Chocolate Chili/Prune/Blue Raspberry/Watermelon smoothie
Authors: Marina and Casey
Story: Nothing is Ever Easy universe, post-Pirates!
Challenge: Chocolate Chili 12 (subservience), Prune 16 (every little bit helps) [Marina]; Blue Raspberry 19 (falling apart), Watermelon 2 (it’s all coming back to me) [Casey]
Toppings/Extras: Caramel, Smoothie [both]; Malt (Easter Egg from Ichthus: You can put truth in a grave, but it won’t stay there. - Clarence W. Hall) [Marina]
Word Count: 2,305
Rating: PG
Summary: Dean finally tells Carrie what really happened with Vladimir.
Notes: Takes place about ten years, give or take a bit, after this piece.
Dean woke with a start and lay on his back, heart pounding, as he listened for movement from Carrie that would indicate he had woken her. When the room remained silent, he slid out of bed and stepped over to the window, pressing his forehead and the palms of both hands against the chilled glass. Taking deep breaths, he sought to push the memories back where they belonged.
He was so absorbed with the effort that the sound of the bed creaking several minutes later startled him badly. Turning, he saw Carrie sitting on the edge of their mattress, eyeing him blearily, but worriedly. "Dean?" she whispered.
He managed a smile that he hoped would seem genuine in the dark, pushing a hand through his hair. "Hey, sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep, okay? I'll be there in a minute." Even as he spoke them, he knew the words were a flimsy defense. Third night in a row, he thought, she's not going to believe you much longer.
"Much longer" turned out to be about three seconds, the amount of time it took Carrie to silently assess him in a way that came disturbingly naturally to her. Then she got up, crossed over to him, and laid a hand on his arm. "Don't do this," she said.
He turned back to the window, unable to meet her eyes, but didn't seek to dislodge her hand. His hands fell to the windowsill and locked around it in an iron grip. "I'll be fine in a couple of days, Care. I just...I've let that last mission get to me. That's all." It wasn't a complete lie. He just needed a little more time to compartmentalize the memories again.
"No, it's not,” she said, in a gentle tone that resonated much more with him than irritation would have. “If it were just that, you'd tell me. You wouldn't try so hard to hide it."
It was on the tip of his tongue to blurt out, "I was just a kid," but he fought it back. Every instinct fought to keep control, even though he knew, logically, that he had never dealt with those memories the way he should have. Instead, he drew a hand across his face. "This last mission. Those kids, they...you know how they were, with the slack faces and the rote answers and the weird high regard in which they held that creep..." he trailed off and shook his head.
Carrie's hand shifted to curl around his elbow. "I remember," she said quietly, beginning to rub his arm with her other hand.
He wasn't sure what else to say or how to say it. Some of the things that had happened to him before they'd met were still mostly unknown to her, little more than hints dropped by accident, because he was good at hiding the worst of it. Vladimir definitely fell into that category. He'd never spoken of the time in Vladimir's 'care' to anyone. Not Sage, not Renie, who no doubt remembered bits and pieces, and certainly not anyone who hadn't been there. Jay was the only one who came the closest, because he had witnessed snippets. As for Carrie, she barely even knew who he was, as far as Dean was aware, anyway. "I came so close to being those kids," he murmured, not realizing the words came out so she could hear.
She stiffened a little. As soon as he realized that she had heard, he wondered if she was angry, or if she just didn't know what to say. He bit his lip, looking away. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."
"No, Dean," she said, clearly upset, "you should have said it years ago. When was this?"
He flinched, focusing on his white knuckles, still gripping the sill for grounding, not that it helped. It'd been years now, so many, but not enough. He wasn't sure it would ever be enough. "When Vladimir kidnapped me when I was twelve."
Her hold on his arm tightened. "He did that to you?"
"He tried. He did it to everyone there. He might have succeeded if it hadn't been for Sage and Jay." He shuddered, unable to help himself. "I can still recite them word for word," he whispered, tightening his grip so much his fingers bit into the wood.
"Dean." Suddenly, her small hands were covering his, tugging them away from the sill. "Dean, look at me."
It took him a very long minute to first release his death grip and then force himself to look up at her, not at all certain what he'd see when he did. He was disturbed to realize his breath was heavy as he tried to regain his self-control. He should have never let the conversation get this far. Carrie met his eyes. "Don't go back there," she said firmly. "Whatever he did to you is long over. You're here now, with me, your wife. Not there. It's over. It's all right."
He held her gaze, carefully steadying his breathing. Then he took a deep breath and let it out, pushing aside the old fears. "It's over," he repeated, closing his eyes for a moment. After a moment, he added, "I watched him jump," more for his benefit than hers.
"So it's over," she agreed. She still hadn't let go of his hands.
Dean resisted the urge to tug them out to try and rub at his face. Instead, he studied her expression for a moment, nodding. "I'm sorry," he said softly, "the mission and those kids brought it all back. It'll just take a little time to bury it again."
"Don't you dare," Carrie said, holding his gaze. "Burying it's clearly never done you any good and I don't want you to keep being scared out of your sleep several nights in a row after a mission."
He stared at her, hearing the logic in her words, though he didn't particularly like it. Then he tugged on their hands back towards their bed, pulling himself gently free and going over to perch on the edge of the mattress. As she joined him, he glanced at her again. "I'm not sure talking about it will help," he said honestly.
"Try. What happened?"
He deliberately set his hands on his knees, keeping his fingers relaxed, although every other inch of him was tense. He couldn't bring himself to watch her. "As you know, Vladimir kidnapped me, Renie and Connor when I was twelve and that's when I met Sage. Since no one knew he was alive, it took Dad, Russ, Morgan and Jay some time to get on his trail, to figure out who had taken us. In the meantime, I was a prisoner in Vladimir's compound and he...it was like a cult. There was a list of rules that they drilled into my head over and over and over again, along with rote answers to many questions related to those rules. He wanted me on his side. Renie too." He snorted, smiling faintly. "I wasn't a very good or willing pupil, so I...I faced the punishments a lot."
"What kind of punishments?" she asked.
He shrugged. "They ran the gamut. It really depended on what mood struck Vladimir at the moment he was doling them out." He flexed his fingers now. "They sometimes got...creative and other times, it was a straight beating."
Carrie didn't speak for a moment. When she did venture another question, it was hesitant, as if she thought she might be pushing it. "Creative, how?"
He glanced up at her. "There was a room they called the punishment room. It had about every device you can imagine and hopefully some you can't. Vladimir knew how to use them all."
"But he didn't break you," she said.
Dean let out a breath and rubbed his forehead. "No, but he wasn't too far from it. I was right on the edge when I tried to escape. If it hadn't been for Sage, and then her and Jay, I would have tipped over and I don't know if I could have come back."
He felt the mattress dip a little, and then Carrie's arms went around him. "But he didn't," she said again. "You didn't give in."
Dean shifted to hug her back. "No, he didn't. Thank the gods for family," he said and then snorted. "Ignoring the fact, of course, that Vladimir was my closest family beside Dad and Ani blood-wise."
"You had people looking out for you. You always have." She pressed a gentle kiss into his temple. "Focus on that instead."
Dean nodded, his smile coming without restraint now. "I know." Then he pulled back to look her in the eye. "Dad doesn't know how bad it was," he said, "and I don't want him to, okay? He and Ani deserve to remember their brother as he was when they were kids, not the nutcase he became and certainly not what he did to their kids, and his, in detail."
Carrie studied him for a moment, then nodded her agreement and began to run her fingers soothingly through his hair. "It won't do Sorin any good to know about it now," she said. "It's done. But you can't keep these things to yourself anymore, either."
He relaxed slightly at the familiar gesture. "I know. It just never struck me as the sort of thing to, I don't know, bring up after work. There never seems to be a good time for that sort of thing and then those kids...More than half his campaign was mental. You can only hear something so many times before you start to believe it despite yourself. I could see it in those kids, especially the ones who were aware that things were wrong but couldn't help themselves. That was me." He hesitated for a moment. "When I tried to escape, Sage was supposed to provide my punishment and after they all left and she was supposed to, she didn't and I...there was a part of me that thought I deserved it because I'd broken the rules."
"You didn't," she said, fingers only faltering slightly as she talked.
"I know I didn't. I knew at the time I didn't, but that fact the thought even occurred to me scared me. Luckily, that was the same time that Sage and I reached an understanding."
"Good," said Carrie. She shivered a little, like she couldn’t help it despite every effort to stay solid for him. "Gods, how awful. I can’t even fathom it. Your uncle must have been far out of his mind to even…"
He scowled then, fighting against his sudden surge in anger-it wasn't Carrie he was angry with. As he spoke, he struggled to keep his voice even, knowing his wife hadn't meant anything by the comment. "He's not my uncle. The man who might have been died long before I ever met him. Ren's my only uncle."
She went still for a moment. He felt, more than heard, her exhale heavily. "Okay. I'm sorry."
Dean cringed, guilt instantly flooding through him. "No, I am, so please, don't apologize. I know you didn't mean anything. I just...if I even let myself acknowledge him as family, it makes it hurt that much more, you know?"
"Yeah, I get it." She did, he could tell, and she didn't seem that hurt by his outburst.
He took her free hand and squeezed it. "Thanks," he said softly, appreciating her even more than usual at that moment.
Carrie held it back tightly and pressed her cheek to the crown of his head. "I love you," she said. "I want you to tell me these things."
"I love you too, Care," he said softly. "And I know you do. It's just...such habit now."
"Well, don't," she said. "I'd much rather you at least told me than trying to keep it to yourself, and this happening. It's not good for you." She paused again. "It's not good for us."
Dean nodded. "I'll do my best. That's all I can promise for now." He didn't find it easy to talk about the past for a lot of reasons, but unsurprisingly, Carrie’s words again made sense. He knew he'd almost frozen when confronted with those kids and the what-could-have-beens inherent in them and he couldn't afford that, not in their line of work. Maybe talking would at least diminish that possibility.
She didn't like not getting a concrete yes, he knew, but she didn't push it. "Okay," she said, hugging him tightly once more. He hugged her back, wondering whether she knew that if she asked about the times he didn't often talk about, he'd tell her, because it was her asking. "I want you to wake me up, too, if this happens again," she said, after a minute.
He glanced down at her, meeting her eyes, and nodded. "Promise," he said, with a slight smile.
She kissed him. "Good."
At that, he suddenly felt tired again, and had to stifle a yawn. "Speaking of waking up, tomorrow's probably going to be a long day."
"So you think you can sleep all right, now?" She smoothed his hair back down.
"I think so," he said, smiling crookedly. "And if I can't, I'll wake you back up."
She returned it. "You'd better."
"I promised I would," he said, nudging her in the side to get her to get back in bed.
Carrie dropped another kiss on his cheek, this time a noisy, more playful one. "Good night, husband of mine," she said, with a soft smile, and then scooted back to settle on her side of the bed.
Dean grinned, still not fully used to that title, but loving it nonetheless. "Good night," he said, wiggling around to slip under the covers beside her.
Story: Nothing is Ever Easy universe, post-Pirates!
Challenge: Chocolate Chili 12 (subservience), Prune 16 (every little bit helps) [Marina]; Blue Raspberry 19 (falling apart), Watermelon 2 (it’s all coming back to me) [Casey]
Toppings/Extras: Caramel, Smoothie [both]; Malt (Easter Egg from Ichthus: You can put truth in a grave, but it won’t stay there. - Clarence W. Hall) [Marina]
Word Count: 2,305
Rating: PG
Summary: Dean finally tells Carrie what really happened with Vladimir.
Notes: Takes place about ten years, give or take a bit, after this piece.
Dean woke with a start and lay on his back, heart pounding, as he listened for movement from Carrie that would indicate he had woken her. When the room remained silent, he slid out of bed and stepped over to the window, pressing his forehead and the palms of both hands against the chilled glass. Taking deep breaths, he sought to push the memories back where they belonged.
He was so absorbed with the effort that the sound of the bed creaking several minutes later startled him badly. Turning, he saw Carrie sitting on the edge of their mattress, eyeing him blearily, but worriedly. "Dean?" she whispered.
He managed a smile that he hoped would seem genuine in the dark, pushing a hand through his hair. "Hey, sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep, okay? I'll be there in a minute." Even as he spoke them, he knew the words were a flimsy defense. Third night in a row, he thought, she's not going to believe you much longer.
"Much longer" turned out to be about three seconds, the amount of time it took Carrie to silently assess him in a way that came disturbingly naturally to her. Then she got up, crossed over to him, and laid a hand on his arm. "Don't do this," she said.
He turned back to the window, unable to meet her eyes, but didn't seek to dislodge her hand. His hands fell to the windowsill and locked around it in an iron grip. "I'll be fine in a couple of days, Care. I just...I've let that last mission get to me. That's all." It wasn't a complete lie. He just needed a little more time to compartmentalize the memories again.
"No, it's not,” she said, in a gentle tone that resonated much more with him than irritation would have. “If it were just that, you'd tell me. You wouldn't try so hard to hide it."
It was on the tip of his tongue to blurt out, "I was just a kid," but he fought it back. Every instinct fought to keep control, even though he knew, logically, that he had never dealt with those memories the way he should have. Instead, he drew a hand across his face. "This last mission. Those kids, they...you know how they were, with the slack faces and the rote answers and the weird high regard in which they held that creep..." he trailed off and shook his head.
Carrie's hand shifted to curl around his elbow. "I remember," she said quietly, beginning to rub his arm with her other hand.
He wasn't sure what else to say or how to say it. Some of the things that had happened to him before they'd met were still mostly unknown to her, little more than hints dropped by accident, because he was good at hiding the worst of it. Vladimir definitely fell into that category. He'd never spoken of the time in Vladimir's 'care' to anyone. Not Sage, not Renie, who no doubt remembered bits and pieces, and certainly not anyone who hadn't been there. Jay was the only one who came the closest, because he had witnessed snippets. As for Carrie, she barely even knew who he was, as far as Dean was aware, anyway. "I came so close to being those kids," he murmured, not realizing the words came out so she could hear.
She stiffened a little. As soon as he realized that she had heard, he wondered if she was angry, or if she just didn't know what to say. He bit his lip, looking away. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."
"No, Dean," she said, clearly upset, "you should have said it years ago. When was this?"
He flinched, focusing on his white knuckles, still gripping the sill for grounding, not that it helped. It'd been years now, so many, but not enough. He wasn't sure it would ever be enough. "When Vladimir kidnapped me when I was twelve."
Her hold on his arm tightened. "He did that to you?"
"He tried. He did it to everyone there. He might have succeeded if it hadn't been for Sage and Jay." He shuddered, unable to help himself. "I can still recite them word for word," he whispered, tightening his grip so much his fingers bit into the wood.
"Dean." Suddenly, her small hands were covering his, tugging them away from the sill. "Dean, look at me."
It took him a very long minute to first release his death grip and then force himself to look up at her, not at all certain what he'd see when he did. He was disturbed to realize his breath was heavy as he tried to regain his self-control. He should have never let the conversation get this far. Carrie met his eyes. "Don't go back there," she said firmly. "Whatever he did to you is long over. You're here now, with me, your wife. Not there. It's over. It's all right."
He held her gaze, carefully steadying his breathing. Then he took a deep breath and let it out, pushing aside the old fears. "It's over," he repeated, closing his eyes for a moment. After a moment, he added, "I watched him jump," more for his benefit than hers.
"So it's over," she agreed. She still hadn't let go of his hands.
Dean resisted the urge to tug them out to try and rub at his face. Instead, he studied her expression for a moment, nodding. "I'm sorry," he said softly, "the mission and those kids brought it all back. It'll just take a little time to bury it again."
"Don't you dare," Carrie said, holding his gaze. "Burying it's clearly never done you any good and I don't want you to keep being scared out of your sleep several nights in a row after a mission."
He stared at her, hearing the logic in her words, though he didn't particularly like it. Then he tugged on their hands back towards their bed, pulling himself gently free and going over to perch on the edge of the mattress. As she joined him, he glanced at her again. "I'm not sure talking about it will help," he said honestly.
"Try. What happened?"
He deliberately set his hands on his knees, keeping his fingers relaxed, although every other inch of him was tense. He couldn't bring himself to watch her. "As you know, Vladimir kidnapped me, Renie and Connor when I was twelve and that's when I met Sage. Since no one knew he was alive, it took Dad, Russ, Morgan and Jay some time to get on his trail, to figure out who had taken us. In the meantime, I was a prisoner in Vladimir's compound and he...it was like a cult. There was a list of rules that they drilled into my head over and over and over again, along with rote answers to many questions related to those rules. He wanted me on his side. Renie too." He snorted, smiling faintly. "I wasn't a very good or willing pupil, so I...I faced the punishments a lot."
"What kind of punishments?" she asked.
He shrugged. "They ran the gamut. It really depended on what mood struck Vladimir at the moment he was doling them out." He flexed his fingers now. "They sometimes got...creative and other times, it was a straight beating."
Carrie didn't speak for a moment. When she did venture another question, it was hesitant, as if she thought she might be pushing it. "Creative, how?"
He glanced up at her. "There was a room they called the punishment room. It had about every device you can imagine and hopefully some you can't. Vladimir knew how to use them all."
"But he didn't break you," she said.
Dean let out a breath and rubbed his forehead. "No, but he wasn't too far from it. I was right on the edge when I tried to escape. If it hadn't been for Sage, and then her and Jay, I would have tipped over and I don't know if I could have come back."
He felt the mattress dip a little, and then Carrie's arms went around him. "But he didn't," she said again. "You didn't give in."
Dean shifted to hug her back. "No, he didn't. Thank the gods for family," he said and then snorted. "Ignoring the fact, of course, that Vladimir was my closest family beside Dad and Ani blood-wise."
"You had people looking out for you. You always have." She pressed a gentle kiss into his temple. "Focus on that instead."
Dean nodded, his smile coming without restraint now. "I know." Then he pulled back to look her in the eye. "Dad doesn't know how bad it was," he said, "and I don't want him to, okay? He and Ani deserve to remember their brother as he was when they were kids, not the nutcase he became and certainly not what he did to their kids, and his, in detail."
Carrie studied him for a moment, then nodded her agreement and began to run her fingers soothingly through his hair. "It won't do Sorin any good to know about it now," she said. "It's done. But you can't keep these things to yourself anymore, either."
He relaxed slightly at the familiar gesture. "I know. It just never struck me as the sort of thing to, I don't know, bring up after work. There never seems to be a good time for that sort of thing and then those kids...More than half his campaign was mental. You can only hear something so many times before you start to believe it despite yourself. I could see it in those kids, especially the ones who were aware that things were wrong but couldn't help themselves. That was me." He hesitated for a moment. "When I tried to escape, Sage was supposed to provide my punishment and after they all left and she was supposed to, she didn't and I...there was a part of me that thought I deserved it because I'd broken the rules."
"You didn't," she said, fingers only faltering slightly as she talked.
"I know I didn't. I knew at the time I didn't, but that fact the thought even occurred to me scared me. Luckily, that was the same time that Sage and I reached an understanding."
"Good," said Carrie. She shivered a little, like she couldn’t help it despite every effort to stay solid for him. "Gods, how awful. I can’t even fathom it. Your uncle must have been far out of his mind to even…"
He scowled then, fighting against his sudden surge in anger-it wasn't Carrie he was angry with. As he spoke, he struggled to keep his voice even, knowing his wife hadn't meant anything by the comment. "He's not my uncle. The man who might have been died long before I ever met him. Ren's my only uncle."
She went still for a moment. He felt, more than heard, her exhale heavily. "Okay. I'm sorry."
Dean cringed, guilt instantly flooding through him. "No, I am, so please, don't apologize. I know you didn't mean anything. I just...if I even let myself acknowledge him as family, it makes it hurt that much more, you know?"
"Yeah, I get it." She did, he could tell, and she didn't seem that hurt by his outburst.
He took her free hand and squeezed it. "Thanks," he said softly, appreciating her even more than usual at that moment.
Carrie held it back tightly and pressed her cheek to the crown of his head. "I love you," she said. "I want you to tell me these things."
"I love you too, Care," he said softly. "And I know you do. It's just...such habit now."
"Well, don't," she said. "I'd much rather you at least told me than trying to keep it to yourself, and this happening. It's not good for you." She paused again. "It's not good for us."
Dean nodded. "I'll do my best. That's all I can promise for now." He didn't find it easy to talk about the past for a lot of reasons, but unsurprisingly, Carrie’s words again made sense. He knew he'd almost frozen when confronted with those kids and the what-could-have-beens inherent in them and he couldn't afford that, not in their line of work. Maybe talking would at least diminish that possibility.
She didn't like not getting a concrete yes, he knew, but she didn't push it. "Okay," she said, hugging him tightly once more. He hugged her back, wondering whether she knew that if she asked about the times he didn't often talk about, he'd tell her, because it was her asking. "I want you to wake me up, too, if this happens again," she said, after a minute.
He glanced down at her, meeting her eyes, and nodded. "Promise," he said, with a slight smile.
She kissed him. "Good."
At that, he suddenly felt tired again, and had to stifle a yawn. "Speaking of waking up, tomorrow's probably going to be a long day."
"So you think you can sleep all right, now?" She smoothed his hair back down.
"I think so," he said, smiling crookedly. "And if I can't, I'll wake you back up."
She returned it. "You'd better."
"I promised I would," he said, nudging her in the side to get her to get back in bed.
Carrie dropped another kiss on his cheek, this time a noisy, more playful one. "Good night, husband of mine," she said, with a soft smile, and then scooted back to settle on her side of the bed.
Dean grinned, still not fully used to that title, but loving it nonetheless. "Good night," he said, wiggling around to slip under the covers beside her.