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Contrary to Castiel’s obvious expectations, Deanna Winchester is no instant fan of his. She’s not about to swoon and collapse into his arms, and she’s not about to do as he says just because he pulled her out of hell. Did she ask for a knight in shiny angel armour? No, she did not.
Dee’s always tried to be the elder son that her father wanted. She keeps her hair in short spikes and bristles, wears flattening sports bras under shapeless men’s clothes, indulges the side of her that likes frisky women and represses the part that sometimes buzzes hotly at the sight of a handsome man. She’s strong—stronger than many men and agile to boot—but the fact of the matter is her body will always let her down. Sam, who’s tall even for a guy and has built up muscles to fill out his gigantic stature, wanted nothing more than to sit down and exercise his brain. He likes to be sensitive and emotional and have long wavy locks of hair, but at the end of the day Sam did and will always succeed in being a man. No matter how hard Dee tried to be enough, she just had to live with knowing that if she’d been the one going off to college John wouldn’t have fought it half as hard as he did when Sam left.
So no, Dee does not want to play the damsel in distress for some dick angel when she’s spent her entire life fighting tooth and nail to escape that role, to prove that she’s here to save people, not just to be saved.
Watch out for Sammy, Dee was told before she even hit school-age, a tiny ring-in for a mother, which was much less sweet than people always seemed to think it was. Playing with dolls and clutching her baby brother in a house filled with fire and smoke were not the same thing. You didn’t risk your life for dolls. You didn’t have to give up your hopes and dreams for pieces of cheaply moulded plastic. Dee used to wonder whether she’d have been a doll sort of kid if she’d had the chance to keep toys. She doesn’t think so, but then she’ll never know for sure.
Shopping primarily at gas stations at least makes it easier to stick with what’s practical. Dee remembers one time in high school when she bought a pair of black patent shoes with couple-inch heels. She’d been with Rhonda Hurley, who’d made it her mission to ensure that Dee didn’t write anything off before she’d tried it. Rhonda had tossed a pair of pink satin panties at Dee one day when they were fooling around, and she had agreed (with suitable incentives) to try them. They were smooth and tight against her skin in a way that felt different to the elastic cling of her usual practical briefs. They felt like they were made to be shown off, like she could wear them under her clothes as an empowering, sexy secret. She’d obviously stared at her reflection in the mirror on Rhonda’s wardrobe for a few moments too long, because Rhonda had instructed Dee to keep the underwear, and then dragged her out to the mall.
Dad had been out on a week-long hunt and Sam was studying late at the school library, so Dee had an hour or two to spare. The shoes were reduced, their smooth soles plastered with layers of sale stickers until they were almost affordable. They pinched around Dee’s toes when she stood up, letting them take her weight, and in part it felt like she was going to fall over, slide away with the limited friction the floor tiles of the store provided—but they also made her feel... different. More different than she’d ever imagined a couple of inches under her heels could. When she walked, her hips waved from side to side of their own accord, accommodating for the straight-kneed movements of her legs. Suddenly she understood why models on catwalks strutted the way they did. The shoes were impractical; not built for running or hiking or any of the things Dee put her feet and her footwear through, but they gave her a different kind of power.
She brought the shoe box home and hid it under her bed. When Sam was asleep, she slipped her feet into them and walked quietly up and down the narrow carpeted part of the motel floor until the backs of her heels rubbed raw. Then she returned them to their box, returned the box to the dark under her bed. The following afternoon, she returned them to the store.
That had been mere weeks before she’d almost gotten herself and Dad killed on a werewolf hunt.
If she’d been in a knife fight, Dee would have assumed she’d been stabbed. The cramping came on suddenly, sharp needles of it shooting through her lower abdomen. Fuck; she was at least three days early, caught out. She grit her teeth against the discomfort, breathed slowly and forced it down. John was luring the creature into the alleyway where Dee was hiding, ready to jump out and shoot once it was cornered. As soon as the damned thing was dead, she could go home and shower and curl up and curse unnecessary uterus drama until she managed to fall asleep.
The werewolf rounded the corner, coming into her line of sight. It paused, sniffing the air curiously. Dee remained perfectly still, not even breathing, behind the dumpster where she was crouched. The werewolf met her gaze with wild eyes, and the whole plan went to hell.
The drive home that night was silent, but Dee’s head echoed all too loudly with everything that she knew John was thinking. Biological weakness, another failure that was set too deeply into her to ever overcome.
When they were home Dee sat quietly while John cleaned his scratches in the bathroom—her fault—and when it was finally her turn the guilt and pain merged into a nausea that emptied her stomach into the toilet. Painkillers never managed to do that much for her and they weren’t going to waste good ammo money on those tablets that were supposed to block the hormones (goddamn tampons are already expensive enough, Jesus; why does she always have to be such a burden), so Dee picked up the bottle of cheap whiskey John had left on the counter and chugged until the burn in her throat distracted her. If she cried, she was sure to do it soundlessly.
So that’s how it’s always been, Dee trying to look after her family, trying not to be the one who needs support, who steals time or effort or any other resource from anybody—and now fucking God, who she’s still not really convinced exists, sees fit to save her from the pit?
Castiel, the very-slightly-less-douchey-than-the-other-one angel, calls her the Righteous Man, as though he’s missed the fact that not only is she far from righteous, but she isn’t even a man. It is a generalisation, the angel explains in that gravelly voice. You are one of mankind; your gender is of little concern. And it’s nice, really, that he thinks that, because her gender has never been anything but a concern. Dee laughs bitterly.
The more run-ins they have, though, the more Dee begins to accept that Cas really doesn’t notice whether she’s male or female or anything in between. He doesn’t seem to notice whether he is, either, his vessel being a human body to occupy and nothing more. To him, Dee isn’t weak because she’s a girl, but because she’s a human—and at the same time, he seems to think she is strong, not because of anything her body does, but because her soul was chosen for some weirdo top secret heavenly plan.
Dee has the sudden conviction that she could wear pink satin panties around and Cas wouldn’t mind one bit, wouldn’t even recognise any of the implications and connotations that the garment carried with it. She likes that about him. Cas might be bossy and dense and somewhat misguided, but it’s not really his fault that Dee has cultivated so strong an aversion to being saved. So maybe it’s okay to forgive him for that.