The Great Mistake
Sam was in northern Delaware when he realized that he had lost the duffle bag. He and Dean were in the middle of hunting a nest of vampires and realization just hit him mid swing, almost made him drop his machete. Dean saw, teased him mercilessly after they were done, going on about amateur mistakes and spastic little brothers. Sam barely heard him. He had bigger things to worry about.
It had been a stupid idea to bring the DVDs back anyway- he didn't even know why he had done it. He thinks he remembers thinking something like how they would be the closest thing he would ever get to home videos, but looking back on it now that explanation seems like the dumbest thing in the world.
He didn't even know when he had lost it- it could have been left behind at any of the twenty different motels in the seventeen different states that they had stayed at this past month, could have been found by anyone by now-
No. He couldn't let himself think like that. He had to make himself believe that it had ended up in a lost and found somewhere, where it would hopefully stay for all eternity. Or even better, that some janitor had simply thrown it away. The hope became something of a chant, a prayer even, that he repeated mentally over and over again. No one would find it. No one would look inside it. No one would find what was hidden behind the layers of t shirts. He repeated it to himself so many times that he actually started to believe it, believe that just this once he had gotten off easily.
But when two months later he got the call from Becky, could practically hear the foam forming in her mouth as she screamed excited, incoherent ramblings, he realized that it was all over.
Dean was going to kill him.
Richard Teller, the nightshift manager at the Pinewood motel was the first one who found it. He had been digging through the bags at the motels lost and found, looking for loose change or anything that could be easily sold to help him but enough beer to get him through the week. He didn't think much of the duffle bag when he pulled it from the small pile- it was dirty and worn out and smelled weird and he figured that even if he sold its combined contents he wouldn't get much more than twenty dollars for them. But, buried beneath a pile of shirts, there was a small stack of DVD box sets. They looked brand new, too. He didn't bother asking too many questions, just grabbed them from the bag and sold them to a local used books store the next week without a second thought.
Once there, the DVDs rested on the book stores shelves for over a month, being passed over by countless customers who didn't realize their true value.
Abigail Williams almost didn't realize it either. On any other day she would have passed right by the DVD section without a second glance but on this day she was at the store with her friend Molly who was taking a seeming eternity in the romance section (which Abigail refused to enter on principle), so she was killing time looking at random DVDs.
And that's when she saw them.
She refused to think much of it at first. 'Supernatural' was a pretty generic word and in all likelihood the DVDs were from one of those stupid 'real life ghost hunters' shows, but her interest was peaked enough to pull the first box set out.
And then her world fell out from underneath her.
It was no great secret that Abigail was a big fan of Carver Edlund's 'Supernatural' book series- she was, as Molly had so vividly put it 'unhealthily obsessed'. In fact, most of her friends thought that it was weird that she spent so much of her time obsessing about a book series that no one else has ever heard about and that hasn't been updated in four years. She had long given up on having her more 'normal' friends ever understand, and even on ever getting more books.
But right now, in her hands, there was a DVD box set to a Supernatural TV show, a show that she knew couldn't exist, not without her hearing about it. But, against all logic, here it was.
She pulled out the rest of the DVDs frantically, reading the descriptions on the backs at an almost superhuman speed. She froze at Season Fours description- she could be wrong, but it almost sounded like it took place after the end of the book series. She didn't know how she felt about that- she didn't know how she felt about any of this. But she did know one thing for sure- she would regret it for the rest of her life if she didn't buy the DVDs right now.
She gathered them up in her arms with the sort of care that most people reserve for small infants and walked over to the checkout line.
After thirty minutes that Abigail can barely remember, she is sitting in front of her TV. She has yet another brief moment of panic as she puts the first disk in the player. What if it sucks? What if it's some kind of bizarre, overly complicated prank? Her wild, panicked thoughts are abruptly halted as the first episode begins.
45 minutes later, she is staring at the screen as the credits roll, dumbfounded.
It had been perfect.
She had had doubts, fears about things lost in translation, about changes made to the story, about the casting, the acting, the directing. But from what she had seen, the Supernatural TV show might very well be the holy grail of geekdom- the perfect adaptation. The first book in the series had been painstakingly recreated in this first episode- nothing had been left out. Even more unbelievable was the perfect casting- Sam and Dean both acted exactly as they had been described- though she had always pictured Sam's hair as being longer.
Mind still numb, she paused the disk, pulled out her cell phone and called the only person that she knew that would want to talk to her about this.
Liz lived over an hour away, but she was the only other fan of the Supernatural books that Abigail knew. They had met on a chat room a few years back and had instantly bonded over their shared interests, sometimes talking for hours online.
"Have you ever heard of the Supernatural TV show?" Abigail asked as soon as her friend picked up.
"Abigail? What are you talking about? There's no such thing."
"That's what I thought at first- I mean there's no way I wouldn't have heard about this before. But I found these DVDs at a used book store, and I just watched the first episode, and it's the real deal."
"Abigail, if this is some sort of joke…"
"I mean it, Liz- this is real."
Liz was silent for what felt like a whole minute.
"I'm coming over." She declared finally. "If this is some kind of elaborate ruse, I'll kill you."
Abigail nodded numbly before the line went dead.
She spent the next hour pacing nervously through her apartment, casting suspicious glances at the DVDs, as if she expected them to somehow disappear into thin air. She rushed to the door as soon as she heard Liz's car pull up and had it open before she had finished parking.
"I meant what I said about killing you if you were lying. I know how to do it without getting caught."
"I know." Abigail said, too frazzled to come up with a witty retort.
As soon as they were inside the apartment, Abigail pointed to the DVDs. "Here."
"Wow. Those really do look real."
"They are real. Or at least this one is- I haven't checked the other ones yet."
"You mean the DVD actually plays? It's not some prank?"
"No, it's real." Abigail said, pressing the play button.
Five minutes later Liz erupted with a well placed "Holy shit!" as Mary Winchester burned on the ceiling- a phrase that was repeated with some regularity as the episode played.
After it was over, Liz turned to stare at Abigail, eyes wide. "Are all the episodes that good?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen any other ones. I called you first thing."
Liz looked at Abigail with an expression of absolute adoration.
"What other books did they do?" Liz asks, breaking the silence.
"I don't know- but there are so many DVDs- five seasons, apparently."
Abigail isn't ashamed to admit that the two of them skip around quite a bit after that. They have both read all the books anyway and are far too excited at the prospect of seeing their personal favorites brought to life to wait to get to them. They burn through the DVDs at a breakneck pace.
Abigail is just glad that it's the weekend- she does not have the time or the desire to interact with reality right now.
But with each passing episode it was becoming abundantly clear that her initial thought was right- the fourth and fifth season took place after the end of the book series. After watching 'No Rest for the Wicked', the disks could no longer be ignored.
Normally, Abigail would wait- anything that deviated from the established cannon was a big 'no' in her book, but after all that she had seen of the show, she could tell that the people who made it were some of the most faithful, dedicated fans in the entire world. She felt like she at least owed them the benefit of the doubt.
Also, she was really, really curious.
She popped the first disk of the fourth season into the player.
45 minutes later, both she and Liz were stareing at the screen, hearts racing.
"How many episodes are there a season?"
"I don't know. Twenty something, I think."
"And there are two whole seasons after the books stop?"
"Yeah."
Liz nodded, pulling out her phone. "I'm going to call in, tell them that I can't come into work on Monday."
Abigail nodded. "I'll order us some pizza."
It was two weeks before they finished seasons 4 and 5 (unfortunately they did have to take care of some of their responsibilities), two weeks of large amounts of emotional wailing and dangerously small amounts of sleep. It had been exhausting, both physically and emotionally, but it had been worth it.
Of course, that left them with the question of what to do next.
"We have to share this with the rest of the fans." Liz declares, so that's what they do. With a little help from a friend that knows more about movie pirating then they ever will, they make copies of all the disks, and upload the episodes onto Youtube and Dailymotion.
Normally, Abigail would be against this sort of thing on principle- she always likes to support the original artist, especially in cases of true art like this. But every method of research that she can think of seems to imply that the original creator just doesn't exist. None of the actors, writers or directors have IMDBs, and as far as she can tell the disks that she owns are the only ones in existence.
That is enough to motivate her to do whatever it takes to preserve the show.
After the episodes were uploaded online, the Supernatural fandom exploded overnight. A TV show based on the books was something that no one had allowed themselves to hope for, and no one had realized how much they wanted it until now.
Everyone wanted to know where it had come from, who was responsible for making it, but their searches were just as futile as Abigail's. It was a complete mystery.
The fandom buzzed with theories, but no one could come up with an explanation.
That is, except one.
Becky Rosen was dialing Sam Winchesters number within seconds of seeing the link to the Youtube video. As soon as he picks up, she begins screaming incoherently.
Across the country, Sam realizes that his life is now over. He hung up on Becky, who seemed to have taken his horrified silence was an invitation to start fangirling over just how incredibly hot it was to see the two of them in action, something that he did not need to hear ever, thank you very much.
Dean was going to kill him. With knives. Maybe hatchets. But he was definitely going to kill him.