[Gen] rokhal: Stop Hitting Yourself
[ Gen]
Title: Stop Hitting Yourself
Writer: rokhal
Status of work: Complete in 3 parts
Characters: John, Dean and Sammy Winchester; Sam Grisham
Rating: T
Warnings, kinks & contents: [Click to read]Horrifying creatures getting violently slaughtered, poor gun safety
Length: 20,000
Summary: Dad gets a hunting partner, a tall guy with long hair and cool sideburns. He and Dad get along bizarrely well and Dean worships him, but he seems to have a grudge against Sammy, a grudge that surfaces on a hunt that spins dangerously out of control.
Reccer's notes: I don't want to give away the kicker by telling too much, and this story is pretty much all kicker. This fic is a horror slow-burn, and the best part is that only one person in the whole story is in a position to understand how horrific it really is--and it's not who you might think. The aura of real menace that pervades every line contrasts sharply with the functional innocence of Sammy's youthful POV. The length of the fic works in its favor, as it allows the author to create a slow, suspensful buildup with a hair-raising payoff that casts all these well-known characters in a new light, in a completely believable and in-character way. This is a smart, scary fic that has a lot to say and the chops to say it well. It also contains some really fantastic descriptions of the Sam bitchface we all know and love.
[Short excerpt]Grisham was reading Sam's Tennyson essay. Sam saw the top of it peeping out behind the table, not even concealed. Heat flared in Sam's chest and tingled in his palms. He checked his backpack-it was unzipped, moved a foot from his chair, the papers neatly parted around the place where the essay had been. A muscle ticked in Grisham's cheek as he turned a page in his massive hands, and Sam, feeling violated, restrained himself from snatching it back.
"Mr. Grisham," he hissed instead.
Grisham ignored him. He ignored him! Sam steeled himself-it didn't matter that the guy could snap him in half over his knee, he was still an adult, and adults were supposed to respect simple rules like "look at people when they're talking to you," and "don't snoop through someone else's belongings while they're in the room."
"Mr. Grisham," Sam tried again, louder.
Grisham reached the end of a paragraph before he looked up, slowly. His lip was curling back a bit from his teeth, and his eyes were dark and sharp.
Sam felt sweat prickle all across his back. He checked the couch, where Dad was cross-checking maps, and the floor, where Dean was profiling victims.
"Can I have that back, please," Sam forced out. "Sir."