Mary Winchester (Jr) (marygoround) wrote in lost_world, @ 2013-02-24 09:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | !status: complete, johnny outlaw, mary winchester |
Song remains the same (Mary/Johnny Flashback)
The more time Mary spent in the past, the more she went over certain things from her time. And the more time with Johnny, the more she started to see all of the things that had happened over the course of their relationship in a different and sometimes unsettling light.
It was easy to pick out some of the lies now. She just wished it wasn't. All the same, she couldn't help going over certain things in her head. These days, her thoughts felt a little like a broken record because certain things stuck out more than others and she couldn't just get those off her mind.
----
Johnny was destroyed.
His body was broken in more than one place. His skin was burned, cut, bruised, torn, and pretty thoroughly ruined. He could hardly move, due to the pain. He could hardly think, actually. He knew that he was going to be able to shake this off, just like he had everything else, but it was hard to keep that in mind through the agony. The last time he’d been this bad, he’d actually died. The Butcher had mutilated him to the point that his body could no longer sustain itself and it’d just given up. The last time he’d looked like this, he’d woken up as a ghost and had then begun the long process of coming back to life.
He took a moment to recreate what had just happened.
There was a hunt. Mary and him together. Where was Mary now? Safe, something in him said. She was alright. He’d taken the worst of it. Gotten her out of the way. And then where was the creature? Dead, that same something said. It was dead now and it wouldn’t be doing anything to hurt anybody else. He’d managed that much at least. Keeping Mary from dying and killing the creature. The rest of the details were a little bit fuzzy. He couldn’t get his mind to call up what they’d been hunting or why it had been so difficult. Johnny decided that with the two most important facts figured out, he didn’t care about the rest.
One eye wasn’t working properly, and the other was a bit blurry. He glanced around best he could, seeking out the blonde that he knew would signify where Mary was. He could smell his own blood. He could feel it pooling around him. He needed to get out of here, somewhere that she couldn’t see, that nobody could see, so he could start healing. He needed to figure out how to make that happen.
---
Mary hovered just a few feet away from Johnny. Her first instinct was to call for an ambulance and who the hell cared about the dragon carcass in the building? None of that mattered when Johnny was bleeding out on the floor. It was more than she could fix up with the first aid kit in her car.
She knelt beside the man who had pushed her out of the way at the last second, fighting with anger over him for being so stupidly noble and self-sacrificing and feelings that ran a whole lot deeper than that.
“Johnny,” she said, reaching out to gently touch his hair. “Stay with me.”
Somewhere along the way, in spite of his best efforts to push her away in the beginning, they’d become friends. For her, it had become more than that. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when her feelings had turned from simple attraction and friendship to something more, but there they were. She hadn’t spent too much time examining them or pining away. Things had been good as they were and even a hunter tended to feel like there would always be a tomorrow to deal with things.
Her fingers caressed his hair, careful not to touch anything that was burned or bleeding.
She didn’t hesitate and didn’t think as she dipped her head down to touch her lips to his. The kiss was firm without being too demanding, soft without a trace of hesitation. It communicated the ‘thank you’ that she could never properly put into words, and spoke to some of the feelings that had been building over the last year and a half.
She didn’t linger over it, even if she might have wanted to. She pulled away almost as quickly as she’d leaned in.
“I’m going to get you to a hospital. You just need to hang in there.”
The words were as much a plea as an order. She needed him to be okay.
----
He thought he might have smiled up at her, to reassure her, but he couldn’t really tell if his face was making the movements his brain wanted it to make. There was a joke on the tip of his tongue, ready to slide out and resume their normal banter. They’d gotten to a point where quips and comments came naturally, where even if they were the most inappropriate thing that could be said at the moment, they were said anyway, because that was just what the two of them did. He had never meant to allow such a thing to happen.
Really, he’d never even meant for it to evolve into a friendship. After befriending Jo, and having to disappear on her after a while, Johnny had decided that it would be best to stay away from people who didn’t have his particular problem. Living forever. Not aging. He hadn’t given it much thought at first, but when he’d started to see the changes in Jo’s face, and everybody else that was around him, he’d decided it would be best for them all if he slipped away and vanished. Explaining what he was when he wasn’t even totally sure of it himself didn’t seem like a good idea.
It wasn’t that the story was long and complicated. It was that he knew how hunters felt about living unnaturally. Johnny was, in the end, unnatural. From head to toe. He would never age, and he would never die. And he would be able to heal the damage that had been done to him just now like Mary would have been able to heal a paper cut.
Which is why he’d worked so hard to shake her off. He’d tried to make her think that he was an asshole, but she’d seen through that. He’d tried to convince her that he wasn’t good to be around, and she’d struggled on anyway. He’d done everything he could think of to try to drive Mary off, none of it had worked. She’d pushed through, broken down his walls, stolen her way into his life and then into his heart.
Johnny had had no idea that she was carrying similar feelings until she kissed him. It wasn’t the kiss of one friend to another. He felt, in that kiss, the longing. The need. The passion that could be between them. It was just a shame that it had to happen when he couldn’t really respond to it properly. Really, all he could do was lay there, continually bleeding.
He knew the dangers of getting close to anybody, especially as close as that kiss promised. He’d never even thought that it would happen again, that he’d want to be. After Katie, Johnny had been sure that he would never even desire love again. But here was Mary now, and he found that he didn’t want to be without her. He’d found a lot in her that he’d seen in his wife. He’d also found in Mary somebody who fit into the life that had formed around the persona he’d created. He was so firmly Johnny Outlaw at this point that no “normal” person would have ever gotten through to him. But Mary... Mary knew the strange things of this world.
There was still the worry of what she might say and/or do if she discovered the truth about him.
Johnny was shaken from the thoughts that had surfaced with the kiss when he heard her say something about a hospital.
“No.” He shook his head a little bit. “No, it’s not that bad. I don’t need a hospital.”
---
“Not that bad?” Mary repeated, shaking her head in disbelief. “You’re delirious.”
Her fingers lingered where they were for just a moment before she straightened up.
“I think it’s safe to say that this is one of those times where you just have to come up with a cover story and risk the questions. Trust me. If you could see yourself, you’d agree. I’ll even come up with the story for you.”
She turned to move away. She knew that she had to move quickly to stop the bleeding so he was in good enough shape to get to the hospital, but that didn’t make it any easier to leave his side. There was a very strong fear that he’d bleed out in the time that it took her to run out to the car for bandages.
“I’ll be right back. Just going to get something to bandage up your wounds.”
She didn’t wait for a response. Didn’t wait long enough to allow her thoughts to wander down the road that had spurred on that kiss to begin with. Now wasn’t the time for her feelings or for anything but survival. After, they could both sort through the pieces and decide if it should just be written off as a moment of hysteria in the heat of the moment.
She returned a short time later with everything that she had to prepare him to hopefully survive the trip to the hospital. She knelt again and set to work with the bandages.
“Still with me?” she asked, looking over the man who’d been her partner on so many hunts for signs that he was still taking breath.
----
“No...” Johnny tried to reach out to grab her hand and stop her from running off, but he couldn’t get himself to move in time. He sighed and let it drop back to his side. “Shit.”
Even though it was likely that she was only gone for a couple of seconds, maybe two minutes at most, it felt like an eternity. Johnny thought - not for the first time, and likely not the last - that it would have been nice if some kind of pain dulling had come with his other issues. As it was, he could feel every inch of himself. His nerve endings were screaming at the rampant abuse.
When he heard her footsteps come near again, he rolled his head in that direction. He squinted the blurry “good” eye to see if that would help.
“Still here.”
His voice sounded weak, even to him. He needed to convince her that he didn’t need to go to the hospital, and that was not going to help matters. But he knew what would happen if he went. They would assess the damage done to him and stick him in the ICU. They would watch him and tell everybody that they were sure that he only had a few days to live, if that. They would monitor him around the clock, waiting for him to give up and die.
Then he would begin to heal it, and not only that, heal it at an alarming rate. It wouldn’t be instant, but it sure as hell wouldn’t take the months and months that they would expect. Within a week, he’d likely be back to walking around on his own. In two, there would probably be just surface wounds. Three and he’d be sporting fresh pink scars and nothing else to signify the battle he’d just had.
None of that was good.
“Listen. Seriously. No hospital. I have a friend. I need to go there.”
---
Mary was silent as she tended the wounds. She wasn’t ignoring the request, just chewing it over. She’d known a lot of hunters-enough to know that if someone was injured, you respected their wishes about treatment. Even if it seemed crazy.
Finally she spoke as she came to the end of the bandaging. She’d done all she could do.
“Damnit Johnny,” she muttered. “You realize that if you’re making the wrong call on this friend of yours, I’m going to kick his ass. Yours too, even if I have to wait until I’m on the other side of the grave too.”
She didn’t like thinking about death, particularly when it came to someone she cared about, but it was what she’d lived with for as long as she could remember. In some ways, that made it easier to make flip remarks and jokes about it. In other ways, that made it a lot harder to delude herself when faced with someone who seemed to be this close to it.
Her hand found his in a gentle squeeze that was more friendship than any ulterior motives. She wanted him to know that she was here.
“I’m going to have to move you. My car’s right outside, but I’m going to need your help in getting there. Do you feel like you could walk if I helped you?”
She meant it when she said the car was right outside. She’d backed the car up the door. She’d been tempted to just back it into the wall so he didn’t have to go anywhere, but she figured that had as much risk of causing more damage with raining debris, so it wasn’t worth it.
----
“I would expect nothing less.” He tried again for the smile, and again had no idea if it was even happening a little bit. He squeezed Mary’s hand back, tugging a bit to get her attention. Now was serious time. “Trust me, please. I’ve gone there before. If my friend can’t help me, then there’s nothing a hospital could do, either.”
Johnny hoped it was enough to calm her down and ease her mind on the matter. He was careful to not give details that he would have to remember through his healing. If she wanted more information, she could have it when he had a clear head and could recall everything that he’d said.
He had no idea which direction she meant he had to walk in. Johnny turned his head one way first and then the other. To his left, it looked like a really far journey. To his right, painful, but not as harrowing. He really hoped it was to his right.
“Only way to find out is to try.” Johnny finally said. He might not have sounded happy about the prospect, because he really wasn’t.
---
Mary didn’t like the answer but they were miles away from anyone who she could trust to help. The only other option was going outside and seeing if she could flag anyone down and hoping that they wouldn’t ask too many questions.
She pointed to the right and leaned over to sling his arm over her shoulders. She was planning to be with him every step of the way as he got to his feet.
“It’s not that far,” she promised, even though she knew full well that with the extent of his injuries, he shouldn’t be walking too far.
“So where’s this friend of yours?”
She hoped that it wasn’t too much of a drive, because she didn’t know if he would make it for a long drive. She wanted to bombard him with questions about the friend that would be helping but she knew that most hunters guarded their resources closely, and vice versa. She could respect that even if she didn’t like it.
----
“Good.” Johnny struggled to his feet. Every step of the process was agony. He did his best to not let it show on his face, even though he didn’t know for sure if his facial muscles were even working at this point. He still didn’t want to do anything to let Mary know that he was really as bad off as he looked to be. Once upright, all the way upright, he had to make her wait so that the dizziness could pass. There was so much pain, he thought he might actually throw up.
“No, that’s …” He paused while another wave of nausea overtook him. “Just take me to my motel room. It’s like the olden days, where the doctor went to the house instead of the patient going to the doctor. For minor things, maybe we’d go out there, but for this, no. I’ll get VIP treatment.”
He reassessed his previous thoughts about walking to the right. It now looked just as far away to him as the left had. He was glad that Mary was there to hold him up, since he was pretty sure his foot was broken, and his knee was shattered. Luckily, she was supporting him on that side and he didn’t have to ask her to move over. She’d never believe the recovery rate if she knew about the internal damage.
At that thought, Johnny leaned over and spit out a mouthful of his own blood, thankful that there was a puddle of it already. She wouldn’t be able to judge the color to see that it had come from somewhere within. He put a careful hand to his chest and gently tested to try to discover which organ had been punctured. If the pain was indication, all of his insides were squishy mush now, one big lump of goo.
Probably not really, but that’s what he felt like.
“Let’s do this walking thing.”
---
Mary watched as he moved slowly, painfully. He might be trying to hide how badly he was injured, but she had her suspicions. She was just trying not to think about it too much. Trying to hold out hope.
“Okay. Back to your room it is,” she agreed.
She still didn’t love the idea, because she thought that any traveling doctor wouldn’t have the equipment that might be needed to keep him alive. But it wasn’t her call. As much as she hated that, he was still conscious and not delirious, which meant that this was his choice.
She moved slowly but purposefully toward the door, which she’d already propped open on her way in. The door to the backseat of her car was also hanging open, ready to welcome the patient to be.
----
“You know we can’t just leave a dead dragon laying around.” He said, to take the focus off of himself for even just a little bit. He was limping along, his bad foot being more dragged than anything, but he was putting as much weight on it as he could without screaming, so Mary might think that it was just sprained or something, not crushed.
“I mean, as much as I’d love to see the newspapers when it’s found, I’m pretty sure that it would bring down a shitstorm. Since my blood is all over the floor, I think I’d like to not be at the center of said storm.”
Johnny’s voice wasn’t as strong or boisterous as it usually was at all. And he had to stop to spit out more blood. He made sure to aim it behind some debris, out of sight.
“Think I lost a tooth.” He said, by way of explanation.
---
Mary shot Johnny a skeptical look, but she didn’t push it. Right now, she’d let him lie to her about how bad off he really was. It was most likely making both of them feel better.
“I know. I’ll go back and burn it once you’re safe and sound in the back seat.”
She was going to do what she could to get rid of the blood too. Even if that meant burning down the whole building. It seemed to be abandoned and possibly condemned, so Mary wasn’t all that worried about anyone getting caught in the blaze.
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” she teased.
It was easier to keep things light as they neared the car. Mary did her best to find the best angle to get him in the backseat with as little pain as possible.
She was encouraged by the fact that he was still conscious and talking. That made it a little easier to hope that maybe he wasn’t as bad as he looked.
----
Johnny also angled himself into the back seat, feeling a bit of guilt at the fact that it was about to be covered in his blood. He figured it was going to be worse than Pulp Fiction back there. He slid in face first, deciding that on his stomach was the best way to be at the moment. Mostly since it was the easiest. It might be a pain in the ass once he had to get back out, but he’d deal with that later.
“Might not be your first rodeo, but I normally do the burning down. I didn’t want you to forget. You can use my spurs if you like. I know you’ve always coveted them.”
He felt kind of squishy, like all of his clothes were made of sponge and he’d spent a really long time soaking them in various fluids. Johnny was aware that it was likely all just blood. And that he was probably becoming punchy from the blood loss.
“You can wear my hat too.” He paused. “If you can find it.”
He had no idea when the rounded top hat had come off, but he certainly wasn’t wearing it now.
---
Mary laughed softly at the offer.
“I think I can handle burning things down without your spurs, but thank you.”
She made sure that he was situated and then let herself back into the building. She did a quick glance around for the aforementioned hat and paused for a moment as she knelt to pick it up, as though the hat was a piece of him that she couldn’t bear to leave behind.
It was, in a way. She’d very rarely seen him without it.
Once Mary had set the fire, she quickly exited the building and got into the driver’s seat of her car. Once in, she looked back to check on the man who was currently bleeding all over her upholstery. Not that she cared one lick about that right now.
“Johnny? How are you doing?”
----
He listened to the sounds of Mary moving through the space that now held a dragon corpse and most of the blood from his body. He heard the woosh of flames when she lit the place up. It all sounded so distant. It was only because she’d said how close she’d parked that he could say for certain that it wasn’t.
“Oh, just dandy.” He said against the seat. He lifted the hand that dangled into the floor well to give her a thumbs up. “Didn’t you know? This is how I spend every Saturday night.”
The movement of the car when she got in had stirred up the dizzy feeling again. Johnny took in a deep breath to calm his body down.
----
Mary smiled to herself. At least his sense of humor was still intact. That was a good sign, right?
She’d set the hat on the seat next to her and put the car into drive.
“I rescued your hat, though it’s going to need a good cleaning.”
The blonde hunter navigated down the streets of the small podunk town that they’d found the dragon lurking in. She did her best to keep up the conversation in an attempt to keep him talking. Staying conscious was the most important thing at the moment. Right?
Once she’d arrived into the parking lot, she was glad when she found a parking spot right in front of his door.
“Still have your key?” she asked as she put the car into park.
----
“There’s not one part of anything that I have touched in the last ten minutes that isn’t going to need a good cleaning.”
Johnny steadied himself as well as he could when the car began to move. He made sure to keep up with her attempts at conversation for both their sakes. He needed to stay awake and she needed him to. He couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t just stay passed out for the healing process once he was down, and if he did that, she’d take him to the hospital for sure.
At one point, Johnny politely apologized and gave Mary a good warning, then threw up over the edge of the seat. He definitely had a concussion. Probably more than that, really. There was a chance that he had the kind of brain injury that normal people never recovered from.
“In my pocket.” He answered about the key. “Not sure which one. But it’s there.”
---
By the time they’d reached the motel, Mary’s car reeked of vomit and sweat and the metallic scent of blood. She would worry about that later. She didn’t even have the heart to make a joke about sending him the cleaning bill because she was pretty sure Johnny was the sort of guy who would feel bad about that sort of thing.
“I’ll find it,” she promised.
Maybe it would have been awkward to be sticking her hands in his pockets after kissing him not too long ago, but Mary was still too worried about all of the physical damage that had been done to the man that she considered a friend to worry about anything else. She opened one of the passenger doors and leaned in enough to find one of his pockets under the gore. She slipped her fingers in there, searching for any sign of a key.
“Now don’t go getting any ideas,” she joked, still trying to keep him conscious.
----
“Too late.” He tried to smile a bit. “Already had ‘em.”
It was very likely, Johnny thought, that mary was going to have to get an entirely new car. He didn’t think there was any saving this one. Unless she called one of those biohazard teams that came out to clean up houses after suicides. That was a kind of an amusing thought.
He used his upper body to shove himself toward the door closest to his feet, trying to be helpful and get himself out of the car.
“Now, listen.” He started, his face mashed into the upholstery as he wiggled himself out. “If I don’t call you or answer my phone for a week, don’t take that to mean anything bad. Sometimes my friend likes to put people in these... I don’t know what to call it. Coma-like states? So they can’t fuck themselves up any further. Not that that means that’ll happen. I just wanted to warn you.”
Johnny felt very much like he might pass out. He’d not been hurt this badly since that first time and couldn’t know what his body would do to recover. The last thing he wanted was for her to come into the room while he was out. Or to worry too much. And really, it was the worrying that bothered him more. He wished he could tell her why she didn’t have to. But Mary was a hunter. She might not take very kindly to the idea of what he was.
“Okay. So. I’m going to need help.”
---
Mary was already waiting to help so as soon as she could, she put her arm around Johnny and helped put his arm over her shoulders so she could support his weight.
“A week?” she asked. She didn’t have to say ‘damnit,’ since that was implied in her tone. She wasn’t sure how she was just going to sit on her hands for a week or possibly more without any news of how he was doing.
“I could just stick around, you know. Play nurse, or something like it.”
She really didn’t want to go anywhere if there was something she could do to help out here.
----
“As much as I would love to see you cavort around in a tiny white dress and 8 inch heels, there’s nothing that you’ll be able to do to help.” He let most of his weight fall on Mary, glad that it was only a few more steps until the door to his room. “My friend doesn’t exactly like other people being around. Says they tend to get in the way.”
He felt really badly saying something like that to her. It sounded really dickish. Considering he was the one that he was really talking about, it made him feel like he was telling her that he didn’t want her there. Though that was an absurd notion. Mary didn’t know there was no friend.
“But you could maybe get me a few things before I make the call. Bottled water. Snacks that won’t go bad or have to be fixed in any way. And I’d totally be okay if you wore that nurse’s uniform while you did it.”
---
Mary did her best to keep her expression neutral, even at the hurt and disappointment at being rendered essentially useless in helping out here. She hated being powerless, hated that she couldn’t do anything to make sure that Johnny survived this.
Instead of focusing on that, she used her energy to pay attention to shuffling the two of them to his door, and to throwing a smile his way at the nurse comment.
“You do realize that that’s not actually what nurses wear, right?” she said with a laugh. “Though I’ll tell you what-you survive this and I’ll find one of those ‘nurse’ outfits and wear it for you.”
They’d always had an easy sort of back and forth that sometimes bordered on flirting, so she didn’t read too much into all of this. Even if she couldn’t help but wonder what might happen if he did come out of this on the other side, given that she’d crossed that line drawn in the sand.
She didn’t let go as she managed to get the key in the lock and nudged open the door. She would get the things he’d asked for after she made sure he was settled. It felt like the very least she could do, and she was glad to have something to help with.
----
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. All the nurses in my fantasies always wear that.”
Johnny was careful to not lean on the door while Mary got it open. A giant bloody smudge on the outside was bound to raise eyebrows. Only as he stood there did he wonder about foot prints and glance back to see what looked like a very painful transition from one place to the other. Half was very clear boot and the other, just along smudge.
“I’m holding you to this promise.”
He made his way into the room, glad that he’d left the air on. It was a little cold, and it felt like it was cooling the fire on his skin. He didn’t even bother taking his boots off - or trying, since he’d likely not actually be able to do that himself, he just sat carefully on the edge of the bed.
“Oh. And a bucket. I could probably use a bucket.”
It was gross, he just didn’t want to have to try to run to the bathroom every time he felt sick.
---
Mary moved her arm only once Johnny seemed stable on the bed. She didn’t want to leave him like this, but the sooner she left, the sooner he could call for help. She did manage a small smile at the idea of him holding her to any promises. He wasn’t talking like a guy near his deathbed, so that made it easier to pretend that he would be okay.
She nodded to indicate that she would get the bucket as well. She didn’t move away from the bed just yet, and instead reached up to brush a little bit of hair off his face, trying not to pay too much attention to the blood that was now caking there.
“I’ll be back soon. Just try not to pass out while I’m gone, okay?”
----
“Yep.” Johnny lifted an arm to wave - kinda - at her, not really able to lift his head up. He was going to have to concentrate really hard to keep himself awake while she was gone.
He did this by talking to himself.
Mostly, replaying the events of the day. He went through the whole story, piecing it together. Hearing about the dragon, joking about the dragon, doubting there was actually a dragon, seeing the signs of the dragon, joking about the dragon, seeing the dragon, joking some more about the dragon, and then getting his ass firmly handed to him by the dragon.
A lot of his words weren’t clear enough for anybody else to understand what was going on. It didn’t matter, he was just relating the story to himself.
“And then, you threw up in Mary’s car.” He was muttering as he heard the key in his door again.
---
Luckily, Mary had already found the convenience store when they’d rolled into town. It didn’t take too long to get there, collect the things he’d needed, and return. She had her arms filled with shopping bags when she let herself back in. She’d even managed to sneak into the maids’ supply closet at the motel to filch one of the mop buckets. It didn’t smell the greatest, but she figured that this room wouldn’t smell all that great either.
Before she’d left for the store, Mary had cleaned up the footprints between her parking spot and the door. She didn’t think that they needed anyone sniffing around and wondering why someone had been bleeding in the parking lot. She didn’t yet know what she’d do about her car, but trashing it seemed like the thing to do. It hadn’t been that expensive and she could always find another. On her way in, she made a point to hang the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the doorknob. She wasn’t sure if Johnny or his friend would remember and she thought it better if the maids weren’t coming in and seeing the state he was in, or the mess that came from it.
Once inside, she set the bags and bucket within an arm’s length of the bed. She didn’t sit on the bed next to Johnny, even though she’d considered it. Instead, she found his hand and gave it a small squeeze.
“Still alive?” she asked, trying to use the word carelessly, as though it was a silly question.
----
“Unless you’re some complicated pre-death hallucination, I’m pretty sure I am.” He nodded a bit.
Really, after recanting the story to himself while she’d been gone, Johnny was glad that he was the one in bad shape. He was glad that he’d been there to push Mary out of the way. What the dragon had done to him, she wouldn’t have even had a dream of surviving. For that thought alone, Johnny welcomed the pain he was currently in.
“You are totally not allowed to fight dragons anymore.” It was half of a thought, really, he couldn’t say the rest of it. He supposed it didn’t matter, anyway. She’d likely see the statement as a joke, and that was better for them both.
---
Mary did take it as a joke. She laughed lightly and leaned over, brushing away hair and finding a spot that wasn’t bloodied or burned to kiss on his forehead.
“That makes two of us. Let’s just find a nice simple ghost for our next hunt.”
Not that ghosts were really all that simple, but salting and burning a body as opposed to facing down a freaking dragon, that sounded like a vacation.
Again, this was all assuming that he survived these injuries. But she wasn’t going to leave him any wiggle room or any chance to stop believing that he could get through this. Giving up was the quickest way to death in situations like this.
Mary found his phone and pressed it into his hands.
“Call your friend. And you’d better call me whenever you wake up. I want to know that you’re still alive and kicking, got it?”
Her voice wavered a little bit on that last sentence, though she would save any tears for later. She wasn’t normally a crier, but she also didn’t normally face losing someone that she cared about. There were some things that would make even the toughest Winchesters shed a tear and this was one of them.
----
Johnny looked at his phone. It looked like a strange and foreign thing to him. Absurdly, he wondered how such jumps in technology had been made. It wasn’t like he had the fanciest thing on the market, far from it. But still. Compared to the phone that was sitting on the motel nightstand, it was amazing.
“I’ll call you as soon as that happens, I promise.”
Johnny paused a moment.
“And I’ll have my friend call you if it goes the other way.”
It was a cruel thing to say. Very cruel. He hated the words as they exited his lips. But he couldn’t leave her thinking that if she heard nothing it meant that he was gone. This way, she’d know for sure either way, and wouldn’t rile herself up too much. He hoped.
“Thanks for everything, Mary.”