Horror Rec List (link to horror tag; link to other rec lists), all links go to fic reviews unless noted differently.
*fic contains horrific scenes but isn’t really horror
A Place Where Nothing Moves by imogenbynight [NC-17, 49,000 word count]
In 1991, after the most frightening day of his short life, Dean’s family was split down the middle. His mother left. His brother, too. For the remainder of his youth, he had nothing but his increasingly distant father, a life constantly uprooted, and the book Sam left behind. A book that spoke of a light on the ocean and the terror that longed to breach it. Now, seventeen years later in the small fishing town of Jackpine Harbor, Maine, the appearance of a strange light on the horizon and a rash of storms set off memories of the day he’d rather forget, and the town’s newest resident, a veterinarian named Castiel Shurley whose apparent hatred of Dean is neither founded nor avoidable, is just one more thorn in his side.
A Vague Memory of Wisdom by takadainmate [M, 35,000 word count]
Dean/Castiel. H/C. A library, demons, and fire. Warnings: Some demons-made-them-do-it. Set between 5x3 and 5x4, I think. This fic is less esoteric than the name suggests. But, and some of you would agree, thankfully a lot more porny.
*Above & Below by murron [NC-17, 45,200 word count]
After the events of Caged Heat Dean, Sam and Cas climb into Hell to get Sam’s soul. While they pass from one infernal circle to the next, Dean struggles with his mistrust of soulless Sam and the shadow of his own past in the Pit. In addition, there’s the matter of Cas who’s come to mean more to Dean than he wants to admit. Fighting against Hell spawn and fallen angels, passing through burned cities and salt deserts, Dean believes in the success of their mission until their luck runs out and Hell threatens to swallow Cas whole.
*Angel Slayer by emwebb17 [NC-17, 139,000 word count]
FBI Special Agent Jensen Ackles tracked a serial killer dubbed the Angel Slayer for six months in Washington, DC—the murderer was vicious, depraved, carved the names of angels into the victims’ chests…and eluded capture. Over eight years later, a murder in small Elton, NH has too many similarities for Jensen to ignore. Paired with a green agent, Jared Padalecki, Jensen travels to Elton to solve the case that has been haunting him for nearly a decade. In the course of the investigation the agents come across a local police officer named Misha Collins—who may have a deadly connection to the Angel Slayer. [May, 2019, the author has uploaded the fic, Angel Slayer, on AO3 as an original work, with changed names. See this post for more details.]
The Angle of Repose by standbyme [M, 45,000 word count]
by the year 1972 the state of kentucky had produced over 100 million tons of bituminous coal. when Castiel, the new continuous miner operator at the venus coal camp’s no. 6 mine, begins to sense something strange is happening underground, the lines between the possible and the impossible begin to blur, and dean may be the only one who is willing to believe him.
Architecture of the Minotaur’s Heart by beenghosting [NC-17, 45,000 word count]
There’s something alive in Dean’s cabin. He can feel it. Under the floorboards, beneath the stairs that shouldn’t be there, where it’s dark. It beats like a heart. It changes its face in the middle of the night. It feels like it’s reaching out to him, and he has no idea why.
Autumn Hollow by shotgunsinlace [NC-17, 98,400 word count]
When tragedy strikes late one Californian night, author C.J. Novak searches for a place to start his life anew. The long road filled with shadows and doubts take him to Nires Island, a small fishing town off the coast of Maine where the food is good and the neighbors are polite. But when nightmares of drowning threaten the fragile threads of Castiel’s sanity, the picturesque shores of Autumn Hollow don’t look quite so pretty any more. The dead walk, the vengeful haunt, the darkness stalks, and Dean Winchester may be more than just the shady mechanic who somehow manages to destroy Castiel’s defenses.
Bezal’el by brinysaltines [NC-17, 21,700 word count]
The Leviathan stay in Cas’s vessel. The boys go on a wild goose chase as they wreak absolute havoc along the coasts North America, the death count lurching to the thousands. It brings them to New Orleans, where Sam and Dean have to hunt down a word-of-mouth, bedtime grapevine of a story based on the word of Heaven and Hell of another Samuel Colt-forged weapon: a knife built on the Word of a God.
The Boomerang Effect by strangeandcharm [NC-17, 13,700 word count]
While working a case with the Winchesters, Castiel has a meeting with a monster who awakens something inside him – something Dean is in need of, too.
breathing through the radio by Maharetchan [NC-17, 10,800 word count]
Falling means loneliness, isolation and having a terrible and crippling emptiness inside. And when you feel like this, so hopeless and desperate, even a disemboweled and mildy creepy voice that narrates the life of an ever creepier desert town can be a comfort; aka, after he falls, Castiel starts hearing the Night Vale community radio program playing in his head, helping him, keeping him company and making him realize the depth of his feelings for Dean; and lets be real, this is not even the weirdest thing that ever happened to him.
Bring Up the Deep by beenghosting [NC-17, 22,700 word count]
They went back and forth on whether or not to make the drive until Sam found an article in the town’s local paper dated a week earlier about a lobster fisherman who swore a monster sank his boat.
Carrion by HigherMagic [M, 35,000 word count]
Dean is on a team of paranormal investigators and they know they’ve struck gold when, within minutes of being inside one of the top ten most haunted sites in the US, they get several strong sightings. When the ghosts start being a lot more active than they’d anticipated, the team knows they’re in for a Hell of a ride, especially when they start hearing strange noises from upstairs and encounter not only the most powerful spirit they’ve ever seen, but a real, living flesh-and-blood Omega who desperately needs their help.
Contrapasso by takadainmate [NC-17, 60,000 word count]
There’s a town in Wisconsin that doesn’t exist.
With no way in without human help, Castiel, seeking out a group of missing angels, asks for Dean’s assistance. He finds Sam with his brother, alive and well and free from Lucifer, with no explanation and no memory of how he got out of Hell.
Inside the town that doesn’t exist, there is murder and madness and a creeping cold that leave Dean, Cas and Sam fighting for their lives and for each other. As the town shifts and changes around them, descending into anarchy, the three of them find it increasingly difficult to tell what’s real and what’s not.
For the Birds by MKittyUltra, PollyMajor_AKA_ughvengersassemble [NC-17, 87,700 word count]
Fifteen years ago, Cas sacrificed himself to banish the world of supernatural beings, including himself, and he left his vessel, Jimmy Novak, in a coma. When he woke up, he turned his back on the Winchesters, and during the intervening period they’ve all lived their separate lives. Well, I say all - Dean has spent the past 15 years shoe horned into the life Sam has managed to carve out for himself with his partner, Lily, and their three kids. Dean is the odd jobs man around the house and does a lot of the childcare, but he lives, necessarily, on the fringes of the family, not quite able to let go of his life before. One Christmas Eve, Dean gets a call that will drag Jimmy back into his life. Can he let go of past grievances and reconcile his growing feelings for Jimmy with his grief over the loss of Castiel? Meanwhile, something strange is happening to Sam’s youngest son, Cassie.
The Ghosts of Blackthorn Hall by linoresearch [NC-17, 95,000 word count]
In 1843 Castiel Milton leaves his life of quiet faith and duty to take up employment as tutor to the young ward of one Mr Dean Winchester, at Blackthorn Hall. Set deep among the Yorkshire moors Blackthorn is a place of mysteries – a wild place with an odd history, where faces appear at the windows and mad women laugh in the night. Castiel is drawn to the enigmatic Master of Blackthorn and they form a strong attachment neither of them expected. But there are secrets hidden behind Blackthorns thick stone walls that threaten to destroy their happiness, they are forced to confront the ghosts of their past.
In The Dark by fine_feathered [NC-17, 24,000 word count]
When Dean is left a grand manor in an unknown man’s will, all of his troubles seem to be solved. Yet when he arrives there’s a monster waiting for him, a nightmarish amalgam of different creatures. Dean soon realises that he is trapped in the middle of nowhere with no hope for escape or rescue.
To complicate matters further every night a ‘man’ named Castiel appears in his bedroom in complete darkness, never allowing his face to be seen. Castiel’s touch brings both pain and pleasure and though Dean tries to resist it at first, he feels himself falling for the man he knows he should despise. Castiel feeds off of Dean’s energy, gathering more power to break the curse upon him. Many have come before Dean, but this one, Castiel knows, is special and may just be his undoing.
The Inexhaustible Silence of Houses by askance [M, 31,900 word count]
Almost two years after the world doesn’t end, Castiel falls from grace—and loses his voice in the process. It is the impetus for confession and change; before long, he is settling into a loving relationship with Dean, the Winchesters are tired, and hunting for a place to land has taken precedence to hunting anything else. Dean and Castiel fall in love with the strange little house on the end of Swallowtail Drive, and for a little while life is as it should be—sweet, affectionate, and beginning afresh.
But more and more Castiel sees and hears things in the house that beg the question of whether or not a place itself can be alive. The walls and rooms seem to shift and grow and breathe, and one night, Dean comes home from a hunt changed in a way that Castiel cannot explain. In the months that follow, their domestic bliss takes turns for the dark and sour, and the confusion of their circumstances will ultimately test everything Castiel knows about the man he loves, and everything he believes to be true.
Last One Out Hits The Lights by entangled_now [NC-17, 38,000 word count]
After they stop a plot to tear open a hole straight to hell, the Winchesters face more trouble when zombies start rising from their graves across the country. Bobby calls all hands on deck and Sam and Dean, along with an angel, a mess of out-numbered hunters, and a very reluctant prophet of the Lord, have to try and save the world. Or go down in flames with it.
*Muted Angels by geckoholic [M, 14,000 word count]
Alternative Reality, non-supernatural. There’s nothing worse than a case involving dead kids, at least in the book of Detective Dean Winchester. It’s just his luck that his partner is the lieutenant’s favorite, and she chooses to give them the high-profile murder case of a dead girl from the suburbs. More deaths follow, and the two of them get sucked into the world of religious cults and ritualistic murders. In the face of that, Dean’s feelings for aforementioned partner are the least of his problems.
Penumbra by waywardseraph [NC-17, 29,000 word count]
It’s supposed to be just a simple salt and burn. That’s all. But when Dean, Sam, and Castiel investigate who, or what, is abducting children in a small Texas border town, it quickly becomes a lot more, fast. Case!fic set after 9x08 (AU after 9x08, no spoilers for 9x09 or beyond).
Red Right Hand by Duckyboos [NC-17, 85,200 word count]
“You’re one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan,
Designed and directed by his red right hand.”
It all starts with the mysterious note left on Dean’s chair. It all ends with Dean coming to terms not only with what he’s capable of, but how much that knowledge doesn’t bother him.
Roots by anythingtoasted [NC-17, 38,700 word count]
After the apocalypse, Dean, Sam and Castiel settle into a gentler life, and Dean starts to make peace with the things that plagued him before 2009. Tentatively, carefully, he starts getting better.
But something lives in the woods, in the house; something calls to him in his dreams that crosses the lines between waking and sleep. Whilst trying to reconcile himself with himself, Dean finds himself wondering if the things he’s managed to build are really slipping away, or if the whole thing is just in his head.
The Shadows We Draw by viviansface [NC-17, 75,600 word count]
Senior year of high school is generally considered to be a struggle; with a new boyfriend and a group of jocks who won’t stop straight-out harassing him, it’s nearly impossible. Despite being in love and enjoying its perks, Dean grows desperate enough to seek aid from a practiser of one of the oldest arts – witchcraft – to hopefully make their lives (especially Cas’) easier. Spells are a dangerous business, though, and oftentimes, not even the best intentions can make a difference.
Spiraling by YamiAki96 [NC-17, 15,000 word count]
Strange occurrences start after Dean and Castiel move into their dream house, leading Castiel to believe that they may not be alone there.
These Forsaken Lands by destielpasta [M, 53,700 word count]
Three years after his run as God, Castiel leaves a small group of angels in Hannah’s care, returning to Kansas with every intention of going to the bunker. He finds himself in the small town of Colton, just passing through to gather strength, his ever-fading stolen grace weakening him slowly. Colton isn’t like other towns, however, and whispers follow him wherever he goes. A stranger confronts him, showing him a community damaged to it’s core by a God that visited and never came back; a God that disappeared into a river without a trace. Evil plagues Colton even years after Castiel’s visit, its inhabitants unwilling to come clean about what truly happened. Castiel calls upon Dean for help, finding truth in an old pile of newspapers and new faces willing to give him a second chance to make things right. A post-9.18 story.
White Albatross by spnergiout [M, 24,800 word count]
Six years of a relationship isn’t something Dean can just throw away. Cas is sick, and all Dean has to do is hold on. Even if Cas is drifting further and further away, even if the seeping blackness threatens to swallow them both. When dreams are reality and reality is void, there’s only one thing Dean knows for sure: he isn’t giving up on Cas.
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