SPN Fanfic: Research is its Own Reward (Conversation)

[caffienekitty]

Title: Research is its Own Reward
Characters: Dean, Sam
Rating: GEN, PG
Word Count: 420-ish
Warnings: Inaccurate depictions of the exciting and enthralling field of genealogical research. Conversation format.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
Summary: Dean, Sam, and a mountain of old paper. Whee!
A/N: In honor of me being stuck at work doing stupefyingly boring data-entry crap until at least midnight. And possibly tomorrow. Which would be Sunday. *headdesk*

Conversations
by CaffieneKitty

Research is its Own Reward
-
Timeframe:
Sometime during mid-Season one, some random unaired case.
-

"This is the most goddamn boring thing we've ever done, Sam."

"It's not boring, it's... Well... Okay, yeah it's boring. But it's for a case."

"How? How is us sitting here, getting eyestrain looking at three-hundred years of old census and county birth records going to help the case?"

"Caleb thinks the curse is probably following a bloodline, so we need to trace the victims back to a common ancestor."

"Can't we just Google this crap?"

"I already tried the genealogy sites. They're mostly user-generated, and no one's really looking in-depth into these people's ancestors but us."

"Great. We've been at this for days, Sam. When are we gonna get to shoot something?"

"Dean-"

"I mean, I'm all for research and crap, as long as it ends in some good cathartic shooting."

"Cathartic, Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Cathartic?"

"What? It's a word. I use them once in a while. You should try listening, you might learn something."

"Whatever."

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"What do we do about stuff like this. 'Mother: Mathilda Ann Grimesby - Father: Thomas. Farm Worker'"

"Great. Another one. Just make a note."

"What, like 'Robert Grimesby, product of Mathilda and a random roll in the hay?'"

"Dean-"

"Adventurous girl for the seventeen hundreds, this Mathilda. I bet she wore a bustle."

"What?"

"...Hm? Sorry, distracted, you were saying something?"

"Not really. It's just frustrating to hit another dead end. There's a lot of them."

"...Like, how many 'a lot'?"

"What?"

"Like maybe-all-of-them 'a lot'?"

"... Actually... Hey, yeah. I just thought Tom was a really common name, but all the victims have an unknown ancestor with the first name of Tom or Thomas, showing up between 1722 and 1735."

"Heh. Thomas, you sly dog."

"Dean! Do you know what this means?"

"It means we can go shoot something now?"

"No! It means we have a connection!"

"Which means shooting. Or burning? I can get behind burning too."

"No, it means we need to go through all the area census records for 1720 to 1740, find everywhere this Thomas guy turned up and trace all those families forward to today! We can find out who might be the next victim, Dean!"

"...Great. You do that, Sam."

"Wait, where are you going?"

"I'm gonna go shoot something. Then maybe set something on fire. Then drink a beer or five."

"Come on, Dean! We're finally making progress!"

"Yes, progress. Progress requires beer and shooting."

"But Dean-!"

"Right. And burning. Can't forget the burning."

"You gotta help me with this! The next victim's due to fall victim to the curse this weekend!"

"...okay, fine. I'll multitask and do the drinking, shooting and burning at the same time."

"Dean-"

"But only for the sake of the research, you understand! I promise I won't enjoy it at all."

- - -
(that's it)

(Conversations Index)

ETA: Fix title. And tags. *facepalm*

Comments

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

[sandrinnad.livejournal.com]

LOL! perfect :D

I'd pop in my favourite quote but I can't decide :D

(and I get where Dean's coming from but tracing the families forward would be kinda fun :) )

[caffienekitty]

*grins*

[caffienekitty]

I actually think it would be kind of neat too, and vastly preferable to what I was procrastinating doing when I wrote this. :-P

Still, a searchable database would be less tedious than going through all the documents by hand.

[sams1ra.livejournal.com]

Hee! ♥

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Heeee!!!

this was fun to read aloud

[(Anonymous)]

hey there
Lurking Wombat here. Read this aloud to S & J last night. S laughed herself silly as did J. It was very fun. The whole "brothers" schtick i can relate to greatly :)
Thanks and want more of this :)
hugs
L. Wombat

[sandrinnad.livejournal.com]

I suspect pretty much anything would be preferable to what you were avoiding when you wrote this ;)

ya....a searchable database would be handy (especially once the families expanded) but going through the old, old documents would just be so cool :D

[anniehow.livejournal.com]

*titters*

[caffienekitty]

Thanks!

[caffienekitty]

*grins*

[caffienekitty]

:-)

Re: this was fun to read aloud

[caffienekitty]

Hee! Did you do different voices?

There's actually a whole bunch of these dialog-only things already written under the 'conversations' tag. The index is linked at the bottom. Some are really weird, and some will make no sense to you if you haven't seen specific episodes.

[caffienekitty]

I suspect pretty much anything would be preferable to what you were avoiding when you wrote this ;)

*nods*

going through the old, old documents would just be so cool :D

I'd be too paranoid about damaging original documents. Fiche, I can totally do. Not old, crackly papers.

[livrelibre.livejournal.com]

Hee! And thank god for Ancestry and Heritage Quest Online! I love research as much as the next girl but searchable databases were the best thing to ever happen to genealogical research.

[sadelyrate.livejournal.com]

"Yes, progress. Progress requires beer and shooting."

You know, that sounds like a perfect motto for certain days...

The boys' voices, their mannerisms, the way they work(ed)... You've managed to get them all right in this, with Dean's exasperation familiar from practically any S1 ep. and countered with Sam's pedanticity (pedantness? *too tired to puzzle it out now*)...

Thank you for letting us see this!

[caffienekitty]

The automated search function is the best invention since fire. *nods*

[caffienekitty]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! And there are indeed some days that call for beer and cathartic gunfire. :-)

[brigid-tanner.livejournal.com]

LOL!! Delightful.
"I mean, I'm all for research and crap, as long as it ends in some good cathartic shooting." perfectly Dean, and yes he *does* know some words! He just doesn't use them often.

[erinrua.livejournal.com]

This is SO quintessentially *Dean!* LOL, I love this. *smishes ficlet* Very cute and so right on with their voices. Thanks for the smile!

[caffienekitty]

*nods* He tends to use much more immediate methods of communication.

[caffienekitty]

I'm glad you liked it! :-)

[blackcat333-99.livejournal.com]

"Wait, where are you going?"

"I'm gonna go shoot something. Then maybe set something on fire. Then drink a beer or five."


Dear Dean: Never ever change. *g*

[caffienekitty]

Oh, absolutely!

[charis-kalos.livejournal.com]

Oh, poor Sam and Dean. I can't believe Sam even got Dean to sit down and start to do research this boring. As it is, I don't think Sam's going to be able to keep Dean from the drinking and shooting and burning for long!

Sorry to hear about your hours of data entry. I'm catching up on fanfic at the moment because I can't force myself to work on Sunday's services. Not nearly as boring, but I'm just NOT IN THE MOOD!

[caffienekitty]

I can't believe Sam even got Dean to sit down and start to do research this boring.

I figure there was a "it'll be done faster if we both work on it" type rationale early on.

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we never see just how tedious it can get, do we. Only Dean's favorite parts make it into the show...

[caffienekitty]

It wouldn't hurt them to throw in a research montage a la A-Team now and then :-)