John Winchester (daddywinchester) wrote in parabolical, @ 2009-04-11 02:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | john winchester, mary winchester |
WHO: John Winchester, Mary Winchester
WHERE: Winchester & co house
WHEN: Tuesday, April 11, 2006; around 3 a.m.
WHAT: Even an old dog can learn new tricks about bearing old burdens alone.
RATING: PGish
STATUS: log; COMPLETED!
Eyes on the ceiling of the bedroom, John lay awake as he'd done many nights in a row lately, having gotten just enough sleep to find it hard to get back to sleep after waking. With Alastair gone, it meant he was no longer slipping off to the other room to research and drink, but it still wasn't normal. It wasn't right. Those hours awake in the middle of the night hadn't been very productive either, as even after thinking and more thinking, he still really didn't know what he was going to do about his son. In the months he'd been here, he and Dean had started to sort out past issues and be more a father and son than they had for years before John died, but right now John felt his relationship with Sam was far worse than it had ever been before he'd died. He was losing his son, in a far worse way than he'd lost Sam when Sam had gone to school, and he no longer had any idea how to repair that. He'd tried the gamut from open acceptance to blatant hardass and it had all seemed to blow up in his face in the end. The disappearances were only doing a number on everyone, as he could tell losing Heather and the baby was tearing apart a piece of Sam inside, but he could no longer pull his son aside for a talk, no matter how much he wanted to, because Sam had made it clear he didn't want to talk about anything to do with his life. After wanting, since he'd been brought back, to have a better relationship with Sam, the distance and the disintegration of the family bond was killing a part of John. Had he gotten his wife back, gotten a new life, only to start losing one of the two most important people in his life? Mary had always been half of his soul, but his sons were most of his heart. Knowing Mary was awake, just by the rate of her breathing, he sighed and turned his head toward her. "You ever think that a parent's only meant to relate to just one of his kids, that he has to always rely on someone else to be there for the other because he can't ever seem to get it right?" Alastair was gone, and no new big bad villain had popped up to replace him, so Mary should be ecstatic...but she wasn't. She had a sense of foreboding about something to come, something to do with her baby. It was the worry that woke her, though thankfully it was just a generalized sense of worry that allowed her to wake gradually. Sam just wasn't himself lately. While she had once considered Ruby a very close family friend, now she wasn't so sure. Ruby was involved with Castiel, the angel who had saved both her and Dean, and yet she spent more time with Sam than anyone. Mary wasn't prudish, but something about the situation didn't feel right. Sammy shouldn't be spending so much time with the Ruby, he shouldn't be so defensive, and he sure as hell shouldn't have talked to his father the way John told her he did. John spoke, and she nuzzled her face against his chest. She was worried about him too, that he had too much on his plate already to be so worried about Sam. "No." She said, her voice whisper soft. "Remember those nights when he was a baby and seeing you could make him smile like that? Sammy's just going through a lot right now, it's not that you two are..." Are what? Mary didn't know, so she didn't finish the sentence. She wanted to believe that this was just about Sam having too much to handle with Heather gone and his life plans yet again turned upside down. She wanted to believe that this was just some phase he had to work through. She had to believe that, because if she didn't? The alternative was likely to drive her crazy. "I'm not making him smile anymore," John said, moving one arm around her, sounding tired and nearly defeated. "The only thing I ever make him want to do anymore is contemplate putting his fist through my face, I can see it in those damned looks of his." Rubbing his cheek against the top of her head, he closed his eyes and sighed. "I never expected him and I to be a hundred percent changed from how we were most of his life, but I thought here we'd be better, that he'd forgive me for all he had to go through and give me a chance to actually be a father to him." It had taken time, even with Mary, to relearn how to be more open, to talk to her instead of internalizing and journaling, but talking about all of this still made John feel like a failure. It warred with his need to protect Mary, knowing that admitting all of this would hurt her, but he'd been trying. The two months Alastair had plagued them had been a sharp, steep backward slide, but he was making his way back. He had a long way to go to be better than he'd been even before Alastair announced himself, but he was trying. He supposed that at least with Mary, he could count some success. "Sammy was always more selfish than Dean," he said, the words without rancor, just stated like facts. "Dean was always willing to sacrifice anything. It wasn't fair to either of them, but I used to wish Sam saw beyond himself more. Dying and coming back, I realized he was allowed to be selfish if he wanted to be because this life was different, so I thought if he didn't have to sacrifice so much anymore, was able to go to school and have me support it, if I gave my consent for him to get control and then stop this nonsense once he had - we'd finally get there. But now I'm nearly sure he doesn't want a damned thing to do with me, and the man he does want something to do with doesn't exist. " If it was just a matter of selfishness, Mary could put up with it, but it felt as though Sammy was doing his all to distance himself from everyone, and that hurt. He was so dead set on spending time with Ruby, on doing heaven knew what to harness the demon powers... "You've both changed." Mary said, voice neutral. She leaned up, propping herself on one elbow so that she could look down at her husband. "You've changed a lot, John." There was a certain pride in her tone. Although she knew that the boys might have had a hard childhood, Mary honestly believed that John had done his best by them. More than that, she could see now all of the things John was doing to try to get closer to his sons and grandson, all of the extra steps he took to be there or to be open when instincts told him to clam up. He even was encouraging Sam to go to school, and that? That was something that Mary was still all but gloating about. John was learning how to be the father as well as the protector but Sam...Sam was too distracted to see that his father wasn't the person he needed to be butting heads with anymore. He's still learning. That's what Mary wanted to say. She wanted to make excuses for her son, to say that he was still getting used to LA and the steps John was trying to take, that he did want to be in John's life, that he hadn't meant the things he said after supper...but Mary knew excuses wouldn't help here. She had to be honest with him, admit that something clearly wasn't right with their boy. "He still loves you, John, but it's like...like he's lost. I'm worried about him, about what he and Ruby are doing together all the time." In the end, that was what really hurt John the most, even if he wouldn't ever voice it, the feeling that for all Sam's talk about not hating him because of what had happened in the Pits, Sam really didn't love him anymore because of all the rest. Not love, not hate, just... nothingness. The thing was, John would understand it, even if he hated it. He'd done too much to his sons over those years, keeping them from any kind of normalcy, and perhaps even time here couldn't make up for it to both of them. He and Dean were doing better, but with Sam, John just saw opportunity vanished. "He's lost and I've run out of ways to lead him back myself," he admitted quietly, stretching to kissing her forehead as he wrapped an arm around her waist. For a man like John, the admission was rare indeed, but it was only said because it was Mary, the woman he trusted with everything now. Mary relaxed more against John as he kissed her forehead and wrapped an arm around her waist. She was worried about all of them, but sometimes after a reminder like that about what they had all gained here, Mary still saw hope. "Maybe it's not time yet." Mary's voice was whisper soft as she said the words, as she never was very patient when it came to seeing her children hurting. Still, one of the hardest lessons she had learned since coming here was that her babies weren't babies anymore, and that sometimes children had to learn things the hard way. "Maybe he just has to bang his head against the wall a few times before he's to a place where he can listen." Mary loved her sons a great deal. She loved them both, but both of them had gotten more than a little bit of her stubbornness, and John's as well. That's why it was so hard to reason with them when they had their mind set on something, and, she hoped, that was likely the biggest reason why they had so much trouble talking sense into Sammy now. John shook his head, closing his eyes. "Sammy's spent half his life banging his head against one thing or another without ever listening in the end. Used to be easier, I just told him no and that was the end of it. My word was law. Now no isn't worth a damn and if I push him too far, I'll push him away from you and Dean and Ben. It's happened before with Dean, those two not speaking to each other because I laid down the law." He had to protect them all somehow, as even if Sam wouldn't listen to him, the burden of protecting the rest of them still fell to John, as far as he was concerned. It was that same stubbornness, after all. "He's older now," Mary said quietly. "Old enough to make his own decisions. You're right, we can't push him too hard, but we can't let him get too out of control either." She was silent for a long moment, thinking it all over before speaking again. She wasn't sure just what Sam's motivations were here, and that was scary. She tried talking to Sam, but no matter how she tried to phrase herself he didn't seem to understand just how frightening this was, how very dangerous it could be. They had to show him, before it was too late...before they lost him, but they couldn't lose him by pushing too hard. And Mary had thought hunting was hard. "You're wrong, you know." Mary turned her head slightly, pressing it against John's chest. "He's just acting out, but when you're not around and he talks about you, you can tell he still has a lot of respect for you. Your word's worth more to him than you know, even if he's not a kid anymore that will trust and obey without asking questions." John definitely noted the emphasis on 'we', but it didn't change the continued desire to protect Mary or the rest of his family from losing what they'd built here. After lifetimes of not having a home and family, they all had that here and John wasn't going to see that jeopardized now. Eyes still closed, John drew in a breath, simply wanting to take her words at face value. In the end, it was about John's confidence in himself being shaken. The journey back from the lowest point wasn't a steady climb, it was about steps forward and back, the earlier steps full of him judging himself for his own actions. He hadn't always been the kind of man to second guess himself, but there'd been a lot of it in those darker times, the edges of which still affected him. He was doing the right thing, not backing down from his feelings about Ruby and not putting himself in a place to be constantly in the middle of a fight with Sam, but he recognized - or thought he did - that it wasn't without its costs. "It's not your job to tell me things you think I need to hear, just for my sake," he said gruffly. "I'm not." Mary said firmly. "If I didn't really believe what I was saying, that this is just temporary and we'll work through it, do you really think I'd be laying here lying to you to make you feel better?" Mary drew back a little, so that she could look him in the eyes fully and show him just how much she believed what she was saying, then kissed his lips gently and resumed her spot with her head on his chest. "No, if that was what I thought, I'd lock you both in a closet together and not let you out until you had talked some sense into him. We won't lose him, John. We won't let him go to far." Mary closed her eyes, her fingers drawing small patterns across John's chest as she focused, because even talking about losing one of her children was enough to make Mary nervous. "He's our son. He'll straighten out." "No, you're right, it's not what you'd do, it's what I'd do," John said with a sigh. He wasn't proud of it, but it didn't make it any less the truth that in the past he'd willingly lied to protect someone he loved, and that he might do it again in the future if it looked like the right thing in his mind. He was far from perfect and even healing from Hell entirely would never change that. "We won't lose him," he said, echoing her words. "Might get hard, but we won't, that I'll promise you." There might be nothing left of his relationship with Sam at the end of it all, but he wasn't going to lose his son to the consequence looming closer and closer. He'd keep him alive, he'd keep him human, even if the effort killed him. It would be a small price to pay. Opening his eyes, he cleared his throat and angled his neck to look at Mary. "You're too good to me, woman, you know that?" Mary laughed at John's last statement. "We're good for each other." She said, and she believed it. Neither too good for the other, neither too good to the other, it worked out just fine as far as Mary was concerned. Not wanting to give John a chance to argue, to insist he was right or something else, Mary leaned up, kissing him more lingeringly. Sam may not take John's word at face value anymore, but she did, and when he promised her that they weren't going to lose Sam, she accepted it. Hard she could handle...she could handle anything as long as her family was there. Taking it for the end of discussion that it was, John not only kissed her back, but rolled them, partially pinning her beneath him as he traded kiss for kiss and then moved his lips to her throat, to feel that familiar, steady beat of her pulse, the proof she was alive. Five months now they'd been here together and there were days, or just moments, when John still felt it was some kind of dream or hallucination But she was real, this was real. While he might not agree that he was all that good for her, he'd be the first to admit she was good for him. She centered him, helped redirect those impulses that had lead to all the things he'd done wrong in the past. "I love you, Mary," he said, voice low and rough. As long as he had her, he'd have a chance of being something better, not just for her, but for his sons. |