taxonomites | 002: [Location: Winchester House] Twisting the arm of the injured.

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002: [Location: Winchester House] Twisting the arm of the injured.

There were some things that Mary couldn't ignore.

She wanted to pretend that Dean was a more well-adjusted version of herself; he had his own life, with his own friends and his own interests. He could have simply hated his job, whatever it was in his world, but she was starting to think that there was another reason why he hadn't mentioned having one. They had a lot of off-limits subjects, and she'd hit one right after the other while she tried to get to know the man her little boy had become. He wasn't giving her a lot to go on. It had become quite obvious to her that Dean was deliberately leaving out any detail that he thought she might not like.

Apparently he didn't realize that his reluctance to say anything about his life was a statement in and of itself. It made her feel guilty to think that she could use taking care of him to her advantage, but he'd been staying in her house while he recovered, and it seemed to be an ideal time to get a confession out of one of her boys. She could push a little, get some answers, and then distract him with food, or force him to take another nap. Toby had said that he was doing much better, and she believed him. But as his mother, Mary wasn't going to accept anything less than him being perfectly healthy again, and she planned to make sure that he'd recover as quickly as possible.

When she walked into the guest room, she was carrying a tray with two mugs of hot chocolate, and a plate of warm snickerdoodles. She'd dropped a few tiny marshmallows into his cup, but had also left a small bowl of them on the tray. "You're quiet today. It makes me wonder if you're feeling worse instead of better," she teased, setting the tray down in front of Dean. She picked up her mug and set it down on the nightstand, then moved to fix the pillows he had in back of him for support. "Everything alright?"

She'd get to her interrogation in a minute. Even she knew that Dean Winchester being quiet wasn't normal.

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Dean wants to pretend that he's a well-adjusted guy, but that's never going to be true. While he's a bit more normal in Taxon, it doesn't change the fact that his life has been one thing after another. There are too many times that Dean doesn't want to remember, let alone talk about, and especially not to his mother. He doesn't want to tell Mary about hunting, not after meeting her when she'd been younger, after she'd told him there was nothing more that she wanted than a normal life.

And he doesn't want to talk about Hell. Even Sam and Toby don't know the extent of it. And it's staying that way.

He's quiet today because he's tired as hell. After driving to Buffy's house the day before, his ribs ache worse than ever, and he's exhausted. But Dean can manage a grin for his mother, mostly because he doesn't want people fretting over him.

"Yeah. S'alright. Tired." Dean says, voice rough. He is smiling though, so that counts for something?

Mary appreciates the smile, but she's been home in bed before, and she knows it's not a reflection of how he's feeling. He's doing it for her, the same way he agreed to stay in the house while he recovers, and cleans every plate she puts in front of him. It's a good effort, she's just too stubborn to let it go. "Why do you think Toby and I insisted you stay here?" she asks, pulling up a chair to sit next to his bed.

She's not going to scold him for leaving the house again. They've already been through it. She and Toby have lectured and stared enough. She's saving her energy for next time. "Do you want me to leave and let you get some rest?"

So maybe Dean looks a little sheepish at that. Hey, he was helping a friend, that had to count for something. Besides, the Scoobies aren't the only ones missing Xander; that's another part of his general quiet. He'd taken the lectures and irritated looks (from Mary and Toby respectively) with good grace, and he wasn't planning on getting up again for a while.

"Nah. It's good. Bored in here by myself," Dean replies, shrugging. There's only so much he can bother Toby with; he knows that Olivia's in Taxon now, and he'd told Toby to get lost and go spend time with his girlfriend. So he's not complaining, but still, Dean's a social creature. Especially when he's laid up like this.

"Swear, Toby's as much a mom as you are," Dean says, lazily amused, closing his eyes and sinking into the pillows. He's half evading the subject he's pretty sure is coming. "Kid's got his girlfriend here. 'm happy for 'im."

So maybe Toby doped Dean up on pain meds before he left. Go for the interrogation, Mary, go for it!

Edited 2009-10-20 05:13 (UTC)

"I'm happy for him too," Mary laughs to herself, opting not to bring attention to the fact that Dean has told her more about Toby than he has about himself. She's thrilled for Toby; he certainly deserves some happiness, but she's still worried about Dean. All of these distractions don't make her feel any better about what he's avoiding. "And I'm...learning to live with this place."

She can't say that she's happy in the city. None of the people who live in it belong there, they just admit defeat after a while and settle in. She may have her grown boys here, but she misses Dean being small enough to sit on her lap, and arguing with John over whether or not she managed to get a real smile out of Sam. It's hard to go from that, to trying to mother grownups, and half of the time she's surprised Dean doesn't hate her yet.

"I miss the way things were back home. How about you? What was your life like, sweetheart?"

Anything but talking about Dean himself, is what Dean's aiming for. But he is glad that Mary's accepted Toby; the guy's been a lifesaver in more ways than one. Not only that, but it takes a lot for Dean to trust someone like family. This is something that makes him relax much more easy.

But Dean knows Mary's not happy with living here. She's got a family back home-- has Dean and Sam and John when things weren't broken. Dean feels differently. Taxon's almost his home, something consistent and steady. He itches for the chance to hunt things, but he can't help but want to stay in Taxon. It's like a vacation.

And Dean could never, ever hate Mary. Not when he's finally got her around.

"It isn't bad. Got a job at a mechanics shop," Dean lies, guarded.

It's not that Mary doesn't want to believe Dean, but the past few days have made buying his story a lot to ask. She lifts her mug and takes a sip of hot chocolate, stalling while she finds the words. When she sets the mug back down, she clears her throat, hoping he won't take this to mean that she doesn't trust him. She does, but the fear of being right about this has her pushing ahead anyway.

"I thought you were a fighter with all of those scars." It's a quiet comment, and her concern does make it into her voice, but she's nervous and she hears that, too. "The one on your arm..." She'd found that while changing his bandages, it'd been an accident, really. "The tattoo on your chest." The symbol was familiar to her. If Mary had to give herself away to make him do the same, she would.

"Dean, please."

Dean doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want her to know, and he doesn't want her to think... well, he doesn't know what she'd think, but he doesn't trust that things will be the same after this. How could they be, really?

But she asks, and Dean can't exactly escape from that line of questioning. He knows she knows, or at least suspects, and he has to tell her the truth.

"It's the family business, Mom, you know how it is." Dean finally says, glancing away. He's hoping she'll understand from that much.

When it's finally out, Mary doesn't know what to do with herself. She wants to apologize, to tell him that he's not supposed to do this, and that he was never supposed to do this, but it's too late for that. Now, more than ever, it's clear how long he's gone without her. No wonder he looks at her that way. "That was the last thing I wanted for you," she whispers, ashamed of what she must have brought into their lives.

Mary gets up, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, and gently moves her hand to his cheek, encouraging him to look at her. She thinks to ask about John, because he never would have allowed this either, but Dean needs time. One thing at a time. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart."

It's been years. Too many years. Dean's never had a mother, and having her now is like living an entirely different life. He wants Sam to be here, too, for Sam to be part of this, but... he hasn't seen Sam in a while, and hasn't been visited by his little brother or contacted by the tablets. And Dean hasn't figured out if Sam is still Lucifer.

For now, he ignores that, and looks at Mary when she rests her hand on his face. His expression is stony, blank.

"Doesn't matter. It's all happened, and you apologizing won't change it," Dean says, and he doesn't mean for it to come out that way, at all. He's trying to tell her it isn't her fault. "Don't apologize."

Mary shakes her head slightly, wanting to recover from the news so that she can hear more. This is what she was always afraid of, and to think that she had a role in this makes her feel beyond guilty. She wants him to know that she is sorry. He has to understand that. "But I have to - it's, I have to Dean, you need to know." And whatever brought them down this path started with her, so she's the one he should be hearing it from.

"Tell me what happened." She'd like him to start at the beginning, but she'll take whatever she can get at this point. It's possible that she'd get some information out of Toby if she asked, she just doesn't want to put him in that position. She wants to hear it from Dean. "I'll be fine, but you have to tell me."

"Not your fault," Dean manages, and he's been sitting up too long. His ribs are starting to needle at him, so he sets down the hot chocolate and lays back, groaning under his breath. He closes his eyes for a long moment, and then finally replies.

"You're not around, where I come from. Haven't been for a long time. Dad-- all he had on his mind was revenge. The thing that... killed you, that's what he was hunting. He brought me n' Sam with him, he had no other choice." Dean pauses, and this feels familiar. But he shakes that deja vu off, annoyed with it. "Sam went to college. Had a girlfriend. I stayed with Dad, hunting things, saving people."

And that's about as vague as he can make it.

"You're still a hunter," Mary says in a soft voice, moving the tray so that he doesn't have to. She's mad at John for doing this to them. Mad at the 'thing' that set this in motion - but she has an idea of what was now, and who that demon could have been. As hard as she tried to keep them away from this, her boys ended up exactly like her anyway. It's that thought that makes her wonder how Dean can be so sweet to her. He humors her and sometimes even listens to her, and that has to be a lot for him, having grown up the way he did.

"Sam's...that had to be at least a few years ago," she guesses, going by their ages alone. "What happened after that?"

"Yeah. Still am."

Again, it all falls back to Mary being here. Now Dean can have the experience of being scolded by a mother, of being treated like a kid when he's injured. He doesn't ever say it, barely ever thinks about it, but family's what he's always wanted. And it's always been the most important thing.

"Dad vanished. I went to go find Sam, we tried to find Dad. We found him eventually, and he'd been following the thing that... killed you. We went against it, almost got ourselves killed," Dean says it fast, trying to get it all out. "Dad..."

Long pause, and Dean looks away, voice very quiet.

"Dad traded himself in for me. Made a deal."

"So he did something right after all." She forces the the words out, voice getting quieter still, and takes Dean's hand in hers. They both need time to get used to being together here; she's known that all along, but this is worse than she could have imagined. If John were here, she'd be screaming, and it seems so unfair to realize that while knowing what chasing after revenge had cost him.

Mary reaches for her mug with her free hand, drinking just enough so that her throat isn't quite as dry before putting it back down. Dean should know that it's not his fault, but he doesn't seem to. Whether he's ashamed of himself or John, she can't tell. "I made one for him, before we were married." She's never told anyone that until now, and as soon as the words are out, she expects all hell to break loose.

"I'd have made one for you or your brother in a heartbeat, Dean."

Dean glances at her hand when she takes his. He doesn't know how to react to any of this, so he just stays still, avoiding her gaze. It'd been a long time since he'd had to think about John, or about the deal, or even about Azazel himself. Though he's mostly buried it, Dean knows John spending all those years in Hell was his fault, and no words were going to change that.

Pause, as Mary tells him that, and Dean still doesn't look up. He knows.

"Yeah. I saw. Long story, but I saw. You made a deal with Yellow Eyes." He sounds exhausted.

"I know. Runs in the family."

"How could you have -" Mary remembers before she can finish her question and sighs, taking Dean at his word. Although she'd like to think that being there was the reason why he hadn't said anything until now, she didn't think that was true. He had been trying to protect her, the same way she'd planned to protect him. "It seems like a lot of things do." All of the wrong ones, as far as she was concerned.

"Did something happen to Sam?" she asks, thinking back on how strangely he'd behaved when they talked.

All and any of the remaining openness on Dean's face completely shuts down and closes off at the mention of Sam. That's the one subject he doesn't want to talk about, not right now, possibly never ever.

"Stay away from him for right now. Don't talk to him." Dean says roughly, both managing to cover . That sounds like it hurts him to say.

Edited 2009-10-22 05:53 (UTC)

Mary sits back slightly, shaking her head at the suggestion that she has to stay away from one of her children. "You know I can't do that, Dean. If he needs anything..." He had to understand that. And Sam needed to know that he had a mother who was there for him, for as long as she could be. She wasn't going to avoid him for any reason.

"I can't," she repeated, thinking back on her conversation with Nathan Petrelli. If there was something wrong with Sam, they'd have to help him figure it out, not turn away from him.

Dean looks at Mary, eye to eye, making sure she's looking at him. He wants to make sure she understands why she can't, not now, not until he's back to normal. He hates having to say it, but it has to be said.

"Damn right you can't, Mom, he's possessed. I know you're a hunter, you were, but this demon ain't small fry, and I can't back you up with my ribs like this. So don't. Not now. Wait 'til this blows over."

He's working himself up, trying to sit straighter and insist she doesn't do anything that'll get her killed, ignoring the sharp stabbing pains running along his ribcage.

The minute Dean's sitting up, she's leaning forward, trying to make sure that he doesn't hurt himself. "Lay down, honey," she whispers as an order, wanting to make him a promise that she knows she's going to break the second Sam gives her a chance.

"You'll hurt yourself and that'll mean being stuck with me even longer." Mary hated admitting it, because as much as she loved having him with her, she knew that he didn't belong there. He was nearly as old as she was and more intelligent than she could have ever hoped to be. Bossing Dean around was a little bit like talking to a wall. She couldn't keep him in the house unless she had a damn good reason for it.

"I'm not going to chase after a demon, but I'm not avoiding him either. Fair enough?" When he was better, they could start talking about how to fix this.

Dean lets her push him back down, and he's panting, eyes closed, trying to not bite his tongue off. Right, sudden movement, that's something he's not supposed to do. Still, he knows she's just hedging, making a deal with Dean to keep him calm. He knows she's going to talk to Sam if Sam approaches her. And Dean doesn't want that, not with Lucifer running around.

"S'what Dad said," Dean mutters, trying to keep as still as possible. His ribs are killing him, and he can barely breathe at the moment, trying to settle down.

"Dad said it, got killed. Can't. Not you." Dean continues, exhausted again.

He's right to assume that she's doing this for him. Mary feels like she's being pulled in different directions; what would help one son would hurt the other. For now, she plans to hold up her end of the bargain with Dean. Going after the demon herself would likely hurt Sam more than it would help him. She hasn't been hunting in over ten years, and she knows that she's out of practice.

She pulls the blankets up for him, smoothing them over while she listens to what he has to say about John. Her husband had let her down in ways that she can't begin to get into, but she feels responsible for all of this. Keeping it all from him had always felt like the right thing to do. Seeing her sons suffer because of it made her realize that she should have said something to him years ago, and worked out a plan before she'd started putting it behind her.

"You think I'm fragile because I died in your world," she commented, getting very quiet. "It's very clear that we're both a long way from our old lives. I'm not like your father." If anything, they complemented each other because they were so different. "I'm not even like whatever you may remember of me. Being here changed all of that, Dean. It changed me." And it's not right to hold dying against her when she hasn't done that yet.

"You have to give me some credit. I know how much I can handle. I'll know when I get into something that I can't."

Somehow, Dean's not believing that. And considering how the rest of his family acts when there's something out there too big for them to handle, he's got good reason to.

Instead of answering, Dean lays there, head buzzing, eyes closed. This is stuff he'd never thought he'd have to deal with, and he definitely doesn't want to deal with it now. He doesn't want to explain to his mother that Sam was addicted to demon blood and is now the vessel for the Devil. He doesn't want to explain to his mother that he's the vessel for an archangel, and that Heaven and Hell are fighting, and that Dean's terrified by the idea that he might have to go head to head with Sam.

"Yeah, sure." It's not much to go off of, but Dean has no idea what to say to that. He wishes he could think of some distraction from the subject at hand, but there's nothing.

"Yeah, sure," Mary answers, wanting him to see how that sounds to her. She knows that he's only saying it to make her happy. He does a lot of things to make her happy, and none of them go unnoticed by her. It's the same way back home, but she's the only one who remembers it. "I never thought I'd be anywhere like this." She doubts that anyone expects these things, but it's as weird as everything that she left behind.

"I'm lucky that this place pulled me in." Mary has to say it, because as difficult as all of this is, she knows it's better than anything they were going to get back home. "We can get to know each other while we're here. We'll figure this out, Dean. With Sam - and when that's settled. I'm never going to get to see you grow up, but I do love you. I love who you've become. You know that, don't you?"

Dean listens to that quietly. That's definitely something that both hurt and felt good about hearing all of that-- because she loved him, something he'd always wanted to hear. But then again, it was just... it was weird, being like this. Having to face his mother after years and years of living without her, without knowing exactly who she was, without her exactly knowing who he was. It was just weird.

"Yeah," Dean managed, not looking at Mary. He could feel himself getting all choked up, and he hated the feeling. "Yeah, I know."

She can't help but notice the way Dean is forcing out his words, trying not to show whatever emotion is there underneath. For once, she recognizes that this isn't the time to push, and wordlessly leans over to press a kiss to his forehead. Staring down at him for a moment, Mary finally gives him a soft, still slightly concerned smile. "You should get some rest," she tells him, letting him know that this is the end of her interrogation - for now. "It'll make you heal faster."

It takes just about everything Dean has not to break down right then and there as Mary kisses his forehead. He's never had anything remotely close to this kind of affection, and it's good, so good, but it's bittersweet, as well. This is one of those things Dean knows that when, eventually, they do go home, is going to leave a gaping hole.

"Right," Dean mutters, sinking further into the bed and closing his eyes. "Nap sounds good."

"Look at us, agreeing on something," Mary jokes, straightening up and starting out of the room. She stops at the door, turning back for a moment. "Ring the bell on the nightstand if you need anything." She expects him to yell instead, and that's fine. When Dean starts raising his voice, the whole city will probably be able to hear him, but Mary will be glad to see that energy in him again.

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002: [Location: Winchester House] Twisting the arm of the injured.

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