You know, for some reason I very often write in present tense. Maybe it's because I feel like I'm observing it and letting the readers know what's going on. Perhaps cause in past tense there is a certain security -it's already happened, nothing to be done about it. Nothing is urgent anymore, there is time to tell the tale. You're not part of it, not in it. It happened to someone else, a long time ago. But if I write write "Sam's about to buckle in, when Dean grabs fistfuls of his shirt and tucks his face in them, inhaling deeply", I feel a bit of the urgency, confusion, uncertainty how to react, that Sam might feel, more than I would had it been a story about something that already happened. As a writer, an interested shipper, and an observer of the scene, I hope to discover what will happen next. But then, "Dean is pulling Sam closer towards him, so hard the material is beginning to rip" is a bit much for me, cause it really yells "nownownow!".


At that point Sam stares at Dean all sort of breathless and round-eyed, and Dean says "Sammy" in a soft voice that's about to crack, and Sam looks like he is going to cry he's so raw, and he takes himself and walks away from the Impala. Because angst milkshake. But it's OK. They'll be so happy in the end.