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Dean doesn’t know what to do about Sammy.
Curled around his little brother, breathing deep and dead asleep, the same memory keeps on replaying behind Dean’s closed eyelids.
Sam, in front of the bathroom mirror, pushing at his chest to make his pecs look like a cleavage. He has got his hair pushed behind his ears, and while he looks the same as always, this time, inexplicably, it reads as feminine. He is smiling at himself, sweet and a little shy, and Dean swallows thickly.
Sam, slender and soft-faced, looks like a girl. He is trying to look like a girl.
With his mouth suddenly Sahara-dry, Dean doesn’t even think to back out of the bathroom and quietly close the door behind himself. Instead, he keeps standing in the doorway, gaping at his little brother.
“Sammy?” Even to his own ears, Dean sounds unsure and confused.
As Sam catches Dean’s eyes in the mirror, his own eyes widen frantically. He whirls around, red-faced and indignant, and covers his chest with his hands as if Dean hasn’t seen him naked a thousand times before.
“What—” Dean starts to ask, but Sam interrupts him by shoving hard against his chest.
“GET OUT!” Sam screeches, his expression somewhere between humiliated and panicked. Dean retreats with his hands held up placatingly, a hundred reassurances dying on his tongue because what the fuck. When Sam slams the door in his face, Dean stumbles over his own feet and falls flat on his ass. He is still too stunned to really feel the dull pain of the fall.
“Ever heard of knocking, jerk?!”
One week later, and neither of them has mentioned the incident with so much as a word. Of course they haven’t.
Dean can hear their father’s voice even now, making derogatory comments as they pass by a group of people parading in the street: men and women with colorful flags and bright smiles, men kissing other men and women holding hands. Beardless, soft-faced men and women with wide shoulders and strong jaws. They’d seemed happy.
Dean had hurriedly looked away from the group as his father started ranting, his cheeks heating as he remembered the kissing men and wondered what it would be like to kiss another boy—a mouth was a mouth, he liked looking at guys just as much as girls, and he loved kissing girls, so—Dean had shut the thought down quickly.
John had looked appalled. Disgusted.
Fairies, faggots, queers, John’s voice now spits in his mind. Freaks.
Morally corrupt, John had called those people, perverted, sick, abnormal—all the things the kid in Dean’s arms is decidedly not. It doesn’t matter that Sammy is a bit weird sometimes, he could not be further from that.
Dean sighs quietly, feeling lost, and pulls Sam closer against his chest. He is warm, and solid, much stronger than most kids his age and still a full head smaller than Dean.
Sammy, his little brother, who maybe doesn’t want to be his little brother.
Sam, Sammy, little sister, Dean tries the sound of it out in his mind. Samuel. Samantha. Sammy.
“Baby sister,” he whispers into Sam’s ridiculously long hair, just to taste the idea on his tongue, so quiet he can barley hear himself.
Now that the thought has made itself at home inside his mind, Dean feels kind of bad about always teasing Sam for his girly hair. Though maybe Sam took that as a compliment. He always blushes so prettily whenever Dean says it, and Dean loves embarrassing Sam. But maybe the color in Sam’s cheeks didn’t entirely stem from embarrassment. That would be a relief.
Dean should probably stop threatening to cut off Sam’s hair. If it means this much to him…
Christ. But if it is true, if Dean is not completely misinterpreting things and Sam really wants to be a girl—how does this work exactly, anyway? Does Sam want to be a girl, or does he feel like a girl? Does he think he is a girl stuck in the wrong body? Is it something new or has Sam always felt like this? How come Dean is noticing just now?—if Sam really wants to be a girl, their father can’t find out.
Sure, Dean always jokes that Sammy is a freak, because he is. But Dean doesn’t want Sam to be miserable or anything.
Is this making Sam miserable?
Sam has to be aware of what their father, what most of society thinks about people like… people who don’t fit in. Is he scared? Is he—Jesus, is he afraid of what Dean will think of him, that he won’t accept him? Dean will always love Sammy. He will always have his back. Sammy is his little brother—little sibling—and Dean will always be there for him. Doesn’t Sam know that?
Dean makes a decision.
*
“Man, I wish I had a big brother like you. You’re so sweet!” Lindsay says for maybe the tenth time today, and Dean nods along to her words and pretends like they aren’t still making him blush. They are standing in front of a shelf stocked with nail polishes in all colors of the rainbow. The next shelf over holds make-up supplies—Dean has zero idea what all of it is—and he is carrying a shopping basket already filled with girly shampoo, conditioner and a skirt.
“Okay, so… What’s your sister’s favorite color?” Lindsay inquires, her eyes roving over the many tiny bottles. Dean’s heart is beating half out of his chest, his hands are sweaty, what is he doing—
“Huh?” he asks smartly, just now realizing his friend asked him a question.
“Samantha, what’s her favorite color?”
“Oh,” Dean says, then answers, “blue-green? I think.”
“Turquoise?”
“Yeah. That.”
“Great! Then,” Lindsay leans over the assortment of turquoise nail polishes, considering the different hues before settling on one that has a metallic shimmer in it, “how about this one?”
Dean takes it, turning it this way and that, honestly mesmerized by the swirling colors. Realizing how much the different shades remind him of Sam’s eyes in different lighting conditions is what finally convinces him.
“This one’s great. She’s gonna love it.”
Dean really hopes he is right.
*
Lindsay made Dean buy a second, pink nail polish for herself, so Dean could practice painting nails on her. Maybe that was more self-serving, but Dean honestly doesn’t mind. He likes Lindsay, and he is grateful for her help.
After one of their dates, their bellies filled with pie and satisfied after achieving great orgasms together, she’d asked him about his family. She had been very open about hers—her parents were divorced, her father had to travel a lot for work so she rarely saw him, her mother was controlling and closed minded, but she got along well with her stepdad and sister. Dean had hesitated for a moment before telling her about his own little sister, Samantha.
“I think she’d like to try more feminine things, you know?”
“Like what?” Lindsay had asked, cuddled to his side and tracing her fingers over his naked chest. Her long nails had caught on the string of his necklace and she had wrapped it around her fingers, lost in though.
“Like—like make-up. Nail polish, wearing skirts. That sorta thing.”
“Aw. How old is she?”
“Fourteen,” Dean had said, then quickly added, “our dad’s just really… I don’t know. He thinks that stuff is ridiculous. Ya know. I don’t think he’d like Sammy wearing skirts, nail polish, make-up… I don’t care either way. Just want her to be happy. And if she wants to try…”
It had been hard, sticking to female pronouns while thinking of Sam, and Dean is still proud of himself for not slipping up around Lindsay. She already knew about their family constantly moving, how John had started teaching Sam and Dean how to shoot and fight from an early age. Her aunt owned the motel they were staying in, which was how they’d met; the motel had an adjoining bar where she helped out on weekends. Dean and her were around the same age, but Lindsay went to the private school a little out of town, so she hadn’t actually met Sam.
Lindsay didn’t rat Dean out for underage drinking. In return, Dean agreed to take her on a date. They got along great and shared a mutual understanding that they weren’t in it for the long run but simply a fun time.
“Sammy is too shy, though. She’d never say a thing if that’s what she wanted. So I was thinking—maybe I could buy her some things, you know, surprise her.”
Lindsay had made a very high, very delighted noise.
“That’s so sweet of you!”
“Yeah, uh,” Dean had stammered a little and been grateful it was dark enough that Lindsay shouldn’t be able to see his blush, “I’ve no idea what to get her, though. Not like I’m an expert on these kinda things.”
‘These kinda things’ including brothers that maybe wanted to be sisters instead, not that he was gonna tell her that. Lindsay had giggled.
“Okay, how about this: Next Friday, I’m taking you shopping,” Lindsay had suggested with a sparkle in her eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re paying. But I’ll help you pick out some things for your sister.”
So they had done that, and then she had taught Dean how to paint nails and given him some pointers for when it came to applying make-up. Had Dean thought he’d ever sit on a girl’s bed and have a serious discussion about the pros and cons of certain kinds of make-up instead of making out? Nope. But it wasn’t half bad, and if Sam was going to profit from it, it would all have been worth it.
Now, Dean stands staring at the little pile of gifts on Sam’s bed. There’s the skirt, the nail polish and nail polish remover, the shampoo and conditioner Sam has actually been asking for for months now because he claims it’s better for his hair than cheap motel soap or, if he gets lucky, power-scented three-in-one shower gel, shampoo and conditioner. Then, there’s a tube of mascara that Lindsay had encouraged Dean to try out on himself, just because she wanted to see his ‘beautiful long lashes’ all dark. At first, she had tried to put it on him, but after he had panicked about feeling like she was gonna poke his eyes out one time too many, he had instead done it himself, which had only been a minor improvement, seeing as the only difference was that now it felt like it was him poking his eyes out. He grudgingly had to admit that he didn’t look half bad with it on, but the mascara had felt weird and sticky and Dean had been glad when he finally got to wipe it off again.
Needless to say, Dean has a newfound respect for girls and the horrors they go through to make themselves look pretty—prettier.
Looking down at the assortment, Dean re-evaluates his plan.
This could go two ways—either Dean’s assumptions are correct, in which case this should reassure Sam and maybe get him to at least relax around, if not open up to Dean. If he is wrong, then, well. Sam might use the misunderstanding to make fun of Dean. He’d never hear the end of it—“Remember that time you thought I wanted to be a girl and bought me makeup and a skirt? So embarrassing!”—but Dean kind of doubts Sam would actually tease him for it. He would probably even be charmed by the gesture.
Anyway, all of these options are better than Sam thinking he has to hide something this important and personal to him from Dean.
Dean only hopes that Sam won’t think he is making fun of him. But the only other way he could go about this is actually talking to Sam, and that—no. Just no. Dean doesn’t know how he’d even start that conversation.
Dean hesitates another moment, briefly considers blowing this whole plan off—as if he is going to abort it now—then, finally, adds the bracelet he has held clutched between his fingers until now to the pile. He’d found it the day before and bought it on impulse, because its beads are almost the exact same colors as Sammy’s kaleidoscope eyes.
God, Dean really hopes he isn’t making a huge mistake here. But John just took off, and it’s been two months since Dean walked in on Sammy in the bathroom, and if this really is a thing—if Sam really feels that he should be a girl—then Dean needs Sam to know that he will always have his support.
Hell, Dean needs Sam to know that either way.
*
“Dean?” Sam’s voice is carefully flat and void of emotion, his features schooled. Dean knows this is Sam’s way of trying to protect himself: don’t show what you are feeling and how things affect you. Hell, Dean does the same. Still, he wishes Sam wasn’t doing it now, because it’s hard to tell if Sam is mad or taken aback or happy and too afraid to let himself feel it.
“What is this?” Sam asks quietly, gesturing at the pile on his bed.
“For you,” Dean says, offering a smile that he hopes comes off as encouraging. “Thought you might like it.”
A muscle in Sam’s tense jaw twitches. His hands are balled into tight white fists, and he opens and closes them where he stands at the foot of his bed, his gaze moving between Dean and his presents. His eyes suddenly look a little glassy and red.
“I swear to God, Dean, if this is a joke—”
It’s clear they are both remembering the incident in the bathroom, so Dean quickly interrupts Sam.
“It’s not. I swear.”
“Dean—”
“Sammy, I just… look, you can laugh, alright? Fuck,” Dean huffs out a frustrated breath and rubs his hand over his burning face. So much for letting his actions talk for him so he didn’t have to. “I don’t—maybe I’m wrong, yeah? Maybe I’m stupid and misinterpreting things, but if you’d like to—” If you’d like to be a girl, Dean means to say, but he can’t get the words out. He swallows, nervous and embarrassed. “It’s okay. I mean it.”
Sam takes a hesitant step towards his bed. He still looks wary. Dean could be imagining it, but he thinks Sam’s hands are trembling a bit when he reaches for the skirt. Before he can touch it, though, Sam lets his hands fall back to his sides, then shoves them in his pockets. He turns towards Dean again, his chin lifted challengingly.
“You’ll laugh. You just want me to put this on so you can make fun of me.”
Does Sam really think so lowly of him? Does he really believe Dean would—but he would, wouldn’t he? He’s done so before.
“Gotta cut your hair, Sammy, you look like a girl! Should I get you nail polish and a dress, huh?”
“I won’t,” Dean insists. “I swear. You wanna be my—” Dean takes a deep breath. “You wanna be my sister, that’s fine. I’ll never tell Dad. Just want you to be happy.”
Sam bites his lip.
“You really mean it?” he asks, guarded and vulnerable. It is not an admission—not quite.
“Yeah. I—” Dean gets up slowly, so as to not spook Sam, who keeps watching him cautiously. “I asked Lindsey to help me pick this out. I told you about her, remember? Her aunt owns the motel.”
Sam nods slowly. Dean sits down on Sam’s bed and starts pointing at his treasures.
“I, uh, might’ve lied to her. Or maybe—maybe not. Anyway, I told her my sister was a bit shy and I wanted to surprise her.”
Dean looks up to see Sam relax just that much. The relief flooding his chest feels like a sunrise.
Jesus Christ, Dean hates this. If just talking about it is this hard for him, how must Sam be feeling? How long has he been carrying this around for, feeling like a freak, witnessing all of society and his own father ridiculing and condemning people like him?
It must have been hell on earth.
“Here, I got you good shampoo and conditioner. I will kill you in your sleep if you ever bring this up again, but I really like your hair, so you should take care of it. We can tell Dad I got it as a prank and it’d be a shame to let the money go to waste. And there’s mascara—that feels really weird, by the way, putting it on is like taking your eyes out, but Lindsay showed me how to do it. And the nail polish. I even got it in your eye color, so it’s gonna be real—real pretty.”
Sam is smiling at Dean. It is a small, awkward and embarrassed smile, but Sammy is smiling and that is so much better than the tense blankness from before. He—she?—sits down next to Dean on the bed.
“And the bracelet?” Sam asks as he picks it up, cradling it in his palms for a brief moment before slipping it on. He twists it around his bony wrist and tugs at the individual beads; teal, hazel, olive, gold. Dean feels victorious.
“Found it yesterday and thought you might like it. It’s okay if you don’t. We don’t have to keep any of this if you don’t want it. I just thought—”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“You, uh, thought right.” There is still a faint shadow of fear and uncertainty clouding Sam’s features, but his smile is so radiant Dean barely notices it. “I like it. I wanna keep it. Can I—”
“Put it on?” Dean asks, and Sam doesn’t make him ask twice. He gets off the bed on shaky legs and shoves down his jeans without preamble, not the least bit shy in front of his big brother. Dean hands him the skirt before he can think better of it, and Sam pulls it over his slender hips with a tiny, nervous smile. Luckily, it fits.
“How do I, uh. How do I look?” Sam asks timidly. Dean responds with an enthusiastic, “Great!” and really means it. The skirt suits Sam, even if seeing him in it is a bit weird. But Dean knows that’s only because he is not used to seeing Sam in feminine clothing. Thinking that this is something he could get used to, and that he’d better get used to it quick, Dean has Sammy twirl before petting the bed next to him.
“Hop up, I’ll help you with the nail polish and mascara. If you want it, I mean.”
“I do,” Sam admits, a blush high on his cheeks, climbs up onto the bed and settles next to Dean, cross-legged and fidgeting. “But, uh. Can we only do the nail polish? For now.”
“‘Course, Sammy. Gimme your hand?”
Sam holds out his right for Dean to take, thrumming with nerves as he watches Dean work in silence. The chemical stench of the nail polish is heavy in the stuffy air of their room and Sam’s hands are wet with nervous sweat, his fingers cold and clammy. Dean is smiling to himself, almost as nervous as his brother is—which reminds him.
“So… You’re my sister? Or…” Dean leaves the question open, because if he knows one thing, it is that he doesn’t know the first thing about all of this. He has tried to read up on it, but that has only left him with even more questions than before. Transsexual, transgender, crossdressing, drag, cosplay, sissification—Dean is pretty sure that last one is something else entirely. Sam’s thing isn’t a sex-thing, is it?
“Would that be okay?” Sam asks quietly, choosing to keep his eyes on his nails rather than Dean’s face. Can I be your sister?
“Yeah,” Dean says quickly. He stops painting Sam’s nails to look at him—at her, this will take some getting used to—and after a moment, Sam lifts her eyes to meet his. “Sammy. Samantha.”
For the first time in his life, Dean doesn’t say the name mockingly. He says it seriously, because he means it.
To Dean’s utter surprise, Sam rips her hand out of his grip and climbs halfway atop his lap to hug him, all long, lanky, uncoordinated teenage limbs. He wheezes as one of her elbows gets him in the gut, but for once doesn’t complain about it.
“Thanks, De,” she whispers into his ear, voice rough, her arms tight around his shoulders, “Thank you. You’re the best.”
Dean swallows his overly emotional response and instead settles on a wide, if a bit wobbly, grin. “‘Course I am.”
After about a minute, Sam slowly lets go of him again and settles back on her knees. She considers the smudged nail polish on her right hand with a small smile. Then, she suddenly starts giggling.
“I was so scared,” Sam explains to her brother, who is regarding her with an expression that pretty much tells her that he thinks she has lost her mind. “I—you, you tried on mascara?!”
Dean groans miserably.
“That’s what you focus on? Do you want me to suffer?”
Sam shakes her head, grinning so wide it has to hurt. “You tried on mascara! Oh, I wish I could have seen it!”
Rolling his eyes good-naturedly, Dean responds, “You better believe that I looked stunning!” Then, he flicks Sam’s forehead and orders her to calm down, “You fucked my work up, gotta redo your nails.”
Truth be told, Dean has a hard time concentrating on painting Sammy’s nails well, because she is practically radiating in front of him. Dean doesn’t remember when he has last seen Sam this uncomplicatedly joyful. She is red-cheeked and practically vibrating with it, her hair a bit messy but still so damn pretty.
Did Dean ever think of Sam as pretty before? Well, she is.
“What about school? And Dad?”
“Dad won’t be back for another few days, and last I checked there’s no school on weekends.” Dean smirks. “So…”
“I can stay like this? All weekend long?” Sam asks hopefully.
“Yeah,” Dean agrees. “Every weekend, if you want. And in the afternoons, too, when Dad isn’t home. In the mornings, at night. Whenever you want.”
Dean finishes with Sam’s second hand and exhales a sigh. He shakes out his own aching fingers and sits up straight, which is a relief after half crouching over Sammy’s fingers trying to do a good job.
Trying to do a good job painting my little sister’s nails, Dean thinks, both nauseous with nerves and giddy with Sam’s sunshine-joy. It is such a strange, unfamiliar thought. Still, it is far from a bad thought.
“All done,” Dean proclaims. “Just gotta let them dry. Show me?”
Sam holds her hands up for Dean to see, her nails turquoise with a metallic shimmer.
Goddamn, but Dean did a really good job. Of course it’s not perfect, the nail polish is a bit thick in some places and in others he painted bits of Sam’s skin, too, but it’s more than passable considering this was only the second time he did it. And Dean was right, the color of the nail polish really makes Sam’s eyes pop. Not to sing his own praises here but… never mind. His praises should totally be sung. Loudly and obnoxiously.
“Looks awesome!”
Sam beams at him. “Thanks, De!”
Eyes trained on Sam’s happy expression, Dean moves forward and knocks their foreheads together gently. He grabs the back of Sam’s neck to keep her close and feels her pulse race beneath his thumb as he strokes it over the soft skin of her neck.
Baby sister.
No matter what, Sammy is still the kid Dean loves so much. He will always care for her.