wip wednesday
it's not actually wednesday any more here because timezones, but have some mary and benny being buddies because i am having a hard time making more words happen
Mary’s sitting alone in a motel room. Except for the flatscreen tv, the decor feels comfortable and familiar and modern to her, which probably means it’s dated as hell. The flickering light of the television fills the room, movie trailer casting moody blues and greys against the fading light against the setting sun.
She picks up her phone, adds its flat light to the room as she makes a call.
“Did you have colour television before you died?” Mary asks. Direct. Benny huffs out a laugh. It’s refreshing, having someone with whom she can discuss the complete weirdness of change. Dean, especially, gets tight around the eyes when she or Benny start talking about being dead. Sam and Dean have each died more times than she and Benny put together, but it was never for long. There is a decades-long disruption of the world Mary and Benny have to find their way in. Sam and Dean have died and more times than she can count - more times than they can keep track of, too, she thinks. It’s normal to them; the way their hearts go out, the following gasp of first breath hours or months later. Scars falling from their skin where hers picked up damage from years and years of sunlight she never actually got to tilt her face toward.
“Some,” Benny says. “Remember seeing one in a store window when Andrea and I got stateside. Nothing on that last tour of South America. Didn’t have one ourselves - they were a pretty penny. Andrea had the money, wanted to get one, but it didn’t seem worth it. Not with the broadcasts still mostly in monochrome, and us having better things to do.”
On the tv, the movie trailer ended when she wasn’t paying attention. Mary nods. Thinks of the slow bloom of television to colour throughout her childhood. She can’t pinpoint a tipping point in the way you can never really feel the slow change of an ecosystem you’re immersed in, but she thinks she was out of elementary school before black and white began to wane. “Took a while to catch on,” she says.
“We were going to come back to the idea in a couple of years,” Benny says. “Didn’t happen.”
“Yeah,” she says. Pauses. Thinks about the flickering light of the movie trailer that had her reaching for her phone. “There are eight Star Wars movies,” Mary says.
“So Dean and Charlie tell me,” Benny says. “Though if I recall correctly, they have an ongoing argument about if they should pretend some of them don’t exist.”
Mary laughs a little. Benny likes to pretend fond exasperation at Dean and Charlie’s pop culture arguments but she knows he stores their fond, easy bickering away close to his heart.
A woman with too-white teeth has a bottle of brightly coloured syrup and is playing doctor mom to her children and husband. She thinks of the mothers on the shows she grew up with in the 50s and 60s.
“Return of the Jedi came out when Sam was three weeks old,” she says. John had paid a girl from three doors down $5 to babysit the kids so they could have the night out, and they’d taken the Impala to the drive-in. They’d both fallen asleep before the previews were over, popcorn falling sideways on the front seat between them as exhaustion clawed behind their eyes and titled them away from each other and into the rolled-up windows.
“I’m sure Dean and Charlie would be willing to set up a movie night, if you wanted to watch it,” Benny says. Pauses, when she doesn’t respond.
Sam is four months old. Sam is 36. Return of the Jedi came out when he was three weeks old and she hasn’t gotten a chance to see it yet.
“Sure,” Mary says, feeling stiff and out of place. She is 28. She is 40-something. She doesn’t know how she’ll feel watching a movie with her grown children, not one she was supposed to see a few months ago when Sam was asleep, burbling, in his crib. Mary exhales. Behind her eyes, she can see Dean colouring at the kitchen table with the babysitter while at the drive-in she and John slept, exhausted, while the movie played around them. The drive-in speaker echoing explosions and lasers not near enough to wake them, their children were safe in a home with only weeks left before it burned.
“Or I could watch it with you sometime,” Benny offers.
Mary feels like she should push through, ignore the pain. It’s been decades. It’s only been a few months. “I’d like that,” she says. “It’s not--”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” Benny says. Of everyone she knows, he understands about how time goes funny.
Mary takes a deep breath. Tries to figure out if she <i>wants</i> to explain herself. Honestly, she’s tired of it. “We could get them to set something up for the rest of the movies,” she offers.
“They’d like that,” Benny says, softly.
They talk for a while after that. Nothing heavy. Blades and guns and possible monster murders and the most ridiculous lyrics they’ve found in new-old pop music.
Eventually, Benny says “Pardon me a second,” and Mary can hear Dean’s voice, muffled and filtered through Benny’s hand over his phone. It sounds warm and lazy, no strident urgency or sharp command or threat-response in it, and she bites her lip and grins. Benny’s voice comes back on the line. “Sorry, but--”
“Go,” Mary says. Waves her hand like she can see him. “I’ve had a long day here, should probably turn in anyway. Tell him I send my love.”
