Track 48: Hurt/Comfort

Welcome to episode forty-eight of the Mixtape Book Club Podcast.

In this episode, Mal and Ellen welcome author carnationqueen to the podcast to discuss Destiel fics featuring the time-honoured trope, Hurt/Comfort. Fics include carnationqueen’s What’s a Little Dying Between Friends?, Flight by NorthernSparrow, On Drowning by domesticadventures, and Lights by LoversAntiquities, plus many more!

You can find our Mixtape Book Club Ao3 collection here, containing the stories we’ve discussed on the podcast so far.

As always, Mixtape Book Club contains fic spoilers, swearing and discussion of adult topics. Please listen at your own discretion, with attention paid to any little ears that might be nearby!

A transcript is available for this episode.

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Our guest: carnationqueen (aka Lily)

Lily publishes her Destiel works under carnationqueen on ao3.

Other works mentioned:

• Clean, Blue Air (15k words, E)
• St Jude (91k words (as yet incomplete), M)

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Featured fics (timestamps in brackets)

Flight (sequel to Forgotten) by NorthernSparrow (08:30)
Published in 2014-15, 319k words, M

Sequel to Forgotten. A/U from mid season 9. Castiel is human and wounded, and Dean and Sam need to get his grace back – and his wings. Things do not go as intended and Cas faces a difficult road.

Long case fic with strong emphasis on Team Free Will friendship/family bonds. Will get serious and angsty and lonely. ALERT: There will be two versions of this fic, Destiel and platonic. This version (Flight) is the Destiel version. Slow build and mostly pre-Destiel. The platonic version will be called Broken and will be posted later.

• Broken (platonic version of Flight) (170k words but incomplete, T)

What’s a Little Dying Between Friends? by carnationqueen (00:39:10)
Published in April 2023, 27k words, T

Castiel – stabbed by Ramiel with Michael’s lance, is dying. Slowly.
It will take days, maybe weeks, but die he will. It is, apparently, inevitable.

Neither Dean, Sam, or Rowena can find a way to save him. They’ve tried everything. Crowley hopes a slow motion, inevitable death may make Dean and Castiel remove their heads from their collective asses because really. Everyone is over it.

He’s a bit smug after all, having Lucifer as his prisoner, and is feeling a bit magnanimous in his hubris.Will impending death make Dean examine how he feels a bit more honestly?
Bring tissues.

On Drowning by domesticadventures (00:52:50)

Published in 2015, 29k words, T

The absolute last thing Dean would ever admit, after saving Cas’ life, is that it was all thanks to the unhealthy amount of time he spent reading about drowning on Wikipedia.

Not that he’s not grateful, but what he really needs is an instruction manual for everything that comes after.

Lights by LoversAntiquities (01:05:37)
Published in 2018, 2671 words, M

Dean can’t breathe.

Try as he might, he hasn’t been able to suck in a deep breath in the past hour, not with bruised ribs and the associated pain. Blood continues to drip from his nose and eardrum, probably busted. With shaking hands, he struggles to wipe it away, his attempts all in vain; the motel will probably hate him after he leaves, whenever that is. The least his father could’ve done was leave a note, a map—something telling him where he was, not just dumping him in a nondescript location with a collection of gashes and bruises he can’t even treat, not by himself.

Other recommended fics and links (01:18:00)

Other Northern_Sparrow fics mentioned during discussion:

• Under the Midnight Sun (232k words, E)
• A Room of One’s Own (4517 words, E)
• All The Nights by NorthernSparrow (32,290, T) – Hypothermia leads to cuddling
• You Can Keep Holding On by NorthernSparrow (352,388, E) – Post-s11, cancer

Other fics:

• Down by the Water by Cas_Wings (88,260, E) – au set in 1853
• Basic Lessons in First Aid, Magical or Otherwise by stuffy_j (54,174, E) – DCBB 2020, mordern with magic au, amnesiac Cas
• Out of the Deep by riseofthefallenone (488,608, E) – dark merfolk AU
• psalm 40:2 by unicornpoe (44,872, E) – post-canon time travel to pre-canon
• War Wounds by CBFirestarter (77,285, E) – Cas has a horse rescue ranch, Dean has PTSD
• Stay With Me, Sweetheart by MandalaRose (142,926, E) – Cas is hurt in a car accident, Dean takes care of him
• Graceless by Spinsomnia (146,997, E) – Dean is addicted to Cas’s grace
• Stand By Me by whelvenwings (31,572, E) – Zombie apocalypse au
• I Don’t Know Why by saltnhalo (16,500, E) – Assassin Cas, Spy Dean
• Amāyō Juwes, or: A Paleolithic Love Story by hopelessheathen (ElspethMcGillicuddy) (14,655, E) – Prehistoric au
• A Need for Breathing by phyona (27,643, E) – Cas has pnuemonia, Dean takes care
• Redemption Road by spnredemption (652,217, T-E) – Long canon divergent
• How Sturdy the Weeds by Faster_Than_the_Speed_of_Sound (9,654, T) – Assassin AU
• Every hour of every day by zuzallove (11,016, T) – Post 15×19 fix it
• Twenty-Nine Steps by VioletHaze (113,622, E) – Non-con, underage warnings
• Stargazer by Ryan_A (260,540, E) – Non-con warning
• Omega and the Beast by Ltleflrt (106,380, E) – Omegaverse
• late july by thanks_tacos (26,669, E) – Omegaverse
• One Step At A Time by tricia_16 (52,690, E) – AU, Dean takes in a homeless Cas
• One More Time by loversantiquities (11,977, E) – AU, snowed in in Virginian mountains
• Collapsed Rainbows by suckerfordeansfreckles (6,125, T) – Soulmarks
• and all this devotion by dothraki_shieldmaiden (10,572, M) – Post-canon
• That Shipwreck of Your Heart by Faster_Than_the_Speed_of_Sound (199,577, E) – Omegaverse, Russian mafia
• The Hanged Man by orphan_account (87,675, M) – Park Ranger Cas saves Dean from an attempted murder
• Into Your Hideaway by thepinupchemist (176,557, E) – Omegaverse, non-con warning
• Drops in the Ocean by Glitterinchaos (149,276, E) – DCBB 2020
• Wild by Castielslostwings (67,990, E) – Plane crash survival au
• Suffer Well by xxenjoy (10,203, E) – Hypothermia pwp
• Wild Touch by QuillsAndInk (13,410, E) – Perfect Pair Bang 2020, non-con warning, witch/familiar

Other links

• Love Destiel? Join the community of readers and writers at the Profound Bond Discord server. We have a Mixtape Book Club channel there!
• Our RedBubble shop is here. Any profits will go directly to Random Acts.

Got a fic to recommend? Please let us know, we’d love to hear from you!

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