TITLE: That's for Remembrance
E-MAIL: eli @ popullus.net
ARCHIVE: Ask, please.
RATING: PG-13
POSTED: Aug. 31, 2006
SUMMARY: Five times Dean told someone his mother was dead.
AUTHOR NOTES: Written for Barkley as part of yet another "five things" meme.
DISCLAIMER: Read

---

1.

When he was six, his dad was the only dad bringing someone to the first day of school. All the other kids were brought by moms. Dean noticed. He didn't say anything, but he noticed things like that, along with other things, like the boys over by the window. There were three of them, and they kept looking over at him. He could feel it when they did, like when Dad stood in the door looking at him and Sammy when Dean was supposed to be asleep already...just looking.

The tallest one came over when Dean was building a fort strong enough to stand up to anything.

"Does your dad have a job?" the boy asked.

Dean put in another block and nodded; Dad had lots of jobs.

"Does you mom have a better job?"

Dean shook his head and dug in the bucket for more red blocks, because the blues would leave holes and holes let things in.

"Your mom has a sucky job," the boy said, and then, in a nasty, mean voice, "She cleans things, doesn't she? Like Ricky's mom, she's never home, she leaves him all alone, that's why your dad had to bring you."

Dean swallowed. You can't tell people what happened, Dad said. They won't understand.

So Dean quietly said, "My dad brought me because he's a good dad. And my mom's in heaven because she was a really good mom."

And then he looked up at the boy, and said, "Better than yours."



2.

He was nine, and Sam was a chubby little five, when Dean said it out loud for the first time, those words.

They were waiting outside another motel in the car, waiting and waiting while Dad signed in. It was taking forever. Dean ran out of "I Spy" stuff for Sam to guess; it was a motel on the road to nowhere, and Dean didn't know why they'd left Lancaster, anyway. That was when the old lady appeared.

She came out of all that nowhere, almost like a ghost, but she was real and knocking thump, thump on the window with her purse, and Sam laughed when Dean jumped.

Muttering, "Shut up, Sammy," Dean rolled down the window, because it was just an old lady, but then she asked where their mom was, was their mom here, was their mom coming back, she kept saying mom and Dean needed her to stop, and he shouted at her:

"Our mom's dead!"

The lady went away then, he thinks, when he thinks about it at all. Maybe that was when Dad finally came back, and she probably said something all sympathetic and everything before she left, because that's what people do, but all Dean can remember now is how much saying that hurt.



3.

He only used it deliberately to get sympathy once. Even at twelve -- even though it got him out of a detention he'd really deserved -- that once was enough to know for sure that giving up some things isn't worth what you get.



4.

He told Cassie, because it was a truth he could give her. A deeper truth, closer to the truth of him, than he was sure he was ready for, but he...he wanted to give her something. So he told her, and those dark eyes that were sometimes too clear for him to look into, they went even darker.

He tried to laugh, started to say, "Don't go all weepy on me, it was a long--" but then she stepped into him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

Her head fit right in under his chin.

The world didn't end.



5.

Animals weren't exactly Dean's thing.

Not pet-type animals, but animals, like on a farm. Those needed to stay on farms, in stalls and pens and other man-made places that kept them off the roads and out of trouble. Except for when they were spirits of animals. Murdered animals. One of these days, people were going to start checking what had been on their land before building new things on top of old things that didn't like being built on; the odds were in favor of this happening.

Right now, though, spooked horses? Not fun. Horses spooked because they'd just watched one of their barn-mates go up in blue flame, oh yeah, add a "very" to that "not fun."

And three guys to eight horses hadn't looked good, but Sam and the owner, Gerry, were out in the pen with seven now, and here Dean was, trying to reason with Number Eight.

He was a little guy, obviously still working on growing out of being a pony, and talking -- non-stop, and as calmly as possible -- seemed to be the only thing working. Dean talking. Sparky, here (Gerry had said his name, something ridiculous, and damn if Dean was going to try to remember it) struck out with a hoof that was just as sharp and hard as anyone else's whenever Gerry or Sam spoke up near him, so again, here was Dean.

Talking down a horse.

And Dean was babbling, there was no other word for it. Anything that came to mind got said. Panicked horses couldn't be that different from panicked people, so it was more probably about his tone than what he was saying, anyway, and Dean wasn't paying any more attention than Sparky until he was breathing clear air again.

They were outside, and Sam was aiming at him that puzzled frown that only showed up for something surprising and confusing.

"What?" Dean asked, then cleared his throat and asked again, audibly this time. Where were all those buckets of water now?

Sam blinked, shrugged. "Nothing," he said.

Dean glared. "Don't give me that. I'm covered in soot and horse and," he threw up his hands, putting out a new cloud of gunk, "who knows what else, and now there's you with that look."

"What look?"

"Sam..."

"I just..." Sam huffed out a laugh, rubbing his eyes with one hand before looking back up and asking, "Why were telling a horse about Mom?"

Dean frowned at him, at himself, at the whole sideways situation. Sam widened his eyes, expecting an answer.

He'd keep on doing that, too, Dean knew, so he said, "Because I was," and headed for the car. They were going to need more salt.

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