The Marks that Remain
(Five Things Dean's Never Told Sammy, and One Thing he Should)

Author's Notes: My first attempt at a Wee!chester fic. I'd love to know what you liked, or didn't.

Build the Wall

Dean had a teddy bear.

Beau was a soft brown and he wore a blue scarf around his neck. He's gone now, he burned with Mommy in the fire, but Before, Dean used to drag him everywhere. To the dinner table, to the backyard, out to the car to watch Daddy work, to the market and the library and the park and later, when Mommy had Sammy in her tummy, to the doctor's office. By the time Sammy was born, Beau was missing one patch of fur around his left paw and another from the top of his head, where Dean used to snuggle into him as he slept. When he started wearing big-boy jocks like Daddy and had to use the toilet, he'd sit Beau on top of the cistern to scare away the ghost he was never quite sure wasn't going to come out with the awful flushing sound. When he skinned his knee learning to ride his bike, Mommy wrapped up Beau's leg in a bandage just like Dean's. When Dean got the chickenpox and he itched everywhere, even between his toes, Daddy tucked them both up on the couch and let them watch videos til long after their bedtime. Sometimes Beau even had a bath with him, though Mommy never seemed quite as pleased with this as Dean was.

Wesley is Sammy's bear. Daddy bought it for him, After, for Sammy's first birthday. Wesley is no where near as brown or cuddly as Beau and he has a stupid yellow hat instead of a blue scarf, but Sammy loves him. He takes Wesley everywhere he goes. Some days, he even asks Daddy to strap him into the seatbelt in the backseat next to him, which Dean thinks is just plain stupid because the seatbelt doesn't never fits properly and Sammy almost always picks him back up five minutes later. But Daddy always does it, though he draws a line at ordering Wesley a meal of his own when they stop for lunch or dinner.

Once, Dean steals Wesley when his brother's asleep and hides him. It's kinda funny to watch Sammy tearing through the hotel room and pawing through the contents of their duffle bags in search of him. Dean gives him back before Sammy gets really upset, though - before Dad notices that Sam's crying. He hands over the teddy bear and Sammy clutches it to his tummy and tells Dean that he's real mean. Dean mumbles something about only babies need a teddy bear and Sammy sorta sniffs and protests that he's not a baby, but he doesn't give up his hold on Wesley.

And Dean feels kinda bad then, because he remembers Beau and how awful it was for those first few days after Mommy died, when he knew he'd never have Beau to cuddle again.

But he doesn't tell Sammy that, because Dean is the Big Brother, not the baby. He just rumples Sammy's hair and asks him if wants Cheerios or Lucky Charms for dinner.

Time so Slowly Turns
Dad's a better cook than Mom ever was.

They're sitting at the kitchen table, Dean and Sam on one side and Dad on the other. Sam's picking at the stew Dad made, poking through the stuff in his bowl with his fork, scowling deeply. He doesn't want to eat it. It has carrots.

Dad doesn't look up from the paper. Stop playing with it and eat it, Sammy.

It has carrots, Sam says again, as though carrots are the reason he has to go to bed at eight instead of eight thirty, and brush his teeth at the sink instead of the shower, and wear dean's old hand-me-down sweater for his first day of school.

Trevor's mom doesn't make Trevor eat carrots. Trevor's mom wouldn't make stew with carrots in it because she knows that Trevor doesn't like carrots. Sammy glares at Dad and continues to poke at the stew. I bet Mom wouldn't make me eat carrots, he mutters, not quite under his breath. I bet she'd make me pizza or sausages with potatoes and that cheesy cauliflower stuff, or pasketti.

Dad's mouth twitches.

Dean wonders if Dad, like Dean, is remembering the time Mom tried to make spaghetti. It was a few weeks after Sammy was born and Mom, who try as she might could never manage to cook more than a steak and some vegetables without burning it or setting something on fire, thought it would be a good idea to surprise Daddy with a birthday dinner. She and Dean and Sammy walked down to the market and bought what they needed to make it, and later, when Sammy went to bed for a nap, Mom lifted Dean up onto the bench so he could help her. It was his job to hold the book open and point to the ingredients she needed - the red tomatoes and the minced meat and the special stinky cheese.

By the time Daddy got home, there was garlic bread wrapped in silver foil and a special bottle of wine - for adults only, Dean-o; you can have some pop - and a clean tablecloth on the table. Mom managed to find three matching plates and a full set of knives and forks, and Dean helped her lay the table. Mom sent him out into the backyard to find some flowers and she arranged the yellow ones he picked in a tumbler full of water right in the middle of the table. The table looked perfect.

The spaghetti wasn't perfect.

Daddy walked in just as it got dark and he came through the kitchen, just like he always did, to find Dean and Mom standing in the middle of the kitchen, dripping tomato sauce from their faces and staring in shock at the exploded saucepan on the stovetop. Daddy looked at Dean, and then at Mommy, and then at the splattered tiles and the red stovetop and the piled-up kitchen sink. He laughed. And Mommy, who was upset and angry because she'd followed all the instructions and it still hadn't worked, ruining her special surprise dinner, used the spoon she was holding to scoop up some of the sauce and throw it at him. It's not funny, John!

Dean kinda thought Daddy might be angry about that - the spoon bouncing off his shoulder and splattering his clothes with red tomato sauce - but he wasn't, he just walked over to give Mommy a really big hug. He winked at Dean over the top of Mom's head, grinning. Mommy sniffed something about her surprise and Dad rubbed her back soothingly. It was a surprise. Mom hit Dad once on the arm, hard. Dad laughed again, reaching behind Mom to scoop up some of the sauce with his free hand.

Dean wasn't not sure who was more shocked, he or Mommy, when Daddy reached back to smear that handful over Mommy's face. Mom shrieked and Dad laughed and Mom laughed too, scooping up her own handful to throw back at Dad, who grabbed Dean and swung him up as a shield. The sauce splattered down Dean's shirt and Dean laughed - they were all laughing then, Daddy and Dean and Mommy - and they threw the spaghetti sauce at each other till there was nothing left to throw and they were collapsed in the middle of the kitchen floor, laughing and sticky and covered in red. They ate the garlic bread for dinner and Dean was allowed to have two glasses of pop before his bath. Daddy told Mommy it was his best birthday dinner ever.

And Dean knows Dad does remember it, because he puts aside his paper and stands up, reaching for Sammy's bowl. Son, carrots would have been preferable to your mother's spaghetti. He ruffles Sammy's hair. I don't have pizza, but I can make you a carrot-free peanut butter sandwich. That do?

Sammy nods eagerly, surprised at his sudden victory.

Dad goes into the kitchen to make it, winking at Dean as he passes him. Dean grins back.

Wild Blood in my Veins
The tapes they listen to while they drive belonged to Mom.

She had lots of them - the whole bottom cupboard in the lounge room was full of tapes. There were boxes and boxes of records, too, but Dean wasn't allowed to touch those. He was allowed to touch the tapes and often, when Daddy was at work and it was just Dean and Mommy at home, she'd tell him to go choose a tape for us, Dean-o and he'd sit there for ages running his fingers over the sharp-edged cases before selecting one at random for Mommy to put in the stereo.

Mom used to move around the house putting things away, hips swinging in time to the music. Mommy told Daddy that she couldn't sing for peanuts but Dean thought Mommy had a beautiful voice and when it was just the two of them in the house, Mommy sang all the time. Sometimes they danced in the kitchen while Mommy dried the dishes, and she showed him how to use the wooden spoon or a salad fork for a microphone.

Daddy had tapes too; slower music than Mom's, without the heavy drums or loud guitar. He teased Mommy about her tapes, said he didn't realise he'd married a hard-rock groupie. Mommy laughed at him and told him she didn't realise she'd married an old man in a young man's body. Dean didn't understand what either of them meant but he liked the soft look in Mommy's eyes and on Dad's face as they teased each other.

After, when the fire burned down most of their house and most of the things inside it, the only tapes they had left were a shoebox full of Mommy's that were on the backseat of the car.

Dean knows Daddy doesn't really like Mom's music, but he doesn't say a word when Daddy puts one of Mommy's tapes into the car stereo. He understands, too, why Daddy never buys new ones.

The Brightest Flames Burn Quickest
When Dean was little - really little, like he was before Sammy was born - he wanted to be a fireman. He had a big red fire engine that Grandma and Pops bought him for his third birthday, and it had a siren and a ladder that really worked and a hose that pumped water if Mommy or Daddy filled up the special container, and little pretend firemen who wore yellow coats and red helmets.

Dean loved his fire engine.

I'm on a rescue, he'd inform Mommy as he pushed his fire engine along the kitchen floor to the table where Beau or Bunny or one of his Transformers was trapped, high up in the fire. Mommy would nod seriously and step out of his way, asking if there was anything she could do to help. I've got it under control, he'd tell her confidently, and up went the ladder and the hose came out and ten minutes later, Bunny would be safely perched on top of the fire engine as they made their way back to the station to refuel before the next fire.

You gonna be a fireman, little man? Daddy used to ask, swinging Dean up for a hug when he got home from work.

Yep, I sure am. And he'd tell Daddy all about the rescues he'd performed and fires he'd put out, and if his fire engine had sustained any damage throughout the day - tire's gone flat, Daddy, we had to jump over rocks to reach the fire - Dad would put it up on blocks and fix it for him, just like he fixed cars at work.

Dean doesn't want to be a fireman anymore.

He remembers, kinda, his old fire engine but whenever he thinks about it, he thinks about how hot the fire was and how loud the flames were and that awful smell that tasted like Mommy's burned meatloaf in the back of his throat. He thinks about the stupid little hose on his stupid little toy and how it wasn't enough, would never have been enough, to put out the fire that took Mommy away.

If he'd been big, an adult, and brave and strong and a fireman already, he could have saved Mommy. He knows he could have.

But he wasn't and he didn't, and he also knows, now, that he's not good enough to save anybody.

Arms to Welcome Me
Once, when Sammy was still new and red and wrinkly, Daddy packed him up in the car with Dean and a basket and a picnic blanket, and drove them all down to the river. It was late, almost past Dean's bedtime, but it was summer so it was still kinda light and Daddy explained that Mommy was really, really tired so he thought they'd come out here to have a picnic dessert. Just us boys, Dean-o, so your Mom can have a rest.

He and Daddy settled down with Sammy on the blanket between them. They ate melty ice-creams and shared a cup of juice, and when Dean accidentally spilled some on the baby passing his cup back to Daddy, Sammy squeaked in protest but didn't cry like they both thought he would.

Later, they stretched out together to look at the stars. Dean cuddled in close to Daddy's side and Daddy shifted slightly to hold Sammy in the crook of his other arm. Daddy, who knew everything, knew the names of all the stars and he told Dean stories about hunters and sailors and ships who used the stars to find their way around the world. See the stars, Sammy? Daddy says softly. There's one up there for you. Just for you.

What about me? Dean asks sleepily. Is there a star up there for me too?

Oh, yeah. Daddy kisses the top of Dean's head. There's a star up there for both my boys.

Is it gonna help me find my way around the world?

Yeah, Dean. You and Sammy, you got the whole world ahead of you.

You and Mommy, too, Dean tells him.

Daddy's smile is gentle. Yeah, Dean-o. Me and Mommy too.

The Heart, Now Still
Sometimes Mommy looked at Sammy in that special way, as though Sammy was the only person in the whole world who mattered, as though her love for him poured right out of her smile and into the baby in her arms.

My Sammy, my boy, my love.

Dean can't remember Mommy looking at him that way, but he can sure remember her looking at Sammy.

He just wishes Sammy could.