Adopt a plot bunny?
I've been reading death!fics, yeah cheerful and all that, and I was viciously attacked by a rabid plot bunny. Thought I'd be kind and share the infection.
Start with the classic death/disappearance fic. Sam or Dean (I'll leave it up to you) dies sometime between the pilot and 3x01. The other brother angsts and searches or mourns or searches and mourns, but are unable to bring back the lost brother.
That's all preface. The meat of the story is AU Season 5. Somehow, everything else has been manipulated by demons/angels to bring Season 5 to the same starting point. (Remember, it always had to be Sam.)
Into this setting, seasons 1-2 Sam (or Dean) is brought back to life by Lucifer (or Michael). He is shocked by how his surviving brother has changed from the person he knew before dying/disappearing. He is also not at all prepared to deal with the raised stakes of an impending apocalypse and angels and/or Lucifer pressuring him to say "Yes".
Start with the classic death/disappearance fic. Sam or Dean (I'll leave it up to you) dies sometime between the pilot and 3x01. The other brother angsts and searches or mourns or searches and mourns, but are unable to bring back the lost brother.
That's all preface. The meat of the story is AU Season 5. Somehow, everything else has been manipulated by demons/angels to bring Season 5 to the same starting point. (Remember, it always had to be Sam.)
Into this setting, seasons 1-2 Sam (or Dean) is brought back to life by Lucifer (or Michael). He is shocked by how his surviving brother has changed from the person he knew before dying/disappearing. He is also not at all prepared to deal with the raised stakes of an impending apocalypse and angels and/or Lucifer pressuring him to say "Yes".