously, spoilers for the story.
Author's Notes, the Extended Self-Indulgent Edition
I started writing this in February because I desperately wanted some stories where one of the brothers thinks the other one is dead, but he really isn't. It seemed obvious to me that there would be stories like this out there—I mean, for each of the brothers, losing the other is their worst nightmare, so it seemed like the perfect thing to explore in fic since the show would never go there (or so I thought). Like I giant red button that says "do not press," I had to push it; I just had to see what grief would be like for these boys. Which is how I ended up writing this thing.
And then AHBL aired and they actually killed Sam, and now we have a canon version of Dean grieving for Sam. I wouldn't change that for the world, but part of me was watching it and going no! That's not how I thought it would go at all! I had a completely different version of Dean's grief, which is why I didn't post the story for so long.
Originally, I wanted to show Dean through the years after losing Sam, and show that though he'd never get over it, he would get on with his life. Hence the title "Balance of Days"—it was supposed to be the rest of Dean's days after losing Sam. But then I decided that was too much work and too depressing (and I have enough depressing stories already, dammit!) and it turned into this.
What I really wanted to show (and I don't think I did) is that the brothers would be okay in the end. I have seen so many stories in so many fandoms (yes, I'm looking at you, Sentinel fandom) where one half of an OTP loses the other, and they stop eating and spend their days staring out at the ocean with tears in their eyes, alternately having psychotic episodes and cutting themselves. And just—no. Most main characters in most fandoms are functional people. Damaged, maladjusted, self-destructive, yes, but they do manage to get by day to day without killing themselves.
It's easy to imagine Sam continuing on without Dean, but given how much of everything Dean does is about Sam, it would be too easy, I think, to think of him as just giving up and shrivelling away if Sam died. But I think he's stronger than that. He would never recover, but he'd keep going, cause that's what people do. People suffer losses and are damaged by them but they still live their lives, and I think for Dean, his loss would be shown to be more profound if he did continue on hunting on his own.
Of course I didn't really explore that in this story since I focussed on the immediate aftermath of the loss, but I also wanted to show the difference in their grief, and what that means about how differently each viewed the other. Sam lost his protector and his role model, but Dean lost his purpose. Which is why Sam focussed on the problem-solving (why did this happen) and Dean just ran (though I think he'd've gotten off that bed at the Roadhouse eventually).
Then AHBL comes along and completely eradicates my view of Dean muddling through in the aftermath of loss. What the show gave us was a Dean so desperate and devestated that he literally could not function without Sam. So much for me seeing him as a stronger person...
Author's Notes, the Extended Self-Indulgent Edition
I started writing this in February because I desperately wanted some stories where one of the brothers thinks the other one is dead, but he really isn't. It seemed obvious to me that there would be stories like this out there—I mean, for each of the brothers, losing the other is their worst nightmare, so it seemed like the perfect thing to explore in fic since the show would never go there (or so I thought). Like I giant red button that says "do not press," I had to push it; I just had to see what grief would be like for these boys. Which is how I ended up writing this thing.
And then AHBL aired and they actually killed Sam, and now we have a canon version of Dean grieving for Sam. I wouldn't change that for the world, but part of me was watching it and going no! That's not how I thought it would go at all! I had a completely different version of Dean's grief, which is why I didn't post the story for so long.
Originally, I wanted to show Dean through the years after losing Sam, and show that though he'd never get over it, he would get on with his life. Hence the title "Balance of Days"—it was supposed to be the rest of Dean's days after losing Sam. But then I decided that was too much work and too depressing (and I have enough depressing stories already, dammit!) and it turned into this.
What I really wanted to show (and I don't think I did) is that the brothers would be okay in the end. I have seen so many stories in so many fandoms (yes, I'm looking at you, Sentinel fandom) where one half of an OTP loses the other, and they stop eating and spend their days staring out at the ocean with tears in their eyes, alternately having psychotic episodes and cutting themselves. And just—no. Most main characters in most fandoms are functional people. Damaged, maladjusted, self-destructive, yes, but they do manage to get by day to day without killing themselves.
It's easy to imagine Sam continuing on without Dean, but given how much of everything Dean does is about Sam, it would be too easy, I think, to think of him as just giving up and shrivelling away if Sam died. But I think he's stronger than that. He would never recover, but he'd keep going, cause that's what people do. People suffer losses and are damaged by them but they still live their lives, and I think for Dean, his loss would be shown to be more profound if he did continue on hunting on his own.
Of course I didn't really explore that in this story since I focussed on the immediate aftermath of the loss, but I also wanted to show the difference in their grief, and what that means about how differently each viewed the other. Sam lost his protector and his role model, but Dean lost his purpose. Which is why Sam focussed on the problem-solving (why did this happen) and Dean just ran (though I think he'd've gotten off that bed at the Roadhouse eventually).
Then AHBL comes along and completely eradicates my view of Dean muddling through in the aftermath of loss. What the show gave us was a Dean so desperate and devestated that he literally could not function without Sam. So much for me seeing him as a stronger person...
Balance of Days
Re: Balance of Days
That's a good point--I hadn't thought of that. I loved that the show did go there, but I'm with you. It's much more something I'd expect in fic. I generally expect restraint when it comes to angst in canon, but I'm not at all unhappy that this show isn't holding back at all. It's my little emo angsty hurt/comfort show and I love it so. Oh, yes, and there are ghost stories too.
I also find stories where the characters must muddle through alone both more poignant and more interesting.
Yes, yes. I think beating your breast and crying to the gods is the most obvious and first choice of any writer to show grief, but you dig a little deeper and it stops being a monolithic thing--GRIEF--and becomes all the individual pains that make it unique to one person. And that's when you start to feel it instead of just recognizing it.
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Who me???
::looks around::
In my one and only death fic in the Sentinel fandom I did not have Blair pine away after Jim died..nope...I had him die at the same time...mwahahahaha....but that's just because I wanted to leave Daryl all alone...mwahahahaha...long story...(well, not the fic, but the story behind it...)
As I said in my previous comment, I really liked this. It hit all my buttons in really good ways. I like the way you portrayed Dean's grief vs Sam's. Dean goes to ground, all his focus on Sam's body. Sam turns to fight, taking care of Dean's body is something he needs to do before he can take up arms. I like it because it's so opposite of how they normally look at the world. But then, they way they look at the world is totally different from how they look at each other...
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Dean goes to ground, all his focus on Sam's body. Sam turns to fight, taking care of Dean's body is something he needs to do before he can take up arms.
I hadn't thought of it quite like that—funny how you can step back from your own story and suddenly see all this stuff you didn't mean to put in there? To me it was about both of them in a state of shock, displacing their grief. For Dean, he focuses it onto an object that represents Sam (the ashes) and continues protecting the object as he would his brother. Of course, this clearly isn't enough to keep him from feeling the loss acutely. Sam, on the other hand, almost denies the grief entirely, focusing on a problem to solve instead. Had Dean actually been dead, when Sam defeated the dryad, I think he would have been even more devestated than Dean, in a lot of ways. Dean knows how important Sam is to him; I think Sam has the little-brother benefit of being completely myopic about his family. I think a lot of what Dean does for him (not just emo sacrifices, but in little subtle ways supporting him and trying to nudge him toward happiness) is invisible to Sam. If Dean died, I think it would be a process of years of Sam discovering more and more new ways that he misses his brother.
Clearly exploring the grief of these characters is an obsession of mine—my very first SPN fic was character death.
If you excuse the nattering on, I also wanted to show Dean not being the hunter in this story because I think a lot of the reason Dean hunts is because of his family. John was clearly driven to hunt, Sam is driven to hunt, but, though Dean may not think so, he's very different from either of them. Right now, hunting is the way he stays with his family. It's clearly something he enjoys, but if circumstances changed, I think he'd give it up in an instant. It's almost like Dean has no dream of his own but to follow someone else's—he gets completely consumed in first his father's and then his brother's wishes. If Sam's desire changed, Dean would follow. Which is why I'm so fascinated by trying to examine Dean when he has no one else's dream to guide him. If you cut him off from people he cares about, what would he do? I think the answer given to us by "Route 666" is that he'd find someone else to care about and adopt their dreams. But now we're getting into why I wrote "Crazy Faith"...
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Burden of Truth http://www.852prospect.org/archive/archive/29/burdenof.html
It came out of my personal experiences with grief and the ways I've leaned to deal with it....
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I was trying to show with Dean, written as this was mid-season 2, what the burden of protecting Sam does to him. Losing Sam is something that he dreads, so if Sam died, he would be released from that incredible burden of fear and responsibility. It's sort of like talking about the sugar-coating on a cyanide pill, but I think his grief would be complicated and worsened by relief that at least, now that the worst had come to pass, he no longer had anything to fear.
The corollary to that is that when Sam turns up alive, Dean has to shoulder that burden again. I don't know how, but a sequel to this fic would have to show how much harder it was for Dean to take on that dread again after being free of it.
no subject
If Dean died, I think it would be a process of years of Sam discovering more and more new ways that he misses his brother.
I agree. And that's why I think the dying of grief thing is so empty to me a storyline. Because it's too simplistic, and it's an interchangeable story with any other 2 characters who have been close and suffered loss. Whereas knowing what would cause Sam pain months or years down the line is very specific. It's also very realistic, loss happens like that, blindsiding you with things you didn't even realize until the gap appears.
think his grief would be complicated and worsened by relief that at least, now that the worst had come to pass, he no longer had anything to fear.
It's interesting that you would say that. I wrote a meta not long ago about how I felt that WIaWNSB might very well have been prompted by Dean's feelings of guilt on this subject.
y I'm so fascinated by trying to examine Dean when he has no one else's dream to guide him. If you cut him off from people he cares about, what would he do? I think the answer given to us by "Route 666" is that he'd find someone else to care about and adopt their dreams.
Huh, I hadn't thought of that but I find that very plausible. I agree, I think that Dean has needs but not dreams.
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So, sequel huh???
HUH???
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(Anonymous) 2007-12-15 05:52 pm (UTC)(link)In a world where they had never come across the crossroads demon, or in a world where John had never sold his soul for Dean and Dean wasn’t convinced his life was debt anyway, if soul selling wasn't almost routine and at the forefront of Dean's mind because of the events of the past year, I don't know if he would have done the same thing. Maybe, maybe not. But if he didn't, or if there was no crossroad demon and no opportunity to sell your soul, then eventually Dean would have gone back to functioning and "being okay" even if he never forgot or stopped missing Sam. Do you know what I mean? Bargaining is one of the stages of grief that many people go through, except they do it with God to no avail, the fact that Dean had a real power to go to that wanted something huge in return is as much a reflection of the world he lives in as it is how strong a person he was. In his weakest most desperate moments he was reckless, but he had pretty unique life circumstances.
Not to say I condone or excuse the deal (I mean, I do, because I'm totally sure that it will somehow be negated or delayed because there'd be no show, but it was an awful awful decision in the moment for Dean and Sam- they can't know that they're being set up for the next year's plot arc!) but I think you should consider everything. Not that I feel you're bashing Dean or being unfair, I agree with what you said and hate non-functioning, despair forever fanfiction grief, but I don't think AHBL was that, I think it was grief that had an unfortunate outlet at the worst moment.
Tish (leticia.dw@gmail.com)