[fic]cherie_morte: Into Oblivion
[ Challenge ]
Title: Into Oblivion
Writer:cherie_morte
Alternate links: pdf download
Status of work: SPN Reverse Big Bang 2013/2014
Characters and/or pairings: Sam/Dean
Rating: mature
Warnings, kinks & contents: [Click to read] death (temporary), amnesia (temporary), permanent injury, drug use (marijuana), a necro kiss, Dean being attracted to Sam at the age of 17 (it never gets acted on), and porn (barebacking)
Length:24,390
Summary: AU after 8x23: Sam dies before completing the last trial, leaving Dean alone and desperate. After a month of trying to bring Sam back with no luck, Dean gets a tip from the most unlikely of places: Metatron. Now reigning in Heaven, the angel is still looking for stories-one story in particular. Sam and Dean broke destiny when they derailed the apocalypse, rewrote the book Metatron had penned himself so many thousands of years ago, and now theirs is the only history the Scribe of God can't access. Although he has Sam's soul captive in Heaven, no amount of torture has convinced Sam to give up his and Dean's life story.
Metatron gives Dean a scroll and makes a bet: if Dean can follow the instructions and return Sam's soul to his body within three days, then Heaven will relinquish its claim on Sam. If he can't? Dean will forget he ever had a brother, and all of his memories of Sam will belong to Metatron. It sounds like a fair enough deal, but of course there's a catch. From the moment Dean reads the instructions, he begins to forget Sam and his quest, each memory disappearing faster the more clues he leaves to keep himself on track. It's a race against the clock to decide Sam's life, and it's all or nothing. Dean will get his brother back-or lose him completely.
Reccer's notes: As much as I dislike Dean's canon incapability of letting Sam go, this fic makes it very sympathetic for Dean to do what he did. (He had a legit reason helped a lot too, for that matter.) I especially love the scenes of Dean's memories.
I am a fan of cherie_morte's work, her stories often make me think of Edlund's work, where the stories go from funny to angst to horror to seriously angst without breaking stride. This story is a good example of that, only with a happy (by Winchester standards) ending.