Fic: Lies Do Not Become Us (Supernatural)
Feb. 16th, 2006 01:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsosHeh. I forgot I had this mostly written. Yes, that's how many Supernatural WIPs I've got on my computer. *eye roll* ;)
Title: Lies Do Not Become Us
Author: Troll Princess
Pairing/Character: Mary/John
Rating: PG
Summary: Mary's past is not the sad and lonely dream she told John it was. It's worse.
Spoilers/Warnings: "The Benders", I suppose. It's pastfic, so .. *shrugs*
Author's note: Aaaaaaand now I get my urge for Mary fic out of the way. :)
*****
Lies Do Not Become Us
*****
She doesn't run for Sammy because no one's supposed to die that night.
She runs because it's supposed to be her, and she knows it.
*****
If you ask John Winchester, his wife was an only child and an orphan. She knows nothing of her family, was raised in foster care, and had no one until she met him, until Dean and Sammy came along. She bends over Sammy's crib every night and kisses his forehead, whispering the same, "Goodnight, love," she used to whisper to Dean when he slept in that crib, and John watches every chance he gets.
She knows what he's thinking, that he's glad he could give her this, that he's happy to have given her the family she never had.
It's a nice thought, the kind you never ruin.
*****
Mary Wallace had two big brothers.
Michael's words played like a snake charmer's music, hypnotic with a strange beauty, and his fists snapped out without warning. He was wild and wired and a thousand shades of brave, and you'd have to be an idiot to go up against his strength. When Mary thinks of him, she thinks of a caged lion at a zoo John took her and Dean to once, pacing back and forth in his cage with graceful, loping strides and whipping around his tail as if daring someone to try something.
Trying to fold Gabriel's long, lean body into a chair was like trying to fold a ladder into a shoebox, and every home he ever had he shared with hundreds of worn paperback roommates. He was calm and thoughtful and a thousand shades of decent, and you'd have to be an idiot to go up against his mind. When Mary thinks of him, she thinks of this little spider monkey in that same zoo, bounding from tree branch to tree branch as it trailed alongside them, Mary pushing Dean's stroller as it stared at her like it knew her darkest secrets.
Their graves are in Ohio somewhere, the same birth and death dates etched into both stones under a pair of fake names.
Later when Dean walks into her hospital room and lets John swing him up onto the bed to meet his new brother, Mary wonders if four years difference is enough to break the curse.
*****
Before Sam is born, Dean leans close to Mary's swollen belly as if he'll be able to see through the skin and flesh to the baby inside and declares absolutely and in no uncertain terms that he does not want a little brother.
They don't know yet, of course, but John is convinced it's another boy already, and he ruffles Dean's hair and wraps an arm around his son. "Aw, come on, kiddo," he says. "I only wish I'd had a brother growing up."
Mary smiles like she's been practicing and says, "Me, too."
*****
Every day that Mary is with John, she allows herself to forget just one more thing. One week, she lets herself forget the tight clutch of invisible fingers around her throat, another handful of Latin verbs, how to defend herself in a knife fight, and what sulfur smells like when it hangs heavy and unmistakable in the air.
John is a warrior loops in a never-ending litany in her head that rapidly repeats like spastic gunfire when she's all alone and feels the weight of someone's gaze on the back of her neck.
John is a soldier. John is brave and strong. John can protect us all.
It's like every sentence kills a memory, and she wishes she weren't so nervous about that.
*****
The skirt is probably too short and the sweater is probably too tight, but she's not even thinking about it until she spots the dark-haired man as he stares at her legs. She smiles at him, and he smiles back, and it occurs to her that she's never seen any man that handsome before.
There's an electric spark of recognition as he steps up to her in his dress uniform and raises a hand. "I'm John Winchester," he says.
This is my chance, she thinks, and hears herself say, "That's so weird. My last name's Winchester, too."
Fake IDs, it turns out, are easier to obtain than you'd think.
*****
Michael shows her how to fight dirty, which keeps her safe when a blind date with this weirdo goes wrong and keeps her alive when a skinwalker tries to kill her in an alley.
Gabriel gives her a dream journal, which keeps her from going insane when the deja vu strikes one too many times and keeps her calm when she senses his gaze on her when he's not even in the same goddamn state.
One day, a pair of police officers show up at the front door of her apartment to tell her about a pair of dead men they think she might know.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I have no idea who those men are."
After they leave, she can't stop throwing up, and the taste of the lie lingers in her throat for weeks.
*****
Mary memorizes the obituaries, strings of lies that touch on reality just enough to pass for truth. She doesn't want to save them, doesn't want them around to avoid the questions they raise, and it's not hard to remember them all, really. The important dates are all the same; only the years change, and with birthdates, usually those don't change, either. Every pair of names shares the same last name, the same one that's on her birth certificate. All the women die in fires, and take most of the men with them.
It's the men who live who are the ones to fear, the ones whose lives usually fade at the end of a gun or a sword or some creature's bared fangs and sharp claws.
The first thing she always does when she buys a newspaper is throw out the obituaries. The temptation is far too great, although the temptation to do what is something she can never settle on.
*****
She's thirteen when she wakes up to see Gabriel sitting in a chair he's pulled up to the side of her bed, watching her with serious brown eyes, his elbows on his knees and his fingers laced together under his chin.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
He gives her a comforting smile, shakes his head but doesn't say anything, and a few minutes later she goes right back to sleep again.
She doesn't find out about Michael sitting at the foot of her bed with a shotgun until the next morning. In retrospect, it's probably a good thing.
*****
When Mary is ten, she runs into Michael's bedroom in the middle of the night and tells him there's a monster in her closet.
She can't be sure at the time, but she's positive that normal big brothers don't respond to that by sneaking into their foster parents's den, boosting a gun from the cabinet next to the fireplace, and practically knocking down the closet door in the chase.
*****
The lady she remembers meeting with spoke in a quiet voice and held out a bowl of peppermints with a smile that made Mary feel like she'd been hugged. Even so, Mary's first seven years were weighted down with more bad memories than most, and she twirled the end of her long blond ponytail around her fingers as she said, "Is this about the picture I drew?"
The lady -- she said to call her Maggie -- let her warm green eyes narrow a little, but she nodded reluctantly. "You were supposed to draw what would happen to you when you grew up," she said. Later on, when Mary does grow up and think back on it, she filled in the not what happened to you last month on her own, and wondered why Miss Wilson and Maggie and everybody else never bothered to ask why there wasn't a little blond girl in the drawing.
But little Mary didn't even think of it, looking up at Maggie with wide eyes and saying, "But I did draw what's going to happen."
The words ring in her head as an adult, whenever she wakes up in bed next to John bathed in sweat and trembling in fear.
*****
The assignment was for the kids to draw what they wanted to be when they grew up. Excited hands clutched at fat crayons and drew as if pressing wax to construction paper would suddenly make all of their childish dreams a reality. Fire trucks would appear in front of their houses, stethescopes would magically materialize around their necks, all through force of will.
In one picture, there's a black-haired man dressed in green carrying a sword, and two little boys, and a blond woman obscured by slashes of red and orange.
Miss Wilson stares at it for a long time, the thick paper trembling in her hands.
They said to report anything troublesome from the girl, she thinks, and there wasn't anything more troublesome than this.
*****
"Daddy, do I have to go to school tomorrow?"
He tucks the sheets around his daughter's tiny body and smiles, hoping it looks like he means it. "It's Monday, sweetie. Everybody goes to school on Monday."
The little girl shakes her head, and her blond hair spreads across the pillow. "I don't want to go to school if I can't wear my princess dress," she says, and reaches out to touch the pink satin dress on a hanger next to the bed. She wouldn't go to bed without it, had worn it all weekend until Mommy had convinced her to let it get washed in exchange for a bowl of ice cream before bed.
He almost let her wear it to sleep. She's going to lose enough tonight, after all.
"Mary, you already got to wear your princess dress to school on Friday for Halloween." He gives her a stern look and rubs a hand on her tummy, and she pouts a little but lets that be the end of it.
He leans over and kisses her forehead with a whispered, "Goodnight, love" -- the last time, this is the last time, he thinks -- and heads for the door. He watches her until her eyelids slip shut, then goes to wake the boys before he can go back to Mary's room and see the stark splash of white on the ceiling over her bed. He pictures his own brother doing the same thing two blocks away, waking the children to ready them to run.
The boys need to be awake, he thinks, need to be alert when the screaming starts.
After all, they'll be the ones to carry their sister from the house after the fire comes.
Title: Lies Do Not Become Us
Author: Troll Princess
Pairing/Character: Mary/John
Rating: PG
Summary: Mary's past is not the sad and lonely dream she told John it was. It's worse.
Spoilers/Warnings: "The Benders", I suppose. It's pastfic, so .. *shrugs*
Author's note: Aaaaaaand now I get my urge for Mary fic out of the way. :)
Lies Do Not Become Us
*****
She doesn't run for Sammy because no one's supposed to die that night.
She runs because it's supposed to be her, and she knows it.
If you ask John Winchester, his wife was an only child and an orphan. She knows nothing of her family, was raised in foster care, and had no one until she met him, until Dean and Sammy came along. She bends over Sammy's crib every night and kisses his forehead, whispering the same, "Goodnight, love," she used to whisper to Dean when he slept in that crib, and John watches every chance he gets.
She knows what he's thinking, that he's glad he could give her this, that he's happy to have given her the family she never had.
It's a nice thought, the kind you never ruin.
Mary Wallace had two big brothers.
Michael's words played like a snake charmer's music, hypnotic with a strange beauty, and his fists snapped out without warning. He was wild and wired and a thousand shades of brave, and you'd have to be an idiot to go up against his strength. When Mary thinks of him, she thinks of a caged lion at a zoo John took her and Dean to once, pacing back and forth in his cage with graceful, loping strides and whipping around his tail as if daring someone to try something.
Trying to fold Gabriel's long, lean body into a chair was like trying to fold a ladder into a shoebox, and every home he ever had he shared with hundreds of worn paperback roommates. He was calm and thoughtful and a thousand shades of decent, and you'd have to be an idiot to go up against his mind. When Mary thinks of him, she thinks of this little spider monkey in that same zoo, bounding from tree branch to tree branch as it trailed alongside them, Mary pushing Dean's stroller as it stared at her like it knew her darkest secrets.
Their graves are in Ohio somewhere, the same birth and death dates etched into both stones under a pair of fake names.
Later when Dean walks into her hospital room and lets John swing him up onto the bed to meet his new brother, Mary wonders if four years difference is enough to break the curse.
Before Sam is born, Dean leans close to Mary's swollen belly as if he'll be able to see through the skin and flesh to the baby inside and declares absolutely and in no uncertain terms that he does not want a little brother.
They don't know yet, of course, but John is convinced it's another boy already, and he ruffles Dean's hair and wraps an arm around his son. "Aw, come on, kiddo," he says. "I only wish I'd had a brother growing up."
Mary smiles like she's been practicing and says, "Me, too."
Every day that Mary is with John, she allows herself to forget just one more thing. One week, she lets herself forget the tight clutch of invisible fingers around her throat, another handful of Latin verbs, how to defend herself in a knife fight, and what sulfur smells like when it hangs heavy and unmistakable in the air.
John is a warrior loops in a never-ending litany in her head that rapidly repeats like spastic gunfire when she's all alone and feels the weight of someone's gaze on the back of her neck.
John is a soldier. John is brave and strong. John can protect us all.
It's like every sentence kills a memory, and she wishes she weren't so nervous about that.
The skirt is probably too short and the sweater is probably too tight, but she's not even thinking about it until she spots the dark-haired man as he stares at her legs. She smiles at him, and he smiles back, and it occurs to her that she's never seen any man that handsome before.
There's an electric spark of recognition as he steps up to her in his dress uniform and raises a hand. "I'm John Winchester," he says.
This is my chance, she thinks, and hears herself say, "That's so weird. My last name's Winchester, too."
Fake IDs, it turns out, are easier to obtain than you'd think.
Michael shows her how to fight dirty, which keeps her safe when a blind date with this weirdo goes wrong and keeps her alive when a skinwalker tries to kill her in an alley.
Gabriel gives her a dream journal, which keeps her from going insane when the deja vu strikes one too many times and keeps her calm when she senses his gaze on her when he's not even in the same goddamn state.
One day, a pair of police officers show up at the front door of her apartment to tell her about a pair of dead men they think she might know.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I have no idea who those men are."
After they leave, she can't stop throwing up, and the taste of the lie lingers in her throat for weeks.
Mary memorizes the obituaries, strings of lies that touch on reality just enough to pass for truth. She doesn't want to save them, doesn't want them around to avoid the questions they raise, and it's not hard to remember them all, really. The important dates are all the same; only the years change, and with birthdates, usually those don't change, either. Every pair of names shares the same last name, the same one that's on her birth certificate. All the women die in fires, and take most of the men with them.
It's the men who live who are the ones to fear, the ones whose lives usually fade at the end of a gun or a sword or some creature's bared fangs and sharp claws.
The first thing she always does when she buys a newspaper is throw out the obituaries. The temptation is far too great, although the temptation to do what is something she can never settle on.
She's thirteen when she wakes up to see Gabriel sitting in a chair he's pulled up to the side of her bed, watching her with serious brown eyes, his elbows on his knees and his fingers laced together under his chin.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
He gives her a comforting smile, shakes his head but doesn't say anything, and a few minutes later she goes right back to sleep again.
She doesn't find out about Michael sitting at the foot of her bed with a shotgun until the next morning. In retrospect, it's probably a good thing.
When Mary is ten, she runs into Michael's bedroom in the middle of the night and tells him there's a monster in her closet.
She can't be sure at the time, but she's positive that normal big brothers don't respond to that by sneaking into their foster parents's den, boosting a gun from the cabinet next to the fireplace, and practically knocking down the closet door in the chase.
The lady she remembers meeting with spoke in a quiet voice and held out a bowl of peppermints with a smile that made Mary feel like she'd been hugged. Even so, Mary's first seven years were weighted down with more bad memories than most, and she twirled the end of her long blond ponytail around her fingers as she said, "Is this about the picture I drew?"
The lady -- she said to call her Maggie -- let her warm green eyes narrow a little, but she nodded reluctantly. "You were supposed to draw what would happen to you when you grew up," she said. Later on, when Mary does grow up and think back on it, she filled in the not what happened to you last month on her own, and wondered why Miss Wilson and Maggie and everybody else never bothered to ask why there wasn't a little blond girl in the drawing.
But little Mary didn't even think of it, looking up at Maggie with wide eyes and saying, "But I did draw what's going to happen."
The words ring in her head as an adult, whenever she wakes up in bed next to John bathed in sweat and trembling in fear.
The assignment was for the kids to draw what they wanted to be when they grew up. Excited hands clutched at fat crayons and drew as if pressing wax to construction paper would suddenly make all of their childish dreams a reality. Fire trucks would appear in front of their houses, stethescopes would magically materialize around their necks, all through force of will.
In one picture, there's a black-haired man dressed in green carrying a sword, and two little boys, and a blond woman obscured by slashes of red and orange.
Miss Wilson stares at it for a long time, the thick paper trembling in her hands.
They said to report anything troublesome from the girl, she thinks, and there wasn't anything more troublesome than this.
"Daddy, do I have to go to school tomorrow?"
He tucks the sheets around his daughter's tiny body and smiles, hoping it looks like he means it. "It's Monday, sweetie. Everybody goes to school on Monday."
The little girl shakes her head, and her blond hair spreads across the pillow. "I don't want to go to school if I can't wear my princess dress," she says, and reaches out to touch the pink satin dress on a hanger next to the bed. She wouldn't go to bed without it, had worn it all weekend until Mommy had convinced her to let it get washed in exchange for a bowl of ice cream before bed.
He almost let her wear it to sleep. She's going to lose enough tonight, after all.
"Mary, you already got to wear your princess dress to school on Friday for Halloween." He gives her a stern look and rubs a hand on her tummy, and she pouts a little but lets that be the end of it.
He leans over and kisses her forehead with a whispered, "Goodnight, love" -- the last time, this is the last time, he thinks -- and heads for the door. He watches her until her eyelids slip shut, then goes to wake the boys before he can go back to Mary's room and see the stark splash of white on the ceiling over her bed. He pictures his own brother doing the same thing two blocks away, waking the children to ready them to run.
The boys need to be awake, he thinks, need to be alert when the screaming starts.
After all, they'll be the ones to carry their sister from the house after the fire comes.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 06:42 am (UTC)I think I love it when you get the fic urges out :)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 06:42 am (UTC)This one gave me chills, especially at the end.
I love the concept and the execution. You've got some serious talent, thanks for sharing your fic with the rest of us!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 06:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 06:10 pm (UTC)Also, lol at your music.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-16 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-19 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 08:54 pm (UTC)I like this theory.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 01:02 am (UTC)Which would be fracking awesome.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-30 02:32 pm (UTC)!!
Awesome, completely awesome of course.
You're probably going to hate this, I'm just trying to figure out whether I have it all straight in my head.
It's Mary's family of course, their women & men, but... they know when 'it' is coming?
Because her father knew that he/her mother, both of them, were going to die?
They have the prophetic dreams?
Or, was is just her mother who was going to die, but her father knew he was going to die saving her?
Or is it just every February 2nd?
And - the same thing was happening with his brother? His brother's wife?
Theres *always* a pair of brothers?
What holds it off? (ie, why doesn't it happen every year?)
*meep*
Sorry, and - if you don't have time/answers, don't worry about this.
So very cool.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-06 01:30 am (UTC)Very original fic idea and brilliantly executed.
Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 04:21 pm (UTC)Anyways, I loved this style, how it jumped around alot. I haven't finished watching all the episodes, but it was refreshing to read a Mary fic. My favourite part was when you described her brothers. The "thousand shades of brave/decent" was amazing! You're a very talented writer. Expect more comments on old fics from me as I make my way through them!
no subject
Date: 2006-11-18 01:38 am (UTC)Very chilling. It's an excellent story.