Chapter Text
It started on a hunt, as most things did. Sam was dropped off at the library to spend the day researching their target while Dean and their father scoped out the town. Even on the most benign missions, Sam was never allowed to join the boys. Nobody wanted to put the little girl in danger.
So there Sam sat, hunched over a pile of books, trying to dig up some dirt on supernatural creatures that could shift genders. They didn’t have much to go off of yet, so she had to cast a pretty wide net when grabbing titles off the shelves.
At least, that’s what she convinced herself. That was the reason her hand had landed on a book with the word transgender in the title. The word was unfamiliar, yet it sparked an inexplicable feeling in the pit of Sam’s stomach. She pored over the pages, continuing to read even after it was evident there was nothing supernatural about the book’s contents.
She read and read and read, until the old pager in her pocket buzzed. Dad was calling. Sam slammed the book shut, face hot. Shame coiled in her gut.
She didn’t touch that book again for the duration of the hunt, trying to shake off whatever she had just read. But sometimes, late at night, Sam allowed herself to remember the word that was burned into her memory. Transgender.
~
The visions started around the same time puberty started to rear its ugly head.
Sam was staring at the reflection in the mirror, the locked bathroom door separating Sam from the rest of the motel room. Pressing down hard on her sports bra, she tried to neutralize her chest as much as possible beneath her hand-me-down flannel. The image in the mirror became slightly more bearable. With her ponytail hiding her hair, Sam could almost be mistaken for a boy. Almost.
A searing pain in the front of her skull forced Sam’s hand to drop and clutch at her forehead. Images splayed in her head: an upside down clock, a crucifix hanging from a woman’s neck, a baby crying, blood splattered on white tiles.
“Sammy!” Dean was shaking her shoulders.
Sam blinked. She was crouched on the bathroom floor with a raging headache, and Dean’s eyes were filled with poorly veiled concern. From the corner of her eye, she spotted the busted lock on the door.
“Sorry,” Sam coughed out. “Just… felt a little dizzy for a second.”
Dean furrowed his eyebrows. “Sammy, I was knocking on that door for five minutes. The hell are you talking about, ‘a little dizzy’?”
“I—” But Sam didn’t know how to explain herself without sounding insane. They already didn’t let her close to any of their cases sheerly for being a girl; Sam wasn’t about to give them another reason to deem her unfit for the hunt by admitting to having a freakshow vision.
“It’s girl stuff,” she scrambled to explain. Dean gave her a bewildered look. “You wouldn’t understand. You know… period stuff.” Sam jutted her head out, eyes wide, threatening Dean to press the issue.
Dean looked anywhere but Sam’s face, visibly uncomfortable with the direction this conversation had taken. “Look, just,” he ran his hand over his face. “Next time, leave the door unlocked, will ya? You damn near gave me a heart attack.”
~
Sam was ready to write off the instance as some weird sleep-deprived hallucination. Lately she’d been spending nights staring up at the motel ceilings, trying not to think about the dread she felt every time Dad ordered Dean to watch out for his little sister.
Then it happened. A few days later, the Winchesters were out eating at a diner, some local hole in the wall. They had been investigating a series of murders in the town. Their father had narrowed it down to demonic possession, but the vessel seemed to be constantly changing. He and Dean were discussing patterns while Sam pored over the local newspapers, trying desperately to prove she could be helpful.
“Another beer?” the waitress asked, earning a barely audible grunt from John.
Sam gave her an apologetic smile on his behalf. The bright neon lights outside the window reflected off the waitress’s necklace, casting a red glow on her silver cross.
She gave Sam a slight nod before leaving the table, and Sam watched her go. There was something about her that Sam couldn’t take her eyes off of. It wasn’t the first time she had let her gaze wander for a little too long on another girl, but she knew better than dare to utter a word about it. Still, Sam stared after her, brows furrowed.
When the waitress disappeared behind a door, Sam’s eye caught on the space of the wall above it. She blinked, but the image before her was still the same. A retro clock, dubiously hung upside down.
“Dean.”
“—doesn’t make sense, Dad,” Dean turned his head sideways to meet Sam’s eyes. “What is it, Sammy?”
“Dean, you have to—” Sam’s plea was cut off by a visceral scream from behind the kitchen door.
All heads in the diner whipped toward the sound. At some distant table, an infant started wailing. John was already on the move, twisting open a flask of holy water. Sam rushed forward, but Dean held her back before she could pass through the kitchen door.
“Dad’s got it covered, Sammy,” Dean grunted. “Stay back.”
“You don’t understand, I—”
Another scream emerged from behind the door. Sam pushed out of Dean’s grip and darted inside. Their father stood alone in the kitchen, the waitress’s body sprawled out on the floor. White tile. Blood. Sam flinched.
“The damn demon,” John was muttering.
“Did you—?” Dean’s eyes shifted between his father and the corpse beside him. Sweat shone on his forehead.
“I exorcized it,” John explained. “But not before that son of a bitch stabbed itself.” He shook his head. “At least the job’s over now.”
Dean’s face was pale as he nodded, still staring at what was left of the waitress.
Sam’s mind was going a hundred miles a minute. It couldn’t be true. There was no way. But Sam knew what she saw, just days before, crouched in the motel bathroom. An upside down clock, a crucifix, a baby crying, blood splattered on white tiles.
It was impossible, surely. But the Winchesters dealt with the impossible daily.
~
Sam stood in front of the bathroom mirror, fluorescent lights casting sharp shadows on her face. In her hand were a pair of haircutting shears, fancy and silver. With her other hand, Sam freed her hair from its ponytail and took a deep breath, bringing the scissors up near her neck.
A knock on the door startled Sam, the scissors dropping to the floor with a metallic clang. Sam reached for the door and found Dean on the other side.
Dean’s eyes searched for the source of the loud noise and raised his eyebrow when he spotted the scissors. “Where’d you get those?”
“Found them.” Sam didn’t elaborate. Dean gave an approving smirk.
“Finally getting rid of those nasty split ends?” he teased. “Really, Sammy, it’s gotten distracting.”
Sam frowned. “What do you want, Dean?”
“Needed to take a leak,” he said, pushing Sam out of the way. “But hey, I can give you a hand if you want. With the hair?”
“Sure,” Sam said, trying not to sound too excited as she picked the scissors off the floor and passed them to Dean.
“How short are we going?” he asked, running his hand through the ends of Sam’s hair.
Sam swallowed, wiping her hands on her pajama pants. It was just hair. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal. And yet.
Face burning, Sam lifted her fingers to the space beneath her ear, right where her jaw jutted out. “How about to here?” Sam asked, voice cracking slightly. She cleared her throat.
“You sure?” Dean asked, his tone unreadable.
Sam nodded.
The next morning, John glanced over in Sam’s direction when she came out of the shower. He turned back to his journal before his brain caught up and he turned back, staring at Sam’s haircut. He frowned, and Sam felt her face heat up.
“Jesus. You look like a dyke,” was all John muttered, shaking his head. He took a sip of his coffee and buried his head in his journal once again.
~
The haircut was a key that opened the door Sam had been locked out of for ages.
To avoid wearing the halter tops and girls’ leggings John had thrifted, Sam started re-wearing outfits from the small pile of Dean’s outgrown clothes multiple days a week. It got so bad Dean had to intervene.
“Seriously, dude,” he said. “You reek. Take a shower every once in a while.”
Sam’s cheeks flushed, but there was an undeniable feeling of pride at Dean’s casual use of the word dude.
Sam remembered that book from years ago, the one that had led to countless sleepless nights of shameful curiosity and dangerous hope. One summer night, when the others were out on a hunt, Sam slipped on Dean’s signature leather jacket and posed in the mirror.
He didn’t look half bad.