It’s the Asexual Pumpkin, Sam Winchester.
Asexuality can be defined as the quality or characteristic of having no sexual feelings or desires.
Fifteen year old Sam Winchester can't stop fussing his lower lip with his teeth, constantly biting the corner, as he reads fervently, and in a hurry.
It may be considered a sexual orientation or lack thereof.
He buries his head in his hands, fingers in his hair, and breathes out. It's not a lack of sexuality - not to him, that is. He feels everything - he's just not sure if he's feeling the right things.
And he can't stop thinking about it.
*
He's sixteen when a girl first kisses him. She's practically a stranger, given they've only had a few classes and a group project together - which makes it really weird for him when she walks up to him when he's sitting at his lunch table, cups his cheek, and closes the gap between their lips.
"It was a dare," She explains, pulling away. Sam blinks up at her as she hurriedly adds, "I had to kiss my crush."
She's probably making sure Sam doesn't think the dare had been to kiss the weird kid who always sits by the window at lunch with his nose in a book.
"Okay." Sam says, not knowing what to do with this information. "It's okay."
And that's it.
*
Sometimes when Sam's supposed to be researching monsters his dad's gone off to hunt, he fades out and inadvertently starts to research his own.
He's sure he isn't normal. This constant nagging inside his head which tells him there's something terrifyingly wrong with him because - there just is.
*
"Oh, Sam!" The boy he's got pinned against the wall groans, instinctively grabbing a fistful of Sam's shirt - Dean's hand-me-down flannel. "Sam, you're - Jesus, that's good."
Sam's got an arm wrapped around his waist, one behind his neck, and their hips thrust erratically, but together, in some sort of rhythm.
He's trying.
He's trying to want this.
Sam kisses him harder, holds him tighter, and pulls him closer.
He's never been more scared than when it's all over, and the guy falls forward heaving, face buried in Sam's chest and strings of praise in his breath - because Sam still feels nothing at all.
And he realizes there’s a possibility that he’ll never feel anything.
*
Before he leaves for Stanford, Dean takes him out for a drink. John doesn't want them to go - or maybe he just says that, because then Sam insists that they do.
"You're gettin' out, Sammy." Dean says out loud, and there's only sadness in his eyes, for all the bright in his smile. "Jus' like you always wanted."
Sam blinks away his tears, and drinks to it.
His brother drinks heavily that night and they talk for hours, like they've never talked before - pretending that they'll never talk again.
Sam almost says it.
He almost ups and admits to his brother that he's a goddamn freak who doesn't want to have sex. That he knows it isn't normal, and he knows Dean can't understand how or why he feels the way he feels - but he needs to tell it to him, because he needs to tell it to someone - and he really doesn't trust anyone else.
But then he doesn't, because the night's coming to an end, and Dean pulls him into a hug when they get out to the Impala, and Sam doesn't let go for a very long time.
There's more important things, he tells himself, when Dean all but breaks down in the driver's seat, and asks Sam not to leave with just that look in his eyes and no words spoken - and Sam has to wrench his heart away, and close his eyes as he shakes his head.
He has to leave.
And that's enough he's done to Dean already.
*
All his future packed in a military backpack and a barrel bag, Sam walks into his Stanford dormitory for the first time. Before he even gets to his room, there's a guy with a stack of stickers and a Stanford cap, standing in his way.
"Nametags." He simply says, showing Sam a grey sticker, and proceeding to stick a cardboard under it so he can write. "I fill them for you." He adds.
"Sam Winchester." Sam says, leaning to see what else has to be written. They're asking for his pronouns. "Uh, he/him." He continues, after a pause.
"Are you sure you're sure?" The guy grins.
Sam gives him a look. "Yeah." He clears his throat. "Just taken aback."
"Well, I'll have you know," The guy gives Sam his hand. "I pretty much led the movement on there being pronouns on these, instead of majors."
Sam shakes his hand, feeling a little out of place, but warming up to the guy. His eyes flick down to his nametag and he reads Brady, above 'they/them'.
Oh.
"Okay, then." Brady smiles, putting the sticker on Sam's shirt himself after looking at him explicitly for permission, which Sam grants. "Don't go 'round changing your shirt, Sam."
Sam grins at them before walking off to his dorm.
*
He's at a bar the next time he meets Brady. It's been a long first week - good, but tiring. He's never been so bound by a schedule before, but then he's also never felt this free.
Brady's wearing a hoodie which could've fit another one of them in it, and they slide up next to Sam on a barstool.
"So?" They ask, as means of a greeting. "How was your first week?"
"Not bad. Can we talk about something else?" Sam says, because he's talked about it with himself so many times already - and he's here because he wants to stop.
"Sure." They shrug. "Would you order a drink for yourself, because I don't know what you like yet, but I'd like to buy you a drink."
Sam turns to them uneasily, but before he can even think about it, he's already blurted it out.
"I'm asexual."
That's the first time he's ever said it out loud, and something so minor provoking such a huge declaration - a milestone, for him - makes him realize just how free he feels.
"Cool." Brady answers, furrowing their eyebrows. "You mind me asking if you're also aromantic?"
Sam pauses.
He's never researched about this - and he's never even thought about it, but from the word, he can gather what it must mean. And from the context, he's even more sure.
"I don't." Sam answers. "And no, I'm not."
"Do you drink?" They lick their lips.
"Yeah." Sam breathes out, and it feels like a burden he'd not known about has finally been lifted off of his chest - and he turns to the menu.
"Awesome."
*
Eventually, Brady and he end up close.
Sam's not surprised. They've been friends for weeks now, and he's comfortable around them in a way Sam's never been around anyone before.
And they know so much about so many things, that Sam realizes how little he knows of the world outside hunting. They spend most of their evenings holed up together in Sam's room, watching movies, reading aloud to each other, and talking through the night.
Even if they fall asleep on the same bed, it doesn't feel weird, because it's Brady - and Sam trusts them.
Sam loves them too, but apparently not in the same way as Brady loves Josh, because one evening, almost a couple months in, he brings it up, and just as easily as they'd fallen in place together, they fall out of an undefined relationship.
"I don't think I'm over him." They confess. "I want to be, but I don't think I am, and that isn't fair to you."
Sam gets it. He isn't going to push.
"Let's still be friends, though."
"Obviously."
*
That's when Sam meets Jess.
She's perfect, Sam knows, every fibre of his being knows, and above all, she loves him. On their fourth date, Sam swallows his fears and explains to her that he's asexual.
It's become easier to do it - especially because when he's all out of words, and completely vulnerable, Jess takes his hand and asks, gently, if she could kiss him.
Sam nods, because he wants her to, and not just because no one's ever stopped and asked him that - and then he has her come close, linger for a second, and slowly, sweetly, kiss him.
For the first time, Sam feels something akin to what he knows he's supposed to feel - and he lets her kiss him, closing his eyes, and trying to stop thinking about everything.
He falls for her, irrevocably, very soon - but he still can't stop thinking.
What if he's not asexual?
What if he's been lying to himself all this time?
Jess and he move into an apartment in their second year.
She may not have been able to dispense advice like Brady would've, when Sam had his first panic attack - a hot mess, caused by everything at once; being away from Dean, being all alone, and being a fake - but that's the first time they fall asleep together, and not just on the same bed.
Sam wakes up with Jess's arm curled around him, and feels his heart flush with emotions.
When Jess wakes up too, she finds Sam staring at her with tears in his eyes and apologies on his lips, and he kisses her deeply but also confesses that he still isn't ready for sex, and he doesn't know when he will be, even though he's beginning to research demisexuality, and he tells her as much about Dean as he can, and he tells her how much he loves her but is still so afraid -
And she holds him in return, and reminds him that she loves him too, and that what matters more than all the labels Sam gives himself, is that Sam is happy.
"What would I do without you?" Sam asks, for the first time ever.
"Crash and burn."
*
Dean comes to get him - Sam drives the Woman in White to peace, they return home well in time for his interview - and then Jess burns to her death in front of his eyes.
Dean drags him out of the house forcefully, though Sam fights to get back to Jess - he fights with all his strength because he knows nothing will ever be the same. He's going to crash and burn without her - so why not do it right away?
Why not just let go?
But Dean's stronger than he is, and he won't let him. He holds onto Sam until the firemen have extinguished the entire fire, and he doesn't let him go out of his sight for days to follow - always unsure of what Sam might do, because he might not know why Jess meant so much to his brother, but he can tell how much she did.
(Sometimes, it's a really good thing he knows Sam so well.
And sometimes, it's the worst.)
*
Sam's starting to feel lost.
There had been comfort in a label - he could call himself asexual, tell himself he wasn't alone, tell himself he wasn't a freak - he was just different, and that was okay.
But now he feels like it's all a lie.
He's a liar and a coward and a freak - and god-fucking-dammit, he might call himself a fake, but Sam still isn't attracted to anyone, so he's just so fucking lonely all the time.
And he knows he's completely alone.
*
Sam punishes himself sometimes.
He'll go out with someone, like Dean does - and pretend to himself that he's trying to convince the world that he's normal, that he's okay - but the real reason he does it is because he always comes back guilty.
And he deserves that pain.
He deserves more of it - the depressing detachment which overcomes him in the middle of the night, the sheer repulsion he feels for what he did in the morning, and his perpetually burdened conscience.
When he doesn't feel like himself at all, with a stranger wrapped around him in an unknown bed, there's a cruel voice in his head which tells him this is what he deserves.
He doesn't deserve to be the real him - and Sam isn't even sure he knows who he is.
*
When Ruby enters his life, everything changes. Sam Winchester falls for a demon - though no one will ever call it love out loud, because that simply wouldn't be true.
But there's absolutely nothing else it can be.
She's demanding and feisty, and has a way with Sam which makes him want to shove her against a wall and fuck her until that smirk goes away. And she shows up everywhere, sometimes naked, wanting Sam to drink her blood or pin her to a bed, or both at once.
Sam would pick her up and she'd wrap her legs around him, and devour his lips with passionate, angry kisses until Sam forgot every other way to kiss.
This isn't him, he knows. Dean doesn't need to keep telling him that - he fucking knows.
It's the least himself he's ever been.
(But at least, he's goddamned strong.)
*
Brady shows up, again.
Sam's unsure of how to react to a demon possessing his best friend from Stanford - for Christ's sake, this is Brady, but then the demon admits to killing Jess and that's when the switch flips and Sam forgets he ever trusted this face.
Sam forgets he ever loved him.
*
Then, Lucifer happens.
It's unimaginable pain - forever. The Devil pierces through his flesh with knifes and ice cold hands, and tears him apart. The Creator of Hell tortures him, and breaks his bones and burns his skin and makes him beg for death a million times, with each breath.
Sam's chained and bound and raped, and Lucifer owns him for 180 years in the Cage, and makes him hate himself for every choice he's ever made.
Except the one which brought him there - for Sam knows he saved the World and he won't undo it, any chance he gets.
Even though nothing can save him now.
*
Castiel, his brother's angel, pulls him out of the pit, soulless.
The following fifteen months are a blur, but Sam knows enough to be utterly ashamed of himself.
And when he gets his tormented, ruined soul back, there's a fleeting thought that at least Lucifer's given him a reason to never want sex again - right before he loses his head.
*
With Amelia, Sam complicates things too much in trying to make them simple.
He can't think about himself anymore - so he stops thinking altogether, because he definitely cannot think about Dean or Castiel. Everything hurts, so he ignores it all, and pretends he's happy.
She believes him.
Sam's unwilling to go through the tiring process of telling her he's asexual - and frankly, as time passes, it feels like he left that word behind in Stanford.
So they sleep together a couple of times, though Sam's heart is never in it. Together, they neither have the emotional connection he and Jess shared, nor the needy attraction the demon blood caused between him and Ruby.
And then Don Richardson returns, and Sam takes the easy way out.
It's too easy leaving her, and not just because the world needs saving again and Dean is back.
Sometimes Sam wonders how real she had been.
*
Toni Bevell tortures him, on the behalf of the British Men of Letters, to get information.
When it doesn't work, she seduces him, and when Sam wakes up, they're under the covers, and there's wine and candles, and he's completely swallowed in this trance - until he suddenly has a flashback of the dungeons where she'd kept him, and sees through the hallucinations.
But it's not before they've had sex, and he's blindly answered most of her questions, and now it makes Sam feel disgusting.
It makes him feel abused.
*
Things never go that far with Eileen, but Sam supposes it's the closest he's come to trusting someone as much as he wants to, before he's comfortable kissing her.
She kisses him back gingerly, closing her eyes, and it's goodbye.
Because Sam wanted her to stay, and everyone he's ever wanted close, has always left.
*
It's after the end of Chuck.
Gabriel returns, for good.
And Sam realizes he has feelings for him, just barely in time to get him to stay - and wonder of wonders, he does.
*
They're on the bed, with Sam sprawled out in the middle, and Gabriel curled against his side with his arm tucked around him, and Sam's holding him there with a hand, while his other hand intertwines his fingers with Gabriel's.
In this moment, everything's perfect.
"I'm asexual." Sam whispers to the ceiling, quietly. "Or at least, I used to be."
Gabriel hums.
"Can people change?" Sam goes on, braving his heart for the answer.
"What their sexuality means to them can." Gabriel answers, as simple as that. "And it can mean so much, Samwise. Of course it changes."
"Asexuality is the quality or characteristic of having no sexual feelings or desires." Sam repeats, from memory. A really old memory. "It may be considered a sexual orientation or lack thereof."
Gabriel is quiet - they both are, until Sam realizes the archangel thinks he has more to say.
"That's it." Sam admits shyly. "That's the definition fifteen year old Sam read so many times in his head that thirty seven year old Sam remembers."
"Oh, you." Gabriel sits up, cross-legged on the bed. He stares at the hunter and sees the lack of acceptance in his own eyes. "That's over twenty years old, Sam. Listen to me."
"Okay." Sam swallows.
"You can relate to some traits of asexuality and not all of them, and still be considered asexual." Gabriel begins, serious. "You know it's a spectrum, right? So you may think differently about sex than other asexuals. Every asexual is unique, and their identities are shaped by all that that they've gone through, and not just what they were born as."
Well, nobody could've had the same experiences he did. Does that mean -
Gabriel goes on. "You may be grossed out by sex, find it uninteresting, or think it's mildly enjoyable if it's with the right partner."
Sam's eyebrows go up.
He liked sex, or something almost like it, when he was with Jess. It was boring, but not the worst thing in the world, with Amelia. And if all the other times, he's repulsed by it - apparently that's okay too.
"I - I didn't know that."
"Knowing you're on the ace spectrum can be enough." Gabriel tells him, squeezing his hand. "You don't have to define your sexuality every day of your life - it's there to decide who makes you happy, and not who you are."
Sam's speechless.
He's never thought about it like this.
"Call yourself whatever you like, Sammich." Gabriel smiles. "Asexual, demisexual, grey asexual - it's up to you. But don't let a label, or the seeming defiance of it upset you. You're human, not a piece of research you can label and file away in inventory - you're you, and believe me, that's all that matters to the rest of us."
"I -" Sam wishes he has the words to express what he's feeling right now, but he can't find any, so he just squeezes Gabriel's hand back. And mumbles, "I love you."
"I know," Gabriel teases, so Sam lets out a short breath of laughter and leans up to kiss him but Gabriel meets him in the middle. "I'm pretty great."
"Thank you." Sam breathes out, pulling away. "Thank you for everything."
"Shuddup." Gabriel blows a raspberry, just so he can ruin the moment and Sam swats at him playfully. "But hey, quick thing."
"Yeah?"
"Please don't let PTSD affect your take on your own sexuality." Gabriel says, adopting a serious voice again.
"It's hard when a lot of that trauma is related pretty closely to sex." Sam confesses, sighing.
"Yeah. I believe you, it - it must be hard." Gabriel sounds pained to say it. There's silence for a while. Finally, he says, "You know I'm always here if you need to talk, right?"
"It goes both ways."
"Noted." Gabriel leans in this time, and Sam lets him traverse all of the way so that it gets easier to pull him back to bed, instead of him sitting up.
"I'll be truthful with you, Gabe." Sam speaks up, a whole while later. Gabriel turns around to face him, pulling slightly away because they'd been cuddling. "I don't think I'm going to want to have sex ever again."
Gabriel nods in acknowledgement.
"What, that's it?" Sam makes a face. "Here I am, feeling guilty because I'll never be able to want sex with my partner who loves sex, and you're just going to nod?"
"Believe me, Samshine. I've had enough sex in my lifetime." Gabriel clears his throat, throwing in a wink which makes Sam laugh. "And for that matter, I'm pretty self-sufficient."
"You're gross is what you are." Sam rolls his eyes, trying to contain a smile.
"Sure, that too." Gabriel takes it in his stride. "And I'm sure you wouldn't be completely unwilling to help poor me out, if I needed it." His eyebrows dance. "You know, flex for me shirtless, say my name in your sexy voice sorta thing."
Sam swats at him with a pillow as he dissolves in laughter.
"Or even just a quick shoulder peek maybe." Gabriel shrugs, nonchalantly.
"What is it about my shoulders?" Sam huffs, mostly kidding. "I swear, I never stood how they can be an attractive feature on anybody."
"Ah, well." Gabriel makes a dramatic show of giving up hope. "I guess you'd have to be pansexual to get it."
Sam rolls his eyes again.
And that's that.
