home is where I want to be but I guess I'm already there
Title: The 100 Times Sam Winchester Came Out 1/2
Author: veterization
Rating: PG-13/T
Genre and/or Pairing: Sam centered
Warnings: Slight mentions of potential incest if you squint.
Word Count: ~13,000
Summary: Teenchesters era. In which Sam Winchester deals with being gay. And trying to not be. And coming out at least a few dozen times..
The first time Sam notices a boy with the soft traces of junior high and stubble over a girl with evolving boobs and plump, sticky lips, he's thirteen.
He's barely reached the start of the puberty ladder, tall and looming, the agony of his prospective teenage years crawling up each step, heavy and slow. He's grown his fair share like most boys, going from pudgy twelve-year-old to lanky thirteen-year-old. His legs are gangly, too tall for his body, and his knees feel knobby, and he's tried to convince Dean four times that his left arm is a few inches lengthier than his right. His face is still young and his eyes still reflect the appearance of fairly innocuous innocence, something that most strangers wouldn't expect out of a teenage boy already being able to share experiences of death and murder and the knives in the trunk of his dad's car during show and tell.
Still, some of the boys have grown more, the faint birth of muscles being defined down their chests, and some of the boys have grown less, still short and awkwardly positioned when placed next to some of the taller, luckier boys.
Sam's always had an insatiable amount of curiosity, the same thirst for intrigue of things he most probably isn't ultimately interested in, the same curiosity he put on display when he demanded to hear explanations on where dad went, why mom wasn't alive, and if the shadow in his closet was real or fantasy. And that extends to watching the boys during school.
He's in the locker room, untying his shoes after a strenuous game of outdoor soccer when he first gets called on it. He's watching one of the older boys under the discretion of his eyelid, eyelashes framing his pupils and hiding his watchful eye. The boy doesn't have knobby knees, and he doesn't have gangly legs, and his arms are well-built with evenly distributed muscles. He's got a healthy amount of definition in his chest, but not quite as much as Sam sees in Dean when his brother undresses at night before bed, and the right amount of volume in the curve of his groin where his boxers dig into his hips and thighs. Sam doesn't even know the boy's name, nor has he ever taken the time to look at his face, but he's entranced by the sight of a thin sheen of sweat layered down his torso all the way to the vanishing, sharp V of his hips.
He's in the middle of making a mental comparison to the boy's body and his own, wondering if a few months worth of hardcore training and aiming practice has built him similar definitions in his chest and biceps as the boy next to him when said boy notices Sam's stare. From afar it doesn't look like a young boy merely examining the development of anatomy apart from his own ascendance through growth, but rather like the doe-eyed and unwavering gaze of a pervert in the making.
However, it's junior high and Sam is in seventh grade. There is less potential in perversion and more possibility in blossoming homosexuality hidden in Sam's eyes, still suppressed and fairly well hidden when not caught in the post-gym shirtless festival that is the boys' locker room.
"Oi," the boy says, and the abrupt snap of his locker closing triggers Sam out of his not-so-subtle observation, "you looking at something?"
Sam looks up at him, bangs protectively smoothed over his eyes like a raggedy curtain. The boy's face isn't nearly as handsome as his chest is, and not nearly as smooth. He has the poorly concealed raw and red marks of acne scattered about his jaw and a default furrow to his eyebrows. Either it's a permanent fixture to his expression or he's attempting to come off as intimidating after he's just found an underclassman staring at him as if his skin has all the answers in the world etched on it.
"No," Sam says, and stuffs his socks into his locker just to have something to do with his hands. There's a few more boys listening in, some of them blatantly leaning into the conversation and others merely watching out of their peripheral vision with a few snickers that let Sam know that they're very present in the room.
The boy, still scowling as if looking down at a particular gruesome STD poster, reaches for his shirt and unfurls it from its ball of wrinkles, throwing it over his head.
"I think you were," He says, and Sam resists the urge to roll his eyes. He knows the boy. He's a member of the oldest grade and therefore, the cockiest, intent on provoking disagreements fueled with teenage hormonal rage for entertainment. Sam's got better ways to deal with his anger instead of strutting through the halls scaring the grades beneath him, but clearly, the boy looming in front of him doesn't.
"I wasn't looking at you, man." Sam says, louder than before to hopefully get his point across, but if he's got his personality predicted successfully, that won't be enough for the kid.
"Look, boy," he says, slowly, as if Sam's younger and therefore miles beneath him in intelligence. Sam finds that mildly amusing. "If you swing on the other side of the fence, not much I can do about it. But don't bring it in here, man."
There's a quiet murmur amongst the other boys, and whether it's a silent reassurance of agreement or the start of a rumor, Sam isn't intent on hearing it.
"Whatever." He replies, and it seems to dismiss the conversation as more lockers slam shut. It's becoming one of Sam's favorite words, with the power it seems to hold to not only convince people that he's entirely indifferent on the subject at hand but the way it makes normally makes people shut up as well.
--
When the Winchesters uproot and move exactly one week later, Sam's relieved. There's whispers that follow him in the hallways and the girls that gather in throngs at the locker four down from his own all giggle simultaneously when the lock on his locker gets jammed from too many binders and books. The boys give him looks as if he's the mold on their sandwich, or worse, the ground zero for the new plague. He knows he's weird, he just never knew he was that noticeably weird.
But unlike most kids, Sam gets to start over on his appearance and his attitude at least once every month. They gather their duffel bags of belongings and head for states thousands of miles away and for the next few days to weeks, Sam gets to be whoever he wants to be. In theory, he could enjoy himself and adopt accents in certain states and outrageous personalities in others, but he's too busy trying to be accepted as just Sam Winchester to be worrying after an alternate self just yet.
There's a boy in his class who Sam likes. He sits a desk away from him in geometry and always has the same dark lock of hair curling up at an angle that defies gravity by every degree but judging by how many times the boy rakes his hand through his hair, can't be tamed. Sam has had the odd urge to touch it and attempt to smooth it down himself sometimes, but never satisfies it. It would seem like an unorthodox thing to do, and this time around, he's trying to be as normal as possible.
When the row passes down papers and the boy turns around to give Sam his, he smiles. His teeth are a little uneven and his facial hair is growing at an alarming rate, the steady growth of stubble blatant on his chin every morning, as if he has to shave nightly just to keep it maintained. His eyes are the dullest shade of brown, the type that isn't remarkable even in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the school, but Sam still likes to look at him. He's gotten good at detecting the routinely twitch in someone's eyelid or obvious mistrust in their glance because after all, he is the strange new kid, but this boy, whatever his name may be, seems to look at him like he's just another student stuck in math class. Whether it's because he's too busy being lulled into a doze by the droning of their math teacher or doesn't look at his face long enough to draw a suspicious conclusion, Sam likes how he looks at him.
Sometimes, when the boy, whatever his name is that Sam has yet to figure out, turns around to pass back papers, their fingertips will brush with the slightest of pressure. He doesn't flinch back and he doesn't have the typical teenage boy reaction where any fashion of male-on-male touching that isn't meant officially fist bumping, arm wrestling, or congratulatory pats on the shoulder is far from allowed. It's refreshing and surprisingly mature, and even if it's never confirmed verbally, Sam feels as though he's been accepted by someone.
--
Sam leaves town without ever learning the boy's name. Sam knows he has the potential to be normal, or at least, appear so, and that's enough to encourage him to try again next time. There will be more schools, more chances, more people like always, and sometimes, more boys with nice smiles.
It takes a few more tries but eventually, Sam finds someone who he's pretty sure he can label his friend despite what he assumes should be his own requirements for suitable friends. Then again, he isn't one to be picky and choosy about who he gets along with, and this boy doesn't make "getting along with" very difficult.
He's excessively loud, energetic like a puppy, and has the inability to ever close his mouth. Sam surmises that he's less his friend and more someone that the boy can talk at instead of to. But he seems to be everyone's friend, because sometimes when Sam walks alongside him in the hallway, his hand seems to wave at every single student breezing by him.
He has flyaway hair that looks windswept even on the most tranquil days, almost as if a comb has never met his hair before or merely lost the battle of attempting to tame it. His eyes are as excited as his words are when he talks, and even though Sam isn't one to give senses attributes they are impossible of performing, this boy's eyes can simply only be described as excited. Titillated, fascinated, truly interested in what there is to be said and heard.
When he first spoke to Sam, it's because he spied the knife in the depths of his backpack. Sam was in the midst of pulling out a few of his binders when the knife got snagged in between some of his papers and was momentarily apparent to all who were paying attention. The boy obviously was and burst up from his chair like a rocket, all smiles and spraying spit as he started rambling about how Sam must be a ninja or an assassin hired from Asia. Sam was stuttering and bumbling about his words in an attempt to explain the weapon in his bag but the boy drowned him out, more awed than concerned at the armory Sam had stashed away during school hours.
He calls Sam "weird," and "oddball," but they aren't directed at Sam as insults. He's always wearing a smile and punching Sam in the shoulder when he calls him a freak, and for once, Sam doesn't associate that word with the definition of "bad" anymore.
--
She's a pretty girl, with long brown hair all the way down to her chest that almost seems too straight, as if she spends the majority of her allowance on salon recommended hair products just to achieve that waxy commercial look all teenager cheerleaders aspire to. She has the big brown eyes of a teddy bear that seem to just go for miles into her skull to the point where Sam almost doesn't want to look at them because of the pure intensity, as if her eyes are listening more than her ears are.
Sam might be convinced that the girl is talking to him just to talk if it wasn't for the way her thumb was discreetly hitching up her skirt inch by inch, revealing smooth slivers of tanned thigh with every gentle tug. Her skirt is already short and Sam can see blatant cleavage if he just looks eight inches south of her face. Her lips flutter when she speaks, ripe and plump with an excess of lip gloss coated over her mouth and tinting it a false shade of crimson. Her nose curves smoothly into her cheekbones, petite and creamy like every magazine cover displays their models. She has an absurd, charming little laugh that sounds as if she's working her vocal chords too hard to try to emit genuine giggles and a thrilling, low voice with an edge of soft femininity.
Sam can practically smell the feral odor of boys growling and drooling at the sight of the girl, hands framing her face as if just to feel its shape, chatting to, of all boys, Sam, as if she's learning all of the answers to the world's unanswerable questions through his replies.
But really, the conversation has little depth. She keeps sending glances seriously devoid of any meaning let alone comprehension of the subject at hand at him and flicking her sun-kissed autumn-leaf yellow hair over her shoulder. Sam's practically waiting for the eyelash batting to start. This is the sort of heavy attention he'd expect Dean to get, but he figures it's harmless schoolgirl flirting. He won't be around to receive his midterms, let alone have a significant conversation with the girl in front of him who seems to be having a few noticeable difficulties grasping the concept of some of his AP English vocabulary.
"Oh, and Sam," She says, as if what she has to say is even somewhat relevant to what they were discussing, even if Sam knows it won't be, "I wanted to ask you something."
"You did?"
"It's four o'clock," She says, seemingly finding the time on the ceiling, and Sam had hardly realized that she had wheedled out his attention for an entire sixty minutes after the bell dismissed them, "You wanna catch a movie and a bite after?"
Her eyes are imploring, a tiny pout tugging at the corners of her lips. The instant her question mark curved off her sentence and she sought out his answer, ceasing to compel Sam's attention, he could feel the insincerity behind the past hour of words tumbling off her tongue. She is a girl in high school more focused on make-up and how much taller her boots make her in comparison to the other girls instead of the future, looming ever closer. Maybe it's because Sam's future is always straight on his heel, pulling him from state to state and sometimes even dangling in front of him like a dog being teased with a treat when he has the opportunity to follow his father on life-threatening hunts, that he's more concerned with it than other kids. He's wasted his childhood growing up, essentially, and this girl, she's not thinking about the bigger scheme of things. She's thinking about who she gets to lock lips and lungs with before the evening ends. The entire conversation strikes Sam like an elaborate trick with him being the victim simply to evoke a contributory emotion out of him.
Taking his silence as a contemplation she doesn't deem him necessary of having, she leans closer, and Sam can detect a whiff of cheap cherry gum as a gust of her breath lands on his chin. She presses her chest together as subtly as she can with her arms, but Sam notices, and tries not to smile at her poor antics. The curve of her breasts elicits a soft shadow to slide up her skin all the way up her chest, and Sam knows he's staring at a sight half the football team would jump on in a nanosecond.
Maybe it's because he's not sure the girl knows his name. Maybe it's because simple pleasures like staring at a girl's revealing chest has been ruined for him along with the rest of his innocence when he saw his first real life monster. Maybe it's because Sam isn't his brother. Maybe it's because he can't find anything appealing about her golden skin and red lips. Maybe it's because she's a girl.
He smiles and reaches for his book bag, limp by his feet until now. "Maybe another time," he says, and his smile tightens, "My brother's probably wondering where I am."
Her smile falls, her arms go pliant by her sides as she stops squeezing her assets together for her advantage, and even her hair seems to lose some of its sunny luster. She grabs her own bag, smiles back just as tightly, and Sam no longer sees the coquettish girl that was in his presence a mere few seconds ago, but instead her disposition is replaced with the sharp sneer of a stereotypical preppy bitch from high school. For just a second as he watches her walk away with a haughty aura to her step, he feels justified in his inability to find girls tempting.
--
The official fib Sam has fabricated to escape the predictable taunts and teases from his brother about seeing the school counselor is that he's using the weight room after school to toughen up for the hunt John keeps promising Sam will soon be able to accompany him on.
If anyone asked him how he ended up at the door to the counselor's office, he wouldn't be able to give a legitimate explanation. He's tried to follow the pattern his brain took that resulted in him settling on going to an elderly woman with patterned cardigans every Tuesday and Thursday after school for what is really glorified therapy without the cost.
But that's the thing about the elderly. They have frail, gentle smiles and wispy hair that the more it wisps and grays, the less dangerous they seem as human beings. They speak in soft tones and have brittle smiles that seem to chap their lips every time they tug their mouths upward. All in all, their arthritis and wrinkles and slippers together in one package, they're pretty harmless.
The counselor at Sam's school has a room that's crammed with plaid armchairs and, because the elderly are wordlessly required to have at least one obsessive compulsive habit, whether it be stamp collecting or coin displays, at least three dozen stuffed animal dolphins littered across the shelves lined on the walls. It smells like pomegranates and the loitering, hard to detect smell of a pressure cooker, almost as if she was cooking chili behind her shelves of dolphins.
Perhaps it's because her room is so tranquil, so old and innocuous, a remarkable contrast from his everyday life, that Sam is mentally okay with seeing her.
"Dear," She says gently, and peers at him from over her spectacles. They have a chain and everything. Under her almost intense stare from green eyes dulled with age, her posture ideal for an oil painting and her scarf adorned with a pattern that looks undeniably themed for the sixties, Sam feels freakishly young. He settles into the frayed pillows surrounding him in the armchair.
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Why are you here today?"
Sam thinks about it, and once again faced with the intensity of her mossy eyes, decides to answer truthfully, "I don't really have anyone else to talk to."
"But you have your brother."
Dean doesn't go to this school. He picks him up everyday in the Impala and Sam can always tell exactly when he arrives based purely on the onslaught of giggles and stares of girls as they point with the discretion of two-year-olds at the attractive young man in the studly car. The thing with the elderly is that while they might be harmless, they also have an eerie and intuitive way of knowing everything.
"He's great," Sam nods, and she mirrors him, "but some things he just wouldn't understand."
She pulls her glasses off entirely and lays them in her lap. Her hands are wrinkly, as if she had just spent too much time soaking them in bathwater. "And why wouldn't he understand, Sam?"
Sam knows the answer to the question. He knows exactly what's wrong with him, why the boys ostracize him in the locker room, why he's generally labeled as the freak within a few weeks of attending school, the weaponry aside. It's the bush he's been dancing around, the thorny issue he's never touched since he started seeing the counselor. Truth be told, he's not even sure he can say it out loud.
"Because I'm different," Sam says, "Even more different than he is."
She looks at him and sighs delicately, and through the intense, hypnotic gaze of her eyes, Sam feels boneless under her stare. It's as if she's found a way to telepathically pull Sam's thoughts out of his head like some sort of wise and aged marvel. Sam can tell right away it's one of those rare looks of understanding, comprehension that goes deeper than just a simple affirmation of his worries, and even though it's long and hard and even bordering on creepy, Sam feels a little better.
She exhales again, reaches for spectacles, and changes the subject to Sam's grades. Sam isn't even sure if the woman knows it, but Sam feels she understands him better than his own father, and suddenly he gets why it's not a smart idea to invest and grow fond of those temporary acquaintances Sam gets the chance to meet every few weeks. This woman, this stranger who barely knows him, Sam feels safe with. Maybe even normal.
--
There's a kid in Sam's new drama class that is the epitome of a storm-tossed kitten lost in the rain.
He's one of those few people whose appearance matches his personality infallibly. He's got long, mousy hair that's a few gray hairs away from being a dull ashen color. Sam doesn't think he's ever seen the boy's eyes in the way his bangs always fall over them, shading his vision like a protective and thick curtain shielding the windows of a paranoid curmudgeon. His hoodies swallow him and his feet get lost in his own shoes. He barely speaks up, and when he does, it's in a tiny murmur that everyone has to strain to hear. Sam can't possibly fathom why he's in a class like drama, meant for extroverts and gregarious souls, but he supposes he doesn't really know the boy from just a few glances at him.
He's only ever handed him assignment sheets and said bless you to the kid when he sneezes in class, because not only does this kid shriek defense mechanisms from every angle, but while he doesn't have any friends, he doesn't seem to even want any.
A week after Sam gets settled in drama class, he doesn't get the option of choosing if he wants to be the kid's friend or not. It's pretty much a given what his choice is when he sees him, huddled by a row of lockers with the blatant trickle of fresh rubicund blood oozing through the spaces in between his fingers while he palms the halves of his face in his hand.
Sam feels a rough palpitation like a drumbeat rock through his heart at the sight of the kid, mop of head quivering even though there's an absence of pained whimpers or any audible noises of agony. The blood is leaving a trail like lava down his arm and with the reflexes of a hunter in training, Sam lets his history book skid to the floor as he kneels by the fetal ball of a boy.
"Hey," he says, tapping an urgent pattern out on his knee to get his attention, "hey, it's me, Sam. Lemme look, lemme help."
He wants to whisper the boy's name like Dean always does whenever he gets a few stitches or scrapes his flesh open enough to bleed, all soothing and low like a mother cooing at her baby, but he finds that he doesn't even know the boy's name.
The kid jerks at the sudden contact, obviously not expecting the attention, but eventually manages to pry his hands away from his face. His eyelids are swollen and already acquiring a dark tinge, his lower lip cracked and bleeding. His nose is letting out its own torrent of steady droplets of blood and a few strands of hair are matted down on his forehead, sticky with blood. It's starting to get crusty and brown on a few patches of his skin, but Sam refrains from wiping it all away with his thumb to not scare the boy off.
He's seen a myriad of lacerations in his lifetime of living in a hunter-oriented family, all of them worse than this. It looks as if someone with a big fist had a few joy hits on the feckless target walking alone in the hall and Sam lets out a quiet exhale at the thought. The boy doesn't have friends, let alone acquaintances, so he can't imagine him having enemies either. He assumes it's simply easy to pick on the silent.
He reaches for the first aid kit he carries with him in his backpack like a security blanket and sweeps a thumb gingerly under the boy's eye, right on his swollen cheekbone. The boy meets his scrutinizing gaze as he tries to gauge the severity of his wounds and his eyes are a light, gentle blue, like the shade of aqua a mother might paint her son's room. Sam thinks it's the first time he's ever seen his eyes without the shelter of his fringe covering them up.
"Can't believe high schools still have bullies who beat people to bloody pulps for no reason still exist," Sam mutters, and smears away some of the blood from where his puffy bottom lip meets his chin, "there's better things to lose blood over."
The kid's eyes go downcast, staring a hard line straight into his lap as he lets out a small, barely noticeable tut. It's the shortest form of mockery Sam has ever heard and in all candor, he's surprised at the amount of bitterness trapped into that single sound from the mouth of such a supposedly impassive teenager.
"They didn't beat me up because they felt like it, Sam," He says, a dark, low, raspy voice, as if the stifled whimpers have made his throat croaky and the loitering sting of pain has made him icy, "They beat me up because I'm gay."
Sam's hands stop their work momentarily on smoothing away the remnants of the sticky blood on his spread over his cheeks. It's the way he spits the last word, like it's an incurable disease or a carton of expired milk, like it's something he has to get off his tongue as fast as he can possibly get his airways to speak.
Gay.
Gay.
The word rings in Sam's head just like the boy just spat it out. It's a stupid thing to ruminate on, considering it's a generally harmless word. It's one syllable. It was derived from the word happy, happy like the old actors used to frolic through meadows while subtitles followed their words like caterpillars.
He looks at the boy curled up on himself in front of him. He looks at himself. It's a slow, probably too extensive introspection for the bleeding boy still awaiting his nursing situated in front of him, but Sam's mind can't help but start churning.
Ever since this part of him has bubbled up like a natural disaster winding its way through Sam's body and threatening to burst, he's lost a part of himself he knew. He was Sam Winchester, gangly boy with a knife in his sock and hair that grew at an alarming rate. His brother called him a little girl sometimes, and sometimes Sam got offended, but their fraternal teasing was just a part of his family. He was Sam Winchester, the boy with praying mantis legs too long for his body, as if someone had vertically stretched him in his sleep. He was Sam Winchester, the boy who picked the cashews out of his mixed nuts and liked his toast a second away from being burned to a crisp. Sometimes, despite his protests, he was even Sammy Winchester, the younger brother subjected to hair ruffling and shampoo pranks.
After his teenager epiphany that seemed to come with the growing pains of adolescence, he went from Sam Winchester, the boy with the imbalanced life, to Sam Winchester, the boy who doesn't even know who he is in his imbalanced life.
He's not happy. He's far from. And the boy in front of him, the boy who never says a word, Sam takes a wild guess and presumes the he used to be happy. Perhaps he was always introverted and shied away from large crowds more than the average curious child, but maybe he was happy. Maybe it was a few years ago, a few months, a few weeks, but maybe this boy in front of him used to grin on a daily basis.
Gay, dictionary definition: showing a merry, lively attitude.
This isn't it.
Sam's fingers vaguely remember their task and twitch, going back to rummaging for his first aid kit. He lets the thumb that's wiping away blood like a fussy mother grab the boy's chin and tilt it upward, fixing his intensely blue eyes with his own.
"You're gay," he repeats, voice rough in his throat, "That doesn't equal to being anyone's punching bag."
For a millisecond, the bitter post-wound haunt in the boy's eyes fade to something a bit merrier, as if he gets it. He gets that Sam understands, that maybe he's not alone in this interminable battle with not only his own guilt and consternation, but with all of society and the discrimination and bigotry that goes hand in hand.
The boy adds in a small voice, as if it's an afterthought he's frightened to announce and be heard, "I don't think anybody should ever be a punching bag."
Sam feels his chin nod on its own accord and he smiles, and apparently it's contagious, because the boy's lips twitch up a fraction of an inch. His sliced lip breaks open again, but he doesn't seem to notice.
--
Sam meets another boy, much like the one in his math class, all the way up in Minnesota while John is fighting off a werewolf clan with Bobby's help. The only difference between him and the boy who shall forever remain anonymous from a few months ago is that Sam actually talks to this one.
They're in the same biology class and ended up being lab partners. Sam's glad, because he knows it would've either be him, or some of the cheerleaders in his class who seem much more focused on their nail polish or the state of their ponytails instead of the actual lessons.
The guy has constant dirt lodged underneath his fingernails and has a nervous foot that taps away a steady rhythm underneath Sam's chair from the start of the bell to the dismissal. He tells Sam that he's in a band, one he runs in the garage when his mom isn't home, and Sam tries not to laugh. He tells him he and his friends call themselves The Potential Noses and that he can start a rave party in point two seconds with his guitar, even though it still doesn't have the replacement for his broken G string.
Sam listens to him ramble about the gig he and his band are going to play in the senior citizen's home in a few weeks throughout the entire frog dissection. Sam doesn't think this boy will be a rockstar like he so adamantly dreams of being in a decade's time, but he has ambition, and that's something Sam appreciates. And above that, he makes him laugh.
One week after being lab partners in science, biology promptly becomes Sam's favorite subject. It's nice to slip into his classroom and instantly be met with a thousand watt smile from across the room and impatient hands grabbing him toward the lab stations. The boy can make dissecting sheep guts sound enjoyable, like a schoolboy adventure, the blood and the dull dissection knives only part of the journey. He throws his head back every time he laughs and Sam zeroes in on the prominence of his Adam's apple in his throat, the way it ripples with every bark of unsuppressed chuckles. Sam always has the bubbling desire to run his thumb along the expanse of his neck from the soft spot behind his ear all the way down to the junction of his neck to his shoulder. He doesn't, though, and keeps his hand in a fist in his lap.
In the second week, Dean sees them walking out discussing band practice and how guitars are a bitch to tune sometimes and claims his dislike for the boy a few days after. Secretly, Sam ruminates over the strange bias his brother has developed for his friend and can't help but be worried if somehow, Dean knows. If he does, he never says anything about it.
In the third week, they start wordlessly eating lunch together. Without a single comment on the sudden mutual agreement to eat their pizza in each other's presence, the boy sits down with his tray and starts babbling about how his grandfather has a record player with records made of genuine vinyl. It's easy to talk to him, and that's probably because Sam knows if he ever even tries to mention vampires or werewolves, the boy would throw his head back with another one of his trademark laughs. For a second, he makes it seem as though they don't actually exist.
In the fourth week and final week of Sam's stay in Minnesota, he's sitting in the back of biology class watching his friend construct paper frogs like an expert origami maker, when the truth is that the boy found it was the only thing he could do to keep himself from dying of boredom while serving his multiple detentions last year. Sam's stifling his laughter in his fist as the boy draws on blotchy facial features on each of his frogs even though his thumbs are smearing the ink as he brushes by them and the teacher drones on as white noise. These frogs are one of the stupidest things Sam has ever seen, but it still paints a smile threatening to rip apart his cheeks onto his lips.
Ten minutes after good effort resulting in eccentric frog faces that really don't resemble frogs at all, the boy sets down his pen and speechlessly grabs Sam's fist.
It's a loose hold, more of a ghost's kiss than a downright grab. But Sam can tell that the slight tug on his fingers is a silent invitation and Sam, equally silent, takes it, unfurling the grasp of his fist and instead curling it into the warmth of the boy's palm.
And then that's just it. There's no sentimental murmurs of affection or tender brushes of their thumbs over each other's knuckles. Their fingers aren't entwined and their palms aren't squeezed together, but it's obvious what this is; it's hand holding. Sam sneaks a glance at the boy and follows the trail of his eyes, gaze fixed firmly at the presentation their teacher is holding in front of them. The paper frogs all stare owlishly at them from their desks.
--
Sam hates the word faggot.
He's okay with douchebag. Idiot, moron, son of a bitch, even the slightly more flamboyant creampuff. It's the offensive slang of his generation that is repeated on a daily basis so much it's lost the majority of any offense it might've brought to someone. He'll spew out a few curse words of his own because he's a teenager and it's the vernacular of high school, but faggot is one of those words that no matter how much Sam hears it, it won't end up tumbling out of his mouth even in a blur of an angry altercation.
Thing is, he hears it in the hallways on a daily basis. He tends to associate it as a football player word, because not only do those guys have an hourly need to put a student they deem as a lesser being down to keep their manly reputation up and above for as long as possible, but they have egos bigger than the size of their playing tool.
But it's not even just the jocks. Pretty much anyone is inclined to shout it at a kid who drops his books or is daring enough to wear a scarf in the wintertime. Sam doesn't like the way it sounds, all the way from the harsh double G's all the way to the short O in the end. He hears it everyday, but he never thought it'd be aimed at him.
"Yo, faggot!"
A few kids turn, as if they've been labeled that before or are merely interested in who it was aimed at. Sam turns at the sharp yell and really, he thought the hot shot bully deal was an 80's fad that was simply a side effect of John Hughes films.
"Yeah, that's you, Winchester," One of the boys says, and he's not much bigger than Sam. He's got noticeable muscles in his biceps but the rest is far from remarkable. His eyes are mean, narrowed and tight as if the more he arches his eyebrows, the more frightening he appears. He's got splotchy, raw freckles littered over his nose and a head seemingly too small for his neck. Sam's thoughts flicker back to the gun in his backpack and the knife in his lunchbox.
"I have a class to get to."
"You're awfully pale, Winchester," the other boy says in a voice that is much too authoritative for his figure, entirely ignoring Sam's remark, "is it because you spend so much time in the closet?"
"Hey, watch it. You'll hurt her feelings."
They guffaw in unison, almost as if it's a rehearsed skit. Sam raises his eyebrows. If being a hunter has taught him anything about life as a teenager, it's that there's a lot more out there worth being bruised for than a couple of teenagers chasing after trouble with a net and a tranquilizer gun at the ready.
"Is that all?"
They don't seem very pleased. The laughter dies down and one of the boys speak up again.
"That's a pretty gay shirt, Winchester."
It's plaid. It's red, white, and has a hint of blue if he squints. It's Dean's, who believes that sooner than later Sam's gigantor limbs will grow out of that too, but he'll milk the shirt for what it's worth until it'll be too tight around his chest. Most kids complain about hand-me-downs or are humiliated at the thought of having to share clothes with a sibling, but Sam doesn't mind. Dean has a scent all spice and musk that wafts like a protective, brotherly odor around him all day. The fact that Sam likes to wear his brother's shirt is most probably the gayest thing one could associate with the article of clothing, but the appearance of it or the shape of the buttons aren't very effeminate. Sam plucks at it and looks back up at the boys.
"This shirt?" He verifies, and they nod gruffly, "I don't think so. This shirt doesn't exactly have the genitalia to be gay. Or straight, for that matter. Or asexual."
There's a silence. The jig seems to be up as Sam searches out their eyes for any leftover trained malevolence. They glance at each other like prison guards who have lost their keys and mumble a few more faggots in Sam's general direction and take off for the gym.
It's the stupidest conversation Sam's ever had, even trumping the ones he's had with Dean over the phone on his particularly inebriated nights out at bars. However, it still bothers Sam. It stings in all the ways a bully's offhand remarks shouldn't, and maybe it's because it was offensive and lacking the intelligence the average third grader would possess, or perhaps it's because they somehow labeled Sam as the secret he hides as efficiently as he hides his guns without so much as a single conversation come up with such a conclusion.
--
Sam is, to put it simply, cornered.
It's passing period and Sam can vaguely hear the sound of lockers slamming all the way down the hallway from the seemingly unnecessary and abandoned corridor curving off from the math hallway where Sam is currently pressed into the cool tile behind him.
If Sam had thought it was an aggressive assault, he would've pushed the boy off by now. But if anything, the boy is all but a threat. He tries too hard and most probably tries to act cooler on the Internet than he is on real life by appealing to girls by being almost disgustingly in tune with his emotional side from what Sam can tell by his appearance. He's the kid who wears the studded belt of a biker and the patterned hoodie of a kid who is trying to irk every student passing him in the hallway simply because of how neon parts of his wardrobe are. His hair is dyed black and almost shines blue in the light, swept over his forehead and toward his cheeks like he just had a run-in with a nasty wind tunnel. His nails and the skin surrounding them is stained black like he just spent the entirety of last period painting them with a Sharpie and getting a little sloppy when he saw the bell approaching.
In a nutshell, Sam can't take this boy seriously.
But the boy, however, is doing just that about this conversation. He's almost taking it too seriously.
He's got one hand on either side of Sam's head, trapping him in with an imaginary box he's built haphazardly with his limbs. Sam blinks at him, waiting for him to make a valid point of this conversation verbal.
"Hey, dude," He starts, familiarity at the edges of it like they know each other, and Sam glances over his shoulder to see a blur of flocks of students hastening to each of their classes. "I gotta ask you something."
Sam nods. He contemplates putting his bag down or not. It's heavy because trigonometry books have invisible bricks inside of them and are starting to wear on his shoulder, but putting down his bag almost makes it look like he's okay if this conversation takes a while. Which really, he isn't. He's got a class halfway across the school to get to without this cartoon of a boy stopping him for Twenty Questions along the way.
"Okay."
"I watch you sometimes in class, bro."
"That's not a question," Sam says, and then, as an afterthought, "But it is a little creepy."
He doesn't seem fazed by Sam's accusation and breezes by it like it's just an observation lacking any importance. His thumb finds his ear, seemingly out of habit, and smooths the hair in front of it out like he's ironing a few strands onto his cheek. Another blur of hurried color runs through Sam's vision at the far end of the hall as more students scatter by, and one unfortunate blunderbuss drops his books and screeches to a halt to recollect them. Sam's gaze is snapped back to the boy in front of him when he leans impossibly closer still.
It's gotten to the point where it's awkward. Sam tries to fixedly stare at his scruffy hairline or the bump on his nose or even the lobe of his ear to try to make their propinquity seem less threatening, but if anything, the situation only ascends in awkwardness.
"So you're gay, right?" He says, and even though there's an obvious question mark at the end, it doesn't sound like an inquiry. He sounds awfully sure of himself, and Sam feels his stomach plummet like it was thrust downward by an anvil.
"...pardon?"
"You're gay," The boy clarifies, "I've noticed."
Sam blinks at him. He's never had someone prod at his sexuality before, whether it be for gossip purposes or insatiable high school curiosity. To be fair, the boy doesn't look as if he's about to slide a hand up Sam's shirt to trace the lines of his muscles or prompt the idea of smoothies on the weekend, he merely looks interested in what Sam has to say in return.
When Sam remains speechless, he finally seems to sense the perplexity radiating off of Sam in waves and elaborates, "Well, you are, right? I'm not way off here?"
The thing is, he isn't way off. There's still that part of Sam, that nagging and snarling homophobe on his shoulder that wants to deny any presence of attraction to the same sex. He's not even sure during what part of his childhood he picked up the homosexual guilt and need to repress his orientation, but he knows it's here now. He can feel it burning up his cheeks as the boy's question sinks into the wrinkles of his brain. Maybe it was when he watched Dean tangle tongues with girls by the bleachers at school. Maybe it's because he has a habit of disappointing his father and feels as if this would drop into the same bucket. But he's ashamed, and wherever it came from, the undeniable shame he harbors is holding back the parts of himself he doesn't want to accept the existence of.
It seems like it wasn't until this curiosity, this immovable what if, this undeniable question of what if I'm gay? arose that Sam truly started peeling apart the layers of his mind and realizing how complex it is. There's a whole other portion of shame Sam didn't know his brain possessed that isn't related purely to the dark family secrets. There's rocks even Sam himself hasn't uncovered yet inside himself. There will always be secrets and there will always be something to hide with fences and black curtains because even if there aren't, Sam makes sure there will be.
He looks at the boy's questioning eyes in front of him, expectant and waiting for either a recruit to the anonymous gay community of the school or to belittle him for his sexuality. Sam will be miles away in a high school this boy hasn't even heard of by the end of the month. If he wanted, he could even tell him he was omnisexual since in this situation, the lies are tantamount to the value the truth has. It's not exactly the reputation or even the buzzing bees of whispering in the hallways that's bothering Sam and keeping the words from falling out of his mouth. It's what makes admitting this a confession instead of a general fact. At the end of the day, it's not Sam and his ever-changing classmates, it's just Sam. This is a war fought entirely in his own head that will ultimately have to be resolved there too. When his brain is the ground zero, the scene of the crime, the factory fabricating his existential crisis, he can't expect spewing it to strangers to help fix it. But in that sense of parallelism, they also can't make it any worse.
"I," Sam starts, but he falters. He's not ready. "I don't like labels."
The boy's face wilts, as if he was expecting a grand coming out speech or at least a confident affirmation. Sam catches his eye and sees how poorly he's masking his displeasure if he was even attempting to hide it in the first place, the fact that Sam's answer was inconveniently ambiguous probably only accounting for half of the frustration on his face. Maybe he expected Sam to have more courage, or maybe he was counting on Sam to prove him right for his own personal ego inflation of his homosexuality radar. Maybe it's a different reason entirely.
The boy ends the discussion on a wordless shrug and hitches his battered backpack up his shoulders as he heads back down the hall with a two-fingered wave. Sam readjusts his own bag and stares down the hall after him for a moment, trying to catch a hold of the details of some of the students still whizzing by in their attempts to get to class on time.
He knows there's nothing wrong with what he is. He's still Sam Winchester. He'll be Sam Winchester no matter how many times he'll inadvertently and indirectly be pushed out of the closet. But no matter how okay he is with it internally, letting it slip out of his mouth is different. It's harder. It's final.
The shrill ring of the bell reverberating off of the walls in the hallway sounds. Sam can hear the soft puff of his own exhaling as he kicks away from the corner he was backed up into and heads to class through a, for once, vacant and silent hallway.
He wished people would stay like that sometimes, too.
Continue on to Part Two.
Author: veterization
Rating: PG-13/T
Genre and/or Pairing: Sam centered
Warnings: Slight mentions of potential incest if you squint.
Word Count: ~13,000
Summary: Teenchesters era. In which Sam Winchester deals with being gay. And trying to not be. And coming out at least a few dozen times..
The first time Sam notices a boy with the soft traces of junior high and stubble over a girl with evolving boobs and plump, sticky lips, he's thirteen.
He's barely reached the start of the puberty ladder, tall and looming, the agony of his prospective teenage years crawling up each step, heavy and slow. He's grown his fair share like most boys, going from pudgy twelve-year-old to lanky thirteen-year-old. His legs are gangly, too tall for his body, and his knees feel knobby, and he's tried to convince Dean four times that his left arm is a few inches lengthier than his right. His face is still young and his eyes still reflect the appearance of fairly innocuous innocence, something that most strangers wouldn't expect out of a teenage boy already being able to share experiences of death and murder and the knives in the trunk of his dad's car during show and tell.
Still, some of the boys have grown more, the faint birth of muscles being defined down their chests, and some of the boys have grown less, still short and awkwardly positioned when placed next to some of the taller, luckier boys.
Sam's always had an insatiable amount of curiosity, the same thirst for intrigue of things he most probably isn't ultimately interested in, the same curiosity he put on display when he demanded to hear explanations on where dad went, why mom wasn't alive, and if the shadow in his closet was real or fantasy. And that extends to watching the boys during school.
He's in the locker room, untying his shoes after a strenuous game of outdoor soccer when he first gets called on it. He's watching one of the older boys under the discretion of his eyelid, eyelashes framing his pupils and hiding his watchful eye. The boy doesn't have knobby knees, and he doesn't have gangly legs, and his arms are well-built with evenly distributed muscles. He's got a healthy amount of definition in his chest, but not quite as much as Sam sees in Dean when his brother undresses at night before bed, and the right amount of volume in the curve of his groin where his boxers dig into his hips and thighs. Sam doesn't even know the boy's name, nor has he ever taken the time to look at his face, but he's entranced by the sight of a thin sheen of sweat layered down his torso all the way to the vanishing, sharp V of his hips.
He's in the middle of making a mental comparison to the boy's body and his own, wondering if a few months worth of hardcore training and aiming practice has built him similar definitions in his chest and biceps as the boy next to him when said boy notices Sam's stare. From afar it doesn't look like a young boy merely examining the development of anatomy apart from his own ascendance through growth, but rather like the doe-eyed and unwavering gaze of a pervert in the making.
However, it's junior high and Sam is in seventh grade. There is less potential in perversion and more possibility in blossoming homosexuality hidden in Sam's eyes, still suppressed and fairly well hidden when not caught in the post-gym shirtless festival that is the boys' locker room.
"Oi," the boy says, and the abrupt snap of his locker closing triggers Sam out of his not-so-subtle observation, "you looking at something?"
Sam looks up at him, bangs protectively smoothed over his eyes like a raggedy curtain. The boy's face isn't nearly as handsome as his chest is, and not nearly as smooth. He has the poorly concealed raw and red marks of acne scattered about his jaw and a default furrow to his eyebrows. Either it's a permanent fixture to his expression or he's attempting to come off as intimidating after he's just found an underclassman staring at him as if his skin has all the answers in the world etched on it.
"No," Sam says, and stuffs his socks into his locker just to have something to do with his hands. There's a few more boys listening in, some of them blatantly leaning into the conversation and others merely watching out of their peripheral vision with a few snickers that let Sam know that they're very present in the room.
The boy, still scowling as if looking down at a particular gruesome STD poster, reaches for his shirt and unfurls it from its ball of wrinkles, throwing it over his head.
"I think you were," He says, and Sam resists the urge to roll his eyes. He knows the boy. He's a member of the oldest grade and therefore, the cockiest, intent on provoking disagreements fueled with teenage hormonal rage for entertainment. Sam's got better ways to deal with his anger instead of strutting through the halls scaring the grades beneath him, but clearly, the boy looming in front of him doesn't.
"I wasn't looking at you, man." Sam says, louder than before to hopefully get his point across, but if he's got his personality predicted successfully, that won't be enough for the kid.
"Look, boy," he says, slowly, as if Sam's younger and therefore miles beneath him in intelligence. Sam finds that mildly amusing. "If you swing on the other side of the fence, not much I can do about it. But don't bring it in here, man."
There's a quiet murmur amongst the other boys, and whether it's a silent reassurance of agreement or the start of a rumor, Sam isn't intent on hearing it.
"Whatever." He replies, and it seems to dismiss the conversation as more lockers slam shut. It's becoming one of Sam's favorite words, with the power it seems to hold to not only convince people that he's entirely indifferent on the subject at hand but the way it makes normally makes people shut up as well.
--
When the Winchesters uproot and move exactly one week later, Sam's relieved. There's whispers that follow him in the hallways and the girls that gather in throngs at the locker four down from his own all giggle simultaneously when the lock on his locker gets jammed from too many binders and books. The boys give him looks as if he's the mold on their sandwich, or worse, the ground zero for the new plague. He knows he's weird, he just never knew he was that noticeably weird.
But unlike most kids, Sam gets to start over on his appearance and his attitude at least once every month. They gather their duffel bags of belongings and head for states thousands of miles away and for the next few days to weeks, Sam gets to be whoever he wants to be. In theory, he could enjoy himself and adopt accents in certain states and outrageous personalities in others, but he's too busy trying to be accepted as just Sam Winchester to be worrying after an alternate self just yet.
There's a boy in his class who Sam likes. He sits a desk away from him in geometry and always has the same dark lock of hair curling up at an angle that defies gravity by every degree but judging by how many times the boy rakes his hand through his hair, can't be tamed. Sam has had the odd urge to touch it and attempt to smooth it down himself sometimes, but never satisfies it. It would seem like an unorthodox thing to do, and this time around, he's trying to be as normal as possible.
When the row passes down papers and the boy turns around to give Sam his, he smiles. His teeth are a little uneven and his facial hair is growing at an alarming rate, the steady growth of stubble blatant on his chin every morning, as if he has to shave nightly just to keep it maintained. His eyes are the dullest shade of brown, the type that isn't remarkable even in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the school, but Sam still likes to look at him. He's gotten good at detecting the routinely twitch in someone's eyelid or obvious mistrust in their glance because after all, he is the strange new kid, but this boy, whatever his name may be, seems to look at him like he's just another student stuck in math class. Whether it's because he's too busy being lulled into a doze by the droning of their math teacher or doesn't look at his face long enough to draw a suspicious conclusion, Sam likes how he looks at him.
Sometimes, when the boy, whatever his name is that Sam has yet to figure out, turns around to pass back papers, their fingertips will brush with the slightest of pressure. He doesn't flinch back and he doesn't have the typical teenage boy reaction where any fashion of male-on-male touching that isn't meant officially fist bumping, arm wrestling, or congratulatory pats on the shoulder is far from allowed. It's refreshing and surprisingly mature, and even if it's never confirmed verbally, Sam feels as though he's been accepted by someone.
--
Sam leaves town without ever learning the boy's name. Sam knows he has the potential to be normal, or at least, appear so, and that's enough to encourage him to try again next time. There will be more schools, more chances, more people like always, and sometimes, more boys with nice smiles.
It takes a few more tries but eventually, Sam finds someone who he's pretty sure he can label his friend despite what he assumes should be his own requirements for suitable friends. Then again, he isn't one to be picky and choosy about who he gets along with, and this boy doesn't make "getting along with" very difficult.
He's excessively loud, energetic like a puppy, and has the inability to ever close his mouth. Sam surmises that he's less his friend and more someone that the boy can talk at instead of to. But he seems to be everyone's friend, because sometimes when Sam walks alongside him in the hallway, his hand seems to wave at every single student breezing by him.
He has flyaway hair that looks windswept even on the most tranquil days, almost as if a comb has never met his hair before or merely lost the battle of attempting to tame it. His eyes are as excited as his words are when he talks, and even though Sam isn't one to give senses attributes they are impossible of performing, this boy's eyes can simply only be described as excited. Titillated, fascinated, truly interested in what there is to be said and heard.
When he first spoke to Sam, it's because he spied the knife in the depths of his backpack. Sam was in the midst of pulling out a few of his binders when the knife got snagged in between some of his papers and was momentarily apparent to all who were paying attention. The boy obviously was and burst up from his chair like a rocket, all smiles and spraying spit as he started rambling about how Sam must be a ninja or an assassin hired from Asia. Sam was stuttering and bumbling about his words in an attempt to explain the weapon in his bag but the boy drowned him out, more awed than concerned at the armory Sam had stashed away during school hours.
He calls Sam "weird," and "oddball," but they aren't directed at Sam as insults. He's always wearing a smile and punching Sam in the shoulder when he calls him a freak, and for once, Sam doesn't associate that word with the definition of "bad" anymore.
--
She's a pretty girl, with long brown hair all the way down to her chest that almost seems too straight, as if she spends the majority of her allowance on salon recommended hair products just to achieve that waxy commercial look all teenager cheerleaders aspire to. She has the big brown eyes of a teddy bear that seem to just go for miles into her skull to the point where Sam almost doesn't want to look at them because of the pure intensity, as if her eyes are listening more than her ears are.
Sam might be convinced that the girl is talking to him just to talk if it wasn't for the way her thumb was discreetly hitching up her skirt inch by inch, revealing smooth slivers of tanned thigh with every gentle tug. Her skirt is already short and Sam can see blatant cleavage if he just looks eight inches south of her face. Her lips flutter when she speaks, ripe and plump with an excess of lip gloss coated over her mouth and tinting it a false shade of crimson. Her nose curves smoothly into her cheekbones, petite and creamy like every magazine cover displays their models. She has an absurd, charming little laugh that sounds as if she's working her vocal chords too hard to try to emit genuine giggles and a thrilling, low voice with an edge of soft femininity.
Sam can practically smell the feral odor of boys growling and drooling at the sight of the girl, hands framing her face as if just to feel its shape, chatting to, of all boys, Sam, as if she's learning all of the answers to the world's unanswerable questions through his replies.
But really, the conversation has little depth. She keeps sending glances seriously devoid of any meaning let alone comprehension of the subject at hand at him and flicking her sun-kissed autumn-leaf yellow hair over her shoulder. Sam's practically waiting for the eyelash batting to start. This is the sort of heavy attention he'd expect Dean to get, but he figures it's harmless schoolgirl flirting. He won't be around to receive his midterms, let alone have a significant conversation with the girl in front of him who seems to be having a few noticeable difficulties grasping the concept of some of his AP English vocabulary.
"Oh, and Sam," She says, as if what she has to say is even somewhat relevant to what they were discussing, even if Sam knows it won't be, "I wanted to ask you something."
"You did?"
"It's four o'clock," She says, seemingly finding the time on the ceiling, and Sam had hardly realized that she had wheedled out his attention for an entire sixty minutes after the bell dismissed them, "You wanna catch a movie and a bite after?"
Her eyes are imploring, a tiny pout tugging at the corners of her lips. The instant her question mark curved off her sentence and she sought out his answer, ceasing to compel Sam's attention, he could feel the insincerity behind the past hour of words tumbling off her tongue. She is a girl in high school more focused on make-up and how much taller her boots make her in comparison to the other girls instead of the future, looming ever closer. Maybe it's because Sam's future is always straight on his heel, pulling him from state to state and sometimes even dangling in front of him like a dog being teased with a treat when he has the opportunity to follow his father on life-threatening hunts, that he's more concerned with it than other kids. He's wasted his childhood growing up, essentially, and this girl, she's not thinking about the bigger scheme of things. She's thinking about who she gets to lock lips and lungs with before the evening ends. The entire conversation strikes Sam like an elaborate trick with him being the victim simply to evoke a contributory emotion out of him.
Taking his silence as a contemplation she doesn't deem him necessary of having, she leans closer, and Sam can detect a whiff of cheap cherry gum as a gust of her breath lands on his chin. She presses her chest together as subtly as she can with her arms, but Sam notices, and tries not to smile at her poor antics. The curve of her breasts elicits a soft shadow to slide up her skin all the way up her chest, and Sam knows he's staring at a sight half the football team would jump on in a nanosecond.
Maybe it's because he's not sure the girl knows his name. Maybe it's because simple pleasures like staring at a girl's revealing chest has been ruined for him along with the rest of his innocence when he saw his first real life monster. Maybe it's because Sam isn't his brother. Maybe it's because he can't find anything appealing about her golden skin and red lips. Maybe it's because she's a girl.
He smiles and reaches for his book bag, limp by his feet until now. "Maybe another time," he says, and his smile tightens, "My brother's probably wondering where I am."
Her smile falls, her arms go pliant by her sides as she stops squeezing her assets together for her advantage, and even her hair seems to lose some of its sunny luster. She grabs her own bag, smiles back just as tightly, and Sam no longer sees the coquettish girl that was in his presence a mere few seconds ago, but instead her disposition is replaced with the sharp sneer of a stereotypical preppy bitch from high school. For just a second as he watches her walk away with a haughty aura to her step, he feels justified in his inability to find girls tempting.
--
The official fib Sam has fabricated to escape the predictable taunts and teases from his brother about seeing the school counselor is that he's using the weight room after school to toughen up for the hunt John keeps promising Sam will soon be able to accompany him on.
If anyone asked him how he ended up at the door to the counselor's office, he wouldn't be able to give a legitimate explanation. He's tried to follow the pattern his brain took that resulted in him settling on going to an elderly woman with patterned cardigans every Tuesday and Thursday after school for what is really glorified therapy without the cost.
But that's the thing about the elderly. They have frail, gentle smiles and wispy hair that the more it wisps and grays, the less dangerous they seem as human beings. They speak in soft tones and have brittle smiles that seem to chap their lips every time they tug their mouths upward. All in all, their arthritis and wrinkles and slippers together in one package, they're pretty harmless.
The counselor at Sam's school has a room that's crammed with plaid armchairs and, because the elderly are wordlessly required to have at least one obsessive compulsive habit, whether it be stamp collecting or coin displays, at least three dozen stuffed animal dolphins littered across the shelves lined on the walls. It smells like pomegranates and the loitering, hard to detect smell of a pressure cooker, almost as if she was cooking chili behind her shelves of dolphins.
Perhaps it's because her room is so tranquil, so old and innocuous, a remarkable contrast from his everyday life, that Sam is mentally okay with seeing her.
"Dear," She says gently, and peers at him from over her spectacles. They have a chain and everything. Under her almost intense stare from green eyes dulled with age, her posture ideal for an oil painting and her scarf adorned with a pattern that looks undeniably themed for the sixties, Sam feels freakishly young. He settles into the frayed pillows surrounding him in the armchair.
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Why are you here today?"
Sam thinks about it, and once again faced with the intensity of her mossy eyes, decides to answer truthfully, "I don't really have anyone else to talk to."
"But you have your brother."
Dean doesn't go to this school. He picks him up everyday in the Impala and Sam can always tell exactly when he arrives based purely on the onslaught of giggles and stares of girls as they point with the discretion of two-year-olds at the attractive young man in the studly car. The thing with the elderly is that while they might be harmless, they also have an eerie and intuitive way of knowing everything.
"He's great," Sam nods, and she mirrors him, "but some things he just wouldn't understand."
She pulls her glasses off entirely and lays them in her lap. Her hands are wrinkly, as if she had just spent too much time soaking them in bathwater. "And why wouldn't he understand, Sam?"
Sam knows the answer to the question. He knows exactly what's wrong with him, why the boys ostracize him in the locker room, why he's generally labeled as the freak within a few weeks of attending school, the weaponry aside. It's the bush he's been dancing around, the thorny issue he's never touched since he started seeing the counselor. Truth be told, he's not even sure he can say it out loud.
"Because I'm different," Sam says, "Even more different than he is."
She looks at him and sighs delicately, and through the intense, hypnotic gaze of her eyes, Sam feels boneless under her stare. It's as if she's found a way to telepathically pull Sam's thoughts out of his head like some sort of wise and aged marvel. Sam can tell right away it's one of those rare looks of understanding, comprehension that goes deeper than just a simple affirmation of his worries, and even though it's long and hard and even bordering on creepy, Sam feels a little better.
She exhales again, reaches for spectacles, and changes the subject to Sam's grades. Sam isn't even sure if the woman knows it, but Sam feels she understands him better than his own father, and suddenly he gets why it's not a smart idea to invest and grow fond of those temporary acquaintances Sam gets the chance to meet every few weeks. This woman, this stranger who barely knows him, Sam feels safe with. Maybe even normal.
--
There's a kid in Sam's new drama class that is the epitome of a storm-tossed kitten lost in the rain.
He's one of those few people whose appearance matches his personality infallibly. He's got long, mousy hair that's a few gray hairs away from being a dull ashen color. Sam doesn't think he's ever seen the boy's eyes in the way his bangs always fall over them, shading his vision like a protective and thick curtain shielding the windows of a paranoid curmudgeon. His hoodies swallow him and his feet get lost in his own shoes. He barely speaks up, and when he does, it's in a tiny murmur that everyone has to strain to hear. Sam can't possibly fathom why he's in a class like drama, meant for extroverts and gregarious souls, but he supposes he doesn't really know the boy from just a few glances at him.
He's only ever handed him assignment sheets and said bless you to the kid when he sneezes in class, because not only does this kid shriek defense mechanisms from every angle, but while he doesn't have any friends, he doesn't seem to even want any.
A week after Sam gets settled in drama class, he doesn't get the option of choosing if he wants to be the kid's friend or not. It's pretty much a given what his choice is when he sees him, huddled by a row of lockers with the blatant trickle of fresh rubicund blood oozing through the spaces in between his fingers while he palms the halves of his face in his hand.
Sam feels a rough palpitation like a drumbeat rock through his heart at the sight of the kid, mop of head quivering even though there's an absence of pained whimpers or any audible noises of agony. The blood is leaving a trail like lava down his arm and with the reflexes of a hunter in training, Sam lets his history book skid to the floor as he kneels by the fetal ball of a boy.
"Hey," he says, tapping an urgent pattern out on his knee to get his attention, "hey, it's me, Sam. Lemme look, lemme help."
He wants to whisper the boy's name like Dean always does whenever he gets a few stitches or scrapes his flesh open enough to bleed, all soothing and low like a mother cooing at her baby, but he finds that he doesn't even know the boy's name.
The kid jerks at the sudden contact, obviously not expecting the attention, but eventually manages to pry his hands away from his face. His eyelids are swollen and already acquiring a dark tinge, his lower lip cracked and bleeding. His nose is letting out its own torrent of steady droplets of blood and a few strands of hair are matted down on his forehead, sticky with blood. It's starting to get crusty and brown on a few patches of his skin, but Sam refrains from wiping it all away with his thumb to not scare the boy off.
He's seen a myriad of lacerations in his lifetime of living in a hunter-oriented family, all of them worse than this. It looks as if someone with a big fist had a few joy hits on the feckless target walking alone in the hall and Sam lets out a quiet exhale at the thought. The boy doesn't have friends, let alone acquaintances, so he can't imagine him having enemies either. He assumes it's simply easy to pick on the silent.
He reaches for the first aid kit he carries with him in his backpack like a security blanket and sweeps a thumb gingerly under the boy's eye, right on his swollen cheekbone. The boy meets his scrutinizing gaze as he tries to gauge the severity of his wounds and his eyes are a light, gentle blue, like the shade of aqua a mother might paint her son's room. Sam thinks it's the first time he's ever seen his eyes without the shelter of his fringe covering them up.
"Can't believe high schools still have bullies who beat people to bloody pulps for no reason still exist," Sam mutters, and smears away some of the blood from where his puffy bottom lip meets his chin, "there's better things to lose blood over."
The kid's eyes go downcast, staring a hard line straight into his lap as he lets out a small, barely noticeable tut. It's the shortest form of mockery Sam has ever heard and in all candor, he's surprised at the amount of bitterness trapped into that single sound from the mouth of such a supposedly impassive teenager.
"They didn't beat me up because they felt like it, Sam," He says, a dark, low, raspy voice, as if the stifled whimpers have made his throat croaky and the loitering sting of pain has made him icy, "They beat me up because I'm gay."
Sam's hands stop their work momentarily on smoothing away the remnants of the sticky blood on his spread over his cheeks. It's the way he spits the last word, like it's an incurable disease or a carton of expired milk, like it's something he has to get off his tongue as fast as he can possibly get his airways to speak.
Gay.
Gay.
The word rings in Sam's head just like the boy just spat it out. It's a stupid thing to ruminate on, considering it's a generally harmless word. It's one syllable. It was derived from the word happy, happy like the old actors used to frolic through meadows while subtitles followed their words like caterpillars.
He looks at the boy curled up on himself in front of him. He looks at himself. It's a slow, probably too extensive introspection for the bleeding boy still awaiting his nursing situated in front of him, but Sam's mind can't help but start churning.
Ever since this part of him has bubbled up like a natural disaster winding its way through Sam's body and threatening to burst, he's lost a part of himself he knew. He was Sam Winchester, gangly boy with a knife in his sock and hair that grew at an alarming rate. His brother called him a little girl sometimes, and sometimes Sam got offended, but their fraternal teasing was just a part of his family. He was Sam Winchester, the boy with praying mantis legs too long for his body, as if someone had vertically stretched him in his sleep. He was Sam Winchester, the boy who picked the cashews out of his mixed nuts and liked his toast a second away from being burned to a crisp. Sometimes, despite his protests, he was even Sammy Winchester, the younger brother subjected to hair ruffling and shampoo pranks.
After his teenager epiphany that seemed to come with the growing pains of adolescence, he went from Sam Winchester, the boy with the imbalanced life, to Sam Winchester, the boy who doesn't even know who he is in his imbalanced life.
He's not happy. He's far from. And the boy in front of him, the boy who never says a word, Sam takes a wild guess and presumes the he used to be happy. Perhaps he was always introverted and shied away from large crowds more than the average curious child, but maybe he was happy. Maybe it was a few years ago, a few months, a few weeks, but maybe this boy in front of him used to grin on a daily basis.
Gay, dictionary definition: showing a merry, lively attitude.
This isn't it.
Sam's fingers vaguely remember their task and twitch, going back to rummaging for his first aid kit. He lets the thumb that's wiping away blood like a fussy mother grab the boy's chin and tilt it upward, fixing his intensely blue eyes with his own.
"You're gay," he repeats, voice rough in his throat, "That doesn't equal to being anyone's punching bag."
For a millisecond, the bitter post-wound haunt in the boy's eyes fade to something a bit merrier, as if he gets it. He gets that Sam understands, that maybe he's not alone in this interminable battle with not only his own guilt and consternation, but with all of society and the discrimination and bigotry that goes hand in hand.
The boy adds in a small voice, as if it's an afterthought he's frightened to announce and be heard, "I don't think anybody should ever be a punching bag."
Sam feels his chin nod on its own accord and he smiles, and apparently it's contagious, because the boy's lips twitch up a fraction of an inch. His sliced lip breaks open again, but he doesn't seem to notice.
--
Sam meets another boy, much like the one in his math class, all the way up in Minnesota while John is fighting off a werewolf clan with Bobby's help. The only difference between him and the boy who shall forever remain anonymous from a few months ago is that Sam actually talks to this one.
They're in the same biology class and ended up being lab partners. Sam's glad, because he knows it would've either be him, or some of the cheerleaders in his class who seem much more focused on their nail polish or the state of their ponytails instead of the actual lessons.
The guy has constant dirt lodged underneath his fingernails and has a nervous foot that taps away a steady rhythm underneath Sam's chair from the start of the bell to the dismissal. He tells Sam that he's in a band, one he runs in the garage when his mom isn't home, and Sam tries not to laugh. He tells him he and his friends call themselves The Potential Noses and that he can start a rave party in point two seconds with his guitar, even though it still doesn't have the replacement for his broken G string.
Sam listens to him ramble about the gig he and his band are going to play in the senior citizen's home in a few weeks throughout the entire frog dissection. Sam doesn't think this boy will be a rockstar like he so adamantly dreams of being in a decade's time, but he has ambition, and that's something Sam appreciates. And above that, he makes him laugh.
One week after being lab partners in science, biology promptly becomes Sam's favorite subject. It's nice to slip into his classroom and instantly be met with a thousand watt smile from across the room and impatient hands grabbing him toward the lab stations. The boy can make dissecting sheep guts sound enjoyable, like a schoolboy adventure, the blood and the dull dissection knives only part of the journey. He throws his head back every time he laughs and Sam zeroes in on the prominence of his Adam's apple in his throat, the way it ripples with every bark of unsuppressed chuckles. Sam always has the bubbling desire to run his thumb along the expanse of his neck from the soft spot behind his ear all the way down to the junction of his neck to his shoulder. He doesn't, though, and keeps his hand in a fist in his lap.
In the second week, Dean sees them walking out discussing band practice and how guitars are a bitch to tune sometimes and claims his dislike for the boy a few days after. Secretly, Sam ruminates over the strange bias his brother has developed for his friend and can't help but be worried if somehow, Dean knows. If he does, he never says anything about it.
In the third week, they start wordlessly eating lunch together. Without a single comment on the sudden mutual agreement to eat their pizza in each other's presence, the boy sits down with his tray and starts babbling about how his grandfather has a record player with records made of genuine vinyl. It's easy to talk to him, and that's probably because Sam knows if he ever even tries to mention vampires or werewolves, the boy would throw his head back with another one of his trademark laughs. For a second, he makes it seem as though they don't actually exist.
In the fourth week and final week of Sam's stay in Minnesota, he's sitting in the back of biology class watching his friend construct paper frogs like an expert origami maker, when the truth is that the boy found it was the only thing he could do to keep himself from dying of boredom while serving his multiple detentions last year. Sam's stifling his laughter in his fist as the boy draws on blotchy facial features on each of his frogs even though his thumbs are smearing the ink as he brushes by them and the teacher drones on as white noise. These frogs are one of the stupidest things Sam has ever seen, but it still paints a smile threatening to rip apart his cheeks onto his lips.
Ten minutes after good effort resulting in eccentric frog faces that really don't resemble frogs at all, the boy sets down his pen and speechlessly grabs Sam's fist.
It's a loose hold, more of a ghost's kiss than a downright grab. But Sam can tell that the slight tug on his fingers is a silent invitation and Sam, equally silent, takes it, unfurling the grasp of his fist and instead curling it into the warmth of the boy's palm.
And then that's just it. There's no sentimental murmurs of affection or tender brushes of their thumbs over each other's knuckles. Their fingers aren't entwined and their palms aren't squeezed together, but it's obvious what this is; it's hand holding. Sam sneaks a glance at the boy and follows the trail of his eyes, gaze fixed firmly at the presentation their teacher is holding in front of them. The paper frogs all stare owlishly at them from their desks.
--
Sam hates the word faggot.
He's okay with douchebag. Idiot, moron, son of a bitch, even the slightly more flamboyant creampuff. It's the offensive slang of his generation that is repeated on a daily basis so much it's lost the majority of any offense it might've brought to someone. He'll spew out a few curse words of his own because he's a teenager and it's the vernacular of high school, but faggot is one of those words that no matter how much Sam hears it, it won't end up tumbling out of his mouth even in a blur of an angry altercation.
Thing is, he hears it in the hallways on a daily basis. He tends to associate it as a football player word, because not only do those guys have an hourly need to put a student they deem as a lesser being down to keep their manly reputation up and above for as long as possible, but they have egos bigger than the size of their playing tool.
But it's not even just the jocks. Pretty much anyone is inclined to shout it at a kid who drops his books or is daring enough to wear a scarf in the wintertime. Sam doesn't like the way it sounds, all the way from the harsh double G's all the way to the short O in the end. He hears it everyday, but he never thought it'd be aimed at him.
"Yo, faggot!"
A few kids turn, as if they've been labeled that before or are merely interested in who it was aimed at. Sam turns at the sharp yell and really, he thought the hot shot bully deal was an 80's fad that was simply a side effect of John Hughes films.
"Yeah, that's you, Winchester," One of the boys says, and he's not much bigger than Sam. He's got noticeable muscles in his biceps but the rest is far from remarkable. His eyes are mean, narrowed and tight as if the more he arches his eyebrows, the more frightening he appears. He's got splotchy, raw freckles littered over his nose and a head seemingly too small for his neck. Sam's thoughts flicker back to the gun in his backpack and the knife in his lunchbox.
"I have a class to get to."
"You're awfully pale, Winchester," the other boy says in a voice that is much too authoritative for his figure, entirely ignoring Sam's remark, "is it because you spend so much time in the closet?"
"Hey, watch it. You'll hurt her feelings."
They guffaw in unison, almost as if it's a rehearsed skit. Sam raises his eyebrows. If being a hunter has taught him anything about life as a teenager, it's that there's a lot more out there worth being bruised for than a couple of teenagers chasing after trouble with a net and a tranquilizer gun at the ready.
"Is that all?"
They don't seem very pleased. The laughter dies down and one of the boys speak up again.
"That's a pretty gay shirt, Winchester."
It's plaid. It's red, white, and has a hint of blue if he squints. It's Dean's, who believes that sooner than later Sam's gigantor limbs will grow out of that too, but he'll milk the shirt for what it's worth until it'll be too tight around his chest. Most kids complain about hand-me-downs or are humiliated at the thought of having to share clothes with a sibling, but Sam doesn't mind. Dean has a scent all spice and musk that wafts like a protective, brotherly odor around him all day. The fact that Sam likes to wear his brother's shirt is most probably the gayest thing one could associate with the article of clothing, but the appearance of it or the shape of the buttons aren't very effeminate. Sam plucks at it and looks back up at the boys.
"This shirt?" He verifies, and they nod gruffly, "I don't think so. This shirt doesn't exactly have the genitalia to be gay. Or straight, for that matter. Or asexual."
There's a silence. The jig seems to be up as Sam searches out their eyes for any leftover trained malevolence. They glance at each other like prison guards who have lost their keys and mumble a few more faggots in Sam's general direction and take off for the gym.
It's the stupidest conversation Sam's ever had, even trumping the ones he's had with Dean over the phone on his particularly inebriated nights out at bars. However, it still bothers Sam. It stings in all the ways a bully's offhand remarks shouldn't, and maybe it's because it was offensive and lacking the intelligence the average third grader would possess, or perhaps it's because they somehow labeled Sam as the secret he hides as efficiently as he hides his guns without so much as a single conversation come up with such a conclusion.
--
Sam is, to put it simply, cornered.
It's passing period and Sam can vaguely hear the sound of lockers slamming all the way down the hallway from the seemingly unnecessary and abandoned corridor curving off from the math hallway where Sam is currently pressed into the cool tile behind him.
If Sam had thought it was an aggressive assault, he would've pushed the boy off by now. But if anything, the boy is all but a threat. He tries too hard and most probably tries to act cooler on the Internet than he is on real life by appealing to girls by being almost disgustingly in tune with his emotional side from what Sam can tell by his appearance. He's the kid who wears the studded belt of a biker and the patterned hoodie of a kid who is trying to irk every student passing him in the hallway simply because of how neon parts of his wardrobe are. His hair is dyed black and almost shines blue in the light, swept over his forehead and toward his cheeks like he just had a run-in with a nasty wind tunnel. His nails and the skin surrounding them is stained black like he just spent the entirety of last period painting them with a Sharpie and getting a little sloppy when he saw the bell approaching.
In a nutshell, Sam can't take this boy seriously.
But the boy, however, is doing just that about this conversation. He's almost taking it too seriously.
He's got one hand on either side of Sam's head, trapping him in with an imaginary box he's built haphazardly with his limbs. Sam blinks at him, waiting for him to make a valid point of this conversation verbal.
"Hey, dude," He starts, familiarity at the edges of it like they know each other, and Sam glances over his shoulder to see a blur of flocks of students hastening to each of their classes. "I gotta ask you something."
Sam nods. He contemplates putting his bag down or not. It's heavy because trigonometry books have invisible bricks inside of them and are starting to wear on his shoulder, but putting down his bag almost makes it look like he's okay if this conversation takes a while. Which really, he isn't. He's got a class halfway across the school to get to without this cartoon of a boy stopping him for Twenty Questions along the way.
"Okay."
"I watch you sometimes in class, bro."
"That's not a question," Sam says, and then, as an afterthought, "But it is a little creepy."
He doesn't seem fazed by Sam's accusation and breezes by it like it's just an observation lacking any importance. His thumb finds his ear, seemingly out of habit, and smooths the hair in front of it out like he's ironing a few strands onto his cheek. Another blur of hurried color runs through Sam's vision at the far end of the hall as more students scatter by, and one unfortunate blunderbuss drops his books and screeches to a halt to recollect them. Sam's gaze is snapped back to the boy in front of him when he leans impossibly closer still.
It's gotten to the point where it's awkward. Sam tries to fixedly stare at his scruffy hairline or the bump on his nose or even the lobe of his ear to try to make their propinquity seem less threatening, but if anything, the situation only ascends in awkwardness.
"So you're gay, right?" He says, and even though there's an obvious question mark at the end, it doesn't sound like an inquiry. He sounds awfully sure of himself, and Sam feels his stomach plummet like it was thrust downward by an anvil.
"...pardon?"
"You're gay," The boy clarifies, "I've noticed."
Sam blinks at him. He's never had someone prod at his sexuality before, whether it be for gossip purposes or insatiable high school curiosity. To be fair, the boy doesn't look as if he's about to slide a hand up Sam's shirt to trace the lines of his muscles or prompt the idea of smoothies on the weekend, he merely looks interested in what Sam has to say in return.
When Sam remains speechless, he finally seems to sense the perplexity radiating off of Sam in waves and elaborates, "Well, you are, right? I'm not way off here?"
The thing is, he isn't way off. There's still that part of Sam, that nagging and snarling homophobe on his shoulder that wants to deny any presence of attraction to the same sex. He's not even sure during what part of his childhood he picked up the homosexual guilt and need to repress his orientation, but he knows it's here now. He can feel it burning up his cheeks as the boy's question sinks into the wrinkles of his brain. Maybe it was when he watched Dean tangle tongues with girls by the bleachers at school. Maybe it's because he has a habit of disappointing his father and feels as if this would drop into the same bucket. But he's ashamed, and wherever it came from, the undeniable shame he harbors is holding back the parts of himself he doesn't want to accept the existence of.
It seems like it wasn't until this curiosity, this immovable what if, this undeniable question of what if I'm gay? arose that Sam truly started peeling apart the layers of his mind and realizing how complex it is. There's a whole other portion of shame Sam didn't know his brain possessed that isn't related purely to the dark family secrets. There's rocks even Sam himself hasn't uncovered yet inside himself. There will always be secrets and there will always be something to hide with fences and black curtains because even if there aren't, Sam makes sure there will be.
He looks at the boy's questioning eyes in front of him, expectant and waiting for either a recruit to the anonymous gay community of the school or to belittle him for his sexuality. Sam will be miles away in a high school this boy hasn't even heard of by the end of the month. If he wanted, he could even tell him he was omnisexual since in this situation, the lies are tantamount to the value the truth has. It's not exactly the reputation or even the buzzing bees of whispering in the hallways that's bothering Sam and keeping the words from falling out of his mouth. It's what makes admitting this a confession instead of a general fact. At the end of the day, it's not Sam and his ever-changing classmates, it's just Sam. This is a war fought entirely in his own head that will ultimately have to be resolved there too. When his brain is the ground zero, the scene of the crime, the factory fabricating his existential crisis, he can't expect spewing it to strangers to help fix it. But in that sense of parallelism, they also can't make it any worse.
"I," Sam starts, but he falters. He's not ready. "I don't like labels."
The boy's face wilts, as if he was expecting a grand coming out speech or at least a confident affirmation. Sam catches his eye and sees how poorly he's masking his displeasure if he was even attempting to hide it in the first place, the fact that Sam's answer was inconveniently ambiguous probably only accounting for half of the frustration on his face. Maybe he expected Sam to have more courage, or maybe he was counting on Sam to prove him right for his own personal ego inflation of his homosexuality radar. Maybe it's a different reason entirely.
The boy ends the discussion on a wordless shrug and hitches his battered backpack up his shoulders as he heads back down the hall with a two-fingered wave. Sam readjusts his own bag and stares down the hall after him for a moment, trying to catch a hold of the details of some of the students still whizzing by in their attempts to get to class on time.
He knows there's nothing wrong with what he is. He's still Sam Winchester. He'll be Sam Winchester no matter how many times he'll inadvertently and indirectly be pushed out of the closet. But no matter how okay he is with it internally, letting it slip out of his mouth is different. It's harder. It's final.
The shrill ring of the bell reverberating off of the walls in the hallway sounds. Sam can hear the soft puff of his own exhaling as he kicks away from the corner he was backed up into and heads to class through a, for once, vacant and silent hallway.
He wished people would stay like that sometimes, too.
Continue on to Part Two.