[Fic] ramblin_rosie: When the badger grows horns
[ Theme: Ethnicity/Race Bending ]
Title: When the badger grows horns
Writer:ramblin_rosie
Status of work: complete
Characters and/or pairings: John, Mary, Sam, Dean, others
Rating: Gen. PG-13
Warnings, kinks & contents: [Click to read]canon character deaths, racial slurs
Length: 25,000
Summary: John Ashiihi Winchester was a warrior at heart, but once he left Dinétah, not even his beloved Grandmother Chee could foresee where his path would lead him-or his sons.
Reccer's notes:
What if…John Winchester was a traditionally raised Diné (Navaho)?
This story is mostly set pre-season, beginning with John joining the Marines-because “it was a good and honorable thing for a Diné warrior to be a United States Marine.” The story then takes us through his meeting with Mary and his introduction to the supernatural, right up to where the canon pilot starts-with an epilogue set around the time Sam is resurrected from the pit.
It’s the basic background story we’re all familiar with…told with a twist. The Diné people are largely matrilineal; family is important, as is the hogan, the sacred home that every traditional family must have for ceremonies and to keep themselves in balance-even if they live elsewhere or in a modern home most of the time. How would the existence of a home they could return to and a family with strong female role models affect Sam and Dean’s upbringing and values? How would belief in a different religion affect the Winchesters’ experience of hunting? What effect would being perceived as ‘the other’ by the dominant white culture have on their hunting practise? The writer answers these questions with sensitivity and insight, and she had the story beta read by someone with personal ties to Diné culture too.
If you’re a fan of Sam and Dean being on the same page almost all of the time; if you’re a fan of John being portrayed as an honourable man with integrity who’s doing his best while being completely out of his depth; if you enjoy the opportunity to read about an interesting culture other than your own (or if you are Diné, the opportunity to see how your own culture affects a familiar story) then you should definitely read When the badger grows horns. As an added bonus, there are four more stories in this series, which are also worth a read; the series is known as the Dinéchesters AU.
[Short excerpt]John almost didn’t have the nerve to go through with the fourth ghost hunt. But Bobby called his friends Rufus and Caleb, and the four of them together went to the graveyard to dispatch the spirit. At Bobby’s insistence, however, John did all the work while the other men stood guard. “I know it ain’t what you’ve been taught,” said Bobby, “but if you’re gonna hunt, you’ve gotta be prepared to take out anything you find, even if it’s already dead. Especially if it’s already dead.”
It was an old ghost that had killed ten people in the last year alone, and it was a racist; its first target at the graveside was Rufus, who shot it before it could do more than force him backward a step. Then it spotted John and started screaming slurs even Bobby had never heard before. Somehow that angered John enough to finish the digging and pour the salt and lighter fluid over the bones, and he felt a fierce satisfaction at the terror on the ghost’s face when he tossed the match into the grave and at the scream the thing gave as the fire sent it to the Burning-Pitch-Place.
As the other men slapped him on the back and escorted him back to the car for a beer while they waited for the fire to burn out, something deep down clicked back into place, something that had been irritatingly loose since he’d returned from Vietnam and worse since Mary’s death. He knew at last where he belonged, who he was as a Diné warrior, what it meant to be of the Campbell Clan of Lawrence, Kansas.
Saving people, hunting things. The family business.
He could do this.