Mary resisted the urge to flip the radio on as she pulled out ground beef, lettuce, and potatoes to begin getting supper ready. Though listening to music often helped the simple chores go by a little faster, she didn't want to miss any of the children coming down the stairs.
She had just finished mashing the beef into patties for hamburgers when she heard the tell-tale soft creaks of wooden boards. She glanced over her shoulder, unable to resist grinning as all three of them poked their heads around the corner, peering into the kitchen.
"What's for dinner?" Dean asked, trying to mask the tremor in his voice with gruff bravado. He stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. Sam had one hand fisted in the back of Dean's jacket, looking around the kitchen as if there were bombs hidden in every cupboard. Jimmy was their silent shadow.
"I figured something simple would be best," Mary said, slapping the last of the burger patties onto the plate and moving to the sink to rinse her hands off. "Burgers, baked potatoes, and a salad. Sound good to you? I think I have an apple pie in the freezer downstairs I could bring up for dessert tomorrow, if you'd like."
With her back turned away from the boys, Mary missed the way Dean's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Sounds fine to me," the older boy finally mumbled, although everything but the words themselves radiated the fact that it definitely did not sound fine to him.
Satisfied with his answer, she wiped her hands off on a dishrag and made her way over to the table, where she pulled a chair out and sat down, crossing one leg over the other. She tried to project an open and inviting air, one that encouraged questions and eased tempers and fears.
Dean didn't bite. He hmph-ed under his breath, taking Jimmy gently by the hand and steering them out of the kitchen, leaving Mary confused and crestfallen. She weaved her fingers together in her lap, sighing lightly.
The rest of the afternoon and evening continued on much in the same vein. Mary passed off the patties to John to begin grilling, trying several more times to engage with Dean, the only boy currently verbal, to no avail. Dean gave technically polite and complete answers to her easy questions, but offered no extraneous information and would often leave the room when the conversation lulled.
When six thirty rolled around, Mary mechanically began to set the table, only just remembering that their family now consisted of five, not two, and chuckled under her breath as she went and fished out more silverware. Plates were laid out, dishes arranged, and John meandered in, smelling faintly of smoke and car oil.
"Wash your hands," she scolded, noticing immediately the black streaks on his palms. He pouted, rolling his eyes, but complied.
The boys, attracted by the delightful smell, honed in on the dining room with all of the ferocity of hungry children. Dean sat next to John and Jimmy next to Mary, so that Sam was protected on both sides from the adults. Still, the youngest did look faintly unsettled. Mary aimed a reassuring smile at him, but that only seemed to make him more nervous, if anything.
"Dean, would you serve your brother? You know what he likes best," Mary offered. Dean nodded, reaching hesitantly for the salad bowl, but Jimmy blinked and shook his head. Obediently, Dean retracted his hand, letting out a gusty sigh.
"We have to say grace first," Jimmy rasped. His voice was surprisingly gritty, as if he'd been yelling for hours, but the truly astonishing fact was that it was actually a tone lower than Dean's. She'd just assumed by Dean's natural command that he was the oldest. Apparently not. She filed that away for later examination.
"We don't normally say grace before eating," John said, casting an uncertain glance at his wife, who just lifted her eyebrows and shrugged minutely.
In their classes, they had been urged not to put religious pressure on their charges. The Winchesters often went to services on Sundays, as most of this part of Lawrence did, but they would only take the boys if they asked to go. Praying before meals was a habit neither had developed; to have a foster child more religious than the foster parent came as a bit of a surprise to them.
"Why don't you say grace, then, Jimmy?" Mary took John's hand and held the other out to the oldest boy, even more pleasantly surprised when he took it. Sam grabbed the other children's hands with startling ferocity and closed his eyes, laying his head on the table. Mary had to stifle a snort at the child-like behavior. Dean didn't reach for John's hand, instead tapping his fingers on the table, staring resolutely at the steaming plate of burgers.
"Dear God," Jimmy said, bowing his head, "thank you for this food and for this new house and for us being together. Thank you for the nice people and keep them nice forever. Thank you for Cas, and thank Cas for keeping us safe. Amen."
Cas? Mary quietly echoed the closing and began fixing her plate, keeping one eye on the brother pair and the other on the now-silent Jimmy. Quite frankly, she wasn't sure what to think of the three children softly eating at her table.
She did get the feeling that life was no longer going to be simple and calm with them around. She wasn't sure if those were old hunter instincts or just plain paranoia.
After an evening spent in tense silence, Mary and John escorted the boys to bed at nine thirty, reasoning that it was just late enough to appease Dean's independent spirit and early enough that Sam would still get enough sleep. Mary more or less had to coerce Jimmy to take his bedtime medication as Dean glared holes into her head from the hallway outside the upstairs bathroom.
They said goodnight from the hall, as Dean insisted he could put everyone to bed himself, and left the door cracked via Sam's instructions, relayed through his older brother. After flipping on a small night-light in the bathroom, they quietly made their way downstairs, unanimously deciding to call it a day themselves.
Mary slipped into a nightgown and curled up on the bed next to her husband, rubbing at her weary eyes. John said nothing, simply opting to turn the lamp off and wrap her in his warm embrace.
She didn't even realize they'd drifted to sleep until an earth-shattering scream woke them only a few hours later. Mary almost went for the shotgun she had hidden in her hope chest, but as the screaming abated and was replaced by muffled sobs, she realized it was no supernatural threat but just one of the boys. Nightmare, probably. She should have figured.
Mary hastened up the stairs, John hot on her tail, and the couple burst into the boys' room, switching the light on, taking in the controlled chaos before them.
The bunk beds were empty; all three were huddled in an impressive blanket nest on the freestanding full-sized bed on the opposite wall. Sam was crying, alternating between incoherent ramblings and heavy sobs, while Dean anxiously rubbed his back and whispered calming words into his little brother's ears. Jimmy was cross-legged, a book open in his lap and a tiny flashlight on, one hand resting comfortingly on Sam's knee.
Mary immediately moved forward and knelt at the edge of the bed, reaching out trembling fingers to stroke down little Sam's arm. Dean's subsequent glare could have leveled a small building, but she'd faced much worse than an irate preteen in her life.
"Does he have nightmares often?" she finally whispered, meeting Dean's angry gaze, when Sam's frantic gasps for air had subsided into more manageable hiccups. John appeared at her shoulder, offering a wet washcloth and a box of tissues. Dean snatched the cloth from him even as Sam took a tissue and blew his nose.
"Sometimes," Dean said grudgingly. "The move, y'know, it shakes 'em loose." He patted Sam's back again, turning his face up and patting at the chapped skin with the damp rag. "Was it Gordon again?" he asked very softly, so softly Mary almost missed it.
Sam gave the tiniest little shake of his head. Mary leaned forward, curious and dreading if there would be further explanation. To her continued astonishment, though, Sam spoke.
"It was a man," the youngest boy whispered, scraping a trembling hand across his forehead to remove the sweat that had collected during the dream. "A bad man, Dean, with yellow eyes. He wanted to take me away, take me away from you and Jimmy!"
He dissolved into tears again, but as soon as the words had crossed his lips, Jimmy stiffened. The electric blue eyes that had been fastened on his book - the Bible, Mary now saw, the gold-trimmed edges were unmistakable - turned and locked onto Sam with all the force of a blow.
"Yellow eyes?" John said, confused. "People don't have yellow eyes, Sam. Just brown or blue or green, sometimes special ones like gray. No yellow."
Sam snuffled miserably into his tissue.
"Are you sure his eyes were yellow?" Jimmy asked, his voice hoarse. "Are you sure? This is very important. Cas will want to know."
"Oh, screw it with the Cas bullcrap, Jimmy!" Dean snapped. The older boy retreated, unsure, before grabbing his Bible and moving carefully to the far corner of the bed, where he curled up and began leafing through pages at an alarming rate.
"Watch that language, Dean," Mary warned. She pushed herself to her feet with a groan, glancing back at her husband, who had taken a few steps back in anticipation of a verbal back-slap from the protective older brother. She was almost grateful Jimmy had cut in before Dean could get seriously angry at John for trying to comfort Sam, and then was ashamed that she was glad one of the boys had gotten snapped at.
"Would anyone like a glass of water or warm milk before we try this again?" Mary asked into the silence that fell after her admonishment.
"Water, please," Sam's quiet voice came from the vicinity of Dean's chest.
"John?"
He nodded and stepped out. The glasses were downstairs, so the time it would take to grab one would give everyone a moment to cool down.
"Is there anything else in the dream you want to talk about, Sam?" she murmured softly. She let the pain she felt at being unable to help shape the sad smile on her face, and Dean toned his protectiveness down just a notch in response.
"He was a bad man," Sam repeated, voice trembling. "He killed Mama. All of his eyes were swirly yellow. He said he had big plans for me, that he wanted to take me away-!" Dean shushed him as he let out a hiccup-sob-cough.
"No more," Dean said harshly. "He needs to go to sleep."
John reappeared conveniently at those very words, handing the glass to Dean, who then passed it further on to Sam. The young boy drank half the glass before giving it back to Dean, who stashed it on the dresser.
"We should go," John said, tenderly taking hold of Mary's elbow. "We're right downstairs if you need us," he told Dean, who nodded in response, and John lead his wife back out into the hall, repeating the lights-off, door cracked routine from hours ago. As the pair slowly trekked down the stairs, John stifled a yawn. Mary, on the other hand, was wide awake. Her girlhood training had often consisted of being suddenly woken and expected to perform competently for hours afterward; she would be awake for a long while yet.
"Nightmares," John muttered as they crawled back into bed. "Poor kid."
She made an assenting noise, eyes wide open and staring as John began to snore. Gears in her head were turning, inching toward a dangerous set of thoughts.
She had a phone call to make.
"Yeah, Bobby, I know it's early, I'm sorry," Mary apologized, glancing covertly over her shoulder. John and the boys were still sleeping; outside, the sky was still the deep purple of pre-dawn. She had been unable to fall asleep again after the nightmare incident and wanted to ring her Midwest information contact without four sets of questioning eyes on her back the whole time.
"You've got a lot of nerve callin' me up like this, Winchester," the old man growled. The man seemed to be irritated all the time, no matter what she did or said, so she blazed on.
"I said I was sorry, alright? I need you to look some things up for me, though."
There was a rush of static, as if he'd sighed long and hard. "Shoot," he grunted.
"First, what does the hunter collective know about angels?"
"Angels." Bobby's voice was flat and hard. "You called me at the bitch-asscrack 'a dawn to ask me about angels?"
"Please?"
Bobby grumbled out a few more curses before she could twist his arm into agreeing. Dropping her father's name helped, especially when she brought up the poltergeist they'd worked together to bring down about fifteen years back and how Samuel Campbell had saved Bobby's life when the damn thing went crazy.
"Anything else?" Bobby said sarcastically.
"Yes." Her free hand balled into a fist on the counter, knuckles shining white. "Has anyone ever mentioned to you anything about a man with yellow eyes?"
"Eh?"
"Not a yellow iris," she elaborated, "entirely yellow eyes. Kind of swirly."
The line went silent. Mary had to will her heart to ease up from its painful clenching at the loss of sound.
"Hm," Bobby finally said, "Sounds vaguely familiar. It's been a long while - I'll need to phone some old contacts, if they're still alive. Give me a week to do the research and I'll call ya back."
"Thank you," she said, unable to keep the joy from her tone. "Thank you."
"Whatcha need this info for, anyhow? You workin' some kinda weirdo job or what?"
"If your research pans out, I'll tell you." Without exchanging any further pleasantries or platitudes, Bobby hung up. Mary stared at the phone in her hand, mildly offended, before stowing it in its cradle and returning to the kitchen window.
Part of her hated - honestly, really hated - the fact that her hunter skills might become necessary again. She'd sworn to leave that life a long time ago, the very day she and John made the decision to elope from her overly-controlling hunting-comes-first family. She resented everything she'd been put through, from the weapons training to the hand-to-hand skills she'd been forced to learn to the hunts she had to be dragged out on.
And yet - if it kept her family safe (and those boys were family, now, at least for as long as they stayed and maybe longer if her heart could take it), was it something to be shunned? If there was some evil thing haunting poor little Sam and she killed it, what would she gain? She wouldn't be able to tell Sam about it, or Dean, not even John. His nightmares would probably return to his previous abusive foster parent, and she would have done them little good by trying to get herself killed.
In the burgeoning early morning light, as the eastern horizon began to lighten and the warm sun chased away the curtains of purple-black, Mary regretted making that phone call. She suddenly felt very silly for jumping to conclusions.
Jimmy was schizophrenic - the "angel" Cas was nothing but a product of his mind. Sam was having nightmares about being taken away because they had just moved into a new home, and new placements were bound to bring up old fears.
She was overreacting to the highest degree. There was absolutely nothing supernatural involved with what was going on with the boys.
Satisfied but unable to shake the quiet suspicions of her training, she began taking bowls and flour from the cupboard and set about to mixing up some pancakes for breakfast for the rest of the household.
For now, the problems of the world could wait. She had her boys to take care of.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I'm fiddling with my usual writing style, trying to be less "describe the setting" and more "weave in setting details as we go". Hopefully it makes it less cumbersome to read. More fiddling with foster care stuff, my bad, I am really sorry.
Plot is afoot. Go Mary, be a badass. :)
I take suggestions for "family moments", because I love me some Wee!chesters. The exercise here is to intersperse bonding with crazy supernatural plot things, so we'll see if I can balance the tones without making anyone OOC.
See ya~