Who? Dean and Mary Winchester What?Bad things. Where? Dean's apartment. When? Tonight, starting just before midnight. Rating? Kinda high, lots of dark and violence. Status:PLACEHOLDER Complete!
Note: Basically Dean has decided to do the whole Sith sacrifice deal - and chose Mary as his target. The post is almost complete, just gotta finish up a few more turns in G'docs and it can be put up, but since Caitlin's out of town at the moment that's a little slow. up! TL;DR: the end result will be unconscious/coma!Mary, and freaking out Dean, as soon as midnight hits.
Lucifer had been right. It was a weird thought to have, to realize that the Devil was right about him - that it wasn’t another manipulation or lie he told to try to make Dean less effective in stopping him. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do with that information, wasn’t sure if he was supposed to try to change it, if it was even possible to change it...
...if he even wanted to change it.
There really was a part of him that just... wanted to hurt someone. Anyone, everyone. It hadn’t started out so unspecific, it had started - aside from in Hell, where it was whoever’s on the rack close by - as demons. He’d been doing okay with avoiding it, though, hadn’t fallen as far as his future self in that world they’d all been sent to. Until this power-switching thing, he hadn’t done it even once, even though he’d thought about it.
And now, he’d tortured a girl. Sure, she may have been a demon at the time, but she wasn’t possessed, and she wasn’t meant to be a demon. Normally, she was just an ordinary girl - or, okay, a vampire. But that didn’t make it okay. And she hadn’t even done anything to deserve it, he’d just... wanted to.
He’d been avoiding everyone, since then - as much as possible, at least, because he’d had to go find Juliet, he couldn’t just leave her there like that - because he was just so angry. He hated everything, everyone, even the people he loved - he hated the fact that he loved them, sometimes. He hated that they were his weaknesses, that if something happened to his family he’d be practically crippled. If one of them were at risk, he’d have to save them - no matter what it would cost him.
Dean wasn’t the researcher in the family - even Dad was better than he was, he just didn’t have the patience for it sometimes, but he was good at it - but he wasn’t bad, and he’d spent the last few hours reading up on this whole Sith thing - between Google and Jacen, he knew what he was doing a little bit better, now. He understood what it was going to take for him to be strong enough to take out the Devil, and it wasn’t letting Michael take over his body.
- Mary had been looking for Dean for days now, driving around on the back roads outside Lawrence, casing diners and bars, and even trying the library just because she figured that if Dean wanted to hide he might go to the last place she’d ever think to look. She’d thought, when these new powers had first manifested in her family, that feeling her sons being so wrong, Sam so unlike himself and Dean so dark, was the worst thing that the seal’s latest foray into interfering with their lives could bring. Then Dean had gone after Caroline and she’d felt it, not Caroline’s pain but the way Dean had relished it, the pleasure like the feeling of finally doing what you were meant to do, like a musician finally hitting that right note. She’d redoubled her search, knew that Sam and Ruby and Adam had done the same, but then Dean had just…stopped. It had been a sensation she’d felt almost physically, a punch to the gut and a heart monitor flatlining and the ground falling out from beneath her all rolled into one. It had been her worst fear realized and more than enough motivation for her to be determined to make sure what she’d thought happened would not, not to either of her sons. The protective urge had fed into the Force, she was pretty sure things were levitating when she so much as thought about her sons, and she was certain that if she could just find Dean she would be able to help him, to protect him from doing something else he would regret.
Still, though she’d been waiting for it, searching for it even, when Dean’s presence came back into the Force she almost swerved off the road (she’d been driving, mostly aimlessly, hoping this “Force” would somehow guide her to where she needed to be). He felt worse, more wrong than he had before, even after Caroline, and she whipped the car around in a move that probably would have resulted in a car accident if she’d been on a busy road. The darkness in her son was as palpable a threat to her as if she knew he was fighting demons and all she could think of was the fact that she was supposed to protect him, that she’d promised herself she wouldn’t let her children down again, not after she’d started all that, that she would balance it all out by making sure they made it through this apocalypse alive. That included protecting them from themselves.
When she reached the complex she pulled out her phone, thinking of calling Sam who could almost always get through to his brother, but he had been affected by Ruby’s compulsion, might be affected by Dean’s Force version of the same thing, and it wouldn’t be safe to bring him. John wouldn’t help either, though he would insist on coming if he knew what she was planning, the boys still had complicated feelings about their upbringing and she didn’t want any more volatile emotions than were going to be inherent to the situation. She put her phone away and dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, afraid Dean would sense her approach and bolt.
“Dean?” she called, knocking on the door as she reached it. “It’s me, I need to talk to you.” The request was polite, if urgent, but she felt no compunction about forcing her way in if he didn’t answer. This wouldn’t go any further, it couldn’t be allowed to.
-
Opening his presence back up to the Force was an intentional move. Deliberate, where shutting it down had not been. He’d just been trying to hide, his whole being focused on get away, hide, don’t let them get near that he’d triggered whatever it was inside himself that turned on stealth-mode, or whatever. This, though, he’d gone poking around for it, let himself be felt. He knew his mother would be coming, and he knew what he had to do.
It was going to be hard, and he knew it was going to hurt, but he had steeled himself, even spent some time doing that whole stupid meditation thing, although that only lasted a few minutes because Dean was never going to be good at sitting still and doing nothing, but the point was, he was ready for whatever it would take.
He could feel her getting closer, kept an ‘eye’ on her presence while he waited for her. He didn’t wait to open the door when she knocked, and he was calm - this was what needed to be done. Dean offered a smile, letting her inside - although it probably did nothing to make him appear ‘like normal,’ at the moment, since last he’d seen himself in the mirror, he’d barely recognized the man looking back at him - he was starting to look older, worn out, dark gray smudges around red-rimmed green eyes that sometimes looked a little more yellow than he remembered.
“Hi, Mom.”
-
If it had been anyone else Mary would have been suspicious. Dean had been hiding for days, had obviously learned how to stay hidden when he wanted to or he never would have been able to maintain it that long, there was no reason he would suddenly slip up and no reason he would suddenly decide that he wanted to be found, to let her in so easily. But this wasn’t ‘anyone’ this was Dean and so all she felt when he swung the door open immediately after her knock was relief, followed by concern when she took in his haggard appearance, felt the stomach-roiling darkness of his presence up close.
“God, Dean...” she said softly as she reached a hand out reflexively to touch his cheek. Are his eyes...no, it’s the light, it’s just the light. “We’ve all been worried about you,” she said gently, trying her best to keep any recrimination out of her tone. She didn’t want to make him shut down again now, not when he’d actually let her in, when he must be willing to let her help him after all. The darkness in him was still strong, as much of a warning as a knife in his hand, but all she could see was her son in pain, being controlled by something he couldn’t hope to fight. I’ll do what I have to, she promised herself, I won’t let him give in to this.
-
He could feel her relief, and he should have felt guilty - for making her worry in the first place, for the reason he’d let her find him here. But he didn’t - not yet, at least. He wasn’t sure if he would later, or not; he was sure he would feel regret, at least on some level, but he also was beginning to realize just how important it was that he take this final step, make this final sacrifice.
Dean didn’t move away from the touch, even though maybe he should have. It would have been easier if she’d come in scolding him, given him something to feel angry about. But she hadn’t - she was being Mom, and he had to fight to make sure his smile stayed in place. He was going to miss her - again, even more now that he knew her, actually knew her, better than a four year old ever could.
“I know,” he responded, reaching up and catching her wrist, grip just a little tighter than necessary but not painful, not yet. “You were right to worry.”
-
Mary wanted to concentrate only on the fact that he hadn’t stopped her trying to comfort him, that he wanted her here, must want to be helped, but his gaze and his grip were ringing all the alarm bells a lifetime of hunting had given her. That’s the darkness, the sith, it isn’t his fault, he just has to learn to fight it, she told herself firmly. It’s not him. “I know,” she said quietly, frowned slightly at the strength of his grip but didn’t pull back or show any signs of her unease, not yet. “What happened to Caroline, that something...something dark happened afterwards.” She shook her head, as if trying to dispel the gathering sense of that darkness in her mind, the sense that seemed to be growing rather than dissipating the longer she was in the room. “This won’t last forever,” she went on, looking up at his eyes, making herself stare without flinching at their red rims and those hints of yellow, “and we can help you Dean, your father and I. I came to ask you to stay with us until this is over.”
-
Dean had known she had to feel it - feel him torturing Caroline, before he’d shut down, and feel how much worse things had gotten, since then - and distantly he wondered just how much of it she’d felt. If she knew how much he had really done, how much he enjoyed it, how absolutely pointless it had been. He still didn’t really want her to know, but he understood there was no getting around that, now. And it didn’t matter what she knew - or it wouldn’t for much longer.
“I don’t think so,” he responded, tone going cold as if he’d never been anything else, and he dropped her wrist and turned away from her, taking a moment to collect himself, to fan the rage inside him into a useful flame, something he could use, “I don’t need help. I’m completely fine.” He wanted her to tell him he was wrong, he wanted her to say something he could lash out at her for. He didn’t need it, though; either way, she was going to die.
-
“No Dean, you aren’t,” Mary said, her voice was quiet, even gentler now than it had been before, but her tone was unyielding. “This really isn’t going to last forever. Eventually Jacen is going to have this...this Force back and you’re going to regret all of this. I’m not going to let you add something else to that list of ‘wrongs’ you keep in your head to torture yourself with in the meantime.” She took a step forward and walked around so that she could see his face again, steeling herself, but still unprepared for the coldness she saw there.
People called Sam the emotional one, his wife made jokes about his “emo” music, and she knew that Dean himself put up the front of devil-may-care sarcasm and bravado but she still remembered him as the little boy who had asked her earnestly what had “hurt Sammy” whenever his baby brother cried, when he was too young to understand that the infant’s crying wasn’t pain. She knew that Dean loved his family to the point where bravado was easier sometimes, to the point where he would do the foolish, the genuinely destructive, to keep them safe. He might have be a lot of things but cold had never been one of them. If he was capable of that now then something was wrong, maybe even more wrong than she’d thought.
“I want you to want us to help you,” she said in that same quiet, steely, voice. “But I’m your mother Dean, and I’m going to protect you, even if I’m protecting you from yourself.”
-
The reminder that this power he had now was only a temporary thing probably did not have the effect his mother thought it would - instead of being a reassuring thing, a soothing ‘the end is in sight,’ it was one more reason to get this done while he still could. He didn’t know how long he would have this power, and he needed it - he was going to be strong enough to stop Lucifer, no angels required. He had no doubts about that - he would, after something like this.
But she was right, too, about regretting what he’d done, when this was over - without the Force there, without that steady point he’d finally reached, would he be able to deal with everything he had already done, and what he was planning to do?
It didn’t matter. For now, he could do it. That was good enough. That was the only important thing.
”I don’t need protecting,” he returned, voice low and pitched just-so, somewhere between the lines of defensive and threatening, neither and both all at once, “But there’s one thing you can do to help me,” he added. There were sparks of lightning on his fingertips now, tiny arcs between his fingers when he cut eye contact with her to glance down. It was time.
-
Mary’s eyes widened when she saw the lightning flickering between his fingertips and for a moment, just a moment, there was flicker of fear. Fear of her son, of what he could do, of what it looked like he would do if she didn’t stop him now. There was a gun in her pocket, of course, but she wouldn’t use it on Dean, not that and not the knife she was carrying either, being one of the best armed people in Lawrence suddenly useless. The Force, she thought, they use it to protect don’t they? Not just to destroy, like Jacen. She didn’t know much about her new abilities, hadn’t had time to research them, to learn, but suddenly they were the only tool she had to help her son. She took a deep breath and raised her chin slightly, feeling power gathering around her, not entirely within her control but responding to her need to protect, to defend her son even if it was from himself.
“And what is that?” she asked, voice level, hands steady by her sides.
-
“Hold still,” he responded evenly, “And don’t scream.”
Dean didn’t give her a whole lot of time to react to his words - one hand going up sharply, palm-out, a blast of Force-lightning following through, arcing towards her. It probably wasn’t going to be enough for a quick kill - he didn’t have the time to focus it like that - but if it wasn’t enough to at least stun her, there was always the Force itself. He knew it could be done - crushing, throwing, choking, something like that. He was relieved that his thoughts had taken on a very detached feel, like this wasn’t his mother he was trying to kill, like this wasn’t one of the most important people in his life, like he hadn’t spent almost his entire life with a hole in him that had her name on it. If his thoughts had stuck with that, he didn’t think he would have been able to take this as far as he already had, let alone going through with it.
-
As Dean dissociated Mary held tighter to the fact that this wasn’t some enemy, some monster, this was Dean. This was her firstborn, the little boy she’d propped up a t-ball pitch for, the boy she would have died for as quickly as she’d died for Sam, the man who had died for Sam, who would never forgive himself if he won this fight. Underlying that was, of course, the simple, singular will to live. She had John back now, her sons, a second chance, and it wasn’t ending here, not like this. She had to survive this, to subdue Dean and take him somewhere safe. There was no other option and she poured that certainty into the Force, trusting it with blind desperation as she raised up her hands in a defensive motion against the lightning.
The move wasn’t entirely successful but it seemed to have, somehow, shielded her from the brunt of the attack. What got through was still painful, in a different way than anything she’d ever felt before, and she couldn’t help the strangled noise that clawed its way out of her throat as she was forced back by the attack. But, it ended without slowing her down, not physically anyway, it was only pain and she could move through that.
“You won’t do this Dean,” she said, ducking away from his attack and raising her hands into a hand-to-hand combat stance. “You can fight this. I won’t leave you, I’ll help you.” Even if that means knocking you out and dragging you back to the panic room. She lunged out suddenly, aiming a punch at his head.
-
Dean pulled at the frustration that came with the ineffective attack, turned it into anger and let that bleed through him, let it counteract the effect her words were starting to have. He could use those, too - I won’t leave you countered with but you did, twisting everything around and making him stronger. He had to be stronger, it was everything right now. It was more important than anything else, because if he was strong enough, he could fix everything. This was necessary.
Her punch would have been effective, without his powers - with them, he sensed it coming, one hand coming up with the Force to shove her backwards far enough the hit would be useless, and then back even further, until she was pressed against the wall opposite him. “I am sorry,” he said, walking a few steps closer, “I wish I didn’t have to do this.”
The pressure didn’t let up, but a new pressure started, like an invisible hand wrapped around her throat, tightening like the hand he held up, squeezing into a fist. “I love you, Mom.”
...and just when he was starting to feel her life falter, dim down to almost nothing, he lost complete sense of her - and of the Force in general. It was like someone had pulled the floor out from under his feet, a moment of weightless confusion before the entire world rushed back to meet him, completely different from this angle, and it hurt.
He’d just....
He was at Mary’s side in seconds, pulling her crumpled form towards him, words falling out of his mouth in a stream of panicked babble that she wasn’t even hearing, apologies and panicked pleas for her to wake up. She wasn’t waking up. She was hardly even breathing, and he sat for a moment, paralyzed with you did this, you did this to her running through his head on a loop. He somehow managed to shake that off long enough to get his keys, scoop her up, and head for the car, though - he could panic once he got her to a hospital.