Title: That Thing Called Fan Fiction
Summary: AU Takes place after ‘The Monster at the End of this Book’. Ch. 3: Dean continues to write and suspect Sam of the same. Jo discovers the world of ‘Supernatural’ fandom and jumps right in.
Chapter Title: Real is only a Word, Sweetie
Chapter 3
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: Supernatural was created by Eric Kripke. No disrespect is intended.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dean sat staring at Sam’s computer wallpaper, wishing he was better at this whole computer stuff. The internet he had a handle on. That was just point and click, and he knew how to cover his obvious tracks by now, like deleting the history and cookies. Out of fear for his laptop, Sam had once given him a long lecture on computer care like he was a three year old or something.
As for sniffing out Sam’s tracks? Not gonna happen. Sam practically breathed this stuff.
He’d been hoping for a confirmation to his suspicions with a nice, personal remark to his pm pokings, but SamIAm5283 remained just shy of absolute childishness. Sure, he’d made a few retorts, but for the most part he was boringly adult. He hadn’t even responded to the ‘bitch’ message with ‘jerk’.
Not that it’d mean anything if he did. He’d seen that exchange on the forums several times during his lurking and trolling. The only thing he had to go on were those little extra details most people would consider extraneous and made-up, while they were so close to reality it was like a neon sign.
Sam was writing. He knew it. How could he catch him at it, though? Sam had to be doing the same thing he was: writing furiously while he was alone.
Speaking of writing….
He signed in to his account and opened up his latest work. He was getting bored with the characters and thought he might spice it up with a few angels. Okay, just one angel. He thought Ellen would like Castiel….
Maybe adding angels would offend the fans.
He wrote, keeping an ear out for Sam returning and pushing through his writer’s block by skipping forward to the next scene. Who cared if the scene was left unfinished? His readers didn’t seem to notice. Most of them, anyway. By the time he was done, he had something he thought was so completely offensive that he’d finally get all bad reviews. Dean stretched and suddenly noticed the angel standing slightly behind him reading the screen.
“Castiel. Hey. How long have you been --”
“No.” Castiel took a step to the table, his un-amused glance turning from the computer screen to Dean.
“I’m just --”
“No.”
“You see --”
“No.”
“I was --”
“To be perfectly clear, Dean: no.”
“Come on, it’s just --”
“What am I, Dean?”
“An angel, but --”
“A holy angel of the Lord. Holy, not a…gigolo. I do know what that word means and it’s not a synonym of holy.”
Dean stared at him a beat. That no-nonsense, cool gaze was stern, with a tiny swirling of annoyance. “You’re going to make me delete this, aren’t you?”
One dark brow twitched upwards. “Don’t make me force you.”
“Try it.” He snorted.
Castiel stretched his hand out towards him.
“Okay, fine.” With a put-upon sigh, he highlighted the text. “I was only trying for a new plot direction that hasn’t been done before.”
“I suggest you look elsewhere for inspiration.”
Dean deleted it and with the sound of wings, Castiel was gone. He sulked for about a minute before his imagination latched on to a different idea that had him grinning. If this idea didn’t garner only bad reviews, nothing would.
“Title. The Night the Lights Went Out With Jo.” He began to write, the angel idea forgotten completely in his enthusiasm for this new idea.
~~~~~~~~~~
Jo Harvelle would never admit to reading the kind of fiction she liked to read. Not to her mother and her friends and acquaintances. To admit to liking both schlocky horror and gushy romance was the kiss of death. Jo liked it when both were put together and if push came to shove she might even admit that that combination had somewhat fueled her romantic view of the hunting life.
As soon as she was old enough to have a library card, she’d hidden books from her mom. When Ellen read for pleasure -- which wasn’t often, she tended towards the classic whodunit mysteries, forensics textbooks, and cookbooks. Not that Ellen cooked much fancy food. She just liked to read the recipes. Jo remembered watching her mom with a cookbook in hand, reading about fancy French dishes as she fried up hamburgers in their kitchen.
But Jo’s choice of fiction? Not acceptable. Jo loved the tough and tender heroes, especially when they were paired with tough heroines who kicked ass and took names. She’d even read chick lit if the blurb on the back was interesting.
She entered the All About Books used book store, taking in the ambience of the place before walking the aisles. It was a neatly laid out store, with the sections labeled by laminated signs. The store was long and narrow, two levels it turned out, which was heaven for Jo. She liked to browse, buy a few books, then read them and dump them in the nearest Goodwill bin. It wasn’t practical to keep books with her as she traveled and she rarely bought brand new.
She started with the horror section, glancing through the titles to see if any struck her interest. There, in the ‘S’ section. ‘Supernatural’. It looked to be a series, too. She put a finger on the top of the spine, hesitating before pulling it out. Series books were harder because once she was hooked, it was hard to grab all the books in order. Jo tugged the book out, brows raising at the cover. Sure looked like her kind of book. Shirtless Fabio dude. Always a plus to have a cover like that. She read the back cover, flipped it open to read the first page.
Sam and Dean. Coincidence? She continued to read.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She pulled out the book on the end, read the description and first chapter.
‘Ellen and Jo were angry, screaming at each other. Dean and Sam’s entry into the Roadhouse went unnoticed by both women for long seconds.’
“Shit! What the hell?” The dialogue was word for word what she remembered of that argument she and Ellen had gotten into before the Philadelphia hunt.
Ten minutes later, Jo had grabbed all the Carver Edlund books on the shelves and was inquiring where she could find more. The only thing the guy could tell her was to try other used bookstores in the area. Or the comic book place down the road. Jo was on a hunt. One of a different sort than she’d been doing, but a hunt nonetheless.
She spent as much time as she could tracking down books and information, only to discover that some titles just weren’t available anymore unless she lucked out in a bargain bin somewhere or at a used bookstore or garage sale. No matter. She managed to find the ones that had ‘Jo Harvelle’ in them.
Any resemblance between fictional characters and real people is entirely coincidental -- her ass!
The writer had to be psychic. Or another hunter, but that didn’t explain how those conversations were known, or how she’d felt at each point. Psychic seemed a good bet. Jo haunted the forums, of which she’d found several small ones, lurking and reading, hoping to find some clue as to how it had happened.
What she did discover was something far different. There was a cult following to the books with a high rate of female fans that separated themselves into groups. Though Jo could easily fall into the ‘Dean girl’ label, she had affection for Sam as well.
“This is bizarre.” Jo kept repeating that to herself as she slid further and further into the close-knit fandom.
She found a discussion on herself that made her so mad she created an account (JBethH) and jumped into the discussion. That seemed to happen on all the forums she checked and soon ‘JBethH’ was the reigning, undisputed authority on Jo Harvelle -- aside from the author, of course. She wasn’t about to let anyone bad mouth her without a fight, even if they did think they were talking about a fictional character. After all, Jo had feelings and they didn’t even know her, so how could they talk about her like that?
Something in that reasoning was skewed and she knew it. However, Jo didn’t care.
And then she discovered the fan fiction.
It became a guilty pleasure to read the sort of adventures the fans came up with for Dean and Sam. Sometimes she even ran into stories about her and her mom. Most were even complimentary towards them, though there were those who seemed to despise them for no good reason. Wrapped inside the fandom, she discovered two groups. Sam/Jo ‘shippers and Dean/Jo ‘shippers. Okay, there were ‘shippers for just about every character with the boys and even one for the boys together. Eeew, she decided, but hey, it took all kinds of people, right? To each his own ‘ship. Some of those Wincest writers were pretty cool people she discovered. While she didn’t read it, she liked to hang out on the forum every so often and chat.
Many of the stories were outright porn and there was a place for that. PWP. The ones written by TheRealDean were horrible porn. Oh, they were correct in description, they were just a mish-mash of cliché male fantasies.
Occasionally there were some gems. Like the stories by that SamIam guy. He had a gift for writing and seemed to really understand things.
The weird thing about both though, were some of the details. TheRealDean and SamIam used details that weren’t in those books, yet were true to life, like her preference in body wash, perfume, food…. Her bra size. TheRealDean had her bra size down rather accurately, along with her taste in music. Although…. She supposed her taste in music could have been extrapolated from what had been in the one book, as could her food likes. And maybe SamIAm had been making good guesses based on the character in the book. He was good at characterization.
As she’d interacted with them both, she’d had the nagging thought that they were really Sam and Dean, which was absolutely ridiculous. They couldn’t be. She was being silly. Why would the two of them write this stuff? Why would they even know about it? She hardly thought either of them would be interested in reading those books to begin with. Why would they want to read about themselves? She’d dismissed the idea as stupid several times already.
Thinking about them made her somewhat nostalgic for the days of them coming by the Roadhouse. Maybe she’d track them down just to see how they were. Bobby probably had some idea what state they were in. It’d be good to see them again, catch up.
Jo signed in to her email and found a new story alert for both TheRealDean and SamIam. She clicked the SamIam alert first, as his writing was far more palatable after dinner anyway.
~~~~~~~~~~
Title: In Dark Before Dawn
Author: SamIam
Summary: With Dean in hell, Sam is on a downward spiral of self-destructive behavior when Jo arrives on a hunt. Will her determination save him from the clutches of a demonic plot that was begun before he was even born? Sam/Jo
Rating: M
After reading, Jo sat back.
Demon blood, huh? Risky move.
She knew the story of Sam as a baby and the yellow-eyed demon with the blood, but this? Almost like a continuation of that idea. Gross and totally disgusting, very vampiric, yet the connection made sense from a storytelling view. Demon blood as a baby to prepare him for demon blood at a later date and a breakdown of self.
SamIAm5283 had connected it well in a way that made perfect sense, using the whole idea of a sinister, unknown demonic plan for Sam and Sam’s own despair and grief over Dean’s death to pull it together.
Gross or not, it had a tragic, real-life, gritty sense to it, leaving her feeling saddened at the sheer heartbreak of a life manipulated by outside forces. The sense of helplessness wrapped within the words was so great that she couldn’t help but sympathize with the Sam portrayed. Poor guy needed a hug and someone to hold him and tell him everything would be okay even if it wouldn’t be.
She left a review in a private message. She didn’t want to unintentionally spoil the plot for anyone.
~~~~~~~~~~
Private message to SamIam5283 --
-- “I’m aware you must be pretty tired of hearing me repeat how wonderful your stories are, but really it’s all I can say! I loved the part where Jo and Ruby got into a fight and Jo actually won the fight. Nice introduction of that whole demon blood thing. What a creative idea! Knowing just how desperate and out of control Sam was made him sympathetic IMO when in a less skilled writer it would have been a real turn-off. I loved that Jo was a strong woman who could forgive Sam for when the Meg demon used him to attack her and could see past the demon blood to what needed to be done. Their discussion on the subject of the Meg demon was beautifully done. I adored how you had them decide to stick together. Most of all, I love that you’re a prolific writer who finishes everything before posting! You’re made of awesome, dude!
One thing I’m curious about though. How did you decide what sort of music Jo would listen to? And her favorite food. Where do you come up with all of that?
JBethH”Private message to JBethH --
“I’m always pleased to find one of your reviews waiting in my inbox. Thank you for the compliments. The demon blood was a risk, I admit. It was difficult to convey what would have been going on in Sam’s head in a way that would make his actions understandable and, as you wrote, sympathetic even. I had quite a few rewrites on that. As for Jo, she seems strong to me beneath it all. Maybe a little naïve sometimes, but strong nonetheless.
Music? Well, I made a guess based on the facts known from the books. Same with the food. I just picked something.
SamIam5283”Private message to SamIam5283 --
“Guesses? Really? It’s just you were so specific I thought for a second maybe you were Carver Edlund IRL having a bit of fun.
JBethH”Private message to JBethH --
“I assure you I’m not Carver Edlund. I don’t think I’d want to be him. Even though he wrote quite a few books, there wasn’t a wide circulation.
SamIam5283”Private message to SamIam5283 --
“No kidding. I found the ones I’ve read in used bookstores and I had to search for them everywhere I went. Hey, do you have IM? We could chat instead of PM back and forth.
JBethH”~~~~~~~~~~
A few minutes later, Jo was signed in to her IM program and was chatting with SamIam. He seemed like a really nice guy and they had a lot in common. In fact, their conversation closely resembled the one she’d had with Sam in Philadelphia after Dean had crashed for the night. The one exchange Carver Edlund hadn’t written in that stupid book. She turned her attention back to the chat box.
jbethh -- What? Oh, my job? Freelance stuff. Occasionally I bartend.
Occasionally wasn’t the word for it. With her experience, it was easy to get bartending positions wherever she was.
samiam -- Like the character.
samiam -- Jo, I mean. Bartend.
jbethh -- Right. Like Jo. Exactly like Jo.
jbethh -- You could say I’m a lot like Jo. Freakishly like her.
As in I really am her, she thought.
samiam -- Oh yeah? I’m quite a bit like Sam.
Jo smiled and took a long drink from her beer. Oh really, writer boy? You wish. She imagined the writer to be completely unlike Sam in reality, a guy desperately wishing he was Sam. Several long minutes later….
jbethh -- So what’s your family like?
samiam -- Dysfunctional.
jbethh -- Whose isn’t? My mom can flake out about the weirdest things.
And had. Jo recalled one time where Ellen had given her hell for letting Jaysen Jasper give her a ride home from school in his van. Maybe it hadn’t helped that she’d been two hours late coming home that day….
samiam -- You close to your mom?
jbethh -- I guess. We’re ready to kill each other most days, but I don’t know what I’d do if she wasn’t around. My dad isn’t in the picture and I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so really it’s just the two of us.
Which neatly summed up their relationship. Jo loved Ellen something fierce. The thought of her not being around at all made her want to cry.
samiam -- I know what you mean. Half the time anymore I want to strangle my brother. He was doing this thing the other day that had me grinding my teeth trying not to hit him.
The longer they chatted, the more she had the weird feeling she’d actually met him. The way he put things….
jbethh -- You seem really familiar. Have we met IRL?
samiam -- It’s possible, I guess. I’ll admit you seem familiar too, like we’ve talked before.
jbethh -- Well, what’s your real first name?
She half expected something bizarre, like Aloysius.
samiam -- It really is Sam, hence my username.
jbethh -- Cool. You got a last name, Sam?
samiam -- Why, you gonna Google me?
jbethh -- Maybe.
Smiling again, Jo waited. She could imagine him sitting there hoping that if he gave it to her that she’d find him and call him. Several minutes went by and just when she thought he wasn’t going to answer her, a new message popped up.
samiam -- It’s Winchester, like the gun. And you don’t need to Google me. All you have to do is ask what you want to know.
Winchester? Jo swallowed hard, her smile fading, the fun suddenly taken out of her hobby. What were the odds of another Sam Winchester writing stories about Sam Winchester when the last name wasn’t in the books that she’d found? It wasn’t like some dweeb could pick that name from canon.
Wait a minute.
She blinked several times.
Sam. Sam? Sam! Why was Sam writing this stuff? Specifically the stories he was writing? Jo’s cheeks burned as she recalled the explicit sections of his stories. Did he…. He couldn’t. Surely he didn’t fantasize…about her?
The fiction told her otherwise. Jo felt an embarrassed flush spread across her chest, neck and face in a hot rush. Her little silly suspicion wasn’t quite so silly now.
“Oh, crap,” she whispered.
samiam -- You still there?
jbethh -- I’m here.
jbethh -- Hey, Sam, I hate to cut this short, but I’ve gotta run.
samiam -- K.
Jo signed out and sat shaking for a few long minutes. Okay, that ‘ship was sunk. Discovering Sam writing those stories made reading them feel wrong, like she was glimpsing private thoughts. It didn’t matter that he was putting them out where anyone could read them. What mattered was that she felt like a voyeur now.
Crap, crap, crap. How was she going to face him when she saw him again knowing what she knew? Maybe she wouldn’t ask Bobby if he knew where they were.
With a sigh, she went back in to her email and clicked the link to TheRealDean’s latest work.
Title: The Night the Lights Went Out With Jo
Summary: Fun in the dark.
Rating: M explicit sex
The story had her seeing red. She didn’t bother with the review function, sending instead a private message. What she had to say didn’t really need to be up for everyone to see it.
~~~~~~~~~~
Private message to TheRealDean --
“Okay, I’ve been fairly tolerant so far with your characterizations of Jo, but this one completely offends me to such a degree that I want to find you and castrate you with my knife. Then I want to use pliers and remove all of your nails. What will happen after that, I’ll leave up to your obviously overworked imagination which will undoubtedly create some sort of porn torture plot where Jo becomes a dominatrix and makes Dean her slave. Or the other way around, which would really be offensive. And sexist. Not that that seems to bother you any.
Jo is not a tattooed, pierced nymphomaniac stripper with a knife fetish who likes a group to watch as she gets off. Nor is she the sort to put up with creepy jerks like you’ve written Dean to be. Maybe he could get in her pants if he wanted. Maybe he could even get her to do some of the things you’ve written about, but, as a woman, I gotta say he’d have to be damn amazing in bed for the trade off.
I won’t be reading any more of your stories. Frankly, I agree with sam4ever’s usual reviews about stupidity and clichés.
JBethH”Private message to JBethH --
“Goodbye kiss?
TheRealDean”Private message to TheRealDean --
“You wish, jerk-off. You’d be lucky to get a girl like me.
JBethH”~~~~~~~~~~
Jo was still fuming about the story when she sent the last message, blocked TheRealDean, and took him off her author alerts the next day. The longer she thought about all of it, the more things began to click in her head. Some of the details were too true to life. SamIam was explained, but this guy? How could he know….
“Son of a bitch,” she yelled.
Dean Winchester really was writing fan fiction.
She was on the phone to Bobby in minutes and checking out of her motel within the hour. It was going to be a long drive.
