‘A Million Ways To Go’ by ChasingRabbits - Destiel High School Era Neighbors AU With Supernatural Twist
‘Castiel Novak is a preacher's son living in a world of black and white. Pragmatic and dutiful, he doesn't understand why anybody would want to make waves.
Then the Winchesters move in down the street. Soon many of the skeletons in the Novak family's closet are exposed, and as the family faces them, Castiel begins to understand that there are many ways to see the world and so many more ways to live than what he's been told.’
When I started reading this, my eyes actually got wet with the feeling of finally having found a perfect fic. I don’t want to give too much of it’s awesomeness away, because during the entire first part, I was gasping and jumping up and down at every little twist and one in particular.
The Destiel parts were nothing short of a whiff of a better life. Cas, who is so much in love with Dean despite himself, and Dean, who falls more slowly and never wants to get back up. Moments of freedom stolen away and treasured. A reason to fight and to hope and to stand up for yourself.
The only thing I can genuinely say I would have liked to see develop differently are usual problems in Destiel fic. There are characters who don’t get the attention they might deserve, namely ten-year-old Anna, who only sometimes gets mentioned as living in the same house, Cas’ parents, who are very much two dimensional (they never quite make the jump to 3D) and John.
In addition, you’d think with the way the story started out, Cas’ religiosity would actually still play a part later on, but this storyline gets all but completely dropped.
But those things aren’t huge and don’t take away from the joy of reading.
Other than that, I do have to say that I liked the beginning better than the end, because there is a major change in focus on Gabriel and while I really love that in this fic he is not the Trickster, but just a kid who can’t cope, it lead to a couple of cliché developments. It’s not like it’s not just as well done, it just didn’t feel a hundred percent authentic to me.
All in all, you’re missing out if you skip this epic, if only for the first half’s sake.
AO3 – 91079 words - Explicit
