Song Remains the Same

Chapter 15: Metafiction

"When writing a novel, a writer should create living people."
- Ernest Hemingway

Four Days Later

Alex rolled over on the motel bed onto her stomach, thoroughly engrossed in her book. After all, reading about your own life through someone else's eyes was fascinating... if not sort of horrifying too.

That morning the Winchesters had been blindsided by a strange discovery: a series of books starring them.

On the other end of the room, Dean and Sam were both glued to their laptop screens, the books in question littering the table around them. The books contained all the things they had done for the past three or so years in perfect detail. Although the Winchesters were dead set on finding out who this author Carver Edlund was and how they knew everything about their private lives, they'd gotten temporarily distracted after Sam had stumbled onto the Supernatural fandom online.

Dean was chuckling. "Whoa, check it out... these fans are not playing around. There are 'Sam girls' and 'Dean girls.'"

Alex looked up from the pages of Wendigo. She let loose an unladylike snort. "Ha!"

Dean looked at her over his shoulder. "Why's that funny?"

"I'm an Alex girl, personally."

Dean rolled his eyes and turned back to his computer screen. "Hey, what's a 'slash fan'?"

Sam looked hesitant to answer and Alex looked up in mild curiosity. "As in... Sam-slash-Dean," Sam answered. "Together."

There was a short silence in which Dean and Alex tried to figure out exactly what was being implied. "Like, together together?" Dean's voice was full of the beginnings of incredulous disbelief.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed, drawing disgusted reactions from both siblings.

"They do know we're brothers, right?" Dean asked, hopeful that there had been some misunderstanding.

Sam shrugged. "Doesn't seem to matter. And there's also some... um... of all three of us. Together. And, there's also, uh... 'Twincest'? And... 'Deanlex'?" He looked at Alex and cringed.

Alex sat up, throwing her book down. "What is wrong with these people?"

Sam's chuckled. "A lot from what I can tell. I mean, I'm finding all this anti-Alex stuff in the fandom. Some fan named Axarell posted this just yesterday: 'The series is perfect except for Alex, who undermines the entire story. Instead of being about brothers in arms, it's about these two guys and their third-wheel sister—she's too talkative once she gets her voice back in the last few books. She's always crying and bitching. Alex ruins the entire series.'"

Alex made a face, unsure how to respond.

"No no, this one's better," Dean said, reading from his screen. He clearly thought the whole thing was funny. "LisaMack wrote 'Alex Winchester is an unbelievable and flat character, and her mysterious recovery from mutism is just too far-fetched. Wish she wasn't in the books; I also don't like how she gets so much time with my boys.'" Dean paused. "Her boys?" He scoffed. "What, we're personal property now?"

"I'm not believable?" Alex couldn't believe the absurdity of all this. "LisaMack isn't believable." Both of her brothers tried to hide their chuckles at her indignant comment. "It's not funny! I mean, don't these people have anything better to do with their time than complain about me?"

"Haters gonna hate," Dean said with a good-natured shrug. "There's nice ones too about you but why would I read you those? Hey!" He ducked a spare sock she threw at him and chuckled when she missed. He returned to reading out loud from his screen. "'Hey guys, please read my brofic, in which Sam and Dean hunt on their own. No Alex in this alternate universe. Please don't hate, I know brofic isn't everyone's cup of tea.'"