Archive of Our Own ^beta

Claire’s hands are beaten and bloody. The skin on their knuckles is split open, and there are bleeding divots where their fingers dug into their palm. “Don’t touch me!” they hiss to Cas, who backs off them when they ask. Avoiding all the adults, they lock themself into Jack’s room. Pulling out a first aid kit, they begin to tend to their own wounds.

“Are you okay?” Jack asks, appearing on the bed next to them. He looks down at the blood and begins reaching for their hands. Claire flinches away, and he draws his hands back. “What happened?”

Claire doesn’t feel like answering, so they just smear disinfectant across the wounds. Jack gets the message, so he just takes out his phone. Flipping to his pirated Spotify, he pulls out the playlist he made for Claire. He plugs in his earbuds and he offers one to Claire. They look at it for a second before nodding. He brushes away a bit of their hair and presses it into her ear, before pressing the other into his. He presses play, and then stops visibly paying attention to Claire.

They seem to like this, Jack scrolling through Instagram while they patch up their hands. They do it methodically, the same way Dean cleans his guns or Cas tends to his bees. Something comforting in the methods, in the steps. Finally, as the final bandage is wrapped around their pale skin and they’ve put everything back into the kit, Jack looks over at them.

“Can you talk now?” he puts his phone away to indicate that if they can, he’ll dedicate all his attention to them.

“It’s just…” they start, but apparently it’s filled with too much emotion for them, because they scream. Jack covers his free ear, but he lets them scream. “Are people ever mean because you look too much like a boy to be nonbinary?” they ask, and Jack considers it for a second.

“Yes.” he finally answers, and Claire nods.

“That’s what happened.” they pick at their bandages, and Jack takes their hand to get them to stop. “I beat them up. Obviously. But they said my hair was too long, and that my name was too feminine, and that it wasn’t even a real thing.” They clench the fist that isn’t being held by Jack, and he takes that hand too, trying to stop Claire from hurting themself.

“They aren’t here, and they weren’t right.” Jack says, and apparently that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back for Claire because they start sobbing. Jack offers his shoulder, and lets Claire sob into it. He lets go of their hands so that they can fall into a hug. He squeezes them tight, stroking their blond hair with one hand.

“Can we cut my hair after this?” they ask. “I promise it’s not some ‘heat of the moment’ shit, I’ve been considering it for a while.”

Jack nods. “Yeah, we can.” they sit there like that for a while more, Jack comforting Claire as they cry. After Claire’s tears are dried and they aren’t picking at their bandages anymore, Jack goes and gets some scissors.

They aren’t hair scissors, but luckily they aren’t safety scissors either, so Claire didn’t have any qualms as they sat in front of Jack’s mirror. Behind them, Jack took a clump of their hair and hacked through it with the scissors. They already had an undercut, so it was quick work to chop it short and shaggy.

Jack sets the scissors aside, waving his hand to dismiss the hair lying all over the floor. Claire beams at themself in the mirror. They run their hand through it, feeling the new length brush against the unbandaged parts of their hands.

“I love it.” they say. “Let’s go show Dean, Cas, and Sam.”

“First, do you want me to heal your hands?” Claire looks down at their hands. Blood is somewhat leaking through the bandages, staining the white with red.

“No.” They move to pick a little more at the bandages, but stop themself. “I like it.” Jack doesn’t think this makes sense, but he lets it be. People are weird. “You ready to show your dads?”

“Yeah!” Jack stands up, and so does Claire. Together, they go to show their family. (“ Our dads.” Jack corrects).