lt_indigo

lt_indigo

Marie had laughed when the FBI agents had claimed to be the real Sam and Dean, because it was ridiculous. Sam and Dean were fictitious. They were characters from books, born from the imagination of Chuck Shurley, a.k.a. Carver Edlund.

Weren’t they?

Chuck had been right about the supernatural being real. And the more Marie watched the two men work, the less she was convinced that they were lying about who they really were.

But that would mean that the outlandish stories ‘Dean’ had told her about what happened after >‘Swan Song’ were true. And they couldn’t be: nothing could really be that absurd in real life. It just couldn’t.

Just like eighteen-year-olds didn’t have Greek goddesses stalking them, feeding from the energy of their creativity.

It nagged at her for a while, the feeling that the meta aspect of the books might well have been right all along, but it was during A Single Man Tear that it finally hit her like a ton of bricks, that they had been telling the truth; that Dean freaking Winchester was fighting for her life right there on the stage as she sang about how much of himself he hid; how much he and his brother admired each other but would never say it aloud.

Had they even read the Gospels properly? Because if they were the real brothers, then the books were really Gospels, and Chuck Shurley really was a prophet. Then God and the angels were really real too. Lucifer was real, and Michael, and the apocalypse had really happened and Gabriel was really dead. God, was Adam really still trapped in the Cage? Sam clearly wasn’t, since he was somewhere around the school, so the ending of Swan Song was right about that, but what about their brother? He wasn’t with them. Oh, God, was Carry On Wayward Son going to be too much for them? Had they been able to save him too? Or had whoever pulled Sam out also rescued Adam and returned him to Heaven where he belonged?

The scarecrow exploded into purple goo.

Dean was triumphant and lost at the same time. He had seemed pretty bewildered since he had arrived, now she thought about it, and that was probably because he was watching a bunch of teenage girls make pretty songs out of his incredibly difficult life. She was suddenly struck, as she never really had been when reading the books, that he and Sam were just ordinary guys doing an extraordinary job for zero recognition. They hated the books, both because they were a breach of their privacy and drew attention to who and what they were. Fans could piece together the clues had they had the inclination. In fact, Marie knew there were quite a few fans who had toured the States to find places the brothers had visited, and discovered that there had been some spooky goings-on in the town. She had always assumed that Chuck had used the stories as his inspiration.

She fished the Samulet out of her pocket and studied it closely. She had always been a Sam girl, but had never actually disliked Dean until the moment he threw the amulet away in >’99 Problems’. Now, looking at him, she was struck by the sudden revelation of why he had done it. It wasn’t anything to do with Sam at all – it was a symbol of hope, and Dean had lost it. Just like Cas had at the end of >‘Dark Side of the Moon’. And maybe, just maybe, having the amulet around was a symbol that Cas’ dad didn’t care after all. Marie was pretty sure that if she knew her dad didn’t care about her, she wouldn’t want to keep any reminders of him around either. Had Dean chucked it for Cas’ sake?

Somehow, as she thought back to his visceral reaction to Siobhan and Kristen’s relationship, she thought that might well be it. In fact, she was certain that Destiel was a real thing too, which she was glad about. Sam might well have been her favourite of the brothers, but she was a Destiel shipper rather than anything involving Sam.

She thought about them long after they left, having saved her and all her friends, and wondered whether Jimmy Novak was as good-looking in real life as Sam and Dean were. Because that couldn’t possibly be true too, could it? With his sharp, deeply blue eyes and messy dark hair? And while it was obvious that Dean and Cas weren’t together just yet, the possibility was definitely there. And my God, they would be a gorgeous couple.

Marie could feel the new stories tumbling in her head already, clamouring to get out. If only she could have some peace to write them down before they disappeared, evaporated into frustrating nothingness. But there was the clear-up still to do, and the man from the publishers – >from the freaking publishers – to meet…