Of angels and things (Johnny/Mary, TBC in comments)
The discussion with Cas had revealed quite a bit more about the two former angels. Mary had also been able to straighten out the misconception that Johnny was her ‘mate.’ Though unfortunately, it seemed a little late for that since he’d already talked to Johnny and Mary could only assume that he’d used the same term with him. She just couldn't be sure how Johnny had taken it. At the meeting, he'd seemed unphased by the assumption, though there had been a lot going on. She could only assume that it was more uncomfortable when used in a one on one conversation by someone who was a part of her life. Worse, she wondered if he thought that she’d been the one to give Cas the idea that they were an item.
They'd fallen so easily into the charade of husband and wife that there were times when she had to remind herself that it was just that. That he'd made it clear that he couldn't make any promises, that he wasn't ready to be what the Johnny of her time had become to her. She was okay with that, but she could respect that it might be difficult for him to feel that way and then have others jumping to incorrect conclusions.
She stuck the key in the lock and let herself in, not quite sure where she would find the man whom she was currently sharing an address (and a fake name) with.
She headed into the kitchen first and fixed herself a drink with some gin that they’d been allowed to take home. She fixed Johnny a drink too, knowing full well that it wouldn’t do much for him unless they had 8 bottles of the stuff. It was still more of a comfort thing than anything. She returned and took a seat on the overstuffed armchair, setting his drink in front of him.
“I heard that you talked to Cas. I’m... sorry I didn’t get the chance to correct him about that whole ‘mate’ thing before you two talked.”
She could only assumed that that would have been awkward for Johnny, that assumption. They did have a precarious dance going on and people assuming things only made it more difficult for them to keep things platonic, assuming that was the correct word. He needed time, and she could respect that. Unfortunately, it was hard for others to understand what was going on unless she explained it. And explaining the circumstance meant explaining everything and while she understood that it probably needed to be done, she didn’t feel that it was her place to do so until he was ready.
----
He looked up as she entered, and shook his head at her words. Well, that just made it more complicated, didn’t it?
“I thought you had, and he was continuing with it despite that, so I didn’t even bother trying.”
Johnny scratched his head and looked back down. Cas being under the impression that they were together didn’t make anything easier. He’d been amused by the word when they’d had their talk because he’d really thought that Mary had already tried to explain what they were - or weren’t - to each other. He’d thought it some quirk of the ex-angel, unable to grasp the idea of two people just being friends.
---
Mary took a healthy sip of the gin, enjoying the warmth as it rolled across her tongue. She shook her head slowly. It would be almost amusing-especially given Cas’s choice of wording-if it wasn’t so awkward.
“I didn’t have the time to explain to him. He jumped to conclusions when I told him that someone besides Jo and Dean knew and I tried to tell him that it was more complicated than that, but then he met you, and...” she shrugged helplessly. “I think that an angel who’s had exactly one girlfriend might not be an expert on the nuances of friendships between people of the opposite sex. But he knows now."
Sure, she’d go with that. It was easier than pointing out that the handholding at the meeting and the whole act that they were a married couple wasn’t helping anyone’s assumptions.
----
It was a strange complication, Castiel thinking what he did. Which reminded Johnny that there was another thing that involved the ex-angel that he needed to include Mary in.
“So...” Johnny carefully watched Mary, wanting to see what her reaction to this would be. “I told Castiel about me. Not all of it, just the parts about what I am that we’ve been concerned about.”
He hadn’t, and never would, volunteer the information about his past that Mary knew. He couldn’t talk about that. It was still difficult to think that Mary knew, that it wasn’t just his secret.
“I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. He outright said that he could tell - feel - something was different about me. If I’d tried to lie about it, I don’t think things would have gone as well as they did. The path of least resistance was to come clean. Which, if I really think about it, I didn’t really do, since I have no idea what the fuck I am.”
The anger might have been creeping into his tone. He was angry at himself for doing what he did. He was angry that he had no explanation. Angry that he had to hide anything more than what he’d already been hiding. It was one thing to keep a past to himself, a past that hurt and had changed every aspect of his life. It was another to be keeping what he was quiet, because he didn’t know what he was. That just pissed him off.
---
Mary stood then. She was halfway to the couch when she stopped herself. Instead, she crossed her arms and looked down at Johnny. She saw the moping, the brooding, and she didn’t like it. Her first instinct was to drag him out of it kicking and screaming if she needed to.
Perhaps sensitivity and patience wasn’t exactly a trait she’d learned from either parent.
“Well I know what you are. You’re a man. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck...” Nobody really needed to hear the end of that sentence. It went without saying. “You’re a man who couldn’t just leave well enough alone and rest in peace because you still had work to do, but you’re still a man.”
She’d had awhile to think about what Johnny was and wasn’t by now. And what she’d concluded was that it didn’t change how she saw him. The lying, yes. But the fact that he was perhaps more than human? Not so much. She knew who he was, which meant that she knew what he was.
Perhaps it went against the black and white view that her dad and even her mom might have of things, but Mary didn’t care all that much. She knew what she knew, and there was a part of her that wasn’t going to stand for letting Johnny sink into self-loathing. Not if she could help it.
----
“I have a feeling that not many others are going to see it like that.” Johnny looked up at her, a little startled to see how close she’d gotten. He hadn’t even realized she’d stood up from the chair. It wasn’t like him to be caught off guard like that. He didn’t have special hearing or extra sensory crap, but he’d been doing what he did for some time, and that tended to have an impact on a guy. He generally kept himself aware of all things at all times.
Or he might end up dead. Again.
“I got lucky with Castiel, and I know it. That could have just as easily gone really bad. I think his circumstances being what they are, that’s what swayed it.”
---
Mary frowned, though she didn’t dispute that.
“That’s why I should be there if you decide to tell anyone else. If it’s Jo or Dean, I can at least protect you from them.”
Even if protecting meant getting in their way if they tried to kill Johnny. She couldn’t help but think that maybe he’d had things easier before she came along. The Johnny she’d known in her time... well, he couldn’t have told anyone, could he? If he’d kept that secret from her, she thought that it wasn’t likely that he’d told anyone else. Or perhaps she was grasping at that little glimmer of hope that the whole thing had meant something to him and that the secret had been kept with good reason.
“But if you want to keep the secret, just know that I’m behind you either way.”
It would be difficult to keep it a secret in close quarters with her parents like this, but not impossible. At least, she didn’t think it’d be impossible.
“Besides, my dad’s a damn hypocrite. If you had any idea how many times he’s died and been brought back in one way or another...”
She might not have known everything, but she knew enough stories from the years leading up to the apocalypse to know that the whole Winchester attitude of ‘what’s dead should stay dead’ would have applied to both her parents, as well as her uncle, several times over.
----
“Unless he came back in the same way that I did, I don’t think he’s going to see it so black and white.” Johnny’s memory of walking around in a decayed body was way too recent for him to think it was anything but abnormal and wrong.
He stood up from the couch, feeling like he couldn’t be sitting anymore with her standing, and moved around the room.
---
“He probably won’t,” Mary agreed. “Doesn’t make him any less of a hypocrite.”
She loved her dad, but that didn’t stop her from seeing some of his character flaws. And the refusal to see anything outside of the black and white unless it came to family-she knew that it was an issue. Especially now. She was also fairly certain that if she got in his way, he’d have to back down from trying to kill Johnny. At least for the time being. If it was her dad and not just a younger version of him, she’d have no doubts. But with this younger version, she was just reasonably sure. And it would have to be enough. Because if it wasn’t for her, none of this would be coming out to her family at all. She knew that. She knew exactly what sort of weird situation she’d dragged him into. Maybe she hadn’t meant to, but intentions didn’t mean a whole lot when it came to this sort of thing.
She frowned, still mulling over the implications of Castiel knowing about Johnny. She supposed that if there was anyone to tell first, Cas had been the best choice. She was glad it had worked out okay.
“Speaking of angels... we never got the chance to talk about what I found out about Lucas,” she said.
Somehow, it had gotten lost in the shuffle of the day. It wasn’t a conversation they could safely have at the bar and by the time they’d both gotten downstairs to the apartment, Mary had been too exhausted to think about anything but sleep.
----
He reached the chair and plopped himself into it. Lucas. Johnny didn’t really want to talk about Lucas, but he knew that it had to be done. And if he said anything along those lines to Mary, she might think something that he didn’t want her to think. He was too confused about his own feelings right now to bring them up with her. The fact that he’d gotten so jealous over her just chatting with the stranger was bad enough.
“Speaking of angels?” He realized what she’d said. “Is that your segway into saying that’s what Lucas is?”
Johnny wasn’t sure if that would explain the uneasiness he’d felt, the strangeness that seemed to surround the guy. He didn’t feel that with Castiel, but Cas really considered himself to be human, or closer to that than to angel. Maybe that differences was what Johnny sensed?
---
Mary winced.
“That was me thinking out loud,” she said. “Which made for a very clumsy segueway. Sorry.”
She took a seat, in spite of the fact that Johnny was pacing now.
“He claims to be a fallen angel. Which might not be as bad as it sounds, considering that Cas and Anna are fallen in a way.”
Cas and Anna both had given up their powers and it was possible that Lucas had no powers as well. It was also possible that the rules were different in his world, or that he was lying, or... any number of things.
“The more I think about it, the more he sets me a little on edge,” she admitted. “It was fine while I was talking to him, but after...” she shrugged helplessly. She couldn’t exactly put her finger on what it was, but something just felt off.
“And unless he was lying, he’s not from my reality. I don’t know what that could mean.”
The rules could be completely different or angels could be angels could be angels, no matter what reality they were from. She was still adjusting to the idea that there were alternate realities at all.
----
“Who knows what he was telling the truth about and what was a lie.” Johnny shook his head. “But any way we look at it, I think it would be strange for him to claim to be an angel if he wasn’t, no matter what kind. “
If nothing else, they knew what he was. Johnny supposed that was better than nothing.
“Did you ever have similar feelings with Castiel? I mean, this version of Castiel doesn’t likely feel the same to anybody. But the full tilt angel Cas, were there experiences like that? Feeling one way when you were nearing, and feeling another when you walked away?”
---
Mary thought about that question, trying to remember when she’d met Cas. She shook her head slowly.
“No. Maybe I’m not remembering it right because I saw him for the first time when I was a kid, but no I don’t think so. Ellen and I didn’t always like him because every time he showed up, it meant that dad had to go do away right that second to do something dangerous. But no, I don’t remember being charmed by him when he was there and uneasy after the fact.”
It was lucky that they were in black and white because her cheeks colored with the slightest bit of embarrassment at being taken in by the guy. But if they were going to figure this out, she felt that she had to be honest. And the way she’d been feeling in the guy’s presence compared with the way she felt after the fact seemed significant.
“Still, it could be nothing. I could just be feeding on your worries about him,” she added.
It didn’t feel like that, but Johnny hadn’t liked Lucas from the get-go, for whatever reason. If there was jealousy in there, well... Mary wasn’t going to think about what that could mean. There was no use in getting her hopes up or pinning her expectations on someone who still needed a lot of time to cope with some of the losses in his life.
----
Johnny shook his head.
“No, there’s gotta be something more about that guy. I don’t know what it is. Maybe he’s just an angel, maybe he’s not an angel at all. But he seemed to have an effect on the whole bar. And it wasn’t just him buying everybody a drink.”
He’d never seen anything like it in his life. Johnny felt only mildly better because it wasn’t just Mary who had been impacted by the guy. There were lots of little clues to say that Lucas had some sway over people. Somehow.
“Maybe you should talk about this with Cas and Anna.”
---
Mary was glad that it wasn’t just her, though she didn’t said that. She was still doing her best not to admit to the way she’d felt around Lucas. Instead, she nodded.
“I’ll talk to them and see if they have any ideas.”
As far as she was concerned, that settled that for now. Or perhaps she just didn’t like thinking too much about Lucas. Instead, she busied herself in taking off her shoes and the thigh high nylons that were starting to become the bane of her existence. It might have been an intimate thing to do in front of this Johnny, though she didn’t much care. The apartment didn’t leave much room to be anything but intimate. After all, they were practically living on top of each other.
She let out a little sigh of relief once the footwear was ditched.
“How’d you do tonight?” she asked, changing the subject to more mundane topics. After all, she was the one responsible for doing the shopping, which meant that she worried about the budget a whole lot more than she’d ever had to before this world.
----
Johnny was willing to let go of the Lucas issue for now. There wasn’t a whole lot either of them could do about it. Once the ex-angels were spoken to, maybe there would be something more. Or maybe there wouldn’t. Either way, there was no real reason to keep harping on the matter at the moment. Going in circles would only frustrate them both.
Instead, he maneuvered so he could get his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a couple bills and some change. Johnny always swapped out the coins for paper if he had enough to. It made everything easier on Mary and he didn’t really feel like wandering around with hundreds of pennies every day.
“Five dollars.” He smiled. “Still feels weird to be proud of five dollars as a total take for a night’s work. But that’s more than a lot of people make in a whole week. How did you do?”
---
Mary reached into the purse that she’d set beside the chair and fished through it for the coins she’d been given as tips. She set the pile of change on the coffee table, counting it as she did so.
“Four twenty five. Should get us a decent amount of groceries. We should probably put some away for the electric bill.” She couldn’t help but laugh when she took a second to think about the conversation.
“Please tell me that this whole thing seems a little weird to you too. Can’t say I’ve ever had to sit and count coins to figure out how I’m going to make ends meet.”
It wasn’t that she’d been rich, but there were a lot of ways to work a con and she’d learned them all. She was her father’s daughter in that way.
---- “I don’t think that the electric bill we’re facing is going to be as substantial as one from our time.” But he was smiling. He was still pretty entertained by the cost of things and how very little they had to spend in the long run to make sure that they were set in what they needed.
Johnny moved and added his tips to hers, giving her full charge of the money. He felt like he had more than enough when it came to personal items. He didn’t need more clothing. She might want to get something for herself. She was, after all, dealing with more bullshit than he had to. If she wanted to treat herself to get her mind off of it, he didn’t mind in the least.
“It’s all very weird.” He agreed, finally. “You hear about the old days when gas was twenty five cents a gallon, but it’s difficult to get used to the idea of it. I saw a suit in a shop window, something that I would pay five hundred bucks for in Electric City, and here it was fifty. Fifty bucks, Mary. That is some shit.”
---
Mary wasn’t simply referring to the cost of everything, though that was surreal. Of course, she remembered almost too late that Johnny had had a normal life once upon a time. He probably had sat and figured out finances and what could be bought with which paycheck, and so on. So perhaps falling into this sort of routine wasn’t as strange for him as it was for her. Staying in one place really was the strangest part of it all. Having a job, acting like they were putting down roots. They weren’t, and she knew that this planet would be temporary. But acting like it and getting caught up in the mundanity of the day to do-a mundanity that she actually enjoyed having with him-now that was all bizarre.
She shook her head and laughed softly.
“We’re still going to have to save up if you want that fifty dollar suit,” she said with a smile. “And yeah, that’s really weird to say.”