Her Turn - Part 1
Jan. 13th, 2014 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayalaenMaster Post || Prologue || 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || Epilogue || Notes
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Part 1
Then
1987
“Dad, I want to grow my hair long like hers,” a six-year-old Dean said to his dad, pointing to a little girl about his own age sitting a few tables over in a diner. The girl's hair was dirty blonde, parted to the side with a tiny butterfly barrette holding her curls in place.
Dad had smiled at Dean. “Boys don't have long hair, and boys certainly don't wear barrettes in their hair.”
Dean had frowned as he looked back at the little girl's hair. “Why?” Dean asked.
“They just don't, kiddo,” Dad said, and the smile slipped from his face as he looked at Dean.
Dean wasn't sure why at the time Dad had looked at him that way, but as he got older, he realized that's when John started to see that his son was different and that difference had scared the shit out of John.
“When you're a boy,” Dad said with a sad look in his eyes, “you can't have everything you want in life. That's life. You just gotta suck it up because that's what a man does, all right, buddy?”
Dean wanted his dad's approval, like all little kids do, so he said okay, stole covert glances at the little girl's hair until she left the diner with her grandparents, and finished his dinner.
- - -
1989
Sarah and Dean had met a week ago when Dean had moved to town and started going to Springdale Elementary School. She came up to him at recess, asked if he'd wanted to play on the swings with her, and they'd become good friends by the end of the day.
Sarah's mom had set the two of them up out in the backyard with some lemonade, and Sarah had come outside with her My Little Pony collection and her brand new bottle of purple nail polish.
Eight-year-old Dean was so proud of the nice job he had done painting Sarah's nails, and Sarah had a big smile on her face as she held up her nails for him to see. He was so happy to have made her smile.
“Do you want me to paint your nails now so yours can be pretty like mine?” Sarah asked, holding the nail polish up and wagging it in Dean's face.
“Yeah!” Dean said without hesitation.
Sarah squealed, then very carefully painted Dean's nails for him. She was very good at keeping the paint on his nails, and she didn't get any on the skin of his fingers like Dean had done a little with hers.
Dean walked home an hour later, just in time for dinner. Dad was dishing up some goulash, and Sammy was sitting at the table with his spoon, all ready for his food.
“Dad, look! Sarah painted my nails for me! Aren't they pretty?” Dean said as he wriggled his fingers high in the air for his dad to see.
“Dean!” Dad said as he put the pan down on the potholder. He sounded exasperated. “Boys don't wear nail polish.”
“Why?” Dean asked as Dad took him by the arm and led him into the bathroom. He wasn't being rough, so Dean assumed this wasn't a huge deal.
“Because they just don't,” Dad said, picking Dean up and sitting him down on the counter.
“But I like it. It looks nice,” Dean said with a pout.
Dad got a bottle of clear liquid out from under the sink, doused a cotton ball with whatever was in the bottle, and then cleaned off Dean's nails. Dean's nose scrunched up at the strong smell, but he sat still and let his dad clean off his nails.
“But, dad, I like them!” Dean said a little louder, not pulling his hands away, but clearly upset about what his dad was doing.
“That's enough, Dean,” Dad said as he wiped Dean's fingers completely clean of any trace of the pretty purple nail polish.
Dean knew better than to throw a temper tantrum, but he was upset. He didn't cry, although his eyes were stinging. Dad had put his foot down, and Dean wanted to ask why, because Dad's answer hadn't really explained anything at all.
Dean washed his hands to get the stinky cleaner off, then followed Dad back out to the kitchen. Dean was quickly distracted by Sam having gotten goulash down the front of his shirt, so the issue of his nails was forgotten for the night.
Dean thought about what had happened for a really long time as he lay in bed that night, his flashlight playing over the cracks and imperfections in the ceiling. He didn't understand why girls got to do different things than boys, and he just wasn't satisfied with the answer of “just because.”
The next day was Monday, and since Dad hadn't given him a good answer, Dean decided he'd ask a teacher. He found a teacher, walked up to him, and asked, “Why can't boys do the same things girls do?”
Mr. Jessup had smiled at Dean, gestured toward the restrooms they were standing by, and had said very kindly and patiently, “Boys and girls need to have separate restrooms because they have different bodies and they need restrooms that are made just for them.”
Dean hadn't been asking about the restrooms, and it frustrated Dean, but he didn't want to backtalk a teacher, so he said, “Okay, well, thanks, Mr. Jessup.”
It still wasn't a clear answer to Dean. He knew boys and girls had different body parts. He wasn't stupid. Dad had been very open with him whenever Dean asked about stuff like that.
Dean found it silly that the other kids at school would giggle and blush whenever they talked about the differences between boys and girls' bodies, and he found it even more silly that some of the kids' parents had lied to them about those things. He didn't understand what good it did to lie about stuff that everybody had, to make up stories about babies when the truth wasn't really all that complicated.
Anyway, Mr. Jessup smiled at Dean, then walked away, so Dean ran outside to find Sarah. There were ten minutes left for recess, and he really wanted to play with her.
“Why did you take your nail polish off?” Sarah asked with a hurt look on her face, pointing at his nails.
Dean felt horrible. He really liked Sarah, and she'd worked so hard on his nails. The fact that her nails were still purple hurt his chest, because he'd really liked his nails painted, and Sarah had done it for him.
He was a little embarrassed that his dad had reacted that way, and he didn't want to tell Sarah the truth both because of the embarrassment and because he didn't want to hurt her feelings. It wasn't her fault that Dad had taken the nail polish off. Dean knew that in his heart.
“Sorry, Sarah,” he said as he held up his hands. “I was helping Dad clean something, and I didn't notice until I was done, but it washed off all the nail polish.”
“Oh,” Sarah said, the bridge of her nose scrunching up while she thought about it for a moment, then her face changed, a smile taking over her face, making her look happy again. “Okay, so do you want to play on the swings or the slides?”
Dean smiled at her, relieved that he managed to keep from hurting her feelings. “Slides!” he said as he took her by the hand and they ran to the slides.
- - -
1990
When Dean was nine years old, he was invited to a birthday party. Dad seemed happy that Dean was interested in playing with kids his age, so Dad drove him to the party, promising Sammy a pizza and movie night at home so Sam would stop whining about missing out on the party.
The kids at the party quickly separated into groups of boys and girls. Dean hadn't thought much of it at the time, and he'd just migrated toward the girls' group because he was more interested in what they were talking about and what they were doing anyway.
It wasn't a conscious decision of “I want to be with the girls instead of the boys,” but rather it was just where he'd ended up.
Ian, one of the boys at the party, saw Dean with the girls. Later Dean would remember Ian Sanders' name well, because even at only nine years old, this boy was responsible for Dean's epiphany, though Dean hadn't even known what that word meant yet.
Ian walked up to Dean, who was sitting on the floor with the girls in a circle. “Why are you playing with the girls and not the boys?”
Dean was puzzled by the question, but he answered anyway. “I just wanted to,” he said with a shrug, because really that was the only reason. There wasn't some deep philosophical meaning to his actions or anything.
Ian laughed at him, pointing and smirking. “Are you gonna let them paint your nails, Deanie?” Ian teased loudly, drawling out every other word like he was the funniest comedian ever. “Are you all gonna braid each others hair? Why don't you let them dress you up like a girl, and then when we play spin the bottle, maybe you can get one of the boys to kiss you!”
Dean was shocked speechless. Sure, Dad had said things before like “boys don't play with dolls” and “boys don't paint their nails” when Dean had shown an interest in each of those things, but it was a totally different thing to have it thrown in his face that he was different from the other boys and that actually all those things Ian had said sounded like fun other than the part about kissing a boy. That one was just eww!
Before Ian, Dean had thought other boys felt the way he did. It didn't matter that Dad had said boys don't do those things. Dean was a kid, so he'd always figured it was the same as “kids shouldn't run out into the street” and “only grownups can look at the magazines you found in Daddy's duffel bag.” Other boys wanted to play with the same things Dean wanted to, adults just didn't let them, right?
As Dean sat there, staring up at Ian with a dumbfounded look on his face, Allison, one of the girls in his group, stood up, shoved Ian so hard in the chest that he fell on his ass with a grunt, and then she said, “Leave him alone. We'd rather play with him than you anyway because he's much more fun than you, asswipe.”
Dean turned to look at Allison with a feeling growing in his chest, a feeling that made his lungs feel too big, like they were going to burst. Allison had accepted him without question. She'd even said she'd rather play with him than Ian, even though Ian was “so cute,” according to all the girls in his class, which he never agreed with anyway, but that wasn't the point.
“Don't worry about him, Dean,” Allison said with more confidence than Dean had ever heard from another kid. “He's just jealous because you're doing what you really want to do instead of what somebody else tells you that you should do.”
Allison then grabbed Dean's hand, dragged him closer to her, and along with all the other girls in the circle, completely ignored Ian and began another round of telephone.
Allison became Dean's first girlfriend, the title becoming official by the end of the night when she asked if he wanted to go steady and have lunch with her at the cafeteria the following Monday.
When the other kids at school found out he had a girlfriend, the little bit of teasing he'd endured over the weekend abruptly stopped. Apparently, Dean learned, if you hang around with girls and don't have a girlfriend, you're a complete freak, but if you hang around with girls and you got a girlfriend out the deal, you're really cool. Therefore, Dean was cool.
So even though Dean's epiphany had changed him drastically on the inside, if anything, his outside appearance had already cemented him as a normal boy, and Dean didn't do anything to dissuade anyone's notions about him.
- - -
1991
Dad was proud of him, and Dean was very happy that his dad was proud of him. Dean had a few more girlfriends after Allison, though all they'd done was hold hands and exchange a few kisses that were more like pecks.
Dad had talked to him plenty of times about being nice to girls, being careful with sex when he did decide to have it, and Dad had even gave him some pointers on how to make girls happy both in bed and in general so Dean could be a good boyfriend.
Ian was a big reason for Dean to not only realize a lot of things about himself, but he also was the reason Dean built up his persona, and not many people ever knew anything but Dean's persona.
It wasn't like Dean closed his real self off completely. He was just careful what he let slip. His life wasn't a complete lie, and nearly everything Sam knew about Dean was completely true.
Dean met a girl named Kayla at the end of the school year after turning twelve. Kayla was a year older than him, so they didn't share the same classes, but she was fun to be around, and they ate lunch together every day.
Kayla had gotten a makeup case for Christmas, and since she was very careful with her things, there was still plenty left by the time school was out.
Dean and Kayla played at her house because she had some really cool toys, and Kayla loved doing makeovers on Dean. Dean wasn't a huge fan of blush and eyeshadow, and the lipstick would get stuck on his teeth, but he really liked Kayla, and she really liked him, and anything that made her smile was worth in Dean's eyes.
Kayla had some makeup remover that Dean would use before he left her house. He knew his dad wouldn't like it if he found out Dean was wearing makeup. Dean hadn't ever asked, hadn't ever come home with it on, but considering the nail polish incident, Dean assumed makeup would get the same reaction.
One night Kayla and Dean had been making and then playing with origami fortune tellers, which Dean hadn't known how to make, so Kayla was showing him how to make really cool ones.
They hadn't played makeover, but Dean couldn't resist putting on a little bit of lipstick, not caring it would get on his teeth because it made his lips look pretty. They played until it was time for Dean to grab Sam, who had been playing with Kayla's little brother downstairs, and get home to order a pizza.
Dad had just pulled into the driveway of the apartment complex when Dean and Sam had walked up. Sam ran inside while Dean took Dad's duffel from the back seat of the car.
“What's that on your lips?” Dad asked, his eyebrows drawn down.
Dean felt a rush of panic run through his body, but he kept his cool. Even at twelve, Dad had taught him well how to play people.
“Kayla had lipstick on,” Dean said with a leer and a waggle of his eyebrows.
Dad laughed, ruffling Dean's hair. “That's my boy,” he said as they walked to the apartment.
Dean breathed a sigh of relief as he followed his dad. John had assumed, just like most other people, that Dean's persona was the real thing. It kind of hurt that his dad hadn't seen through it, but Dean also knew Dad wouldn't like what was beneath that persona.
- - -
Over the years, a few girls had noticed small things, but they never got the whole picture. Rhonda Hurley had been thrilled when Dean agreed to wear her pink panties, but other than the whole thing being a big realization for Dean that some women got a kick out of men wearing women's panties sometimes, he hadn't really told her about anything else.
And Dean would be forever grateful to Rhonda for not only his realization of girls getting a kick out of that, but also that he himself got a huge kick out of it. Her panties felt so soft, and if only his dick and balls weren't in the way, the panties would have fit perfectly, but he'd take what he could get.
Dean kept a pair of panties underneath the rest of his things in his duffel bag after he was with Rhonda. They weren't hers, but he'd had no trouble going out and buying a pair at the store. He'd lied and said they were for his girlfriend, and the salesgirl had cooed over what a wonderful boyfriend he must be, and Dean had a great time picking them out with the salesgirl's help.
He was careful about when and where he wore them. He knew better than to wear them on a hunt, because if he'd gotten hurt, he might've needed to be stripped by dad or Sam. He enjoyed panties, but he wasn't careless with them.
He loved looking at himself in the mirror with them on. The muted maroon color looked so pretty with his skin tone, and the way it hugged his body, the way the lace at his waist tickled his skin, it made something fall into place inside him. Something he never thought would feel so right.
The panties weren't a completely sexual thing, but that didn't mean he didn't jerk off plenty of times into the panties.
- - -
Meeting Cassie was both the worst and the best thing that ever happened to him. She wasn't a stupid girl, so she'd seen through his carefully-made persona so quickly that it had taken Dean's breath away.
She was okay with it. She was accepting in a way Dean wished everyone could be. She didn't act like it was something that needed to be talked about or something that needed to be focused on. It was simply who Dean was, and she wanted Dean, all of him.
Except that she didn't. Dean had figured since Cassie had dealt with his gender issues so well, she'd have no problem accepting the supernatural. In his mind, he'd built up his gender issues to the point where the supernatural was a piece of cake in comparison.
It hurt. A lot. She wasn't mean about it, and she reassured Dean it had nothing to do with him as a person, but Dean had always thought of true love in a romantic way. True love was something that broke through barriers, was unconditional like you see in the movies, and that if someone just loved him enough, they wouldn't care about anything else.
After all, wasn't Dad's entire mission in life seeking revenge on the demon that destroyed the fairy tale romance that was Mary and John Winchester?
It wasn't until his experience with Cassie that Dean's romanticized view of love got shattered. Sure, there could be romance, and there could be love, but no one's love was completely unconditional, no matter how much a person thought it was. So Cassie had been the worst and best thing that had ever happened to him.
- - -
Lisa? Well, she was so much fun that Dean couldn't have cared less if she'd accepted anything else. They'd done everything together, including pegging, which was a first for Dean at the time, and he discovered that he'd really liked it.
She took charge in the bedroom, and he gladly gave her that control. Not that he was a slouch in bed, but rather she came up with all the stuff they did, had the toys to play with, and when it came time for their weekend to be over, she was the one who let him know fun times were had by all, it was time to go back to their real lives, and it would be great if he could stop by every once in a while to do it all over again.
Dean knew he wasn't the type to settle down, at least not yet. And even when Sam made him promise that he'd settle down with Lisa, Dean knew it wouldn't work. Lisa was great. He even loved her, would always love her, but settling down wasn't for Dean. Not yet.
But Dean had skipped ahead in his musings, in this story of his life. Mostly because the thing he'd skipped over had been something that really rocked his world in a bad way, made him question everything about himself, and hurt so badly that he wished he could erase it from his head.
Dean had always thought that maybe he'd just accidentally been given a male body. He knew about biology. He knew that an extra few doses of testosterone or estrogen while a baby was developing had a big enough impact on a person that it could make a girl a tomboy or a boy more effeminate. So he figured some kind of accident happened when he was developing. Accidents happened, right?
But when he'd been remade as a male by an angel, an angel sent by God, well, it was a huge blow to everything he'd ever known.
Angels and God had seen him as male, without a question. And they should know. So maybe Dean was just confused. Or maybe he was fucked in the head. Maybe he was just a pervert who liked women's clothes and liked women so much he didn't even care to be around a guy other than his own brother.
Whatever it was, Dean seriously reevaluated his lot in life. After all the chaos died down from his resurrection, meeting an angel, and all of the utter ridiculousness of the shit the angels pulled on them and everyone else in the world, Dean gave up.
Not on life. He didn't really want to die. But he gave up on letting himself be who he was on the inside. It didn't even hurt anymore. He was too numb from life, from Hell, and from fighting for something that never should have been in the first place.
Drinking helped. And the fact that he still wanted to fuck girls helped. Dean liked sex. It was fun, it was a distraction, and making a woman come over and over again was something that never got old, something he was very good at.
The strangest part of the whole gender thing, in Dean's opinion, was that none of it had been used against him in Hell. He figured everything was used against everyone in Hell. When it was his turn to torture souls, he'd used everything he could find against them.
So it was a mindfuck in and of itself to have Alastair completely ignore something so significant about Dean as his gender issues.
And of course that made him question how much of it had been real and how much had been something he'd built up in his head.
- - -
Everything came to a head when he met Charlie. She was great. He instantly felt something for her. And when he'd found out she was a lesbian, a part of him craved that feeling he used to let himself have around women like Rhonda, Cassie, and Lisa, but he'd been hit too many times in life. He was tired of getting back up again.
He figured Charlie would want nothing to do with him sexually. She seemed to like him as a person, and she was so funny and adorable that he wished for more. She was just so damned cute!
And even though she was scared of the supernatural, she didn't back down. Dean could respect that in anyone, especially a hot chick.
But she was giving him calculated looks, and she was smarter than most people gave her credit for at first glance.
- - -
Now
So even though Dean had given up on letting himself be who he really was around one-night stands, whether he thought they might be up for it or not, it isn't a complete surprise when Charlie comes to his room at the bunker and pulls two bottles of beer out from behind her back as she flops down on his bed.
He smiles on the inside because he realizes she's probably trying to liquor him up, trying to get him to open up and talk to her, but the poor girl doesn't know how much liquor it would take to get him thoroughly sloshed, and it isn't one damn beer.
She holds a bottle out to him, waggling it back and forth with a grin on her face. Dean chuckles. He can't help it. As previously mentioned, she's damn cute.
Dean sits down on the bed, turned toward Charlie, takes the beer from her hand with a grateful smile and takes a sip.
“So, Dean,” she says in a way that seems like it could get awkward soon.
But Charlie has always had this amazing ability to be un-awkwardly awkward. Dean doesn't know how to describe it other than that, but it's part of what he's grown to love about her.
“So, Charlie,” Dean says as he relaxes back against the head of his bed, comfortable in his T-shirt, jeans, and socks.
“I have this really strong urge to do something with you,” Charlie blurts, then runs her fingers through her hair nervously. “I don't want to be presumptuous, but I think if I leave it up to you, you're never going to bring it up or do anything about it. And I think you really do want to bring it up, because I think it's something you really want. And if I'm totally off base here, just tell me and I'll never bring it up again, but you have to swear never to bring it up again and use it against me. Because I care about you, and that's why I'm bringing it up. It's not because I want to humiliate you or something like that. So don't hate me,” she says, ending with a wince.
“Breathe,” Dean says with a small smile on his face. The words are hitting him, making his stomach clench because he has an idea what she wants to talk about, but Charlie rambling on is so adorably her that he can't help but smile.
Charlie takes a deep breath, then bites her lip, plays with the hem of her tan V-neck shirt, which makes her tits look awesome, in Dean's opinion.
“I have to just say it. And for the love of god, please stop me if I'm saying something really, really stupid before I finish it, and please don't hate me,” she repeats.
Dean chuckles. “I'm not gonna hate you, Charlie,” he assures her. “Blurt it out. Just get it over with.”
“Okay, fine,” she says, then seems to consider her words for a moment. She looks up at him with determination shining in her eyes. “I think you're not comfortable in your own skin, that you want to be on the outside who you are in the inside, but it hasn't happened for whatever reason, and it's made you give up.
“I think you've stuffed it down so deep that you think nobody sees it, but I'm seeing something because you can't stuff something like this down completely, and it's hurting you, and I really like you, and I want to help you, and stop looking at me with that adorable mix of apprehension, excitement, and relief,” she finishes with a pout.
Dean doesn't know what to say, and he sits there staring at her as if she's a bomb about to go off. She still hasn't said flat out he's a woman trapped in man's body, and Charlie might not have even gotten that far in her observations, but she's close enough that the apprehension, excitement, and relief she saw on his face was exactly right.
He looks down at his beer bottle and picks at the label, not wanting her to see how vulnerable he feels. He can't let himself be that vulnerable.
“Am I wrong and I should shut up and we forget everything I just –,” Charlie starts.
“No,” Dean interrupts, then lets out a nervous chuckle, but still stares at his beer, still picks at the label. “You're not wrong. I'm just wondering how far you've taken this idea in your head and how close it is to the truth.”
“So,” Charlie drawls. “I'm not just reading you wrong?” she asks.
Dean shakes his head. He wants to look up at her. It's becoming hard to keep his eyes on the bottle, but he's scared of what she'll see, what he'll see. “No,” he says, but he doesn't know what else to say.
“How long have you felt like you don't fit in?” she asks with nothing but care and concern in her voice. There's no censure, no judgment.
Dean chuckles awkwardly and leans his head back against the wall, his eyes closing. That conveniently lets him hide for just a little longer. “I figured it out at a birthday party when I was nine years old,” he says softly.
“Uhm, okay,” Charlie says, obviously floundering for what to say, hoping he'll fill in a few blanks, or maybe even just confirm what she probably already knew instead of simply filling in blanks.
Dean sighs, shoves the bottle down between his legs, then plays with the mouth of the bottle with his fingers. “I was different before then, but the party was the eye opener,” Dean says with a huff of laughter over something that wasn't all that funny. “I didn't always hide it. There were a few women over the years who have known or have found out or ones who I've told, and they've been really okay with it. Surprisingly okay with it. Others who didn't handle it so well,” Dean says vaguely.
“So since you're apparently not going to put me out of my awkward misery, I'll just have to make an educated guess,” Charlie says, and Dean lifts his head up to look her in the eye finally. “You've always fit in with the girls instead of the boys and you've thought you should've been born a girl instead of a boy, and you've always been attracted to women, so it allowed you to, in a relatively easily way, keep up the facade of heterosexual ladies' man.”
Dean doesn't know what to say, so he just nods, feeling numb. He purposely had kept eye contact with her, learning in the past that it was a good tell for women, made it easy to spot if they were okay with him or not.
Women were always fairly easy to read for Dean. Not in the way men were. Women didn't blurt out their feelings or proclaim it for the world through body language and loud remarks like men. No, women were usually subtle, even the ones who were more loudmouthed and brash. It's all in the minute changes of their posture, the tension in their shoulders, the changes in their eyes, the small movements of their lips, where they look, and everything in between the words they say.
Charlie's not disgusted. There's still no judgment. She's concerned, obviously cares about him, but there's no pity, no motherly instinct kicking in and forcing her to come to his rescue. She's looking at him with confidence even though her words might tell the average observer she's unsure of herself.
And maybe she is a little hesitant, but it's only because she wants to be delicate about this, doesn't want to hurt him with lack of tact, and it's not because she's unsure whether or not she's right about this.
Playing with the hem of her shirt gives her something to do with her fingers, not out of a nervous habit, but because he can tell she wants to touch him, even if it's just to rest her hand on his knee.
Dean has no idea why men have such a hard time reading women other than they're probably just not paying attention. Sure, women can be sneaky, they can hide their feelings under layers of subterfuge, but if you care enough to figure them out, a women will tell you everything you want to know with every atom of her being, and if you earn her trust, she'll give you the world.
“Have you ever told your family?” Charlie asks, tilting her head to the side in a way that Dean finds adorable.
Dean shakes his head. “No, not directly. My dad was the type of guy who said boys don't play with dolls, which I was never interested in anyway, and even though I never said anything to him or let the whole truth show in front of him, I don't think he would've handled it well because of how he handled the things I did let slip as a kid. And with Sam, I really don't know how he would've reacted, but I never tried with him either.”
There's still no pity on her face or in her body language. There is, however, a subtle straightening of her posture that shows intent, shows that she thinks she can help.
“Do you want to do anything about it?” Charlie asks. “I mean you've been doing this for a long time, I know that, but you don't have to. And I don't want to put you on the spot or anything, but I want to help. You have this way about you, this look on your face like you've given up, and I want to do something about it, because I really do like you.”
Dean smiles at her. “I really like you too,” he admits, though he figures she doesn't know how much he likes her. Then he thinks about the rest of what she said. “Oh, about the whole giving up thing,” he says with a big sigh, runs his fingers through his hair, but doesn't elaborate yet.
Charlie holds up a hand. “You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but like I said, I'd really like to help,” she says with a hopeful look on her face, her hand going back to her lap, fingers teasing the hem of her shirt again.
Dean can't resist being honest. She's being genuine. She's not teasing him or walking away. Her posture, body language, facial expressions all say she's safe. He can tell her.
“You know all that shit about me going to Hell and coming back?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says, and Dean's relieved that there's no look of pain or disgust on her face when Hell is brought up.
“That's about the time I gave up,” he says with a sad smile. This part hurts, and he feels it in his chest before he even says it. “When Cas brought me back, he made me this body,” he says pointing at himself.
She takes that in. “Oh, I see,” Charlie says with a wrinkling of her nose, almost like she's a little pissed. Her voice when she speaks again gives an edge of challenge. “So an angel remakes you, and because you'd grown up thinking it was a mistake that you were in a male body, it totally blew you away to have an angel throw it in your face that it wasn't a mistake, you had the right body the whole time, so you figured you were wrong all your life and you should just suck it up and live with it, right?”
Dean looks back down at the beer bottle. His chest is hurting even more, and he doesn't know if he wishes Charlie were less observant or if he likes that she's seen this about him. He likes commiserating with women. Never felt right with men. And she's practically begging.
The challenging tone in her voice turns into fire. “Well, I think that's bullshit,” she says indelicately.
Dean looks back up at her, surprised by the conviction in her voice. “What?” he asks, one eyebrow raised.
She snorts. “How do you know Cas didn't just remake your body that way because he was doing just that; remaking your body?” Charlie asks as if he's a dork for never thinking of it that way
Dean's mind is blown. It's blown so badly that it must show on his face because Charlie's expression softens some. “I, uhm, hadn't thought of it that way,” he admits, a sheepish grin on his face, and he feels his cheeks flush.
“You've said before that angels are so totally different from humans,” Charlie argues.
She sets her bottle down on the floor beside her, and Dean knows it's because she wants to involve her hands in the conversation. It's another one of those things he really likes about her.
Charlie looks him in the eye, her hands already getting involved now that they're freed up. She waves toward the ceiling. “They're built for carrying out God's will. Even though they have the ability to have emotions, they're still awkward and have a hard time fitting in with humans even after being with them for a long time,” she says, then smacks his leg. “So what makes you think Cas wasn't just doing his job, carrying on in his mission from God by recreating you?”
His head's spinning. “I hadn't thought of that,” Dean says softly, feeling stupid for it never having occurred to him. He shrugs. “I just figured Cas saw me, inside and out, and saw that everything about me was male and recreated that.”
“Did you ever ask him?” she asks, her hands going out to her sides in a posture Dean likes to call a woman's 'well, did ya?' pose.
Dean shakes his head. “No. I didn't see a need to ask,” he says, setting his bottle down on the nightstand. “And I figured I was fucked in the head, so I just assumed he did the whole soul searching, creating-me-the-perfect-body thing, that's why he did it, and I gave up on ever having anything else.”
“Did Cas tell you that you were fucked in the head?” Charlie asks with her hands flopping down onto the bed on either side of her, fingers clenched and showing that she's ready to punch Cas in the face if he did say that.
Dean thinks about that for a moment, tries to remember if Cas ever even implied it. “Well, no,” he admits, sheepish grin on his face again.
Charlie rolls her eyes, her fingers relaxing now that the possible need to punch Castiel in the face has passed. “From what you guys have told me, you were supposed to be the righteous man,” she says, then uses her index finger to poke him in the chest, “and don't get me started on how things can get lost in translation as far as the whole man versus woman versus human thing,” Charlie says with a roll of her eyes, “but anyway, why would an angel let something that big go without saying anything about it? Why would he side with you, disobey Heaven and fall for you if he thought you were that fucked in the head or perverted or whatever?”
Dean feels as if he's been punched in the gut. “I don't know,” Dean whispers.
Charlie obviously can't take it anymore. She has to touch, so she reaches out and rests her right hand on his calf. “Has Cas ever sat you down and given you the 'boys play with toy cars, girls play with dolls' speech and tried to set you straight?” she asks.
“No,” Dean mumbles, liking the warmth of her hand on his leg.
“Well then snap out of it!” Charlie nearly growls as she flings her arms out to the side, the bed shaking with her enthusiasm. “You feel like this your whole life, you squash it down, only letting yourself out to play a few times with a few women, then completely squash it down just because some angel gave you a look-alike body,” she says incredulously, then she scowls at him. “I say fuck that. If God can accept murderers and rapists if they repent, why can't he accept someone he's already damn well accepted who has felt like she's in the wrong body her whole life.”
The change in pronouns makes Dean's eyes widen and his breath catches in his throat. No one has ever said anything like that to him outside the bedroom. Not even Cassie had switched and used she or her outside the bedroom. And Dean considered bedroom time roleplay, so it never meant more than fun.
A grin spreads across Charlie's lips. “That felt good, didn't it?” she asks, watching him carefully.
Dean chuckles and blinks away the tears that had started to form in his eyes. “You're evil,” he says as he points at her, trying for light before he starts bawling all over the place.
She chuckles, then her smile dies away, and in its place comes a serious look. “What's in your pants doesn't define you,” she says, her hand coming to rest on his calf again. “People are so stuck on physical appearance even when they want to be all politically correct and accepting and see what's on the inside, and it usually doesn't happen until you truly get to know someone, but Dean, what's on the inside really does matter more than what's on the outside,” she says as she squeezes his calf.
Dean puts his hand over hers. “That all sounds good, but the steps toward that seem...,” he trails off with a huff. “Well, they don't seem all that fun or easy.”
Charlie tilts her head. “You have to do what's right for you, but like I said, I want to help,” she says with a reassuring smile. “As you know, I'm a woman,” she says with a chuckle, and it makes him laugh. “And as you also know, I really, really like women, and I really like you, so who better to help you with this?”
There's nothing but sincerity coming from Charlie. And he wants this so badly. He's scared. Hell, he's scared out of his mind of what this could all mean, how people would react, but he's never been all that much for conforming to society anyway, so why should he give a shit?
“We could start small,” she says with a grin, a raised eyebrow. “You don't have to tell anybody. Or you could decide you want to go all out and have a party and dance around in a sexy teddy!” she says as if she finds the idea of a party very exciting, and she bounces on the bed a little in her excitement.
Dean laughs. “Oh, god, no. I'm not ready for that,” he says as he shakes his head.
“Then we start slow. Not a problem!” she says with complete confidence, and he can feel the excitement growing in the room. It's coming from her, and it's giving him hope.
And the way she says it, how easy it sounds, how 'normal' it sounds, well, it makes Dean's shoulders relax a bit. She's made it sound easier than he'd built it up to be in his head. She makes it sound as if it's something he could try.
“Oh, and just to get the disclaimers out of the way,” she says as she smacks his leg. “If we start doing all this and you decide you don't like it or it's not for you, I'm not going to have a problem with it. I'm not going to tease you or say you're a failure. It's just you, and I already like you, and I'm not going to stop liking you just because you've decided lacy panties aren't your thing.”
Dean groans loudly, his eyes falling shut and his head thunking against the wall. He feels Charlie hop off the bed, and he looks up at her, her face alight with 'I'm so thrilled I can't stand it' written all over it.
“Now I totally know what we're doing first!” she says as she bounces on her toes. “We are so getting you panties! Come on! Come with me!” Charlie says, then gasps, her eyes widening even more. “Let's both get some! Ooh! We can get matching panties!”
Dean feels his dick twitch as he chuckles, and he hopes Charlie doesn't notice that his dick is interested. Well, even if she does, he can blame it on the panties themselves, which really is something he wants as well as being a turn on personally, but it also is the idea of seeing Charlie in panties.
- - -
Dean tenses as they get closer to the doors of the lingerie store. Since Charlie's holding his hand out of sheer enthusiasm, she has to be able to feel him tense.
She stops, turns to him, and gets a stern look on her face. “There's a difference between telling everyone your personal business and being comfortable enough with yourself to leave things up to imagination.”
“Huh?” Dean says with a puzzled expression. He feels very out of his element even though he's gone into lingerie stores before. He's bought panties under the guise of being an awesome boyfriend, but this time is different.
Charlie snorts and grabs him by the chin. “Just because we tell the salesgirl I'm your girlfriend and you're picking out panties for me doesn't mean we're compromising or selling out or conforming to society's standards. We're picking our battles,” she says.
Dean chuckles, the anxious feeling that had crept in receding. “Okay. Thanks,” he says, feeling silly now for having thought Charlie would announce his real intentions for purchasing panties to the entire store.
Charlie grins, grabs his hand again. “And if we happen to grab a few pairs of panties that are a few sizes bigger than my size, that's nobody's business but ours,” she chirps, then drags him inside the store.
- - -
Next: Part 2
-
Part 1
Then
1987
“Dad, I want to grow my hair long like hers,” a six-year-old Dean said to his dad, pointing to a little girl about his own age sitting a few tables over in a diner. The girl's hair was dirty blonde, parted to the side with a tiny butterfly barrette holding her curls in place.
Dad had smiled at Dean. “Boys don't have long hair, and boys certainly don't wear barrettes in their hair.”
Dean had frowned as he looked back at the little girl's hair. “Why?” Dean asked.
“They just don't, kiddo,” Dad said, and the smile slipped from his face as he looked at Dean.
Dean wasn't sure why at the time Dad had looked at him that way, but as he got older, he realized that's when John started to see that his son was different and that difference had scared the shit out of John.
“When you're a boy,” Dad said with a sad look in his eyes, “you can't have everything you want in life. That's life. You just gotta suck it up because that's what a man does, all right, buddy?”
Dean wanted his dad's approval, like all little kids do, so he said okay, stole covert glances at the little girl's hair until she left the diner with her grandparents, and finished his dinner.
- - -
1989
Sarah and Dean had met a week ago when Dean had moved to town and started going to Springdale Elementary School. She came up to him at recess, asked if he'd wanted to play on the swings with her, and they'd become good friends by the end of the day.
Sarah's mom had set the two of them up out in the backyard with some lemonade, and Sarah had come outside with her My Little Pony collection and her brand new bottle of purple nail polish.
Eight-year-old Dean was so proud of the nice job he had done painting Sarah's nails, and Sarah had a big smile on her face as she held up her nails for him to see. He was so happy to have made her smile.
“Do you want me to paint your nails now so yours can be pretty like mine?” Sarah asked, holding the nail polish up and wagging it in Dean's face.
“Yeah!” Dean said without hesitation.
Sarah squealed, then very carefully painted Dean's nails for him. She was very good at keeping the paint on his nails, and she didn't get any on the skin of his fingers like Dean had done a little with hers.
Dean walked home an hour later, just in time for dinner. Dad was dishing up some goulash, and Sammy was sitting at the table with his spoon, all ready for his food.
“Dad, look! Sarah painted my nails for me! Aren't they pretty?” Dean said as he wriggled his fingers high in the air for his dad to see.
“Dean!” Dad said as he put the pan down on the potholder. He sounded exasperated. “Boys don't wear nail polish.”
“Why?” Dean asked as Dad took him by the arm and led him into the bathroom. He wasn't being rough, so Dean assumed this wasn't a huge deal.
“Because they just don't,” Dad said, picking Dean up and sitting him down on the counter.
“But I like it. It looks nice,” Dean said with a pout.
Dad got a bottle of clear liquid out from under the sink, doused a cotton ball with whatever was in the bottle, and then cleaned off Dean's nails. Dean's nose scrunched up at the strong smell, but he sat still and let his dad clean off his nails.
“But, dad, I like them!” Dean said a little louder, not pulling his hands away, but clearly upset about what his dad was doing.
“That's enough, Dean,” Dad said as he wiped Dean's fingers completely clean of any trace of the pretty purple nail polish.
Dean knew better than to throw a temper tantrum, but he was upset. He didn't cry, although his eyes were stinging. Dad had put his foot down, and Dean wanted to ask why, because Dad's answer hadn't really explained anything at all.
Dean washed his hands to get the stinky cleaner off, then followed Dad back out to the kitchen. Dean was quickly distracted by Sam having gotten goulash down the front of his shirt, so the issue of his nails was forgotten for the night.
Dean thought about what had happened for a really long time as he lay in bed that night, his flashlight playing over the cracks and imperfections in the ceiling. He didn't understand why girls got to do different things than boys, and he just wasn't satisfied with the answer of “just because.”
The next day was Monday, and since Dad hadn't given him a good answer, Dean decided he'd ask a teacher. He found a teacher, walked up to him, and asked, “Why can't boys do the same things girls do?”
Mr. Jessup had smiled at Dean, gestured toward the restrooms they were standing by, and had said very kindly and patiently, “Boys and girls need to have separate restrooms because they have different bodies and they need restrooms that are made just for them.”
Dean hadn't been asking about the restrooms, and it frustrated Dean, but he didn't want to backtalk a teacher, so he said, “Okay, well, thanks, Mr. Jessup.”
It still wasn't a clear answer to Dean. He knew boys and girls had different body parts. He wasn't stupid. Dad had been very open with him whenever Dean asked about stuff like that.
Dean found it silly that the other kids at school would giggle and blush whenever they talked about the differences between boys and girls' bodies, and he found it even more silly that some of the kids' parents had lied to them about those things. He didn't understand what good it did to lie about stuff that everybody had, to make up stories about babies when the truth wasn't really all that complicated.
Anyway, Mr. Jessup smiled at Dean, then walked away, so Dean ran outside to find Sarah. There were ten minutes left for recess, and he really wanted to play with her.
“Why did you take your nail polish off?” Sarah asked with a hurt look on her face, pointing at his nails.
Dean felt horrible. He really liked Sarah, and she'd worked so hard on his nails. The fact that her nails were still purple hurt his chest, because he'd really liked his nails painted, and Sarah had done it for him.
He was a little embarrassed that his dad had reacted that way, and he didn't want to tell Sarah the truth both because of the embarrassment and because he didn't want to hurt her feelings. It wasn't her fault that Dad had taken the nail polish off. Dean knew that in his heart.
“Sorry, Sarah,” he said as he held up his hands. “I was helping Dad clean something, and I didn't notice until I was done, but it washed off all the nail polish.”
“Oh,” Sarah said, the bridge of her nose scrunching up while she thought about it for a moment, then her face changed, a smile taking over her face, making her look happy again. “Okay, so do you want to play on the swings or the slides?”
Dean smiled at her, relieved that he managed to keep from hurting her feelings. “Slides!” he said as he took her by the hand and they ran to the slides.
- - -
1990
When Dean was nine years old, he was invited to a birthday party. Dad seemed happy that Dean was interested in playing with kids his age, so Dad drove him to the party, promising Sammy a pizza and movie night at home so Sam would stop whining about missing out on the party.
The kids at the party quickly separated into groups of boys and girls. Dean hadn't thought much of it at the time, and he'd just migrated toward the girls' group because he was more interested in what they were talking about and what they were doing anyway.
It wasn't a conscious decision of “I want to be with the girls instead of the boys,” but rather it was just where he'd ended up.
Ian, one of the boys at the party, saw Dean with the girls. Later Dean would remember Ian Sanders' name well, because even at only nine years old, this boy was responsible for Dean's epiphany, though Dean hadn't even known what that word meant yet.
Ian walked up to Dean, who was sitting on the floor with the girls in a circle. “Why are you playing with the girls and not the boys?”
Dean was puzzled by the question, but he answered anyway. “I just wanted to,” he said with a shrug, because really that was the only reason. There wasn't some deep philosophical meaning to his actions or anything.
Ian laughed at him, pointing and smirking. “Are you gonna let them paint your nails, Deanie?” Ian teased loudly, drawling out every other word like he was the funniest comedian ever. “Are you all gonna braid each others hair? Why don't you let them dress you up like a girl, and then when we play spin the bottle, maybe you can get one of the boys to kiss you!”
Dean was shocked speechless. Sure, Dad had said things before like “boys don't play with dolls” and “boys don't paint their nails” when Dean had shown an interest in each of those things, but it was a totally different thing to have it thrown in his face that he was different from the other boys and that actually all those things Ian had said sounded like fun other than the part about kissing a boy. That one was just eww!
Before Ian, Dean had thought other boys felt the way he did. It didn't matter that Dad had said boys don't do those things. Dean was a kid, so he'd always figured it was the same as “kids shouldn't run out into the street” and “only grownups can look at the magazines you found in Daddy's duffel bag.” Other boys wanted to play with the same things Dean wanted to, adults just didn't let them, right?
As Dean sat there, staring up at Ian with a dumbfounded look on his face, Allison, one of the girls in his group, stood up, shoved Ian so hard in the chest that he fell on his ass with a grunt, and then she said, “Leave him alone. We'd rather play with him than you anyway because he's much more fun than you, asswipe.”
Dean turned to look at Allison with a feeling growing in his chest, a feeling that made his lungs feel too big, like they were going to burst. Allison had accepted him without question. She'd even said she'd rather play with him than Ian, even though Ian was “so cute,” according to all the girls in his class, which he never agreed with anyway, but that wasn't the point.
“Don't worry about him, Dean,” Allison said with more confidence than Dean had ever heard from another kid. “He's just jealous because you're doing what you really want to do instead of what somebody else tells you that you should do.”
Allison then grabbed Dean's hand, dragged him closer to her, and along with all the other girls in the circle, completely ignored Ian and began another round of telephone.
Allison became Dean's first girlfriend, the title becoming official by the end of the night when she asked if he wanted to go steady and have lunch with her at the cafeteria the following Monday.
When the other kids at school found out he had a girlfriend, the little bit of teasing he'd endured over the weekend abruptly stopped. Apparently, Dean learned, if you hang around with girls and don't have a girlfriend, you're a complete freak, but if you hang around with girls and you got a girlfriend out the deal, you're really cool. Therefore, Dean was cool.
So even though Dean's epiphany had changed him drastically on the inside, if anything, his outside appearance had already cemented him as a normal boy, and Dean didn't do anything to dissuade anyone's notions about him.
- - -
1991
Dad was proud of him, and Dean was very happy that his dad was proud of him. Dean had a few more girlfriends after Allison, though all they'd done was hold hands and exchange a few kisses that were more like pecks.
Dad had talked to him plenty of times about being nice to girls, being careful with sex when he did decide to have it, and Dad had even gave him some pointers on how to make girls happy both in bed and in general so Dean could be a good boyfriend.
Ian was a big reason for Dean to not only realize a lot of things about himself, but he also was the reason Dean built up his persona, and not many people ever knew anything but Dean's persona.
It wasn't like Dean closed his real self off completely. He was just careful what he let slip. His life wasn't a complete lie, and nearly everything Sam knew about Dean was completely true.
Dean met a girl named Kayla at the end of the school year after turning twelve. Kayla was a year older than him, so they didn't share the same classes, but she was fun to be around, and they ate lunch together every day.
Kayla had gotten a makeup case for Christmas, and since she was very careful with her things, there was still plenty left by the time school was out.
Dean and Kayla played at her house because she had some really cool toys, and Kayla loved doing makeovers on Dean. Dean wasn't a huge fan of blush and eyeshadow, and the lipstick would get stuck on his teeth, but he really liked Kayla, and she really liked him, and anything that made her smile was worth in Dean's eyes.
Kayla had some makeup remover that Dean would use before he left her house. He knew his dad wouldn't like it if he found out Dean was wearing makeup. Dean hadn't ever asked, hadn't ever come home with it on, but considering the nail polish incident, Dean assumed makeup would get the same reaction.
One night Kayla and Dean had been making and then playing with origami fortune tellers, which Dean hadn't known how to make, so Kayla was showing him how to make really cool ones.
They hadn't played makeover, but Dean couldn't resist putting on a little bit of lipstick, not caring it would get on his teeth because it made his lips look pretty. They played until it was time for Dean to grab Sam, who had been playing with Kayla's little brother downstairs, and get home to order a pizza.
Dad had just pulled into the driveway of the apartment complex when Dean and Sam had walked up. Sam ran inside while Dean took Dad's duffel from the back seat of the car.
“What's that on your lips?” Dad asked, his eyebrows drawn down.
Dean felt a rush of panic run through his body, but he kept his cool. Even at twelve, Dad had taught him well how to play people.
“Kayla had lipstick on,” Dean said with a leer and a waggle of his eyebrows.
Dad laughed, ruffling Dean's hair. “That's my boy,” he said as they walked to the apartment.
Dean breathed a sigh of relief as he followed his dad. John had assumed, just like most other people, that Dean's persona was the real thing. It kind of hurt that his dad hadn't seen through it, but Dean also knew Dad wouldn't like what was beneath that persona.
- - -
Over the years, a few girls had noticed small things, but they never got the whole picture. Rhonda Hurley had been thrilled when Dean agreed to wear her pink panties, but other than the whole thing being a big realization for Dean that some women got a kick out of men wearing women's panties sometimes, he hadn't really told her about anything else.
And Dean would be forever grateful to Rhonda for not only his realization of girls getting a kick out of that, but also that he himself got a huge kick out of it. Her panties felt so soft, and if only his dick and balls weren't in the way, the panties would have fit perfectly, but he'd take what he could get.
Dean kept a pair of panties underneath the rest of his things in his duffel bag after he was with Rhonda. They weren't hers, but he'd had no trouble going out and buying a pair at the store. He'd lied and said they were for his girlfriend, and the salesgirl had cooed over what a wonderful boyfriend he must be, and Dean had a great time picking them out with the salesgirl's help.
He was careful about when and where he wore them. He knew better than to wear them on a hunt, because if he'd gotten hurt, he might've needed to be stripped by dad or Sam. He enjoyed panties, but he wasn't careless with them.
He loved looking at himself in the mirror with them on. The muted maroon color looked so pretty with his skin tone, and the way it hugged his body, the way the lace at his waist tickled his skin, it made something fall into place inside him. Something he never thought would feel so right.
The panties weren't a completely sexual thing, but that didn't mean he didn't jerk off plenty of times into the panties.
- - -
Meeting Cassie was both the worst and the best thing that ever happened to him. She wasn't a stupid girl, so she'd seen through his carefully-made persona so quickly that it had taken Dean's breath away.
She was okay with it. She was accepting in a way Dean wished everyone could be. She didn't act like it was something that needed to be talked about or something that needed to be focused on. It was simply who Dean was, and she wanted Dean, all of him.
Except that she didn't. Dean had figured since Cassie had dealt with his gender issues so well, she'd have no problem accepting the supernatural. In his mind, he'd built up his gender issues to the point where the supernatural was a piece of cake in comparison.
It hurt. A lot. She wasn't mean about it, and she reassured Dean it had nothing to do with him as a person, but Dean had always thought of true love in a romantic way. True love was something that broke through barriers, was unconditional like you see in the movies, and that if someone just loved him enough, they wouldn't care about anything else.
After all, wasn't Dad's entire mission in life seeking revenge on the demon that destroyed the fairy tale romance that was Mary and John Winchester?
It wasn't until his experience with Cassie that Dean's romanticized view of love got shattered. Sure, there could be romance, and there could be love, but no one's love was completely unconditional, no matter how much a person thought it was. So Cassie had been the worst and best thing that had ever happened to him.
- - -
Lisa? Well, she was so much fun that Dean couldn't have cared less if she'd accepted anything else. They'd done everything together, including pegging, which was a first for Dean at the time, and he discovered that he'd really liked it.
She took charge in the bedroom, and he gladly gave her that control. Not that he was a slouch in bed, but rather she came up with all the stuff they did, had the toys to play with, and when it came time for their weekend to be over, she was the one who let him know fun times were had by all, it was time to go back to their real lives, and it would be great if he could stop by every once in a while to do it all over again.
Dean knew he wasn't the type to settle down, at least not yet. And even when Sam made him promise that he'd settle down with Lisa, Dean knew it wouldn't work. Lisa was great. He even loved her, would always love her, but settling down wasn't for Dean. Not yet.
But Dean had skipped ahead in his musings, in this story of his life. Mostly because the thing he'd skipped over had been something that really rocked his world in a bad way, made him question everything about himself, and hurt so badly that he wished he could erase it from his head.
Dean had always thought that maybe he'd just accidentally been given a male body. He knew about biology. He knew that an extra few doses of testosterone or estrogen while a baby was developing had a big enough impact on a person that it could make a girl a tomboy or a boy more effeminate. So he figured some kind of accident happened when he was developing. Accidents happened, right?
But when he'd been remade as a male by an angel, an angel sent by God, well, it was a huge blow to everything he'd ever known.
Angels and God had seen him as male, without a question. And they should know. So maybe Dean was just confused. Or maybe he was fucked in the head. Maybe he was just a pervert who liked women's clothes and liked women so much he didn't even care to be around a guy other than his own brother.
Whatever it was, Dean seriously reevaluated his lot in life. After all the chaos died down from his resurrection, meeting an angel, and all of the utter ridiculousness of the shit the angels pulled on them and everyone else in the world, Dean gave up.
Not on life. He didn't really want to die. But he gave up on letting himself be who he was on the inside. It didn't even hurt anymore. He was too numb from life, from Hell, and from fighting for something that never should have been in the first place.
Drinking helped. And the fact that he still wanted to fuck girls helped. Dean liked sex. It was fun, it was a distraction, and making a woman come over and over again was something that never got old, something he was very good at.
The strangest part of the whole gender thing, in Dean's opinion, was that none of it had been used against him in Hell. He figured everything was used against everyone in Hell. When it was his turn to torture souls, he'd used everything he could find against them.
So it was a mindfuck in and of itself to have Alastair completely ignore something so significant about Dean as his gender issues.
And of course that made him question how much of it had been real and how much had been something he'd built up in his head.
- - -
Everything came to a head when he met Charlie. She was great. He instantly felt something for her. And when he'd found out she was a lesbian, a part of him craved that feeling he used to let himself have around women like Rhonda, Cassie, and Lisa, but he'd been hit too many times in life. He was tired of getting back up again.
He figured Charlie would want nothing to do with him sexually. She seemed to like him as a person, and she was so funny and adorable that he wished for more. She was just so damned cute!
And even though she was scared of the supernatural, she didn't back down. Dean could respect that in anyone, especially a hot chick.
But she was giving him calculated looks, and she was smarter than most people gave her credit for at first glance.
- - -
Now
So even though Dean had given up on letting himself be who he really was around one-night stands, whether he thought they might be up for it or not, it isn't a complete surprise when Charlie comes to his room at the bunker and pulls two bottles of beer out from behind her back as she flops down on his bed.
He smiles on the inside because he realizes she's probably trying to liquor him up, trying to get him to open up and talk to her, but the poor girl doesn't know how much liquor it would take to get him thoroughly sloshed, and it isn't one damn beer.
She holds a bottle out to him, waggling it back and forth with a grin on her face. Dean chuckles. He can't help it. As previously mentioned, she's damn cute.
Dean sits down on the bed, turned toward Charlie, takes the beer from her hand with a grateful smile and takes a sip.
“So, Dean,” she says in a way that seems like it could get awkward soon.
But Charlie has always had this amazing ability to be un-awkwardly awkward. Dean doesn't know how to describe it other than that, but it's part of what he's grown to love about her.
“So, Charlie,” Dean says as he relaxes back against the head of his bed, comfortable in his T-shirt, jeans, and socks.
“I have this really strong urge to do something with you,” Charlie blurts, then runs her fingers through her hair nervously. “I don't want to be presumptuous, but I think if I leave it up to you, you're never going to bring it up or do anything about it. And I think you really do want to bring it up, because I think it's something you really want. And if I'm totally off base here, just tell me and I'll never bring it up again, but you have to swear never to bring it up again and use it against me. Because I care about you, and that's why I'm bringing it up. It's not because I want to humiliate you or something like that. So don't hate me,” she says, ending with a wince.
“Breathe,” Dean says with a small smile on his face. The words are hitting him, making his stomach clench because he has an idea what she wants to talk about, but Charlie rambling on is so adorably her that he can't help but smile.
Charlie takes a deep breath, then bites her lip, plays with the hem of her tan V-neck shirt, which makes her tits look awesome, in Dean's opinion.
“I have to just say it. And for the love of god, please stop me if I'm saying something really, really stupid before I finish it, and please don't hate me,” she repeats.
Dean chuckles. “I'm not gonna hate you, Charlie,” he assures her. “Blurt it out. Just get it over with.”
“Okay, fine,” she says, then seems to consider her words for a moment. She looks up at him with determination shining in her eyes. “I think you're not comfortable in your own skin, that you want to be on the outside who you are in the inside, but it hasn't happened for whatever reason, and it's made you give up.
“I think you've stuffed it down so deep that you think nobody sees it, but I'm seeing something because you can't stuff something like this down completely, and it's hurting you, and I really like you, and I want to help you, and stop looking at me with that adorable mix of apprehension, excitement, and relief,” she finishes with a pout.
Dean doesn't know what to say, and he sits there staring at her as if she's a bomb about to go off. She still hasn't said flat out he's a woman trapped in man's body, and Charlie might not have even gotten that far in her observations, but she's close enough that the apprehension, excitement, and relief she saw on his face was exactly right.
He looks down at his beer bottle and picks at the label, not wanting her to see how vulnerable he feels. He can't let himself be that vulnerable.
“Am I wrong and I should shut up and we forget everything I just –,” Charlie starts.
“No,” Dean interrupts, then lets out a nervous chuckle, but still stares at his beer, still picks at the label. “You're not wrong. I'm just wondering how far you've taken this idea in your head and how close it is to the truth.”
“So,” Charlie drawls. “I'm not just reading you wrong?” she asks.
Dean shakes his head. He wants to look up at her. It's becoming hard to keep his eyes on the bottle, but he's scared of what she'll see, what he'll see. “No,” he says, but he doesn't know what else to say.
“How long have you felt like you don't fit in?” she asks with nothing but care and concern in her voice. There's no censure, no judgment.
Dean chuckles awkwardly and leans his head back against the wall, his eyes closing. That conveniently lets him hide for just a little longer. “I figured it out at a birthday party when I was nine years old,” he says softly.
“Uhm, okay,” Charlie says, obviously floundering for what to say, hoping he'll fill in a few blanks, or maybe even just confirm what she probably already knew instead of simply filling in blanks.
Dean sighs, shoves the bottle down between his legs, then plays with the mouth of the bottle with his fingers. “I was different before then, but the party was the eye opener,” Dean says with a huff of laughter over something that wasn't all that funny. “I didn't always hide it. There were a few women over the years who have known or have found out or ones who I've told, and they've been really okay with it. Surprisingly okay with it. Others who didn't handle it so well,” Dean says vaguely.
“So since you're apparently not going to put me out of my awkward misery, I'll just have to make an educated guess,” Charlie says, and Dean lifts his head up to look her in the eye finally. “You've always fit in with the girls instead of the boys and you've thought you should've been born a girl instead of a boy, and you've always been attracted to women, so it allowed you to, in a relatively easily way, keep up the facade of heterosexual ladies' man.”
Dean doesn't know what to say, so he just nods, feeling numb. He purposely had kept eye contact with her, learning in the past that it was a good tell for women, made it easy to spot if they were okay with him or not.
Women were always fairly easy to read for Dean. Not in the way men were. Women didn't blurt out their feelings or proclaim it for the world through body language and loud remarks like men. No, women were usually subtle, even the ones who were more loudmouthed and brash. It's all in the minute changes of their posture, the tension in their shoulders, the changes in their eyes, the small movements of their lips, where they look, and everything in between the words they say.
Charlie's not disgusted. There's still no judgment. She's concerned, obviously cares about him, but there's no pity, no motherly instinct kicking in and forcing her to come to his rescue. She's looking at him with confidence even though her words might tell the average observer she's unsure of herself.
And maybe she is a little hesitant, but it's only because she wants to be delicate about this, doesn't want to hurt him with lack of tact, and it's not because she's unsure whether or not she's right about this.
Playing with the hem of her shirt gives her something to do with her fingers, not out of a nervous habit, but because he can tell she wants to touch him, even if it's just to rest her hand on his knee.
Dean has no idea why men have such a hard time reading women other than they're probably just not paying attention. Sure, women can be sneaky, they can hide their feelings under layers of subterfuge, but if you care enough to figure them out, a women will tell you everything you want to know with every atom of her being, and if you earn her trust, she'll give you the world.
“Have you ever told your family?” Charlie asks, tilting her head to the side in a way that Dean finds adorable.
Dean shakes his head. “No, not directly. My dad was the type of guy who said boys don't play with dolls, which I was never interested in anyway, and even though I never said anything to him or let the whole truth show in front of him, I don't think he would've handled it well because of how he handled the things I did let slip as a kid. And with Sam, I really don't know how he would've reacted, but I never tried with him either.”
There's still no pity on her face or in her body language. There is, however, a subtle straightening of her posture that shows intent, shows that she thinks she can help.
“Do you want to do anything about it?” Charlie asks. “I mean you've been doing this for a long time, I know that, but you don't have to. And I don't want to put you on the spot or anything, but I want to help. You have this way about you, this look on your face like you've given up, and I want to do something about it, because I really do like you.”
Dean smiles at her. “I really like you too,” he admits, though he figures she doesn't know how much he likes her. Then he thinks about the rest of what she said. “Oh, about the whole giving up thing,” he says with a big sigh, runs his fingers through his hair, but doesn't elaborate yet.
Charlie holds up a hand. “You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but like I said, I'd really like to help,” she says with a hopeful look on her face, her hand going back to her lap, fingers teasing the hem of her shirt again.
Dean can't resist being honest. She's being genuine. She's not teasing him or walking away. Her posture, body language, facial expressions all say she's safe. He can tell her.
“You know all that shit about me going to Hell and coming back?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says, and Dean's relieved that there's no look of pain or disgust on her face when Hell is brought up.
“That's about the time I gave up,” he says with a sad smile. This part hurts, and he feels it in his chest before he even says it. “When Cas brought me back, he made me this body,” he says pointing at himself.
She takes that in. “Oh, I see,” Charlie says with a wrinkling of her nose, almost like she's a little pissed. Her voice when she speaks again gives an edge of challenge. “So an angel remakes you, and because you'd grown up thinking it was a mistake that you were in a male body, it totally blew you away to have an angel throw it in your face that it wasn't a mistake, you had the right body the whole time, so you figured you were wrong all your life and you should just suck it up and live with it, right?”
Dean looks back down at the beer bottle. His chest is hurting even more, and he doesn't know if he wishes Charlie were less observant or if he likes that she's seen this about him. He likes commiserating with women. Never felt right with men. And she's practically begging.
The challenging tone in her voice turns into fire. “Well, I think that's bullshit,” she says indelicately.
Dean looks back up at her, surprised by the conviction in her voice. “What?” he asks, one eyebrow raised.
She snorts. “How do you know Cas didn't just remake your body that way because he was doing just that; remaking your body?” Charlie asks as if he's a dork for never thinking of it that way
Dean's mind is blown. It's blown so badly that it must show on his face because Charlie's expression softens some. “I, uhm, hadn't thought of it that way,” he admits, a sheepish grin on his face, and he feels his cheeks flush.
“You've said before that angels are so totally different from humans,” Charlie argues.
She sets her bottle down on the floor beside her, and Dean knows it's because she wants to involve her hands in the conversation. It's another one of those things he really likes about her.
Charlie looks him in the eye, her hands already getting involved now that they're freed up. She waves toward the ceiling. “They're built for carrying out God's will. Even though they have the ability to have emotions, they're still awkward and have a hard time fitting in with humans even after being with them for a long time,” she says, then smacks his leg. “So what makes you think Cas wasn't just doing his job, carrying on in his mission from God by recreating you?”
His head's spinning. “I hadn't thought of that,” Dean says softly, feeling stupid for it never having occurred to him. He shrugs. “I just figured Cas saw me, inside and out, and saw that everything about me was male and recreated that.”
“Did you ever ask him?” she asks, her hands going out to her sides in a posture Dean likes to call a woman's 'well, did ya?' pose.
Dean shakes his head. “No. I didn't see a need to ask,” he says, setting his bottle down on the nightstand. “And I figured I was fucked in the head, so I just assumed he did the whole soul searching, creating-me-the-perfect-body thing, that's why he did it, and I gave up on ever having anything else.”
“Did Cas tell you that you were fucked in the head?” Charlie asks with her hands flopping down onto the bed on either side of her, fingers clenched and showing that she's ready to punch Cas in the face if he did say that.
Dean thinks about that for a moment, tries to remember if Cas ever even implied it. “Well, no,” he admits, sheepish grin on his face again.
Charlie rolls her eyes, her fingers relaxing now that the possible need to punch Castiel in the face has passed. “From what you guys have told me, you were supposed to be the righteous man,” she says, then uses her index finger to poke him in the chest, “and don't get me started on how things can get lost in translation as far as the whole man versus woman versus human thing,” Charlie says with a roll of her eyes, “but anyway, why would an angel let something that big go without saying anything about it? Why would he side with you, disobey Heaven and fall for you if he thought you were that fucked in the head or perverted or whatever?”
Dean feels as if he's been punched in the gut. “I don't know,” Dean whispers.
Charlie obviously can't take it anymore. She has to touch, so she reaches out and rests her right hand on his calf. “Has Cas ever sat you down and given you the 'boys play with toy cars, girls play with dolls' speech and tried to set you straight?” she asks.
“No,” Dean mumbles, liking the warmth of her hand on his leg.
“Well then snap out of it!” Charlie nearly growls as she flings her arms out to the side, the bed shaking with her enthusiasm. “You feel like this your whole life, you squash it down, only letting yourself out to play a few times with a few women, then completely squash it down just because some angel gave you a look-alike body,” she says incredulously, then she scowls at him. “I say fuck that. If God can accept murderers and rapists if they repent, why can't he accept someone he's already damn well accepted who has felt like she's in the wrong body her whole life.”
The change in pronouns makes Dean's eyes widen and his breath catches in his throat. No one has ever said anything like that to him outside the bedroom. Not even Cassie had switched and used she or her outside the bedroom. And Dean considered bedroom time roleplay, so it never meant more than fun.
A grin spreads across Charlie's lips. “That felt good, didn't it?” she asks, watching him carefully.
Dean chuckles and blinks away the tears that had started to form in his eyes. “You're evil,” he says as he points at her, trying for light before he starts bawling all over the place.
She chuckles, then her smile dies away, and in its place comes a serious look. “What's in your pants doesn't define you,” she says, her hand coming to rest on his calf again. “People are so stuck on physical appearance even when they want to be all politically correct and accepting and see what's on the inside, and it usually doesn't happen until you truly get to know someone, but Dean, what's on the inside really does matter more than what's on the outside,” she says as she squeezes his calf.
Dean puts his hand over hers. “That all sounds good, but the steps toward that seem...,” he trails off with a huff. “Well, they don't seem all that fun or easy.”
Charlie tilts her head. “You have to do what's right for you, but like I said, I want to help,” she says with a reassuring smile. “As you know, I'm a woman,” she says with a chuckle, and it makes him laugh. “And as you also know, I really, really like women, and I really like you, so who better to help you with this?”
There's nothing but sincerity coming from Charlie. And he wants this so badly. He's scared. Hell, he's scared out of his mind of what this could all mean, how people would react, but he's never been all that much for conforming to society anyway, so why should he give a shit?
“We could start small,” she says with a grin, a raised eyebrow. “You don't have to tell anybody. Or you could decide you want to go all out and have a party and dance around in a sexy teddy!” she says as if she finds the idea of a party very exciting, and she bounces on the bed a little in her excitement.
Dean laughs. “Oh, god, no. I'm not ready for that,” he says as he shakes his head.
“Then we start slow. Not a problem!” she says with complete confidence, and he can feel the excitement growing in the room. It's coming from her, and it's giving him hope.
And the way she says it, how easy it sounds, how 'normal' it sounds, well, it makes Dean's shoulders relax a bit. She's made it sound easier than he'd built it up to be in his head. She makes it sound as if it's something he could try.
“Oh, and just to get the disclaimers out of the way,” she says as she smacks his leg. “If we start doing all this and you decide you don't like it or it's not for you, I'm not going to have a problem with it. I'm not going to tease you or say you're a failure. It's just you, and I already like you, and I'm not going to stop liking you just because you've decided lacy panties aren't your thing.”
Dean groans loudly, his eyes falling shut and his head thunking against the wall. He feels Charlie hop off the bed, and he looks up at her, her face alight with 'I'm so thrilled I can't stand it' written all over it.
“Now I totally know what we're doing first!” she says as she bounces on her toes. “We are so getting you panties! Come on! Come with me!” Charlie says, then gasps, her eyes widening even more. “Let's both get some! Ooh! We can get matching panties!”
Dean feels his dick twitch as he chuckles, and he hopes Charlie doesn't notice that his dick is interested. Well, even if she does, he can blame it on the panties themselves, which really is something he wants as well as being a turn on personally, but it also is the idea of seeing Charlie in panties.
- - -
Dean tenses as they get closer to the doors of the lingerie store. Since Charlie's holding his hand out of sheer enthusiasm, she has to be able to feel him tense.
She stops, turns to him, and gets a stern look on her face. “There's a difference between telling everyone your personal business and being comfortable enough with yourself to leave things up to imagination.”
“Huh?” Dean says with a puzzled expression. He feels very out of his element even though he's gone into lingerie stores before. He's bought panties under the guise of being an awesome boyfriend, but this time is different.
Charlie snorts and grabs him by the chin. “Just because we tell the salesgirl I'm your girlfriend and you're picking out panties for me doesn't mean we're compromising or selling out or conforming to society's standards. We're picking our battles,” she says.
Dean chuckles, the anxious feeling that had crept in receding. “Okay. Thanks,” he says, feeling silly now for having thought Charlie would announce his real intentions for purchasing panties to the entire store.
Charlie grins, grabs his hand again. “And if we happen to grab a few pairs of panties that are a few sizes bigger than my size, that's nobody's business but ours,” she chirps, then drags him inside the store.
- - -
Next: Part 2
