Mother Mary, Quite Contrary
Trigger warning: Some descriptions of accidental injury may be disturbing for younger readers.
It was days before Dean and Mary had time to catch up. Mary was always gone with someone else.
And Dean could have been okay with that, except it seemed like she didn't care that Sam was on the verge of off-railing again. He'd finally been sleeping a little, but only because one night Dean had tied a rope to his heels when he was studying and hauled him by his ankles into his bedroom. He tied him to his bed and made him sleep for 6 solid hours. And when he woke up, he force-fed him an entire cheeseburger.
He and Sam laughed about it later, but Dean couldn't help but wince when he thought of Mary alone with Sam for those weeks he'd been gone. Thinking of how Mary had sent Dean to do a mother's job that night, like all the nights of their lives before when she was dead and not just sitting in the kitchen with Bobby 2.0. So, Dean did the Mom-Dad-Big Bro thing again and stormed into Sam's room and pinned him with his knee on his chest until he, at last, agreed to eat the burger without any more fuss. The smile on Sam's face then won his heart back from rage at his situation. Like it had done for a thousand boyhood nights when those same puppy dog eyes said grace in answer to prayers Dean never knew his own eyes prayed.
It seemed innocent when Dean and Mary finally decided to hang out a little, after everything. They were going to go into town for a supply run. Get some coffee together. And talk. What Mary called "girl talk" and Dean didn't argue with. Talk as cheap as it was could be a start. Anything even rhinestone moments to buy her heart were worth it to Dean.
He felt a twinge when Sam didn't come with them. Said he needed to run an errand on his own. Said he was investigating a lead Maggie found, that it was part of her training and wouldn't take long.
"Hey, I'll catch up later. "Sam had hugged Dean almost subconsciously. Dean melted into it, not caring that there were eyes on them. Sam's whole body screamed Help me I'm tired and scared and just need someone right now. Dean didn't want to press him. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath of Sam's cologne. Some random shower caddy brand knock-off of Polo that Jessica had loved and hailed back to the time of a doe-eyed Joe college. He breathed it in like it was sacred fire, praying that it carried a bit of his spirit with it and could usher his hurting soul down into the pool of Dean's shared half of it.
Then Dean watched Sam kiss their mother on her golden head, praying with the thimble full of faith that remained in him that she would see it. That she would see the longing way his hands trembled as they lingered in said golden locks, longing to hide behind them like the cuddled toddler he never was. That she would call him out on the nervous warble in his voice and the haunted look in his eyes and that he would listen. That she could hear the thoughts behind the self-deprecating laughter that said There's still a motherless child inside me that never got the crusts cut off his bread even as a man's voice said "Cas and Jack can't live without their PBJ now, Mom. Glad you're making a run."
But she didn't and Dean cried a little on the inside. He went into town with her all the same, loving and hating her every day.
On the way back, they weren't really talking anymore. Dean had a lot on his mind. And there was only so much "monster of the week" fat to chew on. Mary didn't ask much about the sudden silence. Dean kept on with it hoping maybe she would ask him and that it would be obvious that she cared. That she remembered their last real heart to heart when he'd explained the history of his and Sam's lives.
Maybe in the stillness of this moment, she'd remember the boy she'd cut the PBJ crusts off for, and maybe she'd remembered the one she never did. That her heart would be moved for the kid who loved her store-bought apple pie and for the baby brother whose stinging ears had forgotten the sound of Hey Jude on her lips.
Dear God! Why couldn't she ask questions? The same kinds of questions that he'd always wanted to ask her, and maybe he would know what it felt like to be held in a parent's heart for a fragile moment like blowing bubbles and birthday candles. Maybe-
He was spiraling in a figure eight off the road driving like there was black ice where only blacktop was. Suddenly, her questions would never matter, and all of the love lost between him and her and little broken brother were gone. His heart was a thousand years of birthday candles suddenly snuffed and an ocean of bursting bubbles. Because the engine parts to a motorbike were burning in the ditch.
"Dean, what is it?" Mary had snapped out of her contrary silence. And Dean, Dean heard this ill-timed but long desired question and it roiled through him like boiling acid.
What is it? Oh, nothing really important. Just, you know, if you'd been paying attention you'd realize all the blazing pieces of what used to be SAM'S BIKE!
Dean ignored her even though now she was following at his heels.
"Sammy! Sammy, please…"Dean was shouting it now before he had a clear bead to follow. Mary froze. Dean felt the resignation and guilt in her outward frost. And oh he longed for her apparent caring about the times before their lives with her. He longed for a Mother out of Mary then more than he ever had in all his days.
Dean scanned the burning ditch heart racing. He was unaware that his phone was in his hands trembling until he heard Cas' voice speaking to him like tears out of heaven. Into his mind snapped an instant unwanted memory.
Don't touch me! I don't want whatever you're selling. His own voice, in his hell, the blood in his burning hands as he cleaned up after torture, as he was chained again into the iron maiden he was put in only to stew in after a day's worth of wailing on others after years of being roasted alive.
Don't struggle so much! I've come to save you, whether you want to be or not. A bright light, a gentle voice, heavenly tears falling on his Hell scorched face, a hand searing through the blistered flesh of his arm.
Castiel. The angel of his mother's long-ago faith who seemed to find him every time she had abandoned him in Hell.
The present snapped back.
"Dean! Dean, what is it!" Cas practically shouting into the phone.
"Please...Please come. To mile marker 12...It's Sam...his bike… I think. Damn it, Cas!" Dean heard the terror in his voice, the self-hate, and spite and all the same that he'd heard when he'd argued with the savior there in Alistair's dark corner of the deep.
"I'm coming. Stay on the phone." Cas' voice as cool as the tears from heaven had been.
And Mary, contrary Mary, with her hand on Dean's shoulder. She was talking to him but he heard nothing that she said. He handed the phone to her. He heard Cas protesting, but something in him had died a little more. The one who always meant to save him was not welcome in this scene of ice and fire where salvation would not come.
"Dean! Please!" Cas' voice in raw distress.
"It's me. Mary. He gave me the phone." Mary's voice, shaking but resigned.
"I'm coming, Mary. He's...If he's giving you the phone he's not going to be himself. Stay back from him, he might accidentally hurt you. He's viciously protective when it involves Sam." Cas hung up. Mary's eyes went wide with the realization that this was the first time she'd been present for the truly bloody tragedies between her boys. And she watched, without trying to intervene. Watched Dean, like melting iron, like the man lost in the flames of Hell, following the motorcycle debris and flames. Until he reached a tree.
Mary stopped and covered her mouth. Sam was pinned to the tree by the bike's handles. The tree itself was on fire as if struck by lightning, but the ground was cold. In fact, there was frost around it.
Dean said nothing to Sam. Not at first. He reached into the flames in an attempt to lurch him free. Only then did he cry out in agony at the ice and the fire wreathing Sam to the tree. Sam's eyes fluttered open. The handlebars were twisted in his ribs in a metal maze like a cage around him. He was speared to the tree by them. Blood came up his mouth and rolled down his neck. He coughed and smiled, with red teeth and bloodshot eyes.
"Dean!" He winced. But to Mary's shock and awe, and at last, bringing the contrary sainted mother to her knees, Sam showed no signs of apparent pain.
"Sam! What the hell?!" Dean growled. Sam nodded.
"No, exactly. Hell. The lead Maggie had...I'm sorry, Dean. It's one of Michael's hybrids. A special kind of djinn. I didn't know that until about an hour ago-God, my head-My phone crapped out and I…"Sam's hands reached out in pain. Dean took both of them, kissed both of them, oblivious that they were both smoking and burning and so was Sam's whole body.
"Shh, don't talk I'll hear it after, huh?" Dean smiled. Sam gnashed his teeth.
"Dee, it was a Soul-Eater. A djinn-like it sucked the contents of my soul out on the surface and...And well obviously Hell is still pretty fair game there...Lucifer, he did...This stuff to me...like all the time…"Sam's eyes were blinking. Then the pain came. He leaned against the tree, gurgling his blood, whole body freezing, fire shooting out of his eyes before disappearing without burn traces. The rest of the fire rolled back and he leaned against the tree, noticing with horror that Dean had not let him go the whole time. Dean who had been burned as well but had not let go.
"Y-you sh-should go...I can f-feel it...I think I'm gonna…"Sam coughed up blood. Dean nodded.
"And so am I. We promised, remember? So, if Cas can't save you, then-"Dean climbed into the fire then, ducking his body between the twisted bars, until his chest was bumping against the same spear that drove Sam to the tree at the end of the metal maze.
"N'ya..You can't...You shouldn't...I don't want you to…"Sam was pleading and Dean smiled.
"Don't talk...Cas is coming. It will be okay." Dean had forgotten Mary. Mary who was crying now.
"Boys! Boys?! Dean! Sam!" Mary whose heart was beginning to understand.
They were out of her reach. Sam moaned and tossed his head as fire chewed him from the inside out.
"Sammy...Look at me. Nothing else. Don't think about nothing else, okay? Just look at me…"Dean gripped tighter to Sam's hands even as melting metal from the bike wrapped around their wrists and chained them together.
"Mm,, sorry…"Sam shook his head. And then he whined and whimpered like a child getting a tooth pulled.
"No, don't...It's not your fault. You didn't know- couldn't call for backup. S'okay. It doesn't hurt." Dean laughed.
"Yeah, it does." Sam shook his head, annoyed by the lie.
"It doesn't matter, though, huh? I can feel you in all of it, little brother. Not gonna leave you. Not now, not ever…." Dean was smiling despite the fact that his whole body was starting to shiver with the cold from Lucifer's cage the djinn had tapped into. His hair caught fire. Sam's teeth chattered and then electric fire rolled through the tree. Sam shrieked and Dean squeezed his hands, sending blood and melting metal up around them.
"I'm right here…Hang tough, buddy. Either way this goes. It'll be over soon."
"Dean...you're...you're bleeding n-now…"Sam's teeth chattered. The shrapnel from this ordeal had reached out and pinned Dean in the twisted remnants of the damned motorcycle.
"No, we are bleeding. I told you. It's okay. You be quiet now, save what you've got left in you, Sammy, for when Cas gets here." Dean's face twisted in a grimace of pain and he laid his face on Sam's trembling shoulder.
"D-D-Dee…"
"Shh…I know! But I told you...S'alright…S-Sammy, s'alright."
"One of us...sh-should walk away."
"Should, but we can't. I told you...No me if there ain't no you...I'm s-sorry but th-that part of-of the Zeke crap wudn't lyin' bout it…"
Mary screamed, running to the debris, making a flag out a burning piece of tire and a branch. Cas came screeching up in a truck, with Bobby 2.0 next to him. He let out a wail when he saw Mary.
"Please...My kids...my kids!" That was the first time she'd ever called them that. She didn't hear it until Bobby had her in his arms.
"They're my children, please!"Mary buried her face in Bobby's chest, bawling as the horrible reality of ice and fire and a lifetime of shattered hopes and dreams came down with this one wreck.
Cas strode into the flames. He felt too numb for tears now, the hovering presence of his grace canceling out the better part of the djinn's power and driving back Lucifer's cold. He pulled the molten bike away from Dean, who was now serrated, as he fell out of the metal net, hands still melted to Sam's hands. At first, Cas thought they were dead and screamed in agony. But that jarred Dean awake. Dean who coughed and begged-
"He's pinned, he's pinned, help him first, dammit!"
"Nuh-uh, M' good, but this dumbass got burnt…"Sam nodded to Dean, coughing up blood.
"Shut up, both of you! I'm healing you both. Dean, be still, damn everything!" Cas put one hand on Dean's chest as he slid to the ground. It took all the strength of his angelic back to pry the Winchester brothers hands free of the metallic grip, healing the melted skin in that motion. Then, he pressed a hand to Sam's chest, healing him constantly even as he painfully removed him from the impaling contraption grip.
Sam fell from the tree, into the burning grass. Dean scrambled to him and threw his arms around him. Cas gathered them under each arm and hauled them to the Impala pushing them both inside it. And he stayed with them, on his knees near the car, until Dean was calm enough to drive again. Then, Cas climbed in with them and they rode home together, having forgotten Mother Mary at the scene altogether.
"You know, you're gonna have to...to figure that out. I don't wanna….You don't need ta let anything keep you from figgerin out what you just saw. Lemme drive you home now…"Bobby gasped, as he put Mary in the truck. She curled up and cried into her knees.
"My children, Bobby. My children, and I-!" Oh, why hadn't she acknowledge it before today?