Title: Research
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 815
Warnings: Mentions (no actual happenings) of Wincest, Evil Sam, Evil Dean, fandom guesses. Like the episode, somewhat meta-ish.
Summary: Sam tries to find more information on this book series. He finds a lot more then he expected. This is a tag for "Monster at the End of This Book" 4.18.
Authors Note: Written for the Summer of Sam Love 2010 Challenge over on livejournal.
Sam Winchester found himself hesitating as he turned on his laptop and opened a search engine. He wasn't sure why he was doing this, or even why he'd want to do it. Honestly, he wasn't looking forward to seeing what he was going to find. He sighed and got to work.
This wasn't his typical research session. Dean sat on the bed, reading through the books they had bought, while he tried to find information on them.
Finally, he typed in "Supernatural", just to see what he could find. Unfortunately, he only saw a lot of his normal research sites, so he tried "Supernatural books".
That gave him plenty of links. Hopefully, some of them would have some good information. He checked the official site, and wrote down a few things that would be useful, like the publisher's name. He bookmarked the page, just in case.
He checked the next website. It was a wiki, aptly named "Super-Wiki", and looked pretty big.
He settled down to explore. As he continued opening tabs and reading through them, he started frowning. This website, and therefore the book series, was very detailed. This was not good. They were going to have to change some of their emergency procedures at this rate.
The wiki had plenty of information on the books, which, as he read, contained a ton of information on Sam and Dean themselves. Finally, he found some information on the author. Nothing that would help him find the man (assuming it was a man), but some information. He bookmarked that page, and then kept exploring.
His next tab was one on something called "fandom". The book series actually had fans. Unfortunately, he quickly realized that many- not all, thank god, but many- of those fans were something called slash fans.
It took him just a minute to find something that could tell him what that meant.
He pushed back his chair in shock.
"Dude, what?" Dean asked from over on one of the beds.
"Uh…" Sam couldn't spit it out. "Just… trying to find out about these books," he said. He cautiously scooted forward and started reading again.
As soon as he was done, he closed that page with a shudder. He really didn't want to deal with that anymore. He and Dean were brothers! And none of the people seemed to care.
Unfortunately, the next page was worse. It was something on one of his titles- Boy King. It took him a while to figure it out, but there were actually people who were fans of the idea. And then he saw the link to a community dedicated to the whole thing. His curiosity got the better of him, and he checked it out. He knew he was heading toward becoming that being, but he also needed to stop Lilith. So, really, why not see what others thought. He restrained a snort at the site. The scenarios and ideas were pretty inaccurate. Though he did like the idea of taking over Hell to save Dean. If things had gone differently, he might have tried it. Though he'd never in a million years do anything but kill Lilith. And there was no way Ruby was Lilith.
Still… he frowned at one header and checked out the story. Dean? Evil? Not a chance. Dean would never turn. And no matter how far Sam fell, he knew he'd never force Dean to fall with him. One of them deserved to see their parents again. Sam wasn't going to be that one, but Dean could. And that Unholy Consort thing was just…
Sam shook his head.
He clicked away from that. Really, he had to hope that the demons never got their hands on this. They'd mock him forever, and if Dean found out about what some fans thought, he would never talk to Sam again. So telling Ruby was definitely out.
Sam sighed and headed back to the wiki. This time, he ignored the fan parts and clicked on the article about Carver Edlund.
It was definitely time to stop looking at the fans of the books and check out the publisher and author.
Yes. That was a better idea. A much better idea. Sam wanted to keep some of his sanity, if he could.
Though he'd keep a couple of the websites to show Dean. That one reader, calling the demon storyline craptastic was funny. Dean's reaction to it would be good for a chuckle. And he would have to tell Dean what slash fans were, as much as he hated to do it. That reaction would be interesting.
Sam sighed. He didn't want to think about it. He really didn't want to think about it. He just needed to find out more about the author, so he and Dean could figure out what they thought they were doing. And, Sam thought privately, how much they knew.
This was supposed to be a silly fic about Sam finding the fandom. But Sam's season four arc demanded that I write at least a bit of angst.
Oh, and do not think that I'm trying to be critical of any writer in fandom. I'm not. I'm not even critical of any trends going on in fandom. Any skewering of such is done with love. You might notice that I've written a story or two like the ones he's complaining about- mainly of the Boy King genre. So, yes, I am teasing a little, but it's very affectionate teasing.