Fic Rec Friday: Old Friends Senior Fic Sanctuary

[farenmaddox]

For our first round of Friday fic recommendations, let's give some love to our elders - that is, old fics. Older fics are sometimes imported from other sites over to AO3, and don't always have the tags or traffic that net people's attention the way that newer fics do. People who are newer to the fandom might never discover these gems without a little help!

Your fic rec doesn't have to specifically focus on the Dean/Cas ship, but it does have to be published in 2015 or earlier.

Make sure to say a few words about why you love this fic, and provide a link where people can find it! In fact, feel free to recommend more than one!

(As an aside, I'm eventually planning to pull data from every Fic Rec Friday post into a compiled spreadsheet, as well as being available to find under the "Fic Rec Friday" tag so that our best-beloved fics on a variety of different tropes/topics can be easily saved and shared.)

Comments

Some old friends...

[friendofcarlotta]

What I Need by Jacqueline Albright-Beckett was recced to me very recently and I absolutely inhaled it. It's a medical AU featuring surgeon Cas and surgical tech Dean. The medical setting is spot-on, but the heart of the story is these two characters slowly getting to know and love each other. There is no massive angsty breakup to be found here - just excellent writing and character development.

The Sawdust Men by linoresearch is one of two fics by this writer I absolutely adore - the other one being an epic Jane Eyre AU, with Cas in the role of Jane Eyre. This one is set at a Gulag-style labor camp, where Dean is brought in as a guard and Cas is a political prisoner. Expect angst and violence accordingly, but what really stuck with me about this story is how sweet and tender Dean and Cas' romance is, even in circumstances that shouldn't allow for it.

Every Dog Has Its Day by aileenrose is really just a stand-in for my recommendation that you read every aileenrose fic ever. No matter the premise, they're always wonderful and just pull you right in. This one in particular stuck with me - Cas is a homeless veteran, and Dean meets him when Cas darts into the road to save a stray dog. Okay, and maybe just one more: in Love, Take Your Toll, Cas is a lonely toll collector and Dean is a driver who just keeps finding excuses to pass by his booth.

Re: Some old friends...

[farenmaddox]

Every single one of these sounds fantastic, and "The Sawdust Men" is already on my MFL on AO3. I'm so tempted to skive off doing any work today and jump right into "Every Dog Has Its Day" because I love a meet-cute.

Re: Some old friends...

[illusionremember]

I feel like I might have read What I Need before??? it sounds familiar! clearly I'll need to do a reread/first read to confirm!! :D