UNRELATED TO PREVIOUS CHAPTER: What one of them felt/thought during that exchange in the episode 'The Raid' (season 12, ep. 14) - Oneshot.
SPOILERS: set in season 12, episode 14 (The Raid). SPOILER: The conversation referenced is the one in which Dean tells Mary he was never a child.
A/N: Wrote this 'experiment' almost immediately after the episode, but my wise & trusted Beta HATED it. Hated it then (never managed to finish reading it), and still hates it now. You have been warned, I take no offence if you want to let me know that you also hate it; venting is good for the soul etc. (though maybe not necessarily for mine ;-) )
Disclaimer: All characters appearing in Supernatural are copyright Kripke/CW/WB etc. No infringement of these copyrights is intended. This is my original work of fiction based on those characters/that universe.
The Fallen Few
She was falling.
She was falling, and she didn't seem to know.
She was falling, and he wondered if she even cared.
She was falling, and he realised that he didn't.
Care.
Not about her emotional well-being, not about her state of mind, not about her eventual hurt when the fall would come to its inevitable end. Not right then. Right then? Those concerns for her? They weren't even on his radar.
She was falling, and he wondered why she'd done it.
She was falling and he wondered what could have possessed her to want such a thing.
She was falling, and he wondered how.
How she could have taken that step, seemingly so easily, seeming so oblivious. How she could have gone, seemingly of her own free will, over that awful edge.
He'd fallen, in his time and more than once.
He'd fallen, far and hard.
And it hurt, that fall, as all falls did. But these falls were worse than death. These falls didn't kill you. They didn't cripple you completely. Didn't even hurt you in a way that left marks or scars you could see and touch. Didn't leave signs of things that could heal over and disappear.
Oh but they hurt.
And oh but the wounds bled deep and dark and ugly into the night, till you found yourself wishing for death. Till you knew you deserved no such deliverance.
Till your skin crawled but sill, you could never crawl away from yourself.
She was falling.
She was falling, and he could see that.
She was falling and she would see it too, would know it too.
Would feel it soon, with the sickening snap of comprehension that would come at the falls end, that would set a rot in her heart even as it beat in her chest.
That would rip open her eyes to the awfulness of what she had done.
To herself.
"I never was."
And he hated her.
Just for a second, a flash of hate bright and fierce and so possessive, blazed through him at the hurt and truth in those words, and he hated her. He never would have thought he could feel such a thing about her.
But he always knew he could feel such things for him. Such fierce, violent, terrifying things, all on behalf of him.
It passed, of course, as suddenly as it had erupted, but it left a dull ache. A throbbing bitterness inside him, that pulsed and pulsed and pulsed, till he understood it was just the beating of his heart, spreading that pain and deadened anger through him like a toxin. Bitter and vile and poisoning his love.
I never was.
And it pulsed.
And pulsed.
And pulsed.
As if his heart were reverberating with those words, were aching for that loss as his brothers admittance echoed within him.
No wonder he'd hated her, for the briefest second, no wonder he'd felt that anger, that pain. Nothing burnt as fierce as love.
Nothing hurt as deep as love.
There was no one he loved more.
I never was.
And in those words, he'd heard it.
Mary had fallen.
He wondered if she knew.
Mary had fallen.
He wondered if she would survive.
Mary had fallen.
But he didn't wonder how she would feel.
Because he knew.
He'd fallen too, once. More than once.
He still remembered. He still carried that pain.
He'd rather go to hell than take that fall again. He'd rather sell his soul than to ever, ever, fall again.
Because nothing, no-thing, hurt more than that look in Dean's eyes when you fell in his estimation. Nothing hurt more than falling from the grace his love had once bestowed on you.
Nothing ached inside like the knowledge of that fall, knowledge of where it left you. Nothing hurt like the distance that fall put between you and the place you'd once had in Dean's heart. A place that left nothing but darkness all around the instant you were evicted.
He'd clawed his way back, but he would never be back, because that pain could never ever be erased. Not completely, not from within himself. Not from his memory. His conscience. Because it had happened, it had occurred. He'd let it happen, let it occur, had taken that step away from Dean and the fall had been inevitable.
And though he was back, was delivered and had been accepted back into some place from which he would never risk falling again, it had still happened and he lived with it. The knowledge of it, the knowledge of what he had done, it would never leave, no matter how much redemption he sought and hoarded, no matter how much absolution was granted. The knowledge was immutable, permanent, fused within his marrow and soul.
Like a severed limb, or a shattered heart, you carried the absence, the break, the fallout and shame, inside you forever.
Because he had fallen.
But he had found his way back. Had crawled, clawed, earned, craved, been pulled and carried and he was oh so grateful to be one of the few. The very lucky few.
And now Mary had fallen.
Poor Mary.
Poor, poor Mary.
Now one of the fallen.
He hoped, for her sake, she would be one of the fallen few.
The End.
Thank you for reading.