Title: Divine Madness
Characters: Dean, OCs
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 22K
Warnings/contains: Violence, suicidal thoughts, mental health issues, ableism (explicit and internalised), angst.
Summary: After the events of 10x09, Dean decides he's too dangerous to be allowed to roam free any longer, let alone to hunt. Sam still seems to think he can be saved, and he knows Cas wants to believe it, too, so rather than trust them to keep him on lockdown, Dean gets himself arrested.
Life on a secure psych ward is... well, not awesome, but Dean can deal. At least, until patients start dying in mysterious ways and he realizes that getting away from hunting is going to be harder than it seemed. It quickly becomes evident that the deaths are supernatural in origin -- but will hunting down the monster mean Dean ends up becoming one himself?
Notes: This is my entry for the 2016/17
deanwbigbang, and I was lucky enough to score
amberdreams as my artist! You can check out her stunning illustrations
here.
Many thanks to
frozen_delight for all her beta help! You’re a star. ♥
I read various personal accounts about life on a psych ward while writing this story, and they varied quite a lot. If I have managed to commit any wild inaccuracies, you have my apologies. Almost everybody in this story, including Dean (
especially Dean) has a screwed-up attitude to mental illness. That means there’s both explicit ableism/fetishisation from other characters, and internalised ableism in Dean’s thoughts. If this is likely to be triggering or upsetting for you, please don’t read this story. If you’d like some more information to make up your mind, please feel free to drop me a line here or on
Tumblr.
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