Fic: 'in disguises no one knows' (Sam/Dean; NC-17) 2/5
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Master Post | Artwork | Soundtrack
It happens really naturally which is awesome since it’s a perfectly natural act and it doesn’t matter that Sam’s right outside the door.
See, Dean gets really giddy when she sees two semi-naked guys and now it’s time to take one giant leap for all women-kind by unzipping her jeans and doing a complete inventory on the downstairs equipment.
It’s not a complicated process; it vaguely reminds Dean of some sketch she’d found fucking around on YouTube. Step one, unzip jeans and pull down boxers. Dean’ll save taking her dick out of the hole in the front once she’s gotten used to doing whatever she’s about to do. Step two, aim and shoot.
The aiming is not hard. It’s the gripping thing that’s problematic. Before this, the point of touching a cock resulted in one of two outcomes: either that she got her rocks off or she was bucking for him to get his rocks off. Sometimes, it was both at the same time, but now the function is different. She’s just guiding it to the bowl and waiting. Then it happens, pissing, and wow is that really, really fucking weird.
But amazing, too.
She distantly recalls something about shaking it off and then she does it. Really the dick is the most insane thing ever. It’s all soft and at least it’s circumcised no worries about having to clean it or something. Huh, she should ask Sam if hers is circumcised too.
All of a sudden, these thoughts flood her mind. Getting fitted into a new body has done nothing to change her attraction to guys, but there’s also a new and curious twist. What about girls, her mind questions, and her dick twitches an anxious second, settling onto something indistinct but soft and warm. Okay, that’s kind of new.
But looking down at this dick, still soft and Dean wonders how much it’ll change when she’s actually hard. It’s nice to look at now. Fuck it, Dean is totally fucking getting hot looking down at her cock.
Huh.
Sure, her sister’s really nice looking for a guy, but Dee? Way hotter, and everything may be screwy with the universe, but at least the powers-that-be kept the natural order in check: Dee as the hot one, the talented one, the awesome one, and Sam… well, people love Sam for her mind.
That seems fair.
Dean might not have much time on her hands being like this, but for now she can have a hand on her cock. It isn’t right to deny herself the opportunity to see how the other half lives.
And what it feels like for the other half to come.
The idea is fucking sweet.
Dean hadn’t locked the door but since there’s no way to know if she can resist being noisy, she locks it now, presses an ear to the door and amazingly hears Sam snoring. So like any responsible older sibling, she tucks her dick back into her boxer-briefs and unlocks the door, opening it a crack to see that Sam’s passed out on one of the beds, body in an ungainly sprawl. The lamp’s on but the light isn’t all that great, Sam’s body casting weird shadows, unexpected and new, Dean not familiar with the new angles.
“Sam?”
She stirs a little and Dean swears that her ass flexes as she turns on her belly, shift of hips.
All right, then. Sam’s out like a light. Back to business.
Dean doesn’t even bother to look to see if the door’s secured, instead just braces against it. Her right hand wraps around her cock and wow, half-hard already. It’s a little weird, too rough on the first down stroke and she shifts her hips forward so she can push down her boxers, her ass flush against the door as she looks down and hell yeah. Little bead of precome on the tip and she swipes at it with her thumb.
Tasting is natural too because Dean’s curious about it. It makes her think about when she’d first brought wet fingers to her mouth the first time she touched herself. She’d tasted herself plenty of times since then and she’s had it mingled in the mouths of others but this is the preliminary taste of what her semen will taste like. For all the fucking weird things that Dean’s been through, this is one weird thing that’s really, really fucking hot.
No surprise that it tastes good, even with the touch of bitter.
Dean’s got enough memories of doing this from the other side that it should come easy. But now it’s her body, it’s hers and she can do whatever she wants and feel how it feels. How fucking crazy she gets when she twists her hand right below the head. How gripping the base only clears her mind enough to know that coming right away would be a goddamn shame.
Touching her nipples, flat on her chest, does fucking nothing so she abandons that effort. Then both hands move down, right hand on her cock, left on her balls and oh wait, there’s that spot right below and, “Fuck!.”
Maybe Dean oughta explore that when Sam’s not around because wow.
Slip slide of precome isn’t making it smooth enough so Dean absentmindedly licks the palm of her hand and even the taste of her hand is different, not better or worse, just different. Dean’s knees nearly buckle when she feels her balls tighten and oh fuck, she’s going to come. There is no fucking way she’s going to let Sam see a mess all over the bathroom and shit, there’s a thought, what Sam’ll do when she knows that Dean’s been-
Oh fuck.
Okay.
That’s, well it’s interesting is what it is. There’s a sticky mess now, hand covered in come and Dean’s silently laughing like a crazy person. She nearly combs back her hair, a nervous tick before she remembers how there’s come all over her hand and she licks at it. Again, not unpleasant and even better, it’s hers.
So sure, she looks fucking insane right now, lying on the floor after coming so hard that Dean finally isn’t annoyed about those guys that pass out right after a solid fuck.
But because Dean is more than just one of those guys, slowly the pieces of herself that got shattered along the way right themselves and she’s standing up despite the desire to sway over and falls back to the ground. Wiping up what’s left, Dean jumps into the shower, mercifully short, working only shampoo into short hair.
Dean realizes that with hair like this, she probably won’t need to condition it. And that right there is a really bizarre perk. Less maintenance, less worry.
Fuck she doesn’t even have to shave her legs.
One good rub-down later, Dean quietly enters the room, cautious of Sam. After pulling on a clean pair of underwear, Dean settles under a thin blanket.
There should be thoughts or worries eating at her but once she’s clicked off the lamp, her eyes try to adjust to the darkness. Trying to catch one last glimpse of Sam, Dean’s out in minutes.
*
(Her body sails in an arc and hits the ground with a wet slap, a heap of skin and flesh that melts and stretches around lengthening bones. In the corner of her eye, there’s sandy brown hair, long ends that slip away and recede from her grasp.
Her sister is screaming.
Screaming raw, throat run ragged, red, and bloody. There’s redness in Sam’s vision, too, mix of gore. Stretching bone that twists and lengthens. Her hair and weight, all rearranging, shifting into something new-
Skin sloughs off and scars that fall away, new ones that fade into place. Soft pink lines that lighten, smooth new marks on widening skin that’s rougher and hairier in texture.
Her sister’s voice fades and stops abruptly and Sam screams her name, checks for breath, for a voice. It’s a awful noise forming from a changing throat, Dee-Dee, stop, stop it, leave her alone-)
Sam bolts awake, breathing heavily, sweat soaked shirt clinging to flat muscle. Dean’s a silhouette in the dark, sprawled facedown on the bed with a bare leg poking out from under the sheet. Dean sleeps like the dead, something Sam’s used to. Sleeping at the drop of a hat, talent that’s become downright necessary with all the time they’ve spent on the road-had to learn how to catch sleep whenever they could get it.
There were nights when Sam would lean a bare arm against her sister’s shoulder and fidget with her t-shirt. They’d talk about boys and guns and what town they’d drive in and out of within a week, according to Dad. There’d be a shooting range in the next one, something to check out, maybe take along some sandwiches. The mundane things that weren’t crawling up out of the dark: waiting for a grade on a history test, or the boy at the arcade, the one that kept plying her quarters and promises. Boys always came up in conversation before it would peter out, Deana taking in Sam’s silence and slapping a palm on her knee, saying someday. Someday she’d understand.
Sam’s hair’s in soft waves, barely, brushes the freckles on the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Cut right above her shoulders, but it used to be longer, before ponytails became a pain in the ass. Sam thinks she should look like Mom; it’s a thought that comes automatically, like Dean has to look like her, because Sam can’t find any bit of similarity with her mother in photos, no matter how much she leans and twists her head in the mirror, tries to get a glimpse of her nose or her chin that she hasn’t seen before. Other than the photos, Sam doesn’t remember what Mom looked like. Deana tells her she was beautiful, “and she’d have to be, too, since she had me after all.”
Deana always grins, and adds, “and you too, Sammy, Dad can’t say the milkman did it; you’re his through and through.”
But here, now, Sam leans her head on Dee’s shoulder and keeps on talking about inane things, a movie or a TV show they had time to watch, sightseeing, mountains, rivers. It’s like an undercurrent to what they should be talking about, only they don’t. They’ve never been much for talking directly about their feelings or all the rough shit they get into.
They only move closer to each other on the bed’s edge and stare at the carpet. That’s okay, Sam thinks. That’s okay.
They are sisters, they have always been sisters.
She tells herself that; tonight, Dee sleeps on her chest for the first time since she was twelve. Dean grabs the pillow close and murmurs something; the voice is too different, deep and strange.
There’s a man there, where her sister should be, and Sam’s trying to focus on the long plains of muscle in the dark, the flatness of Dean’s chest. Focus, tracing hard lines and angles, contours in different places, but the same full lips and the same green eyes. She’ll map them out in her memory, because it won’t last long, this glimpse. It will end, they will figure this out, and she will no longer stare at this man and see a stranger. It’s still Dee, through and through.
They are sisters, she tells herself, falling to sleep.
*
Dean wakes, all wriggling arms and stretching legs, wiping a hand across her face, motion caught short, dragging across stubble and spit. She wipes her mouth and grumbles, hearing Sam grumbling from across the room, low rumble in a deeper voice.
Dean wipes her mouth and murmurs, mouth tasting funky, “Sam… what is it?”
“This-this thing.” Sam makes a whapping noise, like a fly swatter finding its mark. “It won’t go away.”
The bed tips like a funhouse when Dean sits up, and she can hear the distaste in Sam’s voice through her clearing haze. One eye opens, two, and Sam’s shaking her head, her mouth a little ‘o’. Sam’s sitting up, back against the headboard, with this pup tent of an erection and the most innocent and tortured look Dean has ever seen.
It’s kind of hilarious but it’s way too fucking early to die of a laughing attack.
“It’s up, Dean. I don’t wanna touch it. What the fuck do I do?”
“Just take care of it,” Dean murmurs, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hands. The fuzziness lessens as she takes stock of the room. It reminds her of a bad morning after, with a guy she doesn’t quite recognize, awake before she’s picked up her boots and tiptoed out his door. So that’s a new part of masturbating when in a guy’s body. Huh.
Everything feels vibrant as she wakes up, new body that has a larger appetite as her stomach rumbles. Shit, the nearest diner’s about three blocks away which isn’t bad, but Dean wishes it were closer. She needs coffee like a shot of adrenaline. Or a painkiller. Maybe both.
Sam wipes her forehead, a frustrated groan cutting into Dean’s thoughts. “I don’t know how.”
Dean gets up slowly and walks over to her duffel bag, ignoring the little mountain between Sam’s legs, tucked under the sheet. She pulls out a shirt. “Sam, I’ve seen you put on Indigo Girls and go into the can for an hour. So why don’t you put on some angsty chick music, go in there, and get your ya-ya’s off.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“I try,” Dean responds, ducks the pillow coming her way as she pulls on some jeans. She throws a shirt over her head, hides a smirk as Sam actually pets her dick, like it’s a dog, then whaps it with a pillow.
Sam’s head shoots up abruptly, eyes moving from her erection to the place where Dean’s getting ready. Dean knows she’s being watched, feeling the burn of Sam’s gaze tracing her movements as she puts her clothes on, frustrated noises from Sam giving way to gritted teeth.
“Wait-Dee, Dean, don’t leave me like this!” she yelps, a desperate pathetic whine that doesn’t mesh well at all with her deeper voice.
There’s a second or two Dean gives Sam as a courtesy-to think about what she’s just suggested-but frankly, Dean can’t resist. “Do you need me to help you out?”
Sam’s mouth is all open, tries closing a lot, sort of like a weird parody of a fish. “No! I mean, not like that. God! You know what I mean.”
Dean only raises her eyebrows in response, nods to the bathroom.
“Dean, how-I mean. I don’t want to touch it.”
“You realize this right here is real hysteria, right?” Dean’s busy fiddling with a belt, looping it through. “It doesn’t have a mind of its own. It’s not going to steal your gay. Stop freaking out.”
“Do cold showers work?” Sam’s spread her legs apart like she’s trying to will her cock to, Dean has no idea, fly away or some shit. And that right there is a disturbing image. “I mean. That’s what they say about cold showers, right?”
“What I am gonna do to help you, Sammy? I don’t think me watching is gonna help you much, perv.”
Sam makes a noise of protest but Dean’s already got her keys, tugging on her jacket.
“I’ll be back soon, Sam. Take a shower and think of something really disgusting.”
“Um.”
“Seriously you need inspiration?” Exaggeratedly rolling her eyes, Dean sighs and then says, “Hey, remember that pimple I had that was like big as a friggin’ dime and you kept on trying to touch it and Dad was tellin’ you to leave me alone and then we hit that pothole and your hand smacked my face and that pimple exploded like a freakin’-”
Sam’s jumping out of bed, still kinda hard, but noticeably wilting. “Okay! I think I’m going to take a shower.”
“Awesome,” Dean says, unable to smother the gleeful cackle. “I’m gonna go see a man about a horse. Or you know, get us some fucking food.”
“I can’t believe you brought up the pimple of doom and can go eat.”
“I might not be a man of steel, little sis, but I got a steel stomach.”
But the last laugh’s on Dean as Sam ducks into the bathroom, tugging off a thin shirt, back actually rippling.
God. Sam could take out a building with those shoulders.
Dean needs to do something, now. Oh yeah. Coffee. All over that. And not on… thoughts about Sam’s muscles. No way.
Twenty minutes later, after Sam’s dressed and on the laptop, Dean sitting across on her bed, sipping a cup of coffee. There’s donuts on the table, store-bought kind where the glaze is crackled and dry on half of the assortment and Dean sticks with the chocolate, licking at the crumbly cake that gets stuck to her lip.
“So we look up best cures for a gender fuck-”
“First of all, it’d be a gender switch,” Sam interrupts. “And secondly, it’s more like a sex switch, than a gender switch.”
“What?”
“Gender’s a state of consciousness and mentality, Dean. Sex is the physical, the corporeal, you know, the body,” Sam says, waves a hand down at herself. “The, uh, sexual organs.”
Dean takes this in with a nod. “This is why you never get laid. Too much hittin’ the books and not enough hittin’ on a Gabrielle or two. I keep tellin’ you, you’d make a great Xena. They’d make great sidekicks for you. They’d eat that stuff up, that girl on girl shit.”
“Dee, that was, like, six years ago,” Sam says, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Dean won’t forget it, and for good reason, because it’s not like you mix your nearly six-foot tall sister, limoncellos, a Sci-Fi convention in Atlanta, and a bad Xena costume in order to bust a sacrifice and not have any record of that particular case. Of which Dean had plenty. Until she gets her actual duffel bag back. The one where Dean had shoved crumpled up Polaroids in the interior pocket had vanished along with the rest of her stuff. Now would be a good time to play that hand, showing Sam that sometimes having fun was a part of the case.
“We’ve switched sexes then, not genders.” Dean pursues her lips as she thinks it over a minute, taking a sip of her coffee. It tastes different, though she isn’t sure if it’s the diner or the body. Could be the morning, could be the stress, God knows what, but it tastes different. Another sense-taste-that she has to adjust and get used to. No harm to get something worthwhile out of this, like trying to learn something about the male body during this whole deal.
Dean gulps more coffee and nods at Sam. “You find anything?”
“Nothing yet. It’s still early so…” she trails off, looks up. “The best thing we can do right now is retrace our steps.” She points a finger square at Dean’s chest. “Starting with that.”
Dean raises her eyebrows, looks down at her chest. Tight, plain black t-shirt. “What?”
“The clothes, all of this. This isn’t mine-” she tugs at her own checkered shirt, “this place is a mess, and don’t you-we, we don’t even remember anything from last night! I mean, we don’t have a lot to go on. Our bodies have completely changed, we got new clothes, and-”
“They’re thoughtful fuckers,” Dean supplies, scrubs a hand through her hair, tries to comb it. “I don’t know. They’re trying to mess with us by giving us dicks and you’re here worryin’ about where your really butch flannels and Birkenstocks went.”
“Funny,” Sam says, squinting at the screen. “What was the last thing you remember before you woke up in that ditch?”
It’s still fuzzy in Dean’s head, but she remembers being in the middle of a case-right, the spirit deal. She pauses, licking her lips, trying to sift through the clogged thoughts in her head. It’s like having a really bad hangover she can’t quite get over, less burning in her chest and more stuffiness in her head. Feels more like the past week’s frayed at the edges.
Anything and everything up to this town is sharp and vivid, but the picture goes dark around Big Springs, Texas and suddenly it’s like someone’s switching channels. The whole thing leaves a bad taste in Dean’s mouth. Sure, she’s always up for a little improvisation, but her memories are the only things she can keep-can’t exactly keep a lot of mementos on the road. She’s only ever been allowed her sister, the car, and goddamn it, missing days from the last year of her goddamn life leaves her feeling unsettled, like someone’s stolen the little that she’s been able to preserve.
Which, they did, judging by all the guy clothes they’ve got now, their own familiar items, girl clothing gone. Dean’s really hoping there’s no sick fuck out there wearing her freakin’ panties. Might not make much of a difference to Sam-she was into the whole butch look to begin with-but Dean’s got clothes that are supposed to be layered up and it’s just different.
It’s how she sometimes used to dress back when she was a kid and wanted people not to notice how girly she looked. Crap those thoughts are coming back to her, the ones she’s never really shared with Sam and that’s one conversation Dean’s never fucking having with her.
“Dean. You there?”
“Uh, yeah, okay.” Dean downs the rest of her coffee. “We were checking out the new housing development on the edge of town. It was haunted. Definite ghost activity on the EMF.”
Sam nods, straightens even more, like research mode’ll take her mind off things, and for that, Dean’s grateful. Try to keep her eyes on the prize, look out for each other so they both won’t go off the deep end. “There’s not been much in the way of weird deaths here. Not until July ‘07. Becky Scholl. The local paper reported it as a suicide, that she hung herself and slit her wrists. Can’t say if she bled out first or asphyxiated first. It happened right in the middle of the new housing development.”
“So let’s say her spirit’s unable to rest and we try to take care of it, thinking it’s just a salt and burn. We do the salt and burn job, but then someone’s pissed that we’re really awesome at our jobs?”
“Yeah, that sounds likely. That still doesn’t explain-”
“Why I’m dressing to the left.” Dean ignores Sam’s dark look, coming over to sit next to her. The bed and she tries to look nonchalant when she shoves Sam in the shoulder by accident. Sam turns the laptop so Dean can get a better view. “This is Becky.”
She can’t be more than seventeen-sweet round face and brown eyes, her hair long and straight. Another sad story in this old, small town, where houses and buildings are stretched out wide, dust covered and starting to fall apart, abandoned sections of the town.
At first glance, it looks like a town’s done for but that’s the kicker, as Sam explains, because around July ’07, there were telltale signs of a careful resurgence, a new housing development on the rise. Becky’s death segues into the cycle of life that’s struggling to survive here, last moment of hope with the new development. Maybe the town won’t be going dark, ‘For Sale’ signs visible outside through the cheap curtains, few cars and fewer people.
Going back to the beginning, Dean vaguely remembers being hit with one whammy of a spell; she remembers seeing lights dim, and Sam’s body, changing, transforming, bigger and male. She tells Sam as much.
Sam tenses in response, like an idea’s struck her. “Maybe the spirit wasn’t destroyed. Or it had help. Or-”
“What, a spirit that turns us into dudes or something?” Dean shrugs. “So we just set that bitch on fire to change things back?”
“You're such a pyromaniac.”
“I've seen the light flickering in your eyes when you burn something.”
“I've lit a match, like, twice. Shut up.” Sam bites her lip. “I’m not getting anything online here. Just the paper. We’re gonna have to check out the library.”
Dean sighs, crumpling her empty coffee cup. It folds easy under her hands, not much effort at all, though it’s taking all of her strength not to roll her eyes. “Just what I needed. Lots of dust and sittin’ on my ass for a few hours. Can’t wait.”
*
The search at the library goes nowhere, only result has Sam growing antsy. A sense of déjà vu permeates Sam, like she’s seen the same green and tan tiled floors, the chipped wooden counters-almost as if it’s a vision again, dull red heat of a migraine gone and replaced with an empty stomach, twisting in knots as she scans the area. Dean’s head, higher than she’s used to, can be seen through gaps in the rows of books, scanning the spines.
Living out of each other’s pockets, nose to nose for years, has Sam a little antsy to be away from Dean. Sometimes Dean’ll try to rile Sam up, like when she’ll blast “Holding Out For A Hero” on loop-enough that Sam starts tapping along, near segueing into a full on chorus-or when Dean leaves her stuff around the place, rolled up Car Aficionado and Fangoria magazines left in the bathroom, Cheetos in bed. All of it coming with living with one Deana Winchester.
Even when Sam’s tolerance is at its worst, it’s still hard not to have her around, though.
The thought scares Sam, has her lingering over Dad’s journal besides the stack of library books on the desk. She feels the need to record these little moments down. How every single thing that annoys her about Dean is something Sam still can’t be without.
She wants a record of this, and her fingers linger over the journal, like here, see, here is where you will be remembered. In Sam’s head and heart, and on paper. Tucked between scraps of newspaper articles, paper worn and some never written on, little note cards taped to them instead. In the back, for pages on end, her own writing for the past few years, memos about their cases. Strictly case notes, which makes Sam feel a little weird that there aren’t more personal details. Sam ought to write them down, the highs and lows that make her love and dislike her sister’s quirks, that these moments need to be recorded because afterwards-if they don’t solve the deal-what will be left?
Even without those personal details written down, the memories come back easy, like one town in Minnesota where the townies had been conducting a twisted version of The Lottery, and straight after, Dean’s insistence on visiting tourist traps, needing any kind of distraction to forget what they had seen.
There were the mundane good times as well, like the downtime after getting rid of a nasty Red Cap infestation in Louisiana. The heat had gotten to them, mucking around in the swamps. Dean had let Sam have control of the remote and they’d mocked the stupid little marathon they watched on Lifetime when Sam had a real bad cold.
Those are the times that Sam wants to keep, selfishly for herself. Because to forget a moment is too dangerous to even contemplate and there’s pages and pages to continue.
But there’s also the blank page that’s left after the Mystery Spot.
She couldn’t write down what was in her head at the time. Every day was like a reset, going back to the same day, over and over. Any cuts or bruises, any marks on Dean-and there’d been tons, easy deaths and gory ones-gone the next day, like they never happened.
So Sam couldn’t mark down the list of her deaths. Kept it all in her head, jumble of thoughts and numbers gnawing away at her. Day 34: Dean dies in the bathtub. Day 73: Dean falls off a building. Dean, always leaving.
The page is blank, but she’d written into it a few times at first, when the loop started. It was always futile, even though she wished for it to be marked on when the day would reset. Sam kept losing the words, page just staring back at her, blank white. She gave up after a while, the more it went on, because besides the resetting page, the ache was getting to her, unable to bear futilely writing down these dates and these deaths.
Even then, the memories of that loop are fading now-but the thing is, even since they changed into men, the memories have started transforming into a different gender as they go, leaving Sam unsettled. Day 23: Dean gets hit by a stray bullet, sticky red with blood. The memory becomes male as it fades away: no long hair, no blood on Dean’s blouse-it changes, from a blouse to a t-shirt, amulet against the flatness of her chest, absence of breasts.
And that’s what’s scaring Sam. If all she has is her past memories of living nose to nose with her sister, then with those memories shifting into a male version of two brothers, her possessions, besides her body, are being tampered with.
She was never a man, but this spell’s making her think she used to be. Making her think what if and then the irrational hope comes in-what if Dean being like this is what’ll save her? If somehow it’ll stop the demon from collecting when the year’s up?
Sam writes when Dean is away. She writes hunched over, ignore the sight of larger hands and the pen clutched small between long fingers.
She’ll write down the facts, make sure they remember their genders.
They’ll solve things and get everything back to normal-and get rid of the nagging feeling in her head, sights and sounds that must be an aftereffect of the spell. The realization that when Sam looks at Dean now, she isn’t seeing a stranger or some twisted funhouse mirror image of her sister, contorted into a male shape that hadn’t been there before. She’s only see Dean, Dean as she ever was.
The twist of Dean’s mouth when she’s hiding a secret. Sam had caught Dean, amongst the library stacks, playing with the edges of an over shirt, nothing much but the expression on Dean’s face. It had been openly appreciative in a way that Sam still doesn’t understand, no sexual undertones, she wasn’t checking out the merchandise as she would have claimed if Sam made her presence known. No, Dean had been almost grateful, had rocked back and forth on heels, boots making no noise on the weathered wooden floor. Then Dean had nodded and turned the corner, fingers tapping a quick beat on her bottom lip, attempting to smother a smile.
Visions of something more, something that flares up, low in her belly. Shaped in images of a body she’s getting used to, not hers, Dean’s.
It’s the spell. It’s brought on by the spell. Has to be.
That has her thinking about her sister in a different way, the softness of her lips and the bow of her mouth.
*
The diner has a cowboy theme or a tight budget, Dean isn’t sure which. It’s got the kind of wallpaper that looks like it’s straight out of a diorama, covered wagons and rolling hills of grass, settlers and cowboys and Indians all posing, nobly, as people eat their eggs and sausages. The wallpaper’s peeling at the edges, cracked, and there’s a mass of crappy souvenirs hanging on the walls, floating remnants of bad Western movies caught up in a dull sea of tan grass.
They’ve got a nice selection laid out at the counter though, pastries and cakes on doilies underneath thick glass. Sights and smells that have Dean’s stomach rumbling as she checks out the spread. No, no food yet, just gotta ask for a bottle of ketchup when-
When there’s an Abercrombie and Fitch type at the counter. Expensive cell phone in one hand, his mocha-chocolate-frappe-whatever-the-fuck in the other. Little out of place for a town like this, Breitling watch, loafers, pressed pants. Definitely no country boy and he’s got these great blue eyes, tanned muscles and, fuck, he’s not Dean’s normal type, but she takes notice.
Better not think too hard about it, because something isn’t right here-the guy doesn’t look like a person passing through, the way he speaks to the people behind the counter with commanding familiarity. Hardness in his voice that lessens when he turns and sees Dean, smiles at her, and does the full sweep, looking her up and down, gaze that drifts to the rise of Dean’s ass as she leans against the counter.
Well, that’s way too easy of an opening.
“Hell of a day,” Dean opens, comfortably male and causal, taking the straw out of her mouth that she’d been absentmindedly chewing. Just ‘cause she’s stuck in a new body it don’t mean her oral fixation up and vanished.
“That so,” the guy says, putting his phone back in his suit pocket, then snatching one of the complimentary mints out of the dish by the cash register. His smile is full-on smarm.
“Yeah. Our old man was stationed at the air base that used to be out here, me and my sis-uh-brother are doing a road trip in memory.” Dean’s pulling out all the stops, sounding wistful and real good ol’ boy, ‘cause pretending is something Dean is used to doing and has done for a long ass time. Even though the game’s changed up and she’s playing a guy for real this time. “It’s a damn shame what they’re doing to that airport.”
The man stiffens visibly. “Actually,” he says acidly, “I know the people on the McMahon-Wrinkle Airpark Development Board. They’re doing a hell of a job. Even on the hellish days.”
“So you’re interested in land development, then? That’s what me and Sa-my brother do.”
There’s a weird twist of the guy’s mouth as he says, “Yeah? Well I’m sure you’ve noticed that this town is being revitalized. And we’re no longer looking back at the past, at our military history. So, while I’m sure your tribute to your father’s very touching-”
“Hey,” Dean says, leaning in, “Don’t worry; I’m not trying to step in on your game. Like I said, we’re on vacation.”
The guy shakes his head. “That’s what we all say.”
There’s a slight buzzing noise, the sound of a phone set to vibrate.
“I could prove it to you. Buy you a couple of rounds later on,” Dean suggests.
“Look-”
Dean leans in closer, too close, probably causing a scene but fuck it. It’s fun to use this new voice, the register goes down so much lower, rolling vowels deep in heavy promises, “Thing of it is, I’m pretty fuckin’ bored and up for a good distraction. And unless you’re admiring my jeans, I think you’d be up for my idea of fun. So what d’ya say?”
Close enough to feel the vibration of the sigh. “Yeah. Uh. Not here though.”
“Not planning on doing anything here.” Dean moves away and leaves her hand out for a manly handshake. “Name’s Dean.”
“Paul,” he says and then, a little hesitant, adding, “Scholsser.”
“Nice to meet ya. Hey,” Dean says, swiping a waylaid pencil, barely a nub left, beside an abandoned newspaper-and who the fuck misses the answer to ____ McQueen at 37 down on a crossword puzzle?-and scribbling down her cell phone number. “Why don’t you give me a call. ‘Cause I’m in the mood for a hell of a night.”
Dean knows it’s fucking cheesy to do it. But c’mon, it’s her first time flirting in a guy’s body so she might as well try it, quick flick of her tongue over the bottom lip as she backs off.
By the time she gets back to Sam, after, she notices how Sam’s legs are too long to fit under the booth, her face puckering like she’s eaten a lemon. Swallowed the damn thing whole by the looks of it, too. The waitress brings over two tall glasses filled with chocolate shakes, Sam’s doctored up with a thick coil of whipped cream and a neon-bright maraschino cherry on top.
Sam grabs the shake and violently jams the straw into the thick, chocolaty goodness, bending down to slurp a nice brain-freezing gulp. She gets a smudge of whipped cream on the tip of her nose, and Dean would wipe if off if it wasn’t so cute. Sure, maybe it’s sweet like the geeky-kid-sister turned giant-man sort of way, awkwardly adorable.
“You didn’t have to go to the counter before for extra ketchup. You could’ve let the waitress bring it over,” Sam points out-or tries to, her mouth full of hamburger. “And you didn’t have to go do that, Dee.”
Dean narrows her eyes at the plate of fries she’d had to leave in order to bring over the ketchup earlier. She thinks the fries look a little sparse on her plate.
“Oh, I know, I could have waited around with my thumb up my ass,” Dean responds, leans an arm on the top of the booth. Which, hey, with a male prostate, that’ll make anal play a hell of lot more interesting. Dean has to smother cackling at the thought because if Sam asks what she’s thinking about, she might just have to tell her and well, that’s not something to share over burgers and shakes.
That’s something to save for later.
She gives a wave of two fingers towards Paul, who’s already back on his cell phone, smiling brightly at her as he leaves the diner. “But I’m not you, Miss Chastity Belt.”
“Funny,” Sam says around a mouthful of food, swallows, wipes her mouth-and her nose, whipped cream gone-with a napkin. Dean picks at her fries, gaze slanting upwards to look at Sam, like there’s a shift in the air-even now, she knows something’s up, like it all goes still and there’s nothing else to look at, to think of. No one else.
Sam looks queasy. Or constipated.
“We need to figure out how to fix this. As soon as possible.”
“Please, enlighten me,” Dean says as she grabs for the ketchup bottle and pours a little pool of it on the corner of her plate. “Because this man? Scored a hot date, just waitin’ for the call back and I can promise you, I’m getting that damn call. Looks like I still got it, even though I’m a dude. ”
Sam chews her food, not looking up. “Do you really think that’s a good idea, Dee?”
There’s tension in the lines of Sam’s mouth, her leg bobbing annoyingly under the table. Dean knows the whole thing’s bothering Sam real bad, but Dean knows they can’t go insane over this, that freaking out won’t help any. A slip of logic in the back of Dean’s brain has her hesitating. Then the other parts, mind and body has her wanting to explore, wanting to find some benefit to all of this.
And just maybe, as she glances at the guy leaving the diner, that benefit’ll come sooner rather than later.
Dean presses a hand to her chest, would cross her heart if it meant anything now that Sam’s twenty four, and not four and impressionable. “I’m shocked, Sam. Really. ‘Cause, you know, last time I saw some rich dude bling and a Mercedes Benz parked outside was a couple hundred miles back. Town like this, guy like that? I’m thinkin’ there might be more to it.”
Sam scowls, annoyance present in the sharp angles of her face. She’s poking at the runny coleslaw with a fry, little mayonnaise swirls decorating the plate. Doesn’t say a word, but Dean’s filing this away for later, knows it’s gonna come up.
Best to change it up, and that’s what she does, says, “So. Talk. Tell me what’s bugging you. About this.”
“Well,” Sam says, shifts her weight uncomfortably in her seat. “All these new changes. They’re… they’re weird.”
She leans forward, voice low. Looks around, and Dean does too, but the diner’s a sleepy place in the middle of Nowheresville, customers just as mild.
Sam’s leaning close, Dean doing the same before Sam murmurs, “Like I’m a freakin’ gas factory.”
Dean opts to give a little lip curl when she leans back. “This is different from usual how? You weren’t all dainty and shit when you had boobs, little sister.”
Sam was never little sister-that ended when she was in-between thirteen-fourteen and took to her height like a tree on too much sunlight. And now when Dean’s over six feet, she’s still the short one. That’s how Dean knows this spell is really fucking evil, ‘cause a good spell would’ve corrected that horrible biological mistake.
“I’m hungry all the time,” Sam continues, pushes her bangs back. “Maybe I should see a doctor.”
Dean nods, drenching some fries in ketchup then pushing it into her mouth, enjoying Sam’s disgusted look at Dean’s admirable ability to get them all in this new bigger mouth in one shot. Dean fears the vein in Sam’s neck is gonna pop come two more minutes. She doesn’t say that though, as she’s got a healthy sense of preservation and it’d be a damn shame to let it get strangled and left in a ditch by her hormonally imbalanced sister.
She already did the ditch thing last night and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
“You want?” Dean points at the fries, an eyebrow quirking up.
“Yeah, okay,” Sam responds automatically, her large hand swiping five of them off Dean’s plate. She frowns as she munches, moans, too, like there’s a possibility she’ll either be sick or orgasm at the table. That second option is a little too When Harry Met Sally for Dean’s tastes. Either way, Dean doesn’t want to be in the direct path of whichever-
“Dude,” Sam groans, tapping her foot impatiently. “What the hell. I hate this body. It’s always hungry.”
“Sure likes its fries,” Dean points out, pushing the plate forward. “Have the rest. You’re a growing boy, Sammy. I figure you’re what, like, six four, six five? You gotta eat a lot. Gotta pack away that energy so you’re up to snuff and can look out for my ass. Think of it like…” She snaps her fingers, grin bursting forth. “Like a bear. You’re totally a big ass bear. Grr. Look out for Sammy-bear. Not gonna take your pic-a-nic basket, but you’re in for some major angst.”
“I get it, Dean. Doesn’t mean I have to be thrilled with the idea. What about you?” Sam asks, but she’s already sneaking a fry.
Dean wipes her hands on a napkin and finishes the shake. She taps her belly then rubs it. “I’m full. Gotta take care of the merchandise. It isn’t every day that I’m turned into a hot dude.”
Sam gives her the biggest fake smile she’s ever seen, all sarcasm, screaming hot white bitch-fury shooting out of her eyes like freakin’ lasers before she ducks her head down and cleans off the plate.
Part Three
It happens really naturally which is awesome since it’s a perfectly natural act and it doesn’t matter that Sam’s right outside the door.
See, Dean gets really giddy when she sees two semi-naked guys and now it’s time to take one giant leap for all women-kind by unzipping her jeans and doing a complete inventory on the downstairs equipment.
It’s not a complicated process; it vaguely reminds Dean of some sketch she’d found fucking around on YouTube. Step one, unzip jeans and pull down boxers. Dean’ll save taking her dick out of the hole in the front once she’s gotten used to doing whatever she’s about to do. Step two, aim and shoot.
The aiming is not hard. It’s the gripping thing that’s problematic. Before this, the point of touching a cock resulted in one of two outcomes: either that she got her rocks off or she was bucking for him to get his rocks off. Sometimes, it was both at the same time, but now the function is different. She’s just guiding it to the bowl and waiting. Then it happens, pissing, and wow is that really, really fucking weird.
But amazing, too.
She distantly recalls something about shaking it off and then she does it. Really the dick is the most insane thing ever. It’s all soft and at least it’s circumcised no worries about having to clean it or something. Huh, she should ask Sam if hers is circumcised too.
All of a sudden, these thoughts flood her mind. Getting fitted into a new body has done nothing to change her attraction to guys, but there’s also a new and curious twist. What about girls, her mind questions, and her dick twitches an anxious second, settling onto something indistinct but soft and warm. Okay, that’s kind of new.
But looking down at this dick, still soft and Dean wonders how much it’ll change when she’s actually hard. It’s nice to look at now. Fuck it, Dean is totally fucking getting hot looking down at her cock.
Huh.
Sure, her sister’s really nice looking for a guy, but Dee? Way hotter, and everything may be screwy with the universe, but at least the powers-that-be kept the natural order in check: Dee as the hot one, the talented one, the awesome one, and Sam… well, people love Sam for her mind.
That seems fair.
Dean might not have much time on her hands being like this, but for now she can have a hand on her cock. It isn’t right to deny herself the opportunity to see how the other half lives.
And what it feels like for the other half to come.
The idea is fucking sweet.
Dean hadn’t locked the door but since there’s no way to know if she can resist being noisy, she locks it now, presses an ear to the door and amazingly hears Sam snoring. So like any responsible older sibling, she tucks her dick back into her boxer-briefs and unlocks the door, opening it a crack to see that Sam’s passed out on one of the beds, body in an ungainly sprawl. The lamp’s on but the light isn’t all that great, Sam’s body casting weird shadows, unexpected and new, Dean not familiar with the new angles.
“Sam?”
She stirs a little and Dean swears that her ass flexes as she turns on her belly, shift of hips.
All right, then. Sam’s out like a light. Back to business.
Dean doesn’t even bother to look to see if the door’s secured, instead just braces against it. Her right hand wraps around her cock and wow, half-hard already. It’s a little weird, too rough on the first down stroke and she shifts her hips forward so she can push down her boxers, her ass flush against the door as she looks down and hell yeah. Little bead of precome on the tip and she swipes at it with her thumb.
Tasting is natural too because Dean’s curious about it. It makes her think about when she’d first brought wet fingers to her mouth the first time she touched herself. She’d tasted herself plenty of times since then and she’s had it mingled in the mouths of others but this is the preliminary taste of what her semen will taste like. For all the fucking weird things that Dean’s been through, this is one weird thing that’s really, really fucking hot.
No surprise that it tastes good, even with the touch of bitter.
Dean’s got enough memories of doing this from the other side that it should come easy. But now it’s her body, it’s hers and she can do whatever she wants and feel how it feels. How fucking crazy she gets when she twists her hand right below the head. How gripping the base only clears her mind enough to know that coming right away would be a goddamn shame.
Touching her nipples, flat on her chest, does fucking nothing so she abandons that effort. Then both hands move down, right hand on her cock, left on her balls and oh wait, there’s that spot right below and, “Fuck!.”
Maybe Dean oughta explore that when Sam’s not around because wow.
Slip slide of precome isn’t making it smooth enough so Dean absentmindedly licks the palm of her hand and even the taste of her hand is different, not better or worse, just different. Dean’s knees nearly buckle when she feels her balls tighten and oh fuck, she’s going to come. There is no fucking way she’s going to let Sam see a mess all over the bathroom and shit, there’s a thought, what Sam’ll do when she knows that Dean’s been-
Oh fuck.
Okay.
That’s, well it’s interesting is what it is. There’s a sticky mess now, hand covered in come and Dean’s silently laughing like a crazy person. She nearly combs back her hair, a nervous tick before she remembers how there’s come all over her hand and she licks at it. Again, not unpleasant and even better, it’s hers.
So sure, she looks fucking insane right now, lying on the floor after coming so hard that Dean finally isn’t annoyed about those guys that pass out right after a solid fuck.
But because Dean is more than just one of those guys, slowly the pieces of herself that got shattered along the way right themselves and she’s standing up despite the desire to sway over and falls back to the ground. Wiping up what’s left, Dean jumps into the shower, mercifully short, working only shampoo into short hair.
Dean realizes that with hair like this, she probably won’t need to condition it. And that right there is a really bizarre perk. Less maintenance, less worry.
Fuck she doesn’t even have to shave her legs.
One good rub-down later, Dean quietly enters the room, cautious of Sam. After pulling on a clean pair of underwear, Dean settles under a thin blanket.
There should be thoughts or worries eating at her but once she’s clicked off the lamp, her eyes try to adjust to the darkness. Trying to catch one last glimpse of Sam, Dean’s out in minutes.
*
(Her body sails in an arc and hits the ground with a wet slap, a heap of skin and flesh that melts and stretches around lengthening bones. In the corner of her eye, there’s sandy brown hair, long ends that slip away and recede from her grasp.
Her sister is screaming.
Screaming raw, throat run ragged, red, and bloody. There’s redness in Sam’s vision, too, mix of gore. Stretching bone that twists and lengthens. Her hair and weight, all rearranging, shifting into something new-
Skin sloughs off and scars that fall away, new ones that fade into place. Soft pink lines that lighten, smooth new marks on widening skin that’s rougher and hairier in texture.
Her sister’s voice fades and stops abruptly and Sam screams her name, checks for breath, for a voice. It’s a awful noise forming from a changing throat, Dee-Dee, stop, stop it, leave her alone-)
Sam bolts awake, breathing heavily, sweat soaked shirt clinging to flat muscle. Dean’s a silhouette in the dark, sprawled facedown on the bed with a bare leg poking out from under the sheet. Dean sleeps like the dead, something Sam’s used to. Sleeping at the drop of a hat, talent that’s become downright necessary with all the time they’ve spent on the road-had to learn how to catch sleep whenever they could get it.
There were nights when Sam would lean a bare arm against her sister’s shoulder and fidget with her t-shirt. They’d talk about boys and guns and what town they’d drive in and out of within a week, according to Dad. There’d be a shooting range in the next one, something to check out, maybe take along some sandwiches. The mundane things that weren’t crawling up out of the dark: waiting for a grade on a history test, or the boy at the arcade, the one that kept plying her quarters and promises. Boys always came up in conversation before it would peter out, Deana taking in Sam’s silence and slapping a palm on her knee, saying someday. Someday she’d understand.
Sam’s hair’s in soft waves, barely, brushes the freckles on the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Cut right above her shoulders, but it used to be longer, before ponytails became a pain in the ass. Sam thinks she should look like Mom; it’s a thought that comes automatically, like Dean has to look like her, because Sam can’t find any bit of similarity with her mother in photos, no matter how much she leans and twists her head in the mirror, tries to get a glimpse of her nose or her chin that she hasn’t seen before. Other than the photos, Sam doesn’t remember what Mom looked like. Deana tells her she was beautiful, “and she’d have to be, too, since she had me after all.”
Deana always grins, and adds, “and you too, Sammy, Dad can’t say the milkman did it; you’re his through and through.”
But here, now, Sam leans her head on Dee’s shoulder and keeps on talking about inane things, a movie or a TV show they had time to watch, sightseeing, mountains, rivers. It’s like an undercurrent to what they should be talking about, only they don’t. They’ve never been much for talking directly about their feelings or all the rough shit they get into.
They only move closer to each other on the bed’s edge and stare at the carpet. That’s okay, Sam thinks. That’s okay.
They are sisters, they have always been sisters.
She tells herself that; tonight, Dee sleeps on her chest for the first time since she was twelve. Dean grabs the pillow close and murmurs something; the voice is too different, deep and strange.
There’s a man there, where her sister should be, and Sam’s trying to focus on the long plains of muscle in the dark, the flatness of Dean’s chest. Focus, tracing hard lines and angles, contours in different places, but the same full lips and the same green eyes. She’ll map them out in her memory, because it won’t last long, this glimpse. It will end, they will figure this out, and she will no longer stare at this man and see a stranger. It’s still Dee, through and through.
They are sisters, she tells herself, falling to sleep.
*
Dean wakes, all wriggling arms and stretching legs, wiping a hand across her face, motion caught short, dragging across stubble and spit. She wipes her mouth and grumbles, hearing Sam grumbling from across the room, low rumble in a deeper voice.
Dean wipes her mouth and murmurs, mouth tasting funky, “Sam… what is it?”
“This-this thing.” Sam makes a whapping noise, like a fly swatter finding its mark. “It won’t go away.”
The bed tips like a funhouse when Dean sits up, and she can hear the distaste in Sam’s voice through her clearing haze. One eye opens, two, and Sam’s shaking her head, her mouth a little ‘o’. Sam’s sitting up, back against the headboard, with this pup tent of an erection and the most innocent and tortured look Dean has ever seen.
It’s kind of hilarious but it’s way too fucking early to die of a laughing attack.
“It’s up, Dean. I don’t wanna touch it. What the fuck do I do?”
“Just take care of it,” Dean murmurs, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hands. The fuzziness lessens as she takes stock of the room. It reminds her of a bad morning after, with a guy she doesn’t quite recognize, awake before she’s picked up her boots and tiptoed out his door. So that’s a new part of masturbating when in a guy’s body. Huh.
Everything feels vibrant as she wakes up, new body that has a larger appetite as her stomach rumbles. Shit, the nearest diner’s about three blocks away which isn’t bad, but Dean wishes it were closer. She needs coffee like a shot of adrenaline. Or a painkiller. Maybe both.
Sam wipes her forehead, a frustrated groan cutting into Dean’s thoughts. “I don’t know how.”
Dean gets up slowly and walks over to her duffel bag, ignoring the little mountain between Sam’s legs, tucked under the sheet. She pulls out a shirt. “Sam, I’ve seen you put on Indigo Girls and go into the can for an hour. So why don’t you put on some angsty chick music, go in there, and get your ya-ya’s off.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“I try,” Dean responds, ducks the pillow coming her way as she pulls on some jeans. She throws a shirt over her head, hides a smirk as Sam actually pets her dick, like it’s a dog, then whaps it with a pillow.
Sam’s head shoots up abruptly, eyes moving from her erection to the place where Dean’s getting ready. Dean knows she’s being watched, feeling the burn of Sam’s gaze tracing her movements as she puts her clothes on, frustrated noises from Sam giving way to gritted teeth.
“Wait-Dee, Dean, don’t leave me like this!” she yelps, a desperate pathetic whine that doesn’t mesh well at all with her deeper voice.
There’s a second or two Dean gives Sam as a courtesy-to think about what she’s just suggested-but frankly, Dean can’t resist. “Do you need me to help you out?”
Sam’s mouth is all open, tries closing a lot, sort of like a weird parody of a fish. “No! I mean, not like that. God! You know what I mean.”
Dean only raises her eyebrows in response, nods to the bathroom.
“Dean, how-I mean. I don’t want to touch it.”
“You realize this right here is real hysteria, right?” Dean’s busy fiddling with a belt, looping it through. “It doesn’t have a mind of its own. It’s not going to steal your gay. Stop freaking out.”
“Do cold showers work?” Sam’s spread her legs apart like she’s trying to will her cock to, Dean has no idea, fly away or some shit. And that right there is a disturbing image. “I mean. That’s what they say about cold showers, right?”
“What I am gonna do to help you, Sammy? I don’t think me watching is gonna help you much, perv.”
Sam makes a noise of protest but Dean’s already got her keys, tugging on her jacket.
“I’ll be back soon, Sam. Take a shower and think of something really disgusting.”
“Um.”
“Seriously you need inspiration?” Exaggeratedly rolling her eyes, Dean sighs and then says, “Hey, remember that pimple I had that was like big as a friggin’ dime and you kept on trying to touch it and Dad was tellin’ you to leave me alone and then we hit that pothole and your hand smacked my face and that pimple exploded like a freakin’-”
Sam’s jumping out of bed, still kinda hard, but noticeably wilting. “Okay! I think I’m going to take a shower.”
“Awesome,” Dean says, unable to smother the gleeful cackle. “I’m gonna go see a man about a horse. Or you know, get us some fucking food.”
“I can’t believe you brought up the pimple of doom and can go eat.”
“I might not be a man of steel, little sis, but I got a steel stomach.”
But the last laugh’s on Dean as Sam ducks into the bathroom, tugging off a thin shirt, back actually rippling.
God. Sam could take out a building with those shoulders.
Dean needs to do something, now. Oh yeah. Coffee. All over that. And not on… thoughts about Sam’s muscles. No way.
Twenty minutes later, after Sam’s dressed and on the laptop, Dean sitting across on her bed, sipping a cup of coffee. There’s donuts on the table, store-bought kind where the glaze is crackled and dry on half of the assortment and Dean sticks with the chocolate, licking at the crumbly cake that gets stuck to her lip.
“So we look up best cures for a gender fuck-”
“First of all, it’d be a gender switch,” Sam interrupts. “And secondly, it’s more like a sex switch, than a gender switch.”
“What?”
“Gender’s a state of consciousness and mentality, Dean. Sex is the physical, the corporeal, you know, the body,” Sam says, waves a hand down at herself. “The, uh, sexual organs.”
Dean takes this in with a nod. “This is why you never get laid. Too much hittin’ the books and not enough hittin’ on a Gabrielle or two. I keep tellin’ you, you’d make a great Xena. They’d make great sidekicks for you. They’d eat that stuff up, that girl on girl shit.”
“Dee, that was, like, six years ago,” Sam says, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Dean won’t forget it, and for good reason, because it’s not like you mix your nearly six-foot tall sister, limoncellos, a Sci-Fi convention in Atlanta, and a bad Xena costume in order to bust a sacrifice and not have any record of that particular case. Of which Dean had plenty. Until she gets her actual duffel bag back. The one where Dean had shoved crumpled up Polaroids in the interior pocket had vanished along with the rest of her stuff. Now would be a good time to play that hand, showing Sam that sometimes having fun was a part of the case.
“We’ve switched sexes then, not genders.” Dean pursues her lips as she thinks it over a minute, taking a sip of her coffee. It tastes different, though she isn’t sure if it’s the diner or the body. Could be the morning, could be the stress, God knows what, but it tastes different. Another sense-taste-that she has to adjust and get used to. No harm to get something worthwhile out of this, like trying to learn something about the male body during this whole deal.
Dean gulps more coffee and nods at Sam. “You find anything?”
“Nothing yet. It’s still early so…” she trails off, looks up. “The best thing we can do right now is retrace our steps.” She points a finger square at Dean’s chest. “Starting with that.”
Dean raises her eyebrows, looks down at her chest. Tight, plain black t-shirt. “What?”
“The clothes, all of this. This isn’t mine-” she tugs at her own checkered shirt, “this place is a mess, and don’t you-we, we don’t even remember anything from last night! I mean, we don’t have a lot to go on. Our bodies have completely changed, we got new clothes, and-”
“They’re thoughtful fuckers,” Dean supplies, scrubs a hand through her hair, tries to comb it. “I don’t know. They’re trying to mess with us by giving us dicks and you’re here worryin’ about where your really butch flannels and Birkenstocks went.”
“Funny,” Sam says, squinting at the screen. “What was the last thing you remember before you woke up in that ditch?”
It’s still fuzzy in Dean’s head, but she remembers being in the middle of a case-right, the spirit deal. She pauses, licking her lips, trying to sift through the clogged thoughts in her head. It’s like having a really bad hangover she can’t quite get over, less burning in her chest and more stuffiness in her head. Feels more like the past week’s frayed at the edges.
Anything and everything up to this town is sharp and vivid, but the picture goes dark around Big Springs, Texas and suddenly it’s like someone’s switching channels. The whole thing leaves a bad taste in Dean’s mouth. Sure, she’s always up for a little improvisation, but her memories are the only things she can keep-can’t exactly keep a lot of mementos on the road. She’s only ever been allowed her sister, the car, and goddamn it, missing days from the last year of her goddamn life leaves her feeling unsettled, like someone’s stolen the little that she’s been able to preserve.
Which, they did, judging by all the guy clothes they’ve got now, their own familiar items, girl clothing gone. Dean’s really hoping there’s no sick fuck out there wearing her freakin’ panties. Might not make much of a difference to Sam-she was into the whole butch look to begin with-but Dean’s got clothes that are supposed to be layered up and it’s just different.
It’s how she sometimes used to dress back when she was a kid and wanted people not to notice how girly she looked. Crap those thoughts are coming back to her, the ones she’s never really shared with Sam and that’s one conversation Dean’s never fucking having with her.
“Dean. You there?”
“Uh, yeah, okay.” Dean downs the rest of her coffee. “We were checking out the new housing development on the edge of town. It was haunted. Definite ghost activity on the EMF.”
Sam nods, straightens even more, like research mode’ll take her mind off things, and for that, Dean’s grateful. Try to keep her eyes on the prize, look out for each other so they both won’t go off the deep end. “There’s not been much in the way of weird deaths here. Not until July ‘07. Becky Scholl. The local paper reported it as a suicide, that she hung herself and slit her wrists. Can’t say if she bled out first or asphyxiated first. It happened right in the middle of the new housing development.”
“So let’s say her spirit’s unable to rest and we try to take care of it, thinking it’s just a salt and burn. We do the salt and burn job, but then someone’s pissed that we’re really awesome at our jobs?”
“Yeah, that sounds likely. That still doesn’t explain-”
“Why I’m dressing to the left.” Dean ignores Sam’s dark look, coming over to sit next to her. The bed and she tries to look nonchalant when she shoves Sam in the shoulder by accident. Sam turns the laptop so Dean can get a better view. “This is Becky.”
She can’t be more than seventeen-sweet round face and brown eyes, her hair long and straight. Another sad story in this old, small town, where houses and buildings are stretched out wide, dust covered and starting to fall apart, abandoned sections of the town.
At first glance, it looks like a town’s done for but that’s the kicker, as Sam explains, because around July ’07, there were telltale signs of a careful resurgence, a new housing development on the rise. Becky’s death segues into the cycle of life that’s struggling to survive here, last moment of hope with the new development. Maybe the town won’t be going dark, ‘For Sale’ signs visible outside through the cheap curtains, few cars and fewer people.
Going back to the beginning, Dean vaguely remembers being hit with one whammy of a spell; she remembers seeing lights dim, and Sam’s body, changing, transforming, bigger and male. She tells Sam as much.
Sam tenses in response, like an idea’s struck her. “Maybe the spirit wasn’t destroyed. Or it had help. Or-”
“What, a spirit that turns us into dudes or something?” Dean shrugs. “So we just set that bitch on fire to change things back?”
“You're such a pyromaniac.”
“I've seen the light flickering in your eyes when you burn something.”
“I've lit a match, like, twice. Shut up.” Sam bites her lip. “I’m not getting anything online here. Just the paper. We’re gonna have to check out the library.”
Dean sighs, crumpling her empty coffee cup. It folds easy under her hands, not much effort at all, though it’s taking all of her strength not to roll her eyes. “Just what I needed. Lots of dust and sittin’ on my ass for a few hours. Can’t wait.”
*
The search at the library goes nowhere, only result has Sam growing antsy. A sense of déjà vu permeates Sam, like she’s seen the same green and tan tiled floors, the chipped wooden counters-almost as if it’s a vision again, dull red heat of a migraine gone and replaced with an empty stomach, twisting in knots as she scans the area. Dean’s head, higher than she’s used to, can be seen through gaps in the rows of books, scanning the spines.
Living out of each other’s pockets, nose to nose for years, has Sam a little antsy to be away from Dean. Sometimes Dean’ll try to rile Sam up, like when she’ll blast “Holding Out For A Hero” on loop-enough that Sam starts tapping along, near segueing into a full on chorus-or when Dean leaves her stuff around the place, rolled up Car Aficionado and Fangoria magazines left in the bathroom, Cheetos in bed. All of it coming with living with one Deana Winchester.
Even when Sam’s tolerance is at its worst, it’s still hard not to have her around, though.
The thought scares Sam, has her lingering over Dad’s journal besides the stack of library books on the desk. She feels the need to record these little moments down. How every single thing that annoys her about Dean is something Sam still can’t be without.
She wants a record of this, and her fingers linger over the journal, like here, see, here is where you will be remembered. In Sam’s head and heart, and on paper. Tucked between scraps of newspaper articles, paper worn and some never written on, little note cards taped to them instead. In the back, for pages on end, her own writing for the past few years, memos about their cases. Strictly case notes, which makes Sam feel a little weird that there aren’t more personal details. Sam ought to write them down, the highs and lows that make her love and dislike her sister’s quirks, that these moments need to be recorded because afterwards-if they don’t solve the deal-what will be left?
Even without those personal details written down, the memories come back easy, like one town in Minnesota where the townies had been conducting a twisted version of The Lottery, and straight after, Dean’s insistence on visiting tourist traps, needing any kind of distraction to forget what they had seen.
There were the mundane good times as well, like the downtime after getting rid of a nasty Red Cap infestation in Louisiana. The heat had gotten to them, mucking around in the swamps. Dean had let Sam have control of the remote and they’d mocked the stupid little marathon they watched on Lifetime when Sam had a real bad cold.
Those are the times that Sam wants to keep, selfishly for herself. Because to forget a moment is too dangerous to even contemplate and there’s pages and pages to continue.
But there’s also the blank page that’s left after the Mystery Spot.
She couldn’t write down what was in her head at the time. Every day was like a reset, going back to the same day, over and over. Any cuts or bruises, any marks on Dean-and there’d been tons, easy deaths and gory ones-gone the next day, like they never happened.
So Sam couldn’t mark down the list of her deaths. Kept it all in her head, jumble of thoughts and numbers gnawing away at her. Day 34: Dean dies in the bathtub. Day 73: Dean falls off a building. Dean, always leaving.
The page is blank, but she’d written into it a few times at first, when the loop started. It was always futile, even though she wished for it to be marked on when the day would reset. Sam kept losing the words, page just staring back at her, blank white. She gave up after a while, the more it went on, because besides the resetting page, the ache was getting to her, unable to bear futilely writing down these dates and these deaths.
Even then, the memories of that loop are fading now-but the thing is, even since they changed into men, the memories have started transforming into a different gender as they go, leaving Sam unsettled. Day 23: Dean gets hit by a stray bullet, sticky red with blood. The memory becomes male as it fades away: no long hair, no blood on Dean’s blouse-it changes, from a blouse to a t-shirt, amulet against the flatness of her chest, absence of breasts.
And that’s what’s scaring Sam. If all she has is her past memories of living nose to nose with her sister, then with those memories shifting into a male version of two brothers, her possessions, besides her body, are being tampered with.
She was never a man, but this spell’s making her think she used to be. Making her think what if and then the irrational hope comes in-what if Dean being like this is what’ll save her? If somehow it’ll stop the demon from collecting when the year’s up?
Sam writes when Dean is away. She writes hunched over, ignore the sight of larger hands and the pen clutched small between long fingers.
She’ll write down the facts, make sure they remember their genders.
They’ll solve things and get everything back to normal-and get rid of the nagging feeling in her head, sights and sounds that must be an aftereffect of the spell. The realization that when Sam looks at Dean now, she isn’t seeing a stranger or some twisted funhouse mirror image of her sister, contorted into a male shape that hadn’t been there before. She’s only see Dean, Dean as she ever was.
The twist of Dean’s mouth when she’s hiding a secret. Sam had caught Dean, amongst the library stacks, playing with the edges of an over shirt, nothing much but the expression on Dean’s face. It had been openly appreciative in a way that Sam still doesn’t understand, no sexual undertones, she wasn’t checking out the merchandise as she would have claimed if Sam made her presence known. No, Dean had been almost grateful, had rocked back and forth on heels, boots making no noise on the weathered wooden floor. Then Dean had nodded and turned the corner, fingers tapping a quick beat on her bottom lip, attempting to smother a smile.
Visions of something more, something that flares up, low in her belly. Shaped in images of a body she’s getting used to, not hers, Dean’s.
It’s the spell. It’s brought on by the spell. Has to be.
That has her thinking about her sister in a different way, the softness of her lips and the bow of her mouth.
*
The diner has a cowboy theme or a tight budget, Dean isn’t sure which. It’s got the kind of wallpaper that looks like it’s straight out of a diorama, covered wagons and rolling hills of grass, settlers and cowboys and Indians all posing, nobly, as people eat their eggs and sausages. The wallpaper’s peeling at the edges, cracked, and there’s a mass of crappy souvenirs hanging on the walls, floating remnants of bad Western movies caught up in a dull sea of tan grass.
They’ve got a nice selection laid out at the counter though, pastries and cakes on doilies underneath thick glass. Sights and smells that have Dean’s stomach rumbling as she checks out the spread. No, no food yet, just gotta ask for a bottle of ketchup when-
When there’s an Abercrombie and Fitch type at the counter. Expensive cell phone in one hand, his mocha-chocolate-frappe-whatever-the-fuck in the other. Little out of place for a town like this, Breitling watch, loafers, pressed pants. Definitely no country boy and he’s got these great blue eyes, tanned muscles and, fuck, he’s not Dean’s normal type, but she takes notice.
Better not think too hard about it, because something isn’t right here-the guy doesn’t look like a person passing through, the way he speaks to the people behind the counter with commanding familiarity. Hardness in his voice that lessens when he turns and sees Dean, smiles at her, and does the full sweep, looking her up and down, gaze that drifts to the rise of Dean’s ass as she leans against the counter.
Well, that’s way too easy of an opening.
“Hell of a day,” Dean opens, comfortably male and causal, taking the straw out of her mouth that she’d been absentmindedly chewing. Just ‘cause she’s stuck in a new body it don’t mean her oral fixation up and vanished.
“That so,” the guy says, putting his phone back in his suit pocket, then snatching one of the complimentary mints out of the dish by the cash register. His smile is full-on smarm.
“Yeah. Our old man was stationed at the air base that used to be out here, me and my sis-uh-brother are doing a road trip in memory.” Dean’s pulling out all the stops, sounding wistful and real good ol’ boy, ‘cause pretending is something Dean is used to doing and has done for a long ass time. Even though the game’s changed up and she’s playing a guy for real this time. “It’s a damn shame what they’re doing to that airport.”
The man stiffens visibly. “Actually,” he says acidly, “I know the people on the McMahon-Wrinkle Airpark Development Board. They’re doing a hell of a job. Even on the hellish days.”
“So you’re interested in land development, then? That’s what me and Sa-my brother do.”
There’s a weird twist of the guy’s mouth as he says, “Yeah? Well I’m sure you’ve noticed that this town is being revitalized. And we’re no longer looking back at the past, at our military history. So, while I’m sure your tribute to your father’s very touching-”
“Hey,” Dean says, leaning in, “Don’t worry; I’m not trying to step in on your game. Like I said, we’re on vacation.”
The guy shakes his head. “That’s what we all say.”
There’s a slight buzzing noise, the sound of a phone set to vibrate.
“I could prove it to you. Buy you a couple of rounds later on,” Dean suggests.
“Look-”
Dean leans in closer, too close, probably causing a scene but fuck it. It’s fun to use this new voice, the register goes down so much lower, rolling vowels deep in heavy promises, “Thing of it is, I’m pretty fuckin’ bored and up for a good distraction. And unless you’re admiring my jeans, I think you’d be up for my idea of fun. So what d’ya say?”
Close enough to feel the vibration of the sigh. “Yeah. Uh. Not here though.”
“Not planning on doing anything here.” Dean moves away and leaves her hand out for a manly handshake. “Name’s Dean.”
“Paul,” he says and then, a little hesitant, adding, “Scholsser.”
“Nice to meet ya. Hey,” Dean says, swiping a waylaid pencil, barely a nub left, beside an abandoned newspaper-and who the fuck misses the answer to ____ McQueen at 37 down on a crossword puzzle?-and scribbling down her cell phone number. “Why don’t you give me a call. ‘Cause I’m in the mood for a hell of a night.”
Dean knows it’s fucking cheesy to do it. But c’mon, it’s her first time flirting in a guy’s body so she might as well try it, quick flick of her tongue over the bottom lip as she backs off.
By the time she gets back to Sam, after, she notices how Sam’s legs are too long to fit under the booth, her face puckering like she’s eaten a lemon. Swallowed the damn thing whole by the looks of it, too. The waitress brings over two tall glasses filled with chocolate shakes, Sam’s doctored up with a thick coil of whipped cream and a neon-bright maraschino cherry on top.
Sam grabs the shake and violently jams the straw into the thick, chocolaty goodness, bending down to slurp a nice brain-freezing gulp. She gets a smudge of whipped cream on the tip of her nose, and Dean would wipe if off if it wasn’t so cute. Sure, maybe it’s sweet like the geeky-kid-sister turned giant-man sort of way, awkwardly adorable.
“You didn’t have to go to the counter before for extra ketchup. You could’ve let the waitress bring it over,” Sam points out-or tries to, her mouth full of hamburger. “And you didn’t have to go do that, Dee.”
Dean narrows her eyes at the plate of fries she’d had to leave in order to bring over the ketchup earlier. She thinks the fries look a little sparse on her plate.
“Oh, I know, I could have waited around with my thumb up my ass,” Dean responds, leans an arm on the top of the booth. Which, hey, with a male prostate, that’ll make anal play a hell of lot more interesting. Dean has to smother cackling at the thought because if Sam asks what she’s thinking about, she might just have to tell her and well, that’s not something to share over burgers and shakes.
That’s something to save for later.
She gives a wave of two fingers towards Paul, who’s already back on his cell phone, smiling brightly at her as he leaves the diner. “But I’m not you, Miss Chastity Belt.”
“Funny,” Sam says around a mouthful of food, swallows, wipes her mouth-and her nose, whipped cream gone-with a napkin. Dean picks at her fries, gaze slanting upwards to look at Sam, like there’s a shift in the air-even now, she knows something’s up, like it all goes still and there’s nothing else to look at, to think of. No one else.
Sam looks queasy. Or constipated.
“We need to figure out how to fix this. As soon as possible.”
“Please, enlighten me,” Dean says as she grabs for the ketchup bottle and pours a little pool of it on the corner of her plate. “Because this man? Scored a hot date, just waitin’ for the call back and I can promise you, I’m getting that damn call. Looks like I still got it, even though I’m a dude. ”
Sam chews her food, not looking up. “Do you really think that’s a good idea, Dee?”
There’s tension in the lines of Sam’s mouth, her leg bobbing annoyingly under the table. Dean knows the whole thing’s bothering Sam real bad, but Dean knows they can’t go insane over this, that freaking out won’t help any. A slip of logic in the back of Dean’s brain has her hesitating. Then the other parts, mind and body has her wanting to explore, wanting to find some benefit to all of this.
And just maybe, as she glances at the guy leaving the diner, that benefit’ll come sooner rather than later.
Dean presses a hand to her chest, would cross her heart if it meant anything now that Sam’s twenty four, and not four and impressionable. “I’m shocked, Sam. Really. ‘Cause, you know, last time I saw some rich dude bling and a Mercedes Benz parked outside was a couple hundred miles back. Town like this, guy like that? I’m thinkin’ there might be more to it.”
Sam scowls, annoyance present in the sharp angles of her face. She’s poking at the runny coleslaw with a fry, little mayonnaise swirls decorating the plate. Doesn’t say a word, but Dean’s filing this away for later, knows it’s gonna come up.
Best to change it up, and that’s what she does, says, “So. Talk. Tell me what’s bugging you. About this.”
“Well,” Sam says, shifts her weight uncomfortably in her seat. “All these new changes. They’re… they’re weird.”
She leans forward, voice low. Looks around, and Dean does too, but the diner’s a sleepy place in the middle of Nowheresville, customers just as mild.
Sam’s leaning close, Dean doing the same before Sam murmurs, “Like I’m a freakin’ gas factory.”
Dean opts to give a little lip curl when she leans back. “This is different from usual how? You weren’t all dainty and shit when you had boobs, little sister.”
Sam was never little sister-that ended when she was in-between thirteen-fourteen and took to her height like a tree on too much sunlight. And now when Dean’s over six feet, she’s still the short one. That’s how Dean knows this spell is really fucking evil, ‘cause a good spell would’ve corrected that horrible biological mistake.
“I’m hungry all the time,” Sam continues, pushes her bangs back. “Maybe I should see a doctor.”
Dean nods, drenching some fries in ketchup then pushing it into her mouth, enjoying Sam’s disgusted look at Dean’s admirable ability to get them all in this new bigger mouth in one shot. Dean fears the vein in Sam’s neck is gonna pop come two more minutes. She doesn’t say that though, as she’s got a healthy sense of preservation and it’d be a damn shame to let it get strangled and left in a ditch by her hormonally imbalanced sister.
She already did the ditch thing last night and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
“You want?” Dean points at the fries, an eyebrow quirking up.
“Yeah, okay,” Sam responds automatically, her large hand swiping five of them off Dean’s plate. She frowns as she munches, moans, too, like there’s a possibility she’ll either be sick or orgasm at the table. That second option is a little too When Harry Met Sally for Dean’s tastes. Either way, Dean doesn’t want to be in the direct path of whichever-
“Dude,” Sam groans, tapping her foot impatiently. “What the hell. I hate this body. It’s always hungry.”
“Sure likes its fries,” Dean points out, pushing the plate forward. “Have the rest. You’re a growing boy, Sammy. I figure you’re what, like, six four, six five? You gotta eat a lot. Gotta pack away that energy so you’re up to snuff and can look out for my ass. Think of it like…” She snaps her fingers, grin bursting forth. “Like a bear. You’re totally a big ass bear. Grr. Look out for Sammy-bear. Not gonna take your pic-a-nic basket, but you’re in for some major angst.”
“I get it, Dean. Doesn’t mean I have to be thrilled with the idea. What about you?” Sam asks, but she’s already sneaking a fry.
Dean wipes her hands on a napkin and finishes the shake. She taps her belly then rubs it. “I’m full. Gotta take care of the merchandise. It isn’t every day that I’m turned into a hot dude.”
Sam gives her the biggest fake smile she’s ever seen, all sarcasm, screaming hot white bitch-fury shooting out of her eyes like freakin’ lasers before she ducks her head down and cleans off the plate.
Part Three