Mary Winchester (_takeasadsong) wrote in wariscoming, @ 2010-12-03 23:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | dean winchester, mary winchester |
Who: Mary and Dean
What: Well, someone needs to lecture Dean about his drinking habits yeah?
When: The morning of the 3rd after Dean gets Hermione drunk
Where: The complex/Dean's room
Mary had been a nervous wreck on her wedding day. This is it, she’d thought as her maid of honor, a high school friend who probably still lived in Lawrence (Mary tried not to wonder about her old classmates, old friends, tried not to think of how they were old enough to be grandparents now), fussed with the train of her dress. This is it. She wasn’t entirely clear on what ‘it’ was. Growing up? She’d been up to her elbows in demon intestines, she’d been in love, she’d buried her parents. She’d been grown up for an exhaustingly long time. The start of ‘normal’? She hadn’t killed anything scarier than a spider since the night the yellow-eyed demon had offered her a deal. She hadn’t, as the local priest would have said, ‘saved herself’ for marriage. If anything this was the end of the lies not the beginning, she wouldn’t have to explain any more strange bruises to a protective boyfriend. The day was momentous only in the way it was for all brides: the start of a new phase of life, a new house, no more walking through the front door and watching him drive away because she would always, now, be what John was heading towards, coming home to, and a vice a versa. Still, she’d been nervous. Her hands had shaken in her lap as her friend, Catherine who must now have more grey hairs than brown, smoothed the fabric of her dress. She remembered wanting to ask her mother what to do. She remembered thinking I don’t know how to do this. No one ever trained me. I’ve burned bones, I’ve made deals with demons, I can never be normal. I can never be someone’s wife.” But even young and scared as she was, younger than either of her children were now, young enough to confuse love and happiness with ‘normal’, she’d also known she’d loved John and so she had breathed deep, folded her hands, and walked down the aisle, her steps echoing in their solitude, no father to take her elbow.
Finding out she was pregnant had been different. She had sat in the bathroom staring at the test and waited for that feeling (this is it) that panic to wash over her because what did she know about raising children without knife-fighting lessons and lectures on the quickest way to exorcise a malevolent spirit? What did she know about raising a child who didn’t need to be hardened and shaped into a weapon? How could she teach someone to be like John, to expect a happy ending? She’d waited but the panic had never come. Instead, as she sat on the bathroom floor with the hanging bath towels cushioning the back of her head, she’d stared at the two pink lines on the plastic strip and felt only fierce resolve. I’ll protect you, she’d thought and for a moment she was galvanized into determination, into certainty, a stronger version of the silent vow she’d made on her wedding night to protect her husband from ever losing his faith in the happily-ever-after he’d managed to keep believing in all through the war. You’ll be happy, she’d thought, the silent words like a benediction pressed with her palm to her abdomen, you’ll be happy enough for both of us. When Dean had been born he hadn’t cried right away and the doctors and John had been worried, she could see them holding their breath, but Mary had just reached her arms out for him. “He knows,” she’d whispered and they’d all brushed it off as a nonsensical sentence fragment born out of hours of labor and the drugs but Mary had smiled approvingly at her baby. “Everything will be okay Dean,” she’d whispered, “angels are watching--” and then he'd cried at last and she’d been crowded in by John and the doctors and forgotten to finish the sentence, forgotten the link from this moment to her promise in the rush of activity and congratulations.
When she’d found out she was pregnant with Sam she’d made the same promise of course but it was a complacent sing-song in her mind rather than a fiercely protective oath. She’d been so certain that she was safe, that her children were safe, that she’d hardly processed the news herself before running to tell John, no time for contemplation and resolve, only frantic joy we can have even more. If she’d been the type to believe in psychic transference from mother to child during gestation she might have thought that was why Sam grabbed at happiness like a birthright while Dean reached out for it cautiously, as if he were afraid it would burn his fingers. She’d promised happiness to Dean and assumed it for Sam. She’d failed them both before she’d either promised or assumed.
In any case it explained why what she had to do now was such a conflict. She was worried about Dean of course, if nothing else the amount he’d been drinking lately wasn’t good for his health, and she was similarly worried about his breakdown at Thanksgiving. Still, she couldn’t deny that even with all of her concern purely for Dean there was a note in her thoughts passed down directly from her own childhood. ‘You can’t afford to be selfish,’ she’d heard on more than one occasion, ’other people can abuse their bodies, can drink or smoke. You need to protect other people. Lives depend on you.’ That was what she had to tell Dean, “This is the apocalypse, lives depend on you, you can’t be sloppy” when she’d never wanted anything for him but John’s broad smile, what should seem like a thousand summers of little league and popsicles melting on his hands, nights standing in a dark backyard trying to decipher the stars instead of noises just beyond his line of vision.
Now, though, it was too late for any of that. Her son was nearly her age, grown from a child to a man old enough for children of his own in the blink of an eye squeezed shut in pain amidst blossoming flame. Now she was standing outside his apartment ready to tell him why he had to stop this foolishness, why this was bigger than him. She was here to tell him about taking care of himself, about his responsibilities. A Mary very much different but not very much younger would have gagged on the words. Now she raised her hand and knocked on Dean’s door.
“Dean?” she called, raising her voice, determinedly heedless of the hangover he might well have given himself, “It’s me. We need to talk.” She steadied her voice almost to sharpness, steadied her hands. I’m sorry.