Heart Securely Bound
Title: Heart Securely Bound
Pairing: None
Rating: PG-13 for thematic elements
Warnings: Abortion
Summary: Dee takes care of business, and Sam takes care of her sister. Or, some issues the Winchester brothers never had to worry about that the Winchester sisters might have.
She catches up to Dee outside the clinic. The Impala is parked crooked in the lot, windows cracked despite the cold, burger wrappers in the front seat even though the last time Sam forgot and left garbage in the car Dee threatened to strangle her with her own hair.
The door to the clinic faces a run-down, empty street, smudged glass with a duct-taped crack across the top pane. On the brick wall next to it is a taped-up flyer about breast-cancer awareness and the words Hores & Faggotts Rot In Hell spray-painted in obscene red.
Dee's standing underneath the graffiti, hair in her face, smoking a cigarette.
"Those are bad for you," Sam says, shoving her hands in the pockets of her coat to hide the way they're shaking.
Dee blows her bangs out of her eyes and glances up. "Don't you have cheerleading practice or something, Martha?"
"Soccer," Sam says, refusing to rise to the bait. "Practice was canceled."
Dee snorts and takes another drag on her cigarette. She looks small and impossibly fragile, hunched in an oversized hoodie stolen from some linebacker boyfriend three states back. "Okay, whatever."
"Dee, what are you doing here?"
Dee snorts. "None of your damn business."
"I'm your sister."
"So?"
Sam shoves her hands deeper in her pockets. "I found the pee-stick."
Dee throws her cigarette on the sidewalk and stomps on it with more force than is probably necessary. "Anybody ever tell you you're a fucking nosy little brat?"
"It was in the bathroom garbage." Sam pauses. "Dee, are you pregnant?"
"Not for long," Dee snaps, shouldering past her to jerk the door open. Too-warm air rushes out, and the smell of strong cleaners clogs Sam's nose. Stomach twisting, she follows her sister inside. There's a long, anonymous hallway with another glass door at the other end; this one is clean and has the clinic's logo on it in splashy pink text.
"Dee--"
"Sam, I have an appointment, okay? I really don't have time for this."
"No, it's just--have you thought about this?"
Dee shoots an incredulous look over her shoulder without breaking stride. "Are you seriously giving me the 'choose life' speech?"
"No."
"Good."
"Who's the father?" Sam asks, then regrets it when Dee's shoulders hunch up even further. She pauses at the door, and when she looks back at Sam her face is an indifferent mask.
"Some guy. Not like it matters."
"It's Casey Hannigan, isn't it?" Blond-haired, blue-eyed Casey Hannigan with the toothpaste-ad smile and the popped-collar shirts, who's so far away from Dee's usual type that he might as well be from a different galaxy. He's been coming by the apartment for the past month, which is about three weeks longer than Dee's guys usually hang around.
"I just said it doesn't matter, didn't I? God, it's not like we were gonna set up house or something."
"Did you even tell him?"
Dee shrugs tightly, mouth set in a hard, unhappy line. "Yeah. It's--"
"Why isn't he here?"
"He was busy," Dee says. "Okay? I told him I'd take care of it. It's no big deal."
Before Sam can even think about answering that, Dee's pulling the door open and stepping inside. The lobby is shabby and empty and Sam waits awkwardly by the door while Dee goes up to the receptionist's window.
She comes back with a clipboard in one hand, and holds up the other in sharp negation when Sam opens her mouth. "If you wanna wait here, fine, but the last thing I need right now is a fucking lecture."
"Fine," Sam mutters, sinking into one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and staring at her kneecaps until the doctor comes out.
"Deanna Benatar?"
"That's me," Dee says easily, popping out of her seat.
Benatar? Sam mouths at her, and Dee almost grins.
"We're ready to get started," the doctor says. He's short and fat and kind-looking, and he doesn't seem bothered by the way Dee isn't looking him in the face. "Have you filled out all of your paperwork?"
"Yup," Dee says, holding out the clipboard full of what is undoubtedly one hundred percent pure weapons-grade bullshit. "All set."
Sam opens her mouth to say--something--but Dee's already following the doctor into the exam room and she doesn't look back.
***
Nobody else comes into the clinic while she's waiting. Sam reads her way through the stack of out-of-date Cosmo's on the waiting room table, spends twenty minutes trying and failing miserably to compose her opening statements for the debate tournament on the back of a birth control flier, and studiously ignores the concerned glances the middle-aged receptionist keeps shooting her.
There's a stain that looks like vomit on the gray carpet. It's shaped kind of like Hawaii.
Her ponytail is giving her a headache, so she pulls out the hairband and it snaps hard enough to sting her fingers, and now her hair's hanging heavy and loose around her face like she's Morticia Addams or something. Dee probably has hairbands back in the car, but she could come out any minute now, and Sam isn't moving.
The heater in the corner is making this low ticking noise that isn't helping her headache one little bit.
The clock over the receptionist's desk is frozen, but it's at least three hours later when Dee comes walking back out, one step ahead of the doctor. Her face is pale and set and she nods impatiently when he hands her a sheaf of papers and says something in a quiet voice.
"Let's go," she says to Sam, and heads out the door without a backward glance. Sam shoulders her backpack and follows.
***
It's dark when they get outside, even colder, and Sam can see the breath pluming out around her sister's face as they walk around toward the Impala.
"I can drive," she says when Dee pauses to dig out her keys.
Dee gives her a narrow-eyed look. "You're fifteen."
"So?"
"Christ, fine." She throws the keys at Sam's head and crosses over to the passenger side, and that right there is all the proof Sam needs that Dee is most definitely Not Okay. She unlocks the door and slides in behind the wheel, reaches over to unlock Dee's door before adjusting the mirrors. Dee sweeps the garbage on the shotgun seat unceremoniously onto the floor and slides in with a poorly concealed wince. The papers the doctor gave her are still crumpled in her fist.
"You okay?"
Dee puts her head back, closes her eyes. "Fucking peachy. Wreck my car and I will end you."
Normally, that would be Sam's cue to rag on Dee about her ever-increasing collection of traffic tickets. She twists the key in the ignition and glances over; the dirty glow from the streetlamps washes out what little color there was in Dee's face, and Sam can smell the lingering chemical-stink of the clinic. "I'll be careful," she says, and puts the Impala in reverse.
***
When they get back to the fourth-floor walk-up they're staying at while Dad takes care of some Incredibly Important Business down in Pennsylvania, Dee drops the papers the doctor gave her on the kitchen table and locks herself in the bedroom without even bothering to make sure the place is secure.
Sam locks the door and lays the salt lines and then sits down at the table for a long time, staring at nothing.
***
"Dee?"
"Fuck off," Dee mutters from the other side of the door.
"I have hot chocolate."
"Fuck. Off."
"Deanna--"
The door jerks open, and there's Dee standing there in a tank-top and a pair of baggy sweatpants. Her sandy hair is a tangled mess and her eyes are red. "Does the phrase 'fuck off' really require an explanation, Samantha?"
Sam holds out the mug of hot chocolate. "It has marshmallows."
For a minute, she wonders if Dee's going to knock the cup out of her hands, but after a long moment she takes it, folds her strong, slender fingers around the cracked ceramic. "Do we need to watch Sex and the City and paint our nails now, or will you leave me alone?"
Sam steps inside and shuts the door behind her. "It's my room too."
"Fucking Christ," Dee mutters, but she takes a sip of hot chocolate before huddling back down in the nest of blankets on her bed. Sam sits down on the mattress and draws her feet up under her.
"Do you want to talk?"
"Does it look like I want to talk?" Dee mumbles.
"Casey's an asshole," Sam offers sincerely, and Dee snorts. "I'm serious. I'll go cut his balls off for you if you want."
"Thanks, but I think I can live without my baby sister running around and castrating my boyfriends."
"Not all of them. Just him."
"No," Dee says, and that's almost a smile on her face. Wobbly and uneven, but almost a smile. "I appreciate the sentiment, though." She takes another, longer drink. "Did you spike this?"
"Uh," Sam says. "Maybe?"
"Such a bitch," Dee mutters, reluctantly affectionate.
"Tramp," Sam says back automatically, then immediately wants to bite her tongue off. "Sorry. I didn't mean--"
Dee makes a small, dismissive noise and pulls the blanket tighter around her even though it isn't really cold in here. She isn't smiling anymore, and Sam wants to punch herself in the face.
"I'm sorry, Dee," she says again.
"Whatever," Dee says, turning the cup around and around in her hands and staring into it like the answers to the universe might appear there. "Sammy, seriously. It's fine. I'm fine."
That would be a lot more convincing if not for the way her eyelashes are still clumped together with tears--and seriously, Dee does not do crying--and she looks closer to forty than nineteen.
Hugging Dee is always a game of chance, even more so when she's upset, but Sam leans into her space, slow and cautious, and when Dee doesn't shove her away she wraps an arm around her sister and pulls her in close. Dee's shoulders are narrower than Sam's; if it weren't for the muscle that ten years of boot camp for John Winchester's private army put on her frame, she'd be downright delicate. As it is, she's solid heat and compact strength, the comforting smells of coffee and cigarette smoke--the closest thing to a mother that Sam's ever known.
This is the first time that thought's made her wince.
Dee turns her face into Sam's neck and mumbles, "Seriously, we're gonna have to have a talk about all the chick-flick bonding crap movies you watch," but her cheek is wet against Sam's skin and she doesn't try to pull away.
"This from the girl who follows Dr. Sexy, M.D.."
"Well, I don't watch it for the plot, that's for sure."
"God, I hope not," Sam says, and Dee pulls away with a watery laugh.
"Fictional men are much better than the real deal, Sam. Remember that."
"Especially when they wear cowboy boots, I know," Sam says, and strokes a hand through Dee's chin-length tangle of curls. It's the sort of move that under normal circumstances would earn her an elbow to the ribs. "I still think you should let me beat that dickhead Casey black and blue."
Dee sighs. "It wasn't his fault. The condom broke. It happens, you know? Or you would know if you weren't such a freaking nun."
That's not what I meant, Sam thinks, but she doesn't push it. "I'm just waiting for the right guy."
"Sure you are. It's gonna be a white wedding, isn't it?" Dee shakes her head. "My own sister. You're probably gonna get one of those lacy veil things, too, aren't you?"
Sam steals the hot chocolate and takes a sip, the rich sweetness and the burn of two shots of Dad's cheap whiskey heavy on her tongue. "No. But I will make you be the maid of honor."
"The fuck you will," Dee says, stealing the chocolate back.
"You'll have to wear a dress. Purple, I think," Sam says thoughtfully. "Heels. Pantyhose."
"Sadist."
"I'll expect you to pluck your eyebrows, too. Get a manicure."
Dee shoves her, hard and sudden enough that she tumbles off the bed in a flurry of flailing limbs. "Worst little sister in the history of the world, seriously."
"Hey, I brought you hot chocolate," Sam says from the floor. On the bed, Dee shifts her weight and tucks the blanket in closer around herself.
"There is that," she concedes, and reaches down to give Sam a hand back up.
They finish the hot chocolate in silence, and Dee doesn't make more than a token protest when Sam sets the empty cup down on the floor and curls around her sister the way she used to when they were kids and sharing a bed in whatever crap motel room they ended up in. "You have your own bed," she grumbles.
"Shut up," Sam says.
"You better not steal the covers."
"I won't."
Dee's silent for a long while, and Sam's just wondering if she's dropped off to sleep when she tucks herself in closer, cheek to Sam's shoulder, knees bumping. "I'm not wearing pantyhose."
"Okay," Sam says. "The heels are non-negotiable, though."
Unerring even in the dark, Dee pinches the inside of her elbow, hard. "Go to sleep, Sister Luke."
"And you think I have cheesy taste in movies," Sam murmurs.
Dee huffs out a laugh, and then it's quiet but for the traffic on the street below and the slow, familiar sound of her sister's breathing.
***
A/N: So, this was my first experiment with genderswap. If you enjoyed it, please take a minute to let me know. If you think it completely sucked, well, let me know that too ;)
Pairing: None
Rating: PG-13 for thematic elements
Warnings: Abortion
Summary: Dee takes care of business, and Sam takes care of her sister. Or, some issues the Winchester brothers never had to worry about that the Winchester sisters might have.
She catches up to Dee outside the clinic. The Impala is parked crooked in the lot, windows cracked despite the cold, burger wrappers in the front seat even though the last time Sam forgot and left garbage in the car Dee threatened to strangle her with her own hair.
The door to the clinic faces a run-down, empty street, smudged glass with a duct-taped crack across the top pane. On the brick wall next to it is a taped-up flyer about breast-cancer awareness and the words Hores & Faggotts Rot In Hell spray-painted in obscene red.
Dee's standing underneath the graffiti, hair in her face, smoking a cigarette.
"Those are bad for you," Sam says, shoving her hands in the pockets of her coat to hide the way they're shaking.
Dee blows her bangs out of her eyes and glances up. "Don't you have cheerleading practice or something, Martha?"
"Soccer," Sam says, refusing to rise to the bait. "Practice was canceled."
Dee snorts and takes another drag on her cigarette. She looks small and impossibly fragile, hunched in an oversized hoodie stolen from some linebacker boyfriend three states back. "Okay, whatever."
"Dee, what are you doing here?"
Dee snorts. "None of your damn business."
"I'm your sister."
"So?"
Sam shoves her hands deeper in her pockets. "I found the pee-stick."
Dee throws her cigarette on the sidewalk and stomps on it with more force than is probably necessary. "Anybody ever tell you you're a fucking nosy little brat?"
"It was in the bathroom garbage." Sam pauses. "Dee, are you pregnant?"
"Not for long," Dee snaps, shouldering past her to jerk the door open. Too-warm air rushes out, and the smell of strong cleaners clogs Sam's nose. Stomach twisting, she follows her sister inside. There's a long, anonymous hallway with another glass door at the other end; this one is clean and has the clinic's logo on it in splashy pink text.
"Dee--"
"Sam, I have an appointment, okay? I really don't have time for this."
"No, it's just--have you thought about this?"
Dee shoots an incredulous look over her shoulder without breaking stride. "Are you seriously giving me the 'choose life' speech?"
"No."
"Good."
"Who's the father?" Sam asks, then regrets it when Dee's shoulders hunch up even further. She pauses at the door, and when she looks back at Sam her face is an indifferent mask.
"Some guy. Not like it matters."
"It's Casey Hannigan, isn't it?" Blond-haired, blue-eyed Casey Hannigan with the toothpaste-ad smile and the popped-collar shirts, who's so far away from Dee's usual type that he might as well be from a different galaxy. He's been coming by the apartment for the past month, which is about three weeks longer than Dee's guys usually hang around.
"I just said it doesn't matter, didn't I? God, it's not like we were gonna set up house or something."
"Did you even tell him?"
Dee shrugs tightly, mouth set in a hard, unhappy line. "Yeah. It's--"
"Why isn't he here?"
"He was busy," Dee says. "Okay? I told him I'd take care of it. It's no big deal."
Before Sam can even think about answering that, Dee's pulling the door open and stepping inside. The lobby is shabby and empty and Sam waits awkwardly by the door while Dee goes up to the receptionist's window.
She comes back with a clipboard in one hand, and holds up the other in sharp negation when Sam opens her mouth. "If you wanna wait here, fine, but the last thing I need right now is a fucking lecture."
"Fine," Sam mutters, sinking into one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and staring at her kneecaps until the doctor comes out.
"Deanna Benatar?"
"That's me," Dee says easily, popping out of her seat.
Benatar? Sam mouths at her, and Dee almost grins.
"We're ready to get started," the doctor says. He's short and fat and kind-looking, and he doesn't seem bothered by the way Dee isn't looking him in the face. "Have you filled out all of your paperwork?"
"Yup," Dee says, holding out the clipboard full of what is undoubtedly one hundred percent pure weapons-grade bullshit. "All set."
Sam opens her mouth to say--something--but Dee's already following the doctor into the exam room and she doesn't look back.
***
Nobody else comes into the clinic while she's waiting. Sam reads her way through the stack of out-of-date Cosmo's on the waiting room table, spends twenty minutes trying and failing miserably to compose her opening statements for the debate tournament on the back of a birth control flier, and studiously ignores the concerned glances the middle-aged receptionist keeps shooting her.
There's a stain that looks like vomit on the gray carpet. It's shaped kind of like Hawaii.
Her ponytail is giving her a headache, so she pulls out the hairband and it snaps hard enough to sting her fingers, and now her hair's hanging heavy and loose around her face like she's Morticia Addams or something. Dee probably has hairbands back in the car, but she could come out any minute now, and Sam isn't moving.
The heater in the corner is making this low ticking noise that isn't helping her headache one little bit.
The clock over the receptionist's desk is frozen, but it's at least three hours later when Dee comes walking back out, one step ahead of the doctor. Her face is pale and set and she nods impatiently when he hands her a sheaf of papers and says something in a quiet voice.
"Let's go," she says to Sam, and heads out the door without a backward glance. Sam shoulders her backpack and follows.
***
It's dark when they get outside, even colder, and Sam can see the breath pluming out around her sister's face as they walk around toward the Impala.
"I can drive," she says when Dee pauses to dig out her keys.
Dee gives her a narrow-eyed look. "You're fifteen."
"So?"
"Christ, fine." She throws the keys at Sam's head and crosses over to the passenger side, and that right there is all the proof Sam needs that Dee is most definitely Not Okay. She unlocks the door and slides in behind the wheel, reaches over to unlock Dee's door before adjusting the mirrors. Dee sweeps the garbage on the shotgun seat unceremoniously onto the floor and slides in with a poorly concealed wince. The papers the doctor gave her are still crumpled in her fist.
"You okay?"
Dee puts her head back, closes her eyes. "Fucking peachy. Wreck my car and I will end you."
Normally, that would be Sam's cue to rag on Dee about her ever-increasing collection of traffic tickets. She twists the key in the ignition and glances over; the dirty glow from the streetlamps washes out what little color there was in Dee's face, and Sam can smell the lingering chemical-stink of the clinic. "I'll be careful," she says, and puts the Impala in reverse.
***
When they get back to the fourth-floor walk-up they're staying at while Dad takes care of some Incredibly Important Business down in Pennsylvania, Dee drops the papers the doctor gave her on the kitchen table and locks herself in the bedroom without even bothering to make sure the place is secure.
Sam locks the door and lays the salt lines and then sits down at the table for a long time, staring at nothing.
***
"Dee?"
"Fuck off," Dee mutters from the other side of the door.
"I have hot chocolate."
"Fuck. Off."
"Deanna--"
The door jerks open, and there's Dee standing there in a tank-top and a pair of baggy sweatpants. Her sandy hair is a tangled mess and her eyes are red. "Does the phrase 'fuck off' really require an explanation, Samantha?"
Sam holds out the mug of hot chocolate. "It has marshmallows."
For a minute, she wonders if Dee's going to knock the cup out of her hands, but after a long moment she takes it, folds her strong, slender fingers around the cracked ceramic. "Do we need to watch Sex and the City and paint our nails now, or will you leave me alone?"
Sam steps inside and shuts the door behind her. "It's my room too."
"Fucking Christ," Dee mutters, but she takes a sip of hot chocolate before huddling back down in the nest of blankets on her bed. Sam sits down on the mattress and draws her feet up under her.
"Do you want to talk?"
"Does it look like I want to talk?" Dee mumbles.
"Casey's an asshole," Sam offers sincerely, and Dee snorts. "I'm serious. I'll go cut his balls off for you if you want."
"Thanks, but I think I can live without my baby sister running around and castrating my boyfriends."
"Not all of them. Just him."
"No," Dee says, and that's almost a smile on her face. Wobbly and uneven, but almost a smile. "I appreciate the sentiment, though." She takes another, longer drink. "Did you spike this?"
"Uh," Sam says. "Maybe?"
"Such a bitch," Dee mutters, reluctantly affectionate.
"Tramp," Sam says back automatically, then immediately wants to bite her tongue off. "Sorry. I didn't mean--"
Dee makes a small, dismissive noise and pulls the blanket tighter around her even though it isn't really cold in here. She isn't smiling anymore, and Sam wants to punch herself in the face.
"I'm sorry, Dee," she says again.
"Whatever," Dee says, turning the cup around and around in her hands and staring into it like the answers to the universe might appear there. "Sammy, seriously. It's fine. I'm fine."
That would be a lot more convincing if not for the way her eyelashes are still clumped together with tears--and seriously, Dee does not do crying--and she looks closer to forty than nineteen.
Hugging Dee is always a game of chance, even more so when she's upset, but Sam leans into her space, slow and cautious, and when Dee doesn't shove her away she wraps an arm around her sister and pulls her in close. Dee's shoulders are narrower than Sam's; if it weren't for the muscle that ten years of boot camp for John Winchester's private army put on her frame, she'd be downright delicate. As it is, she's solid heat and compact strength, the comforting smells of coffee and cigarette smoke--the closest thing to a mother that Sam's ever known.
This is the first time that thought's made her wince.
Dee turns her face into Sam's neck and mumbles, "Seriously, we're gonna have to have a talk about all the chick-flick bonding crap movies you watch," but her cheek is wet against Sam's skin and she doesn't try to pull away.
"This from the girl who follows Dr. Sexy, M.D.."
"Well, I don't watch it for the plot, that's for sure."
"God, I hope not," Sam says, and Dee pulls away with a watery laugh.
"Fictional men are much better than the real deal, Sam. Remember that."
"Especially when they wear cowboy boots, I know," Sam says, and strokes a hand through Dee's chin-length tangle of curls. It's the sort of move that under normal circumstances would earn her an elbow to the ribs. "I still think you should let me beat that dickhead Casey black and blue."
Dee sighs. "It wasn't his fault. The condom broke. It happens, you know? Or you would know if you weren't such a freaking nun."
That's not what I meant, Sam thinks, but she doesn't push it. "I'm just waiting for the right guy."
"Sure you are. It's gonna be a white wedding, isn't it?" Dee shakes her head. "My own sister. You're probably gonna get one of those lacy veil things, too, aren't you?"
Sam steals the hot chocolate and takes a sip, the rich sweetness and the burn of two shots of Dad's cheap whiskey heavy on her tongue. "No. But I will make you be the maid of honor."
"The fuck you will," Dee says, stealing the chocolate back.
"You'll have to wear a dress. Purple, I think," Sam says thoughtfully. "Heels. Pantyhose."
"Sadist."
"I'll expect you to pluck your eyebrows, too. Get a manicure."
Dee shoves her, hard and sudden enough that she tumbles off the bed in a flurry of flailing limbs. "Worst little sister in the history of the world, seriously."
"Hey, I brought you hot chocolate," Sam says from the floor. On the bed, Dee shifts her weight and tucks the blanket in closer around herself.
"There is that," she concedes, and reaches down to give Sam a hand back up.
They finish the hot chocolate in silence, and Dee doesn't make more than a token protest when Sam sets the empty cup down on the floor and curls around her sister the way she used to when they were kids and sharing a bed in whatever crap motel room they ended up in. "You have your own bed," she grumbles.
"Shut up," Sam says.
"You better not steal the covers."
"I won't."
Dee's silent for a long while, and Sam's just wondering if she's dropped off to sleep when she tucks herself in closer, cheek to Sam's shoulder, knees bumping. "I'm not wearing pantyhose."
"Okay," Sam says. "The heels are non-negotiable, though."
Unerring even in the dark, Dee pinches the inside of her elbow, hard. "Go to sleep, Sister Luke."
"And you think I have cheesy taste in movies," Sam murmurs.
Dee huffs out a laugh, and then it's quiet but for the traffic on the street below and the slow, familiar sound of her sister's breathing.
***
A/N: So, this was my first experiment with genderswap. If you enjoyed it, please take a minute to let me know. If you think it completely sucked, well, let me know that too ;)