Summary: In which there are no demons. [John POV, concerning the night Mary died.]
A/N: It's been awhile since I posted anything and I don't even know where this came from. I hope it's sufficiently creepy.
Your Head Filled With Flames
She's doing a good job hiding it but he can tell she's been crying. It's in the pinkness tinging the tip of her nose, in the way Dean clings closer to her leg. John moves to her quietly—shh, shh, don't scare her now—holds her close and buries his face in her hair. Hush, darling, ain't gonna let you go.
He always knows when she's been crying.
He doesn't know anything anymore. Her gold hair is gone and her strong hands are gone. Mary Mary, where did you go? Can't find you here at all. It's just him and his sons: Dean, the good son, and Sam, the boy looking at him with blood on his face and defiance in his eyes and all those goddamn questions he always asks.
The boy with blood on his face. He'd looked down at the baby, tiny little Sammy, brushed his finger across Sammy's cheek and there was blood on the boy's face, blood from John's hand, no, that's not right- blood from the ceiling. Oh, that's where Mary went. Mary Mary, what are you doing up there, come down, darling.
There was Sam below him and Mary above him and Dean was somewhere else, and there was a strange smell in his nose, like gasoline or sulfur. Mary's hair had smelled like roses, earlier.
But that was earlier and this is now, and Sam is upset about the hunt going wrong and he's asking all those damn questions. Shh, Sam, why don't you ever just listen? Just hush, now, your questions are all whirling around in my head, can't think straight with your damn yammering, it distracts me from more important things.
What was important? Oh, yes, the night Mary died. Mary on the ceiling where she doesn't belong and her blood dripping on their son's face, but there are cracks in the memory and blank spaces behind it—something wrong, so very wrong—and the blankness scares him so he doesn't think too hard on it, forbids the boys to ask too many questions.
Quiet, now, Sam. You're just like your mama and she never listened either.
I made her listen, stopped her crying and her questions with my hands—no, it was the demon, John, you're getting it all mixed up again. The demon, then…. Yes, he has to protect them from the demon, his two little soldiers, just follow your orders now and we'll get the son of a bitch.
We'll take down the monster that killed your mom, boys. Just stay here with me and we'll work it out. Stay, Sam, shh, it'll all work out in the end. You'll see.