Work Text:
August 18th, 2001
Sam walked into the mall on Saturday afternoon with absolutely no idea where to go. He had exactly $52 in his pocket leftover from the $100 Dean gave him before he left for Stanford 2 days ago and figured it was a good idea to get some new clothes and a few school supplies before he started school on Monday. While he was here, he’d keep an eye out for help-wanted signs so that he could hopefully find himself a part-time job. The scholarship may have paid for his tuition, room and board, and textbooks, but he still needed money for the everyday stuff. And no way was he about to pull credit card scams or hustle pool when he was trying to be a normal person for once.
As he looked around tentatively to try to find a store with some decent clothes that he could actually afford, a middle-aged woman with short brown hair appeared out of nowhere.
“Hello!” she said cheerfully, causing Sam to jump and reach for the gun he didn’t have. He really needed to get out of the habit, not everyone was a monster anymore.
“Um…hi?”
“My name is Mara Casey, and you are exactly who I have been looking for,” the woman grinned as she spoke. Was this supposed to be a pickup line? It’s not a very good one if it is.
“Uhm…I’m sorry I am not interested,” he said and attempted to walk away.
“Wait wait wait! You haven’t even heard what I have to say yet! It might surprise you.”
It couldn’t hurt to listen to whatever it was this woman wanted he supposed. Not like he couldn’t just walk away afterward. He turned back to look at her and raised his eyebrows to allow her to continue.
“I’m a casting director for a new TV show. We are looking for our main character’s love interest and you are quite literally the exact vision I have for the character. Do you happen to have any acting experience? Even if you don’t, I would still love you to audition. Who knows, you could have a hidden talent for it.”
Of all the things Sam was expecting her to say, that was definitely not one of them. Was this one of those modeling scams where you pay $90 for some headshots and never hear from them again? Not like he had any money to spend to begin with.
“Um…I worked on a couple of plays in high school I guess. Mostly doing tech but I did have a small role in Our Town. That’s probably not exactly what you’re looking for.” He was still not entirely sure if this lady was trying to scam him or was just insane.
“That’s perfect. Here’s my card. Would you be able to come by my office later today?”
“Um… I don’t really know.” Was this a good idea? Was this some kind of trap?
“Okay well if not, no big deal. But if you’re able to please drop by. I’ll tell security to let you through if you do. What’s your name?”
Sam suddenly didn’t feel comfortable giving this woman his real name. He probably wasn’t going to actually go, so no point in her having his name anyway. He thought of his best friend and girlfriend from the last school he was at before graduation. Jared Myers and Caroline Padalecki.
“Jared Padalecki.” He said confidently.
“Well, it was great to meet you, Jared. I look forward to seeing you later today. If you can’t make it, feel free to call me as well and we can reschedule. I am serious, I have been auditioning people all week and none of them have the look I want. You do.”
“Well thank you, Ma’am. I’ll think about it.”
And Sam walked away from this bizarre encounter. Is this just how it is in California?
After getting some new clothes on clearance at some random mall store, Sam headed back to his dorm. He couldn’t stop thinking about that weird encounter. There was no luck finding any jobs at the mall, and he did need money…. He just hoped this wasn’t some kind of trap.
After putting his new clothes away Sam headed down to the common room in his dorm building, Mara’s business card in hand. He sat down at one of the computers and looked around to make sure nobody was looking before typing in the address of the office into Yahoo.
Sure enough, the address on the card was for a building within Warner Brothers Studios. Was this a legitimate offer? He looked up bus routes and found that there was one that heads only half a mile outside the studio. Sighing and tapping the business card on the table, he decided, screw it. The worst that could happen is he gets told to leave and wastes a few hours. The best? He gets a couple of minutes on some TV show nobody will ever watch and makes some money for groceries.
Sam logged off the computer and headed to the bus stop.
When he finally made it to the studio, he had absolutely no idea what to do from there. Luckily, he couldn’t get anywhere by himself anyway thanks to the security.
“Can I help you?” A very bored-looking man in the security booth asked as he walked towards him.
“Yeah hi um…I am here to see Mara Casey?” Sam quickly holds up the business card. “She asked me to meet her here this afternoon.”
The security guard sighs and looks at his clipboard. “Name?”
“Sa- Jared Padalecki?”
The man grumbles and searches his list before he apparently finds his name and buzzes him through the gates. “Down this road, make a left at the second street, then it’s your third door on the right. It says WB Offices on the door.”
“Okay thank you so much.”
The man doesn’t as much as acknowledge him before going back to his crossword puzzle he had been doing before Sam appeared.
After almost getting hit by a few golf carts, Sam manages to make his way to the right door and finds Mara almost immediately. The second she sees him she shoots up out of her chair and runs to him. “Jared! I’m SO happy to see you!”
“Yeah uh…hi.” He rubs the back of his neck nervously.
She opened the drawer of her desk and found a big stack of papers that appeared to be a script.
“So we already shot the pilot of this show and the network already signed up for the first season, but the actor for this character just…he wasn’t the right fit. No chemistry. Not the right look. We don’t have any of the rest of the actors here today but we could definitely pull something together to run a few test scenes from the pilot episode. Actually, I may be able to call in the main girl to make sure you have chemistry if you’re willing to wait a bit.”
She hands him the script.
“Gilmore Girls: Pilot”
At the top is a handwritten “Dean”.
“Dean?” he asked. Because of course, the character's name is his brother's name. That’s not gonna confuse the hell out of him or anything.
“Yes! That's the character's name. Dean Forester. A sweet but cool new guy in school, wins the heart of the smart girl who is about to leave to go to a private school. Bit stalkery and protective but is a pretty okay boyfriend for the first season. Of course, if we get a few more seasons…anyway I’m rambling. Go ahead and take a seat anywhere and read through it a bit. I’ll go make a few calls to get your audition set up in a few hours!”
“Okay, sounds good.” Sam has no idea what he’s doing. Is he insane? He can’t be an actor. He’s going to school to be a lawyer!
“Excuse me, I do have a question.”
“What’s up, sweety?”
“If this goes well…when is the filming? Because I’m actually starting school at Stanford on Monday. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that before coming here but…”
“Oh, no problem sweetheart! Our lead lady is actually going to school as well. We are filming the first few episodes during her winter break, which is probably about the same as yours, and then the rest during the beginning of summer. The season premiere isn’t until next fall.”
“Wow, that’s…Okay then. I’ll start looking at this.” He gestures to the script before finding a couch to sit on.
The audition goes surprisingly well. They managed to get the lead actress, Alexis, to run lines with him. Mara was over the moon about his audition, and Alexis seemed pretty happy with him as well. After running a few scenes, Mara said she was willing to offer him the spot right there but did have to run a few things by the network first and draw up a contract. He would get a call in about a week for him to come in and review and sign the contract.
This was definitely the most bizarre day of his life so far, which is really saying something considering his life before this had included hunting monsters.
Sure enough, the next weekend he goes back to the studio and signs a contract which includes his pay and… wow. He definitely wasn’t expecting that. Or how many episodes he’s actually planned to be in. He’s a series regular. His name is gonna be on the damn intro song. Wait…his name.
“My name isn’t actually Jared Padalecki.” He blurts out when he sees it on the contract.
“Oh don’t worry honey. This is Hollywood. Nobody uses their real names. Just write your real name next to your stage name for tax purposes but we won’t use it in the credits.”
Okay. This is going to work. Definitely not the part-time job he was planning on getting but…it sure will work. Not like anyone he knows will be watching some teen girl drama so it will be able to stay a secret. He can’t imagine what Dean or his dad would say if they saw it. Not like he’s gonna be talking to them any time soon anyway though.
April 19th, 2007
On top of all of the horrors that had happened since Dean came to get him at Stanford in 2005, at the very least his character had already been written out of Gilmore Girls. If he had to deal with a contract, he would inevitably have to tell Dean and that was not happening. There’s no chance of him ever finding out anyway.
That is until they found a haunting at Warner Brothers studios. Dean was way too excited for this, but Sam was absolutely terrified. He had to just keep his head down and pretend he had never been here before, while also pretending he was working on the movie for the case. It all gave him a headache.
Dean, being Dean, wanted to go on a studio tour. Because of course, he did. As the tour cart pulled up past his old set, he started to get more nervous than ever that his secret would be found out.
“Now to the right here is Stars Hollow! It’s the setting for the television series Gilmore Girls,” announces the cheery tour guide. Not good, not good, not good. “And if we’re lucky we might even catch one of the show’s stars…” Nope
Sam jumps off the cart and ushers Dean “Come on.”
“Let’s finish the tour!” Dean tries to argue, but Sam can’t spend another second over here. Who knows how long until someone recognizes him? At least the case they’re working is on a whole different lot. After a few seconds, Dean grumbles something under his breath and follows Sam out of there.
“Jared!” He hears a familiar voice from behind him - it sounds like one of the camera crew - but he just walks faster and doesn’t give any indication that it was him they were talking to. They manage to finish the case without any other incident. Apparently Hollywood is busy enough that the guy on a few seasons of a teen drama doesn’t matter much. Thank God. Monsters he can deal with. His brother finding out he was an actor? Much scarier.
February 25th, 2011
“CUT!”
Sam looked around and immediately recognized they were on a TV set. Even worse, Sam was being called Jared. He hadn’t heard himself called that since before he left college, and he liked it that way. He had to pretend he wasn’t acutely aware that Jared was referring to him. He had zero clue why Dean was being called Jensen, though. It’s not like Dean ever had time to have a secret acting career like Sam did.
“Trish Evian here with Jared Padalecki from TV’s Supernatural” An interviewer and a cameraman appeared out of nowhere and started filming him. Dean had been whisked away by makeup or something. When he heard himself called that name again, he twitched. Nothing about this was right. Is this some kind of world where he really was Jared Padalecki and that wasn’t just a name he made up on the spot to some casting director who accosted him at the mall?
He pretended he had no idea how to do an interview, and had no clue how a TV set worked. Dean didn’t need any reason to question why Sam seemed comfortable in this environment. So he did what he had to - he acted.
When it came down to Sam and Dean having to act for Supernatural, Sam decided to do the exact opposite of everything he was supposed to. He missed his mark, he was stiff and awkward, he stared directly into the camera. It may have given the production team a headache, but he didn’t care about them. Who knew if they were even real? He just didn’t want Dean to say anything. And he managed to get away with it.
It was shocking how much money this version of Jared seemed to have though. Sure, the pay on Gilmore Girls was pretty good, but apparently being the star is a whole other ballpark. Which is kind of unfair. Not that Sam needed a huge house with a tanning bed and an alpaca. But it was a little upsetting to see.
November 4th, 2011
After a case with a ghost and some psychics, Sam and Dean were holed up in a worse motel than usual, making sure it was the kind that nobody would ask questions at. Being on the FBI’s most wanted list made it harder to stay at even the shitty motels they usually go for.
Sam came out of the shower to Dean laying in bed and watching the news.
“Look, Sammy!”
The news had a photo of Sam and Dean up, because of course they did. Of course Dean would be watching a segment about themselves.
“-no sign of the Winchester brothers after they were last seen in Ankeny, Iowa. One way to keep an eye out for them is that Sam Winchester bears a striking resemblance to the Gilmore Girls star Ja-” and Sam shut off the TV before the newscaster could say anymore. There’s no way this was how his secret career was going to be outed to Dean. At least they haven’t seemed to figure out that Sam actually is that actor.
“I was watching that!” Dean complained.
“Go shower. You reek.”
Dean mumbled something under his breath and rolled his eyes but did as Sam told him. That was a close call.
July 30th, 2022
The rescue mission to get Cas out of The Empty had gone relatively well, though it did render Cas human. He said he didn’t mind at all, but it was still quite the adjustment, even a year and a half later. This meant doing more behind the scenes stuff instead of going out on a lot of hunts themselves. The Bunker became more of a headquarters for research and community, along with phones for whatever fake agency hunters needed them to be. The older they got, the less they really wanted to go out on hunts anyway.
Movie nights became a much bigger thing than before. But not just movies, they also all decided to binge TV shows together too. Dean would tell Cas it was to catch him up on culture, but Sam knew that a lot of it was just an excuse for Dean to watch things he never got a chance to. After working on overcoming a lot of his toxic masculinity and internalized homophobia that came with admitting his feelings for Cas, Dean was openly watching things he never would have admitted to in the past. The phrase “no chick flick moments” had been permanently removed from his vocabulary. This all seemed like a great thing. And it was! Until something Sam never expected to come happened.
They had finished watching Once Upon a Time the night before, so Cas was scrolling through Netflix to find another show while Dean and Sam were both on their phones.
“Dean, can we watch this show next? I am hearing it is “The Ultimate Fall Show”. And I believe it sounds charming.”
“Sure Cas! Oh, I watched this when it was on when I hunted by myself while Sammy was at college. Binged the whole thing as soon as it came to Netflix to see what all I missed. Never would have admitted it at the time since it’s considered a girl’s show but I’m not afraid of liking what I like anymore ya know. How about you Sammy, have you ever watched this show?”
Sam looked up from his phone at Dean, who was wearing the most evil, shit-eating grin he had ever seen on him. What the hell could that face be about? Sam looked at the TV and his stomach dropped. Cas was stopped on Gilmore Girls.
No. No way. Dean didn’t watch this show. He wouldn’t have. He would have said something right? He would have never let Sam live it down. Sam had hidden it perfectly well.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” he yelled out, causing Dean to burst out laughing and Cas to tilt his head in confusion.
“I don’t understand. Is there a joke I am missing here?” Asked Cas innocently.
“Why don’t we watch it and you can find out, huh Cas?”
“Oka-”
Sam interrupted Cas by saying “Nope absolutely not no way. I’m out.” And he stole the remote out of Cas’ hands, turning the TV back to the home screen.
“Come on Sam. Lighten up! It was great!” Dean plead, trying to steal the remote back from Sam. All the while, Cas just stared at both of them, extremely confused. Not a moment later Eileen came into the room with a bucket of popcorn, grinning.
“So, what are we watching, boys?”
“Well I wanted to watch Gilmore Girls, but for some reason, Sam is extremely against it. Nobody will tell me why.” Cas said plainly, obviously frustrated.
Eileen barked out a laugh. “Well, I can tell you why. It’s Sam’s worst-kept secret!”
“YOU KNEW TOO???” Sam was losing his mind here.
“Duh. I recognized you the moment I met you. I actually was a little hesitant to get into a relationship with you because I was worried you’d be like Dean. Gilmore Girls Dean, not Dean Dean.”
Sam just stared at her, jaw dropped, while Dean laughed so hard in the background.
“Okay is anybody going to tell me what’s going on?” Cas interrupted the laughter with a slightly raised voice.
“Fine, just watch the fucking show. Since apparently Cas is the only one here who hasn’t .” Sam handed the remote back to Cas, who immediately went back to Netflix and clicked play, still utterly confused.
When the words “Jared Padalecki” came across the screen as a guest star, Dean and Eileen cheered, like it was planned or something. Sam sunk down into the couch and Cas just ignored them, focusing way more intensely than this show warranted.
About 8 minutes in, Cas is asking questions about hayrides and what exactly the point of them is, when Dean shushes him and points to the screen. The two girls on screen were walking into school and the camera zoomed in on Sam. Or, rather, Dean.
“Is that..?” Cas asked hesitantly.
“YEP!” declared both Dean and Eileen who had been both starring as Cas rather than watching the show.
“Sam I don’t understand, why are you in this television show?”
“SHHH just watch!” Dean said before Sam could even begin to answer. “Man, look at that hair. I know I give you shit about your hair now but at least it’s better than that middle part.”
“Why do you shush me and then you get to keep talking, Dean?” Cas asked.
“Because I’ve seen it before so I know when I can and can’t talk. Now shush.” Dean presses a finger to Cas’ mouth and gives him a quick peck on the cheek. Sam groans and Eileen awws. That’s not even close to the worst thing he’s seen since Cas and Dean’s relationship started, but every time he sees them doing anything his brain brings back the image of what was the worst thing he’s seen and he wants to throw up. To get that out of his head, he just started truly watching the show.
It’s actually the first time he really watched the show himself. He wasn’t one of those people who wanted to see himself on TV. He saw bits and pieces, but it will be a fully new experience watching the whole thing. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
After the first episode was over, Dean insisted on an explanation of how exactly this came to be, since they had never spoken about it before. Dean didn’t even believe him at first, saying there was no way he would just get offered a role. But Sam swore up and down that he wasn’t lying and Dean eventually started to believe him.
“My boyfriend is a star!” Eileen said, with a grin that is somehow both genuine and evil at the same time. He cannot believe they all knew.
“Wait, Dean….did anyone else know? Did…dad?” Sam questioned.
“Hell no Dad didn’t know. I wouldn’t have been caught dead watching that shit around him. And I sure as hell didn’t want him finding out about you. He had enough problems with you going off to college, you think I needed to add fuel to the fire that you were a TV star now too?”
“Thank god. Not that it matters now I guess.”
“Well Dad didn’t know, but Jody and the girls know. Bobby knew. That one was a shock but I caught him watching it one day while you were on a food run and he thought I was still sleeping. Charlie knew. Both Charlie’s actually. Apocalypse World Charlie actually had a real Jared Padalecki though since that universe didn’t have us in it. She was very confused. They all watched the show on their own though so don’t go blaming me. Not my fault you were in what became a classic.”
“Why didn’t any of them…say anything to me?”
“Because I told them not to. We had enough going on, no need to get you stressed out about your little secret.”
“Huh. Well, thanks Dean. I really thought I’d be taking this secret to the grave.” Sam chuckled.
“No problem. It would also have meant admitting to you that I watched Gilmore Girls, which I wasn’t interested in doing. Come on, let's keep watching and see Sam turn himself into the most hated character on the show!”
“Jerk.”
“Bitch.”
After getting through all 7 seasons over the next couple of months, Cas noticed on the suggested episodes that there was a special 4 part series released in 2016. Dean and Eileen both had never heard of this before, but before Sam could protest, Cas clicked play.
“Huh, I had no idea they made this. Kinda rude they didn’t even bother telling you.” Dean joked.
“Yeah. I don’t think we should watch it though.” Sam said, trying to be nonchalant.
“Nah we gotta, I wanna know what happens!”
Nobody was expecting what was coming during the last episode except Sam, who was dreading the moment. As soon as Rory runs into someone in the grocery store, all three people scream “WHAT?”.
“Sam what the hell?” Dean asked. “When the fuck did you have time to do this??”
Sam tried to sink further into the couch than ever before when whispering - “When you were a demon.”
There was silence besides Sam on TV talking about what was happening in Dean Forester’s life.
After a beat, Dean snorted, then Eileen giggled, and even Cas was smirking. This increased in intensity until they were all laughing uncontrollably and even Sam couldn’t help himself from laughing too.
“Wait a minute, do you get any royalties?” Eileen asked after everyone calmed down.
“Nope. If only I had taken some of those pre-law classes before I signed my contract. One-time payment.”
“Booooo” Dean yelled, throwing popcorn at him.
“Yeah yeah yeah I know. So what are we watching next?”
“There’s this new show called The Boys on Prime that looks interesting,” Cas said, and Dean’s smile fell.