Chapter Two
Sam and RJ were sitting in Bobby's study, doing research. This consisted of Sam tapping at the laptop and consulting a couple of books whilst making notes, while RJ sat on Sam's lap, pointed at the occasional picture, and indicated any possible images of interest by whacking Sam with Stanley the knitted toy honey badger.
"Beebee!" RJ announced Bobby's arrival by yelling and throwing Stanley at the old man.
"Idjit," smiled Bobby, stooping carefully to pick up the toy and return it to the demanding child. "Dean says it's amazin' the boy ever learned to walk, he spends so much time sittin' on laps."
"Well, he likes to think he's helping, I guess," shrugged Sam as the child sucked thoughtfully on one of Stanley's legs, then offered it to Sam with an inquiring noise. "No, thanks buddy, I'll pass on the spit-soaked honey badger."
"Meh," said RJ philosophically before shoving the toy back into his own mouth.
"So, what you got here?" asked Bobby. "Any idea what you're dealin' with?"
"Not exactly," Sam replied gloomily, "But enough detail to know that Dean is not gonna like it. Hell, I'm not gonna like it."
"Oh?"
Sam's face blanched a little. "There have been a series of writers' conventions," he explained. "And after a number of these conventions, women who've attended them turn murderous, and kill other attendees."
"So, somebody who don't like reading much," humphed Bobby.
"Well, it's a particular type of writing," Sam went on, "These are conventions for writers of fanfics."
"Fanfics?" echoed Bobby.
"Fan fiction," Sam clarified glumly, "They're stories written by other people, using the characters, story canons and fictional 'verses of other authors. Sometimes they stick very closely to the spirit of the stories, and sometimes, well, they don't so much bend the 'rules' as wrench them back and forth violently until they shatter completely."
"Well, I can understand how some people might get a bit cranky about havin' their favourite books rewritten," Bobby mused. "Especially if the writin' aint that good."
"The thing is," Sam swallowed, "The thing is, all the writers that have been affected have been writers – female writers – who produce their own stories based on Carver Edlund's 'Supernatural' books."
Bobby's eyebrows shot up. "Carver Edlund? As in, the Prophet Chuck? Winchester Gospel? The guy who calls Dean to complain whenever the boy entertains a new lady friend in a particularly, uh, friendly fashion?"
"The very same," sighed Sam, "And while in theory, given some of the stuff they write – God, some of it is beyond terrifying – I'm not necessarily in favour of anything that stops them, I think condoning the murder of fanfic authors is a step too far." He made a sad little noise. "Crap – it's like Ronnie says, some days, a conscience is a terrible burden to bear…"
"So, wimmen are writin' stories about you and your brother," Bobby summarised, "Then some of 'em are killin' each other." He paused and eyed Sam thoughtfully. "What kind of, uh, stories do they write?"
The face that Sam turned to Bobby was the haunted expression of a man who has dangled over The Abyss of Hell by his jockstrap and only just escaped to tell the tale. "It's… probably better if you don't know."
Bobby gave his practically-son a long look. "Sam," he began, "I might be an old man now, I'm a more-or-less grandpa, no less, but I'm a Hunter. I've faced down, shot down and taken down some of the nastiest, meanest, deadliest, most vicious, most brutal, most terrifyin', most evil sumbitches who ever walked, crawled or slimed on God's green Earth. I seen things most people aint seen, and wouldn't want to – I'm a Hunter, and I've seen 'em so ordinary people don't have to see 'em. It's what we do, Sam, we face these things and give 'em the finger, so other people can sleep safe. Knowledge is power, and ignorance can be fatal." He put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "The body is failin' me, by the rat powerin' the wheel runnin' the brain aint ready to give up yet. These stories could be – must be – the connection. Let me help you, son."
Sam gave Bobby a long look, then opened another window.
"Start your computer. I'll send you some links to get you started."
"I'll make us some coffee," offered Bobby, turning for the kitchen.
"You might want a tot of something extra in it," Sam announced as gloomily as any doomsaying haruspex examining a particularly inauspicious liver, "And look under the sink, see if we've got any mind bleach."
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Bobby and Sam were both reading when the sound of a large V8 engine rumbling to restored life came to them.
"Oh," said Bobby faintly, "Sounds like your brother got that Buick runnin'."
"Dada!" yelled RJ, bouncing up and down on Bobby's knee. "Voom! Voom!"
Bobby looked down at the boy. "You know, most youngsters his age are scared of loud noises," he mused.
"That's Dean's spawn," Sam observed. "He'd probably shart himself in delight if he saw a nuke detonate."
"Dow! Dow!" RJ whacked Bobby impatiently with Stanley. "Dow! Now!"
"At once, sir," grumbled Bobby, moving to let the child slide awkwardly down to the floor, where the boy found his feet and toddled over to where Lars, Sam's dog, was lying placidly on the rug. "Out!" RJ shouted at the dog. "Out! Out! Now!"
"He really got his daddy's patience," Bobby noted, as the dog let out a yawn, got to his feet and gave the child's face a lick.
"Should we really be letting them do that?" asked Sam, watching as Lars headed for the door, the giggling toddler holding onto his tail and following him on determined little legs.
"It don't seem to do any harm," shrugged Bobby, "Unlike these, er, well I hesitate to call 'em 'stories', some o' these could scar a body for life…"
"I mean, how the hell do they even manage it?" Sam wondered out loud.
"I guess nobody ever told 'em it shouldn't be possible," Bobby suggested. "And 'shouldn't' aint really a word that matters much around a dog with Hellhound heritage, or, dare I add, a Winchester. Don't worry, he'll have his father and the dogs outside to watch him."
"I guess," sighed Sam, turning back to the ghastly text before him.
Lars made his way to the outside door, and disappeared right through it.
Hanging onto the dog's tail and giggling, RJ went with him.
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Dean looked up from under the hood of the car he'd coaxed back to life when he heard his son's voice. "Dada! Dada! Daaaadaaaaa!"
"Hey, Tiger," Dean smiled, as RJ plopped down on the porch and waved Stanley the honey badger by way of greeting. "You do the thing with the door again?"
"Dow!" RJ demanded imperiously, waving Stanley at the steps, which were for the time being beyond his little legs. Dow! Dow!"
"Uh-huh, just give me a second here, RJ…"
"Dow!"
"Sure, RJ, but Daddy's busy just now, just wait a sec…"
"Doooooooow!"
Lemmy, who had been slouching comfortably watching Dean work, stood up and headed for the stairs. With the air of one who has seen – or, in this case, heard – it all before, he carefully took hold of the back of RJ's pants.
"DOOOOOOOW!" instructed RJ as Lemmy's large ears began to flap.
"Ah, shit, Lem, don't indulge him," sighed Dean.
Lemmy' ears flapped faster and faster, taking on a businesslike hum, until the dog, with RJ dangling from his mouth, rose very slightly off the porch.
"It took him long enough to do the walkin' thing," complained Dean, as Lars got behind his bigger brother and nudged at him, pushing him forward into the air, just far enough to clear the stairs. Dean sighed; Lemmy had the whole hover thing happening, but, like RJ tackling stairs, the concept of forward thrust seemed beyond him.
"Dow!" RJ hooted excitedly as Lemmy's ears dropped a tone, and the two of them descended gently back to the ground, where RJ scrambled to his feet and ran clumsily to his father, arms out. "Up! Up!"
"You two better not ever do that in front of a civilian," frowned Dean, patting Lemmy as he reached down to scoop up his son. RJ giggled, and patted his face by way of greeting, offering a leg of his knit toy. "No, uh, tell ya what, I'll just wait for lunch."
"Voom! Voom!" enthused RJ, waving at the engine. "Wren'! Wren'!"
"Well, okay," Dean proffered the small wrench that had been RJ's favourite toy since he had been delivered to the Winchesters, "But don't you go bangin' that on anythin' here – this poor old girl has had a hard enough life, she don't need you dentin' anything."
RJ was content to suck on his wrench and wave it at the engine, as Dean went about the business of doing what he could with one hand, explaining to his son as he went. RJ hooted and giggled, and made helpful 'Voom voom' noises. It was slow going, but Dean didn't mind; not only did he get to spend some fun time with his kid, but when RJ inevitably got covered in car grunge, Sam would pull an epic Bitchface™ every time.
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"Well that's certainly… unexpected," announced Bobby, looking up from the screen with a vaguely bewildered expression.
"Expect it," Sam sighed in resignation. "Whatever it is, expect it. Expect the unexpected, and then some."
"I aint just talkin' about them wimmen who write slasher fics," Bobby said.
"Slash," Sam corrected. "So called because that's how they designate the relationship that's gonna be in the story: Person A-slash-Person B."
"I thought it was because it might be enough to make a body want to do it to his wrists if he found himself in on o' these stories," Bobby muttered.
"Be fair, they don't know we're real," Sam pointed out. "As far as they're concerned, they're writing fantasy about people who don't really exist, so from that viewpoint, it's a harmless pastime." He paused. "Well, except for Becky, but she's clearly mentally unbalanced and creepy and evil."
"You ever decide you wanna salt an' burn her, son, count me in," rumbled Bobby,who'd needed another tot of hard liquor after his close encounter with Becky's website 'More Than Brothers'. "But besides that, some of it's… I mean, this one here, where you and Dean are dogs. Actually, there's some damned fine artwork for that. Or this one, where you're cats."
"I don't think George would approve of that," Sam grinned, referring to the little stray ginger queen who had made the yard her home, treating Singer Salvage as her palace and the humans there, when she deigned to encounter them, as her servants.
"Then there's this one, where you're mermen," Bobby went on, "Or this one, where you're dolphins, which I guess is a logical progression from mermen…"
"Do not use the word 'logic' in the same sentence that mentions a story with us as dolphins," grated Sam between clenched teeth.
"Or this one, where you're angels… or demons… or werewolves… or psychopaths… or hamsters…"
"I don't wanna know," wailed Sam.
"What I'm gettin' at is that some o' these girls have got pretty amazing imagination," Bobby said.
"Well, yes, imagination," Sam conceded grudgingly, "But it's not always good, is it? The guy who invented the guillotine had imagination. They guy who invented nerve gas had imagination. Whoever invented email spam had imagination. Whoever invented muzak had imagination. Whoever invented Jersey Shore had imagination. Having imagination does not always add to the sum of human happiness and well-being, Bobby…"
The outer kitchen door banged open, and the sound of two dogs and two Winchesters barging their way back into the house announced that Dean had come in for lunch.
"Hey there, ladies," he grinned, wandering into the study.
"Sama!" RJ greeted his uncle, and threw Stanley at him.
"Christ, Dean," Sam scowled, shooting his brother a Bitchface #13™ (You Are So Totally Gross I Don't Have A Bitchface Adequate To Convey My Utter Disgust) as he retrieved the toy for his nephew, "How the hell does he get covered in that shit?"
"It's only to be expected that a mechanic will get a little dirty," Dean replied.
"Dean, he's not eighteen months old yet! The closest he gets to 'mechanic' is whacking things with that wrench!"
"Well, he's a, you know, a proto-mechanic," Dean clarified. "He's gonna be one. So naturally, he's gonna get a bit of grease on his hands."
"Dean, he's covered in it! What did you let him do, crawl around under the engine to look at the interesting bits?"
"There are lots of interesting bits under a car," Dean said defensively. "Anyway, we've come in for lunch. Right, buddy?"
"Lun! Lun!" enthused RJ, waving Stanley and bouncing in his father's arms. "Lun! Pibi! Pibi! Peeeeeee Beeeeeeee!"
"You idjits get cleaned up before you go anywhere near the kitchen," rumbled Bobby, foregoing the pretence of spiking his coffee and taking a drink from a hip flask.
"Hey, you gonna share that?" asked Dean brightly.
"No," Bobby grumped, "I will need this to help me forget." He paused. "Actually, I think I'd probably need a lobotomy to help me forget."
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy," shrugged Dean, "Forget what?"
Sam sighed deeply, and turned to his brother. "Dean, I think I've found us a job. But I'm warning you, you are not gonna like it."
"What job?" asked Dean. "Oh, hey, is this the one with the hot women getting murdered? If there's hot women, count me in!"
"Why don't we thrash out details after lunch," suggested Bobby smoothly.
"Good idea," grinned Dean, heading upstairs with RJ, who was still professing his love for PB sandwiches at the top of his voice.
"He's not gonna like it any more after lunch," warned Sam.
"Mebbe not," agreed Bobby serenely, "But I don't care about him – I find that dealin' with any sort of crisis, whether it's a car crash, a tornado, a disaster of Biblical proportions, the end of the world, or either of you with your panties in a bunch is easier on a full stomach. So let's eat."
Still not sure what this plot bunny's name is - could it be Becky? Or Chuck? Or Edward (after Ted Bulwer-Lytton, he of 'It was a dark and stormy night' fame and inspiration for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the worst opening sentence for a story)? Any ideas?
'Never work with children or animals' goes the maxim, but The Denizens seem to like them so much. The bunny is still undecided about whether RJ should accompany the Winchesters on this Hunt, whether he could be their secret weapon, somehow...
Feed this little bunny reviews, because Reviews Are The Delicious PB Sandwiches Served Up In The Kitchen Of Life To Fortify You Against The Onslaught Of The Frighteningly Solid Parsnip Of Mundane Reality!