Fanfic for Tonight, January 27th, 2018
A Beginner´s Guide To Communing with the Dead, by suspiciousflashlight
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.
Warnings: Alternative universe, rating is mature (but not extremely explicit), Dean is in a difficult headspace, like the summary says a child is murdered and used for a ritual, but off screen, case fic, Dean is a detective, Cas is a very powerful and very dangerous being, supernatural creatures exist and are known to everyone.
Day 3, and we´re finally going Alternative Universe! I´m keeping it close to home, tho. In this story, the (modern) world were Dean and Sam live in is not only aware of the supernatural, but also perfectly able to cohabit with it and integrate it in everyday´s life. One of many examples? Dean´s detective partner was Benny, a vampire, and Dean´s a witch-detective. And hey, surprise? In the attempt to solve the case that’s been hunting him for months (the murder of a child used for a dark magic ritual) Dean disobeys his orders to only summon a less powerful creature (for police work!) and digs out Mary´s old Necromancy book (as you can guess, Necromancy is sorta forbidden!) and summons and bounds to himself… Castiel. Who is immensely powerful and alien and sassy. I guess those particular aspects of Cas are there regardless of his species *finger guns*
I love fanfics in which the characterization is on point regardless of if they’re AU or not, and this is definitely one of those; and moreover, Cas and Dean´s developing relationship goes from “sorry I summoned you and sorta enslaved you please don’t smite me and the whole city I just need a bit of help” to Cas being grumpy but increasingly curious about Dean, and humans, to them inevitably bonding because well, they’re Dean and Cas, are they not?
The magic element of this fic also makes for a compelling read, I got sucked into this world and I really didn’t wanna come out. A particular place in my heart is occupied by this scene in which Cas wakes Dean up to show him that he made a heart for himself, and that it´s beating.
Aside from the obvious romance that is bound to happen because well, purgatory-jar doesn’t do unhappy endings, I also really enjoyed the way Dean´s cold case was set up and then solved: it makes one hell of a compelling argument, doesn’t it? What is justice, in the end? And who does actually decide?
Please *do* leave kudos and/or comments to suspiciousflashlight, and I highly recommend also reading her other 2 fanfics because they are short but sweet and funny. And let me know if you enjoyed the fic and what were your fave parts, I need to squee about this!
