Monsters - SN fic - PG

[tigriswolf]

Title: Monsters
Fandom: "Supernatural"
Disclaimer: not my characters, Johnny, Mary, Dean, or Sammy. 
Warnings: pre-pilot--lilWin fic
Pairings: mentions of John/Mary
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 880
Point of view: third
Notes: So, it seems to me, Dean's not prejudiced at all.  I figure there's got to be a reason why.
More notes: part of my Dean canon

 

               

            On Dean’s third day of second grade in Biloxi, Mississippi, he came home scowling. John was there to greet him, and Sammy jumped all around him, begging for attention.

So Dean played with Sammy for a while. John watched, wondering what could possibly have happened at school, but knew that asking would have to wait until Sam was entertained elsewhere.

Eventually, Sam tired out(the fact that John had taken him to the park earlier, for hours, helped.) and lay down on the beat-up old couch. He was sleeping fairly quickly, but he’d be awake again before nightfall, and probably be up half the night. His infant sleeping patterns seemed to be sticking and John could only hope eventually they’d fade. 

“What happened today at school, son?” John questioned, heating up some soup on the stove. Dean sat at the table, the pieces of a gun scattered in front of him. John was both saddened and pleased that Dean could reassemble it in under a minute and a half.   When Dean looked up, John met his eyes. “Anything interesting, fun?”

Dean’s eyes were veiled, another trick most second graders couldn’t manage. “No, Dad,” he answered, and looked back down at the gun.

“Dean,” John said, a command.

His eldest, his little soldier, clenched his fists. “There was a fight today at school,” he muttered without looking up.

“A fight,” John repeated. “I wasn’t called.”

Dean shrugged. “The teachers didn’t know about it.”

“And this fight,” John mused, moving the soup to another burner and turning the stove off, “You’re not happy about it?”

“I don’t understand it, Dad.” Suddenly, Dean’s voice was almost frantic, nearly scared.

John walked to the table and sat next to Dean, asked, “What don’t you understand, son?”

“Vince Turner,” Dean started, “called Billy Jamison something, and I think it’s a bad thing, and it hurt Billy's feelings, so he jumped on Vince, but then Vince’s friends got involved and Billy was fighting alone, and he was losing so—” He stopped suddenly, looked up at John.

“So you jumped in,” John finished. Dean nodded. “What’s your question, Dean?”

“After everybody was running off, Vince yelled something at me,” Dean explained, glancing down at his hands. “And I just… I don’t understand, Dad.”

“Dean,” John told him gently, “I can’t answer if I don’t know the question. I can’t explain if I don’t know what you’re not understanding.”

“I don’t want to get in trouble for repeating something bad.”

“Dean, I promise, you won’t get in trouble.”

Without looking up from the table, Dean said, “He called Billy a nigger and me a nigger-lover. It really, really bothered Billy, but I…”

“Oh,” John answered, wishing he had something better to say. He remembered his own father, his brothers—they’d never minced words and they thought themselves better than everyone. But his mom—she’d been a good woman and did her best to shelter her sons from their father’s teaching. She only succeeded with John. And Mary, Mary hadn’t had a prejudiced bone in her body.

John moved him and the boys around so much, hunted and trained himself, and Dean, so often, he just didn’t have time to teach them about the outside world and what all manner of men lived in it.

Oh, he’d explained to Dean that some grown-ups were bad, that if anyone tried to touch him while John wasn’t there, tried to take him or Sam, exactly what Dean should do. But he hadn’t fully explained why yet, and he dreaded that day. And he was ashamed of himself for knowing that Dean would do what he said without thinking. Especially if Sam was in danger. 

“Dean…” he began and trailed off. He searched for how to explain, how to tell Dean that the people who didn’t know what lived in the dark made monsters of their own kind, believed they walked higher, believed they were better. “Some people don’t like other people because of how they look.”

Dean raised his head. “But… why not?”

John shrugged. “It’s the way it’s always been, son. They look at skin color or eye shape or some other trait and make judgments. It isn’t right and it isn’t fair, but…”

Dean slid out of the chair and walked over to the stove. He picked up two bowls, ladled soup into them, and dropped them off at the table before going to the counter and getting two spoons. “So, what Vince said…?”

“Is a slur against blacks, yes.” 

“And what he said to me?”

“Is, too.”

They silently ate their soup for a minute and John mulled over what Dean’d told him. Mary would be proud of her son, her darling boy. Very proud. 

And so was John.

Finally, Dean spoke again. “I just don’t understand, Dad.” 

“People fear the different, Dean. You know that. But they’re just words. And words only have meaning, only have value, if you let them.”  Dean looked up again, eyes hazel and huge. In his gaze, John saw Mary and he smiled. “It doesn’t make sense, Dean. I know that. But that’s the way the world is.”

“Will it ever not be that way?”

Dean sounded so young, so hopeful. “Honestly, Dean? I don’t know.”

Dean nodded and went back to his soup.   

Comments

[astrothsknot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a real pain to try and explain something to kids that you don't understand yourself

[tigriswolf]

Thank you for reading!

Personally, I don't understand racism and prejudice at all. Last time I checked, we all bleed red and cry clear.

[janissa11.livejournal.com]

Aw, sweet baby Dean. No, it isn't something you can ever really understand, honey. And bless you for calling it so honestly.

[tigriswolf]

Bless you for reading!

no one knows

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think people who are racist even understand it, it's just one of them forever mysteries. Like: what came first, the chicken or the egg?

Re: no one knows

[tigriswolf]

Thank you for reading!

[embroiderama]

*sniffle* This made me teary-eyed both for Dean being so brave and confused and for John thinking about how proud Mary would be.

[tigriswolf]

Thank you for reading!

[dodger21.livejournal.com]

Beautiful and heartbreaking. Such powerfull words and an honest explaination. This was touching.

I love to think of Dean as loving everyone and not seeing anything but other people. This was good!

[tigriswolf]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[ewanspotter.livejournal.com]

Excellent job.

[tigriswolf]

Thank you so much! I seem to be experimenting lately, and I am so glad I have room to stretch.

[cole-chan.livejournal.com]

Love it. Dean would so react like that.

Fantastic writing as always :)

[tigriswolf]

Thank you!

[belleimani.livejournal.com]

This just...broke me. Damn. Well done.
::is crying::

[tigriswolf]

I know this is late, but thank you for reading! Somehow, this comment got lost. Sorry!

[belleimani.livejournal.com]

You're welcome and no problem!

[taniapretender.livejournal.com]

OMG SO CUTE

Ok. Hum. Stuff like racism...it's not something you explain, it's something you learn.

I know a lot of people who spit on the poor, like everything wrong in the society is their fault ( when, clearly, when you don't own anything, how could you be held responsible for anything ? )

I think it's about feeling safe and secure. You feel safe with stuff you know, like behaviors, words you get. When you grow up in a family of white people, and you never get to play in the playground with black people...Well, then you don't feel safe around them, because they're too different from the things you're used to have around.

I guess I can understand some of them. Like people who fear different people because of something that happened in their life. Like maybe, they were attacked, or their mother was, by a black person, so they feel threatened around them. I know what you'd say, they wouldn't feel threatened around white people if the attacker had been white, but again, so is their mother, and their father, and their brother. They still have the security of trusting blindly some white people, so they can go on.

I don't know if that made sense. Racism doesn't really either.

[tigriswolf]

Thank you for reading!

[cal-j-fielding.livejournal.com]

lovely story, conveying a good point, racism is just irational isn't it, hardest thing I ever had to do was explain to a 7 year old what the word nigger meant, especially as it had just been directed at him

...and yeah Dean doesn't seem to be predudiced at all, it always annoys me a little if stories implay he is, even something as small as having him implying women can't do something because they are a women...cause I've never seen evidence of that at all...i think i read one once (a really good story actually) that had a line where Sam said Dean would be pissed at him for letting a girl drive his car, ad I remeber thinking, oh Dean will be pissed, but because you let anyone drive his car, not because it was a girl...but yeah, babbling sorry.

Thanks for writing this it was lovely.

[tigriswolf]

Thank you for reading!