title: miles in yours and mine
author:
acidquilldisclaimer: don’t own em
rating: teen
characters: Dean
warnings: er, crossdressing? fuck i don't know. BOY IN HEELS.
word count: 837
notes: mixed tenses and a rogue muse. don’t ask. a joint effort from
mini_wrimo '11 & '13.
The first pair he remembers are his mother’s - black, or maybe navy blue; he knew the color for sure once. They weren’t all that high, but he still tottered through the house like a newborn colt. Never failed to make his mother laugh. She’d swing him up in her arms and kiss each one of his toes. Call him her beautiful boy. Even at four, Dean thought his mother’s high heels were just as good as his army men and matchbox cars.
After the fire, Dean watched his father pack up the remains of their house. Cried when he folded the few blackened, smoky dresses and a handful of ruined shoes into a box and took them away. Dean never saw any of it again.
For years, Dean doesn’t touch anything that isn’t sturdy, made to last. Long enough to become a hand-me-down for Sammy anyway. Sneakers and tough leather boots in black and brown and gray. He almost forgets the heady feeling of crossing the floor with feet that don’t clunk.
When he’s eleven, they move into a house outside Tampa. Sammy spends days trying to coax mice from a hole behind the stove. Dean finds a single brown, strappy heel in the back of a closet. He stares at it for almost a week before he toed off one of his sneakers and tried it on; the shoe’s only a little too big. He returned it to the closet. Wore it in secret until they moved again. He ended up leaving the shoe behind because he couldn’t think of a way to take it with him. One shoe was pretty freaking sad, anyway.
Dean buys his own, real pair from a thrift store in Wyoming. He’s fifteeen.
He hid them in his duffel, wrapped in a old t-shirt and a pair of god-awful socks. Sammy was enough of a princess to think Dean’s stuff was disgusting, and Dad wasn’t the type to go through someone else’s junk in the first place. Dean still kept ‘em out of sight, just in case. He loved those damn shoes; they were red, slick, with a three inch heel. Goddamn they were pretty. And they fit better than his boots some days. Made him feel something besides fucked up and exhausted from the constant pull of keeping Sammy happy, making sure Dad could count on him.
He outgrew them by his seventeenth birthday. Used the twenty John gave him to buy some retro kitten heels and a new whetstone.
Before he went to get Sam, he kept a couple pairs in the trunk of the Impala, in a space behind the spare tire. It used to be where his dad stored especially sketchy herbs or ordinance. But after John wrangled himself a new ride and left Dean with the car, Dean figured he might as well use of it for something of his that’d probably turn a few heads the wrong way.
He spent days by himself. His dad started disappearing on solo hunts more and more, sending Dean in another direction. Dean got used to getting a single room. Grabbing burgers or takeout and ditching his boots for his heels once he was settled. He wore them while he ate, liked the stretch at the back of his legs standing in front of the bathroom mirror while he shaved.
Some nights he sat back against the headboard and admired the curve of the leather against his feet.
Once Sam’s back on the road with him, Dean packs up his shoes. Starts keeping them in his duffel again. It’s not like there’s a lot of time for much except surviving, trying to find Dad. Dean goes weeks without unwrapping the heels. He steals minutes - shoving his feet into them right after his shower, bathroom door locked tight. It’s not the same. He tries not to miss before, those perfect, freeing moments of being completely himself. Tries not to feel selfish.
Dean’s never worn his shoes in front of his dad or his brother. Spent half his life terrified one of them would find out, would see but not understand; he couldn’t bear the thought they wouldn’t accept this one part of him. Didn’t want to think about what that would mean. But he and Sam live closer now than they did as kids, tripping over each other in the morning, borrowing each other’s clothes. Sooner or later, Sam’s going to notice. He’ll open a bag, or walk in when Dean thinks he’s safe. Dean would prefer it happen on his own terms.
He sits on the edge of the bed, unrolls a Henley he hasn’t worn in months. Inside are his latest pair: matte black, three rivets along the outside of the vamp, four and a half inches high. Fucking beautiful. They remind him of the Impala.
Sam’s gone to pick up a couple newspapers and coffee; he’ll be back soon. Dean slips on his shoes. He’s been hiding for years; now seems like a good time to stop.
- end