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After dozens of SPN stories read this weekend, I found a link to a heartbreakingly beautiful GEN story "Secure the Blessing"( http://rahmi.livejournal.com/97723.html )that focuses on the cannon obsesive, possessive, brotherly-love relationship between Sam and Dean. In this story, Dean is fatally wounded and Sam bargains for a cosmic do-over for the whole family. Mom, Dad, Dean, and Sam start out from the boys' beginnings again.

However, Sam thinks that the rest of the family's lives will be better and safer without him around. Dean can't let it go and, in his single minded way, throws away his chance at a normal life to find the "Sam" that his parents think is a figment of his imagination.

"See, the thing is? A lifetime of Mom and Dad and normal and home versus a lifetime of pain and blood and loss and Sam, and there's no freakin' contest because one has Sam and the other doesn't."

It's sad, funny, in-character, and with a relatively happy ending for everyone. (Except "Bob" the yellow-eyed-demon.)

Update: now there is a sequel here http://rahmi.livejournal.com/203756.html Yah!