Mary tightened her grip on the steering wheel, to the point that her knuckles had turned white. She couldn't help but look at the backseat in the mirror again.
They were still asleep, the pair of them. Was that normal? Did all babies sleep so much?
Her fingers tightened further on the steering wheel.
The last… Month had just been a whirlwind completely out of her control. From the doctor's appointments, to the stress and tension at home. She had thought that this would've been a good idea. A run of the mill hunt, a small vampire coven that needed to be dealt with while simultaneously paying off a debt. Simple, easy, done.
Except… Not so much.
The hunting part had been easy- hell, even getting away for a few days had been easy. With all the fights she and John had been having, the only surprise had been that she had left for a few days first and not him.
Wouldn't have been the first time he had stormed out for a time period after a fight, she couldn't help but think bitterly.
It had seemed like the call had come in the nick of time. An old hunting buddy, Rachel Anderson, had called her. She had been in the area, about to go out of town to hunt down vampires, and had asked for her help.
"You owe me," Rachel had reminded her when Mary tried to protest that she was retired.
Not that she had argued too much; she needed something to focus on and an outlet of some sort for all her agitation, and it was either this offered hunt or possibly John's face.
She figured that the hunt would have less negative repercussions.
So she had grabbed a bag that had been pushed to the back of her closet for years and waved goodbye to John, too irritated to kiss him goodbye, citing that she was going to meet with a friend and be back in a couple days.
If he'd had anything to say to that, it was lost behind the door slamming shut and her getting into her car and driving away.
It was… Therapeutic in a way. Calming and, at the same time, helping her focus. She fell back into it like wearing an old FBI suit again, and while she'd never admit it, a part of her had missed it.
It had been easy to find where the vampires were. They had barely been trying to hide, hidden in plain sight on a…
On a farm. Filled with animals.
That had stuck as a bit strange to her. She'd never, in her experience or her readings, come across anything about vampires living on a farm. They usually stuck to the stereotypical abandoned warehouses, factories, sometimes even their victims' houses. But never settling, and she meant settled for at least a year if not more, in any place.
Let alone with animals to take care of.
But ultimately, there hadn't really been a chance to think about anything. They had been spotted and had to act, machetes and dead man's blood at the ready.
After that… It was routine. It was muscle memory. It was falling back on actions ingrained into her for years on end, things she knew were practically coded into her DNA.
And god, she had missed it. Missed it so much, with a ferocity that she didn't realize that she had.
At the end, there had been one vampire remaining, and he was protecting a closet with everything he had.
But his head joined the others on the ground.
Out of curiosity, they'd opened the closet to peer inside to see what he had been so desperate to protect.
When they did, Mary's stomach had physically dropped to the ground, because in the closet… Were two kids, sleeping in a pile of blankets and pillows. A baby and what looked like a toddler, curled up together and deep asleep.
At the sight of them, the doctor's words echoed in her ears again, "-deeply scarred… Low chance of retainment… High probability for miscarriage."
Her lower stomach clenched tightly, an almost desperate desire strumming in her veins that she didn't even realize she had.
"Jesus Christ, they turned kids," Rachel had muttered beside her.
Because right next to the kids were bottles, some were baby bottles, some were simple sippy cups for the older one. And through the see through glass she could see the viscous red liquid.
Blood. The children were vampires.
The older one yawned, and she could see a hint of fanged teeth when he did, and even in the darkness of the closet, she could see just how different they were.
Mary had seen kids that were turned before. There was no shortage of monsters willing to damn children, but this was different. This was too young, too damn fucking young to have such a life thrust onto them. Maybe the farm had belonged to their parents before the vampires had descended on them and out of spite or malice or a handful of reasons they had decided on...
They took the boys, the babies, and turned them into vampires.
There really was no question of what to do next. It would be a mercy, especially if they managed to remain asleep and wouldn't even realize what was going to happen to them.
She could feel something scream inside of her at the realization. That they needed to kill these babies, preferably before they woke up and could understand what was going on.
She could hear Rachel sighing softly, bringing her machete up to look at the blade, making sure that it was still sharp enough to cut through with one swing- they always tried to get it done in one swing, because there was no need to make the monsters suffer to their deaths.
Mary couldn't stop looking at the babies. They were still asleep, and she could see the older one holding onto the baby in what she could almost call a protective gesture. If she could ignore the hints of fangs and the bottles of blood, she could almost believe that they were normal children.
According to the lore, all supernatural beings, once they were killed, were sent to Purgatory; the afterlife of monsters. There were no first hand encounters but in the little that they knew it was a land of disarray and aggression. A place where all the monsters hunted one another, falling onto their base instincts of destruction and feeding.
And to send two children, two babies, to be sent there… They wouldn't have a single fighting chance.
Rachel wasn't the type to let any of them go. Mary had, in the past, let some monsters go despite all her teachings and instincts screaming at her. Some of them she knew she could trust and they wouldn't hurt humans, others she had to hunt down again and kill them once and for all, no third chances.
But she was the minority and she knew it. It was also getting worse with every new generation of hunters, less and less willing to listen, nevermind willing to let monsters go.
She saw Rachel bringing her machete up, leaning down to give herself less distance for the actual swing.
Mary didn't even feel herself moving, let alone grabbing her weapon. Rachel was a good hunter, she knew how to take care of herself, knew how to fight back, and knew how to block.
But she'd never expected a hit to come from beside her, from another hunter.
Mary was still fast, still quick, her instincts still sharp, and in the end, she dropped Rachel's dead body to the ground with the kids none the wiser.
And then she carefully took the kids and placed them in the backseat of her car before rummaging through the rest of the farm as fast as she could, grabbing every single bottle or plastic bag of blood she could find and placing them in her trunk, before getting the three of them back onto the road to Lawrence.
Now, swallowing hard, she turned the engine off. The silence was deafening. She took a few deep breaths and got out, moving to gently pick the boys up, keeping them wrapped in the blanket they had been in the whole time. She hoisted them up a bit, holding them close to her.
God, she hated this, hated how she was already getting used to their weights in her arms, hated how she liked the way they leaned into her; trusting, vulnerable, relying on her.
Feeling eyes on her, she turned and saw John opening the front door, obviously having heard her car and the crunch of the gravel. He stood in the doorframe, watching her questioningly, any previous frustrations and anger having disappeared between her leaving and her return.
"Mary?" He called out to her, curiously. "What… What do you have there?"
She took another deep breath and moved away from around the car, letting the boys come into view for him. His eyes widened and he looked at her, then back at the boys, a mess of emotions flashing over his face.
"Okay so..." Mary said quietly, once she reached him, trying to speak evenly and lowly to ensure that the boys didn't wake up before they were ready to. "John… I need you to keep a really, really open mind right now."
I do not own Supernatural.
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If you want more stories you can look at my Ao3 works AnotherWriterWhoWrites and see a few fics that I and KassandraScarlett are writing together.