Unexpected Destinies Chapter 127
Title: Unexpected Destinies
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 3,129
Summary: Samuel decides that he needs to know more about his grandsons.
PRESENT
For a moment, Samuel just sat in his car looking through the windscreen at the newfangled bookstore he was parked at. Well, newfangled to him at least, for everyone else it was just as much the norm as the smaller bookstores that he'd used to frequent before his death.
Samuel wasn't sure if he should be disquieted by how easily he thought of that these days. His death. Despite the fact that he and the others were still no closer to discovering exactly how and why both Sam and himself had been resurrected, he had somehow become used to the fact that he had been dead for nearly four decades. It wasn't that he'd gotten over his death per se, or that of everyone he'd loved and cared for, but rather that he'd come to accept the fact that it had happened to him. His precious Deanna and Mary were another story altogether and he tried not to think about their fates too often as the pain of doing so was damn near crippling. Besides, he didn't really feel that he had anyone with whom he could share that pain with.
Much as Samuel loved Sam, it hadn't taken him long to realize that he couldn't speak with this particular grandson about his beloved daughter. Not only had Sam never actually known Mary and therefore had absolutely no memories of her except for those that he'd gotten from Dean, but the boy had watched her death tear his father apart and was loath to be anywhere near him whenever he'd mentioned Mary's name. It had taken him a while to realize exactly why and he couldn't help but wonder sometimes if his near obsessive need to find Dean wasn't at least partially caused by the knowledge that he knew for certain that his firstborn grandson did in fact remember his mother. He had to admit that the thought of speaking with someone else who remembered Mary and mourned her passing was damn near irresistible. It would make it easier in a way, to know that she hadn't simply vanished but had left some intangible footprints behind in addition to the two very tangible sons she'd had.
The biggest irony of the whole issue was that while Sam's reaction should have given him even more cause to dislike John Winchester than he'd ever had, Samuel couldn't help but find that exactly the opposite was true. Although his grandson had spoken of John with nothing but scorn most of the time, he'd found that hearing about how his sweet Mary's death had all but driven Winchester insane with bloodlust caused him to actually start liking the guy. At least there was someone who had clearly loved his little girl and been damned if he'd let her death go unpunished. Perhaps Mary hadn't made as bad of a choice as he'd always feared that she had. That had allowed him to start thinking about other things more clearly and he'd been forced to admit that John Winchester must have made a damned good hunter once he'd discovered the truth about the supernatural as he'd trained two- what was the current term? oh, right- kickass hunters. The sheer number of demons that his grandsons had dealt with, not to mention actually killed (something he'd always been told was impossible), was nothing short of staggering.
And to think that demons were once considered almost mythical, given how infrequently even hunters encountered them!
It was just one in a long list of things that had changed since his death. A very, very long list of things. Samuel snorted as he thought of the computers, internet, cellphones and shitload of other technological gadgets that he'd been introduced to since his resurrection. It was all mindboggling and more than once he'd wondered if he hadn't simply been transported straight into some science fiction movie. Strangers things had been known to happen, after all, so it wasn't entirely outside the realm of possibilities no matter how bizarre the mere notion sounded. It shouldn't have been any more insane than the thought of an honest to God resurrection and yet here he was, alive and physically well nearly forty years after some demon had shoved a blade into his gut and killed him right in front of Mary's time traveling firstborn.
The memory of his death still had the power to make Samuel shudder. Whoever had said that you'd not remember your death afterwards was so horribly wrong that it wasn't even funny. If anything he could remember those last few moments with stunning and unbelievable clarity and he knew that he'd never be able to forget any of it no matter how long he managed to live this time around. Not the slick, dirty feel of the demon inside of him; nor the sweet, agonizing slide of cold steel into his body; nor the furious and helpless look on Dean's face. Dean who in so many ways looked so much like his mother that it was almost painful. In retrospect he just couldn't understand how it was that he hadn't recognized the boy as family the instant that he'd first laid eyes on him. It was all there, plain as day for anyone to see. For all that he'd known about the supernatural and what lurked out there in the shadows and the dark, he'd still been almost painfully naive in so many ways.
That was another reason why Samuel felt it so critically important for them to have Dean with them now. He'd been caught off-guard once before by his lack of knowledge as to the full extent of just what was out there and it had led to his death. He didn't want that to happen for a second time or to lead to anyone else's death either and he figured that the angels would know far better than any of them just what was what now that the normal rules seemed to have been thrown out of the window. They just couldn't afford not to know all of that, not when a lack of knowledge had already led to Mark's death.
If Samuel closed his eyes he could still remember the sound of Gwen's voice when she'd called to tell him what had happened. They'd been on a hunt- herself, Mark and Christian- when things had gone to hell in a hand basket. They'd been chasing something that had cut a bloody swath through the South, tearing it's victims apart and leaving bits and pieces of them all over the place. Unfortunately they'd put the evidence together wrong and hadn't been prepared for the creatures to be a three strong pack of werewolves, the lack of lunar pattern throwing them off. In fact the night that Mark had died there had been only the tiniest sliver of the new moon visible. His hands clenched around the wheel at the thought of just how much things had changed.
The fact that so many centuries of painstakingly collected and recorded lore were now slowly becoming useless was part of the reason why Samuel had not really ventured out to many bookstores yet. If all of the Campbell family journals were of little use, then what were the chances of him finding something helpful in newer source material? Even in the past it had always been a longshot, but one that he'd pursued from time to time when he the opportunity to do so, as it had panned out on occasion and he hadn't wanted to miss something just because he was being old and stubborn. Getting too set in one's ways was a sure death sentence for a hunter.
Which was exactly why Samuel was here now, he was trying to break out of his set ways and accept something new. Something unorthodox, even for him and for hunters in general. But hey, if it worked then who was he to question it? Normally that would have been enough for him to get over his hang-ups, get his ass in gear and get out of the car to do whatever needed to be done.
Normally.
Samuel sighed and rubbed a hand over his face before he looked at the bookstore once more. Barnes & Noble. It definitely looked big enough to carry that which he was looking for. Hell, it was by far the biggest bookstore that he'd ever laid eyes on and they didn't seem to mind customers sampling the merchandise given how many people he could see sitting about, reading books that they hadn't yet paid for. Nor did they seem to mind people eating and drinking around the books either, something most of the bookstore owners he'd known in his day would have unapologetically yelled at him for. So, newfangled but probably exactly what he needed at the moment. Yet, despite that, he still found himself sitting in the car instead of getting up and getting on with what he needed to do.
The fact of the matter was that as much as Samuel knew what he needed to do, he was also more than a little afraid of what he was going to learn. Just the memory of his meeting with Becky Rosen was enough to make him shudder once more. The way that woman had so shamelessly spoken about, no, not spoken about, idolized, Dean's relationship with the angel Castiel and all of the details that she'd revealed thereof were things that he'd much rather shove safely away into a dark corner of his mind to be completely forgotten about. It was a fear of learning even more about that particular relationship, details and facts that he was much better of never knowing about, that prevented him from acting now.
Yes, he wanted to know more about his grandson, both of them actually given everything that he'd learned about Sam as of late and how, selective, Mary's youngest had been about what he'd shared with them. It was why Samuel was here now and yet he was afraid at the same time. But surely the books couldn't be all that bad, right? They'd passed through the publishing process, after all, that had to have ensured that they weren't too explicit. Right?
Just a quick look towards a group of young girls and the scandalous clothing that they wore was enough to send Samuel's feeble hopes plummeting. Clearly what was acceptable and what was not had radically changed in just a few short decades and it left him in a near constant state of dread when it came to certain aspects of modern life and just what he might witness the next time he went out in public. All of which meant that he had absolutely no idea just what Chuck Shurley may or may not have been able to put into his books about Sam and Dean. And given what he'd heard both Sam and Bobby say about Dean's former propensity to find a girl wherever he went that worried him more than a little, even without the prospect of reading about angels doing things that he'd always been taught they'd never, ever, do.
"Samuel Campbell, you are not a coward," Samuel muttered to himself. "Now get out of this damn car and do what you need to do."
The trick worked, forcing him into action and Samuel locked the car before striding determinedly towards the bookstore entrance. After all, it wasn't like he'd be forced to read anything that he didn't want to. If the books were too explicit for a grandfather to take, then he'd just be able to skip those parts and dedicate his attention to the stuff that really mattered. Like anything pertaining to the man that his grandson was or how it was that Dean had come to be in the past the first time that they'd met. That he would also be looking for anything and everything relating to the Apocalypse went without saying.
The soft music playing when he entered the store distracted Samuel for a moment and he muttered again about newfangled places. What had been wrong with the bookstores that he remembered? Then he realized just how large the store actually was and he was left floundering for a moment. He was sure that he'd be able to find what he wanted on his own given enough time, but he caught sight of the helpdesk with a sense of relief. After all, why make things any harder for himself than necessary? Besides, they had computers at that desk and he knew that they had to make things easier, or at least Sam definitely seemed to think so, no matter what they might be dealing with.
"Hello, how can I help you?" the girl was young, hardly more than a teenager unless he very much missed his guess.
"Hello, I'm looking to buy some books for my granddaughter," Samuel said, using the story he'd already made up to explain away his interest in what he assumed would be very much not his usual type of book. "She's recently found a series that she actually likes and I'd like to encourage her to continue reading."
"Of course, what's the series called?"
"Uh, I don't actually know, she hasn't mentioned a series name."
"I see. Well, do you know anything about it? The author perhaps?"
"No," Samuel replied, knowing Sam had said something about a pseudonym but he hadn't dared ask least his grandson got suspicious. "She said they were quite popular, though. It's a fantasy series about two brothers fighting all kinds of supernatural creatures or something like that. She also mentioned angels."
"Oh, of course, Supernatural."
"Yes, I said it was about the supernatural."
"No, you misunderstand me. The books are called Supernatural, it's the name of the series."
"Ah, I see."
"That's probably why you didn't realize that you knew the name of the series. Now, unfortunately we don't have any more copies of the last set of books in the series. We're all sold out, I'm afraid, and are still waiting for the next delivery to get here."
"Really?"
"Yes, I'm sorry. The guy in charge of ordering books in didn't realize how popular they'd be and therefore didn't get us enough copies," she smiled apologetically. "Why he was so wrong I don't know as he should have known that anything pertaining to angels and demons was bound to do well, especially when you start mixing in prophecies and the Apocalypse as well."
"Indeed, it's a pity that you don't have the latest ones, but you've got the others, right, the earlier ones?"
"Yes," she tapped something into her computer. "Yep, here it is, Supernatural by Carver Edlund. Now let's see, ah here we are. It looks like we've got books one through to a hundred and four."
"A hundred and four?"
"Yep, that's Supernatural straight through to Swan Song."
"And you're missing some?"
"Numbers one hundred and five, Unexpected Destinies, through to one hundred and fifteen, The Rite of Contressa."
"Eleven books? You're that many short?"
The girl shrugged. "What can I say? We've been a little late getting on the bandwagon with this particular series. It has been published for ages but we've only just recently started stocking it after it started making a real splash. It was just considered a cult thing before but it's really taken off with the whole Apocalypse storyline and Edlund's been putting out books like mad ever since that point. My guess is that he kept on writing after his original publisher went under."
"I see," Samuel replied, opening his wallet to make sure that he had the card with him that he needed. "Well I'll take one copy of every book that you do have."
"Excuse me?"
"I'll have one of each of them."
"You want the whole series? All one hundred and four books?"
"Yes."
Samuel knew that he wasn't being at all subtle about this and normally he'd try to avoid drawing as much attention to himself as this was sure to do, but he just didn't have the patience required to go from store to store, buying just a few books at each place. For one it would take far too long and besides, this was his family they were talking about here.
"But... that'll be several hundred dollars!" the girl sputtered.
"I realize that, but what can I say? My granddaughter's never really read much before and I want to encourage this habit."
It was a poor excuse and Samuel knew it, but it was the best that he could come up with on the spot. When Sam and Bobby had said that Shurley had published some books on the boys, he'd never thought that they meant this many of them so he'd not thought that he needed a better cover story. Not that it would be a problem as they'd be out of town by tomorrow, heading back to their home base to regroup and give Mark the hunter's burial that he so rightly deserved. And it wasn't like money was an issue either as he had a number of accounts that had done nothing but sit around and earn interest for nearly forty years. Yes, Mary had cleared out a few of them (which he had no problems with as she'd been left with precious little) and some of the rest of the family had done the same with some of the other accounts, but there had been a few that none of them had known about and therefore he had more than enough money to not have to worry about it for the rest of his life.
"I- I'm going to have to call my manager over to approve this transaction," the girl stated.
"That's okay, but could you please get someone to start packing the books? I'd like to get going as soon as possible."
"Yeah, sure."
It was odd, while on a hunt Samuel was a picture of patience and could outwait practically any creature that he'd ever come across. Now, though, he felt like a kid in a candy store, hardly able to contain his rising excitement at being this close to his goal. Between Sam's reluctance to talk about his brother and everything that had been going on lately, he still knew precious little about Dean and he was anxious to learn more about Mary's firstborn. To be this close to that particular goal, well it was hard to have to wait any longer.
It was a good thing that he didn't need to sleep all that much anymore as Samuel knew that he'd not be getting much in the near future. Not with a hundred and four books to read.
A.N.: I think I got far more pleasure than I should have, working the title of the fic into the fic itself!
Chapter 128
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 3,129
Summary: Samuel decides that he needs to know more about his grandsons.
PRESENT
For a moment, Samuel just sat in his car looking through the windscreen at the newfangled bookstore he was parked at. Well, newfangled to him at least, for everyone else it was just as much the norm as the smaller bookstores that he'd used to frequent before his death.
Samuel wasn't sure if he should be disquieted by how easily he thought of that these days. His death. Despite the fact that he and the others were still no closer to discovering exactly how and why both Sam and himself had been resurrected, he had somehow become used to the fact that he had been dead for nearly four decades. It wasn't that he'd gotten over his death per se, or that of everyone he'd loved and cared for, but rather that he'd come to accept the fact that it had happened to him. His precious Deanna and Mary were another story altogether and he tried not to think about their fates too often as the pain of doing so was damn near crippling. Besides, he didn't really feel that he had anyone with whom he could share that pain with.
Much as Samuel loved Sam, it hadn't taken him long to realize that he couldn't speak with this particular grandson about his beloved daughter. Not only had Sam never actually known Mary and therefore had absolutely no memories of her except for those that he'd gotten from Dean, but the boy had watched her death tear his father apart and was loath to be anywhere near him whenever he'd mentioned Mary's name. It had taken him a while to realize exactly why and he couldn't help but wonder sometimes if his near obsessive need to find Dean wasn't at least partially caused by the knowledge that he knew for certain that his firstborn grandson did in fact remember his mother. He had to admit that the thought of speaking with someone else who remembered Mary and mourned her passing was damn near irresistible. It would make it easier in a way, to know that she hadn't simply vanished but had left some intangible footprints behind in addition to the two very tangible sons she'd had.
The biggest irony of the whole issue was that while Sam's reaction should have given him even more cause to dislike John Winchester than he'd ever had, Samuel couldn't help but find that exactly the opposite was true. Although his grandson had spoken of John with nothing but scorn most of the time, he'd found that hearing about how his sweet Mary's death had all but driven Winchester insane with bloodlust caused him to actually start liking the guy. At least there was someone who had clearly loved his little girl and been damned if he'd let her death go unpunished. Perhaps Mary hadn't made as bad of a choice as he'd always feared that she had. That had allowed him to start thinking about other things more clearly and he'd been forced to admit that John Winchester must have made a damned good hunter once he'd discovered the truth about the supernatural as he'd trained two- what was the current term? oh, right- kickass hunters. The sheer number of demons that his grandsons had dealt with, not to mention actually killed (something he'd always been told was impossible), was nothing short of staggering.
And to think that demons were once considered almost mythical, given how infrequently even hunters encountered them!
It was just one in a long list of things that had changed since his death. A very, very long list of things. Samuel snorted as he thought of the computers, internet, cellphones and shitload of other technological gadgets that he'd been introduced to since his resurrection. It was all mindboggling and more than once he'd wondered if he hadn't simply been transported straight into some science fiction movie. Strangers things had been known to happen, after all, so it wasn't entirely outside the realm of possibilities no matter how bizarre the mere notion sounded. It shouldn't have been any more insane than the thought of an honest to God resurrection and yet here he was, alive and physically well nearly forty years after some demon had shoved a blade into his gut and killed him right in front of Mary's time traveling firstborn.
The memory of his death still had the power to make Samuel shudder. Whoever had said that you'd not remember your death afterwards was so horribly wrong that it wasn't even funny. If anything he could remember those last few moments with stunning and unbelievable clarity and he knew that he'd never be able to forget any of it no matter how long he managed to live this time around. Not the slick, dirty feel of the demon inside of him; nor the sweet, agonizing slide of cold steel into his body; nor the furious and helpless look on Dean's face. Dean who in so many ways looked so much like his mother that it was almost painful. In retrospect he just couldn't understand how it was that he hadn't recognized the boy as family the instant that he'd first laid eyes on him. It was all there, plain as day for anyone to see. For all that he'd known about the supernatural and what lurked out there in the shadows and the dark, he'd still been almost painfully naive in so many ways.
That was another reason why Samuel felt it so critically important for them to have Dean with them now. He'd been caught off-guard once before by his lack of knowledge as to the full extent of just what was out there and it had led to his death. He didn't want that to happen for a second time or to lead to anyone else's death either and he figured that the angels would know far better than any of them just what was what now that the normal rules seemed to have been thrown out of the window. They just couldn't afford not to know all of that, not when a lack of knowledge had already led to Mark's death.
If Samuel closed his eyes he could still remember the sound of Gwen's voice when she'd called to tell him what had happened. They'd been on a hunt- herself, Mark and Christian- when things had gone to hell in a hand basket. They'd been chasing something that had cut a bloody swath through the South, tearing it's victims apart and leaving bits and pieces of them all over the place. Unfortunately they'd put the evidence together wrong and hadn't been prepared for the creatures to be a three strong pack of werewolves, the lack of lunar pattern throwing them off. In fact the night that Mark had died there had been only the tiniest sliver of the new moon visible. His hands clenched around the wheel at the thought of just how much things had changed.
The fact that so many centuries of painstakingly collected and recorded lore were now slowly becoming useless was part of the reason why Samuel had not really ventured out to many bookstores yet. If all of the Campbell family journals were of little use, then what were the chances of him finding something helpful in newer source material? Even in the past it had always been a longshot, but one that he'd pursued from time to time when he the opportunity to do so, as it had panned out on occasion and he hadn't wanted to miss something just because he was being old and stubborn. Getting too set in one's ways was a sure death sentence for a hunter.
Which was exactly why Samuel was here now, he was trying to break out of his set ways and accept something new. Something unorthodox, even for him and for hunters in general. But hey, if it worked then who was he to question it? Normally that would have been enough for him to get over his hang-ups, get his ass in gear and get out of the car to do whatever needed to be done.
Normally.
Samuel sighed and rubbed a hand over his face before he looked at the bookstore once more. Barnes & Noble. It definitely looked big enough to carry that which he was looking for. Hell, it was by far the biggest bookstore that he'd ever laid eyes on and they didn't seem to mind customers sampling the merchandise given how many people he could see sitting about, reading books that they hadn't yet paid for. Nor did they seem to mind people eating and drinking around the books either, something most of the bookstore owners he'd known in his day would have unapologetically yelled at him for. So, newfangled but probably exactly what he needed at the moment. Yet, despite that, he still found himself sitting in the car instead of getting up and getting on with what he needed to do.
The fact of the matter was that as much as Samuel knew what he needed to do, he was also more than a little afraid of what he was going to learn. Just the memory of his meeting with Becky Rosen was enough to make him shudder once more. The way that woman had so shamelessly spoken about, no, not spoken about, idolized, Dean's relationship with the angel Castiel and all of the details that she'd revealed thereof were things that he'd much rather shove safely away into a dark corner of his mind to be completely forgotten about. It was a fear of learning even more about that particular relationship, details and facts that he was much better of never knowing about, that prevented him from acting now.
Yes, he wanted to know more about his grandson, both of them actually given everything that he'd learned about Sam as of late and how, selective, Mary's youngest had been about what he'd shared with them. It was why Samuel was here now and yet he was afraid at the same time. But surely the books couldn't be all that bad, right? They'd passed through the publishing process, after all, that had to have ensured that they weren't too explicit. Right?
Just a quick look towards a group of young girls and the scandalous clothing that they wore was enough to send Samuel's feeble hopes plummeting. Clearly what was acceptable and what was not had radically changed in just a few short decades and it left him in a near constant state of dread when it came to certain aspects of modern life and just what he might witness the next time he went out in public. All of which meant that he had absolutely no idea just what Chuck Shurley may or may not have been able to put into his books about Sam and Dean. And given what he'd heard both Sam and Bobby say about Dean's former propensity to find a girl wherever he went that worried him more than a little, even without the prospect of reading about angels doing things that he'd always been taught they'd never, ever, do.
"Samuel Campbell, you are not a coward," Samuel muttered to himself. "Now get out of this damn car and do what you need to do."
The trick worked, forcing him into action and Samuel locked the car before striding determinedly towards the bookstore entrance. After all, it wasn't like he'd be forced to read anything that he didn't want to. If the books were too explicit for a grandfather to take, then he'd just be able to skip those parts and dedicate his attention to the stuff that really mattered. Like anything pertaining to the man that his grandson was or how it was that Dean had come to be in the past the first time that they'd met. That he would also be looking for anything and everything relating to the Apocalypse went without saying.
The soft music playing when he entered the store distracted Samuel for a moment and he muttered again about newfangled places. What had been wrong with the bookstores that he remembered? Then he realized just how large the store actually was and he was left floundering for a moment. He was sure that he'd be able to find what he wanted on his own given enough time, but he caught sight of the helpdesk with a sense of relief. After all, why make things any harder for himself than necessary? Besides, they had computers at that desk and he knew that they had to make things easier, or at least Sam definitely seemed to think so, no matter what they might be dealing with.
"Hello, how can I help you?" the girl was young, hardly more than a teenager unless he very much missed his guess.
"Hello, I'm looking to buy some books for my granddaughter," Samuel said, using the story he'd already made up to explain away his interest in what he assumed would be very much not his usual type of book. "She's recently found a series that she actually likes and I'd like to encourage her to continue reading."
"Of course, what's the series called?"
"Uh, I don't actually know, she hasn't mentioned a series name."
"I see. Well, do you know anything about it? The author perhaps?"
"No," Samuel replied, knowing Sam had said something about a pseudonym but he hadn't dared ask least his grandson got suspicious. "She said they were quite popular, though. It's a fantasy series about two brothers fighting all kinds of supernatural creatures or something like that. She also mentioned angels."
"Oh, of course, Supernatural."
"Yes, I said it was about the supernatural."
"No, you misunderstand me. The books are called Supernatural, it's the name of the series."
"Ah, I see."
"That's probably why you didn't realize that you knew the name of the series. Now, unfortunately we don't have any more copies of the last set of books in the series. We're all sold out, I'm afraid, and are still waiting for the next delivery to get here."
"Really?"
"Yes, I'm sorry. The guy in charge of ordering books in didn't realize how popular they'd be and therefore didn't get us enough copies," she smiled apologetically. "Why he was so wrong I don't know as he should have known that anything pertaining to angels and demons was bound to do well, especially when you start mixing in prophecies and the Apocalypse as well."
"Indeed, it's a pity that you don't have the latest ones, but you've got the others, right, the earlier ones?"
"Yes," she tapped something into her computer. "Yep, here it is, Supernatural by Carver Edlund. Now let's see, ah here we are. It looks like we've got books one through to a hundred and four."
"A hundred and four?"
"Yep, that's Supernatural straight through to Swan Song."
"And you're missing some?"
"Numbers one hundred and five, Unexpected Destinies, through to one hundred and fifteen, The Rite of Contressa."
"Eleven books? You're that many short?"
The girl shrugged. "What can I say? We've been a little late getting on the bandwagon with this particular series. It has been published for ages but we've only just recently started stocking it after it started making a real splash. It was just considered a cult thing before but it's really taken off with the whole Apocalypse storyline and Edlund's been putting out books like mad ever since that point. My guess is that he kept on writing after his original publisher went under."
"I see," Samuel replied, opening his wallet to make sure that he had the card with him that he needed. "Well I'll take one copy of every book that you do have."
"Excuse me?"
"I'll have one of each of them."
"You want the whole series? All one hundred and four books?"
"Yes."
Samuel knew that he wasn't being at all subtle about this and normally he'd try to avoid drawing as much attention to himself as this was sure to do, but he just didn't have the patience required to go from store to store, buying just a few books at each place. For one it would take far too long and besides, this was his family they were talking about here.
"But... that'll be several hundred dollars!" the girl sputtered.
"I realize that, but what can I say? My granddaughter's never really read much before and I want to encourage this habit."
It was a poor excuse and Samuel knew it, but it was the best that he could come up with on the spot. When Sam and Bobby had said that Shurley had published some books on the boys, he'd never thought that they meant this many of them so he'd not thought that he needed a better cover story. Not that it would be a problem as they'd be out of town by tomorrow, heading back to their home base to regroup and give Mark the hunter's burial that he so rightly deserved. And it wasn't like money was an issue either as he had a number of accounts that had done nothing but sit around and earn interest for nearly forty years. Yes, Mary had cleared out a few of them (which he had no problems with as she'd been left with precious little) and some of the rest of the family had done the same with some of the other accounts, but there had been a few that none of them had known about and therefore he had more than enough money to not have to worry about it for the rest of his life.
"I- I'm going to have to call my manager over to approve this transaction," the girl stated.
"That's okay, but could you please get someone to start packing the books? I'd like to get going as soon as possible."
"Yeah, sure."
It was odd, while on a hunt Samuel was a picture of patience and could outwait practically any creature that he'd ever come across. Now, though, he felt like a kid in a candy store, hardly able to contain his rising excitement at being this close to his goal. Between Sam's reluctance to talk about his brother and everything that had been going on lately, he still knew precious little about Dean and he was anxious to learn more about Mary's firstborn. To be this close to that particular goal, well it was hard to have to wait any longer.
It was a good thing that he didn't need to sleep all that much anymore as Samuel knew that he'd not be getting much in the near future. Not with a hundred and four books to read.
A.N.: I think I got far more pleasure than I should have, working the title of the fic into the fic itself!
Chapter 128