SPN fic: From behind empty walls (Gen, R)
Title: From behind empty walls
Author: maharetr
Rating/Genre/Warnings: R/Gen/Nil
Characters: Mary, YED, John, Dean, Sammy
Word count:: 2,250
Notes: A companion piece to Willing to Fight (750 words). It's not essential to have read that, but if you're like me and have a Thing about reading fics in order, Willing to Fight came first :) Much love to vegetariansushi for the beta.
Summary: All of this is an illusion. It had taken great pleasure in showing her the morgue where her charred, twisted remains had been identified. Her body is gone, but that doesn't stop her mind from making this body shiver with cold.
She breathes in a second before the light hits her eyes. It's a meager glow, but it triggers the return of the rest of her senses, and she curls around a silent scream of cold, hurts. It takes a while of scrabbling at the floor until her newly-granted body remembers how to process, and a while longer before she is able to lever herself into a sitting position.
The light is coming from around the doorframe, and it's not enough to allow her eyes to confirm what she can feel: a hard, damp surface under her butt and against her back; damp scratchy fabric for clothes. She smiles grimly: clothes, that was nice of it.
All of this is an illusion. It had taken great pleasure in showing her the morgue where her charred, twisted remains had been identified. Her body is gone, but that doesn't stop her mind from making this body shiver with cold.
It had taken her to her funeral: John sobbing with Sammy gurgling obliviously in his lap; Dean pale and scarily still beside them.
He's waiting the demon had stage-whispered in her non-existent ear. Daddy says you've gone away, so he's just waiting until Dad gets it together and then they can all go driving and come and see you. He's very patient.
She'd had nothing to attack it with, no hands or feet to strike it with, but she'd screamed and sworn and fought in her mind.
It had laughed, and plunged her into the black: the silent, dark limbo, to drive herself insane: four years of good memories couldn’t compete with the tears on John’s face, or a Dean that looked like he was never going to smile again.
She doesn't know how long she'd been left there: days, seconds, a lifetime; but it hasn't been long enough to forget who she was, or who -- what -- is approaching the door, footsteps echoing.
The door swings inwards and she flinches away from the bright light.
It steps into the room wearing human form, the door closing silently and untouched behind it. It's carrying a candle, which it sets on the floor and goes to all the trouble of using a match to light. The glow reveals a pinstripe suit and blond hair, carefully combed like they're about to go on a date. Its eyes are as yellow as its hair.
"Do you know what day it is?" It looks expectantly at her, as if it wants an answer. She swallows painfully, trying to get enough saliva into her mouth to spit at it. "It's our anniversary, love," it admonishes, like it's disappointed. "Five long years. I thought you might like to go celebrate: have a night on the town, catch up with old loved ones, see what you've lost."
It beams at her, like it's offering a treat instead of an added torment, and reaches out a hand. It knows damn well she doesn't have the strength to stand and she keeps her hands in her lap and glares up at it.
It sighs, like a parent with a recalcitrant child, and hauls her up by her arm. Her legs fold and it shifts so she falls against its chest.
"Fuck. You," she rasps through cracked lips. It laughs, a soft, genuinely amused sound, and strokes her tangled hair. She turns her face into its neck and bites down hard on the tendons there.
The fierce joy at its yelp is short lived. It shoves her back against the wall, hand tightening around her throat. None of this is real, she thinks as spots dance in front of her eyes. You can't die if you're already dead… but she paws at its hand anyway, trying to prize its ringers away.
The world is fading as it leans forward. "You always were the more interesting, dear…" The black spots are spreading, closing over her vision, and then there is nothing.
~*~
This time the warmth is warning enough to keep her eyes closed. The world glows red behind her eyelids, and her hands are… wet, submerged in water. She presses her palms flat against a smooth surface. A sink, she is standing at a sink, and she slits her eyes open against the glare. It's not real. It's not real, but she is standing in her kitchen in Lawrence, afternoon sun streaming through the open windows.
There is warmth behind her, too, and for the briefest of seconds, she holds still. If she doesn't turn around, she can pretend it's John.
"Hey, Mary," it whispers against the back of her neck. It's using John's voice, but John never made her skin crawl like that. She smashes an elbow back, but it catches her arm lightly, almost cupping her elbow in its palm. It grabs her by the shoulders and spins her around to face it.
It's using John's body, but John never sneered like that.
You didn't live with a Marine for six years and not pick up some spectacular swearing combinations. She's about to let rip when it cocks its head to the side:
"Ah! You wouldn't want your little boy hearing that sort of language, now, would you?"
There's a creak from upstairs, in one of the bedrooms. Fear flows icy down her back.
"No," she says, as much a command as she could make it. "Don't you dare."
It tilts its head back the other way and raises an eyebrow. "No? You don't want to see Dean? Are you sure about that?"
Her chest aches, but she clenches her jaw and returns his gaze. "Yes, I'm sure."
The yellow eyes flare golden. None of this is real, she tries to remind herself, but it doesn't stop her biting her lips closed to stop a cry as it jerks her head back, pain sparking along her scalp.
"He's dreaming," the demon whispers in her ear, a voice that reverberates in her skull. "But I can hurt him here." She tries to wrench free, but between one blink and the next she can't move. He lets her hair go and steps back, and she's frozen, back arched, balanced impossibly over the sink. "I can make him believe whatever I want, here. I can scar his mind so he wakes up…damaged. Did you know he never actually saw you burning that night?"
She has no control over the fact her body is straightening, she can't clench her hands into fists, can't lunge at it.
It reaches out a hand, John's hand, with John's rough calluses, gentle on her cheek.
"Sing, love," it murmurs with John's voice. "Bring him down here, or he won't be waking up as your little boy."
Mary closes her eyes and parts her lips. She breathes in, the smell of John around her, the warm sun in her kitchen, and sings.
Someone is coming down the stairs, slower and heavier than she ever remembered Dean being. Not Dean, she thinks, and that's enough to keep her voice from faltering as the steps slowly shuffle their way across the living room. Whatever the demon was doing to her, it wasn't --.
"Please?"
Her eyes snap open. Dean's standing in the hallway, impossibly grown, and his eyes… Dean, she tries to say, but she can make no sound at all.
Dean's eyes are closed, but more than that, his eyelids are wrinkled, sunken into empty sockets. Mary's scream catches in her chest, vibrating silently in her throat.
"It's just until he wakes up," the demon murmurs in her ear, and there's something like regret there.
Dean shuffles forward a step in his darkness, but fear is making his hands tremble, and she can see the exact moment he starts panicking: his face contorts and he flails for a reference point, his hand smacking the wall hard enough to make her flinch. She cries out with him, although only he makes a sound.
The demon steps forward, the blurring starting from the feet up, body elongating into a dark mockery of a human being, fingers lengthening and reaching for Dean.
She can't make her screams audible, but the demon looks back at her and for one last second it uses John's face to smile before there are only yellow eyes glowing in a dark shape and it turns and closes its hand over Dean's wrist.
Her silent No mingles with Dean’s cry, and her heart leaps when he jerks back, breaking free, and lunging away. The wrong way. She shouts, but even in her head it's not enough to drown out the crack as he hits the wall face first.
He wails in pain: "Mom!" and she can't get between him and the demon, can't reach for him, even as the demon leans closer to him, rasping words of comfort as blood trickles over Dean's lips.
Stop it! she shrieks and it does turn, but it tilts its head as if it's listening to something else entirely.
"Ahh," it says, to her this time. "Come and see this." It reaches out a hand, as if it were offering her a choice, then she's falling into the blackness, her body is gone; she's screaming, but it's only in her mind. Screaming, but --
Hush, it says, sounding almost irritated. It's not like they can hear you.
They're outside a motel, late at night: the remaining neon letters - OT L - flicker, casting intermittent red light on the wet pavement. The vacancy sign is dark, but only half the rooms have cars parked in front of them, if that.
The Impala is parked in front of room seven.
The demon brings her closer; she can feel it studying her, drinking in her pain. It's showing her the scratched paintwork, the broken taillight, the junk food wrappers on the floor, but all she can see are the signs of life and warmth: the nests of blankets in the back seat, the crayons mashed into the upholstery, the cassette tapes and toys everywhere.
It drags her back, forces a panorama of the motel.
Look, it sneers. A five-roach motel, see how well they're doing. She's not focused on any of it: she's trying to see through the curtains, trying to listen through the glass. Someone -- Dean, she knows what he sounds like, now -- shrieks, and a light flicks on, glowing through the curtains.
The demon chuckles. Amateurs, it says. Clever amateurs, but still… She tries to get to the door before it, but it gets there first and she can only follow. There's something white on the floor around the door, and the window, but she only has eyes for the scene in front of her; for a moment she forgets the demon's even in the room.
John is barely a foot away, leaning over the bed while Dean thrashes, fighting the bedcovers and John's hands, refusing to be soothed. She pivots, searching...
Sammy, she tries to cry his name aloud. He's standing in the corner, sniffling, and the pain is sharp and bright: he's not just standing, but rocking a little, confident on his feet.
She can't, she knows she can't, but she reaches out, tries to sweep him into arms that no longer exist. The demon is laughing, and just when she thinks it can't hurt any worse, Dean wails,
"Mommy!"
Mary freezes, even Sammy gulps mid-sob. For a second, Dean is staring straight through her, his eyes huge and green and whole.
"It's dad, Dean," John says softly, and the grief in his voice is so raw she chokes.
"It's all right, Dean," he keeps murmuring. "You're okay, it was a nightmare, you're fine." He sounds exhausted, and the shadows under his eyes tell of too many hours driving, too much coffee and not enough sleep. He turns his head, focused beyond her. "It's okay Sammy, he's awake."
Sammy runs -- runs -- at the bed, scrambling up and grabbing at Dean.
"You scared me," he says. His voice is clogged with snot and tears, and it's the sweetest thing Mary's ever heard.
The demon is circling around behind her, getting closer. She turns, keeping herself between it and the bed, grounding herself with the sound of their voices.
Please, she whispers. Please. Leave them alone.
You beg so prettily, the demon says. There's nothing of her to touch here, but she still feels violated as it moves closer. She braces herself, holds her ground.
Don't worry, it whispers, like it's sharing a secret. I'm not going to touch them, not just yet. Sammy has so much growing to do, my dear. She flinches, and the lights flicker. She looks back.
John is sitting on the bed, leaning against the pillows with Sammy and Dean curled against his sides, dozing now. Sammy is wearing what looks like one of Dean's shirts, a thumb tucked snuggly in a corner of his mouth. Dean has more freckles than Mary thought possible scattered over his cheeks, and he sighs and settles in closer as John strokes his hair. John's gaze roves wearily around the room to the window, the door… and focuses on her.
"Mary," he breathes, too startled to even make it a question. There's no time for anything at all: the demon hisses, sharp and shocked, hauling her back down into the dark, but she doesn't scream. It's snarling threats of punishment, but she wraps the memory of them up tight inside herself, and falls in silence.
Author: maharetr
Rating/Genre/Warnings: R/Gen/Nil
Characters: Mary, YED, John, Dean, Sammy
Word count:: 2,250
Notes: A companion piece to Willing to Fight (750 words). It's not essential to have read that, but if you're like me and have a Thing about reading fics in order, Willing to Fight came first :) Much love to vegetariansushi for the beta.
Summary: All of this is an illusion. It had taken great pleasure in showing her the morgue where her charred, twisted remains had been identified. Her body is gone, but that doesn't stop her mind from making this body shiver with cold.
She breathes in a second before the light hits her eyes. It's a meager glow, but it triggers the return of the rest of her senses, and she curls around a silent scream of cold, hurts. It takes a while of scrabbling at the floor until her newly-granted body remembers how to process, and a while longer before she is able to lever herself into a sitting position.
The light is coming from around the doorframe, and it's not enough to allow her eyes to confirm what she can feel: a hard, damp surface under her butt and against her back; damp scratchy fabric for clothes. She smiles grimly: clothes, that was nice of it.
All of this is an illusion. It had taken great pleasure in showing her the morgue where her charred, twisted remains had been identified. Her body is gone, but that doesn't stop her mind from making this body shiver with cold.
It had taken her to her funeral: John sobbing with Sammy gurgling obliviously in his lap; Dean pale and scarily still beside them.
He's waiting the demon had stage-whispered in her non-existent ear. Daddy says you've gone away, so he's just waiting until Dad gets it together and then they can all go driving and come and see you. He's very patient.
She'd had nothing to attack it with, no hands or feet to strike it with, but she'd screamed and sworn and fought in her mind.
It had laughed, and plunged her into the black: the silent, dark limbo, to drive herself insane: four years of good memories couldn’t compete with the tears on John’s face, or a Dean that looked like he was never going to smile again.
She doesn't know how long she'd been left there: days, seconds, a lifetime; but it hasn't been long enough to forget who she was, or who -- what -- is approaching the door, footsteps echoing.
The door swings inwards and she flinches away from the bright light.
It steps into the room wearing human form, the door closing silently and untouched behind it. It's carrying a candle, which it sets on the floor and goes to all the trouble of using a match to light. The glow reveals a pinstripe suit and blond hair, carefully combed like they're about to go on a date. Its eyes are as yellow as its hair.
"Do you know what day it is?" It looks expectantly at her, as if it wants an answer. She swallows painfully, trying to get enough saliva into her mouth to spit at it. "It's our anniversary, love," it admonishes, like it's disappointed. "Five long years. I thought you might like to go celebrate: have a night on the town, catch up with old loved ones, see what you've lost."
It beams at her, like it's offering a treat instead of an added torment, and reaches out a hand. It knows damn well she doesn't have the strength to stand and she keeps her hands in her lap and glares up at it.
It sighs, like a parent with a recalcitrant child, and hauls her up by her arm. Her legs fold and it shifts so she falls against its chest.
"Fuck. You," she rasps through cracked lips. It laughs, a soft, genuinely amused sound, and strokes her tangled hair. She turns her face into its neck and bites down hard on the tendons there.
The fierce joy at its yelp is short lived. It shoves her back against the wall, hand tightening around her throat. None of this is real, she thinks as spots dance in front of her eyes. You can't die if you're already dead… but she paws at its hand anyway, trying to prize its ringers away.
The world is fading as it leans forward. "You always were the more interesting, dear…" The black spots are spreading, closing over her vision, and then there is nothing.
~*~
This time the warmth is warning enough to keep her eyes closed. The world glows red behind her eyelids, and her hands are… wet, submerged in water. She presses her palms flat against a smooth surface. A sink, she is standing at a sink, and she slits her eyes open against the glare. It's not real. It's not real, but she is standing in her kitchen in Lawrence, afternoon sun streaming through the open windows.
There is warmth behind her, too, and for the briefest of seconds, she holds still. If she doesn't turn around, she can pretend it's John.
"Hey, Mary," it whispers against the back of her neck. It's using John's voice, but John never made her skin crawl like that. She smashes an elbow back, but it catches her arm lightly, almost cupping her elbow in its palm. It grabs her by the shoulders and spins her around to face it.
It's using John's body, but John never sneered like that.
You didn't live with a Marine for six years and not pick up some spectacular swearing combinations. She's about to let rip when it cocks its head to the side:
"Ah! You wouldn't want your little boy hearing that sort of language, now, would you?"
There's a creak from upstairs, in one of the bedrooms. Fear flows icy down her back.
"No," she says, as much a command as she could make it. "Don't you dare."
It tilts its head back the other way and raises an eyebrow. "No? You don't want to see Dean? Are you sure about that?"
Her chest aches, but she clenches her jaw and returns his gaze. "Yes, I'm sure."
The yellow eyes flare golden. None of this is real, she tries to remind herself, but it doesn't stop her biting her lips closed to stop a cry as it jerks her head back, pain sparking along her scalp.
"He's dreaming," the demon whispers in her ear, a voice that reverberates in her skull. "But I can hurt him here." She tries to wrench free, but between one blink and the next she can't move. He lets her hair go and steps back, and she's frozen, back arched, balanced impossibly over the sink. "I can make him believe whatever I want, here. I can scar his mind so he wakes up…damaged. Did you know he never actually saw you burning that night?"
She has no control over the fact her body is straightening, she can't clench her hands into fists, can't lunge at it.
It reaches out a hand, John's hand, with John's rough calluses, gentle on her cheek.
"Sing, love," it murmurs with John's voice. "Bring him down here, or he won't be waking up as your little boy."
Mary closes her eyes and parts her lips. She breathes in, the smell of John around her, the warm sun in her kitchen, and sings.
Someone is coming down the stairs, slower and heavier than she ever remembered Dean being. Not Dean, she thinks, and that's enough to keep her voice from faltering as the steps slowly shuffle their way across the living room. Whatever the demon was doing to her, it wasn't --.
"Please?"
Her eyes snap open. Dean's standing in the hallway, impossibly grown, and his eyes… Dean, she tries to say, but she can make no sound at all.
Dean's eyes are closed, but more than that, his eyelids are wrinkled, sunken into empty sockets. Mary's scream catches in her chest, vibrating silently in her throat.
"It's just until he wakes up," the demon murmurs in her ear, and there's something like regret there.
Dean shuffles forward a step in his darkness, but fear is making his hands tremble, and she can see the exact moment he starts panicking: his face contorts and he flails for a reference point, his hand smacking the wall hard enough to make her flinch. She cries out with him, although only he makes a sound.
The demon steps forward, the blurring starting from the feet up, body elongating into a dark mockery of a human being, fingers lengthening and reaching for Dean.
She can't make her screams audible, but the demon looks back at her and for one last second it uses John's face to smile before there are only yellow eyes glowing in a dark shape and it turns and closes its hand over Dean's wrist.
Her silent No mingles with Dean’s cry, and her heart leaps when he jerks back, breaking free, and lunging away. The wrong way. She shouts, but even in her head it's not enough to drown out the crack as he hits the wall face first.
He wails in pain: "Mom!" and she can't get between him and the demon, can't reach for him, even as the demon leans closer to him, rasping words of comfort as blood trickles over Dean's lips.
Stop it! she shrieks and it does turn, but it tilts its head as if it's listening to something else entirely.
"Ahh," it says, to her this time. "Come and see this." It reaches out a hand, as if it were offering her a choice, then she's falling into the blackness, her body is gone; she's screaming, but it's only in her mind. Screaming, but --
Hush, it says, sounding almost irritated. It's not like they can hear you.
They're outside a motel, late at night: the remaining neon letters - OT L - flicker, casting intermittent red light on the wet pavement. The vacancy sign is dark, but only half the rooms have cars parked in front of them, if that.
The Impala is parked in front of room seven.
The demon brings her closer; she can feel it studying her, drinking in her pain. It's showing her the scratched paintwork, the broken taillight, the junk food wrappers on the floor, but all she can see are the signs of life and warmth: the nests of blankets in the back seat, the crayons mashed into the upholstery, the cassette tapes and toys everywhere.
It drags her back, forces a panorama of the motel.
Look, it sneers. A five-roach motel, see how well they're doing. She's not focused on any of it: she's trying to see through the curtains, trying to listen through the glass. Someone -- Dean, she knows what he sounds like, now -- shrieks, and a light flicks on, glowing through the curtains.
The demon chuckles. Amateurs, it says. Clever amateurs, but still… She tries to get to the door before it, but it gets there first and she can only follow. There's something white on the floor around the door, and the window, but she only has eyes for the scene in front of her; for a moment she forgets the demon's even in the room.
John is barely a foot away, leaning over the bed while Dean thrashes, fighting the bedcovers and John's hands, refusing to be soothed. She pivots, searching...
Sammy, she tries to cry his name aloud. He's standing in the corner, sniffling, and the pain is sharp and bright: he's not just standing, but rocking a little, confident on his feet.
She can't, she knows she can't, but she reaches out, tries to sweep him into arms that no longer exist. The demon is laughing, and just when she thinks it can't hurt any worse, Dean wails,
"Mommy!"
Mary freezes, even Sammy gulps mid-sob. For a second, Dean is staring straight through her, his eyes huge and green and whole.
"It's dad, Dean," John says softly, and the grief in his voice is so raw she chokes.
"It's all right, Dean," he keeps murmuring. "You're okay, it was a nightmare, you're fine." He sounds exhausted, and the shadows under his eyes tell of too many hours driving, too much coffee and not enough sleep. He turns his head, focused beyond her. "It's okay Sammy, he's awake."
Sammy runs -- runs -- at the bed, scrambling up and grabbing at Dean.
"You scared me," he says. His voice is clogged with snot and tears, and it's the sweetest thing Mary's ever heard.
The demon is circling around behind her, getting closer. She turns, keeping herself between it and the bed, grounding herself with the sound of their voices.
Please, she whispers. Please. Leave them alone.
You beg so prettily, the demon says. There's nothing of her to touch here, but she still feels violated as it moves closer. She braces herself, holds her ground.
Don't worry, it whispers, like it's sharing a secret. I'm not going to touch them, not just yet. Sammy has so much growing to do, my dear. She flinches, and the lights flicker. She looks back.
John is sitting on the bed, leaning against the pillows with Sammy and Dean curled against his sides, dozing now. Sammy is wearing what looks like one of Dean's shirts, a thumb tucked snuggly in a corner of his mouth. Dean has more freckles than Mary thought possible scattered over his cheeks, and he sighs and settles in closer as John strokes his hair. John's gaze roves wearily around the room to the window, the door… and focuses on her.
"Mary," he breathes, too startled to even make it a question. There's no time for anything at all: the demon hisses, sharp and shocked, hauling her back down into the dark, but she doesn't scream. It's snarling threats of punishment, but she wraps the memory of them up tight inside herself, and falls in silence.