I know where the plot bunnies have all gone - they are in the meeting rooms. Every time I go to a boring meeting, a plot bunny is lurking, lying in wait...
DISCLAIMER: CW and That Kripke person own 'em, although if that Gamble woman doesn't knock it off, I may suggest that she is not a fit and proper person to be custodian. Blowing up Singer Salvage indeed...
TITLE: Daddy, What's Sex?
SUMMARY: An unexpected question from four year old Dean leaves John fighting the impulse to say 'Go and ask your Mother'.
RATING: K
BLAME: Boring meetings. And an interest in homophones, and dreadful puns.
Daddy, What's Sex?
"Dean's so good with his brother," remarked their neighbour, watching Dean hover protectively as baby Sammy tried to sit up on the blanket. She was an elderly lady, and John had just finished mowing her front lawn for her.
"He sure is," he smiled, watching as Dean carefully removed a handful of grass from the pudgy fist before Sam could shove it into his mouth, "He takes the whole big brother thing very seriously. Has done from day one.
"It seems like just a little while ago he was a baby himself," she sighed. "He's growing up so fast, John. Enjoy it while you can – next thing you know, he'll be wanting to borrow the car, and getting into God knows what after dark..."
"Not until he's twenty-five," John told her with a roll of his eyes. She laughed, and thanked him for the mowing.
He pushed the mower back into the garage, and wiped his hands on a shop rag. She was right, really. It seemed like only yesterday that his first-born baby boy was a tiny, pink squalling bundle he could hold in one arm, and now suddenly he was a blonde tornado of a kid with a gap-toothed smile, and a precocious fondness for things mechanical. Dean was attending kindergarten, and it seemed that every week, his world was expanding beyond the horizons of the family home, and he was asking questions. "Daddy, why is the sky blue?" "Daddy, where do potatoes come from?" "Daddy, how do fish breathe under the water?" It suddenly hit him that his baby boy was indeed growing up.
He felt a sudden pang that was a mixture of sadness and pride at the thought that one day, when his sons were grown, he would remember seeing then play on a blanket in the garden, and would probably wonder, How did they grow up so fast?
"Daddy?" Dean's voice pulled him from his thoughts. His oldest stood in the door of the garage, looking at him with a serious expression.
"Hey tiger," John responded smiling, "What's up?"
"Daddy," repeated Dean, "What's sex?"
John felt his stomach turn a somersault.
Yep, the boy is growing up...
His first impulse was to blurt 'Go and ask your Mother,' but he suspected that Mary would accuse him of rank cowardice. And she'd be completely right. He'd been to pick up Dean after kinder one day; Dean had asked "Why does Liam's willy look different to mine?", in the peculiarly loud and carrying voice that children reserve for asking embarrassing questions in public places, John had been flustered into squeaking out 'Askyourmotherwhenyougethome,' and Mary had left him in no doubt as to her opinion of a man who couldn't even give his son a very basic explanation of circumcision.
So he took a deep breath, and sat down on a crate.
"Well, kiddo," he began, picking Dean up, and sitting his boy on his knee, "It's all about how babies get born..."
It felt like kind of a milestone, he thought, as he sat there, with his eldest, a father and son talk, using simple language – and at one point, a bolt and washer – to explain in terms a four year old would understand, what sex was. Dean listened, transfixed.
"So," smiled John when he'd finished, "Does that explain it?"
Dean looked dubious, almost as if he didn't believe his father, but he nodded. "Yes, Daddy," he answered, the serious look still on his face.
"That's a very grown-up question, Dean," John ruffled his son's hair. "What made you want to ask about sex?"
"It was something Mommy said," Dean replied, sliding off his father's knee.
"Really?" John chuckled to himself, thinking what fun he would have teasing his wife – Mary had inadvertently said something, maybe to a friend who was visiting, and Dean had picked up on it. The kid was smart. He watched, and listened, and he missed nothing. "What did Mommy say about sex?"
"She said I should come out and tell you," Dean headed back to the house, "That you should come inside and wash up, because lunch will be ready in a few of them."
THE END
*tish-BOOM!"