Unexpected Destinies Chapter 132
Title: Unexpected Destinies
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 3,301
Summary: Samuel reads the Supernatural books.
PRESENT
Samuel had always been grateful for the fact that he didn't need much sleep as it had allowed him to remain awake and alert on late night hunts or to do a ton of research while others slept, but now he was grateful for it once more. Both that and the fact that the changes to the supernatural world meant that traditional research wasn't of much use anymore. He'd never have believed the latter would ever be true, but it was because of all the free time it provided him to read other things.
Like the Supernatural books for instance.
It was with a now seemingly constant state of shock and stunned disbelief that Samuel put down Swan Song, the last of the prophecy books that he'd bought. At first he'd tried reading them out of order, wanting to see how it was that his oldest grandson had come to be in the past the first time he'd met Dean, but it had rapidly become clear to him that he really needed to start at the beginning as In the Beginning had already been referring to things that he knew absolutely nothing about. So he'd reluctantly gone back to Supernatural and nearly been unable to get past the very first chapter.
Sam had told him about what had happened to his Mary, but reading about the attack was somehow infinitely worse for Samuel. It was probably because it felt far more real with the detailed descriptions of events than it had from his grandson's recitation of events Sam hadn't even been old enough to recall first hand. Dean, however, Dean he was sure actually remembered what had happened that night. He knew it both from the drive he'd witnessed in Mary's firstborn when they'd gone after Azazel together and from the way that Dean acted in the later books of the series. He could remember enough of the child psychology his mother had studied to recognize the effects of that kind of trauma on a child's psyche. What he couldn't understand was how Sam had never seemed to notice.
There wasn't enough of John in the books for Samuel to determine if his son-in-law had realized the truth but there was more than enough of Sam in there for him to know that his youngest grandson didn't realize it. Not with all of those 'Daddy's little soldier' accusations and questions of why Dean followed John so blindly. The poor boy had lost his mother under the most traumatic of circumstances and was subsequently thrust into a world full of danger and Darkness. Of course Dean had clung to the only parent he had left, especially after disobeying John once had nearly resulted in Sam's death. It took extraordinary circumstances or distance to break that kind of bond. So Sam's constant criticizing of his brother had never been fair.
Samuel just didn't know if his youngest grandson realized that now or not. He wanted to think so, to think that Sam had learned from his mistakes, but he feared that just might simply not be the case. It had been difficult to read, but as he'd forced himself to do so with scenes like the confrontation in Asylum where Sam had actually shot his brother (with rock salt, true, but still!), or the standoff with the siren or even Sam's words during Fallen Idols, turning most of the blame around on his brother for what had happened with Ruby even while superficially denying it. With all of that it had become quite clear to him that his youngest grandson liked to shift the blame, not really taking responsibility for his own actions if at all possible. He just didn't get why Dean had allowed it time after time after time. He knew his eldest grandson had to have realized that those words, both in Asylum and with the siren, even if only uttered under supernatural influence, had to have come from somewhere. Sure, Sam probably never would have said them otherwise, but that didn't make them any less true for all of that.
His old doctor would have had a fit if he'd been able to monitor him as he'd read these books, Samuel knew. His emotions and pulse had definitely been all over the place going from joy to disbelief to horror to anger to shock to pleasure to pride to rage and back again. Not to mention the sheer embarrassment and discomfort upon learning far more about the private activities and lives of his grandsons than he'd ever wanted to know. As Dean had said upon flipping through a few of the books himself, they were both full frontal in there on occasion and he hadn't always had enough warning to avoid learning something that he really hadn't wanted to know. Really.
Samuel shuddered at the reminder of a few particular scenes and wondered once more at the audacity of the prophet to actually put that in print. It made him more than a little afraid of what he might find in the newer books when he got his hands on them. At least everything that he'd accidentally read so far had been between his grandsons and female, if not human, partners. This could now be with a male, non-human partner and he just wasn't sure if he could handle that. He was Dean's grandfather after all and there were simply some things you should never know about of the sexual activities your children's children.
God he needed another drink.
He'd needed a lot of drinks these past few nights, but Samuel hadn't realized how much he'd drunken already tonight until he grabbed the bottle of bourbon only to find it empty. Cursing, he pushed himself to his feet and went in search of another bottle. It caused his mind to flash to the image it had conjured when he'd read Dark Side of the Moon and the sheer amount of alcohol his grandsons had consumed had allowed them to be jumped by two other hunters, including the grandson of his old friend Gary. The reminder only wanted to make him drink even more as it was swiftly followed by not only the account of Sam and Dean's deaths but also by how that rat bastard Zachariah had twisted Dean's memory of his Mary into that venom spewing monster. He might never have seen his baby with her kids but he knew Mary would never have been able to do anything but love them unconditionally even if perhaps they wouldn't always have deserved it.
The fact that Zachariah was already dead only gave Samuel a little satisfaction. The fact that Dean had been the one to kill his arrogant angelic ass provided a whole lot more but still it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. Since he couldn't do anything about the douchebag angel, as his firstborn grandson would call Zachariah, he found the focus of his rage shifting once more towards Gary's grandson. How dare that boy kill not one but both of his grandsons? How dare he? If he ever crossed paths with that man then, grandson of his best friend or not, he would kill him. He swore he would, human and hunter or not, Walt didn't deserve to live after what he'd done to Mary's babies.
Someone must have left something lying around as Samuel stumbled as he entered the kitchen and he nearly fell down, only just able to catch himself in time. He cursed and kicked out at whatever it had been but his aim must have been off as his foot didn't actually connect with anything. That was a little odd, but he pushed the thought aside as he stepped up to the cupboard where they kept the liquor. He really needed another glass more than ever now as thoughts of Mary had returned to him and he knew only all too well where those would lead.
He'd thought that he'd known all that there was to know about what had happened to his precious daughter, but Samuel had learned how wrong he was about that. Not only had Sam either omitted or simply not know about certain horrific details, but his youngest grandson had also made no mention of encountering such a monsterized version of Mary in Heaven, let alone anything about the events from Home. That could well be what pained him the most, the discovery that for decades after her murder his baby hadn't even been at rest but rather had been trapped as some kind of fire spirit in her old home. The mere thought that after all he and his family had done to help people and to lay spirits to rest his own daughter had been left like that, stuck in limbo, was almost unbearable. At least she hadn't turned vengeful but that was of little consolation.
And then of course there was all that he'd learned in My Bloody Valentine, something else which Samuel did his utmost best not to dwell on too deeply but which his mind inevitably went back to. Namely the fact that his little girl had been influenced into loving John Winchester by a Cupid. He was a little unclear as to whether they would have ended up together regardless of the angel's interference or whether there was nothing there without the Enochian magic, but either way he found it unsupportable. Especially since things had clearly not been perfect between the two if Dean's memories from Heaven were anything to go by. As a parent the mere idea infuriated him but his anger was always, distracted, by the nagging fear that if the Cupids had put John and Mary together in order to get Dean and Sam, then had his own feelings towards Deanna been angelically influenced? Would they have ended up together otherwise? He really wanted to think so, but given the lengths that the angels had gone to, he doubted that they'd left it to chance.
So how could he remain furious at them for what they'd done to Mary without seriously devaluing everything that he'd had with Deanna?
The sudden bright illumination of the kitchen made Samuel cry out in surprise as he shielded his eyes.
"I thought so," Gwen stated, her voice far too loud.
"Gwen?" Samuel questioned, turning around and squinting in the direction of her voice.
His imagination wasn't playing tricks on him and Samuel caught sight of Christian standing beside her. Both were looking at him with concerned frowns and he suddenly wondered just what he looked like. Though he'd always been able to run on very little sleep, he'd been pushing it the past few nights in order to read as many of the books as possible. So it was entirely possible that he didn't look all that great. And just how much bourbon had he drunk already tonight? He wasn't quite sure anymore.
"Jesus, look at you," Gwen muttered. "This has got to stop."
"Excuse me?"
"She's right, Samuel, you can't keep going like this. It's not going to bring Mark back and will only get yourself or one of us killed as well," Christian stated.
"Huh? Mark, what?" Samuel asked, confused, before he got it. "Oh, no, it's not that."
It actually pained Samuel a little to admit, at least to himself, how little Mark's death had affected him. Sure, he'd liked the younger man but the connection hadn't been so great and with the loss of Mary and the fact that Dean was still out there, away from them, it just didn't mean that much to him.
"Then what is it?" Gwen demanded. "Because it looks like you're trying to drink yourself to death. Well, another death anyway."
"I- it's-" Samuel began before he realized just how crazy this would sound. "Come see for yourself."
With that Samuel made to walk past them, brushing up against them far more than he'd intended to, and made his way back to his room. He'd taken special care to keep the books hidden and out of sight up until now, especially from Sam and Bobby as he'd wanted to have read them all at least once before having to put up with any complaints or protests about his having gotten them. It wasn't that he didn't understand why they might be adverse to his reading them (heck he didn't like how much of him had been revealed in just the one book that he'd been in to date and he had a sneaking suspicion that he'd be in far more of the latest ones) but just that he firmly believed that he had to read them. They could hardly afford to shy away from anything that could help them, now could they?
"Samuel, what is this all about?" Christian asked as they followed him.
"You'll have to see it to believe it."
"Try me."
"Fine. During one of our last hunts Sam took Bobby and me to the house of a prophet."
"A prophet?" Gwen repeated. "Is he for real?"
"Definitely."
"I wouldn't have taken you for someone to believe in that nonsense," Christian stated.
"Trust me, I've had all the proof that I need to know that he's the real deal."
"You met him?" Gwen asked.
"No, he wasn't home, but I've read most of his work, including parts that had me in it. You see, the prophet gets visions of Sam and Dean and because he was unaware of what he was, he assumed that he'd made everything up and he wrote it all down and sold it as fiction."
"Fiction?" Christian demanded skeptically.
"Yes, here, see for yourself," Samuel replied, opening the door to his room.
The books were scattered all across his bed, their various sordid covers in clear view and each brought up flashes of scenes that Samuel had pictured while reading them. Most were unpleasant, each wound and hit his grandsons took somehow striking him as well through the words of the prophet. They weren't particularly well written, but the fact that he knew that each one was true added a force to them that the writing didn't possess on its own. Sam losing his girlfriend, Dean getting taken by the wendigo, Dean getting branded with a hot iron, Sam getting grabbed by that vampire, Dean being cut by Azazel while possessing John... the list went on and on, horrifying in both its length and the breadth of injuries that had befallen the boys.
"What are these, bodice rippers?" Christian sneered, picking up Supernatural.
"Don't let the cover deceive you, the artist is merely atrocious," Samuel stated.
"Don't judge a book by its cover?" Gwen questioned with amusement as she held up one of the books that Samuel had done his best to forget.
Honestly, if brain bleach were real, Samuel would have used it to forget what he'd read in that book. The fact that it had Dean shirtless on the cover with a girl really should have been his first clue, but he'd been so focused on his task that he'd forgotten to be careful while reading it and he'd regretted it ever since. To be fair, though, did people really do stuff like that outside of fiction? He'd just always assumed it was guys running off their mouths and exaggerating to boast to their friends. Not so, obviously, as he'd had the great misfortune of learning that his firstborn grandson not only did it, but frequently enough to excel at it.
Oh yes, brain bleach would be greatly appreciated right about now.
In a desperate attempt to wipe the image from his mind, Samuel focused in on the bad stuff. Like when Sam had shot Dean with rock salt, or when Sam had broken his arm, or those kids the boys had failed to save, or Dean getting torn to shreds by the hellhound. The last made the bile rise in his throat and it was all that he could do not to be sick. Now was not the time, not that there ever was one really. At least he was now well and truly distracted from the mental images he'd had no wish to ever think about again.
"You're saying that these are all real?" Christian demanded, still sounding skeptical.
"Yes," Samuel replied, digging for the one he wanted. "And here's my proof."
"In the Beginning," Gwen read, flipping it over to read the synopsis on the back, her eyebrows rising. "You're in this one."
"Like I said, I know that they're the real deal because of that. This is the book that covers the time Castiel took Dean back to nineteen seventy-three, where I first met him, though I was unaware of who exactly he was at the time."
"So it's real? All of its really real? All of these books?"
"Yes," Samuel confirmed again, more than understanding her shock and disbelief.
"How many are there?" Christian asked, grabbing the book Gwen held to see it for himself. "There must be eighty of them here."
"A hundred and four, actually, and that's not even all of them. The store I went to didn't have the last eleven as they'd sold out."
"A hundred and fifteen books?" Gwen uttered, grabbing some at random and glancing at the back covers. "How much time does this cover?"
"Some five and half years as near as I can tell, though there are parts that go back a lot earlier. The first book has a chapter from the night Mary died before it jumps to when Dean got Sam from Stanford to go look for John."
"And it's all in here? Everything that we've heard about?" Christian demanded.
"Yes."
"So, the whole Ruby thing too?" Gwen asked.
"It is," Samuel confirmed, the maelstrom of emotions he'd felt whenever reading about her and Sam resurfacing within him once more.
He'd hoped, oh so desperately hoped, that he'd be able to understand just what the boy had been thinking after he'd read about what had happened, to gain some inkling of what had lead up to that situation, but Samuel had been severely disappointed. All he'd found was one brother completely ignoring and writing off the other's warnings and intuition of what was going on. Despite everything that had ever happened to Sam, all of his experiences with demons before and all of Dean's fears about Ruby, his youngest grandson had fallen head over heels into her trap. Her obvious trap as far as he was concerned. Hell, Dean had even told Sam to his face that she was just using him and still Sam hadn't been able to see the truth that was staring him in the face. Needlessly to say, Ruby was a touchy subject for him and one that made him question if he could trust Sam's judgment at all.
"It is not complimentary for Sam," Samuel added thickly.
"Could it be anything else?" Christian snorted. "She was a demon, end of story, and somehow he thought it a good idea to fuck her and suck her blood? That's just the epitome of stupidity."
"Are they worth reading?" Gwen inquired, looking up.
"The later ones definitely are as they describe how this whole Apocalypse thing got started," Samuel said. "Plus I still want to get my hands on the most recent books as I feel that they'll tell us a lot more about the current situation. From what the prophet's former girlfriend said, they go right up to the casting of this Rite of Contressa that Dean mentioned."
"Dean," Christian sneered. "Of course."
"I think you'd be surprised if you read the books. Apparently Sam has been very deceived about his brother's skill if he truly thinks that he's the better hunter of the two of them."
Chapter 133
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 3,301
Summary: Samuel reads the Supernatural books.
PRESENT
Samuel had always been grateful for the fact that he didn't need much sleep as it had allowed him to remain awake and alert on late night hunts or to do a ton of research while others slept, but now he was grateful for it once more. Both that and the fact that the changes to the supernatural world meant that traditional research wasn't of much use anymore. He'd never have believed the latter would ever be true, but it was because of all the free time it provided him to read other things.
Like the Supernatural books for instance.
It was with a now seemingly constant state of shock and stunned disbelief that Samuel put down Swan Song, the last of the prophecy books that he'd bought. At first he'd tried reading them out of order, wanting to see how it was that his oldest grandson had come to be in the past the first time he'd met Dean, but it had rapidly become clear to him that he really needed to start at the beginning as In the Beginning had already been referring to things that he knew absolutely nothing about. So he'd reluctantly gone back to Supernatural and nearly been unable to get past the very first chapter.
Sam had told him about what had happened to his Mary, but reading about the attack was somehow infinitely worse for Samuel. It was probably because it felt far more real with the detailed descriptions of events than it had from his grandson's recitation of events Sam hadn't even been old enough to recall first hand. Dean, however, Dean he was sure actually remembered what had happened that night. He knew it both from the drive he'd witnessed in Mary's firstborn when they'd gone after Azazel together and from the way that Dean acted in the later books of the series. He could remember enough of the child psychology his mother had studied to recognize the effects of that kind of trauma on a child's psyche. What he couldn't understand was how Sam had never seemed to notice.
There wasn't enough of John in the books for Samuel to determine if his son-in-law had realized the truth but there was more than enough of Sam in there for him to know that his youngest grandson didn't realize it. Not with all of those 'Daddy's little soldier' accusations and questions of why Dean followed John so blindly. The poor boy had lost his mother under the most traumatic of circumstances and was subsequently thrust into a world full of danger and Darkness. Of course Dean had clung to the only parent he had left, especially after disobeying John once had nearly resulted in Sam's death. It took extraordinary circumstances or distance to break that kind of bond. So Sam's constant criticizing of his brother had never been fair.
Samuel just didn't know if his youngest grandson realized that now or not. He wanted to think so, to think that Sam had learned from his mistakes, but he feared that just might simply not be the case. It had been difficult to read, but as he'd forced himself to do so with scenes like the confrontation in Asylum where Sam had actually shot his brother (with rock salt, true, but still!), or the standoff with the siren or even Sam's words during Fallen Idols, turning most of the blame around on his brother for what had happened with Ruby even while superficially denying it. With all of that it had become quite clear to him that his youngest grandson liked to shift the blame, not really taking responsibility for his own actions if at all possible. He just didn't get why Dean had allowed it time after time after time. He knew his eldest grandson had to have realized that those words, both in Asylum and with the siren, even if only uttered under supernatural influence, had to have come from somewhere. Sure, Sam probably never would have said them otherwise, but that didn't make them any less true for all of that.
His old doctor would have had a fit if he'd been able to monitor him as he'd read these books, Samuel knew. His emotions and pulse had definitely been all over the place going from joy to disbelief to horror to anger to shock to pleasure to pride to rage and back again. Not to mention the sheer embarrassment and discomfort upon learning far more about the private activities and lives of his grandsons than he'd ever wanted to know. As Dean had said upon flipping through a few of the books himself, they were both full frontal in there on occasion and he hadn't always had enough warning to avoid learning something that he really hadn't wanted to know. Really.
Samuel shuddered at the reminder of a few particular scenes and wondered once more at the audacity of the prophet to actually put that in print. It made him more than a little afraid of what he might find in the newer books when he got his hands on them. At least everything that he'd accidentally read so far had been between his grandsons and female, if not human, partners. This could now be with a male, non-human partner and he just wasn't sure if he could handle that. He was Dean's grandfather after all and there were simply some things you should never know about of the sexual activities your children's children.
God he needed another drink.
He'd needed a lot of drinks these past few nights, but Samuel hadn't realized how much he'd drunken already tonight until he grabbed the bottle of bourbon only to find it empty. Cursing, he pushed himself to his feet and went in search of another bottle. It caused his mind to flash to the image it had conjured when he'd read Dark Side of the Moon and the sheer amount of alcohol his grandsons had consumed had allowed them to be jumped by two other hunters, including the grandson of his old friend Gary. The reminder only wanted to make him drink even more as it was swiftly followed by not only the account of Sam and Dean's deaths but also by how that rat bastard Zachariah had twisted Dean's memory of his Mary into that venom spewing monster. He might never have seen his baby with her kids but he knew Mary would never have been able to do anything but love them unconditionally even if perhaps they wouldn't always have deserved it.
The fact that Zachariah was already dead only gave Samuel a little satisfaction. The fact that Dean had been the one to kill his arrogant angelic ass provided a whole lot more but still it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. Since he couldn't do anything about the douchebag angel, as his firstborn grandson would call Zachariah, he found the focus of his rage shifting once more towards Gary's grandson. How dare that boy kill not one but both of his grandsons? How dare he? If he ever crossed paths with that man then, grandson of his best friend or not, he would kill him. He swore he would, human and hunter or not, Walt didn't deserve to live after what he'd done to Mary's babies.
Someone must have left something lying around as Samuel stumbled as he entered the kitchen and he nearly fell down, only just able to catch himself in time. He cursed and kicked out at whatever it had been but his aim must have been off as his foot didn't actually connect with anything. That was a little odd, but he pushed the thought aside as he stepped up to the cupboard where they kept the liquor. He really needed another glass more than ever now as thoughts of Mary had returned to him and he knew only all too well where those would lead.
He'd thought that he'd known all that there was to know about what had happened to his precious daughter, but Samuel had learned how wrong he was about that. Not only had Sam either omitted or simply not know about certain horrific details, but his youngest grandson had also made no mention of encountering such a monsterized version of Mary in Heaven, let alone anything about the events from Home. That could well be what pained him the most, the discovery that for decades after her murder his baby hadn't even been at rest but rather had been trapped as some kind of fire spirit in her old home. The mere thought that after all he and his family had done to help people and to lay spirits to rest his own daughter had been left like that, stuck in limbo, was almost unbearable. At least she hadn't turned vengeful but that was of little consolation.
And then of course there was all that he'd learned in My Bloody Valentine, something else which Samuel did his utmost best not to dwell on too deeply but which his mind inevitably went back to. Namely the fact that his little girl had been influenced into loving John Winchester by a Cupid. He was a little unclear as to whether they would have ended up together regardless of the angel's interference or whether there was nothing there without the Enochian magic, but either way he found it unsupportable. Especially since things had clearly not been perfect between the two if Dean's memories from Heaven were anything to go by. As a parent the mere idea infuriated him but his anger was always, distracted, by the nagging fear that if the Cupids had put John and Mary together in order to get Dean and Sam, then had his own feelings towards Deanna been angelically influenced? Would they have ended up together otherwise? He really wanted to think so, but given the lengths that the angels had gone to, he doubted that they'd left it to chance.
So how could he remain furious at them for what they'd done to Mary without seriously devaluing everything that he'd had with Deanna?
The sudden bright illumination of the kitchen made Samuel cry out in surprise as he shielded his eyes.
"I thought so," Gwen stated, her voice far too loud.
"Gwen?" Samuel questioned, turning around and squinting in the direction of her voice.
His imagination wasn't playing tricks on him and Samuel caught sight of Christian standing beside her. Both were looking at him with concerned frowns and he suddenly wondered just what he looked like. Though he'd always been able to run on very little sleep, he'd been pushing it the past few nights in order to read as many of the books as possible. So it was entirely possible that he didn't look all that great. And just how much bourbon had he drunk already tonight? He wasn't quite sure anymore.
"Jesus, look at you," Gwen muttered. "This has got to stop."
"Excuse me?"
"She's right, Samuel, you can't keep going like this. It's not going to bring Mark back and will only get yourself or one of us killed as well," Christian stated.
"Huh? Mark, what?" Samuel asked, confused, before he got it. "Oh, no, it's not that."
It actually pained Samuel a little to admit, at least to himself, how little Mark's death had affected him. Sure, he'd liked the younger man but the connection hadn't been so great and with the loss of Mary and the fact that Dean was still out there, away from them, it just didn't mean that much to him.
"Then what is it?" Gwen demanded. "Because it looks like you're trying to drink yourself to death. Well, another death anyway."
"I- it's-" Samuel began before he realized just how crazy this would sound. "Come see for yourself."
With that Samuel made to walk past them, brushing up against them far more than he'd intended to, and made his way back to his room. He'd taken special care to keep the books hidden and out of sight up until now, especially from Sam and Bobby as he'd wanted to have read them all at least once before having to put up with any complaints or protests about his having gotten them. It wasn't that he didn't understand why they might be adverse to his reading them (heck he didn't like how much of him had been revealed in just the one book that he'd been in to date and he had a sneaking suspicion that he'd be in far more of the latest ones) but just that he firmly believed that he had to read them. They could hardly afford to shy away from anything that could help them, now could they?
"Samuel, what is this all about?" Christian asked as they followed him.
"You'll have to see it to believe it."
"Try me."
"Fine. During one of our last hunts Sam took Bobby and me to the house of a prophet."
"A prophet?" Gwen repeated. "Is he for real?"
"Definitely."
"I wouldn't have taken you for someone to believe in that nonsense," Christian stated.
"Trust me, I've had all the proof that I need to know that he's the real deal."
"You met him?" Gwen asked.
"No, he wasn't home, but I've read most of his work, including parts that had me in it. You see, the prophet gets visions of Sam and Dean and because he was unaware of what he was, he assumed that he'd made everything up and he wrote it all down and sold it as fiction."
"Fiction?" Christian demanded skeptically.
"Yes, here, see for yourself," Samuel replied, opening the door to his room.
The books were scattered all across his bed, their various sordid covers in clear view and each brought up flashes of scenes that Samuel had pictured while reading them. Most were unpleasant, each wound and hit his grandsons took somehow striking him as well through the words of the prophet. They weren't particularly well written, but the fact that he knew that each one was true added a force to them that the writing didn't possess on its own. Sam losing his girlfriend, Dean getting taken by the wendigo, Dean getting branded with a hot iron, Sam getting grabbed by that vampire, Dean being cut by Azazel while possessing John... the list went on and on, horrifying in both its length and the breadth of injuries that had befallen the boys.
"What are these, bodice rippers?" Christian sneered, picking up Supernatural.
"Don't let the cover deceive you, the artist is merely atrocious," Samuel stated.
"Don't judge a book by its cover?" Gwen questioned with amusement as she held up one of the books that Samuel had done his best to forget.
Honestly, if brain bleach were real, Samuel would have used it to forget what he'd read in that book. The fact that it had Dean shirtless on the cover with a girl really should have been his first clue, but he'd been so focused on his task that he'd forgotten to be careful while reading it and he'd regretted it ever since. To be fair, though, did people really do stuff like that outside of fiction? He'd just always assumed it was guys running off their mouths and exaggerating to boast to their friends. Not so, obviously, as he'd had the great misfortune of learning that his firstborn grandson not only did it, but frequently enough to excel at it.
Oh yes, brain bleach would be greatly appreciated right about now.
In a desperate attempt to wipe the image from his mind, Samuel focused in on the bad stuff. Like when Sam had shot Dean with rock salt, or when Sam had broken his arm, or those kids the boys had failed to save, or Dean getting torn to shreds by the hellhound. The last made the bile rise in his throat and it was all that he could do not to be sick. Now was not the time, not that there ever was one really. At least he was now well and truly distracted from the mental images he'd had no wish to ever think about again.
"You're saying that these are all real?" Christian demanded, still sounding skeptical.
"Yes," Samuel replied, digging for the one he wanted. "And here's my proof."
"In the Beginning," Gwen read, flipping it over to read the synopsis on the back, her eyebrows rising. "You're in this one."
"Like I said, I know that they're the real deal because of that. This is the book that covers the time Castiel took Dean back to nineteen seventy-three, where I first met him, though I was unaware of who exactly he was at the time."
"So it's real? All of its really real? All of these books?"
"Yes," Samuel confirmed again, more than understanding her shock and disbelief.
"How many are there?" Christian asked, grabbing the book Gwen held to see it for himself. "There must be eighty of them here."
"A hundred and four, actually, and that's not even all of them. The store I went to didn't have the last eleven as they'd sold out."
"A hundred and fifteen books?" Gwen uttered, grabbing some at random and glancing at the back covers. "How much time does this cover?"
"Some five and half years as near as I can tell, though there are parts that go back a lot earlier. The first book has a chapter from the night Mary died before it jumps to when Dean got Sam from Stanford to go look for John."
"And it's all in here? Everything that we've heard about?" Christian demanded.
"Yes."
"So, the whole Ruby thing too?" Gwen asked.
"It is," Samuel confirmed, the maelstrom of emotions he'd felt whenever reading about her and Sam resurfacing within him once more.
He'd hoped, oh so desperately hoped, that he'd be able to understand just what the boy had been thinking after he'd read about what had happened, to gain some inkling of what had lead up to that situation, but Samuel had been severely disappointed. All he'd found was one brother completely ignoring and writing off the other's warnings and intuition of what was going on. Despite everything that had ever happened to Sam, all of his experiences with demons before and all of Dean's fears about Ruby, his youngest grandson had fallen head over heels into her trap. Her obvious trap as far as he was concerned. Hell, Dean had even told Sam to his face that she was just using him and still Sam hadn't been able to see the truth that was staring him in the face. Needlessly to say, Ruby was a touchy subject for him and one that made him question if he could trust Sam's judgment at all.
"It is not complimentary for Sam," Samuel added thickly.
"Could it be anything else?" Christian snorted. "She was a demon, end of story, and somehow he thought it a good idea to fuck her and suck her blood? That's just the epitome of stupidity."
"Are they worth reading?" Gwen inquired, looking up.
"The later ones definitely are as they describe how this whole Apocalypse thing got started," Samuel said. "Plus I still want to get my hands on the most recent books as I feel that they'll tell us a lot more about the current situation. From what the prophet's former girlfriend said, they go right up to the casting of this Rite of Contressa that Dean mentioned."
"Dean," Christian sneered. "Of course."
"I think you'd be surprised if you read the books. Apparently Sam has been very deceived about his brother's skill if he truly thinks that he's the better hunter of the two of them."
Chapter 133