Writing From the Inside

Family Ties by concernedilly.

Slash.

Sex, sex, and more sex. I can’t keep up. This story has the usual, the hotness, the touching, the kissing, all of that. It’s a story where Dean wants to experiment with light bondage, and I don’t believe for a minute he would indulge in that. Too many chances for it to go wrong, and I think he’s got enough excitement in his life without that. When he wants to practice with Sam, it doesn’t go very well. When Sam decides to figure it out and then give Dean what he wants, it goes better. Yeah, okay. Hot and stuff. What got me was this line:

“It takes Sam three days and four long blowjobs to forgive Dean for having to put his shirts back on to cover his still-persistent erection, go out into the night and drive thirty miles to an all-night store to get paperclips. That’s the real problem with sleeping with your brother, he thinks: Sam knows all the damage Dean’s ever taken on his arms and shoulders, spent the nights up listening to Dean grit his teeth against the pain, so he couldn’t just leave him tied with his arms up all night like he so richly deserved.”

I liked the realism of the fact that Sam remembers, knows, how many times Dean has been tied up and bashed around and that he can’t really take much more of the same. But if Dean wants to be tied up, Sam will give it to him. His way. Good stuff.  

And So Awakens Devils by concernedlily.

Slash

I hate AU, post-apolcolyptic stories. I hate stories where Sam is the Antichrist. I hate stories where Bobby is possesed by a demon. Ug. Ug. Ug. Read this story anyway. It’s fantastic.

We Are All Meant For Chains by flipmontgirl

Slash.

This is the story of Dean and Sam coming together and then going apart and them coming together again. It’s an odd story in that it seems to be told in snapshots of images, things Sam remembers, things he’d rather forget. Arguments he and Dean had, memories they shared. Along the way (Sam’s running from Dean) Sam picks up a young 16-year old pregnant girl. Sam never could resist a little damp street urchin, but it gets more interesting and sophisticated than you’d normally get from a fluffy bunny-sounding setup like that.

Nothing fluffy or bunny-ish about this story. Sam and Dean do get together in the end, of course, otherwise, why bother? I think the pregnant girl gets dropped off someplace safe, that’s the idea I got. But along the way? Well, I couldn’t stop thinking about this one. Be ready for edgy, be ready for graphic, but in a good way. Not gratuitious.

Once, when I went into rent Monster’s Ball with the intent of watching what everyone was talking about. Halle Berry’s performance had created buzz, so off to the local video rental I went. (Maybe it was DVD by that time, I don’t know.) The young man who checked out this rental was, oh, say 22. Let’s just say. I asked him if he’d seen it. He said, “Yes,” with some disgust, and I asked him if there was something wrong. He said, “There’s sex in this movie.” I looked at him as they say, askance, because, you know, to a 22-year old MALE that would be a good thing. I wondered what I was getting into if he was disgusted by this movie. Well, if you’ve seen the movie, there’s sex, yes, and not the nice kind. Not anything kinky, ye ken, but the sex is so realistic, it’s not like watching porn at all. It’s not pretty to the watcher, however much the participants are enjoying it. Maybe he objected sex being done for money, I don’t know. I’ve puzzled about that young man from that day to this, and I can only surmise that he was put off by the realism. Monster’s Ball was riviting, and I’ve got its images still in my brain.

So. Reading this story is rather like watching Monster’s Ball. Realism, tricky lighting, and the sex is not pretty. But man. The camera work….I’ve got one quote but don’t read it if you don’t want the effect spoiled.

Here:

“It was no trouble, asking, when he knew the answer, when he felt it: sticky warm under his hands, spit-wet under his mouth, thundering just under the skin, ferocious heartbeat against his own, hot and hard against his stomach. The answer was yes.

Hands fumbling at Dean’s belt, the buttons of his jeans. Unknown territory and the best-known all in one.

“Sammy stop. Please. We gotta stop.” The request was half-hearted at best.

No match for the smell, musk-rich, a hint of piss, dirty with a couple of days spent in the same briefs. No match for the taste, sharp, stinging, a thousand pinpricks on his tongue. No match for the way Dean sounded: rattlesnake and sizzle, dangerous and desperate with this thing they were becoming.

He was the one who prayed this time, foolishly determined. He prayed, “Say yes. If you can’t say no, at least say yes.” He knew it and yet he had to hear it.

“Yeah.” Dean arched, curving impossibly off the bed, curving with lust and guilt. Beautiful demise. “Fuck. Fuck, yeah.”

It was so easy in the end.

Destroying them.”

The part that got to me, really got to me was the realism of the underwear. I mean…gross, right? But you ever wanted someone so bad, you didn’t care? I have. Man, this girl has it.
 

Everything Changes, Everything Stays the Same by walkawayslowly

Slash.

This is a post-Dean’s-Deal story, where you don’t know how they got Dean out of the Deal, you just know they did. Besides, the aftermath is the fun part. Read this story slowly, because you won’t get a first chance to read something so sweet and honest.

Everyone drives away from the place where the deal was broken, but Sam and Dean take a little time to their own, and have a quick shimmy shimmy in the Impala. Which is as it should be. Then, the shimmy shimmy happens whenever there’s a tight spot they get each other out of or out of danger…and then the shimmy happens when it wants to. From Sam’s POV, the freakout is consistent and fun, but he can’t take his mind off Dean, and it’s no wonder. The slash is hot without being porny, and I had a few good GUH moments to boot, which is hard to do, when you’ve read as many of these as I have. Remember, go slowly.

Some good quotes:

“He doesn’t notice they’re slowing down at first, not till Jo’s truck gets swallowed by a cloud of dust, fading off into the distance and then they’re not moving at all. Dean shifts into park with his left hand and drops his head to the wheel, harsh breath like it’s all just catching up to him now and he pulls their hands towards him, up to his chest.”

“It doesn’t take long, poltergeists are (mostly) old hat and this one has nothing on the malevolent force of the one in Lawrence. Still, it manages to get something, Sam can’t feel what, wrapped around his neck before the end and he’s wondering why every supernatural thing out there is obsessed with choking him, vision getting black around the edges and then it’s all gone. Poltergeist handled, apparently, the last little bag shoved into the hole Dean knocked into the wall, and Dean’s unraveling whatever the hell it is then he’s moving down Sam’s chest, fingers scrabbling at his belt and his pants and Dean swallows him down and Sam arches up into it, into Dean, little whimpers escaping among the coughs as he tries to catch his breath again. He doesn’t know, God he doesn’t know what this is about, what it means, but it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t care.” (GUH, right?)

“Only now, now that Sam knows the feel of Dean’s mouth on his, the harsh rasp of his cheek scraping down Sam’s neck, now he wants to touch Dean, his arm, the small of his back, to throw Dean down on the table and blow him right there, anything to stake a claim, to plant a flag on Dean’s ass that says “mine” in huge, sparkly letters. He wants it so badly he curls his hands into fists, stuffs them under his thighs.”

“Typical night, Sam thinks, typical hook up and as much as he wants to protest it won’t make any difference. They’re close enough he can walk back to the motel and he shoves the lap top back in his bag, squares up at the bar and heads for the door. He’s only just left the dim circle of light underneath the one lamp post outside when Dean catches up with him, hooks his arm around Sam’s neck. “Haven’t you learned anything?” Dean says, pulling Sam towards the Impala. “Be afraid of the dark, Sammy, don’t go wandering around by yourself in it.”” (I loved this last line. It would look good on a tshirt.) 
  

Boys of Summer; Summer out of Reach by Liath.

Slash.

Two lovely stories that tell the about the last four years before Sam goes to Stanford. Naturally, they are sad, mournful works that make me feel so bad for Sam, and just as bad for Dean. Of course, this particular story can’t (or hasn’t) been told any other way – not with episodes like Dead Man’s Blood that give clear and canonical evidence that Sam left home (such as it was) under a cloud and that his father (The Dad) told him if he was going he should stay gone. This has given rise to many many fanfic about how subversive Sam was while going about applying for Standford, how he kept it a secret, how he needed to get away, how badly he wanted normal.

The topic is a big lump of delicious clay that keeps getting reworked, and each time aknew, and it’s always sad. I’ve yet to read a fanfic where the going away was happy between Sam and Dean (and, because of canon, it can never be between Sam and The Dad), and frankly if I did encounter it, I wouldn’t believe it.

Enough of that. The strength of these two stories, one from Sam’s POV, the other from Dean’s, is the description. Weather comes into play a lot, creating an atmosphere where you get the feeling that the sky over their heads is the only constant in their lives. The Dad is gone a lot, but even when he’s there, the boys can’t take their eyes off each other. Dean does his best to resist Sammy, pushes him away even, but you know, no one can resist Sam. The writing is lyrical, and even though each story mirrors the other, they don’t repeat, which is difficult to do. Marvelous phrasing, though I got lost a bit in Sam’s story, mostly because Sam himself doesn’t have the maturity of thought that his older brother does. They certainly look at the small towns they stay in in different ways.

Some good quotes:

“That night Sam looks out at the moon shining off the Impala’s hood, and he wonders what it looks like flying through the New Mexico desert at a hundred miles an hour.” (What an image. It’s like a complete painting, or a photograph, all in one sentence.)

“It’s just past dusk, and the crickets are out full force, complementing the rattle of the cicadas in the thick spread of trees and kudzu. The only lights beyond the house are the lazy blink of fireflies in the field. Sam joins Dean on the porch, hands shoved deep in his pockets. He’s given up trying to keep his hair out of his face. No matter what he does it curls and plasters itself back across his forehead. He misses being teased for it.”

“It’s day by day now, and Sam doesn’t know anymore, doesn’t know if he’s what Dean is really looking for, what he will be content to find. Some nights, when Dean fucks him into the mattress and leaves him raw and spent, stomach slick with his own come, Sam thinks that something’s gone terribly wrong. Then Dean’s arms wrap around him, crush Sam against his chest so tightly that it almost, almost makes sense. But Sam thinks what he needs and what he wants to be are supposed to be the same thing.”

“He stands, Sam a wall in front of him, and all he has is, “You’re my brother, Sam.” And it’s the sickest thing he’s ever said.”

That last one gets to me very much. It’s a sick thing to say because it admits what is going on between them WITHOUT Dean acutally saying it. How clever is that, I ask you?

For My Next Trick by nutkin.

Slash.

Just about the saddest coming of age story ever. Sam is seaching for normal, not just searching but desperately so. Every avenue, every coffee mug, every small town and he wants it. He’s so wanting it, and yet he knows what getting it will mean. Leaving Dean behind. Makes me want to cry. Hard.

Sad.

“They pull out of Gillespie on a Thursday, one week before the students of GHS are released for Christmas vacation. Sam cleans out his locker carelessly, dumping crumpled bits of paper and chewed-up pens into a cardboard box that finds its way to the trash before he even leaves the premises; he cleans out his bedroom methodically, slowly, tempted to tuck some bits of it into his duffel bag to remember Molly’s carefully organized life. He doesn’t; that’s not the kind of person he is. He just runs his fingers over the spines of her books, admires the line of spelling bee trophies, and climbs into the passenger seat of the car.

When he was a kid, there was this air of temporary to everything they did. It was like they were all waiting for the end to come in sight. Maybe next year, they’d have found the thing – maybe next year they could buy a little house, get back in school regular. Maybe next year the mission would be over with, Mom would be vindicated, and everything could go back to normal.

Now they don’t even pretend; Dad plants a pile of documents down on a flimsy motel room table, explaining that the Lee Nelson estate is haunted once a year, and a grizzly death is guaranteed for anyone to spends the night. There’s not even the pretense of it being something more, of having a connection to what they’re actually looking for, what they beat the pavement in search of every day.

Dean perks up when they’re on the road, like the places between power lines are the places he feels the most at home. He doesn’t even dose himself with No-Doz like their dad does; he just powers through, endless hours parked behind the steering wheel.

They stop for makeshift breakfasts at convenience stores – donuts and orange juice from a can. Soon they will have weaned themselves completely from the normalcy of a morning with newspapers and beverages that wake you up, ease you into your day. Soon they will drink Mountain Dew – Surge, where Dean can find it – and chew on potato chips, M&Ms, laugh at how they don’t have to eat cereal and bagels like everyone else. For now they’re close enough to the memories of Caleb’s sun-dappled kitchen that it’s not much of a stretch, and Sam gets a single-serving carton of milk.”

Hunger of Old Mouths by plutogirl10.

Slash.

Starts off slow. Sam and Dean go south, and run into a guy who wants to rule the world or something. I got to wondering if it was slash at all, or if I had misread the link. Then Dean goes and does something stupid, and loving, and exchanges his sould for Sam’s. The only way Sam can get him out of this is by possessing him, literally and figuratively. There’s blood ritual and semen sacrifice and it’s so beautifully done…slow paced and careful and lyrical and humming with love. It all works out right in the end, or as well as it can for a Winchester. Sheesh. Stuff like this can make you want to stop writing forever, cause, why bother when there’s this out there?

““You said my name,” Sam whispers rough in Dean’s ear, desperate for him to know. “Do you know that, Dean? Last night, you said my name.”

Whatever Sam thinks he should be feeling, it’s all replaced with total reverence when Dean makes the gentlest sound imaginable and bucks, shuddering apart in Sam’s arms, control finally gone. Sam feels every tremble imprint itself into his skin, they’re pressed so close together, and it carries him along with it, leaves him dazed. It takes him some time to register the sticky warmth clinging to his stomach and over his hand.”

Lesson Learnt

Bennu to Benben, Again

Slash.

Slash and then some. Reading this I realize how easy it is to become jaded by this type of fiction and how some writers can take you past that and make it wonderful. There is hotness and there is hotness. These two stories don’t have a plot, really, but I think that’s the point. Or beyond it, the sleepy, in bed interlude is just perfect as it is. Should this go on my Guilty Pleasure list because there’s no plot? Probably. But here it is on the Right Up There list, simply because it was so effective at what it does. Sam and Dean in bed, doing you know what. Doing it in such a giving way, without any girlyness, but with love. Oh man. All sex should be this good.

“Sam leans back to brace an arm behind him on the mattress. Eyes fixed on Dean’s face, he reaches for Dean’s dick – definitely not half asleep anymore – and before he can make sense of it, Dean feels moist warmth settle over him, hovering just there, like a promise of something that Sam will never go back on.”

and

“And in today’s class, Dean learns how to ask for what he wants.

It shouldn’t be as hard as it is. Sam won’t say no, has never said it, and will never say it; Dean knows that as well as he knows this isn’t a game. That’s not the point. He’s breathing harder, and this time it’s not all from arousal. Sam senses his discomfort, of course he does, but he doesn’t move and doesn’t say anything. The thing is, Dean knows he doesn’t have to ask. Knows Sam would let him off the hook if he pushed it.”

So giving, this story. Both of them. Joy.   

Into the Woods by plutogirl10.

Slash.

I didn’t know Dean could call Sam “baby” and have it be so hot. It’s not a word I think about that way, and yet, it works. This fic is an interlude in the woods that happens after the boys do a training session, where naughty things happen in such a hot way, I’m searching for a cold shower even now. Part of the fun is because Dean doesn’t want to, and Sam does.

Part of the fun is also watching Dean give in, as he usually does, and the lengths to which he will go to give Sam exactly what he wants, and how he wants it, because no one knows better what Sam wants than Dean. Twisted? Yes, definately. I’m almost mortified by how worked up this story got me. Where’s that dark haired stranger when I need him? Whew. Is it hot in here, or is it just me. Anyway, the story was fun and, yeah, hot, and well done.

“Sam’s tongue moves over his mouth, laps across the swell of his lip before licking his way inside, cold tip of his nose pressing into Dean’s cheek, and everything is warm and delicious as Dean feels his insides melt. The boy knows how to kiss, and Dean’s not sure if he should be proud, seeing as Sam learnt from him.” 

And this whole bit, included here for your reading pleasure. I believe the correct term for the reaction I had was, “Guh.”

“‘Please,’ Sam whimpers, fingers scrabbling at Dean’s collar as he lifts a leg to straddle Dean’s knee, pressing himself onto Dean’s thigh and pumping desperately. ‘Please, Dean, please -’

‘Okay,’ Dean breathes, wondering if he ever had a chance. ‘Slow, Sam. You hear me?’

And Sam nods frantically, but he’s already pulling Dean’s hand up to his mouth, lips closing around Dean’s middle finger and suckling, thick velvet slide of his tongue, teeth chewing on the digit. Warm, wet, silken mouth pulsing around him, and Dean has to bite his cheek to stop himself from making an embarrassing noise. He tugs his hand away, a thin glimmer of saliva stretching from Sam’s lips, and he quickly replaces his finger with his mouth, hungry, starved.

He pulls Sam closer, hitching his thigh up between Sam’s legs and lets his hand trail into the curve of Sam’s back, slips down further to push gently between soft flesh. His finger eases down, and Dean feels his dick jump at the touch of fine hairs and smooth-taut skin before he finds soft heat and presses in, into the tight grip of Sam’s young body.

‘Dean-’ Sam whimpers, biting his lip and muscles clenching around Dean’s finger.

‘Don’t, baby,’ Dean murmurs and touches Sam’s mouth with his free hand, thumbing at his bottom lip and easing it out from between white teeth. ‘You have to relax for me, okay?’”

Summer Blackout by nutkin.

Slash.

This writer has the characters down, and the situations she puts them in are realistic and slow without being draggy or boring. When I read this fic, I got swept up in the little backwoods town where the boys find themselves, virtually fatherless, for a hot, Arkansas summer. And, being boys, being brothers, they’ve got their ways when Dad is not around. They drink his stash, they watch illicit porn, they spend food money on video games. And then they, you know, fool around. Here the realisim enters to the point where I can SEE it in front of my face.

Here are some quotes to tempt you:

“Most importantly, there’s nothing creepy about the place. Everything seems a bit trapped in time, but there’s no evil here. No foreboding buildings, no local lore of any kind. The most notable story in town is that Church of the Good Shepherd was once part of the congregation of Church of Nazareth, and had broken off in 1974. People are still scandalized.”

“Sam’s birthday is observed perfunctorily – a cake from the supermarket. Balloons Dean picks up on the same trip for the cake, because blowing them up in rapid succession until they’re totally lightheaded is something of a tradition. It’s also something of a tradition that the person one year closer to death gets to pick what’s for dinner. This usually means making the choice between Cracker Barrel or Applebee’s, but since they’re actually in a house this year, Sam smirks and says he wants hamburgers.” (The part that makes me laugh is the “person who is one year closer to death” part!)

“When John comes in, Dean’s still wearing his apron. They’re both nearly soaked through, and Dean’s got Sam flung over one shoulder, howling with laughter. He’s shaking him upside down, and the contents of Sam’s pockets have already fallen to the floor – quarters rolling off under the refrigerator and crumpled pieces of paper under Dean’s feet.

“And what in the hell is going on here?” he asks, folding his arms and taking in the soapy, damp mess.

“Cooking,” Sam says thickly, from somewhere around Dean’s knees.”

“Sam’s expression teeters between a grin and that same look of focus, the look he gets when he’s studying for something. Figuring something out. It’s so Sam, so little-brother-Sam that Dean wants to tell him about the alternate reality thing, make him stop – but then Sam’s sliding down and looking up at him with those large, dark eyes, tugging his cock from his boxers and still fisting it. For whatever reason, he can’t quite believe that Sam’s going to do it, but then his tongue is against the head of Dean’s prick, and he has never felt anything, anything that good. His lips drag along the tip, so Dean can feel the velveteen smoothness of the skin just inside them, and then he’s opening wider and just sliding him in.”

The whole of this story is so nicely done, I wanted it to continue.