the first time sam wears a dress.
dean had been a boy from the moment he was placed into his mother’s arms as a baby, even though the doctors proclaimed otherwise. even mary knew, when she looked into her child’s eyes, that he was a boy.
and as he grew, mary was proved right. dean threw aside anything with bows or skirts, but his eyes, still filled with wonder at the time, would light up at the blue t-shirts with dinosaur print and the torn up jeans. so deanna turned to dean, and john accepted it as it was. he knew his wife, knew she wasn’t delusional. and when mary got pregnant again, the thought of another boy running around the house with little dean as an older brother filled their hearts with warmth.
maybe sam was too young for mary to know any better, to know that her second son was actually her only daughter. maybe if she had lived past sam’s six-month birthday, she would have dressed her in the little dresses dean had detested.
but mary was dead, and john didn’t care what the hell his boys’ thought. what mattered was raising two hunters, trained to take down the things that ruined their lives. and sam picked up on that at a young age, and kept the deepest parts of herself, *to* herself. all she knew was her older brother and her father; she never got a chance to see any femininity in her life. her life, which for as long as she remembered, was guns and training and learning all the lore.
now, sam is fourteen. now, she is curious about the girls she meets at one school or the other, all with long hair and pretty skirts and colored eyelids. now, sam doesn’t know what’s wrong with her and why she longs for those things.
dean had been out on a supply run with their father, leaving sam to study or do whatever reclusive nerds do in their free time. sam was told to stay home by both dean and john, and they expected her to do exactly that considering most of the time, she was a perfect, obedient son. but could you blame her for wanting a bit more? to want to explore her curiosities and find out what they mean?
so she went to the local thrift shop in their current, rundown town. just to look, that’s all! that’s at least what she told herself as she walked inside and made a beeline for the women’s section.
sam felt close to panicking as she yanks a pale green dress from the racks and rushes over to the cashier. she offers some vague comment that it’s *”for my sister,”* and quickly paid and rushed back to the motel.
it’s late when dean and john return. john retires to his own room immediately, grabbing a beer and bottle of whiskey on the way. he leaves dean to unload supplies and tuck them away wherever they belong in the impala, before he’s shambling into his shared room with sam.
sam, who is standing in front of the bathroom mirror, gazing intently at herself, turning this way and that to watch the flowy dress twirl around her. she’s so lost in her mind that she doesn’t look up until dean slams the door shut, staring at her with wide eyes.
“dean! i-i, uh, i was just-” sam rambles, stumbling over her words as she quickly yanks the dress over her head, balling it up and holding it behind her as if dean will forget she was ever wearing it. “i just thought it was cool, it’s nothing, i swear! please— please don’t tell dad.”
dean feels stupid very suddenly. has he been ignoring obvious signs, similar to ones he showed when he was yonguer? a well of grief opens up within him, one he has worked very hard on squashing into a tiny ball and shoving it in the back of his mind. he misses his mother, and wishes desperately that she were here to help him say the right things.
the look on dean’s face is unreadable as all of this passes through his mind, at least until he remembers to soften it. until he offers sammy a smile. “it’s cool. i get it.”
the words do nothing to quell sam's panic. she shuffles out of the bathroom, keeping the dress clutched tightly behind her as if revealing it to dean would incite some unknowable rage. she is already the freak of the family, the one who wants nothing to do with the guns and the hunting and the moving town to town. and now, she’s a boy who wears dresses. she doesn’s even have the vocabulary to express the fact that she doesn’t feel like a boy at all!
“i'll get rid of it,” she mutters, shoving it under her bed, scrambling to grab one of dean's hand-me-down shirts and pulling it on.
“sammy. it's okay.” dean steps foward as his words still seem to do nothing. he grabs sam's shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “stay,” he states, before he takes a step back and begins to pull off his shirt. sam's face is screwed up, a mixture of confusion and distress, but watches nonetheless as dean drops his shirt to the side, revealing his chest, wrapped in the bandages from their first aid kits as usual.
“i guess i never really explained this to you,” dean mumbles under his breath, scratching at the bandages which make his whole upper body ache, but make his skin crawl when they aren't there. sam fidgets uncomfortably as she stands before her brother, shifting from foot to foot. she doesn't understand what he means, and he *hates* not understanding.
“can we just drop it, please?” she whines, averting her eyes as suddenly, dean begins tugging the bandages from his chest.
“look at me, dumbass,” dean grits out, because he doesn't have the words to explain this any better than just showing sammy.
maybe if things were different. maybe if mary was still here, they would have learned about this together. and when sam finally felt like sharing how she felt, they would be able to explain it to her together.
but mary is dead, and dean doesn't know what he is or what sam is other than winchesters'.
sam lifts her eyes finally when dean tells her to, and it's like she's seeing his brother for the first time. sure, she has seen dean naked before. they've shared a room forever, lived in impossibly small quarters, sometimes just the impala's backseat when john was too tired or drunk to find them a place. dean’s chest was different than his own, but he had never really thought about it. dean was a boy, and sam was a boy, and he never knew anything other than that.
sam’s eyes well up with tears as she finally understands. she and her brother are the same, yet different. she understands, and she feels understood, and it's so entirely overwhelming that she can't help but sniffle and wipe at her wet eyes.
dean rolls his eyes, his cheeks heating up as he yanks his shirt back on. “knock it off, sammy,” he grumbles, but there is a note of fondness in his voice he can't help. “it's fine. we'll deal with it.”
they both know it's going to suck. dean was lucky to look boyish enough that he passed pretty well. under his dad's big jacket and his oversized, thrifted clothes, no one questioned him. but sam thinks it won't be quite the same for her. and what is she supposed to tell her dad?!
perhaps those are questions for another time.
when sam pulls the dress back on under her big shirt and crawls into bed that way, dean doesn't say anything. when dean wraps his chest again, sam looks away. she wonders if the bruises lining his sides hurt. she wonders why their bodies are the way they are, both itching for the other's skin. why must sam’s chest concave when dean wants nothing but a falt chest? why must dean hide curved hips under baggy jeans when sam wishes she had anything besides her stick-like figure?
the sibilings go to sleep, a little more in tune with the other, and a little bit sadder for the other.
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