   castiello
2009-07-24 . chapter 11What a beautiful story you’ve written! It’s poignant and bittersweet and just plain wonderful. It may be my all-time favorite.
Your depiction of young!Dean is perfect: he’s wild, un-socialized, self-reliant, distrustful, violent. Everything a child raised under those circumstances would be. I think another reviewer called him a “feral delight,” and that’s exactly what he is. I would love to actually see him shown this way in a flashback on the show.
You’ve done a phenomenal job with Sam, too. His rollercoaster-ride of emotions in this story all feel like real, true reactions to this utterly strange and painful set of circumstances.
And you did such a truly masterful job at developing the relationship between these two characters—all “show,” no “tell” at all. The reader goes through everything right along with Sam, creating a deep and lasting emotional connection. So deep, in fact, that while in the beginning of the story I, like Sam, missed adult!Dean, by the end I found myself missing kid!Dean. I felt grief at his loss – this little person who had changed and evolved through his experiences with grown-up Sam. I did not agree that “no one actually died.”
The more minor characters in the story were also very well-handled. Missouri was Missouri: full of love and compassion, but also practical and unflinchingly honest. I was glad you included her in this. I’d love to see her again on the show someday.
And John was his usual conflicted, enigmatic self: equal parts obsessed hunter, loving father, and jacka**.
My mom also enjoyed the story. She said, “The author is very well-read, and makes a lot of interesting references. You really get to know how Sam feels about Dean, and about their father.” Her favorite part was when the waitress predicted little!Dean would grow up to be a heartbreaker. :)
There are too many noteworthy passages to list them all, but here are a few favorite lines/paragraphs from the story that really stand out in my mind:
“…but when you get right down to it, seven years old is seven years old, and Dean had seen enough ** by this age to know that sometimes the Bogeyman was real, sometimes there really WERE things in closets and under beds, and sometimes they ** ATE YOU.”
I like this description of the heightened terror Dean must be feeling, knowing that Sam might very well be one of the things his dad hunts. Not just a stranger who has kidnapped him, but an actual CREATURE.
“When the stuff’s bought, he takes Dean to a restroom and tells him to get dressed. Without the tee shirt, Dean is so small it hurts Sam someplace deep inside. He doesn’t ever remember seeing Dean small, ever remember thinking of him as being small. To his little-brother eyes, Dean has always had a bigger-than-me glamour, and it is bittersweet now, while Dean climbs into his crisp new jeans and shirt, struggles with the laces of his stiff new sneakers. To Sam, Dean’s always been larger than life. This jars him, makes him feel helpless and scared and overwhelmed with the sudden responsibility.”
Such a great look into Sam’s emotions, his first time seeing Dean as “small.”
“It’s surprisingly hard to fight Dean in this size and shape; it’s like holding onto a **-off cat, and Sam feels like a giant in a glass factory, so aware of how delicate those little-boy arms feel in his hands. But he finally manhandles Dean to a standstill, clasps him against his chest and feels Dean’s heart going a mile a freaking minute.”
Really good description of Dean’s size and fragility, as compared to Sam’s hulking form.
“Dean’s eyes are starry with tears. ‘Is Daddy mad at me? Sometimes he gets mad.’”
So desperately sad, the weight of responsibility already placed on this little boy’s shoulders, and the fear of getting things wrong and letting his father down. :(
“Sam is not going to see Dean again, his Dean, Dean is gone, nothing but memories that now seem like Star-Trek temporal-anomaly doublespeak. There won’t be any more convenience-store breakfasts, no more teasing about cassette tapes and no more junior-high pranks. Dean is DEAD, HIS DEAN, his BROTHER, and Sam howls his grief to the sky, and hears Duchess joining the chorus, bewildered and vigilant and unbearably sad.”
A perfect, breath-taking moment of grief and loss.
“Sam drops to his knees, holds out his arms, and Dean trudges over, cheeks shiny with uncomprehending tears. He’s a solid weight against Sam, a kind of comfort Missouri could never be, no one else on the planet ever could be but the one who’s not here, who IS here, and Sam smiles shakily when Dean’s arms lock around his neck. The dichotomy is still there, but as long as this lasts, it will always be there, and isn’t this a gift, of a sort?”
I love that Sam still needs Dean, no matter what form he’s in. Even under this strain, the bond won’t break.
"Dean purses his lips, and is for a brief instant really DEAN, the same expression, the same lemme-think-about-it demeanor. And Sam can only smile, because it hurts but it hurts in the right way. Dean didn’t die. Changed, oh yes, but Dean hasn’t left him, Dean is right here, in the slightly defiant ** of his head, the red lips easing into a reluctant half-smile. The tapping of one impatient foot."
A wonderful, bittersweet moment of realization.
"Sam’s eyes are blurry with tears, and he blinks furiously, can’t be blind now, I have to SEE him, it might be the last time, he’s all broken, his HEAD is broken. There is a dent in Dean’s skull, not just a dent, a POTHOLE, big enough for Sam to fit both his fists inside, and clear fluid runs from Dean’s ears."
A realistic and wrenching passage; Sam’s desperation to see his brother in the final moment gets to me every time, and the description of Dean’s injury is graphic and horrifying.
"It’s his smile that finishes undoing Sam. Smiling, because even when he’s seven and dying Dean is still somehow Sam’s older brother, still trying to look out for Sammy, make him feel better, and there is nothing Sam can do to make DEAN better."
The last smile. Every time I watch No Rest for the Wicked, I think of this story because of that last, brave little smile. It’s just so Dean. You know the characters so well.
Once again, fabulous story. I have a hard copy printed out and everything. It’s just that good :).
Thank you so much for writing it and sharing it with us! |
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