Title of fic: Heart of the Home
Author: @illusionremember
Artist: @adromelke
Pairing: Destiel
Fic Summary:
Dean Winchester died over 200 years ago. He has watched over the family farm ever since. As a household deity, he’s more than a mere ghost, a guardian to his family and home. But after decades of neglect, Dean is on the verge of fading away. Real estate developers circle the property like vultures, leaving Dean on his last chance.
Castiel Novak has just been disowned by his religious family. He moves into a 1700s New England farmhouse; it’s in need of some work, but it’s nothing he can’t handle… even if, as he suspects, it is haunted by a former resident. As Castiel gets back in touch with his magic, and works on restoring the house, maybe it’s not too late for him to save someone after all.
Maybe together, they can take this crumbling old house and turn it back into a home.
Snippet:
He needs this fresh start. He needs his own space, even if that space is in poor shape, even if that means sleeping on an air mattress and breathing in old-carpet-stink and having no furniture for a bit.
It will be worth it in the end. He just needs to hold to that.
A small draft of fresh air hits his face. He had opened up some of the windows to try and air out the smell, but there hasn’t been much of a breeze today. Outside, the sun is starting to set, the air finally cooling. He can hear a chickadee making its evening call somewhere in the orchard. Castiel pauses, listening.
He thinks of the cold fireplace. The hand-worn banister on the stairs, the quiet empty rooms upstairs. The letters, carved into the header of the kitchen fireplace. The house creaks softly as it settles. The house is listening to him right back.
“Hello,” he says to the empty room. “My name is Castiel. I fix houses. I’m… hoping to call you home.”
There’s a beat, where all is quiet. And he feels a little silly, perhaps. And he wonders again if this is all a mistake.
He hopes, at least, that he can make some difference here. Castiel takes a deep breath, telling himself he can do this.
A warmth suffuses him, in spite of the cool, fresh air on his face. The house feels like it’s welcoming him home.
Fic Summary:
Dean Winchester died over 200 years ago. He has watched over the family farm ever since. As a household deity, he's more than a mere ghost, a guardian to his family and home. But after decades of neglect, Dean is on the verge of fading away. Real estate developers circle the property like vultures, leaving Dean on his last chance.
Castiel Novak has just been disowned by his religious family. He moves into a 1700s New England farmhouse; it’s in need of some work, but it’s nothing he can’t handle… even if, as he suspects, it is haunted by a former resident. As Castiel gets back in touch with his magic, and works on restoring the house, maybe it’s not too late for him to save someone after all.
Maybe together, they can take this crumbling old house and turn it back into a home.
Link to Art: Tumblr
Link to Fic: Ao3
Be sure to check out all the amazing fics & art created for this event! @spnaubang
A sneak peek at Heart of the Home is provided below the read more cut!
Excerpt form Heart of the Home:
He needs this fresh start. He needs his own space, even if that space is in poor shape, even if that means sleeping on an air mattress and breathing in old-carpet-stink and having no furniture for a bit.
It will be worth it in the end. He just needs to hold to that.
A small draft of fresh air hits his face. He had opened up some of the windows to try and air out the smell, but there hasn’t been much of a breeze today. Outside, the sun is starting to set, the air finally cooling. He can hear a chickadee making its evening call somewhere in the orchard. Castiel pauses, listening.
He thinks of the cold fireplace. The hand-worn banister on the stairs, the quiet empty rooms upstairs. The letters, carved into the header of the kitchen fireplace. The house creaks softly as it settles. The house is listening to him right back.
“Hello,” he says to the empty room. “My name is Castiel. I fix houses. I’m… hoping to call you home.”
There’s a beat, where all is quiet. And he feels a little silly, perhaps. And he wonders again if this is all a mistake.
He hopes, at least, that he can make some difference here. Castiel takes a deep breath, telling himself he can do this.
A warmth suffuses him, in spite of the cool, fresh air on his face. The house feels like it’s welcoming him home.
As promised, here's the art post for my second @deancas-stabfest collab 😍 @lazarus-rose's prompt had me immediately hooked since it was music to my horror loving heart (with a spin on murder husbands I hadn't even considered yet) and takes the name "Stabfest" beautifully literal:
Summary: Everyone has their hobbies—Dean’s just happens to involve a lot more blood and screaming than most people’s. And sure, maybe murder isn’t the nicest way to blow off steam, but Dean’s always thought that being nice is overrated anyway.
His latest victim, a pretty guy with startling blue eyes, should be nothing special, just another nameless body on Dean’s list. But then, after Dean kills and buries him, he turns back up at Dean’s house again the next day.
What’s a guy to do when they’ve accidentally gotten an immortal witch convinced that they’ve got some kind of profound bond?
... can you blame me for claiming it? 😂 Read it NOW!! 🩸
Laz, I had an amazing time with you, your story and our collective brain rot. It's been so nice to meet and work with you and I hope it wasn't our last collab. Thank you for the A+ inspiration 🔪🖤
Cas practices darker magic and the gov't doesn't like it. They do more than necessary inspections on his facility.
Dean is being punished and gets assigned to difficult cases. He ends up at Cas' place. Once Dean gets a taste of his magic he realizes he's Cas' familiar.
It changes things for them both. Dean entering his life, brings visions Cas has had to a reality.
They grow together with the pending premonition of Cas' hovering closer and closer.
I forgot about this doodle in all of the Suptober and DCBB rush! I hope you like them~ (I imagine Dean being an elemental witch and maybe Cas is a friendly necromancer *lol*)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Droseraceae by Posingasme
Sam is a researcher at heart, a man of letters. He believes in that which he can study. On the other hand, it’s hard to be skeptical of the outrageous and supernatural when his big brother Dean is hunting a demon and his lover Castiel is a witch.
The early morning sun streams in through the big bay windows, curtains fluttering in the slight breeze.
Dean breathes in deeply, stretching his arms, up, under the pillow, before relaxing again, sighing.
The heavy sweetness of sleep is just there, threatening to pull him back under, but the angle of the morning light tells him he’s already slept in far later than usual.
With a muffled sigh, Dean rolls over.
“Don’t wanna get up,” he mumbles as he reaches out, seeking warmth. “Let’s just stay in bed all day.”
When no response is forthcoming, Dean cracks open an eye.
“Cas?”
Dean frowns, and sits up, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. It’s quiet. Nothing but the birds and the faint scent of honeysuckle drifting in through the window. Dean reaches out with his mind, meeting the familiar tendrils of their bond. It’s humming quietly, still strong—so Cas can’t be far.
Nevertheless, a small pit of worry takes root in Dean’s stomach.
He gets up, pulling on his robe before shuffling off towards the kitchen.
“Cas?” He calls again.
No answer.
The kitchen is empty, all dark and cold. He glances out the window at the garden, then checks the living room, heading back towards the small little alcove that houses Cas’s workstation. He carefully steps around a few smudged chalked pentagrams, rounds a corner of stacked parchment, and—
Dean exhales and shakes his head, walking over to him.
Cas must have fallen asleep researching—he’s slumped over his great desk, cheek plastered to the pages of a large spellbook. He’s still in his clothes from yesterday, all his candles burned down to stubs. Last night, he had waved away dinner, poring over ancient text after ancient text, even as the sky darkened around them and the hour grew later and later.
Dean had gone to bed a little before midnight, trying to coax Cas into closing the books and coming with him.
“Soon,” Cas had promised, squeezing Dean’s hand tiredly.
Hey, I did a three word Kofi prompt with you at some point during quarantine and then I forgot about it for 6 months and now I can’t find it, is there any way you could repost it or send me a link? 🙏 very sorry I have no concept of time
YOU KNOW I looked it up and I don’t think I ever wrote it!! Sorry about that! A true tragedy. Anyway, here it FINALLY is after all these months: a Destiel ficlet based on the words Sunlight, Marble, and Blood.
It was nine fifty-nine in the evening and Castiel was wearing a well-pressed suit, a baby-blue tie, and a frown.
The frown deepened as the clock finally struck ten, and Castiel let out a disgruntled breath of air.
"Figures.” He murmured to the empty room in front of him.
There was a table to his left with remnants of half-finished spells that he’d been procrastinating and scrolls with lists of potion ingredients that he’d recently run out of - a messy space that mocked all of the choices he’d made to end up in this exact moment instead of doing something productive.
Castiel set his jaw, and walked over to the table.
He had the spell memorized by this point - he’d used it so many times over the years that he barely needed to double-check his work. Crushed femur bone, sulfur, wolfsbane; all tossed into a well-used marble bowl that he’d managed to clean just the day before.
Castiel then picked up the black ceremonial dagger and cut an incision across the palm of his hand, hissing as the steel bit into his flesh, and let the blood fall into place among the other ingredients.
After saying a few, quick lines of Latin, Castiel gripped the bowl with his bloody hand, lit a match with the other and walked to the center of the room, staring into the dark circle painted onto the floorboards in front of him.
He let out another breath, dropped the match into the bowl, and flung the entire thing into the circle.
The room lit up like a flash of sunlight as the dark lines sparked bright yellow, then orange, then red - and Castiel winced as a high-pitched whistling noise filled the air, then was quickly cut off as a powerful being appeared in the center of the glowing circle.
A handsome male figure with a strong jaw, dusty hair, and freckles framing his face was standing in an awkward half-crouch in nothing but Scooby-Doo boxer briefs and a single oven mitt.
“Uh,” the figure said, glancing down at himself and then back up at Castiel, “Cas, what the hell?”
Castiel folded his arms against his chest and said nothing as he stared daggers at the man in the summoning circle.
“I mean - uh,” the man stood a little straighter as his eyes flashed black and dragged up and down Castiel’s figure, “Wow. You look - you look good.”
“You forgot.” Castiel said bluntly.
“I - what?” The man squinted at him.
“Dean.” Castiel huffed. “This was important.”
“Cas, I - ” Dean scratched at his head with his oven-mitted hand, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Castiel scowled, and the circle began to grow brighter.
“Our anniversary.” He said, scarcely able to believe that Dean had completely forgotten about their plans to actually splurge on a fancy restaurant for the first time in their year-long relationship.
Dean paused, mouth half open as he stared back at Castiel’s stormy expression.
“. . . is tomorrow.” Dean said.
Castiel opened his mouth to argue, then closed it, and opened it again.
“. . .No, it’s today.”
“Babe, our first date was on the nineteenth.” Dean said, stepping as close to the edge of the circle as he could. “That’s tomorrow.”
“But -” Castiel scrambled for words, “but we met today.”
Dean’s mouth formed a small ‘o’ and his expression softened.
“Oh, Cas, I’m sorry. This is uh, I think we got a little confused.” A gentle smile formed on his lips as he pressed his hand up against the invisible barrier that separated the two of them. “Can I come out now?”
A moment passed before Castiel nodded once and dragged the sole of his shoe along the circle, breaking the line and stopping the glow.
Dean stepped out of the circle and carefully grabbed Castiel’s bloodied hand, inspecting it with a glance.
“You really don’t have to cut your whole palm, you know.” Dean said, and waved a hand over it, sealing the wound instantly. “Just a single drop will do.”
Castiel only rolled his eyes at the demon trying to magic-splain to a witch.
“I know.” He said, the tone of his voice was short. “I was feeling dramatic.”
“Yeah, I - I get that.” Dean said with a small laugh, but his hand didn’t leave Castiel’s. “I’m sorry, I thought that you meant the anniversary of our first date.”
“And I thought it was going to be the anniversary of our first meeting.” Castiel admitted bashfully. “I suppose I should. . .communicate better.”
“Nah, it’s my fault, too,” Dean said, and took a half-step backwards to blatantly get an eyeful, “But damn. I’m not going to complain about seeing you in that suit a day early.”
Castiel chuckled and cocked his head to the side
“And your choice of casual-wear is stunning as well.”
Dean smirked and gestured at his mostly-naked body with the oven-mitt.
“You like? They’re custom-made.”
“Is the oven-mitt also custom-made?” Castiel said with a raised eyebrow, then paused. “Were you in the middle of baking when I summoned you?”
Dean’s eyes widened.
“Ah shit. My cookies.”
Castiel laughed and tugged on Dean’s hand, leading him out of the summoning room.
“Come on - let me make it up to you.”
“Cas, this is serious. What if it starts a fire?”
“. . . “
“I’m kidding. I live in Hell. Make it up to me Your Ruggedness.”
