Beautiful story! Thank you so much!

This is honestly so upsetting because all I want is for the boys to be safe and happy and together.

On the other hand, the flashbacks you keep giving me are so good and pure and beautiful.

I love it.

Thanks for writing this story! !

Supernatural Fan Fiction Monthly Award Review - December

I enjoyed reading this story this time just as much as the first time I read it. I still enjoyed the bond that Sam and Dean share, but found myself wondering about the POV of the 'entity' that was observing them. Who was that supposed to be? If it was Mary's spirit, then why the references that made it appear timeless? It kind of detracted from the story this time. I also didn't understand just where the twin brother came into play, because Sam didn't figure that out, yet he is smart enough to have noticed differences between the two. Even if Sam was messed up by his experience, a part of him would be worrying at the discrepancies. Sometimes the horror of what Abaddon was doing to his captor's seemed to be just for the sake of being terrible, without actually adding to the storyline in a plausible way.

As I said, the bond shared by the brothers was great, but a little more explanation for that, other than from an outside entity's POV, would have been appreciated.

Supernatural Fan Fiction Monthly Award

For my feeling the characters and dialogues are a bit off. Sam is too frightened from the start – not the defiant bullhead we know, while Dean seems a tad too careless sometimes.
The descriptions of the surroundings or people would be more intense if they were more to the point – focusing on a key factor or key emotion. Over the first few chapters there’s not much variety in the style – so you can’t really see a difference between the way a character is perceiving his individual situation. It’s written in a clipped and disoriented style, which would be fitting for Sam’s emotions, but not so much for other POVs.

I liked the flashbacks linking both brother’s memories and the creepy fingerprints on Dean’s arms. It’s an idea with potential that could’ve been developed more consistently to make it even stronger.

Some scenes seemed a bit obsolete to me – because they didn’t add much information or emotion to the story and seemed a bit out of the usual Winchester way. For example Sam and Dean inviting the police – to come to Bobby’s place. That’s not really like them, to give away not only their identity but also a place as important as this one. And even after Abaddon seems to have emerged from the dead to hunt them down, they stay at Bobby’s – and go to the police again. Of course that was part of the plot twist – but still: It’s a bit out of character. A possible solution could’ve been the cops arriving at the fire and taking Sam and Dean with them for interrogation. But as I said: that’s just my point of view – I hope you don’t take my critical review wrong, it’s what we try to do in the Supernatural Fan Fiction Monthly Award – to give our honest opinion to maybe add another perspective on the story.

So one last comment: I found the thoughts of that old woman really interesting … so it was a pity that we as readers never found out what or who she was – and what she was referring to when she mentioned the earlier lives of the Winchester boys.

Kate

Supernatural Fan Fiction Monthly Awards : December 2015

In any story, it's variety that provides the most incentive to reader interest. Too much exposition robs the story and characters of a connection to the reader and destroys pace and tension. It was interesting the flashbacks included were more immediate and vivid than the present-day narrative and scenes. Those were written as direct action, and gave a much stronger connection than the expository text.

In attempting to set up a surprise twist, more care needed to be given to providing some background of the town and the characters who would be revealed later in the story. Twists are far more effective when the reader has been given clues but has not paid attention to them, than as a device of suddenly explaining the seeming contradictions. Locked-house mysteries can afford to have one genius detective explain the exact mechanisms at the end as the killer is hand-cuffed and taken away, but the use of that technique here fell flat.

The invisible 'watcher' appeared to be a device dropped without cause, there only to tell the reader of the great bond between the characters. A more effective technique is to leave such a device out and show the reader the bond between the characters through dialogue and scene, action and internal thought.

I really enjoyed this story a lot! The bond between Sam and Dean is epic. Words can't describe just how intense it is. I loved the way that Dean dreamed of Sam, and put together clues that no one else could find, much less see. Dean knew how to put those clues to use and find Sam. I love how neither brother was willing to give up on Dean finding Sam. It was horrendous that Sam had to experience those things, but he is strong and has Dean to help him recover. I really adored the way Dean always knew what was going on with Sam, how attuned to each other they were. Sam's question "How does he do that?" made me smile every time! :)

So completely awesome. This is the brotherly relationship I love..this is the Dean I love.
Great job!

Awwwhh so happy that they kept valkarie ! this was realy good! (cept for the torture. that was done too well ;)) can't wait to read the 2nd one!

It's four in the morning. I've been speeding through attempting to get to the end before I fall asleep from pure exhaustin and praying to gods that it's a happy ending, but literally 4:01AM now is where I draw the line.

I'm probably going to have nightmares..

But besides that, awesome story. I'll be sure to re-read and leave review for the chatper's I've missed tomorrow.

I really, REALLY should have listened to my sister when she told me not to read this at night...My cat coming up the stairs almost gave me a heart attack...

Goodnight. Sorry that this is the first review.

Wow! What a great story! Haven't really read any of the "bonded" stuff before, but I love your interpretation of it...simple and in the background, but an ever-present force. Did NOT see it coming that Redding was part of it at all, so good job there! And Forge's final little comment about hunters...loved it. He knew. That was cool. It was a little AU in terms of having a Sam with an extreme phobia about fire, but it worked for the story. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this.

That was an amazing story! It really really was. It was written, the emotion in the writing was great, and I loved the running joke "How does he do that?"

Is it bad I can see Val helping them on cases? Or saving one of 'em? Possibly leading Dean/Sam to the other? Cuz i so can XD

I love this story. This was one of my first fanfics I've read, like 3 years ago, and I have been searching for it for a year now. Glad I finally found it!

Kind Regards,~ Gg

This was one of my very favorite stories I have ever read! I know it has been several years since you wrote it, but I just finished reading it and still wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed it! I loved all the brotherly moments, the Sam whump, the very surprising twists in the end, and of course, Dean in action. I also liked the parts of the story where Sam does not immediately bounce back to normal. No one could bounce back from an experience like that, so in my mind that made your story seem even more real! Thanks for such a great story!

What an absolutely FANTASTIC story! I had me cringing and through a lot of the middle I was thinking what about the other guy and you cleaned that up for me to. I thought this was done so very well and as I spent all day reading this story under the other site it is posted on, before I though gee I bet this story might be on Fanfic and found it here. I skimmed some of the story because I was just so excited to find out what happened so I plan to go back and review each chapter because stories this good deserve to have as many as they can get. As everybody knows me on this site I was hoping for Sam to end up blind but the way the story went was priceless regardless of me not getting my blind Sam, although I must say, I'd love to see one done by you. ;) Thanks so much for a fantastically well written, involved and well thought out story, have a great weekend, Nicole. :)