no memorials for flowers, J2 AU, 1/1, [PG]
Title: no memorials for flowers
Author: sandymg
Beta: borgmama1of5
Summary: Once a year Jensen and his mom visit his grandmother at the cemetery. (Part of the beach!verse)
Wordcount: 1,800 - one-shot
Genre: RPS, J2 AU, H/C, Angst
Characters/Pairings: Jared/Jensen
Rating/Warnings: PG (implied emotional child abuse)
Disclaimer: This is fiction. No harm intended. No profit made.
A/N: Story title from the poem Flowers in the Cemetery by Suchoon Mo. Story follows ten thousand pigs keep singing chronologically.
AO3
no memorials for flowers
She never brings flowers. Jensen doesn’t think about that. It just is. He thinks that perhaps he’d like to bring flowers but she won’t have it.
A waste. Not like she’ll know they are there.
Why do other people do it Mommy?
Because they are scared.
He wanted to ask what that means. He never did.
He was seven when his grandmother died. He remembers she wore black. He remembers her blue eyes, same as his mother’s. He remembers the wrinkles around them. And his mother looking in the mirror after a long visit at his grandmother’s house.
I don’t have crow’s feet like mother, do I, Jensen?
No, Mommy.
Bad enough my hair’s going gray already. Motherhood.
The last word was stretched out, lengthening with each year of Jensen’s life. Jensen didn’t see any gray hair among his mother’s blonde tresses. But he knew that her trip to the beauty salon was intended to make them go away. He is grateful to the salon although he knows his mother usually comes home angry about what she overhears there. To this day she claims they gossip about her.
Every May around Memorial Day, Jensen accompanies his mother to the cemetery to visit his grandmother’s grave. They never bring flowers.
It's an hour before he’s about to leave to pick up his mother and Jared asks if Jensen wants him to come with. Jensen looks as if Jared had offered to parade naked on the boardwalk.
“Why would you want to do that?”
Jared peers at him in that way that unnerves. “Well, now that I met your mom, I don’t know, I thought … maybe it would be alright if I came with you.”
“No. It wouldn’t. I mean … there’s just no reason for it. Even Danni doesn’t come along.”
“I know, she told me that.”
Jensen bristles at the thought of Danneel and Jared talking about him yet again. Busybodies.
“My grandmother liked me,” he says in a strange attempt to placate.
Jared nods. “You don’t talk about her much.”
Jensen sighs because he doesn’t have time for this. He needs to leave soon and not be late and visit his grandmother’s grave because it’s what they do. Once a year. “She was tall. Gave me candy. I didn’t have candy much ... Mom never let me.”
“She likes for you to eat healthy foods.”
Wasn’t a question so Jensen didn’t reply. He thought back to keeping a Mars bar hidden in the shoebox beneath his bed. There’d been a Three Musketeers there, too. On Valentine’s Day his grandmother had given him a Hershey Kiss. He’d unwrapped and popped it in his mouth immediately. His mom had thrown out the candy he’d brought home from school and he was feeling rebellious.
She’d come in the living room while Jensen was still chewing.
Mother, you aren’t ruining his teeth with that garbage are you?
He’s a child, dear.
I told you to stop giving him that stuff. Bad enough that girl down the street keeps stuffing him full of junk. I don’t want him getting it here, too.
You’re just afraid of getting fat and ending up alone. Don’t take it out on the boy because you don’t have an eighteen-year-old’s shape. Lot of good your figure did you the first time.
Jensen had swallowed down the last of the Kiss so quickly he felt nauseous. He excused himself and went to his room where he stared at the shoebox for a long time before taking it to the outside trash can and disposing of it like a thief in reverse.
Jensen comes back from his thoughts to hear Jared speaking quietly. “Okay, I understand you’d rather go alone.” He comes closer and brings his lips to Jensen’s. Falling into Jared’s kiss feels like floating, it’s warmer than a bath and softer than a feather and lately feels more necessary than air and Jensen pulls back. Scared.
The hand on his shoulder tightens before letting him go. “I’ll wait here for you though, if that’s okay.”
“Danni will be here by then.” He hates the words as soon as they pass his lips. Doesn’t want to reinforce the notion that he needs some sort of keeper. “You really don’t need to stay.”
Jared doesn’t say anything. After another minute he asks, “Bringing flowers or anything?”
This startles Jensen. He’d been thinking about that but he doesn’t remember saying anything aloud. He hates feeling that Jared just seems to know everything that passes through Jensen’s mind. It makes Jensen feel a step behind. “No. Mom doesn’t … No.”
“Yeah, I can kinda see that,” Jared agrees. “They’d just die there.”
“Good place for it.”
Jared chuckles darkly. “I guess.” He picks up the dish towel from the counter and twists it in his hands absently. Jared is always moving, always touching something. Often that something is Jensen.
“I gotta go,” Jensen says but it holds no conviction. He looks at his watch, sees he’s not quite late yet and starts a lazy tug of war with Jared over the dish towel. That earns him a dimpled smile.
“Were there flowers at her funeral?”
“Huh?”
Jensen’s fingers are tangled in the cloth and he’s being drawn in slowly by Jared’s tugs. He’s standing between Jared’s impossibly long legs as Jared sits on the counter stool. “Just wondered how far back your mother’s flower ban went.”
His grandmother’s funeral had been a big event. She hadn’t been a rich woman but she lived comfortably. The reverse mortgage she’d taken on her beach front home let her supplement her meager Social Security payments. Those kind of mortgages had been a new thing and he remembered how his mother had been against it.
Selfish bitch. Left us nothing. Well, at least we don’t have any of her debt. But that damn loan means the house is gone.
Jensen’s mother used what money was left to throw a lavish funeral.
Gotta show the town who we are, Jensen. Think they’re better than me because your useless father ran off. But I know how to bury my mother in style. Stand up straight. Father Kenney will be here soon.
Jensen didn’t like Father Kenney. He was short and round and reminded him of a toad. Danni and her parents went to a different church. The pastor there was tall and young and smiled like the sun was never going to set again. He was allowed to go with Danni and her family once in a while. After the funeral Jensen never saw Father Kenney again because Jensen’s mother never again set foot in a church.
Lying hypocrites. I heard that priest ended up in this loser parish because of issues at his last one. Jensen, did he ever do anything to you?
Like what?
Never mind. You’re such a crybaby I’d have heard all about it by now if anything happened.
“Mom thought our priest might have molested boys.”
“What?” Jared’s eyes are puzzled at the non sequitur but then darken in worry.
Jensen smiles. “Relax. He never touched me. Yeesh. Danni’s gonna have you believing all kinds of shit.”
Nah. The priest was a creep who talked for what seemed like hours on the cloudy day they buried his grandmother. In retrospect, Jensen thought Father Kenney probably never molested anybody. His mother had a tendency for drama, after all.
Near the coffin were large ornately framed photos of his grandmother. One of her in her twenties, sitting languidly alone and another of her and his grandfather on their wedding day.
And, yeah, flowers.
“There were so many flowers I started sneezing so much I thought my eyeballs were gonna fall out. Mom went all out. I remember she wore these huge tortoise shell sun glasses. Very Jackie O. And at the burial she held a white handkerchief.”
The hanky had stayed pristine. He’d watched her dab under the glasses occasionally but it had never gotten soiled.
Jared touches his face. Jensen moves into it without thinking. Yesterday they’d gone to the beach and Jared had said it was their six week anniversary. Jensen heard that along with Jared’s whispered I love you without saying anything. He’d watched the sun color the sky purple and orange and angry red. He’d watched Jared’s eyes turn from green to gold.
“I asked her about heaven,” he tells Jared now.
“You asked your mom about heaven?”
“Yeah. You know, if that’s where grandma went.”
Jared waits, hand playing now with the hairs at the back of Jensen’s neck. After a minute he asks, “What she say?”
Danni had told him that his grandmother was in heaven. That she’d be looking out for him now.
She’s in that hole in the ground, Jensen. That’s what dust to dust means.
“Mom turned away from the church. Her parents were into it, you know. An’ forced her to go every Sunday. We went until Grandma died. Then we never went again. I went with Danni sometimes to her church.”
“Do you think she’s in heaven, Jensen?”
“No,” he answers quickly. “It’s why I go to the cemetery. Closest I’m gonna get to visiting her.”
He studies Jared now defiantly. Thinks maybe he’s pissed him off. Certainly Jared believes in pearly gates and angels and puffy clouds. How could he not? He freakin’ oozes goodness. It’s why it won’t work. Why they are too different.
“I visit my grandparent’s grave, too. My momma’s folks are both gone.”
Jensen nods, curious. He knows that they are dead. Knows that Jared has two living grandparents left on his father’s side. “Yeah? You think they are there, when you visit?”
“Not exactly. But I feel closer to them when I’m there. I was older than you when they passed. Have more years of memories.”
“Bet you bring flowers.”
“Usually. Just some daises cause they were my grandmomma’s favorite. I know she doesn’t know they are there. I think we do those things for us. Because we know.”
Jensen looks at the time again. He really has to go pick up his mother now. Last thing he needs is to hear her whining that he was late.
He’s got visions of daisies now, nestled in a soft bunch leaning on a weathered white headstone. Jared leaning down to place them there, back curved and hair waving in a breeze.
“I can go with you if you like.” Again Jensen’s speaking before he’s aware of forming the thoughts. “To visit your grandparents. To bring daisies.”
Jared rises and walks him to the door. Jensen already has one hand on the knob when Jared tilts Jensen’s head up for a kiss. It’s deeper than the one before, but still more quiet warmth than rough sizzle and Jensen lets it wrap around him like a blanket.
“I’ll be right here,” Jared whispers, pulling away so Jensen can open the door. And Jensen forgets he thought Jared waiting for him was a bad idea.
fin
Continues chronologically in past indifferent seagulls
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Flowers in the Cemetery
By Suchoon Mo
Flowers come
To the cemetery
Flowers die
In the cemetery
No memorials
For flowers
In the cemetery
Not even in the cemetery