Title: That Word
Rating: T
Words: 379
Warning: Language
Genre: Drama/General
Summary: Cyborg reflects on words, and what they can mean.
Troq.
Valyor called her that, over and over. And she just took it. She never said anything, not until I jokingly said it, and she blew up at me.
She asked if I knew what it was like, being judged on what you look like. I said yes—I was half-robot. A cyborg.
I also lied.
People today give me dirty looks, muttering about the half-human monstrosity. But even before my accident, I was treated on how I looked. I didn't know what it meant then, when kids at school called me names as I played. When a woman at the grocery store pushed her cart away from my family and me.
Tar baby.
Devil's spawn.
Nigger.
It's in human nature to judge people. That doesn't make it right. But when I get dirty looks now, I ask about it. I ask them loudly, publicly, if they are calling me names based on my metal skin, or my dark one. They always hesitate—I have yet to meet one that doesn't. I just don't understand why Starfire didn't do anything about being called troq. 'It means nothing,' she said, and that's a lie too. It never means nothing. There's always some kind of effect that words have on people, especially ones given with malevolence. The words that are aimed to hurt always do, whether the victim attacks back or shrugs them off.
She's still hurting, I can tell. She'd really hoped that Valyor's views would change. I didn't want to tell her sometimes they never do, and certainly not after only one day, one fight. Robin and Beastboy don't understand, not quite. All they can guess is that it was an awful word, like calling her a bitch. It was much worse than that. Raven knows a little more about it, from what Starfire has told her—girls always talk, no matter who they are—and maybe Raven's been called some bad things too, 'cause of her father and all.
I can tell her that it stops hurting so bad, after a while. That you just have to wrap yourself with people who would never ever call you something like that, not even in play, and remember that some people actually look on the inside.
I hope it helps.
Written in fifteen minutes after the Teen Titans episode Troq. Unbeta'd, with just the rudimentary spell-check and grammar-check. I'll probably clean this up at a later date.
Please review, they let me know if people do like it or hate it or whatever. Constructive Critisism is the best thing in the world. 3