SUPERNATURAL VERSE INFORMATION.
marissa aika dai, otherwise known as mari. (nonbinary, but not insightful enough to know this and therefore identifies as a cis woman. uses she/her.) bisexual. age ranges from eighteen to twenty-two in her lone hunter arc, to twenty-three and upwards when she's reunited with mark. born june 20th, gemini. japanese, third generation. fluent in japanese and english initially, later on learns spanish. no fixed location as she's constantly traveling / on the road, but set anywhere from early 2000s to current day. notable features are as follows: five foot nothing, waist-length black hair, a magnetic stare. severe scarring above and below her left eye, faint scarring above and on the right side of her upper lip, very visible scarring along her torso and on her back. a tattoo of a rose behind her left ear, a butterfly and knife piece on the right side of her ribcage, and a cross on her spine with ăžă (mari) in the middle. a noticeable stutter. always smells faintly of smoke.
ged graduate instead of a high school diploma. never stayed in one place for long but went to public school instead of private.
runs her life off of credit card schemes and scams. occasionally hustles pool or card games.
physical and mental diagnosis' remain the same: allergic to chamomile and has hyperthymesia, psychogenic stutter, c-ptsd, autism, avoidant restrictive food intake disorder. self medicates with alcohol and has a concerningly high tolerance for it.
the biggest event that shifts in mari's life is not only the details of her upbringing â in that her mother is deceased and her father is a hunter + therefore on the road â but the fact that mark does not betray / abandon mari. she encourages and wants him to leave and is the catalyst behind their separation.
mark and mari are intended to be both a parallel and an inverse of sam and dean in certain ways, but i find it important to mention that kenji (their father) was a hunter with a reputation for killing monsters at any cost. including using his children as bait, putting other hunters in the line of fire, et cetera. he was not seen as someone trustworthy, and therefore the dai family reputation is something that haunts both mark and mari â despite the siblings operating completely differently.
mark and mari dai have never known anything but this. the motel rooms, the salted windows, the shotgun shells on the counter and tv dinners in the trash. it's a hunter's life, their father says. it's a terrible life, mark thinks. it's a life, mari knows, and that's all any of them cling onto.
the years span out in flickers of horror. not just out there, where the world grinds its teeth against the proverbial bone, but everywhere. by the time mark's twelve, he knows the cost of a mistake. by the time mari's seven, she knows the shape of a bruise. these two things are the same thing, if you know the dai family, but nobody does and nobody will, so the road continues onward.
they never stay at the same school for long. never long enough for either of the siblings to even imagine the shape of help, never long enough to make any friends, and never long enough to know anything but the ins and outs of whatever phantom shadow of a monster their monster chases down.
you could be like him, mari muses one morning in between a mouthful of cereal. mark flinches at the thought. long gone is the hero worship, thrown away is the desire of being his father's son. even the possibility is something that makes him want to hurl into his cheerios, so he doesn't say anything in return. mari chews thoughtfully, staring at the cartoons that dance and spin across the screen, before she looks at mark â solemn, and serious. 'cept, she says, correcting herself. you wouldn't hurt me, she finishes, and mark can't help but cry.
when mark turns seventeen, he's given up any hope on universities, colleges, or even a job. he'll be a hunter the way his father is a hunter, the way he's only allowed to be a hunter, and that'll be that. mari's twelve now, losing her pigtails and adopting her father's tone when she thinks she needs to be tough at school. things are the same, in the way that they've always been bad, and the only hope of something good is the faint thought that his father's presence might, one day, simply become a phone call. the monday morning he watches mari enter middle school doors, he thinks that if there's ever going to be hope for anything â it'll be for her.
except, mari's plan is much different. because after she asks mark what he'll do after graduation, after he's free and eighteen and open to the the world, and he only gives her a shrug â and she knows what the score is. mari's never been dumb, and she's certainly never been stupid. so, when it comes to her brother, she knows when he's telling a lie. or a half-lie. or even the slightest implication of a lie. and if he thinks for one small second that she'll let him circle back into something he hates, he's just as blind as he thinks she is.
she applies to universities. not as herself, the thirteen year old with three identities and two knives under her pillow, but as mark. mark, who still insists on driving her to school every day despite the bus running just fine. mark, who pours her cereal in the mornings like it's a combination of muscle memory and love. mark, who steps in front of kenji dai, the man who fights monsters who is a monster, himself, and says you don't touch her like it's the only words he's ever known. mark, who wants more. who won't give himself it. and mark, who gets accepted to cornell after mari muddles through application, after application, after application.
he refuses to go. big surprise. mari doesn't even pretend to be shocked when he crumples the offer letter up and says that it isn't an option, but she's not deterred. mari's never been much of a quitter, always been more of a fighter, and if mark wants to spend of his life protecting her, she's just gotta show him that she doesn't need it. and eventually, after months of begging, bartering, and convincing, he starts to believe her. eventually, the shape of hope flickers in the distance.
mark leaves. he gives her a phone number, says to call day or night and that he'll be there by morning. promises her that no matter what, no school is ever going to take priority over her. he kisses her forehead. he tells her to swear that she'll call if she needs him. but after the door closes and she watches the car fade into the distance, mari crumples the phone number just like he'd once crumpled his offer letter, and this time, it stays in the trash.
the truth is, mari's always been the better liar out of the two. she's also always been more vicious. so, when mark leaves and mari lies and her phone number changes within a week, she tells herself it's for his own good. he needs a fresh start. he needs a life that isn't this. and when kenji finds out, when he gets angry, when he keeps getting angry, mari keeps cooking up plans that will give her something, too. maybe it's not that apple-pie, white picket fence future she's tried to give mark, but it's a life that exists without her father. it'd be a hunter's life, sure â but a life, none the less.
she kills him. it's sunday, the morning after a hunt, and her father only wakes when she crawls atop him to slam a knife into his chest. it's the best damn sunday she's ever had, really, despite all the digging and burying and burning, burning, burning. it feels like the first time she's ever believed in god. and in between all the dirt and shovels and wood and fire, she thinks it's the only holy day she's ever had.
time passes. she gets her GED, she fixes and re-fixes her father's car, she drives and drives and drives until the horizon looks close enough to reach. every once in a while, she thinks about calling mark. she doesn't. and every once in a while, in the open air of a library, she looks on his facebook. scrolls through pictures of him with some guy that smiles in a way that mark still doesn't know how. it's cute. sweet. it's something she won't ever have, but she's made her peace with it. so, time passes, and it keeps passing, and she gets older and colder and angrier until even the mirror spits her father's name at her.
she's known he's had her number for a while. he calls on weekends, he called on her birthday, he called until she had to start keeping her phone on silent before the guilt ate her alive. but eventually, he leaves a voicemail. it's the kind of voicemail she can't ignore. one that feels scared, feels panicked, feels like the walls are closing in and the only one who can help is her. he's missing, mark says through the static of the receiver. my boyfriend, he'sâ he's gone. i need you.
she shows up. of course she shows up. she works the case. she does what she knows how to do, and mark settles into what he used to know how to do. they're a good team. fuck, they're a great team. they're like clockwork, synced to a rhythm that mari didn't even know existed. and when the bodies start piling up, when the monster crawls out of the shadows, when the pieces fit together, they do the damn job just like their father taught themâ but better.
mark's boyfriend never comes back. his body gets buried on a monday, and mari's selfishly grateful that mark seems to find some peace in it. he can rest, he murmurs around a cup of coffee, and mari looks away when both of their visions blur. the silence between them sits, but it's not uncomfortable, and eventually, when mari wraps her arms around him to offer a goodbye, mark catches her sleeve.
wait, he says, and something in him looks desperate. i don'tâ .. i can't, he rasps, and mari doesn't know what to say. she knows just like he does that the time apart was for a reason. that she didn't pick up his calls because he needed to move on. but what's a life, if everything's empty? what does he have, if not her? and what kind of fucked up sister would she be if she left him to pick up the pieces?
mark packs a bag. it's bigger than it needs to be, stuffed tight with mementos he's not ready to let go of and clothes that are â and always have been â a little too big. mari loads up the car with everything he wants to take, because grief is a monster neither know how to defeat, and she sits in the driver's seat for a full five minutes before mark takes her hand.
mari, he murmurs, and squeezes his palm against hers twice. it's okay, he says, and mari breathes in. she closes her eyes. she grits her teeth, starts the engine, and somehow â despite everything â believes him.
