False Memory Chapter 10, a supernatural fanfic

Disclaimer, Summary & Rating: see Chapter 1

FALSE MEMORY

Chapter 10

Sam knew Dean was no more asleep than he was, but hoped that his consistently inert form would persuade Dean to let it go and accept the pretence as he had done for the past few hours…not that Sam was holding his breath, mind you; this was, after all, Dean.

He'd actually hesitated over the question before biting the bullet so to speak and asking Shay in a roundabout way if her current problems were in fact the result of something her parents had done, especially with Missouri herself sat barely a couple of feet away.

His other reason for approaching the subject delicately was because he was too well aware of the sacrosanct memory of a deceased parent. When Sam had been small he had never understood people's attitudes over his lack of a mommy, though he'd liked the smiles and the hugs and the candy people seemed to give him when he explained that mommy had died. When he finally got to go frequently to a school, the bigger kids had given up taunting him about his lack of a mother when they saw their attempts to hurt only confused the child who felt no lack because why should he want a mommy when he had his Dean?

Carefully observing his playmates' families had only further convinced Sam that a Dean was far better than a mommy. Mommies were weird, entirely too fixated on things like cleaning fingernails and inspecting ears and scrubbing necks. They didn't seem to know that pizza was a perfect breakfast food or that Lucky Charms were a hearty meal at any point in the day. Only once had Sam told Dean he was much better than Mary and Dean had been furious with him for a week. Sam had cried and apologised (though not entirely sure what he had said wrong) and Dean had said it wasn't his fault as he was too little to understand. Inside, Sam was still glad he had Dean instead of Mary, not understanding why this upset Dean, but being careful to keep this opinion to himself in future.

As time had gone on and Sam got older, he had begun to understand the concept of 'mom', but once he was at Stanford, Sam realised that he had created a wholly unrealistic fantasy based on some idealised combination of Mrs Cunningham and June Cleaver with hints of Martha Stewart. But he had also learned in what little of the Psychology lectures that had been useful was that Dean's recollections of Mary were equally as unrealistic as his own imaginings.

Before the age of about twelve, a child had no concept of his or her parents as individuals. If a child was bereaved or suffered the permanent removal of a parent before this age but when they were old enough to remember the parent – approximately between the ages of three to ten – then he or she mentally 'bowdlerised' the parent into a paragon of unassailable virtue, a larger-than-life superhero without flaw, but also without real personality traits, like a clean-cut TV hero or heroine who is always noble and good and honourable and always saves the day. Thus, in Dean's mind, his murdered mother had been a perfect, living saint.

Intellectually, Sam grasped that Mary had just been a person, just like the TV superhero was really an actor that might in real life drink like a fish, snort most of his earnings up his nose and be a male slut on a scale that made Dean look positively monastic. She went to the toilet like everyone else; she may have had flat feet or bad breath. She may have suffered serious PMS or been impatient or quick tempered or had a really gross 'non-talent' like being able to fart to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy or something.

Sam had also grasped that it was important never, ever to let Dean know of his musings, in the knowledge Dean would be enraged at what he thought of as Sam's 'disrespect'. In Dean's eyes, his mother was practically a goddess…which was why Sam was now weighed down by a far greater burden in respect of their mother – there was no way he could ever allow Dean to find out that Mary had not been killed in his nursery in a case of 'bad timing', but because she had recognised the Yellow-Eyed Demon, something that excised Sam's distressed thoughts almost nightly.

And Shay had mentioned her father with an obvious affection and wistfulness that spoke volumes. Sam also needed to have a serious talk with Missouri about his latest freak-a-thon, and grievously offending either or both women with unsubtle questions about the character and integrity of the late Winston Moseley would not be a good prelude to that.

Continued in Chapter 11…