for the spotify wrapped writing thing: 23 + (pre-series?) samdean ❤️

Sam arrives in Palo Alto a day before the dorm move-in date. He could've arranged early move-in but his timing was off. All that planning to get here and he didn't think, somehow, about how telling the truth on Wednesday instead of Thursday would have caused a tectonic crack in the center of the country, and he'd ended up on an earlier bus, and across the country in a furious miserable blur to end up -- a day early, and nowhere to sleep. The girl at the desk doesn't know what to do with him and offers uncertainly to call her supervisor but he tells her not to worry about it. He can get a motel, if she's got a phonebook.

Another two buses, city this time, to get far enough away from the university that the motels are something he can afford. Not the first entry in the yellow pages but, then, he isn't trying to be found. The clerk gives him a distrustful look and says they don't rent by the hour and Sam hitches his duffel higher on his shoulder and tries to look less like a homeless teenager handing over scammed, grimy cash. All he could save and all he was given, in shoved messy handfuls, in those last moments in the dark, last night.

Last night. A thousand miles away, in a dim brown room with a king bed and a broken mini-fridge, it feels -- impossible. Like it's been a month. Like it happened right outside the door he's bolted and chained, the shouting still shaking the windows. He was so angry he thought he'd start through punches; now he's just -- tired. Exhausted. Hungry, and normally right now it'd be the negotiation -- pizza or lo mein, not burgers, we had burgers last night -- but he's on his own, and there's no one to make the decision but himself. How it's going to be, from now until...

He sits on the end of the bed and holds his cell between two hands for long enough that his back hurts from being hunched, and then he calls himself an idiot and dials. It rings and rings and then goes to voicemail. He hangs up. What was he thinking? He falls back on the bed, bouncing a little -- it smells like dust -- and the night ahead is a deep and looming darkness, and then his phone rings, and he opens it and holds it to his ear and says, "Dean?" with his voice this embarrassing thin thing, and there's a pause and Dean says, wherever he is somewhere else in the country, Who else would it be, genius, and he doesn't sound glad to hear from Sam but he doesn't sound mad, either, so Sam will take what he can get.

The conversation isn't good. He says he got there safe. He's moving into the dorm tomorrow and has a motel tonight. It gross? Nah, it's okay. Met any hot California babes yet? No, he says, no, of course not, and Dean says huh but not in a way where Sam knows what it means. When last week, a thousand miles from here, Dean had curled up tight against his back and wiped a messy hand on Sam's shirt, made him splutter and say gross! and Dean said, yeah, so what, whose turn is it to do laundry anyway, and Sam said yours, and Dean said, soft against the back of Sam's neck, huh, and Sam was sticky and sweaty and kinda irritated but also soft inside like a tub of mallow fluff and he knew that Dean was smiling, so he smiled too, turning it into the pillow so Dean couldn't see it. Maybe Dean knew anyway but at least he couldn't see it.

The call time was six minutes, thirty-two seconds. At the end Dean said, well, don't be a stranger, and Sam said, "You too," which didn't make a lot of sense, and then the line went dead without either of them saying goodbye. It's eight at night and Sam's in the city where he'll live for at least four years and he wanted more than anything in the world to be here and he knows it was the right decision, the only one he could have made. He knows that as much as he knows his own name, or his brother's.

The night ahead stretches. The room is quiet.

Ur probably right about it being regressive tbh. but also manmoder doesnt just mean being masculine its about looking like a Man. not just a masculine Woman.

thats a thought process i dont find quite comfortable when talking about trans women. sounds like a fancy way of describing someone "not passing". and if she intentionally tries to "look like a man". well thats just crossdressing innit