Title: Killing the Fandom

Chapter: Eight

~~~~~~~~~~

The afternoon wasn’t nearly over and Gwen was getting bored of the whole fandom thing, though she still found it hilarious. She and Jo had decided to go off on their own for awhile after the Women of Supernatural discussion, but as far as she knew, Jo had gone back to the room and hadn’t left. The last time she’d checked in, Sam had finished up extra research on the beheadings and was getting ready to leave the hotel to do some legwork. Dean was in the room. She didn’t speculate on what he was doing because it’d be one of two things: having a real panic attack or pretending to have one for Jo’s benefit.

She did some shopping in a boutique, found a shirt for Sam to replace one that had ripped, and picked up several items for the baby, then returned to the hotel, peering in first the restaurant, then the bar, to see if Jo was back downstairs yet.

Teddy was in the bar, holding a drink and grinning in a delighted way at the group of people present, over half of whom were dressed like Sam and Dean -- or Bobby, Jo, Ellen, or others. Getting Sam and Dean to identify the costumes had been like pulling teeth with pliers that didn’t grip right. She still wasn’t sure who was who outside of those she already knew.

Gwen approached Teddy and slid onto the barstool beside him. “Afternoon, Teddy. Working?” It was an attempt to make him think she knew he was pulling the strings here if it was really him doing this.

Turning his head, he gave her a long once over and saluted her with his drink. “Gwen. Darling. You really are pushing out that hunter dick’s kid.”

“Not presently, but in a few weeks, yeah.”

“Guess I should congratulate you, since I neglected to the last time I saw you.”

“Sure. But don’t feel bad. It was a little hectic then, what with trying to keep from dying and all.”

“That it was.” He half turned, resting an elbow on the bar. “I assume you’ve seen my little troublemaker since you found me here?”

“I have. Sophie looks good…considering.”

“Considering? Hey, I treat her right. She tell you we took down a small vamp nest a couple weeks ago?”

“No. You did it together?” She hadn’t expected that. A monster taking out monsters? Then again, Teddy wasn’t the usual brand of monster. “Was the nest particularly arrogant and in need of a lesson?”

“Of course they were and of course we did it together. Decapitated four of the things. You think I’d let her get hurt? She’s going to be the mother of my next kid.”

Four vampires decapitated. Like the job she’d handed Sam earlier. Well, at least looking into it got him out of the hotel for awhile. “So you really are trying.”

“That she tells you.” He rolled his eyes. “Chicks.” He flagged the bartender. “Virgin daiquiri for the lady.” Teddy glanced back at her. “Unless you’d accept a drink I make?”

“I’ll take the real one, thanks.”

“Mine are real.”

“I’ll bet. No telling what’s in them, either.”

Once she had her liquor-free drink, he smirked and gestured at the crowd. “I was following this fat misogynistic asshole and he led me here. It’s like an early Christmas present. Then I find all of you here, too? You show me the best time, Gwen.”

“This isn’t your doing?” She watched him carefully, but he was too admiring of the room for it to be his work, awed even.

“Nope.” He whistled. “Whoever thought this up is pure genius of a level I’ll never reach. Have you seen the book table yet? And the books? Tall Tales, Gwen. Check it out. I highly recommend it. Features me.” Pulling it from his back pocket, he set it down on the bar.

“You you or Gabriel you?”

“Yup.” He didn’t answer the question, sipping his drink instead. She didn’t think Sam and Dean would ever know for sure just when they’d met Teddy himself. “Take it. I can get another copy. I plan to read the entire saga.”

“Maybe I will.”

“This is an absurdist’s paradise.”

“Don’t have to tell me that.” She’d already noted that herself.

“Sam and Dean against Sam and Dean against Sam and Dean.”

“And Jo, Ellen, Bobby, Ash, Bela, assorted monsters….”

He waved a hand. “I know! Tell me. How are the dickweed duo taking it?”

“As can be expected, but you know that, don’t you? I saw you at the luncheon. You were watching them both.”

His laugh was near a cackle. “I couldn’t resist pushing Dean’s buttons a little.”

“Not nice, Teddy.”

“Big deal. Dean-o can handle a little staring. And Jo? How’s she doing with all this?”

“Fairly mellow since she started drinking with lunch. Girls have been asking for her autograph because she never breaks character. Jo is always Jo.”

“Imagine that. A woman being herself.”

Gwen set the drink aside untouched. “You’re really not doing this? You didn’t create a reality and shove us all in it? The truth, Teddy.” Strangely enough, she thought he really would tell her the truth.

“The truth is I wish I was doing this. The technique, the timing. All the pieces. It’s got to be Him.”

“Him?”

“God. Him. The Big Guy. Stepping back in place. He’s the Master, Gwen, and I can only admire Him, never be Him. I can never attain perfection of situation.”

“Chuck said it was Him, too. Dean and Sam thought you might be involved.”

“Well, it’s a reasonable assumption. I did mention alternate realities and threaten to shove them in one and I do live here, but…no. I’m just an observer this time.” He was sad about that, his gaze a tad mournful.

“If that’s true --”

He pressed a hand to his chest with a wounded frown. “Gwen. I’m being entirely truthful here. Besides, Sophie’d have my balls if I messed with all of you again. Chick’s kind of nuts, you know.”

“And yet, you’re apparently with her,” she pointed out.

“Yeah. There’s nuts and there’s nuts and her kind of nuts is sort of my kind of nuts. What can I say? I live for danger.”

“Sophie is certainly dangerous.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice. Mmm. I love that edge.” He clinked his glass to hers. “To Sophie.”

Gwen pretended to take a sip. “Enjoy your edge, Teddy. Just, if you’re telling the truth, you might not want Sam and Dean to see you. They’ll kill first and ask questions later.”

Finishing his drink, he set the glass on the bar. “Good point. I should put on camouflage.”

She pointed a stern finger at him. “Do not turn into Sam.”

Teddy sighed. “You’re no fun.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m with Sam and not you, isn’t it?”

He eyed her and frowned. “True. Congrats and all on the rugrat.” Teddy sauntered away and was lost in the crowd.

Gwen motioned to the bartender. “Hi. Could I get another one of these in strawberry? Virgin. Thanks.” After a moment, she picked up the book and put it in her bag of purchases.

Jo appeared in the doorway. Behind her were Marissa and three other girls. Even from where Gwen sat, she could see that Jo was still snockered. The snacks she’d eaten during the discussion hadn’t soaked up much of the alcohol in her system. Jo maneuvered her way over to Gwen and announced, “Dean won’t leave the room now. He had a full on panic attack. Sam had to keep him from carrying me bodily out to the car.”

The words were in surround sound, though a few seconds late, as three of the girls repeated them, obviously trying to copy Jo’s manner and inflections. Jo didn’t rebuke them, probably because it’d do no good. Or maybe she didn’t even notice them anymore, taking Becky’s approach to the things she didn’t like and ignoring them.

“When I left, he was on the floor in the bathroom with all the water running threatening to get the guns from the Impala and go postal on the convention.”

“Where’s Sam?”

“Trying to talk him back down again.”

Had he even made it out of the hotel? Since he hadn’t texted her to get up there and help with Dean, Gwen concluded it was only a fake attack.

One girl raised a tentative hand. “Um…Jo?”

She half turned her head in that direction and managed to both smile and grit her teeth. “What?”

“Where in the books does it say Dean has panic attacks?”

“You think running to make a deal with a demon over his brother dying wasn’t a panic attack?”

“It totally was,” Marissa hurried to agree, nudging the other girl hard in the ribs with an elbow. “See Nicki. I told you. They’re like so in character that he even does the panic thing.”

Three of the girls sighed. The fourth, the one David Angle had talked to at karaoke, rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in a manner that was more Jo than anything else. Out of the four, Gwen thought she might make the most convincing Jo despite looking the least like her.

The one on the blue version of Jo’s pink blouse shook her head. “Wow. I wish I had that sort of focus.”

“Well you don’t so…shoo.” Jo made a shoo-ing motion at them. “Mama Jo needs a drink in peace.”

Marissa held out a hand, but had apparently learned not to touch Jo (likely through many hand slaps), for she stopped just shy of touching her arm. “You’re still coming to the discussion on Dean’s ladies, right? You have to. Ann-Marie needs to be put in her place because Bela is so not Dean’s soul mate like she thinks. Don’t forget. It starts soon.”

“I can’t wait.” Her tone indicated otherwise. Hoisting herself onto the barstool Teddy had vacated, she watched the girls walk off. “I am in hell,” she said with a cheery grin. “Fandom hell.”

“Girls still won’t leave you alone?”

“Apparently, I am their role model. Me. I’m a role model, Gwen, and not just me, me, but me here right now.”

“God save us all. What’s wrong with you being a role model? I’d think most of those girls could use some backbone.”

“Marissa took up knife-throwing, though she has no aim and has gone through six teachers in as many months. Nicki learned to shoot, but her aim is as bad as Marissa’s. Hayley bought an Impala that hasn’t seen the outside of a mechanic’s garage in over a year and Rose…. Rose is actually the normal one. I sort of like Rose.”

“Which one is Rose?”

“The only one here because she personally knows David Angle. She’s the one he went to talk to last night and keeps trying to get them to do something besides follow me around. She’s got this massive crush on Dave. I guess he’s a regular at the coffee shop she works at and she only got into the fandom so she could keep talking to him. Doesn’t quite have the courage to ask him out though, something about him being an actor and she thinks he’s out of her league. I don’t know.”

“That sounds normal.”

“It is, but they’re all so fricken’ naïve.”

“So were we all once.” Many, many long years ago.

“Yeah. I need more alcohol. I’m starting to sober up.” Once she had a beer in hand, she adjusted her position on the stool. “Did I see Teddy earlier?”

“He stopped by,” Gwen admitted. “He’s getting a kick out of this, but it’s not his doing.”

“Too bad. If it was, he could make it all go away.”

Gwen peered at her. Jo was looking tired. “Are you being swayed to Dean and Sam’s view on this?”

Jo thought about the question. “I’ve tried to be cheerful and keep calm, but do you have any idea how annoying this is? I’ve heard the conversations Dean and I had in Philadelphia something like fifty times now and one argument I had with my mother close to thirty times. Then there are the conversations that sound just like Dean and Sam, so they must be in those books somewhere. One guy pretending to be Dean tried to say hi to me and had an asthma attack. Another started stammering. I think it was the first time he’d ever talked to a girl.”

“Aww…that’s kind of cute.” Gwen could see it, too. A nervous guy, sort of nerdy, wanting desperately to be just like Dean, approaching Jo just to say hello and not being able to get it out. The male fans were a mixed bag: either nerdy and pretending to be what they weren’t or average guys who could pass for Dean or Sam in some way in everyday life.

“If I’m not getting asked for my autograph for being a stellar LARPer, I’m getting costuming, hair, and technique questions. Oh, and I’m also getting questions on my ‘real’ self.” She did air quotes on the one word. “Between Teddy last time and this convention this time, Las Vegas is totally ruined for me.” She took a long drink. “Someone should assassinate Fate because of this and it might just be me. You’re lucky, Gwen. You’re not even in it yet.”

“Not in it? In it? Do you hear yourself? Jo, I’m married to Sam and we’re having a baby. I’d say that means I’m in it.”

“I mean the books.”

“I’m….” She sighed. She was in the books. Those books simply weren’t published yet. It was like hearing Becky again. Gwen took the bottle from her and set it down on the bar before standing and tugging lightly on Jo’s arm. “Come on.”

“What? Where are we going?”

“We’re leaving the hotel. I think we can take awhile and go outside.” She texted Sam, told him she and Jo were going for a walk, and guided Jo outside of the hotel. A little exercise, not to mention a break from anything resembling the convention, would do her good. “You realize that doing shots every time you think you hear Marissa’s voice is exactly what Dean was hoping for.”

“I haven’t been doing shots.”

“No, but you’ve pretty much had a drink in your hand since lunchtime. Use your brain here. What’s he think of this drinking you’re doing? He knows it’s not normal and he knows Marissa is getting to you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he put her up to it, or encouraged her somehow.” Probably part of the plan Sam had told her about.

Jo paused in the middle of the sidewalk, her eyes widening and lips parting. “Damn. You’re right. He’d totally encourage her if he thought it’d bring me to his side on this.”

“I think you should sober up, ignore her, and,” she couldn’t help the mischievous turn to her lips, “pay attention to what’s going on around you.”

“She’s annoying, Gwen. I really want to shoot her or something.”

“Come on, Jo. This is funny. It is.”

They started walking again, Jo putting her hands in her pockets. “I thought it was, too…until I started noticing the conversations and the group began following me around repeating everything I say.”

“Think about it this way if it helps. You’re so awesome all the way around, that they want to be you. It’s flattering.”

Jo slid a sidelong glance her way. “Are you flattered by Becky? Because…she wants to be you. To have Sam, I mean. You said it yourself. She’s got a massive crush on him and has for years apparently.”

“I’m reserving judgment on Becky. Haven’t even seen her again since last night.” Which was sort of strange. She should be visible today of all days. “You don’t think something happened to her, do you?”

“If Sam found her maybe….”

“Sam wouldn’t kill her. Threaten her, yeah. Kill her, no.”

Jo glanced at her watch. “I need to get back. Dean’s Ladies starts in fifteen minutes and I need to get a good seat. Want to come with?”

“I need to drop this,” she held up the bag, “at the room, but sure. Sounds like it could be interesting.”

Jo went to get seats while Gwen went to the room.

~~~~~~~~~~

It would be nice if he could get past the lobby before Dean called wanting him to come back for one reason or another. At this rate, Sam wasn’t going to get any investigating done at all. This time Dean wanted him for a performance. He had to pretend he really thought Dean was having a panic attack and keep him from carrying Jo to the car. It worked. Barely.

“I can’t believe she bought that.” Getting up off the floor, Dean turned off the water.

Neither could Sam. “She’s a little tipsy, Dean.” Actually, she was beyond tipsy and it was the only reason Jo hadn’t called him out. He was lucky.

“She’s a lot tipsy, but that was one of my worst acting attempts. I may have even overdone it on the head grabbing and sobbing.”

“May have?” Sam crossed his arms.

“I’ve got it all figured out. The wives have panels, lectures, and things all afternoon and evening. We hunker down here, get room service, and wait. Dave and his bodyguard are coming up in a bit. We could play poker or something. Watch a movie. I don’t know.”

“Wait. You invited the actor playing you to come here to the suite?” Why in God’s name would he do that? And why would David Angle even come -- especially after Dean’s performance at his panel that morning?

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“I sort of felt sorry for him. He’s trying to get laid with this barista chick he knows and Marissa keeps interrupting.”

“She is somewhat annoying….” Dean’s lips stretched in a satisfied grin, clueing Sam in that he’d done something about that. “You’re the one sicced Marissa on Jo.”

“To be fair, Marissa was already crushing on her from the slot machines, but I may have implied that Jo is enjoying Marissa’s company and the opportunity to impart the genius of her playacting wisdom.”

“When did you do that?”

“After you went to bed last night, I came down to get a beer and ran into her in the hall. We chatted, I charmed her.”

A slow smile tugged at Sam’s lips. “Dude, you are so not getting laid when Jo finds out you did that. Marissa is the cause of her current state of inebriation. She will find out.”

“I’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

“Might want to have a plan in place.”

“I’ll wing it.”

“How often has ‘winging it’ ever really worked out for you with Jo?”

“What are you talking about? It works out all the time.”

Sam waited while Dean considered the truthfulness of that statement. Slowly, he saw comprehension slide across Dean’s face as memories of times it hadn’t worked out came back to him.

He shook a finger at Sam. “We should have a plan in place.”

“What’s this we you’re talking about?”

“You know Gwen won’t be all thrilled with you going along with this.”

“She’s enjoying herself.”

“For now. Until the crazy gets on her. Poor woman can’t even drink to dull the experience.”

“Are you nuts?”

“Totally depends on who you’re asking.”

He went to the table to pick up the files again. Maybe he should run out of the hotel? “She already knows, anyway. I told her earlier.”

There was silence for several long seconds. “I knew it. You tell her everything, Sam. Next you’ll be telling Jo my plan.”

“I do not and I won’t tell Jo no matter how dumb I think this is. Gwen already thought you were up to something before I said anything. I told you, our wives aren’t dumb, Dean. If Jo wasn’t half on her ass right now, she would’ve figured it out.” He checked to make sure he had his room keycard. “Have fun. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Where are you going?”

“I want to check something out.”

“We’re on vacation.”

“This is not a vacation, Dean. This is you making a point to Jo and her trying to make one back and Gwen having a blast by herself, like she’s some kind of sociologist studying the natives. It’s not a vacation. In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t take vacations. We try and try and never quite get one, so I’m working a case. Feel free to forget your stupid plan and join me.”

“I can’t leave now. Got guests coming.”

Sam shook his head. “I’ll be back.”

This time, he got out of the hotel without a call or text from Dean.