Yay, I was able to finish it!
Okay, brace yourselves. Sins of the Innocent by reapertownusa is very very very DARK.
I'll begin with the author's own summary and warnings:
Dean has always known what he is and what it takes to control the demon inside of him. He and his brother were raised hunters, living isolated from the rest of society to protect both themselves and innocent civilians. When everything falls apart, they struggle to find their way in a world they don’t trust. They come to discover that they were never as alone as they thought and nothing is what it seems.
Warnings: Heavy themes of corporal punishment from extremely abusive to consensual domestic discipline, character deaths, child abuse, disturbing scenarios involving children, dub-con/non-con, incest (the not sexy kind), prostitution, references to past molestation, self-harm, themes of suicide, torture, underage sex (nothing under 15 shown, but younger implied)
It's completely AU, except for the fact that Mary died on that fateful night in 1983, and the Winchester boys hunt demons. But other than that, it goes completely off-canon. This is a long fic, with 12 chapters and 83k words.
The twists and turns of the journey the author takes you on are breathtakingly haunting and heartbreaking. Also, the sense of wrongness of the entire situation hits you in the face right from the beginning, and JUST DOESN'T LEAVE. The first half of the fic is unrelentingly dark and heavy, and completely heartbreaking, with NO light moments to relieve the reader, but half way through the fic, the smallest bit of lightness breaks through, and the fic becomes gradually more hopeful after that, so if you can perservere through until then, you will be rewarded from there on, and the fic becomes increasingly easier to read after that.
This fic covers some popular but very difficult and disturbing dark themes, including heavy abuse, non-con, torture, and humiliation. These are difficult topics, and I doubt I would have been able to read this if the author had taken a popular but difficult to swallow line of "oh it's so bad, but isn't it so hot?" route. Instead, the author really brings home how horrific these themes are, and truly makes you cry with the victim.
THIS IS NOT A SEXY FIC. There are pairings, and there is descriptions of sex, but it is NOT designed to turn you on. So if you're looking for some dark porn, go look elsewhere, because this is not it. I like a little dark porn as much as the next person, but this fic is so completely different to that, and has a far different purpose.
I really loved the sense of ambiguity the reader is given about the true nature of the situation the family is in, and the back and forth between past and present in the narrative. The author always gives dates and locations when changing between past and present, so the reader is never confused, or left having to figure it out for themselves, which I was very grateful for. The characterisations were incredibly well thought through, developed, and presented to the reader artfully well. The emotions permeating the fic are very real and present, and the reader is very much taken along for the emotional ride with the characters.
I highly recommend this fic for readers who can handle a strong level of darkness in their fiction. But be warned, this is not an easy fic to read, nor is it for the fainthearted.