[Fic] suspiciousflashlight: A Beginner's Guide to Communing with the Dead
[ Dean/Castiel ]
Title: A Beginner's Guide to Communing with the Dead
Writer: suspiciousflashlight
Status of work: complete
Characters and/or pairings: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Jess
Rating: R
Length: 77,159
Summary: Maybe it's the little girl whose disappearance turned into a murder, and whose murder turned into a cold case, and who has now apparently decided to move in with him. Maybe it's the unacceptable hole left in his life when his dumb best friend and partner in (the prevention of) crime decided to go and get himself killed. Maybe it's his brother, whose high-profile career and fantastic girlfriend and first-child-on-the-way are steadily leaving Dean in the dust. Pick one. Pick all of them. The why doesn't matter so much as the what, and the what is this: Dean is pretty sure he's going completely, certifiably insane. Sure, he hasn't started wearing all his clothes inside out, and he still showers on a regular basis (anyways, that's not crazy, just a little eccentric); but there's no getting around the fact that he just threw away his life, his career, and his reputation by dragging out his mom's old necromancy book and summoning a Class A Forbidden Entity to his attic. A cranky one, too. With horrendous bed-head.
Reccer's notes: This is a fun, well-plotted urban fantasy that hits all my cranky!Cas and creature!Cas buttons. Castiel’s often aloof and always dangerous, but fascinated with humanity, and his relationship with Dean unfolds in an a wonderful way. I loved seeing him go from furious at having been harnessed against his will to reluctantly invested in the situation to invested in Dean.
Really, though, I think this story stands out for its worldbuilding and plot. It's very assured and well-done, though I'm reluctant to say more than that, for fear of giving away too much.
[Short excerpt]Dean’s managed to build up a space in his head-a temporary safety, an if-I-don’t-look-at-it-or-think-about-it-or-move-even-a-little-I-can-kind-of-pretend-it’s-not-happening-when Cas jerks forward suddenly, thrusting one arm up into the hole and right into the Wall itself, right into the tangle of magic in the space between this side and that side. Dean stumbles forward after him, not that he has much choice; there’s a jolt of strange, ancient energy that nearly shocks him into breaking the combination, but he manages to grasp at its fluttering ends just before it evaporates entirely. The hum of the Wall echoes down his arm, leaving that dusty, earthy herb taste as strong in his mouth as if he’d just taken a bite of it. Ugh. Bad enough spending all this time pressed right up against the Wall without having to be inside it as well-
But he hardly has time to mull it over before Cas’s (his) fingers seize on something, and the taste abruptly goes acrid and sour enough that he almost gags, buzzing painfully in the corner of his skull and stirring a terrible, throbbing ache that goes right down to the marrow of his bones; and the Wall may be old and different and creepy, but this, whatever the hell this is, this shouldn’t exist at all, ever-
Cas makes a little noise of triumph in the back of his throat and yanks, and his-and-Dean’s hand emerges from the Wall clutching-something.