#2026 masterpost

No Good Deed (Goes Unpunished) | T | 43.5k

Author: golby-moon

Artist: bucketofli

When Dean gets shrunken by a witch and wakes up in the middle of nowhere, the last thing he’s expecting is to make a friend in his fairy savior. Cas saves him from sudden death and takes him back to a fairy village to show him a new way of life he would’ve never even known, so when the opportunity arises, it’s only natural that Dean would return the favor—for better or for worse.

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Pairings: Dean/Castiel

Warnings: Temporary Character Death, some descriptions of injuries

Coaxial Evisceration

Artist: saudade

Author: stonelions

Rating: Teen

Pairings: Dean/Castiel

Length: 24049

Warnings: N/A

Tags: Canon Universe, Fusion (with I Saw the TV Glow), POV Castiel, Case Fic, Homophobia, Transphobia, (not from our mains), Mutual Pining, Cosmic Horror, Quote: Multidimensional Wavelength of Celestial Intent

Summary: Team Free Will can’t seem to catch a break. Metatron is in the wind. The brothers are at an impasse. Dean is succumbing to The Mark, and Castiel is on angelic borrowed time. So when Dean finds a missing persons’ case that might just be a lead, Castiel is all too happy to go along for the ride. Their so-called milk run takes a sour turn when they discover that the missing teen’s old CRT TV is a conduit for an unknowable force that wants, very badly, to make itself known to them, and worse, their secrets known to each other. And it’s going to use every available wavelength to do it. Including Castiel.

Cats are Angels with whiskers | T | 38,107 words

Author: Summer_Love_24 ( Ao3 | Tumblr) Artist: Bucketofli (Tumblr)

Jack killed Mary. Chuck killed Jack. He threw one last apocalypse at Team Free Will and as always, they pushed through, they won. But that wasn’t the end of Dean’s problems. He made a mistake. He hurt someone he loves and they left him. Now he’s all alone with nothing but his brother and his guilt, regret and pain to keep him company. The one thing that seems to lift his spirit, after weeks of drowning in his sorrows, is a stray cat that he finds near a grocery store in Lebanon and takes home.

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Warnings: Dean's canon typical alcoholism

The Better Part of Valour  |  Rating: E  |  Word Count: 20,098

Author: andimeantittosting Artist: szlez Castiel summons the Empty, but it doesn’t take him. Instead, the Empty strips him of his grace, leaving him alive but human, and leaving Dean and Cas to face the aftermath of the things they both said in that dungeon.

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Malformation

Artist: Hellion Cat

Author: MalMuses

Rating: Mature

Pairings: Dean/Castiel

Length: 12202

Warnings: Graphic violence, Blood and Gore, Whump (Castiel)

Tags: Canon Divergence, Witch Curses, Castiel Whump, Angst with a Happy Ending, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam is So Done, Dean & Cas Use Actual Words (Eventually), Graphic Blood & Gore.

Summary: A regular hunt goes awry when a witch curses Castiel with her dying breath. No matter what the stubborn angel says, Dean can tell that he is not fine.

so you say you want a deathbed scene  |  T  |  50,838

Author: goldandtherust Artist: @onowey

It’s not fair to Sam, or Eileen now that she’s in the bunker. Dean knows this. It isn’t fair to the people who died to get them to a world where freedom knows no bounds. It isn’t fair to himself, when he’d sworn up and down that, if he survived Chuck, he would never go near a hunt ever again. He’d find a little house, or a nice plot of land where he could build one. He’d get a pet. He’d have a home with windows and a fresh breeze, and he’d walk around in his boxers and make two cups of coffee in the mornings. When he’d dare to imagine life after Chuck, he’d always imagined it coming in sets of twos. Two cups of coffee, and two pairs of shoes by the door. Two chairs on the balcony, and two closets in the bedroom. Two pillows, at least, on the two sides of the bed. A set of blue eyes, and two people—one not-person—figuring out what peace is supposed to feel like. He never dared to want it out loud. He never thought he could. Magic wishing wells, he muses, watching Sam talking on the phone through the window. We’re down to the reruns. — While chasing a case, Sam and Dean stumbled across a cursed wishing well. What comes back isn't quite what Dean wished for.

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Pairings: Dean/Cas, Endverse Castiel/Endverse Dean Winchester, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/AlcoholismImplied/Referenced Child Abuse

The Family Business Job | Explicit | 182,630 words

Author: @mittensmorgul

Artist: @hectatess

What do you do when you like a man? How would you catch his attention? If you were Dean Winchester, you’d cook him a Michelin-quality dinner and try not to let anything incriminating slip out. For the second date, you’d stumble your way out of retirement and into a conspiracy to dismantle a corrupt network involving the highest levels of government, a broad swath of the tech industry, and a possibly insane anarchist weapons dealer. If you were Castiel, you’d warily accept that dinner invitation, have a surprisingly wonderful time, and then hope everything won’t completely fall apart when your former lives collide like a couple of runaway trains by the opening minutes of the second date. Let’s see how these incomparably successful criminals and con men handle what comes next…

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Pairings: Dean/Cas, Charlie/Anna, Sam/Eileen/Rowena

Warnings: Canon typical violence

Sleeping Hunger  |  Explicit  |  61,070 words

Author: MatchaMilkshake (Ao3 | Tumblr) Artist: imogenbynight (Ao3 | Tumblr)

Dean left the horseman’s rings in the trunk of the impala after Sam sacrificed himself to stop Lucifer. After everyone he loved left him all at once, it was easy to forget he left them there. Several years later, he gets a harsh reminder that he should really take better care of the extremely powerful artifacts he's left lying around. Now, Cas is cursed with famine and since Jimmy left, his hunger is beginning to drive him mad. He just hopes they can get them all back before he does something he regrets. Dean is just happy that Cas is sticking around more than he usually does.

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Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con