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Mary was in her usual spot, tucked away in the corner of Ellen’s, watching strangers she grew up with making small talk about monsters. Her hair was dirty and she needed a shower, but the routine of a hard drink after an even harder hunt was too tempting to skip. Besides, she’d get there soon enough.
She wasn’t sure if she’d been spotted; she’d rolled in while Ellen was occupied behind the bar and was content with waiting her turn. The Roadhouse was busy enough that Mary thought she should make sure there wasn’t another hunt nearby. There was always another hunt nearby.
The sound of a harmonica over light, plinking piano keys signaled Ellen’s approach. She laughed at their self-imposed soundtrack, the song Ellen had once declared Mary’s playing on the jukebox.
That had been years ago now, and they had been different women then. Mary was a mother now. She was someone that her younger self should aspire towards.
Ellen slid into the booth beside Mary, bumping up against her hip-to-shoulder. She came offering gifts - one for each of them - in matching glasses of whiskey.
“Thunder Road? Still?” Mary laughed, Ellen joining in like a breath of fresh air. The sound was more cleansing than any shower would have been.
“What, did you outgrow me and The Boss out there in Kansas?” Ellen’s tone was light, but Mary knew it had been too long since the last time she visited. She had John. She and John had Dean. They had plans. This was just a distraction from Mary’s world.
Mary ignored the reminder of home, turning her body towards Ellen, putting some space between them as she did. “Never could outgrow you, El.” Mary hoped that was true. “Wanted to come by and see how you’re doin’. You and Bill.”
Ellen reached out and poked at the grime that coated Mary’s hair. “Just dropped by? No other reason you were in town?”
“You know me,” Mary reasoned, “always on the job.” A careful pause to sip at the offered drink would buy some time to measure the weight of her answer. The whiskey burned on the way down, but it was a friendly fire. “You know the hunt is just an excuse to get over here.”
“You always have had a hard time asking for what you want, Mary.”
And wasn’t that the main problem? It settled into the air between the two women, blanketing them in its truth.
Mary took another drink.
Ellen zeroed in on the bloodstain that splattered across Mary’s fingers. To hide the evidence of the hunt, the proof that she went through all this instead of just calling, Mary cupped a clean hand over the soiled one; both wrapped carefully around the whiskey glass.
Mary turned away from the other woman and faced the table, faced the bar full of hunters, and took a deep breath. Ellen followed her lead, melting into the backrest of the booth with a deep sigh that pressed her even closer to Mary. They’re touching from knee to shoulder now, wedged against each other with two empty seats across from them and a bar full of space outside their corner booth.
“I want out of this shit, El.” Mary let herself want. Just for a moment, just here with Ellen. “I want out of this shit, and I want us to move to the suburbs, and I’ll have a swingset in my yard, and you can have the pool in yours right next door, and you’ll have that little girl you want, and I want you to never have to wash wraith goo out of my hair ever again.”
Ellen laughed. “Aren’t you and John in the suburbs already?”
“You know what I mean, Ellen. I want us both out of this.” Mary spoke like she wasn’t the one who drove all those hours away from her family home to slaughter some spirit. She spoke like she didn’t already have one foot out the door and in John Winchester’s family home. She spoke like she wanted out of that too, somehow.
Ellen just sighed and took a drink of her own glass, catching up with the heavy swigs Mary had taken so far. “A pool sounds nice.”
Matching recliners, matching swimsuits, matching tans. Kids splashing in the water. A little blonde girl with Ellen’s cracking wit and a braid done up by Mary. Dean teaching the younger ones to swim, his sun-freckles strewn across his baby-cheeks.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Mary bumped her shoulder against Ellen’s, the whiskey loosening her posture and freeing her inhibitions. It’d only take the rest of the glass before Mary would be able to ask for what she really wanted.
Ellen ghosted a hand over her stomach like she could imagine it, like she was seeing a future where she’s swollen-bellied and content, with a mortgage and Mary close by. The corners of her lips turned up, a hint of a smile, a touch of happiness; and maybe Mary wants that, wants Ellen happy however she can get her.
It would be much later in the night, hours later, glasses later, a warm shower later, when Mary finally gives into what she wants and falls into Ellen’s arms and her bed. They would bury their wants in each other, hiding their future desires in the here-and-now.
When it was over and they both allowed the night to wrap them up into a sleep of forgetting, Mary wished she could hold on just a little longer.
But, the morning would come, the road and her family would call, and Mary would leave Ellen and The Roadhouse and their carefully constructed future dreams behind.
Mary didn’t have time to want. Not in this life.