Superb story, heart-breaking and very well written. I don't know what more to say, you just nailed it!

The characterisation was amazing and I can totally see the events happening just like you imagined them. Just once in a life-time Dean's not there to calm his Dad and brother, and everything goes South with no coming back. Worst of all, he'll never live down the guilt for everything that followes.

Great job. Catch ya on the flip side.

Let the AVASPAM commence!

So, in case you haven't yet read your LJ comments on this fic, I will tell you again why I loved this.

You have Dean in a way that I don't think I'll ever get. You're inside his head and while you destroy him (which you do frequently) it's just Dean doing it to himself. You get the insecurities, the doubts, the fears; the way he tries to cover what he's feeling in sarcasm and asshattery and schmooze. This preseries fic that covers the fight...we might as well be there, watching Dean flashback. This is where his insecurity complex really begins to rear his ugly head. It's the moment he'll never forgive himself for because he has failed. Failed Sammy, failed Dad, failed his mom, failed himself. For him the world is collapsing and he's no Atlas, his shoulders are still too young and too broken for him to bear the weight of this dysfunction. And you show me that, you make me actually feel that for Dean. That is something that is so incredibly hard to do, but you make it look so easy. *is envious*

"Dean had exactly two roles, and they were the only things in the world that mattered: protect Sammy and keep the family together. While he’d been away worrying about Sam running into a reaper or a skinwalker, the other thing he’d feared most in the world had happened."

That is it. It just is. And you get that in two sentences? You deserve the world for those two sentences. You show what it is that matters to Dean, which is everything to him. How he worries and fears that he didn't do things right. That he can face off the things of nightmares and worse; he can be sewn up and bled out and shot down and thrown about but he can't see his family tear itself apart. He's so strong yet so lost and so completely fucked up by his childhood yet, so not at the same time. He's broken and he can just about keep it together, but only when the Winchesters are together.

"Not without Dean to talk Sammy down, to teach his little brother how to handle Dad. Not without Dean to help Dad understand Sammy-speak and make him see that Sam wasn’t disrespectful, he just showed respect in a way a former Marine probably couldn’t understand. Not without Dean to need them both.

He saw that now, but it was too late."

The irony in that he's finally figured out his role in this triangle of unconditional familial love is when he's abandoned them, is when the fight's gotten too far gone for him to fix. That he'd be willing to do anything to fix this but he knows that he can't, that any sacrifice he gives will come too late. He needs a hug dammit!

And that ending? Sam's thought this through, he's got his bags packed, he knew the conclusion before it came. That John is unwavering and immovable, that he can't accept this need for normalcy in Sam and he'll tear his family apart to show him that. And Dean. Dean Dean DEAN, he's all along in the kitchen filled with failure and beating himself up. He can't even muster the strength to move. The world collapsed and his shoulders came too late to bear the weight and he's failed failed failed. That my dear, is why you won my soul.

/avaspam part1

Amazingly written. I can imagine this happening right as Sam left for college.

You really got into Dean's head. Great work!

"He used the nickname on purpose, to let Dad know that this was Big Brother Dean talking and not Bored, Wants a Thrill Dean. The Winchesters had their own language, and while Dean was the only one who was fluent in both Dad Dialect and Sam Dialect, both Dad and Sam understood Dean Dialect pretty well."

That right there? Awesome!