trans_9 | This Old House, Winchester Style [Open]

<Dude, Iniss would be dying. In Tom's head. You really think that's gonna be a walk in the park?> Marco said dryly. <And apparently when they die there's this whole weird thing where the host ends up with some of the Yeerk's memories. Believe me, it's better if you can convince the Yeerk to leave on their own, but if they don't it's still better than leaving them a Controller.>

Remembering their last attempt to free Tom, Marco growled, softly. <Except some people can't get that idea into their thick heads. It's all, 'Oh no, we have to protect the Yeerk.' Fuck the yeerk! You know what? If some pathetic little ghost girl hadn't decided that a slug dying was too horrible, Tom would be free right now. Hell, Iniss wouldn't even be dead 'cause Cassie had convinced him that coming out and being put into stasis was better than starving. But no, we couldn't make the slug stay in stasis. Because it's just soooooo awful, having to basically be asleep and unaware in order to let someone else be fucking free.>

Dean looked stricken at that. He figured it'd mean torture, but as much as he wanted to tear into Iniss...he didn't want to open that door. And he sure as hell didn't want Tom to see that side of him, and hurt him.

However Marco's next comments made him want to growl in turn.

"You're shitting me. They wanted to freaking protect IT? And why the FUCK didn't it stay in stasis and away from Tom?!"

<We never got Iniss into stasis. He was just about to come out of Iniss, when Little Miss Casperella decided to fly through the wall and 'rescue' Tom. Somehow Iniss managed to convince her that he's not a pathetic piece of crap, and that it would be 'cruel' to not let him swan around in someone else's body. And you know the real kicker?> Marco snarled, baring his teeth. <The only reason Tom 'decided' to stay a Controller is because of her too. Because a naive little girl who didn't understand what she was asking wanted him too.>

"That figures some freak would help the slug out. She's lucky I wasn't around to do a salt and burn," Dean scowled as he paced around one side of the house.

"Poor kid never should have been treated as a meatsuit in the first place."

<Dude, what the hell is throwing salt at her going to do?> Marco said, eying Dean.

<This sucks, man. They could save Tom anytime they wanted, and they don't. We never even had that chance. And now we're here, and there's no Yeerk Empire to fight, and we still can't save him because the goddamn Council is too busy trying to make sure the Yeerk is alright to actually think about what Tom really needs.> Marco slumped, sinking down to the ground with his head between his front paws. <And now Jake's gone, and he never even got to talk to him without having to worry about Iniss.>

"It puts ghosts to rest. Best way to do it. Salt and burn the remains, ghost got nothing to hold it on earth. Poof."

Dean frowned more, not thrilled about things getting all mucked around with damn politics now.

"What do you mean you never had the chance?" Shit, that didn't sound good at all. He had a bad feeling about it.

Interesting. Marco filed that piece of information away for future reference.

<Tom's dead back home,> Marco said bluntly. <At the end of the war, Iniss was going to fly off and start his own little empire. We couldn't capture him. If we let him go, we'd have condemned some other planet to slavery. And Tom would have had to spend the rest of his life a slave, with no hope of freedom, because even though Iniss had the morphing cube and could have just morphed permanently, he was never going to let Tom go.>

Although technically, it was only Jake who'd made that call. Jake, who had to sentence his own brother to death. But Dean didn't need to know that.

Dean's face fell at that. Oh fuck, oh fucking Christ. He deserved better than that. His shoulders slumped, and one hand drew up to his face.

"Goddammit! This ship. This fucking ship." Like hell he's letting that kid go back to it. He'd sooner say they should all just settle on a planet somewhere, far away from any fucking destiny.

Sam was home. Sam had been home the entire time, though he'd been doing work inside and upstairs, close enough to one of the windows that he could hear what was going on outside.

Which meant he could hear Dean talking to nobody else. He'd stuck his head out once to see...a dog. A pretty dog, sure. But Dean seemed to be holding a conversation with it, which meant that it probably wasn't just a dog. Which meant likely one of the shapeshifting kids. He wasn't sure which of them it was, though Marco was the only one of them that came around.

At least, he hoped it was one of the kids. If Dean was talking to the voice in his head, he was going to have to ask Daja to work a little faster. Even if it meant sacrificing a few more bullets.

He managed to ignore most of it, but Sam had something of a 'Dean's moping' radar. Or maybe it was just the tone of voice that came up. He couldn't hear the words clearly, but it was enough to make Sam start looking around.

It took a few minutes, but Sam balled up a couple of t-shirts, leaning out the window and throwing them at Dean's back. One missed and got the dog. He'd have to apologize for that later. "Whatever you're angsting about, stop," he shouted down.

Marco had been aware of Sam's presence of the house - he could smell him, after all - but he hadn't expected that he'd suddenly start throwing things at them. He yelped, jumping up to shake his head madly and throw the shirt off.

Dean jerked his head up, and yelled back, "Asshole! Stop being such a whiny bitch and come down. Try to pull that shit then!" He then grabbed the balled up shirt and winged it back up to the window. Or at least tried to since he had to fight against gravity, and increased surface friction in the shirt coming loose.

Well, it had the desired effect. At least Dean was thinking about something else. "Yeah yeah, whatever. I'll be down in a few."

He did snag the shirt out of the air and drag it back in. The other one could be grabbed once he was downstairs.

Finally free of the shirt, Marco watched the house closely, waiting for Sam to show up. Talking to Dean about how much Iniss sucked was one thing - but Sam was the one that choose to become a Controller. Okay, so if Cassie was here she'd argue that not everyone who decided to become a voluntary Controller was necessary a complete idiot who was in favour of Yeerk Domination, blah blah blah...but fact is, Sam was still an unknown. Marco didn't understand his motivations, and that made him harder to judge.

<Great aim,> he said sarcastically to Dean instead, not including Sam in his thought-speak just yet. <Just wait till Stacy gets her own baseball team. They'll be begging you to join.>

Dean would point out that somebody threatening to kill doesn't make it voluntary. Though he still doesn't completely understand why Sam is continuing to allow Schmuz. Why the slug can't just stay in a jar somewhere again.

He snorted, "Bite me Lassie. I could have played once.". Years ago, before the fire, he was starting to learn t-ball. And his old man had a good arm too.

One day, maybe they'd actually sit down and talk it out. Sam had his reasons. Dean would probably think they were dumb reasons, but whatever. It was a conversation that probably wouldn't happen until Schmuz had his own body.

Bobby was right behind Sam as he made his way outside a few minutes later. The adolescent dog caught scent of Marco and decided to run over give the new dog a sniff. "Hey, Bobby! Stop that." Sam dug a ball out of his pocket, picked up at the marriage planet and bounced it to get Bobby's attention before tossing it away. Bobby went tearing after it, which made Sam snort. "Sorry about that. He's still pretty excitable."

<If you try and sniff my butt, you are going down, mutt,> Marco said to Bobby before Sam distracted him with the ball. <And dude, he's a dog. He's always going to be excitable.>

Bobby whined at that but then gave a whuff to chase after the ball.

Dean meanwhile gestured to Marco, and he grimly remarked to Sam as he approached, "Marco here was just letting me know what Tom's got to look forward into his future. About as peachy as ours."

That gets Sam's attention. He turned back to Dean and Marco, raising an eyebrow. "Oh?" he asked, just as grim. He'd hoped that Tom had an easier time of things back home.

Marco looked up at Dean, wondering what the hell their future contained.

Course, now he had to explain all this again. Great.

<Just because we win the war doesn't mean everyone survives,> Marco said, his voice harsh. <Tom's dead. We couldn't save him. And if Iniss hadn't been on his little power trip, maybe we could have. So excuse me for thinking it's complete bullshit that everyone's allowing Iniss to keep on using Tom as his own personal meat body.>

Marco? Touchy? No. But for a while now, at every corner he'd find himself faced with people who didn't really understand what years of being a Controller did to people telling him that he had to 'respect Tom's decision' and acting like Marco's input was completely invalid. As if he didn't have more experience with Yeerks than all of them combined! Did they think he didn't know what he was talking about?

...okay so maybe Marco was a little touchy.

File it under better not to know. Also if anybody would understand how years of any sort of possession by another being would be, and how harmful, it was the Winchesters.

Dean in the meantime, scowled again and pointed out, "Not everybody. I think it's bullshit it's back in there. Especially when Tom's starting to get a spine like he should."

Sam reached up, rubbing at his face. That explained Dean's aborted moping. After everything they found out from Cas, it wasn't surprising that Dean would take that badly.

Not that Sam was taking it well, either. It wasn't their world and it felt like a failure.

"Because it's a decision that Tom made." He sounded exhausted. Because he was. "We can disagree with it all we like, but if you want Tom to think that he CAN make decisions? If you want him to keep that spine he's showing? We have to respect the decisions that he does make."

Sam blew out a breath. "Free will's a bitch."

<His decision? His decision? He's doing this because a little girl told him to! You call that free will? How about if Tom decides that he wants to chop his legs off? You going to just sit back and go, 'oh no, we can't stop that because then Tom will think that he can't make decisions'.> Marco growled, baring his teeth at Sam. <How about you tell that to all the former hosts back home who committed suicide, or gave away all their money, or ended up working as prostitutes, just because someone told them to do it? Free will's not free will if it's coercion.>

Dean added, "Yeah free will can suck, but we know Tom's not used to thinking for himself."

He swallowed sickly as Marco rattled off what happened to other people ridden by Yeerks, and his eyes glanced toward Sam. Part of him briefly wondered how much of it was Sam talking and if Schmuz was starting to influence him more too. He heard enough of what happened to the previous Sam on board, and really didn't want it happening to his brother or Tom.

Sam gritted his teeth. "And what would you rather we'd done?" he asked Marco pointedly. "Would rather I'd told Tom no, that he couldn't be trusted to make decisions on his own? That he's too broken to be allowed any say in anything?

"Because if you want him broken? If you want him willing to just go along with what anybody tells him, because his own decisions don't matter to anybody? That's the way to do it."

< You do realize that, at the moment, you appear to be arguing with a dog? > Schmuz actually sounded almost amused by it. < Sapient though Marco may be, it still looks odd from the outside. >

< I'm arguing with a teenager, > Sam pointed out. < Infinitely more annoying and far less likely to listen. >

Bobby came back, dropping the ball at Sam's feet. He took a breath, letting it out before picking the ball up. "Tom already feels like he as a person doesn't matter. That he's just baggage that Stacy picked up because Iniss was the important one. Which," he added, heaving the ball for Bobby to chase again, "is utter and complete bullshit, but he's not listening to it. Not yet."

He rubbed a hand over his face again. "Do I like the fact that he's taken Iniss back on board? Hell no. But I'm not going to tell Tom what to do, either. Dean's right, he's not used to thinking for himself. But he's not going to GET used to thinking for himself if we tell him what to think instead."

<Yes,> Marco said coldly. <Tell him that he shouldn't do this, instead of waffling around and making him decide. Do you even think about how much that would hurt? To have someone say, "Here, you decide. It's your choice, but you know if you decide not to then things will be much worse for this other person.">

Marco had had to make that decision once. Not for himself - hell, Marco would die before he ever became a Controller - but for his mother. Save her, or save the world. She'd asked him to choose the world. He never resented her for it, but he did resent himself. For not choosing her. For letting her go back to be tortured again.

Sometimes, it was actually making the decision that broke you.

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