SPN FIC - Vox Populi
Once upon a time, a prophet named Chuck wrote a series of books called SUPERNATURAL. Which begat the fans. Who begat the fic. And it was good.
Unless your name is Dean Winchester.
"I don't get it. You know?" And he's not angry so much as hurt. You'd think Sam would see that. You'd think Sam would sympathize, seeing as how he's those people's second favorite topic. First, for some of 'em. "It'd be one thing if they were out there writing us some adventures. Like -" He's about to say, "Like the books," but Chuck Shurley's books aren't exactly a shining example of literary awesomeness. Most of 'em had to do with hunts, yeah, but Chuck's well known for going heavy on what the fangirls call "angst." Which means a lot of whining. And single manly tears.
CHARACTERS: Dean and Sam
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 3088 words
VOX POPULI
By Carol Davis
It's a guilty pleasure.
That's all.
He's never made any bones about having a few of them. For instance - he used to watch Dr. Sexy M.D. He'd even cop to it being his favorite show, until that one actress started showing up on TMZ every other thing for being falling-down drunk or backing her Porsche into somebody's trash cans. That ruined the illusion. And TV is all about the illusion.
Yeah, fine: he reads TMZ.
He enjoys his Busty Asian Beauties, both in print and online.
What about it?
A nice, big, dripping bacon cheeseburger. Slab of apple pie with two scoops of ice cream.
"Dude," Sam says. "Again??"
Dean slams down the lid of the laptop, but it's too late. Sam was in the bathroom, and Dean figured he'd head straight back over to his bed. It was a safe bet, because Sam's been sitting on the bed for the past two hours, propped up on pillows, reading some paperback book he found in a drawer. Instead, his ginormous asshat of a brother cut over towards the mini-fridge and got a whole big eyeful of what Dean's been looking at on the computer.
"What about it?" Dean complains.
"The last time you messed around on there, you were freaked out for four days. I thought we agreed you'd leave it alone."
Yeah.
Like that's possible.
The stuff's burning its way through the lid of the laptop.
"Dude. Seriously," Sam says, and he's making no move toward his bed and his book. He's just standing there with his arms folded over his chest, big scowl on his face. He's doing everything but tapping his foot against the floor. Carpet. Whatever.
The words You're not the boss of me crawl into Dean's head.
Besides, it's not like he can respond. Say something in his own defense. Or…you know. The defense of his fictional self. He got banned from that site four months ago for violating their Terms of Use.
He told somebody to Eat Shit And Die, was all.
"What?" he barks at his brother.
It's massive amounts of crazy, is what it is. A bunch of people using up good, valuable time writing what they call "fan fiction," or "fanfic," or sometimes just "fic." About HIM. And Sam. Sometimes him-and-Sam.
There's other stuff, too, out there on the Internet: "fic" about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Dr. Sexy. Harry friggin' Potter. Even Star Trek, although that's mostly about Kirk-and-Spock - and what the hell is up with that? The guy who's been the acknowledged babe hound of the universe for the last fifty years? He wants to bang Spock?
"You're doing it again," Sam says.
"Am not," Dean mutters.
"Log out of there, man."
"Can't."
"What?"
"I'm not logged in. They banned my ass, remember?"
"Maybe you should have taken that as a hint."
"I don't get it. You know?" And he's not angry so much as hurt. You'd think Sam would see that. You'd think Sam would sympathize, seeing as how he's those people's second favorite topic. First, for some of 'em. "It'd be one thing if they were out there writing us some adventures. Like -" He's about to say, "Like the books," but Chuck Shurley's books aren't exactly a shining example of literary awesomeness. Most of 'em had to do with hunts, yeah, but Chuck's well known for going heavy on what the fangirls call "angst."
Which means a lot of whining. And single manly tears.
"People do dumbass things, Dean," Sam says. He sounds like he wants to get back to his book, but he's Making Time in His Busy Schedule to Be There For His Brother. Which is some shit like Chuck would write.
It makes Dean want to throw the computer at him.
"What did I ever do to anybody?" Dean mumbles. "I mean…come on. I help people. I go around saving their asses, and what do I have to show for it? A bunch of scars, two broken toes, a finger that hasn't straightened out since -"
"Since the last time the angels rebuilt you?"
"Don't remind me."
"It is what it is, man."
"We've been through the damn wringer, Sam. And are they grateful that somebody's out there watching their backs? They are not. They're sitting there writing stuff about me being blind. Or deaf. Or having my limbs hacked off. Or having seizures. Or worse yet: having sex with you. Or Cas. I spend half my life telling Cas to get away from me, for crying out loud! And," he says before Sam can interrupt, "don't tell me you're good with all the 'Sam and Gabriel' stuff."
Sam's nostrils flare. "I don't -"
"Dude. You and the friggin' Trickster? When they're not giving you brain tumors. Tell me you're good with that. Go right ahead."
Sam doesn't.
Sam just stands there flaring his nostrils.
"We could -" he says after a minute.
"Plant a computer virus. Right? Take the whole thing down. Can we find somebody who knows how to do that?"
"They'd just go somewhere else."
"What, then?"
There's Russian hackers, Dean remembers. They're good at what they do - there was a whole situation with them a while back. And they can't be that hard to find. Jack Bauer ran into Russians all the time. They seem to hang out in New York City, which is one of Dean's worst nightmares - the traffic there is like some apocalyptic video game - but he'd put up with it, for the right reasons.
"I like women, dude," he sighs.
"Aside from that massive man-crush you had on Dr. Sexy."
"We weren't gonna bring that up again."
There's something going on in Sam's gigantic head; Dean can tell. Sam's brow furrows and his lips mash together. When that happens, he's either massively constipated or he's thinking, and the fact that he sits down on the end of his bed instead of heading back to the bathroom definitely indicates that there's thinking going on.
Patience is needed at times like this.
Dean holds his silence. Tries not to stare at his brother.
With any luck, this will involve plastic explosives. Maybe some Russian mobsters. It'd be awesome if it involved Jack Bauer, but he's…well…fictional.
"We could -" Sam says finally.
Dean beams at him.
"- Write our own."
"Write our own what?"
"Story."
"What? Why? The hell kind of a solution is that?"
"It'd give them something else to read." Dean is still scowling at that nonsense when Sam says, "I used to write short stories."
That drops a memory into Dean's head: seven-year-old Sam sitting at the kitchen table with a pencil in his hand, tongue clamped between his teeth, diligently filling pages of school notebook paper with what one of their babysitters convinced him were "lovely stories."
"Sidney the Monster Truck," Dean says.
"Not those."
"What, then?"
"I wrote stories about us."
Dean's eyes narrow.
"You read them. I turned one of them in at school, for an assignment. Remember? About the summer you and Dad and I hunted the werewolf."
"You hunted the back seat of the car."
"I did research," Sam insists. "And that's not the point. I got a decent grade on the story. And there were others. I just didn't write all of them down. The ones I did write down -" He looks sad for a minute, staring down at the ugly plaid rug underneath his feet. "I got rid of them. I was afraid Dad would find them and freak out."
"And all that time, you could have sent 'em in to some publisher, and earned us a cult following and a giant pile of cash."
It takes a while for Sam's gaze to come back up from the floor.
"We could ignore the whole thing," he says. "Or we could fight fire with fire."
Which sounds simpler than it is.
No porn, Sam says. He finds that embarrassing. And invasive. Which it is, when Dean sits down to think about it, after having paced the room for half an hour. He could come up with some stuff that would scorch the eyeballs out of Becky's cadre of smut-loving fangirls - not for nothing has he spent the last twenty years reading Penthouse Forum letters - but there definitely is something skeevy about putting his sexual exploits to paper (or computer screen), regardless of whether he's made them up or whether they actually happened.
"What, then?"
"Happy ending," Sam says.
Dean's eyes widen.
"Not that kind," Sam says. "For God's sake. A happy ending. Happily ever after."
Dean takes a long pull of his beer and sets the bottle back down on the table with a clunk. "Like we have any idea what that is."
It would involve his baby, for sure. Beyond that, it's a gray zone.
"House," Sam says.
"What, like Bobby's?"
"Cleaner than Bobby's."
"Where?"
"I don't know. Uhhh -"
"No urban areas," Dean insists, thinking again of the madhouse that is New York City traffic. "No freakin' gated communities. And no hurricane zones."
"Small town."
"Small town's good."
"Outside of a small town. Few minutes' drive, or reasonable walking distance."
For Sam, "reasonable walking distance" is anything less than four hours. Dean grimaces at that, then suggests, "Someplace with an annual snowfall of less than ten feet. And a lake. Or a big pond. Something. I like to fish."
"I thought you said Cas conjured up that dream because it was a metaphor."
"I like to fish."
"All right," Sam concedes.
"Someplace with good food. Couple of decent bars. And the complete digital cable package."
Sam's been scribbling all this down on a sheet of motel note paper. He's nodding the way he used to when he was seven and got excited about the latest adventure of Sidney the Heroic But Misunderstood Monster Truck.
"Nice people," Dean murmurs.
Sam lifts his gaze from the note paper. "Hmm?"
"Gotta have nice people."
"Yeah," Sam says. "It does."
Seven hours and some change later, Sam's got his masterpiece put together. It's a little heavy on the flowery adjectives, and Dean isn't entirely sure that the townspeople Sam cooked up are anybody he'd really want to meet, let alone hang out with on a Friday night, but all in all, it's a decent effort. Turns out Sam has an active membership in that nightmare of an online community, one he actually uses now and then to say something pertinent, so it only takes a few minutes (and some muttered cursing) to get the story formatted and posted.
"Now what?" Dean asks.
"Now we wait."
They stretch out on their respective beds, propped up on pillows.
It can take a while for the first comments to show up, Sam says. How he knows that is something Dean doesn't especially want to pursue, so he settles for taking Sam's word for it.
They watch the last half-hour of Criminal Minds.
Dean raises an eyebrow. Sam shakes his head.
They watch part of Beyond Scared Straight, a few minutes of I'm Pregnant and I Didn't Know, half an episode of South Park, and a chunk of Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. "That right there," Dean says, nodding at Kumar's onscreen girlfriend. "I got a choice between that right there, and you? Guess what I pick."
It's almost two a.m. when Sam finally caves to letting them look.
It's a nice story, Dean thinks as they make their way over to the laptop. It has some action. It has his baby. It has cheeseburgers and classic rock and a nice little homage to Dad. He and Sam even hug in it, although he tried his best to get Sam to omit that part.
People should like it, right?
Not so much.
There are rude words in the comments.
There are a lot of rude words in the comments.
Dean's first instinct is to throw the computer across the room. Unfortunately, they need the damn thing, and it was expensive.
Then, he's tempted to see if he can go in anonymously and tell people to eat shit and die.
For a minute, he's really kind of hurt - the way he was back in second grade when he spent all afternoon making a yellow dinosaur out of clay and another kid (Robbie Rittenmeyer; his name was Robbie Rittenmeyer) told him it looked like a big yellow turd.
Good thing Dad took them out of that town before Robbie Rittenmeyer found the gift Dean left in his backback.
"Thought you said the rule is, be polite or don't say anything," he mutters.
"I thought it was," Sam frowns. "But maybe that just applies if you're…if they know you."
Sam's writing is weak and sophomoric, the comments say. The story's the worst possible example of generic "curtain fic," whatever that is. Carver Edlund would never come up with an ending like this; he's stated on any number of occasions that he wants "the boys" to go out with a bang, not end up in some small town mowing the lawn and having a beer with the locals.
It's an insult to what Sam and Dean are, somebody says.
Several people comment only, "WTF?"
It takes Dean forty-five minutes and half a six-pack to come up with a response that doesn't involve a lot of cursing.
"What'd we ever do to them?" he moans.
Maybe it's that "Carver Edlund" hasn't released a new book in years, Sam suggests, in spite of his promise at that convention that new books were coming. Maybe the fans are frustrated and disappointed and, yeah, hurt, and that's made them testy and impossible to satisfy. They're stuck with rehashing old material, while "Carver Edlund" refuses to communicate with them.
Maybe they're getting back at the guy who used to be their hero.
"Maybe they're just asshats," Dean complains.
Four times, he insists that Sam go in there and defend the damn story. "I can't engage them," Sam says. "It'll make things worse."
"Then tell 'em to -"
"I'm not telling anybody that. They'll ban me."
"Which is a problem because -?"
They end up sitting side by side at the motel room's little round table, beers in hand, sighing at the laptop.
"Asshats," Dean insists.
Sam doesn't disagree with him. His face hasn't unpinched since he saw that first comment, which has to make it tough to drink his beer. Again, Dean thinks of the little kid who used to sit at the kitchen table with a pencil and a notebook, and he hopes for a good long time that nobody ever told that Sam that his stories sucked.
"I'm gonna go to bed," Sam says after a while, but he doesn't.
It's almost four a.m. when another comment pops up. It's a long one - one the author obviously spent a while putting together.
Dean's hand moves toward the laptop.
"Maybe we should remember why we came here in the first place," the comment says.
We were all so excited. A new series of books starring a couple of drop-dead gorgeous guys, a classic car, and some great rock tunes. Guys who went out there and saved people, without getting paid or thanked. Guys who didn't want any kind of a reward, who spent their whole lives living in lousy motels and eating diner food, just so they could do the right thing. Guys who loved each other and did everything they could for each other.
We loved those guys.
We loved their adventures.
Now we're all bickering with each other. Spending all our time pointing out who's getting crapped on and blaming Carver for not being true to his own project. Yeah, okay, it's been a long time since we saw the last new book. Carver doesn't answer his e-mails any more, and we don't know why. Maybe he's sick of us. Maybe he thinks we're nuts. Maybe he just did it for the money and he's moved on to something else.
But we weren't in it for the money.
We loved those guys, and their adventures, and their love for each other.
Can't we learn from Sam and Dean? They've been faithful to each other through everything. No matter what happened, they always came back to each other. They've got each other's backs. Yeah, Sam loves his sappy emo music and his tofu and he turned his back on his family for a while. And Dean loves his porn and his cheeseburgers and making fun of his brother. They're different. But they've always got each other's backs.
Maybe they deserve this house in Pennsylvania. Maybe they deserve some downtime. A chance to take a breath and be with some nice people and not worry about what's going to hit the fan next.
Maybe that's what they'd really want and maybe it isn't. Maybe if they had the choice they'd go out with a bang.
I'd kind of like to find them in that little town. I'd like to ask them what they want.
And how I can help.
Meanwhile - maybe this is just another "what if."
Another part of the Epic Love Story of Sam and Dean.
Just MHO.
Love, Barnes (and Demian)
"Huh," Dean says quietly.
He and Sam sit looking at the laptop for a few minutes. "They're gonna eat him alive," Sam says then.
That might be happening. Or it might not. They can't tell if there are more comments popping up without refreshing the page, and neither one of them moves to do that.
Finally, Sam reaches out and closes the laptop.
"You're not gonna look?" Dean asks.
"No," Sam says. "I am not gonna look. And you're not either."
"What if -"
Sam shakes his head as he gets up from the rickety little chair that barely supports his weight. It's a wonder the bed holds him; everything in the room seems like it's temporary, built to last for just a little while.
Like a prop.
Like their lives are just something somebody made up, and nothing around them needs to last.
"I'm going to bed," Sam says.
Dean nods absently, then takes a long last look at the laptop. It seems funny to him, for a moment, that there are people in there. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, the vast majority of whom he will never meet.
He met a couple of 'em, though. And it bemuses him that those two have got his back.
Even if they don't quite know that they do.
"Right behind you," he says to his brother.
* * * * *
Unless your name is Dean Winchester.
"I don't get it. You know?" And he's not angry so much as hurt. You'd think Sam would see that. You'd think Sam would sympathize, seeing as how he's those people's second favorite topic. First, for some of 'em. "It'd be one thing if they were out there writing us some adventures. Like -" He's about to say, "Like the books," but Chuck Shurley's books aren't exactly a shining example of literary awesomeness. Most of 'em had to do with hunts, yeah, but Chuck's well known for going heavy on what the fangirls call "angst." Which means a lot of whining. And single manly tears.
CHARACTERS: Dean and Sam
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 3088 words
VOX POPULI
By Carol Davis
It's a guilty pleasure.
That's all.
He's never made any bones about having a few of them. For instance - he used to watch Dr. Sexy M.D. He'd even cop to it being his favorite show, until that one actress started showing up on TMZ every other thing for being falling-down drunk or backing her Porsche into somebody's trash cans. That ruined the illusion. And TV is all about the illusion.
Yeah, fine: he reads TMZ.
He enjoys his Busty Asian Beauties, both in print and online.
What about it?
A nice, big, dripping bacon cheeseburger. Slab of apple pie with two scoops of ice cream.
"Dude," Sam says. "Again??"
Dean slams down the lid of the laptop, but it's too late. Sam was in the bathroom, and Dean figured he'd head straight back over to his bed. It was a safe bet, because Sam's been sitting on the bed for the past two hours, propped up on pillows, reading some paperback book he found in a drawer. Instead, his ginormous asshat of a brother cut over towards the mini-fridge and got a whole big eyeful of what Dean's been looking at on the computer.
"What about it?" Dean complains.
"The last time you messed around on there, you were freaked out for four days. I thought we agreed you'd leave it alone."
Yeah.
Like that's possible.
The stuff's burning its way through the lid of the laptop.
"Dude. Seriously," Sam says, and he's making no move toward his bed and his book. He's just standing there with his arms folded over his chest, big scowl on his face. He's doing everything but tapping his foot against the floor. Carpet. Whatever.
The words You're not the boss of me crawl into Dean's head.
Besides, it's not like he can respond. Say something in his own defense. Or…you know. The defense of his fictional self. He got banned from that site four months ago for violating their Terms of Use.
He told somebody to Eat Shit And Die, was all.
"What?" he barks at his brother.
It's massive amounts of crazy, is what it is. A bunch of people using up good, valuable time writing what they call "fan fiction," or "fanfic," or sometimes just "fic." About HIM. And Sam. Sometimes him-and-Sam.
There's other stuff, too, out there on the Internet: "fic" about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Dr. Sexy. Harry friggin' Potter. Even Star Trek, although that's mostly about Kirk-and-Spock - and what the hell is up with that? The guy who's been the acknowledged babe hound of the universe for the last fifty years? He wants to bang Spock?
"You're doing it again," Sam says.
"Am not," Dean mutters.
"Log out of there, man."
"Can't."
"What?"
"I'm not logged in. They banned my ass, remember?"
"Maybe you should have taken that as a hint."
"I don't get it. You know?" And he's not angry so much as hurt. You'd think Sam would see that. You'd think Sam would sympathize, seeing as how he's those people's second favorite topic. First, for some of 'em. "It'd be one thing if they were out there writing us some adventures. Like -" He's about to say, "Like the books," but Chuck Shurley's books aren't exactly a shining example of literary awesomeness. Most of 'em had to do with hunts, yeah, but Chuck's well known for going heavy on what the fangirls call "angst."
Which means a lot of whining. And single manly tears.
"People do dumbass things, Dean," Sam says. He sounds like he wants to get back to his book, but he's Making Time in His Busy Schedule to Be There For His Brother. Which is some shit like Chuck would write.
It makes Dean want to throw the computer at him.
"What did I ever do to anybody?" Dean mumbles. "I mean…come on. I help people. I go around saving their asses, and what do I have to show for it? A bunch of scars, two broken toes, a finger that hasn't straightened out since -"
"Since the last time the angels rebuilt you?"
"Don't remind me."
"It is what it is, man."
"We've been through the damn wringer, Sam. And are they grateful that somebody's out there watching their backs? They are not. They're sitting there writing stuff about me being blind. Or deaf. Or having my limbs hacked off. Or having seizures. Or worse yet: having sex with you. Or Cas. I spend half my life telling Cas to get away from me, for crying out loud! And," he says before Sam can interrupt, "don't tell me you're good with all the 'Sam and Gabriel' stuff."
Sam's nostrils flare. "I don't -"
"Dude. You and the friggin' Trickster? When they're not giving you brain tumors. Tell me you're good with that. Go right ahead."
Sam doesn't.
Sam just stands there flaring his nostrils.
"We could -" he says after a minute.
"Plant a computer virus. Right? Take the whole thing down. Can we find somebody who knows how to do that?"
"They'd just go somewhere else."
"What, then?"
There's Russian hackers, Dean remembers. They're good at what they do - there was a whole situation with them a while back. And they can't be that hard to find. Jack Bauer ran into Russians all the time. They seem to hang out in New York City, which is one of Dean's worst nightmares - the traffic there is like some apocalyptic video game - but he'd put up with it, for the right reasons.
"I like women, dude," he sighs.
"Aside from that massive man-crush you had on Dr. Sexy."
"We weren't gonna bring that up again."
There's something going on in Sam's gigantic head; Dean can tell. Sam's brow furrows and his lips mash together. When that happens, he's either massively constipated or he's thinking, and the fact that he sits down on the end of his bed instead of heading back to the bathroom definitely indicates that there's thinking going on.
Patience is needed at times like this.
Dean holds his silence. Tries not to stare at his brother.
With any luck, this will involve plastic explosives. Maybe some Russian mobsters. It'd be awesome if it involved Jack Bauer, but he's…well…fictional.
"We could -" Sam says finally.
Dean beams at him.
"- Write our own."
"Write our own what?"
"Story."
"What? Why? The hell kind of a solution is that?"
"It'd give them something else to read." Dean is still scowling at that nonsense when Sam says, "I used to write short stories."
That drops a memory into Dean's head: seven-year-old Sam sitting at the kitchen table with a pencil in his hand, tongue clamped between his teeth, diligently filling pages of school notebook paper with what one of their babysitters convinced him were "lovely stories."
"Sidney the Monster Truck," Dean says.
"Not those."
"What, then?"
"I wrote stories about us."
Dean's eyes narrow.
"You read them. I turned one of them in at school, for an assignment. Remember? About the summer you and Dad and I hunted the werewolf."
"You hunted the back seat of the car."
"I did research," Sam insists. "And that's not the point. I got a decent grade on the story. And there were others. I just didn't write all of them down. The ones I did write down -" He looks sad for a minute, staring down at the ugly plaid rug underneath his feet. "I got rid of them. I was afraid Dad would find them and freak out."
"And all that time, you could have sent 'em in to some publisher, and earned us a cult following and a giant pile of cash."
It takes a while for Sam's gaze to come back up from the floor.
"We could ignore the whole thing," he says. "Or we could fight fire with fire."
Which sounds simpler than it is.
No porn, Sam says. He finds that embarrassing. And invasive. Which it is, when Dean sits down to think about it, after having paced the room for half an hour. He could come up with some stuff that would scorch the eyeballs out of Becky's cadre of smut-loving fangirls - not for nothing has he spent the last twenty years reading Penthouse Forum letters - but there definitely is something skeevy about putting his sexual exploits to paper (or computer screen), regardless of whether he's made them up or whether they actually happened.
"What, then?"
"Happy ending," Sam says.
Dean's eyes widen.
"Not that kind," Sam says. "For God's sake. A happy ending. Happily ever after."
Dean takes a long pull of his beer and sets the bottle back down on the table with a clunk. "Like we have any idea what that is."
It would involve his baby, for sure. Beyond that, it's a gray zone.
"House," Sam says.
"What, like Bobby's?"
"Cleaner than Bobby's."
"Where?"
"I don't know. Uhhh -"
"No urban areas," Dean insists, thinking again of the madhouse that is New York City traffic. "No freakin' gated communities. And no hurricane zones."
"Small town."
"Small town's good."
"Outside of a small town. Few minutes' drive, or reasonable walking distance."
For Sam, "reasonable walking distance" is anything less than four hours. Dean grimaces at that, then suggests, "Someplace with an annual snowfall of less than ten feet. And a lake. Or a big pond. Something. I like to fish."
"I thought you said Cas conjured up that dream because it was a metaphor."
"I like to fish."
"All right," Sam concedes.
"Someplace with good food. Couple of decent bars. And the complete digital cable package."
Sam's been scribbling all this down on a sheet of motel note paper. He's nodding the way he used to when he was seven and got excited about the latest adventure of Sidney the Heroic But Misunderstood Monster Truck.
"Nice people," Dean murmurs.
Sam lifts his gaze from the note paper. "Hmm?"
"Gotta have nice people."
"Yeah," Sam says. "It does."
Seven hours and some change later, Sam's got his masterpiece put together. It's a little heavy on the flowery adjectives, and Dean isn't entirely sure that the townspeople Sam cooked up are anybody he'd really want to meet, let alone hang out with on a Friday night, but all in all, it's a decent effort. Turns out Sam has an active membership in that nightmare of an online community, one he actually uses now and then to say something pertinent, so it only takes a few minutes (and some muttered cursing) to get the story formatted and posted.
"Now what?" Dean asks.
"Now we wait."
They stretch out on their respective beds, propped up on pillows.
It can take a while for the first comments to show up, Sam says. How he knows that is something Dean doesn't especially want to pursue, so he settles for taking Sam's word for it.
They watch the last half-hour of Criminal Minds.
Dean raises an eyebrow. Sam shakes his head.
They watch part of Beyond Scared Straight, a few minutes of I'm Pregnant and I Didn't Know, half an episode of South Park, and a chunk of Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. "That right there," Dean says, nodding at Kumar's onscreen girlfriend. "I got a choice between that right there, and you? Guess what I pick."
It's almost two a.m. when Sam finally caves to letting them look.
It's a nice story, Dean thinks as they make their way over to the laptop. It has some action. It has his baby. It has cheeseburgers and classic rock and a nice little homage to Dad. He and Sam even hug in it, although he tried his best to get Sam to omit that part.
People should like it, right?
Not so much.
There are rude words in the comments.
There are a lot of rude words in the comments.
Dean's first instinct is to throw the computer across the room. Unfortunately, they need the damn thing, and it was expensive.
Then, he's tempted to see if he can go in anonymously and tell people to eat shit and die.
For a minute, he's really kind of hurt - the way he was back in second grade when he spent all afternoon making a yellow dinosaur out of clay and another kid (Robbie Rittenmeyer; his name was Robbie Rittenmeyer) told him it looked like a big yellow turd.
Good thing Dad took them out of that town before Robbie Rittenmeyer found the gift Dean left in his backback.
"Thought you said the rule is, be polite or don't say anything," he mutters.
"I thought it was," Sam frowns. "But maybe that just applies if you're…if they know you."
Sam's writing is weak and sophomoric, the comments say. The story's the worst possible example of generic "curtain fic," whatever that is. Carver Edlund would never come up with an ending like this; he's stated on any number of occasions that he wants "the boys" to go out with a bang, not end up in some small town mowing the lawn and having a beer with the locals.
It's an insult to what Sam and Dean are, somebody says.
Several people comment only, "WTF?"
It takes Dean forty-five minutes and half a six-pack to come up with a response that doesn't involve a lot of cursing.
"What'd we ever do to them?" he moans.
Maybe it's that "Carver Edlund" hasn't released a new book in years, Sam suggests, in spite of his promise at that convention that new books were coming. Maybe the fans are frustrated and disappointed and, yeah, hurt, and that's made them testy and impossible to satisfy. They're stuck with rehashing old material, while "Carver Edlund" refuses to communicate with them.
Maybe they're getting back at the guy who used to be their hero.
"Maybe they're just asshats," Dean complains.
Four times, he insists that Sam go in there and defend the damn story. "I can't engage them," Sam says. "It'll make things worse."
"Then tell 'em to -"
"I'm not telling anybody that. They'll ban me."
"Which is a problem because -?"
They end up sitting side by side at the motel room's little round table, beers in hand, sighing at the laptop.
"Asshats," Dean insists.
Sam doesn't disagree with him. His face hasn't unpinched since he saw that first comment, which has to make it tough to drink his beer. Again, Dean thinks of the little kid who used to sit at the kitchen table with a pencil and a notebook, and he hopes for a good long time that nobody ever told that Sam that his stories sucked.
"I'm gonna go to bed," Sam says after a while, but he doesn't.
It's almost four a.m. when another comment pops up. It's a long one - one the author obviously spent a while putting together.
Dean's hand moves toward the laptop.
"Maybe we should remember why we came here in the first place," the comment says.
We were all so excited. A new series of books starring a couple of drop-dead gorgeous guys, a classic car, and some great rock tunes. Guys who went out there and saved people, without getting paid or thanked. Guys who didn't want any kind of a reward, who spent their whole lives living in lousy motels and eating diner food, just so they could do the right thing. Guys who loved each other and did everything they could for each other.
We loved those guys.
We loved their adventures.
Now we're all bickering with each other. Spending all our time pointing out who's getting crapped on and blaming Carver for not being true to his own project. Yeah, okay, it's been a long time since we saw the last new book. Carver doesn't answer his e-mails any more, and we don't know why. Maybe he's sick of us. Maybe he thinks we're nuts. Maybe he just did it for the money and he's moved on to something else.
But we weren't in it for the money.
We loved those guys, and their adventures, and their love for each other.
Can't we learn from Sam and Dean? They've been faithful to each other through everything. No matter what happened, they always came back to each other. They've got each other's backs. Yeah, Sam loves his sappy emo music and his tofu and he turned his back on his family for a while. And Dean loves his porn and his cheeseburgers and making fun of his brother. They're different. But they've always got each other's backs.
Maybe they deserve this house in Pennsylvania. Maybe they deserve some downtime. A chance to take a breath and be with some nice people and not worry about what's going to hit the fan next.
Maybe that's what they'd really want and maybe it isn't. Maybe if they had the choice they'd go out with a bang.
I'd kind of like to find them in that little town. I'd like to ask them what they want.
And how I can help.
Meanwhile - maybe this is just another "what if."
Another part of the Epic Love Story of Sam and Dean.
Just MHO.
Love, Barnes (and Demian)
"Huh," Dean says quietly.
He and Sam sit looking at the laptop for a few minutes. "They're gonna eat him alive," Sam says then.
That might be happening. Or it might not. They can't tell if there are more comments popping up without refreshing the page, and neither one of them moves to do that.
Finally, Sam reaches out and closes the laptop.
"You're not gonna look?" Dean asks.
"No," Sam says. "I am not gonna look. And you're not either."
"What if -"
Sam shakes his head as he gets up from the rickety little chair that barely supports his weight. It's a wonder the bed holds him; everything in the room seems like it's temporary, built to last for just a little while.
Like a prop.
Like their lives are just something somebody made up, and nothing around them needs to last.
"I'm going to bed," Sam says.
Dean nods absently, then takes a long last look at the laptop. It seems funny to him, for a moment, that there are people in there. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, the vast majority of whom he will never meet.
He met a couple of 'em, though. And it bemuses him that those two have got his back.
Even if they don't quite know that they do.
"Right behind you," he says to his brother.
* * * * *