Fic: 'in disguises no one knows' (Sam/Dean; NC-17) 3/5
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Master Post | Artwork | Soundtrack
They’d fruitlessly returned to the scene of their disappearance, which remained just a road and had no sign of trouble, other than some broken branches and disturbed ground. Sam shouldn’t be surprised that Dean, completely frustrated, headed straight for the bathroom but still, Sam’s surprised.
Maybe because now that Dean’s a man-albeit with the same long eyelashes that flutter and full lips that part, ready to dish out a smartass remark-Sam thought that maybe Dean could just slow down but no, that didn’t happen. There’s groaning behind closed doors. Sam’s being extremely vigilant about pretending something else is happening and not what actually is happening, mere feet away from where Sam’s sitting.
When Dean finishes, she opens the door, cheeks flushed. Sam can’t help take in account of how obvious and thoroughly fucked-out Dean looks without, uh, actually having been fucked. Her hair’s flat and wet, droplets against her hairline, her cheekbones. There’s a towel wrapped around her waist, amulet tapping lightly against her bare chest.
Dean breathes hard, and says, “This body is wasted. I can’t do multiples. What the fuck.”
“I think the more important issue is that we’re still guys, not your sadly missing ability to masturbate, like, five times every hour.”
Dean exhales as she comes over, bare feet light on the carpet. She’s hovering. Hesitates for a moment, claps a hand-mercifully not the hand she’d been using on her dick-on Sam’s shoulder, touches the soft curls at the back of Sam’s neck.
It’s too bad they’re not the hugging type. Normally Sam would knock Dean’s hand away, tell Dean to back off but this time she leans back and doesn’t complain, tell Dean that she reeks of sex.
Dean doesn’t, she smells-she smells male if Sam’s honest about it-clean and soap-fresh, shower doing a good thing even though it hadn’t hidden the noise of Dean attempting to go for multiples. It would be a good, no, a great idea to break contact but instead Sam says, “I think I pinched a nerve or something. My back’s killing me.”
“No way,” Dean says but she’s kneading her fingers into Sam’s skin, seeking out a kink to work out. “You’d be screaming like a bitch if you had a pinched nerve. Those fuckers hurt. You got a lot more real estate here, maybe you bumped into something.”
And just down, further, the broad muscles of Sam’s back, dip and curve prominent. As Dean’s hands move over the surface, it makes Sam wonder if that knot and line of smooth flesh from her back scar still remains or if these new bodies have been scar-free. It’s doubtful since there’s a faded scar behind her knee, one of the few reminders of the second hunt she’d been on when she’d been too scared to get the kill and had fallen back on a jagged rock.
Dean’s hand strays, brushes down, and another memory comes to the surface, painful, more a borrowed memory than anything else, last thing she’d remembered-when she’d died and she only has the haziest part of it left over.
(She’d been feeling so cold, so cold and then there was Dean.
Sam’s face and chest resting against in the curve Dean’s neck, last thing she knew was that Dean had her, holding Sam’s weight up, but everything was floating away, thoughts and words failing her, breasts pressing up against hers, and nothing-
Chest pressing up against her, scrape of stubble and long, lean muscled arms-)
Now Dean runs her fingertips over the outer curve of Sam’s ear and Sam shudders, jolted out of the memory.
“I’m just messing with you,” Dean says a little abruptly, voice wobbly, clearing her throat.
Sam tries to push that image of the past down and gone in her head; the past shouldn’t feel so unsteady and right at the same time, a male version of her life. Being male now is a pain in the ass, but it’s in the present. It’s temporary. Sam has to handle this and not lose a grip on what matters. But when this curse starts intruding on her memories, that’s another story.
Sam’s looking at Dean, raising an eyebrow and jerking when Dean slaps her on the back. She scowls and gives Dean a look as Dean adds, “Hey, you should think about it.”
“About what?”
“You weren’t listening?”
“I… was thinking. It’s this thing I do sometimes. Crazy, I know.”
Dean sighs and then says, “Look I was just saying that I figure you’d get a lot of ass looking like this. Chicks dig a tall freak. And since we’re kind of hard up for any answers to why we’re like this, maybe tonight we should have a little shore leave and uh, try out the merchandise.”
Ignoring Dean’s insane suggestion, Sam asks, “What do you mean, ‘freak’?”
“I’ve talked to some of your girlfriends,” Dean explains, pulling away to head over to the dresser. “Freak.”
“Did you talk to Natalie?”
“I heard you and Natalie,” Dean says over her shoulder as the towel slips, she pulls out a pair of low slung, tight boxer briefs out of the duffel, black and tight enough that they’ll probably fit snug against Dean’s body. It’s probably the closest thing Dean’s got to her previously questionable underwear collection.
Sam keeps her head bowed, and sure, maybe she’s looking through the curtain of her bangs at Dean trying to decide between two identical pairs of jeans.
Dean briefly glances at her over her shoulder, rolling her eyes. “They actually are different, you know. This one has a darker wash.”
“Of course.” Sam taps a key on her laptop, opening up a new tab and opening up Google.
Dean sniffs a pair of jeans. “Find anything?”
“Other than an address for the town council and a fascinating look at all the boards and councils they have? Not sure what else there is to find.” Sam rubs the bridge of her nose as Dean hikes up her jeans. “You know… it might be easier without you walking around-”
“Distracting you?” Dean steals a glance at the dresser mirror before she picks up a shirt.
Sam snorts in response, little shuffle of movement as she shifts the laptop on her lap.
Dean grins, lacing up her boots, “You give Bobby another ring, Einstein?”
“Yeah. Keep losing service, best I can do is two bars a couple blocks down the street. Piece of shit carrier.”
“Sorry to hear your fancy Blackberry ain’t workin’ for you, Francis.”
It’s strange that she uses the name-even Dean has this odd expression, like she knows it isn’t correct. It isn’t a nickname she uses easily: not a stuck-up kind of name she saves for Sam on occasion. A name like Blair, or Victoria, something fancy. Never Francis. That’s too plain and well, it just doesn’t fit.
“Careful, Deana. I thought we’re supposed to be using guy names now. Can’t slip up, right?”
“Even as a dude, you’re still a chick,” Dean says, irritably rubbing at her shoulder, perhaps a long term aftereffect of getting hit, shot, and thrown into walls, too many times to count, but Sam remembers them all. Funny how their sense-memories transferred over into their new bodies. It does make Sam reason out that this probably is a curse since Sam can remember those old pains. Maybe the heightened need of touch is just another symptom. Because Sam can still feel Dean’s fingers kneading the back of Sam’s neck and Dean’s halfway across the room.
Dean’s digging in her back pocket of her jeans and throws her cell phone over to Sam, nodding. “Try mine.”
A half-minute later, Sam shakes her head, throwing it back. “Even worse, you’ve got no signal.”
Grabbing the phone, Dean looks down at the display screen and shakes her head. “It’s showing half strength. Should be fine.”
“Fine. You try it.”
Dean does and scowls when it obviously goes to voicemail. Ever obnoxious, Dean tries the landline phone in the room, not like Sam’s already tried that before, hanging up after a minute. “Fuck. Well. Maybe Bobby’s doing some R&R. Or working.”
“Yeah and we can’t head off to him without knowing what’s happened. With someone or something doing this to us, there’s no way to know if it’s still here or what it’s next move is. People might get hurt.”
“You thinking someone else is gonna wake up a sweet transvestite?”
“That’s not what that means,” Sam snaps. “I just-I don’t know what else we can do tonight.”
“I got a plan. Got a call when you were playing with broken sticks on the ground and I think I’m gonna take a couple of hours of me-time.”
Like Dean hasn’t already had enough me-time.
Sam closes her laptop and stares at Dean as she finishes getting dressed, popping up the collar on her shirt. “You’re really going, aren’t you? To see that guy.”
Dean’s eyebrows shoot up, shaking her head a little. “There is something up with that guy and not just his dick when he caught a good look at me. Trust me, I know what I’m doing. Fuck, I’ve done this enough times before.”
“Dean, you don’t-” Sam fidgets, words on the tip of her tongue, uncomfortably making her shift her weight a little. “You don’t know this guy. I know it’s a job, yeah, I do, but this is different.”
Sam’s thoughts are a jumbled mess, words piling on, and on top of it is, irrational, a need to say don’t do this and worse, two more words added to the heap, to me.
Dean’s looking at her, eyebrow raised in confusion. Sam sputters for a moment and she mutters, “It’s not like, you’re not…you’re not gay.”
Dean tenses, pulling her jacket snug. “I can handle myself. I’ve done it before even though things are different downstairs, I’m pretty well-acquainted with the new equipment. No harm putting this body to good use.”
“Not with a dick, you haven’t,” Sam says curtly, chin jutting out as she gets up. Her chest is tight, top button barely keeping the fabric together. It’s probably the first time in all her life that she’s about to burst out of her top.
Sam shakes her head, eyes narrowing as she looks down at Dean, can’t help but take advantage of this broader and taller body for a moment. “Thought you weren’t gonna go through with it. You really think you can handle this?”
“I said, I can take care of myself,” Dean bites out, voice unsteady when she straightens her jacket, smoothing the shirt down her chest and belly. “Last time I checked, I don’t need your permission, Sam.”
Slow shake of her head, and here, Sam wipes and scratches at her nose, picking up the laptop, wanting to dismiss this conversation. She wants to banish the irrationality coursing through her body, to make Dean understand that she can’t do this.
“Sam, it’s just not about me getting my dick sucked. Look, maybe I’ll figure out why someone so out-of-place in a town like this looks real cozy with the locals. And why he immediately called someone the moment he noticed us in the dinner. And if he turns out to be a harmless douche, then maybe I will get off.”
It’s a lame joke and Dean looks like she’s waiting for Sam to do something, to react in that ‘kid sister’ way, like Sam will just roll her eyes or tell Dean how gross she’s being.
Instead Sam says, “It’s not like flipping a switch. You can’t turn it on and off.”
Dean narrows her eyes, unable to just drop it and step out, stance wide and anxious. She says abruptly, “This-this isn’t a gay thing, Sam, I’m still me, and you-the fuck do you know, Sam. Fuck you. I’m doing this-”
“For yourself. You think you’re ready for it? You’re straight, Dean, and we’ve switched sexes not identities. You’re straight or you’re gay. You can’t alter it just ‘cause you want to.”
“And no one’s ever in-between, huh?”
“What? You going to say you’re bi, now?”
Dean lets out a shaky breath and licks her lips, “Not saying that. Saying well, I don’t turn down free dinner. Whether or not I got a pussy or a freakin’ dick is beside the point, okay? And what I am is-” She cuts herself off, biting her lip, “Forget it.”
“Forget what? That you’re whoring yourself out again.”
“Yeah that’s me. A big fucking whore. You want to take it there, whatever, Sam. I don’t fucking care at this point.” Dean’s fiddling with the cuff of her jacket, looking down. “You find anything, give me a call. I’ll leave my cell on.”
She leaves, walking stiffly, as though she can feel the burn of Sam’s gaze on her back as she leaves.
There’s a quick look back, Dean mouthing something quick before Dean turns away, angry but not at Sam. Like Dean’s angry at herself.
*
By the time Deana hits puberty, no one is able to mistake her for a tomboy. At first glance, even with the plain t-shirts and ripped up jeans, the curves of her body gave her away as exceptionally feminine, pretty curves and angles of her face not needing to be accentuated unless she really wants to show off.
Her interest in sex hit early, breasts catching up with the rest of her by the time she turned fourteen. All those dirty thoughts hidden behind green eyes could be finally acted out and with a working knowledge of how to fake being ultra-feminine. She’d go out and pretend it’s easy, compartmentalize the parts of her that care more about mechanics and weapons maintenance with the nonexistent part of her that needs a guy to show off how talented and smart he is at ramming down shot after shot down his gullet and then show off his prowess at darts while Deana misses the bulls eye on purpose, buttering him up until she can take him off all he’s worth.
Where Sam would spend time in libraries, Deana would work the dives, picking up info, working this angle with fanfare, like she meant it, would let you know with fuck me boots, tight clothes, and loose, wavy hair.
First job she had, above all of it, was to protect Sam. She’d grown up with a sister and a father, but a hunter’s world was a man’s world, one that two sisters had to adjust to. Dean, on the other hand, felt that push and pull of wanting to hold Sam above others-as Dad told her-because Sam was her whole world, one that she always needed to protect. And that’s how she learned to adjust in this man’s world.
Once, when they were playing Scooby-Doo at that creepy motel in Connecticut, Sam’s sour drunken breath all Dean could smell as Sam clutched Dean’s shirt, mumbling worries at what her destiny would be, she’d added just before she’d dozed off, “And you, Dee. Why do you keep on pretending?”
It had been safe then, safe to ask, “What do you mean?”
Sam hadn’t answered then and Dean had stayed up all night, watching Sam sleep.
*
Her knuckles brush the smooth surface of fake wood, run along the items littered on the dresser. Car keys. Lighter. Change and receipts, lube, condoms, beef jerky, nothing out of the ordinary come before all this. Only thing that needs revising is the lube part, knowledge that’s vivid after one too many times of the morning after tales Dean told with her with wildly expressive hands and her dirty mouth, a wicked grin. They’re all small moments laid out in front of Sam, scattered between boys and girls, foil packets and a tubes of lipstick.
Sam paces around the motel room, restless, feeling fenced inside this limited floor space, stuck breathing air that’s warm and stale. The vending machines outside are busted and creak noisily, like they’re in need of a good oiling, unbearably slow in releasing junk food and candy bars. Sam stocks up, goes to the convenience store down the block too, but she isn’t satisfied afterwards.
There’s nothing on television, and nothing with the research, hitting a wall that has her angrily slamming the laptop shut. Great. Break the fucking thing, that’ll really help.
Dean’s only been gone less than two hours, and Sam feels like she’s slipping, growing frustration she can’t pinpoint. It’s an anger she can’t expel, can’t vent, because Dean’s not there.
So Sam’s forced to wait. She checks the ‘net, and other than a few articles on the reverse-sex swapping spells, men changed into women as punishment-she gets nothing done.
Miracles of all miracles, there’s a payphone close, but she only gets another busy signal from Bobby’s home phone and three calls later, she’s out of quarters and patience.
Sam heads back, frustration mounting into tangible thing. Dean and her plan, more like her fucking need for sex. The last thing Sam needs is for Dean to pop up in her thoughts when she decides, after too many minutes staring back at text that goes blurry, that she’s going to take a shower. That she’s going to calm the hell down, relief of real water pressure like a siren’s call when she steps into the bathroom. A soft warmth billows up with the steamy water, and Sam thanks God for the small comfort not too reliable in these crappy motels. And seriously, it seems like a good plan ‘til she’s peeling off her clothes and stepping in, thinking, shit, shit. This is different. Other than pissing, Sam hasn’t even given her new body a full once over.
The trauma of the morning hard-on had been enough.
Sam tamps down the anxiety, lathers up and lets the rivulets course down her chest abd the sharp cut of her narrow hips, water dripping through the dark thatch of hair her hand barely brushes, palm wide and fingers splayed out in tentative consideration.
She doesn’t wait this time. It’s a conscious order, just get over it, and she does, gripping her dick, full red flush as soap and water make it rub slick in her large hand.
It’s not the same as what she’s used to, the way fingers ply and curl under folds, press in one, two. Things slip-slide and Sam opens eyes to see, to watch the thick and heavy mass, like nothing she’s ever wanted. She’s only ever been curious about it, in the same way she’s curious about the world but it’s not, oh God, it’s not supposed to be like this.
A crisis of sexuality in the shower hasn’t ever been one of Sam’s nightmares but she’s certainly learning something. This is terrifying. And she has no desire to stop, pulling hard and fast. Shit, that hurts a little. But the hurt is different. Good kind of hurt. She’s getting accustomed to this, can follow where the sensitive spots are, too much of a quick learner for her own good and she’s not supposed to want this. This is… this is too easy. Not right but easy.
A hysterical thought bubbles its way to the surface of her mind. Maybe, just maybe, if she’s really a man, if whatever did this converted them all the way, that she transferred into a gay man.
That might make Dean straight. A straight male. Wow, Dean might just have a nasty shock when she gets to the end of her date.
God, Dean-Dean should not be a part of Sam’s brain when Sam’s stroking, when Sam’s touching her dick. It’s responsive, too, really responsive, has her wincing when she pulls up too hard. When she times the strokes slower, building a careful pace, increasing speed, a little hard now, flicking her wrist just so oh yes, that’s something.
Sam’s always been a quick study. It’s been a point of pride in fact, and if it doing this isn’t making her crazy enough, it’s the realization that she’s successfully mastered jerking off that has her gasping a broken laugh which quickly melts into a deep groan, noise unfamiliar to her and extremely disconcerting.
Quiet then, she needs to be quiet. Sam turns her face away, squeezing eyes shut and thinking this is what Dean was doing before in the shower, unable to control being noisy, but Sam? Sam is real good at being quiet.
It’s not soon after that that Sam comes, wave warmth courses through her, has her arching back, muscles straining. An explosion, a burst of hot need, hips pumping, wildly. She loses her grip on reality, knees nearly buckling, propelling her forward. Her left hand braced against the wall is the only thing that keeps Sam from making an ugly nosedive. There’s a messy sticky release pulsing out, spurts of it actually, and she watches the semen splattering the tiles with vaguely horrified amazement.
The water gets turned off a few moments after Sam washes away the evidence. Slowly connects the train of thought-coming at the idea of Dean being a guy. Coming at the thought of Dean getting off, and how Dean must’ve looked like when she did. Oh God.
This is the very definition of not good. She pulls on clothing like it’s an actual barrier to those thoughts, covering up the proof of her reaction, burn of shame hot on cheeks. She dries her hair with a towel, glaring at the TV, feeling desperate for the distraction of lame cable news.
Dean enters the motel room just past nine o’clock and that is not what Sam’s expecting. She rubs the back of her neck, growling, “And I got a sunburn too. At night. Fuckin’ wonderful.”
Her face is a little red, blush of anger and UV rays, a hot burn of pink across the tops of cheek, the bare of Dean's neck.
“You realized you couldn't go through with it, huh?”
“What? I would’ve if I uh, coulda.”
“So you figured out that guys have a limit, huh?”
Sam knows she’s being petty but Dean kind of deserves it. Their unresolved fight and what she just did in the shower isn’t making her feel particularly considerate of the huge stop fucking with me signals, such as the constant pacing which could almost make her seasick if she keeps staring at it.
“No way in hell was I gettin’ any action tonight,” Dean snaps, pulling off her jacket and throwing it on the bed. Her shirt’s wrinkled in front, flash of her flat abdomen when she irritably scratches an itch on her side. Shuddering, she adds, “The way he was looking at me. It was wrong.”
“We are who we are, regardless of our bodies,” Sam says and it turns out hypocrisy tastes a little like bile in the back of her mouth. Because Sam’s not who she was before this, she can feel something slow and inexorable change starting to chip away even at her most precious resource left, her memories, and she has no idea how to stop it.
Dean’s eyes are earnest and her face is oddly flushed at the cheeks, nearly easy to mistake it for blushing, “You know I wasn’t kidding. I wasn’t doing this to get laid-Yeah I mentioned shore leave but I… I wasn’t going to do it just ‘cause of that. I wasn’t, Jesus, Sammy. I know I’ve gone the easy route trying to score info. And yeah, I had him slobbering on my neck and telling me how pretty my mouth was but that’s about how far I could take it. Because you wanna know what? I’m not gonna bend over and take it. That’s all that happened. Oh, ‘cept when he thought he still had a shot. Then I kneed him in the groin. Man, he went down like a bitch, nearly sobbing for his mommy, I swear.”
Sam can’t help but wince in sympathy. “You didn’t have to tell me all that.”
“Yeah I did. Because you have to understand that if you ever call me a whore ‘cause you really mean it, I will do the same fucking thing to you. Even after we get this whole mess fixed up. It’ll still hurt even when there ain’t any balls hanging between your legs.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam says, the words weak on her tongue but she does mean them.
“Sucks,” Dean says, waving off the apology. “I really wanted to see if I could fuck a guy, you know? But that guy was a part of the job. And sure as hell wasn’t any fun.”
Sam’s jaw clenches involuntarily, not because she wants to yell at Dean for accepting this as always. But how it’s always been Dean’s mission to go out and put out or give up whatever shred of herself she has left to offer, as though she’s never been worth anything more. Because in theory, it shouldn’t be that different from slipping on a costume, fake name, fake I.D.. Difference is, those come off-throw the I.D. and costume away, and they’re Winchesters underneath and they have to live with their choices the morning after.
The price of being the Winchester sisters is that they have entirely different expectations. While Dean never really let Sam talk to her about gender studies, fact of the matter is they’re now living it and both failing miserably at it. In less than one day’s time as well, to make things that much worse.
Sam doesn’t know how to deal with the appetites of her sister transferred into the appetites, wants, and needs of a male. Doesn’t know how to convince Dean to stop putting on all these ridiculous games and manipulations, that she’s refusing to spill why she went out with this guy.
But Sam’s multi-tasking in her head because she’s-she’s thinking about the strong line of a stubbled jaw over her, the way hands feel rough against her biceps, wrapping a palm around-
No, she’s remembering something, only she’s not. Too hazy and it dies quickly.
She shifts in her chair and tries to twist away from Dean’s view, but Dean’s finally speaking, gaze elsewhere while she paces. As though she’s reassuring herself rather than saying it for Sam’s benefit.
“Look, we’ll get back to normal soon, Sammy. It’s how these goddamn things always happen, right?” Gotta deal with this as we can. And, and there’s benefits to being like this. Seriously. It’s kind of sweet that I don’t have to worry about tracking my fucking period or shaving my legs or wondering if I need to wax ‘cause things are starting to look scary down under. We don’t have to shave our legs, Sam. All we gotta do is shave our faces. That’s it. How awesome is that?”
Her voice might sound deep now but there’s no way that Sam misses that hysterical edge to Dean’s little closing rant. This time, she wisely decides not to mention that Dean’s on edge seeing as that course of action never goes well.
Besides, Sam rarely shaved her legs anyway, always wearing jeans. The only thing she ever bothered with shaving were her underarms and that was thanks to pressure from Dee.
(Dee brought home Sam’s very first disposable razor, holding it disdainfully between two fingers. High school girls are fuckin’ vicious, Sammy. You don’t wanna strip down in gym class and have ‘em ragging on you for being hairy..)
“Yeah, we don’t have to shave,” Sam says, hollow. “Except for our faces.”
“Hey, maybe we could rock the wild busy beard? Become like mountain men?” Dean scratches the side of her face, frowns. Bounces a little on her heels. “But, uh, maybe upkeep is a good idea.”
“Twenty-four hours and you're talking about ‘upkeep’, Dee,” Sam says, unable to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “That’s the least of our worries.”
“Hey, uh,” Dean twists her mouth, swallowing back something on the verge of being unleashed, and for a moment Sam deludes herself into thinking that Dean will let it go, only she doesn’t. Instead she says, “Look, we’re gonna pull through. We can do this.”
Dean’s hand is very warm as it touches Sam’s cheek. Peering down at Sam, she asks, “You still with me?”
Sam barely notices the other in Dean’s voice, the masculine timbre, because Sam responds to the resonance of Dean’s words, the power they have spreading across her limbs. For a moment Sam isn’t awkward and uncomfortable so goddamn exhausted. Exhausted because no matter what they do, there’s a new twist and unholy mess to deal with. Just when it feels like they’ve dug themselves out of one hole, they’re falling down another.
Sam’s closed her eyes and upon re-opening them, she sees Dee’s still staring. She feels Dee’s fingertips stroking the edge of Sam’s cheek, a touch that’s new, different. Something they don’t do. Her thoughts get muddled, unable to think clearly when Dean is there, warm, comforting. Doesn’t pull away either, as though Dee can’t help, won’t help, touching and won’t ever stop.
Finally, she stops, pulling back, hand clenching awkwardly like Sam’s left an imprint on Dean and not the other way around.
Sam’s voice is rough when she says, “Dean, I need you to be serious about this. No more distractions.”
Dean nods, still off in her own little world for a moment before she says, “That date from hell wasn’t kosher, not from the word ‘go’. Driving a German, brand-new car where ‘round these parts, the standard’s at least truck or SUV and everybody’s buying American. So I checked him out my way and now we need to check him out the Sam way. Not asking him what he thinks of the Indigo Girls, but uh, finding out who he is, ‘cause you know, I’m really fucking hot and all but he seemed to want to get in my pants like he’d just won a fuckin’ prize and I’m thinking that’s an extra kind of jacked up.”
“You think he could somehow be directly connected with what we were doing before? Not just an out of place guy?”
Dean shakes her head. “What I remember and what I know, it’s all fucked up, but my instincts didn’t leave the moment I woke up with a dick. I don't remember him from before. But it’s… look, something’s off. With him. Gave me the creeps, and not just in the touchy jerk kinda way. We gotta check it out. Maybe it’s a lead. Better than doin’ nothing.”
The laptop’s hibernating so it doesn’t take much time to get on the internet, one small piece of luck the wireless service doesn’t absolutely suck. “Since you didn’t even tell me this, let’s start off that basic question: What’s his name?”
Dean takes a little while to answer and Sam groans. “Seriously, Dee? You just met him. Please, you’re not that bad.”
“Paul Scholsser,” Dean shoots back, a little testy. “And hey, fuck you. I was trying to remember his exact license plate.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious.”
“I believe you,” Sam says. Amazing how bitchy a guy’s voice can sound. She plugs the name in several search engines, almost missing Dean’s one finger salute. She returns it in kind. “I think I got something. Um, Paul Scholsser. The second, apparently.”
“Banging a junior? Haven’t done that since I was a freshman.”
Sam ignores the earnest smile after Dee’s lame joke.
“I told him that we were land developers,” Dean says. “He put a big show about how we were ‘trespassing on his premises’ ‘cause he’s that kind of a funny guy.”
“Well…” Sam says, trailing off a little as she pulls up more information, “Actually, he’s not a land developer although he was involved at a real estate company basted out of Austin, but uh-wait a minute. Huh. Wow. Guess what?”
“He's got a rep for doing a little black magic? Likes turning chicks into man candy?”
“Gross. No, he's a major player on the town council. He’s on tons of boards and seems he’s been involved in getting major legislature passed in his very short tenure. A real go getter, that’s a quote from the local paper, doing a write-up on him. You sure know how to pick ‘em.”
“Not my first public servant. I gotta tell you about the one time I…” Dean trails off. Then she says with a little bit of wonder in her voice, “Never mind, I guess that didn’t really, um. So more on Paul. I didn’t ask him what his sign was, you find that yet?”
Sam pulls up a few more links, tabbing them to read-through later. “Thanks for sparing me for once. I really don’t need to hear about your every conquest. Start a blog. You’ll become an internet sensation.”
“No,” Dean says, a weird catch in her throat, scrubbing at her face, a habit she normally does when she’s cranky and in need of coffee, “Damn it, Sam. I didn’t, uh. Never mind. What’s the pretentious prick up to?”
“Squeaky clean. Almost too clean, especially for a politician. Not a negative article or editorial about him and-Oh. This is interesting.”
“What?”
“He ran uncontested in the last election. Even though apparently when he ran two years ago, he got crushed by, um, a Gary Wilson, eighty-seven years old and oh, turns out Councilman Wilson wasn’t exactly beloved.”
“But he still gets re-elected. Why is this important?”
“Well,” Sam says, a little smug, because this, the research, this is where things start to open up, “Look all the stuff that we did before we woke up on the highway? It was checking out what happened to Becky and there was a lot of talk about her getting killed right when this whole revitalization of the city was being championed by an out-of-towner who was putting pressure on the local government to speed up huge programs. Granting the kind of deals that have been unprecedented.”
Dean’s tapping out a strange rhythm on her bottom lip, frowning.
“And this Gary Wilson? He lost his seat in a special election in August. This article,” Sam says, pointing towards the screen, “also notes he was the longest running councilman. And, it looks like Wilson owned a construction company eventually handed over to his son…”
“Sam?”
“Rich Trent.” Sam boggles at the name and looks over a printed stack of sheets, searching for it because it’s too familiar but Dean answers Sam’s unspoken question.
“You mean Trent Construction? The company that got the bid to start building and renovating houses.” Dean’s leaning over Sam’s shoulder and Sam tries real hard not to breathe in the faint scent of cologne she’s now sporting and almost succeeds. “Like the one where Becky killed herself?”
“Yeah. The name was changed after Rich Trent took over. That was-oh come on, you’re kidding me?”
“I’m not, but the internet’s got a great sense of humor. What’s up?”
“We missed something huge before. Maybe because then we had no idea it mattered, but look here, Wilson’s initials. W.S.T.”
“Wilson Scholl Trent?” Dean raises her eyebrows. “I’ll be damned.”
“Uh, and apparently there’s a Howard Scholl, cousin to Wilson. Guess what happened to him?”
“Untimely death?”
“He sold his share of the construction company right before Becky Scholl died. That move wasn’t mentioned in the papers, maybe he’s a distant relative or something. In fact, there’s no other mention of Howard Scholl except for an article on Rich Trent taking over the ‘family legacy.’ No mention of how everyone’s related, not even that Wilson is Trent’s father but I’ll check that out and… ” Sam pulls up a new article, bare bones but it’s enough, saying, “Gary Wilson was geared to run for his seat again but he died six months ago-”
“Oh.” Dean’s stopped pacing around, stopped invading Sam’s personal space. Now she’s sitting on the bed, thoughtful. “Someone’s having a real wonderful string of luck. You don't think?”
“July,” Sam says. “It’s not that long after the door to Hell was opened and we saw the influence demons have on towns. What’s to say that one’s playing around with this town. It’s better than a corrupt land deal if there’s a demon in the works.”
“You think Paul made a deal with a demon? Jesus.”
“You do know how to pick ‘em, Dee.”
“Fucking great. So what, he figured out we were poking around and laid the whammy to us? Why? To get us out of the way? Why’d he’d let me pick him up or, hell, let me kick him in the balls? I’m hot, dude, but I’m not that hot. Why’d he let us leave?”
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“I mean, um, it feels like there’s more. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that he was there at the diner. If we went after a demon, where’s all our research? Demons don’t poke holes in people’s memories for the fun of it. And if they wanted to end us, they could have, easily.”
“So? What do you think is happening here? We got a ghost, a maybe-demon-”
“And a creature that has the power to do this to us with a snap of his fingers.”
“Goddamn. You always have to find ways of making it ten times worse. You’re thinking it’s him, aren't you?”
“If it’s the Trickster-” Sam swallows, “If it's a Trickster, it would kind of make sense.”
“So we got two cases. Or three. Whatever the fuck’s going on in this town and whatever the hell happened to us. Fucking fantastic.”
“If was witchcraft, they’re no kitchen-witches and honestly this is too advanced and complicated. There’s so many plots and calculations like it’s feeding towards something big. Human sacrifices maybe? I mean, if Becky Scholl was sacrificial-”
“Then they’re building a dark altar. All those pretty houses, nothing more than welcome beacons.”
“That would be best case scenario,” Sam admits, not even covering up the grim finality in her voice.
*
It’s midnight and Dean’s still up, watching Sam being defiant, eyes half closed and head propped up, held at an angle in Sam’s now giant mitt, elbow at a weird angle on the table.
Should tell Sam to grab some sleep, not much they can do at the moment. Sam’s exhausted the little paper supply they have for Sam’s wireless printer/scanner, walls covered in the documents Sam’s hacked from private sites, council records the public isn’t privy to. Nice thing is, they’re Winchesters, and the rules don’t apply.
Dean’s hand roams a little lazily down her chest and belly, fingertips grazing the soft ridges of muscle, dark thatch of hair. Her gaze lingers on Sam, eyes cracked open for as long as she can manage before she falls asleep on the lumpy mattress and dreams.
(Two times, to tell the truth. Two fucking times, in all her years, that Dean said out loud she wondered what it would be like. Having a dick. Being a man.
The first time was in Phoenix, Arizona. The place stayed with her, right in the middle of a heat wave, the kind that burned, unsettling, as much as the pixies they were chasing.
It was too hot to be running around, clothes damp, little to no coverage where they were hunting, bare land and dry brush. After they toasted the little suckers, burned and buried, she got cramps so bad that she couldn’t see straight. Sam hadn’t gotten hers yet and gave Dean this strange look, tilted head and glance like she didn’t get it, her mouth twisting into a pout. It was always that way with her, annoyance at Dean being first to experience everything and Sam left waiting in her sister’s shadow.
Later, though, during the long, lazy afternoon, Sam was the one to bring Dean the chocolate bar. Laid out on a queen-sized bed, they watched re-runs and spaghetti westerns. And Dean had been so tired, tired of everything, the heat and the pain, and that come less than thirty days she’d be feeling like this all over again. It was too much for her, to be forced out of commission, unable to hunt on the rag. She’d muttered it while Sam was dozing off, words bitter and angry as she spit them out, faster and faster, like a speeding train and she knew that if she didn’t stop, she’d give away too much but she didn’t give a fuck.
Sam never mentioned anything after that and once Dean’s period was over, she got massively drunk and wound up fucking someone she didn’t remember. All she could ever remember was the bathroom stall, someone took the time to let anyone would ventured into the stall that Lisa’s a fucking bitch.
Another time was right on the cusp of high school, in Jacksonville, Illinois, in a crappy apartment with lime green wallpaper, Dad gone for days, Dean took some time out for herself. Making out with a boy with a messy mop of hair, baggy jeans and flannel shirt, layers of clothing she snaked her hands under, trying to pull off. She thought she might like have a dick to fuck him with, thrust in and out his ass, making him scream. So much better with flesh than a strap-on.
She’d been laughing a lot then because she’d been high, not like he wasn’t fucked up too, and she’d muttered in his ear about how she wanted him to suck her off and he’d ruined it, sloppy tongue licking a messy path down her face, looking for her mouth, and then he said, “Baby I’m gonna eat you out so good.”
Only. Only the memory’s gone sour or twisted because Dean thought she’d leaned away from him, shoved him off of her but this time-this time-
Paul’s face staring back at her, running a hand down her thigh, no, not a female leg, broader and he’d been saying something, words garbled up but a few coming through What a waste, So pretty and Are you sure he won’t remember?
He.
The change had already happened. There wasn’t any clearing around them, just the open outdoors, sky above had no stars out, too black of a night. Dangerous. And there’d been someone else there. Someone.
Something.
Dean remembers it now, jerking awake, wiping at her face and grunting at the rough scratch of stubble. Gotta take care of that. And with that first waking thought, the reality of being in this body, Dean’s memories turn hazy again, remembering, what? Something about sex, but it must’ve been a really lame sex dream for it to dissipate so quickly. Another scratch at the growth of rough hair under her jaw before she smacks her lips, feeling that familiar burning in her lower stomach signifying that a piss would be a real good idea.
But first things first, gotta get a sense of time and place. The clock on the nightstand reads eight forty-seven, and Sam is already dressed, a blur of white and black through Dean’s sleepy, crusted over eyes as Sam bends down to put her shoes on. Stumbling into the bathroom and locking the door behind her, Dean pulls her jeans down, just enough, taking the risk of pulling her dick out of the opening in front of her boxer-briefs. Different than dropping her pants, but she might as well try it this way instead.
Then there’s the other risk, too, nervous that Sam will hear. It’s not like she hasn’t heard enough of Dean jerking off already but this is different.
Dean’s got her dick in one hand while she takes a piss, finishes up too fast and she yelps, jerking, hand flying out when she zips up without concentrating.
A moment later, Sam opens the door to find Dean bracing an arm against the towel rack and the cheap ass wood paneling with a hand covering her crotch, wincing. “What happened?”
Nine in the morning and they’re off to a fucking great start, really, with Dean’s temporary manhood caught in her fucking zipper.
Sam’s fussing with her tie, top two buttons of her dress shirt open, blazer and tight slacks making her look more like a guy on his way to picking up chicks than an officer of the law.
Dean exhales, slowly, tries for nonchalant despite the crotch-numbing-holy-mother-of-God awful pain. “Nothing. I-It’s nothing.”
“Maybe some ice will help?”
“Oh, fuck you,” Dean says, and while it still hurts, it’s dulling a little as time passes and Dean washes her hands and leaves Sam to take care of her business. “Word of advice, mind the zipper.”
Apparently Sam does listen to Dean’s advice because there’s no yelp of pain but maybe being fully awake helps. Dean changes into the suit that seems to fit okay even though the suit jacket doesn’t fit. She really hates tucking the shirt into the trousers, probably the only pain-in-the-ass part of dressing like a guy so far.
“Hey,” Sam says, leaning against the open doorway of the bathroom, a strange look on Sam’s face, all tight and well, not other way to put it, bothered. “I’m having trouble getting the tie right.”
“Yeah?” Dean can handle this. No little tremor when she speaks, nope, that ain’t happening. Sure she has no idea how long Sam watched her dress or why that even matters, they’ve seen everything. Well almost everything in these new bodies too, so it shouldn’t count for ‘everything’ except how it does.
“Do you know how to do this?” Sam gestures at the limp tie around Sam’s neck, the wrinkled middle parts a clear sign that Sam’s really put a lot of effort and failed miserably.
“I got a couple of ideas,” Dean drawls. “Let me show you. In case, uh, if ever comes in handy later on. Good to have the experience.”
Sam raises an eyebrow in doubt over that but dutifully lets Dean into the bathroom.
“Keep an eye on the mirror,” Dean instructs, putting one hand on Sam’s shoulder, pushing her torso back a little and Dean shifting over so Sam can see. She’s almost pressing into her when Dean leans against the edge of the sink, legs spread wide, starting to work on Sam’s tie. Sam fits easy into the ‘v’ of Dean’s thighs, shifting her weight back a step, Dean’s knees snug against her hips. “Stay still.”
It takes Dean a few tries to get it exact. No, that’s a blatant lie, Dean nailed it on the second time, got the knot perfect but she’d slipped fingers underneath, right at the hollow of Sam’s chest. Sam had swallowed, so yeah, it took a few more times. Dean works with stiff fingers, too much of a coward to look into Sam’s eyes.
“The case,” Sam say, a little unsteady. “Let’s talk about it.”
“Right.” Because they’re masters at ignoring the obvious and in this case, Dean doesn’t even want to accept what the huge elephant in the tiny bathroom really is. Dean wipes sweat off her forehead before yanking the tie apart again, and says, “Wilson gets offed and Mr. McGrabbyhands gets his old job.”
“A town where everybody knows everyone and an out-of-towner fits right in even though he’s not making any effort to fit in. Even lets someone pick him up in broad daylight.”
“Hey, I was being subtle,” Dean says, tugging harder than she should and Sam gasping and pushing forward and oh, that’s a little too close, Sam instantly pulling back, nearly losing her balance but Dean’s legs are positioned well enough that she just tightens and oh. Oh. This is really a bad kind of position to be in.
“Fine. But there’s all these weird personal connections that are way too convenient.”
“Yeah,” Dean agrees, fingers slipping under Sam’s collar to straighten it. “Wilson’s son takes over the construction company that owns the house where the girl died and where we got whammied. His ex-partner had the same last name as Becky but we don’t have proof of any familial relationship. Pretty convenient. Is Rich Trent on the town council too?”
Sam hesitates, Adam’s apple bobbing, “No, he’s not, but somehow I think they might be responsible for what happened to Becky.”
Dean’s waiting for Sam to say something not about the case. Waiting for Sam to ask Dean what the fuck she thinks she’s doing, to get her to stop but it isn’t happening. The hard press of porcelain against Dean’s thighs hurts and given the zippering, her dick’s down for the count so it’s not like she’s giving away how-how amazing it is to be this close, to do something so disgustingly domestic like tying someone’s tie and feel like it’s the most amazing thing in the world.
“Dee-” Her nickname kills the moment, somehow. “I need to grab that-”
Dean nods, letting go and angling her body to the side as Sam snakes an arm around her to pick up the comb on top of the sink. The edge of the sink is pressing hard against the left side of her hip but Dean could really give a flying fuck about the pain.
“So,” Dean says, and though they’re still way too fucking close, there’s distances carefully drawn, Sam looking into the mirror and pointedly not looking at Dean, not even out of the corner of her eyes. “She get in the way of a deal or something?”
“All signs point to yes. She’s got motive to haunt the house if it’s true. Violent death like that?” Sam exhales as she turns a little to face Dean, breath against the itchy stubble on Dean’s face. “Small town like this, anyone against them and it could get real messy real fast. Let’s say she stumbled onto something-or hell, she gets mixed up with one of them and tries to open her mouth. Maybe they… just got rid of her,” Sam finishes, flat, lips working like there’s a bad taste in her mouth.
“Guess we’ll find out if that holds up. There. Done,” Dean says, a lingering stroke down the front of Sam’s chest. Just to make sure the tie’s in place, of course. “Lookin’ good.”
“I look weird,” Sam says, frowning. She scrunches her bangs and moves them from side to side, trying to cover up her forehead. Then, as if noticing Dean’s still staring at her, she says, “How’d you know how to tie this?”
“Guy I met back in Albuquerque,” Dean lies, the words hollow in her dry mouth. She has to suck her teeth to get the saliva to build back up. “Used to tie ‘em for him when I wasn’t trussing him up with ‘em on the bed.”
Sam rolls her eyes and tightens the tie, mouth pinched. “We should go now,” she says and damn if Dean knows why she sounds so completely pissed.
Part Four
They’d fruitlessly returned to the scene of their disappearance, which remained just a road and had no sign of trouble, other than some broken branches and disturbed ground. Sam shouldn’t be surprised that Dean, completely frustrated, headed straight for the bathroom but still, Sam’s surprised.
Maybe because now that Dean’s a man-albeit with the same long eyelashes that flutter and full lips that part, ready to dish out a smartass remark-Sam thought that maybe Dean could just slow down but no, that didn’t happen. There’s groaning behind closed doors. Sam’s being extremely vigilant about pretending something else is happening and not what actually is happening, mere feet away from where Sam’s sitting.
When Dean finishes, she opens the door, cheeks flushed. Sam can’t help take in account of how obvious and thoroughly fucked-out Dean looks without, uh, actually having been fucked. Her hair’s flat and wet, droplets against her hairline, her cheekbones. There’s a towel wrapped around her waist, amulet tapping lightly against her bare chest.
Dean breathes hard, and says, “This body is wasted. I can’t do multiples. What the fuck.”
“I think the more important issue is that we’re still guys, not your sadly missing ability to masturbate, like, five times every hour.”
Dean exhales as she comes over, bare feet light on the carpet. She’s hovering. Hesitates for a moment, claps a hand-mercifully not the hand she’d been using on her dick-on Sam’s shoulder, touches the soft curls at the back of Sam’s neck.
It’s too bad they’re not the hugging type. Normally Sam would knock Dean’s hand away, tell Dean to back off but this time she leans back and doesn’t complain, tell Dean that she reeks of sex.
Dean doesn’t, she smells-she smells male if Sam’s honest about it-clean and soap-fresh, shower doing a good thing even though it hadn’t hidden the noise of Dean attempting to go for multiples. It would be a good, no, a great idea to break contact but instead Sam says, “I think I pinched a nerve or something. My back’s killing me.”
“No way,” Dean says but she’s kneading her fingers into Sam’s skin, seeking out a kink to work out. “You’d be screaming like a bitch if you had a pinched nerve. Those fuckers hurt. You got a lot more real estate here, maybe you bumped into something.”
And just down, further, the broad muscles of Sam’s back, dip and curve prominent. As Dean’s hands move over the surface, it makes Sam wonder if that knot and line of smooth flesh from her back scar still remains or if these new bodies have been scar-free. It’s doubtful since there’s a faded scar behind her knee, one of the few reminders of the second hunt she’d been on when she’d been too scared to get the kill and had fallen back on a jagged rock.
Dean’s hand strays, brushes down, and another memory comes to the surface, painful, more a borrowed memory than anything else, last thing she’d remembered-when she’d died and she only has the haziest part of it left over.
(She’d been feeling so cold, so cold and then there was Dean.
Sam’s face and chest resting against in the curve Dean’s neck, last thing she knew was that Dean had her, holding Sam’s weight up, but everything was floating away, thoughts and words failing her, breasts pressing up against hers, and nothing-
Chest pressing up against her, scrape of stubble and long, lean muscled arms-)
Now Dean runs her fingertips over the outer curve of Sam’s ear and Sam shudders, jolted out of the memory.
“I’m just messing with you,” Dean says a little abruptly, voice wobbly, clearing her throat.
Sam tries to push that image of the past down and gone in her head; the past shouldn’t feel so unsteady and right at the same time, a male version of her life. Being male now is a pain in the ass, but it’s in the present. It’s temporary. Sam has to handle this and not lose a grip on what matters. But when this curse starts intruding on her memories, that’s another story.
Sam’s looking at Dean, raising an eyebrow and jerking when Dean slaps her on the back. She scowls and gives Dean a look as Dean adds, “Hey, you should think about it.”
“About what?”
“You weren’t listening?”
“I… was thinking. It’s this thing I do sometimes. Crazy, I know.”
Dean sighs and then says, “Look I was just saying that I figure you’d get a lot of ass looking like this. Chicks dig a tall freak. And since we’re kind of hard up for any answers to why we’re like this, maybe tonight we should have a little shore leave and uh, try out the merchandise.”
Ignoring Dean’s insane suggestion, Sam asks, “What do you mean, ‘freak’?”
“I’ve talked to some of your girlfriends,” Dean explains, pulling away to head over to the dresser. “Freak.”
“Did you talk to Natalie?”
“I heard you and Natalie,” Dean says over her shoulder as the towel slips, she pulls out a pair of low slung, tight boxer briefs out of the duffel, black and tight enough that they’ll probably fit snug against Dean’s body. It’s probably the closest thing Dean’s got to her previously questionable underwear collection.
Sam keeps her head bowed, and sure, maybe she’s looking through the curtain of her bangs at Dean trying to decide between two identical pairs of jeans.
Dean briefly glances at her over her shoulder, rolling her eyes. “They actually are different, you know. This one has a darker wash.”
“Of course.” Sam taps a key on her laptop, opening up a new tab and opening up Google.
Dean sniffs a pair of jeans. “Find anything?”
“Other than an address for the town council and a fascinating look at all the boards and councils they have? Not sure what else there is to find.” Sam rubs the bridge of her nose as Dean hikes up her jeans. “You know… it might be easier without you walking around-”
“Distracting you?” Dean steals a glance at the dresser mirror before she picks up a shirt.
Sam snorts in response, little shuffle of movement as she shifts the laptop on her lap.
Dean grins, lacing up her boots, “You give Bobby another ring, Einstein?”
“Yeah. Keep losing service, best I can do is two bars a couple blocks down the street. Piece of shit carrier.”
“Sorry to hear your fancy Blackberry ain’t workin’ for you, Francis.”
It’s strange that she uses the name-even Dean has this odd expression, like she knows it isn’t correct. It isn’t a nickname she uses easily: not a stuck-up kind of name she saves for Sam on occasion. A name like Blair, or Victoria, something fancy. Never Francis. That’s too plain and well, it just doesn’t fit.
“Careful, Deana. I thought we’re supposed to be using guy names now. Can’t slip up, right?”
“Even as a dude, you’re still a chick,” Dean says, irritably rubbing at her shoulder, perhaps a long term aftereffect of getting hit, shot, and thrown into walls, too many times to count, but Sam remembers them all. Funny how their sense-memories transferred over into their new bodies. It does make Sam reason out that this probably is a curse since Sam can remember those old pains. Maybe the heightened need of touch is just another symptom. Because Sam can still feel Dean’s fingers kneading the back of Sam’s neck and Dean’s halfway across the room.
Dean’s digging in her back pocket of her jeans and throws her cell phone over to Sam, nodding. “Try mine.”
A half-minute later, Sam shakes her head, throwing it back. “Even worse, you’ve got no signal.”
Grabbing the phone, Dean looks down at the display screen and shakes her head. “It’s showing half strength. Should be fine.”
“Fine. You try it.”
Dean does and scowls when it obviously goes to voicemail. Ever obnoxious, Dean tries the landline phone in the room, not like Sam’s already tried that before, hanging up after a minute. “Fuck. Well. Maybe Bobby’s doing some R&R. Or working.”
“Yeah and we can’t head off to him without knowing what’s happened. With someone or something doing this to us, there’s no way to know if it’s still here or what it’s next move is. People might get hurt.”
“You thinking someone else is gonna wake up a sweet transvestite?”
“That’s not what that means,” Sam snaps. “I just-I don’t know what else we can do tonight.”
“I got a plan. Got a call when you were playing with broken sticks on the ground and I think I’m gonna take a couple of hours of me-time.”
Like Dean hasn’t already had enough me-time.
Sam closes her laptop and stares at Dean as she finishes getting dressed, popping up the collar on her shirt. “You’re really going, aren’t you? To see that guy.”
Dean’s eyebrows shoot up, shaking her head a little. “There is something up with that guy and not just his dick when he caught a good look at me. Trust me, I know what I’m doing. Fuck, I’ve done this enough times before.”
“Dean, you don’t-” Sam fidgets, words on the tip of her tongue, uncomfortably making her shift her weight a little. “You don’t know this guy. I know it’s a job, yeah, I do, but this is different.”
Sam’s thoughts are a jumbled mess, words piling on, and on top of it is, irrational, a need to say don’t do this and worse, two more words added to the heap, to me.
Dean’s looking at her, eyebrow raised in confusion. Sam sputters for a moment and she mutters, “It’s not like, you’re not…you’re not gay.”
Dean tenses, pulling her jacket snug. “I can handle myself. I’ve done it before even though things are different downstairs, I’m pretty well-acquainted with the new equipment. No harm putting this body to good use.”
“Not with a dick, you haven’t,” Sam says curtly, chin jutting out as she gets up. Her chest is tight, top button barely keeping the fabric together. It’s probably the first time in all her life that she’s about to burst out of her top.
Sam shakes her head, eyes narrowing as she looks down at Dean, can’t help but take advantage of this broader and taller body for a moment. “Thought you weren’t gonna go through with it. You really think you can handle this?”
“I said, I can take care of myself,” Dean bites out, voice unsteady when she straightens her jacket, smoothing the shirt down her chest and belly. “Last time I checked, I don’t need your permission, Sam.”
Slow shake of her head, and here, Sam wipes and scratches at her nose, picking up the laptop, wanting to dismiss this conversation. She wants to banish the irrationality coursing through her body, to make Dean understand that she can’t do this.
“Sam, it’s just not about me getting my dick sucked. Look, maybe I’ll figure out why someone so out-of-place in a town like this looks real cozy with the locals. And why he immediately called someone the moment he noticed us in the dinner. And if he turns out to be a harmless douche, then maybe I will get off.”
It’s a lame joke and Dean looks like she’s waiting for Sam to do something, to react in that ‘kid sister’ way, like Sam will just roll her eyes or tell Dean how gross she’s being.
Instead Sam says, “It’s not like flipping a switch. You can’t turn it on and off.”
Dean narrows her eyes, unable to just drop it and step out, stance wide and anxious. She says abruptly, “This-this isn’t a gay thing, Sam, I’m still me, and you-the fuck do you know, Sam. Fuck you. I’m doing this-”
“For yourself. You think you’re ready for it? You’re straight, Dean, and we’ve switched sexes not identities. You’re straight or you’re gay. You can’t alter it just ‘cause you want to.”
“And no one’s ever in-between, huh?”
“What? You going to say you’re bi, now?”
Dean lets out a shaky breath and licks her lips, “Not saying that. Saying well, I don’t turn down free dinner. Whether or not I got a pussy or a freakin’ dick is beside the point, okay? And what I am is-” She cuts herself off, biting her lip, “Forget it.”
“Forget what? That you’re whoring yourself out again.”
“Yeah that’s me. A big fucking whore. You want to take it there, whatever, Sam. I don’t fucking care at this point.” Dean’s fiddling with the cuff of her jacket, looking down. “You find anything, give me a call. I’ll leave my cell on.”
She leaves, walking stiffly, as though she can feel the burn of Sam’s gaze on her back as she leaves.
There’s a quick look back, Dean mouthing something quick before Dean turns away, angry but not at Sam. Like Dean’s angry at herself.
*
By the time Deana hits puberty, no one is able to mistake her for a tomboy. At first glance, even with the plain t-shirts and ripped up jeans, the curves of her body gave her away as exceptionally feminine, pretty curves and angles of her face not needing to be accentuated unless she really wants to show off.
Her interest in sex hit early, breasts catching up with the rest of her by the time she turned fourteen. All those dirty thoughts hidden behind green eyes could be finally acted out and with a working knowledge of how to fake being ultra-feminine. She’d go out and pretend it’s easy, compartmentalize the parts of her that care more about mechanics and weapons maintenance with the nonexistent part of her that needs a guy to show off how talented and smart he is at ramming down shot after shot down his gullet and then show off his prowess at darts while Deana misses the bulls eye on purpose, buttering him up until she can take him off all he’s worth.
Where Sam would spend time in libraries, Deana would work the dives, picking up info, working this angle with fanfare, like she meant it, would let you know with fuck me boots, tight clothes, and loose, wavy hair.
First job she had, above all of it, was to protect Sam. She’d grown up with a sister and a father, but a hunter’s world was a man’s world, one that two sisters had to adjust to. Dean, on the other hand, felt that push and pull of wanting to hold Sam above others-as Dad told her-because Sam was her whole world, one that she always needed to protect. And that’s how she learned to adjust in this man’s world.
Once, when they were playing Scooby-Doo at that creepy motel in Connecticut, Sam’s sour drunken breath all Dean could smell as Sam clutched Dean’s shirt, mumbling worries at what her destiny would be, she’d added just before she’d dozed off, “And you, Dee. Why do you keep on pretending?”
It had been safe then, safe to ask, “What do you mean?”
Sam hadn’t answered then and Dean had stayed up all night, watching Sam sleep.
*
Her knuckles brush the smooth surface of fake wood, run along the items littered on the dresser. Car keys. Lighter. Change and receipts, lube, condoms, beef jerky, nothing out of the ordinary come before all this. Only thing that needs revising is the lube part, knowledge that’s vivid after one too many times of the morning after tales Dean told with her with wildly expressive hands and her dirty mouth, a wicked grin. They’re all small moments laid out in front of Sam, scattered between boys and girls, foil packets and a tubes of lipstick.
Sam paces around the motel room, restless, feeling fenced inside this limited floor space, stuck breathing air that’s warm and stale. The vending machines outside are busted and creak noisily, like they’re in need of a good oiling, unbearably slow in releasing junk food and candy bars. Sam stocks up, goes to the convenience store down the block too, but she isn’t satisfied afterwards.
There’s nothing on television, and nothing with the research, hitting a wall that has her angrily slamming the laptop shut. Great. Break the fucking thing, that’ll really help.
Dean’s only been gone less than two hours, and Sam feels like she’s slipping, growing frustration she can’t pinpoint. It’s an anger she can’t expel, can’t vent, because Dean’s not there.
So Sam’s forced to wait. She checks the ‘net, and other than a few articles on the reverse-sex swapping spells, men changed into women as punishment-she gets nothing done.
Miracles of all miracles, there’s a payphone close, but she only gets another busy signal from Bobby’s home phone and three calls later, she’s out of quarters and patience.
Sam heads back, frustration mounting into tangible thing. Dean and her plan, more like her fucking need for sex. The last thing Sam needs is for Dean to pop up in her thoughts when she decides, after too many minutes staring back at text that goes blurry, that she’s going to take a shower. That she’s going to calm the hell down, relief of real water pressure like a siren’s call when she steps into the bathroom. A soft warmth billows up with the steamy water, and Sam thanks God for the small comfort not too reliable in these crappy motels. And seriously, it seems like a good plan ‘til she’s peeling off her clothes and stepping in, thinking, shit, shit. This is different. Other than pissing, Sam hasn’t even given her new body a full once over.
The trauma of the morning hard-on had been enough.
Sam tamps down the anxiety, lathers up and lets the rivulets course down her chest abd the sharp cut of her narrow hips, water dripping through the dark thatch of hair her hand barely brushes, palm wide and fingers splayed out in tentative consideration.
She doesn’t wait this time. It’s a conscious order, just get over it, and she does, gripping her dick, full red flush as soap and water make it rub slick in her large hand.
It’s not the same as what she’s used to, the way fingers ply and curl under folds, press in one, two. Things slip-slide and Sam opens eyes to see, to watch the thick and heavy mass, like nothing she’s ever wanted. She’s only ever been curious about it, in the same way she’s curious about the world but it’s not, oh God, it’s not supposed to be like this.
A crisis of sexuality in the shower hasn’t ever been one of Sam’s nightmares but she’s certainly learning something. This is terrifying. And she has no desire to stop, pulling hard and fast. Shit, that hurts a little. But the hurt is different. Good kind of hurt. She’s getting accustomed to this, can follow where the sensitive spots are, too much of a quick learner for her own good and she’s not supposed to want this. This is… this is too easy. Not right but easy.
A hysterical thought bubbles its way to the surface of her mind. Maybe, just maybe, if she’s really a man, if whatever did this converted them all the way, that she transferred into a gay man.
That might make Dean straight. A straight male. Wow, Dean might just have a nasty shock when she gets to the end of her date.
God, Dean-Dean should not be a part of Sam’s brain when Sam’s stroking, when Sam’s touching her dick. It’s responsive, too, really responsive, has her wincing when she pulls up too hard. When she times the strokes slower, building a careful pace, increasing speed, a little hard now, flicking her wrist just so oh yes, that’s something.
Sam’s always been a quick study. It’s been a point of pride in fact, and if it doing this isn’t making her crazy enough, it’s the realization that she’s successfully mastered jerking off that has her gasping a broken laugh which quickly melts into a deep groan, noise unfamiliar to her and extremely disconcerting.
Quiet then, she needs to be quiet. Sam turns her face away, squeezing eyes shut and thinking this is what Dean was doing before in the shower, unable to control being noisy, but Sam? Sam is real good at being quiet.
It’s not soon after that that Sam comes, wave warmth courses through her, has her arching back, muscles straining. An explosion, a burst of hot need, hips pumping, wildly. She loses her grip on reality, knees nearly buckling, propelling her forward. Her left hand braced against the wall is the only thing that keeps Sam from making an ugly nosedive. There’s a messy sticky release pulsing out, spurts of it actually, and she watches the semen splattering the tiles with vaguely horrified amazement.
The water gets turned off a few moments after Sam washes away the evidence. Slowly connects the train of thought-coming at the idea of Dean being a guy. Coming at the thought of Dean getting off, and how Dean must’ve looked like when she did. Oh God.
This is the very definition of not good. She pulls on clothing like it’s an actual barrier to those thoughts, covering up the proof of her reaction, burn of shame hot on cheeks. She dries her hair with a towel, glaring at the TV, feeling desperate for the distraction of lame cable news.
Dean enters the motel room just past nine o’clock and that is not what Sam’s expecting. She rubs the back of her neck, growling, “And I got a sunburn too. At night. Fuckin’ wonderful.”
Her face is a little red, blush of anger and UV rays, a hot burn of pink across the tops of cheek, the bare of Dean's neck.
“You realized you couldn't go through with it, huh?”
“What? I would’ve if I uh, coulda.”
“So you figured out that guys have a limit, huh?”
Sam knows she’s being petty but Dean kind of deserves it. Their unresolved fight and what she just did in the shower isn’t making her feel particularly considerate of the huge stop fucking with me signals, such as the constant pacing which could almost make her seasick if she keeps staring at it.
“No way in hell was I gettin’ any action tonight,” Dean snaps, pulling off her jacket and throwing it on the bed. Her shirt’s wrinkled in front, flash of her flat abdomen when she irritably scratches an itch on her side. Shuddering, she adds, “The way he was looking at me. It was wrong.”
“We are who we are, regardless of our bodies,” Sam says and it turns out hypocrisy tastes a little like bile in the back of her mouth. Because Sam’s not who she was before this, she can feel something slow and inexorable change starting to chip away even at her most precious resource left, her memories, and she has no idea how to stop it.
Dean’s eyes are earnest and her face is oddly flushed at the cheeks, nearly easy to mistake it for blushing, “You know I wasn’t kidding. I wasn’t doing this to get laid-Yeah I mentioned shore leave but I… I wasn’t going to do it just ‘cause of that. I wasn’t, Jesus, Sammy. I know I’ve gone the easy route trying to score info. And yeah, I had him slobbering on my neck and telling me how pretty my mouth was but that’s about how far I could take it. Because you wanna know what? I’m not gonna bend over and take it. That’s all that happened. Oh, ‘cept when he thought he still had a shot. Then I kneed him in the groin. Man, he went down like a bitch, nearly sobbing for his mommy, I swear.”
Sam can’t help but wince in sympathy. “You didn’t have to tell me all that.”
“Yeah I did. Because you have to understand that if you ever call me a whore ‘cause you really mean it, I will do the same fucking thing to you. Even after we get this whole mess fixed up. It’ll still hurt even when there ain’t any balls hanging between your legs.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam says, the words weak on her tongue but she does mean them.
“Sucks,” Dean says, waving off the apology. “I really wanted to see if I could fuck a guy, you know? But that guy was a part of the job. And sure as hell wasn’t any fun.”
Sam’s jaw clenches involuntarily, not because she wants to yell at Dean for accepting this as always. But how it’s always been Dean’s mission to go out and put out or give up whatever shred of herself she has left to offer, as though she’s never been worth anything more. Because in theory, it shouldn’t be that different from slipping on a costume, fake name, fake I.D.. Difference is, those come off-throw the I.D. and costume away, and they’re Winchesters underneath and they have to live with their choices the morning after.
The price of being the Winchester sisters is that they have entirely different expectations. While Dean never really let Sam talk to her about gender studies, fact of the matter is they’re now living it and both failing miserably at it. In less than one day’s time as well, to make things that much worse.
Sam doesn’t know how to deal with the appetites of her sister transferred into the appetites, wants, and needs of a male. Doesn’t know how to convince Dean to stop putting on all these ridiculous games and manipulations, that she’s refusing to spill why she went out with this guy.
But Sam’s multi-tasking in her head because she’s-she’s thinking about the strong line of a stubbled jaw over her, the way hands feel rough against her biceps, wrapping a palm around-
No, she’s remembering something, only she’s not. Too hazy and it dies quickly.
She shifts in her chair and tries to twist away from Dean’s view, but Dean’s finally speaking, gaze elsewhere while she paces. As though she’s reassuring herself rather than saying it for Sam’s benefit.
“Look, we’ll get back to normal soon, Sammy. It’s how these goddamn things always happen, right?” Gotta deal with this as we can. And, and there’s benefits to being like this. Seriously. It’s kind of sweet that I don’t have to worry about tracking my fucking period or shaving my legs or wondering if I need to wax ‘cause things are starting to look scary down under. We don’t have to shave our legs, Sam. All we gotta do is shave our faces. That’s it. How awesome is that?”
Her voice might sound deep now but there’s no way that Sam misses that hysterical edge to Dean’s little closing rant. This time, she wisely decides not to mention that Dean’s on edge seeing as that course of action never goes well.
Besides, Sam rarely shaved her legs anyway, always wearing jeans. The only thing she ever bothered with shaving were her underarms and that was thanks to pressure from Dee.
(Dee brought home Sam’s very first disposable razor, holding it disdainfully between two fingers. High school girls are fuckin’ vicious, Sammy. You don’t wanna strip down in gym class and have ‘em ragging on you for being hairy..)
“Yeah, we don’t have to shave,” Sam says, hollow. “Except for our faces.”
“Hey, maybe we could rock the wild busy beard? Become like mountain men?” Dean scratches the side of her face, frowns. Bounces a little on her heels. “But, uh, maybe upkeep is a good idea.”
“Twenty-four hours and you're talking about ‘upkeep’, Dee,” Sam says, unable to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “That’s the least of our worries.”
“Hey, uh,” Dean twists her mouth, swallowing back something on the verge of being unleashed, and for a moment Sam deludes herself into thinking that Dean will let it go, only she doesn’t. Instead she says, “Look, we’re gonna pull through. We can do this.”
Dean’s hand is very warm as it touches Sam’s cheek. Peering down at Sam, she asks, “You still with me?”
Sam barely notices the other in Dean’s voice, the masculine timbre, because Sam responds to the resonance of Dean’s words, the power they have spreading across her limbs. For a moment Sam isn’t awkward and uncomfortable so goddamn exhausted. Exhausted because no matter what they do, there’s a new twist and unholy mess to deal with. Just when it feels like they’ve dug themselves out of one hole, they’re falling down another.
Sam’s closed her eyes and upon re-opening them, she sees Dee’s still staring. She feels Dee’s fingertips stroking the edge of Sam’s cheek, a touch that’s new, different. Something they don’t do. Her thoughts get muddled, unable to think clearly when Dean is there, warm, comforting. Doesn’t pull away either, as though Dee can’t help, won’t help, touching and won’t ever stop.
Finally, she stops, pulling back, hand clenching awkwardly like Sam’s left an imprint on Dean and not the other way around.
Sam’s voice is rough when she says, “Dean, I need you to be serious about this. No more distractions.”
Dean nods, still off in her own little world for a moment before she says, “That date from hell wasn’t kosher, not from the word ‘go’. Driving a German, brand-new car where ‘round these parts, the standard’s at least truck or SUV and everybody’s buying American. So I checked him out my way and now we need to check him out the Sam way. Not asking him what he thinks of the Indigo Girls, but uh, finding out who he is, ‘cause you know, I’m really fucking hot and all but he seemed to want to get in my pants like he’d just won a fuckin’ prize and I’m thinking that’s an extra kind of jacked up.”
“You think he could somehow be directly connected with what we were doing before? Not just an out of place guy?”
Dean shakes her head. “What I remember and what I know, it’s all fucked up, but my instincts didn’t leave the moment I woke up with a dick. I don't remember him from before. But it’s… look, something’s off. With him. Gave me the creeps, and not just in the touchy jerk kinda way. We gotta check it out. Maybe it’s a lead. Better than doin’ nothing.”
The laptop’s hibernating so it doesn’t take much time to get on the internet, one small piece of luck the wireless service doesn’t absolutely suck. “Since you didn’t even tell me this, let’s start off that basic question: What’s his name?”
Dean takes a little while to answer and Sam groans. “Seriously, Dee? You just met him. Please, you’re not that bad.”
“Paul Scholsser,” Dean shoots back, a little testy. “And hey, fuck you. I was trying to remember his exact license plate.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious.”
“I believe you,” Sam says. Amazing how bitchy a guy’s voice can sound. She plugs the name in several search engines, almost missing Dean’s one finger salute. She returns it in kind. “I think I got something. Um, Paul Scholsser. The second, apparently.”
“Banging a junior? Haven’t done that since I was a freshman.”
Sam ignores the earnest smile after Dee’s lame joke.
“I told him that we were land developers,” Dean says. “He put a big show about how we were ‘trespassing on his premises’ ‘cause he’s that kind of a funny guy.”
“Well…” Sam says, trailing off a little as she pulls up more information, “Actually, he’s not a land developer although he was involved at a real estate company basted out of Austin, but uh-wait a minute. Huh. Wow. Guess what?”
“He's got a rep for doing a little black magic? Likes turning chicks into man candy?”
“Gross. No, he's a major player on the town council. He’s on tons of boards and seems he’s been involved in getting major legislature passed in his very short tenure. A real go getter, that’s a quote from the local paper, doing a write-up on him. You sure know how to pick ‘em.”
“Not my first public servant. I gotta tell you about the one time I…” Dean trails off. Then she says with a little bit of wonder in her voice, “Never mind, I guess that didn’t really, um. So more on Paul. I didn’t ask him what his sign was, you find that yet?”
Sam pulls up a few more links, tabbing them to read-through later. “Thanks for sparing me for once. I really don’t need to hear about your every conquest. Start a blog. You’ll become an internet sensation.”
“No,” Dean says, a weird catch in her throat, scrubbing at her face, a habit she normally does when she’s cranky and in need of coffee, “Damn it, Sam. I didn’t, uh. Never mind. What’s the pretentious prick up to?”
“Squeaky clean. Almost too clean, especially for a politician. Not a negative article or editorial about him and-Oh. This is interesting.”
“What?”
“He ran uncontested in the last election. Even though apparently when he ran two years ago, he got crushed by, um, a Gary Wilson, eighty-seven years old and oh, turns out Councilman Wilson wasn’t exactly beloved.”
“But he still gets re-elected. Why is this important?”
“Well,” Sam says, a little smug, because this, the research, this is where things start to open up, “Look all the stuff that we did before we woke up on the highway? It was checking out what happened to Becky and there was a lot of talk about her getting killed right when this whole revitalization of the city was being championed by an out-of-towner who was putting pressure on the local government to speed up huge programs. Granting the kind of deals that have been unprecedented.”
Dean’s tapping out a strange rhythm on her bottom lip, frowning.
“And this Gary Wilson? He lost his seat in a special election in August. This article,” Sam says, pointing towards the screen, “also notes he was the longest running councilman. And, it looks like Wilson owned a construction company eventually handed over to his son…”
“Sam?”
“Rich Trent.” Sam boggles at the name and looks over a printed stack of sheets, searching for it because it’s too familiar but Dean answers Sam’s unspoken question.
“You mean Trent Construction? The company that got the bid to start building and renovating houses.” Dean’s leaning over Sam’s shoulder and Sam tries real hard not to breathe in the faint scent of cologne she’s now sporting and almost succeeds. “Like the one where Becky killed herself?”
“Yeah. The name was changed after Rich Trent took over. That was-oh come on, you’re kidding me?”
“I’m not, but the internet’s got a great sense of humor. What’s up?”
“We missed something huge before. Maybe because then we had no idea it mattered, but look here, Wilson’s initials. W.S.T.”
“Wilson Scholl Trent?” Dean raises her eyebrows. “I’ll be damned.”
“Uh, and apparently there’s a Howard Scholl, cousin to Wilson. Guess what happened to him?”
“Untimely death?”
“He sold his share of the construction company right before Becky Scholl died. That move wasn’t mentioned in the papers, maybe he’s a distant relative or something. In fact, there’s no other mention of Howard Scholl except for an article on Rich Trent taking over the ‘family legacy.’ No mention of how everyone’s related, not even that Wilson is Trent’s father but I’ll check that out and… ” Sam pulls up a new article, bare bones but it’s enough, saying, “Gary Wilson was geared to run for his seat again but he died six months ago-”
“Oh.” Dean’s stopped pacing around, stopped invading Sam’s personal space. Now she’s sitting on the bed, thoughtful. “Someone’s having a real wonderful string of luck. You don't think?”
“July,” Sam says. “It’s not that long after the door to Hell was opened and we saw the influence demons have on towns. What’s to say that one’s playing around with this town. It’s better than a corrupt land deal if there’s a demon in the works.”
“You think Paul made a deal with a demon? Jesus.”
“You do know how to pick ‘em, Dee.”
“Fucking great. So what, he figured out we were poking around and laid the whammy to us? Why? To get us out of the way? Why’d he’d let me pick him up or, hell, let me kick him in the balls? I’m hot, dude, but I’m not that hot. Why’d he let us leave?”
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“I mean, um, it feels like there’s more. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that he was there at the diner. If we went after a demon, where’s all our research? Demons don’t poke holes in people’s memories for the fun of it. And if they wanted to end us, they could have, easily.”
“So? What do you think is happening here? We got a ghost, a maybe-demon-”
“And a creature that has the power to do this to us with a snap of his fingers.”
“Goddamn. You always have to find ways of making it ten times worse. You’re thinking it’s him, aren't you?”
“If it’s the Trickster-” Sam swallows, “If it's a Trickster, it would kind of make sense.”
“So we got two cases. Or three. Whatever the fuck’s going on in this town and whatever the hell happened to us. Fucking fantastic.”
“If was witchcraft, they’re no kitchen-witches and honestly this is too advanced and complicated. There’s so many plots and calculations like it’s feeding towards something big. Human sacrifices maybe? I mean, if Becky Scholl was sacrificial-”
“Then they’re building a dark altar. All those pretty houses, nothing more than welcome beacons.”
“That would be best case scenario,” Sam admits, not even covering up the grim finality in her voice.
*
It’s midnight and Dean’s still up, watching Sam being defiant, eyes half closed and head propped up, held at an angle in Sam’s now giant mitt, elbow at a weird angle on the table.
Should tell Sam to grab some sleep, not much they can do at the moment. Sam’s exhausted the little paper supply they have for Sam’s wireless printer/scanner, walls covered in the documents Sam’s hacked from private sites, council records the public isn’t privy to. Nice thing is, they’re Winchesters, and the rules don’t apply.
Dean’s hand roams a little lazily down her chest and belly, fingertips grazing the soft ridges of muscle, dark thatch of hair. Her gaze lingers on Sam, eyes cracked open for as long as she can manage before she falls asleep on the lumpy mattress and dreams.
(Two times, to tell the truth. Two fucking times, in all her years, that Dean said out loud she wondered what it would be like. Having a dick. Being a man.
The first time was in Phoenix, Arizona. The place stayed with her, right in the middle of a heat wave, the kind that burned, unsettling, as much as the pixies they were chasing.
It was too hot to be running around, clothes damp, little to no coverage where they were hunting, bare land and dry brush. After they toasted the little suckers, burned and buried, she got cramps so bad that she couldn’t see straight. Sam hadn’t gotten hers yet and gave Dean this strange look, tilted head and glance like she didn’t get it, her mouth twisting into a pout. It was always that way with her, annoyance at Dean being first to experience everything and Sam left waiting in her sister’s shadow.
Later, though, during the long, lazy afternoon, Sam was the one to bring Dean the chocolate bar. Laid out on a queen-sized bed, they watched re-runs and spaghetti westerns. And Dean had been so tired, tired of everything, the heat and the pain, and that come less than thirty days she’d be feeling like this all over again. It was too much for her, to be forced out of commission, unable to hunt on the rag. She’d muttered it while Sam was dozing off, words bitter and angry as she spit them out, faster and faster, like a speeding train and she knew that if she didn’t stop, she’d give away too much but she didn’t give a fuck.
Sam never mentioned anything after that and once Dean’s period was over, she got massively drunk and wound up fucking someone she didn’t remember. All she could ever remember was the bathroom stall, someone took the time to let anyone would ventured into the stall that Lisa’s a fucking bitch.
Another time was right on the cusp of high school, in Jacksonville, Illinois, in a crappy apartment with lime green wallpaper, Dad gone for days, Dean took some time out for herself. Making out with a boy with a messy mop of hair, baggy jeans and flannel shirt, layers of clothing she snaked her hands under, trying to pull off. She thought she might like have a dick to fuck him with, thrust in and out his ass, making him scream. So much better with flesh than a strap-on.
She’d been laughing a lot then because she’d been high, not like he wasn’t fucked up too, and she’d muttered in his ear about how she wanted him to suck her off and he’d ruined it, sloppy tongue licking a messy path down her face, looking for her mouth, and then he said, “Baby I’m gonna eat you out so good.”
Only. Only the memory’s gone sour or twisted because Dean thought she’d leaned away from him, shoved him off of her but this time-this time-
Paul’s face staring back at her, running a hand down her thigh, no, not a female leg, broader and he’d been saying something, words garbled up but a few coming through What a waste, So pretty and Are you sure he won’t remember?
He.
The change had already happened. There wasn’t any clearing around them, just the open outdoors, sky above had no stars out, too black of a night. Dangerous. And there’d been someone else there. Someone.
Something.
Dean remembers it now, jerking awake, wiping at her face and grunting at the rough scratch of stubble. Gotta take care of that. And with that first waking thought, the reality of being in this body, Dean’s memories turn hazy again, remembering, what? Something about sex, but it must’ve been a really lame sex dream for it to dissipate so quickly. Another scratch at the growth of rough hair under her jaw before she smacks her lips, feeling that familiar burning in her lower stomach signifying that a piss would be a real good idea.
But first things first, gotta get a sense of time and place. The clock on the nightstand reads eight forty-seven, and Sam is already dressed, a blur of white and black through Dean’s sleepy, crusted over eyes as Sam bends down to put her shoes on. Stumbling into the bathroom and locking the door behind her, Dean pulls her jeans down, just enough, taking the risk of pulling her dick out of the opening in front of her boxer-briefs. Different than dropping her pants, but she might as well try it this way instead.
Then there’s the other risk, too, nervous that Sam will hear. It’s not like she hasn’t heard enough of Dean jerking off already but this is different.
Dean’s got her dick in one hand while she takes a piss, finishes up too fast and she yelps, jerking, hand flying out when she zips up without concentrating.
A moment later, Sam opens the door to find Dean bracing an arm against the towel rack and the cheap ass wood paneling with a hand covering her crotch, wincing. “What happened?”
Nine in the morning and they’re off to a fucking great start, really, with Dean’s temporary manhood caught in her fucking zipper.
Sam’s fussing with her tie, top two buttons of her dress shirt open, blazer and tight slacks making her look more like a guy on his way to picking up chicks than an officer of the law.
Dean exhales, slowly, tries for nonchalant despite the crotch-numbing-holy-mother-of-God awful pain. “Nothing. I-It’s nothing.”
“Maybe some ice will help?”
“Oh, fuck you,” Dean says, and while it still hurts, it’s dulling a little as time passes and Dean washes her hands and leaves Sam to take care of her business. “Word of advice, mind the zipper.”
Apparently Sam does listen to Dean’s advice because there’s no yelp of pain but maybe being fully awake helps. Dean changes into the suit that seems to fit okay even though the suit jacket doesn’t fit. She really hates tucking the shirt into the trousers, probably the only pain-in-the-ass part of dressing like a guy so far.
“Hey,” Sam says, leaning against the open doorway of the bathroom, a strange look on Sam’s face, all tight and well, not other way to put it, bothered. “I’m having trouble getting the tie right.”
“Yeah?” Dean can handle this. No little tremor when she speaks, nope, that ain’t happening. Sure she has no idea how long Sam watched her dress or why that even matters, they’ve seen everything. Well almost everything in these new bodies too, so it shouldn’t count for ‘everything’ except how it does.
“Do you know how to do this?” Sam gestures at the limp tie around Sam’s neck, the wrinkled middle parts a clear sign that Sam’s really put a lot of effort and failed miserably.
“I got a couple of ideas,” Dean drawls. “Let me show you. In case, uh, if ever comes in handy later on. Good to have the experience.”
Sam raises an eyebrow in doubt over that but dutifully lets Dean into the bathroom.
“Keep an eye on the mirror,” Dean instructs, putting one hand on Sam’s shoulder, pushing her torso back a little and Dean shifting over so Sam can see. She’s almost pressing into her when Dean leans against the edge of the sink, legs spread wide, starting to work on Sam’s tie. Sam fits easy into the ‘v’ of Dean’s thighs, shifting her weight back a step, Dean’s knees snug against her hips. “Stay still.”
It takes Dean a few tries to get it exact. No, that’s a blatant lie, Dean nailed it on the second time, got the knot perfect but she’d slipped fingers underneath, right at the hollow of Sam’s chest. Sam had swallowed, so yeah, it took a few more times. Dean works with stiff fingers, too much of a coward to look into Sam’s eyes.
“The case,” Sam say, a little unsteady. “Let’s talk about it.”
“Right.” Because they’re masters at ignoring the obvious and in this case, Dean doesn’t even want to accept what the huge elephant in the tiny bathroom really is. Dean wipes sweat off her forehead before yanking the tie apart again, and says, “Wilson gets offed and Mr. McGrabbyhands gets his old job.”
“A town where everybody knows everyone and an out-of-towner fits right in even though he’s not making any effort to fit in. Even lets someone pick him up in broad daylight.”
“Hey, I was being subtle,” Dean says, tugging harder than she should and Sam gasping and pushing forward and oh, that’s a little too close, Sam instantly pulling back, nearly losing her balance but Dean’s legs are positioned well enough that she just tightens and oh. Oh. This is really a bad kind of position to be in.
“Fine. But there’s all these weird personal connections that are way too convenient.”
“Yeah,” Dean agrees, fingers slipping under Sam’s collar to straighten it. “Wilson’s son takes over the construction company that owns the house where the girl died and where we got whammied. His ex-partner had the same last name as Becky but we don’t have proof of any familial relationship. Pretty convenient. Is Rich Trent on the town council too?”
Sam hesitates, Adam’s apple bobbing, “No, he’s not, but somehow I think they might be responsible for what happened to Becky.”
Dean’s waiting for Sam to say something not about the case. Waiting for Sam to ask Dean what the fuck she thinks she’s doing, to get her to stop but it isn’t happening. The hard press of porcelain against Dean’s thighs hurts and given the zippering, her dick’s down for the count so it’s not like she’s giving away how-how amazing it is to be this close, to do something so disgustingly domestic like tying someone’s tie and feel like it’s the most amazing thing in the world.
“Dee-” Her nickname kills the moment, somehow. “I need to grab that-”
Dean nods, letting go and angling her body to the side as Sam snakes an arm around her to pick up the comb on top of the sink. The edge of the sink is pressing hard against the left side of her hip but Dean could really give a flying fuck about the pain.
“So,” Dean says, and though they’re still way too fucking close, there’s distances carefully drawn, Sam looking into the mirror and pointedly not looking at Dean, not even out of the corner of her eyes. “She get in the way of a deal or something?”
“All signs point to yes. She’s got motive to haunt the house if it’s true. Violent death like that?” Sam exhales as she turns a little to face Dean, breath against the itchy stubble on Dean’s face. “Small town like this, anyone against them and it could get real messy real fast. Let’s say she stumbled onto something-or hell, she gets mixed up with one of them and tries to open her mouth. Maybe they… just got rid of her,” Sam finishes, flat, lips working like there’s a bad taste in her mouth.
“Guess we’ll find out if that holds up. There. Done,” Dean says, a lingering stroke down the front of Sam’s chest. Just to make sure the tie’s in place, of course. “Lookin’ good.”
“I look weird,” Sam says, frowning. She scrunches her bangs and moves them from side to side, trying to cover up her forehead. Then, as if noticing Dean’s still staring at her, she says, “How’d you know how to tie this?”
“Guy I met back in Albuquerque,” Dean lies, the words hollow in her dry mouth. She has to suck her teeth to get the saliva to build back up. “Used to tie ‘em for him when I wasn’t trussing him up with ‘em on the bed.”
Sam rolls her eyes and tightens the tie, mouth pinched. “We should go now,” she says and damn if Dean knows why she sounds so completely pissed.
Part Four