And We Are Ashes: Chapter 7, Part 2
Nov. 18th, 2007 12:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thecatevariI don't really have any clever words today.
34,051 / 50,000 words. 68% done!
Today's Word Count: 2,223
Current Total Word Count: 34,051
Estimated Total Word Count: ~100,000
What's bad: I didn't make word count yesterday, so this is really a combination of two days of work. Not so great. Also, it's the part where information is starting to come out and that's always like pulling teeth, trying to decide how much to tell and when. And really, trying to figure out how much Mary knows.
What's good: The Sam and Mary is excellent. Their relationship has changed so much over the course of the story and although Sam still has issues, he understands Mary and their situation so much better than he did before.
What pleases me: Of course, she would say she understood her family long before she knew about them. And that was true and it wasn't true. She didn't need the details to know there was darkness at the root of her family tree; a rot that poisoned the furthest branches and contaminated the earth around it. Even at her most appallingly naïve, she knew that. But in ferreting out the details, in having to dig through the decades—centuries—of incompletely hidden bones and enough blood to salt the ocean…she understands the depth and breadth of that darkness and that there's nothing in her that will ever let her plumb the whole. She knows exactly how ruthless—and how banal—evil can be
Previous parts can be found here
"So," Sam says, once they're in the car and exactly on cue, "you want to tell me what all this is about?"
And the truth is, Mary doesn't. She doesn't want to tell him. Just like she didn't want to tell John and she didn't want to tell Dean. It's hard to tell or say at this time and distance if it would've made any difference if she had, but that same time and distance haven't changed the fact that she doesn't like to talk about her family. She doesn't like to admit that these are the people she comes from and that she's more like them than she's ever wanted to admit.
But with all that being said, Mary thinks she's put it off for as long as she can.
The decision makes her stomach clench up, an uneasy rumble that vibrates through her like starvation. She chews a bit of dead skin from her lip then takes a deep breath. It's ridiculous that she should feel so nervous at her age; it's ridiculous that she should still feel so much shame about things she's had little to no control over.
"My—our—family…" Mary begins then breaks off. She reaches sideways to touch Sam's hand briefly. "I don't want you to think that I've been holding onto all this all these years. I had to learn most of this. Most of the McCoys only know…rumors and stories. Fairy tales told to frighten us before we're grown."
"Like what?"
Mary gives a short, jagged laugh, glancing sideways at him. "Like the family curse that strikes down sone born into the family," she answers unwillingly, her tongue moving sluggish over the words. "Especially those born with the McCoy's powers."
Sam shifts in the seat to face her better. "But…it was the demon that came after us, not a curse," he objects, doubtfulness in his tone as if he doesn't even believe his own words. "Or…or is the demon the curse?"
Another laugh, this one quieter but no less bordering-on-hysterical. She really needs to get a grip on herself, this is getting fucking ridiculous. "No. The McCoys are their own curse. We kill our own sons…or the Aunts do, at any rate. To prevent the demon from ever finding them."
"I don't understand."
A part of her feels a little angry, a little resentful that Sam is getting this so easily, without having to go through the long years of chipping and digging and sifting through vast tracts of disinformation and innuendo and outright lies that surround the little kernel of truth behind the McCoy's legacy. But Sam needs to know.
"A long time ago, one of our ancestors—a woman—trapped and struck a deal with a demon…"
"Wait," Sam interrupts. "Trapped a demon?"
Mary nods, checking her mirrors as she changes lanes to detour around a Ford doing fifteen. "There are ways. Devil's traps, they're called. Sometimes you can trick a demon into one, though that's tricky and hard and fairly unpredictable. Demons are drawn to some traps, either because of the material the trap is made of or because the demon was Called to it, using their name. Anyway, the Founder called upon and trapped a demon and made a deal. The demon would grant certain powers to her and her bloodline…but only until a male was born to the bloodline with those same powers."
"Okay, but I only have visions. Really confusing, not very useful visions. And if the demon is after me, then why kill Dad? Why kill Jess? And what about Max Miller? Don't we think that he has powers?"
Mary sighs. "Sam. If you want to hear the goddamn answers, then shut up and let me talk." Her head aches and she craves after sleep like a man in the desert craves after water. "I don't… I can only go through this once."
Sam nods apologetically. "Sorry." He's gruff with embarrassment, but under it, she hears the eagerness, the little boy who would beg for more bedtime stories even as he dozed through half the story. Sam hates to admit it with such fiery passion, but in that, they've always been so much alike, chasing knowledge with such single-mindedness. Even before their lives counted on it she'd wanted to know things, to understand.
Of course, she would say she understood her family long before she knew about them. And that was true and it wasn't true. She didn't need the details to know there was darkness at the root of her family tree; a rot that poisoned the furthest branches and contaminated the earth around it. Even at her most appallingly naïve, she knew that. But in ferreting out the details, in having to dig through the decades—centuries—of incompletely hidden bones and enough blood to salt the ocean…she understands the depth and breadth of that darkness and that there's nothing in her that will ever let her plumb the whole. She knows exactly how ruthless—and how banal—evil can be.
"The power is passed through the bloodline, but it doesn't manifest until a child is six months old. Usually as something small. Normally it passes again and doesn't come back until the kid hits puberty. But the onset is at six months. Normally, the family doesn't wait that long. In the old days, boys were killed at birth, drowned or smothered. Now, with ultrasounds, most of the time they just make the woman abort."
"And the mothers put up with this?" Sam's voice cracks a little with outrage. Mary can't blame him, even as she flinches inwardly at the condemnation.
Mary shrugs. "The Aunts have been running—ruling—the family and the town for time out of mind. Most girls aren't given much of a choice."
"And you? Is that why you left?"
"No." Unwilling heat floods Mary's cheeks. She doesn't know why she should feel embarrassed. All of this is such old history, old pain. "No, I wasn't planning to ever have children."
She catches the sharpness of Sam's glance only from the tail of her eye. "The shapeshifter said that."
"Did it?"
"It said…" Sam breaks off a moment then forges on. "It said you never wanted us."
The uncertainty of his tone crushes something small and delicate in her heart, something she actually feels, like a pinprick. "Sam," she says gently. "If I'd never wanted you, I certainly wouldn't have risked all our lives to have you. And I wouldn't have spent the last two decades wandering pillar to post to try and keep you alive."
"Okay, but you said yourself, you didn't want children."
"I said I didn't plan to have children," Mary corrects. "There's a difference." She pulls in to the curb. "We're here."
***
"But what about Max?" Sam asks again as they climb out of the Impala. The Miller's house looks quiet, closed up and dark under overcast skies.
"Obviously, Max is like you," his mother answers, which is no answer at all. She rummages in the glove box and pulls out a .38, tucking it into the back of her jeans.
"You're not expecting to need that, are you?" Sam asks, startled. "I mean…we're not going in guns blazing here, are we?"
"No, Sam, we're not going in guns blazing and I don't expect to need the gun," Mary agrees. "But I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Let's not forget, Max has probably killed both his father and uncle in a two day period. That means he doesn't get my vote for most stable person on the planet."
"He might have had a good reason to want them dead." Sam sorts through the brief collection of his impressions and memories of Max Miller and mostly comes up empty, except for the very real sadness in pain in the boy's dark eyes. He realizes that although he and Max are almost exactly the same age, he still thinks of Max as younger. Sam has a hard time picturing Max killing anyone. He doesn't want to picture Max doing it at all, except that on some subconscious level—maybe the same instinctive level that his visions come from—he knows that it was.
"He very well might've." Mary shrugs, closing the Impala door with greater gentleness than she normally does. "Doesn't mean he can't be dangerous."
Sam can't really argue with that, as much as he'd like to. "Still, I just don't…"
There's something—Sam thinks it was a random spark of sunlight off the Impala's aerial—and he doesn't get any further than that before a freight train slams into his head…or what feels like one, at any rate.
Flash.
The flash resolves into something silver. A knife. Sam follows the nervous chop-chop-chop of it for several seconds before he understands, can follow the blade up to the wooden handle, worn dark by use, to the fingers, still light despite their age, to the hand, just beginning to spot and soft.
Above that, the eyes, so like Max's even though they're unrelated by blood—sad and holding some unspoken pain deep inside them, like bubbles trapped in amber.
"I don't know what you mean by that," Mrs. Miller complains tearfully, the tension in her voice sharp enough to cut. She's afraid, the stink of it coming off her in clouds. "You know I never did anything." She sets the knife down with a sharp jitter of wood on wood.
"That's right." Max's eyes are wet as well, at least half of it as much anger as grief. His voice wavers uncertainly between the deeper tones of a man and those of a boy. "You didn't do anything." He spits the last word at her and Mrs. Miller flinches, shoulders bowing down with the weight of long familiarity. "You didn't stop them, not once!"
The knife rattles across the cutting board. When it reaches the end, it levitates instead of falls, balanced precariously on the air.
Mrs. Miller's soft well-kept hands dart to her throat, startled. "How did you—?" She backs away from the knife and Max, soft soled shoes making no sound on the peeling linoleum. The knife twitches, as if with a mind of it's own and then lunges at her, point first. Mrs. Miller flattens herself to the wall and the knife follows her, halting close enough to her unprotected eye that her lashes rasp across the blade. The tip breaks the surface tension of her welling tears and lets them flood down her cheek.
"For every time you stood there and watched," Max says, his voice lowering finally into a deeper, dangerous register. "Pretending it wasn't happening!"
"I'm sorry!"
"No. You're not," Max pronounces, deep weariness underlying the brittleness. "You just don't want to die."
Mrs. Miller draws in breath to speak and the knife slides backwards as if in reprieve. Before she can say a single word, though, it dives forward again. Sam tries to either move forward to intervene or jerk back and throw himself out of the vision, but he is fixed in place as much as Mrs. Miller. He has to bear silent, helpless witness as the knife sinks in with a noise horrifyingly like cutting into a melon.
"Sam? Sam?"
Coming out of the vision is like breaking out of a riptide, weakness in his limbs and dark, swimmy terror. He latches onto his mother desperate not to get sucked down again and super-aware of the bellows-like heave of his lungs, the jungle-drum of his heart.
"M-max!" he stammers, struggling to make his mouth and tongue form real, actual words. "He's going to do it, he's going to kill Mrs. Miller!"
Sam doesn't really know how to describe the expression that goes across his mother's face, partly the terrifying valkyrie of his childhood and another look he can't pin down, stormy and unsettled. She reaches for the gun and Sam's abs burn as he lunges up to catch her wrist. "Don't."
"Sam—" She flexes her wrist, not pulling away.
"Don't kill him, Mom. He's just a kid."
Mary looks up at the house and then back at him. "Twenty-two isn't a kid, Sam."
There's more behind the words and behind her eyes than just Max Miller and what should be done with him and Sam feels an ice cold fingernail scrape down his spine. "Don't kill him," Sam whispers again through arid lips.
Mary's eyebrows wrinkle down in exasperation. "I don't want to kill him, Sam. But I'm not going to let him kill her, either."
"They… I don't know. His father and his uncle…they abused him. Not sure how."
Mary shakes her head. "Doesn't excuse murder." She rises from her squat, wincing as she straightens her back. She wraps her hand around his wrist. "You coming?"
Sam nods, gathering himself to get up. He still feels shaky and vaguely sick, like a mild hangover and the onset of flu rolled together. He lets his mother tug him to his feet and doesn't protest when she steadies him.
"You okay?"
Sam nods.
Mary tips her head toward the door. "That lock's not going to pick itself, you know."
Despite himself, Sam snorts, groping for his lock picks. "That's what I love about you, Mom. You're all heart."
Today's Word Count: 2,223
Current Total Word Count: 34,051
Estimated Total Word Count: ~100,000
What's bad: I didn't make word count yesterday, so this is really a combination of two days of work. Not so great. Also, it's the part where information is starting to come out and that's always like pulling teeth, trying to decide how much to tell and when. And really, trying to figure out how much Mary knows.
What's good: The Sam and Mary is excellent. Their relationship has changed so much over the course of the story and although Sam still has issues, he understands Mary and their situation so much better than he did before.
What pleases me: Of course, she would say she understood her family long before she knew about them. And that was true and it wasn't true. She didn't need the details to know there was darkness at the root of her family tree; a rot that poisoned the furthest branches and contaminated the earth around it. Even at her most appallingly naïve, she knew that. But in ferreting out the details, in having to dig through the decades—centuries—of incompletely hidden bones and enough blood to salt the ocean…she understands the depth and breadth of that darkness and that there's nothing in her that will ever let her plumb the whole. She knows exactly how ruthless—and how banal—evil can be
Previous parts can be found here
"So," Sam says, once they're in the car and exactly on cue, "you want to tell me what all this is about?"
And the truth is, Mary doesn't. She doesn't want to tell him. Just like she didn't want to tell John and she didn't want to tell Dean. It's hard to tell or say at this time and distance if it would've made any difference if she had, but that same time and distance haven't changed the fact that she doesn't like to talk about her family. She doesn't like to admit that these are the people she comes from and that she's more like them than she's ever wanted to admit.
But with all that being said, Mary thinks she's put it off for as long as she can.
The decision makes her stomach clench up, an uneasy rumble that vibrates through her like starvation. She chews a bit of dead skin from her lip then takes a deep breath. It's ridiculous that she should feel so nervous at her age; it's ridiculous that she should still feel so much shame about things she's had little to no control over.
"My—our—family…" Mary begins then breaks off. She reaches sideways to touch Sam's hand briefly. "I don't want you to think that I've been holding onto all this all these years. I had to learn most of this. Most of the McCoys only know…rumors and stories. Fairy tales told to frighten us before we're grown."
"Like what?"
Mary gives a short, jagged laugh, glancing sideways at him. "Like the family curse that strikes down sone born into the family," she answers unwillingly, her tongue moving sluggish over the words. "Especially those born with the McCoy's powers."
Sam shifts in the seat to face her better. "But…it was the demon that came after us, not a curse," he objects, doubtfulness in his tone as if he doesn't even believe his own words. "Or…or is the demon the curse?"
Another laugh, this one quieter but no less bordering-on-hysterical. She really needs to get a grip on herself, this is getting fucking ridiculous. "No. The McCoys are their own curse. We kill our own sons…or the Aunts do, at any rate. To prevent the demon from ever finding them."
"I don't understand."
A part of her feels a little angry, a little resentful that Sam is getting this so easily, without having to go through the long years of chipping and digging and sifting through vast tracts of disinformation and innuendo and outright lies that surround the little kernel of truth behind the McCoy's legacy. But Sam needs to know.
"A long time ago, one of our ancestors—a woman—trapped and struck a deal with a demon…"
"Wait," Sam interrupts. "Trapped a demon?"
Mary nods, checking her mirrors as she changes lanes to detour around a Ford doing fifteen. "There are ways. Devil's traps, they're called. Sometimes you can trick a demon into one, though that's tricky and hard and fairly unpredictable. Demons are drawn to some traps, either because of the material the trap is made of or because the demon was Called to it, using their name. Anyway, the Founder called upon and trapped a demon and made a deal. The demon would grant certain powers to her and her bloodline…but only until a male was born to the bloodline with those same powers."
"Okay, but I only have visions. Really confusing, not very useful visions. And if the demon is after me, then why kill Dad? Why kill Jess? And what about Max Miller? Don't we think that he has powers?"
Mary sighs. "Sam. If you want to hear the goddamn answers, then shut up and let me talk." Her head aches and she craves after sleep like a man in the desert craves after water. "I don't… I can only go through this once."
Sam nods apologetically. "Sorry." He's gruff with embarrassment, but under it, she hears the eagerness, the little boy who would beg for more bedtime stories even as he dozed through half the story. Sam hates to admit it with such fiery passion, but in that, they've always been so much alike, chasing knowledge with such single-mindedness. Even before their lives counted on it she'd wanted to know things, to understand.
Of course, she would say she understood her family long before she knew about them. And that was true and it wasn't true. She didn't need the details to know there was darkness at the root of her family tree; a rot that poisoned the furthest branches and contaminated the earth around it. Even at her most appallingly naïve, she knew that. But in ferreting out the details, in having to dig through the decades—centuries—of incompletely hidden bones and enough blood to salt the ocean…she understands the depth and breadth of that darkness and that there's nothing in her that will ever let her plumb the whole. She knows exactly how ruthless—and how banal—evil can be.
"The power is passed through the bloodline, but it doesn't manifest until a child is six months old. Usually as something small. Normally it passes again and doesn't come back until the kid hits puberty. But the onset is at six months. Normally, the family doesn't wait that long. In the old days, boys were killed at birth, drowned or smothered. Now, with ultrasounds, most of the time they just make the woman abort."
"And the mothers put up with this?" Sam's voice cracks a little with outrage. Mary can't blame him, even as she flinches inwardly at the condemnation.
Mary shrugs. "The Aunts have been running—ruling—the family and the town for time out of mind. Most girls aren't given much of a choice."
"And you? Is that why you left?"
"No." Unwilling heat floods Mary's cheeks. She doesn't know why she should feel embarrassed. All of this is such old history, old pain. "No, I wasn't planning to ever have children."
She catches the sharpness of Sam's glance only from the tail of her eye. "The shapeshifter said that."
"Did it?"
"It said…" Sam breaks off a moment then forges on. "It said you never wanted us."
The uncertainty of his tone crushes something small and delicate in her heart, something she actually feels, like a pinprick. "Sam," she says gently. "If I'd never wanted you, I certainly wouldn't have risked all our lives to have you. And I wouldn't have spent the last two decades wandering pillar to post to try and keep you alive."
"Okay, but you said yourself, you didn't want children."
"I said I didn't plan to have children," Mary corrects. "There's a difference." She pulls in to the curb. "We're here."
"But what about Max?" Sam asks again as they climb out of the Impala. The Miller's house looks quiet, closed up and dark under overcast skies.
"Obviously, Max is like you," his mother answers, which is no answer at all. She rummages in the glove box and pulls out a .38, tucking it into the back of her jeans.
"You're not expecting to need that, are you?" Sam asks, startled. "I mean…we're not going in guns blazing here, are we?"
"No, Sam, we're not going in guns blazing and I don't expect to need the gun," Mary agrees. "But I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Let's not forget, Max has probably killed both his father and uncle in a two day period. That means he doesn't get my vote for most stable person on the planet."
"He might have had a good reason to want them dead." Sam sorts through the brief collection of his impressions and memories of Max Miller and mostly comes up empty, except for the very real sadness in pain in the boy's dark eyes. He realizes that although he and Max are almost exactly the same age, he still thinks of Max as younger. Sam has a hard time picturing Max killing anyone. He doesn't want to picture Max doing it at all, except that on some subconscious level—maybe the same instinctive level that his visions come from—he knows that it was.
"He very well might've." Mary shrugs, closing the Impala door with greater gentleness than she normally does. "Doesn't mean he can't be dangerous."
Sam can't really argue with that, as much as he'd like to. "Still, I just don't…"
There's something—Sam thinks it was a random spark of sunlight off the Impala's aerial—and he doesn't get any further than that before a freight train slams into his head…or what feels like one, at any rate.
Flash.
The flash resolves into something silver. A knife. Sam follows the nervous chop-chop-chop of it for several seconds before he understands, can follow the blade up to the wooden handle, worn dark by use, to the fingers, still light despite their age, to the hand, just beginning to spot and soft.
Above that, the eyes, so like Max's even though they're unrelated by blood—sad and holding some unspoken pain deep inside them, like bubbles trapped in amber.
"I don't know what you mean by that," Mrs. Miller complains tearfully, the tension in her voice sharp enough to cut. She's afraid, the stink of it coming off her in clouds. "You know I never did anything." She sets the knife down with a sharp jitter of wood on wood.
"That's right." Max's eyes are wet as well, at least half of it as much anger as grief. His voice wavers uncertainly between the deeper tones of a man and those of a boy. "You didn't do anything." He spits the last word at her and Mrs. Miller flinches, shoulders bowing down with the weight of long familiarity. "You didn't stop them, not once!"
The knife rattles across the cutting board. When it reaches the end, it levitates instead of falls, balanced precariously on the air.
Mrs. Miller's soft well-kept hands dart to her throat, startled. "How did you—?" She backs away from the knife and Max, soft soled shoes making no sound on the peeling linoleum. The knife twitches, as if with a mind of it's own and then lunges at her, point first. Mrs. Miller flattens herself to the wall and the knife follows her, halting close enough to her unprotected eye that her lashes rasp across the blade. The tip breaks the surface tension of her welling tears and lets them flood down her cheek.
"For every time you stood there and watched," Max says, his voice lowering finally into a deeper, dangerous register. "Pretending it wasn't happening!"
"I'm sorry!"
"No. You're not," Max pronounces, deep weariness underlying the brittleness. "You just don't want to die."
Mrs. Miller draws in breath to speak and the knife slides backwards as if in reprieve. Before she can say a single word, though, it dives forward again. Sam tries to either move forward to intervene or jerk back and throw himself out of the vision, but he is fixed in place as much as Mrs. Miller. He has to bear silent, helpless witness as the knife sinks in with a noise horrifyingly like cutting into a melon.
"Sam? Sam?"
Coming out of the vision is like breaking out of a riptide, weakness in his limbs and dark, swimmy terror. He latches onto his mother desperate not to get sucked down again and super-aware of the bellows-like heave of his lungs, the jungle-drum of his heart.
"M-max!" he stammers, struggling to make his mouth and tongue form real, actual words. "He's going to do it, he's going to kill Mrs. Miller!"
Sam doesn't really know how to describe the expression that goes across his mother's face, partly the terrifying valkyrie of his childhood and another look he can't pin down, stormy and unsettled. She reaches for the gun and Sam's abs burn as he lunges up to catch her wrist. "Don't."
"Sam—" She flexes her wrist, not pulling away.
"Don't kill him, Mom. He's just a kid."
Mary looks up at the house and then back at him. "Twenty-two isn't a kid, Sam."
There's more behind the words and behind her eyes than just Max Miller and what should be done with him and Sam feels an ice cold fingernail scrape down his spine. "Don't kill him," Sam whispers again through arid lips.
Mary's eyebrows wrinkle down in exasperation. "I don't want to kill him, Sam. But I'm not going to let him kill her, either."
"They… I don't know. His father and his uncle…they abused him. Not sure how."
Mary shakes her head. "Doesn't excuse murder." She rises from her squat, wincing as she straightens her back. She wraps her hand around his wrist. "You coming?"
Sam nods, gathering himself to get up. He still feels shaky and vaguely sick, like a mild hangover and the onset of flu rolled together. He lets his mother tug him to his feet and doesn't protest when she steadies him.
"You okay?"
Sam nods.
Mary tips her head toward the door. "That lock's not going to pick itself, you know."
Despite himself, Sam snorts, groping for his lock picks. "That's what I love about you, Mom. You're all heart."
