When he goes to brush his teeth the next morning, he realizes why Lisa never allowed herself to fall asleep without washing her face. Jesus Christ, he looks like Courtney Love banged it out with a raccoon. It takes a lot of scrubbing to get most of the makeup off, and even then, he's not totally barefaced. Note to self, the end-of-evening beauty rituals have a purpose.
He dresses more like himself to see Bobby, but even then, when he tromps in without knocking and yells out, "Bobby, it's Dean," and Bobby comes around the corner from the kitchen, Dean can see the way his eyes go round at the sight of him. He looks Dean up and down, adjusting his hat.
"Boy, you don't make a half bad girl," he says.
"You think?" Dean says, too eager before he tamps it down. "Shut up. I mean, can you fix it or not?"
Bobby rolls his eyes with a put-upon toss of his hands. "Give me a damn minute, Speedy Gonzales. Spent all day reading up yesterday, just gotta go over my checklist with you, now you're here."
Bobby asks him dozens of questions: Did the witch use powdered mugwort? What about myrtle leaf? Did she lay hands on him, or was it merely verbal? Were there blackened crystals left behind by the ritual? A smell? A residue? Bobby plucks a strand of Dean's hair and pours some concoction on it that fills the room briefly with smoke. He takes a drop of his blood and smears it on a sheet of rock that shows no outward reaction. It's like a check-up with the most crotchety practitioner of holistic medicine ever. If Bobby asks him if his chakras are out of alignment, Dean's gonna walk right back out the door.
"Have you had any marks show up anywhere on your body? Anything unusual?"
"Besides the tits?" Bobby looks at Dean with the unimpressed exhaustion that develops only after someone's known you so long they still remember cleaning up after you pissed the bed when you were seven. "No, not that I noticed."
"I gotta make some calls, then," Bobby says, tossing his notepad to the desk and knocking a jar of pens askew. "Cause I've got no goddamn clue."
"Maybe lunch first," Dean says. He's known Bobby long enough to know how bad he is at remembering to eat. The guy's eyeing the liquor cabinet, but he probably hasn't even had breakfast yet. Bobby grumbles, but goes willingly when Dean just starts rummaging through his cabinets for something to throw together. They eat chili mac and cheese, a tried and true staple of Dean's laundry list of ways to make boxed mac and cheese and canned chili more exciting, and while it's nothing to write home about, Dean can see Bobby's grouchiness draining away as he eats. He'll always be a grouch, of course, but there are flavors to his grouchiness, and hangry isn't a good one.
Bobby spends the afternoon ringing up some of his contacts while Dean tries to repay him by doing some of the chores he knows Bobby's not great at keeping on top of. Bobby holds his hand over the phone while Dean sweeps the floor, muttering, "You don't gotta do that, boy," to which Dean responds, "Shut up, old man," and Bobby smothers a smile in response while Dean keeps doing it. When they were kids, Bobby used to bark at them that this wasn't a motel and he wasn't housekeeping when they turned the guest room they stayed in into a sty. Now, when Dean tries to help him keep things clean, he acts embarrassed, like it's none of Dean's business how he keeps his home.
Well, if Dean's gonna rely on his hospitality again, he might as well pull his weight. He's spent the last year dividing up chores on a little dry-erase board with gold star magnets and everything, the least he can do here is cook a little bit and do some dishes. He's even learned how to make a few more things that didn't come out of a can. He doesn't know how long he's gonna be here or when Sam might show up with another weird hunting job, but he could probably get Bobby set up with something that'd last him a few days. Maybe a pot roast, those are always good for leftovers.
He ends up taking Bobby on a grocery run, because there's hardly anything in his fridge but questionable tupperware and condiments. Bobby stocks up on stuff for the pantry, but Dean also makes good on his pot roast plans, and when they get back to the house, Dean pulls a dutch oven out of the cabinet that he's pretty sure Bobby hasn't used in ten years to get it started.
Dean can see Bobby looking at him funny while they eat, even as he's paying his compliments, intuiting where Dean's new Martha Stewart act came from and, probably, pitying him. Dean ignores it, detailing the ways he might improve the roast next time around a mouthful of potato. Maybe adding red wine to the pot. Bobby's still staring. Dean swallows.
"What? I saw it on the Food Network," he says, and spears another potato with his fork.
He's dressing down for the night, duffel at the foot of Bobby's guest bed, when he finally spots it in the mirror: a little circle tattooed on his tailbone. He frowns, spinning to examine it more closely.
"Bobby?" he yells down the hallway, yanking his shirt back on. "Bobby, come look at this!"
Bobby wrenches the door open, squinting blearily at Dean in his sleep clothes. "What? Who died?"
"Is this the mark you were talking about?" Dean turns his back to Bobby, hiking up the hem of his shirt. Bobby leans in, getting a closer look.
"Dammit."
"What? What?"
"I know what the spell is," Bobby grumbles, leaning back up to his full height with a little pop and a groan. "That little tramp stamp you got there'll change with the moon cycle."
"Moon cycle?" Dean drops his shirt, whipping back around to face him. "So, what, she decided I needed to become one with the sisterhood? Am I—" Dread washes over him, cold and leaden. "I'm not gonna get my period am I?"
"Don't ask me," Bobby said, equally horrified. "But you are gonna be stuck like that for a month. Once the moon cycles through back to where it was when she zapped you, you should just go back to normal."
"A whole month?" Dean tries to wrap his head around it. He'd thought his options were fix it now or stuck forever. A month is both too long and, weirdly, not long at all.
"Well, about thirty days, yeah. We're a couple days off from a full moon… She got you a couple days ago… Next time we're nearly at a full moon, the spell should wear off."
"Should, or will?" Dean's throat was tight with apprehension.
"Don't get your titties in a twist." Bobby nudges Dean's shoulder.
Too soon, Dean thinks.
"I been ass-deep in lore the last two days. One month, and the curse is broken, I promise."
"One month of sitting down to pee," Dean says, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Enjoy your beauty rest, madam," Bobby says, and stalks off back down the hall to his bedroom.
He tries, but it's hopeless. He lies awake on the double bed he and Sam used to share when they were kids, on the same worn sheets and mismatched pillowcases Bobby'd had since Dean was little, staring blankly at the dark ceiling. A month. A little less than that, now. Twenty days and change in this body. It's like a clock ticking down in his head, but he has no idea what it's ticking towards.
It should be relief. And yes, he wants to be back to normal. There are a hundred little annoyances associated with his predicament, and it'll be a weight off his shoulders, literally and figuratively. To be looked at normally again, to be able to fit into his clothes again.
There's also a weird thought nagging at him quietly, telling him it wanted a little more time.
He swallows hard, trying to keep his breathing steady. He's going through some shit right now. Sam coming back and dashing the last faint shred of hope he'd been clinging to of being a normal guy with a normal life. It's not a huge shock that he might feel like being someone else for a little while. Being Dean Winchester comes with so much baggage. It was a relief to think he might be able to drop some of it for a little while.
He's such a joke. He'd been happy with Lisa, sometimes. He really had. But the whole time, he'd been walking around like he was missing a limb, because Sam was dead, and who was Dean without Sam? Ben reminded him terribly of Sam as he'd been when they were kids, too smart for his own good with a finely-tuned bullshit-o-meter. The time Dean had told Ben to eat his green beans and Ben had fired back, "Why, so you don't have to?" Dean had to fight not to laugh while Lisa chastised him. Sometimes that familiarity comforted him, made him feel like he still had an important job to do. Other times, he wondered who he was to think he had the right to pretend to be that kid's dad. He'd let Sam down. He'd let him die. What greater failure could there be?
But now Sam is back, and it's still not right. He's still not happy. He misses Lisa, misses Ben, and he shouldn't miss Sam, because he's right there, just a few hours down the road if he decides to make the trip, but he does. Maybe Sam's been distant because he can't forgive Dean. He won't talk about Hell, and maybe that's because he still blames Dean for letting him fall.
So yeah, being someone else for a while has its appeal.
He drifts off, thinking about hypothetical someone elses. If he had longer than a month, he could start growing his hair out. Long hair, like his mother's. He'd have to tie it back to hunt, but at the end of a long day, he could let it down. He remembers how his mother used to do that, after a long day working around the house with her hair in a ponytail, or wrapped up in a bun, and the little relieved sigh that came along with letting loose. He only remembers little things like that about her now, almost thirty years later. Like the way it felt to hug her, to bury his face in her hair, smelling of shampoo and detergent. It might be nice to have long hair like that.
He wakes up tired but restless, puts on a pot of coffee, and makes Bobby eggs and toast out of sheer habit. He helps him do some readings for a team of hunters over in Oregon. He takes a nap on the couch, and wakes up just in time to help strip a half-crushed Volkswagen for usable parts. Then, when the evening rolls around, Dean leaves Bobby with the leftovers of the previous night's pot roast to hit up a bar.
He's being someone else tonight, so he doesn't go to one of his usual dives, where the bartop hasn't been wiped down in months and the bathrooms are scrawled with phone numbers. This place is trendy, at least as far as the nightlife in South Dakota goes, purporting itself to be a "gastropub," with faux-industrial hanging lights and everything, which basically just means they can charge you ten dollars for pretzels. He takes a seat at the bar and studies the menu looking for something he'd never order under ordinary circumstances, and ends up with a fruity little cider-and-spiced-rum drink garnished with an apple slice. He takes a sip. It is, to his annoyance, fucking delicious.
He bites the bullet and orders some overpriced sliders, because he's a woman right now, but that doesn't mean he has to start exclusively eating rabbit food. The sliders come with sweet potato fries and coleslaw made out of something called "jicama." He's relieved to find the sweet potato fries really aren't as good as regular ass potato fries, but while he's pretty sure the aioli they come with is just Hellmann's with parsley sprinkled in, it's pretty killer.
He doesn't get too in-depth talking to anyone, just light comments with the bartender. He listens in on a few conversations, people-watches some of the groups milling around in other corners of the bar. There's a crowd of toasty twenty-somethings crowded around a couple of high tops, and Dean amuses himself watching one of the guys flirt with one of the girls over another girl's head while she sinks lower and lower in her seat. At one point he tries to reach across to show the girl he's flirting with something on his BlackBerry and gets his wristwatch tangled in the other girl's hair. When they finally disentangle her, she pulls back with a strained smile and hurries into the bathroom.
Dean heads for the bathroom himself after finishing off a second fruity little apple drink and is surprised to find the girl still in there, hunched over the sink. He feels weird being in here, like someone's going to catch him and toss him out, but it's not like he can go to the Men's looking like he does. He can hear her sniffling and trying to breathe evenly while he's sitting in the stall. When he comes out to wash his hands, he peers over at her. She's a short little thing, light brown skin, with tight ringlets curling over her trembling shoulders while she tries to keep her hands steady enough to pluck out her contact lenses.
"God dammit," she mutters, red-eyed and tear-tracked.
Dean clears his throat, shuffling where he stands. "You okay?" Comforting crying girls is usually Sam's specialty, and Dean doesn't know what the protocol is on talking to women in the Ladies' Room compared to the law of the Mens' Room, Don't.
"I just need," the girl says, gritting her teeth. She has a contact case open on the counter. "Fuck, thank you," she says when she manages to retrieve a lens from her eye, and as she blinks, more tears spill out over her cheeks. "Fuck dammit." Once she's removed them, washed, and patted dry her face, she fetches a pair of regular eyeglasses from her purse. "Sorry. Ugh, god."
"Bad night? Sorry, none of my business, but..."
"I just shouldn't have come out tonight. I should've gone home. I've got shit to do. Tameka made it sound like we were just going out for drinks after our shift, but apparently the entire fucking store decided to come with, and I hate, like, half of those people, and I wanna go home now, but she's my ride, and I'm pretty sure she wants to leave with stupid fucking Sean, and the last thing I want to do right now is spend thirty dollars on a cab, but it's that or third-wheel them all the way back to her place while he's talking big game about his stupid… fucking… car!" She throws her glasses and contact cases into her purse. "Like I give a fuck you took out your air conditioner so you could get like, two more horsepowers or whatever on your lil' Matchbox. What is it with guys and cars?"
"Uh… I dunno," Dean says, maybe a little offended. What's wrong with cars?
The girl looks up at him, eyes red-rimmed and wet behind her frames. "Sorry. I'm just going off, and you don't even know who I am, you don't give a shit about my drama. I'm really not trying to be a drunk girl in a bathroom right now. I'm not even drunk, promise."
Dean tries to laugh a little for her sake. "It's fine, really, I asked. You guys all work together?"
"Yeah, at Hy-Vee. I work the cheese counter." The girl's sardonic smile breaks through the weepiness. "Very glamorous. You?"
"Uh, well, I'm doing some work for my uncle right now," Dean says, forgetting that he's supposed to be someone besides Dean Winchester. It's not the whole truth, of course, but it's close enough. "I'm a mechanic."
"Yeah?" The girl's eyebrows raise. Dean curses himself. Women can be mechanics, sure, he's not from the damn stone-age, but he's not really selling his 'someone else' façade right now. The girl's look of surprise transforms into mild horror, and oh, that's a fun panic attack Dean's got building. "Oh god, I said all that shit about cars. I probably sound like an asshole."
Dean's bubble of panic bursts. He musters up a smile. "Yeah, I'm very offended. See, my grandma was a car."
"Oh shit," she says, covering her face with her hand.
"Yeah, I come from a long line of cars." She sputters, laughing. Dean's smile widens. He's not sensitive Sammy (though neither is Sam right now, actually) but it's not just bragging to say that Dean's no slouch when it comes to making the ladies smile.
The girl follows him out of the bathroom, introducing herself as Mina, and Dean forgets not to tell her his real name, though she seems to take it in stride. Maybe she heard him wrong over the shitty music, or maybe she thinks Dean's parents thought they were clever, giving their daughter a weird name. He tells her to ditch the bag boys to hang out with him at the bar, and she smiles and takes him up on it. Her friend at the other table makes a questioning face at her, which she waves off and ultimately ignores. Good for you, Dean thinks. Be a rebel.
"You ever had one of these apple things?" Dean flags down the bartender to order a third. "They rule."
"Can I try some of yours?"
Dean pauses. No one's ever asked him that before, but now that he thinks about it, he's seen Lisa and her girlfriends do that on outings, all ordering different drinks and letting each other have a taste. This is how women bond. It's just being friendly. He smiles.
"Yeah, sure." When the drink comes, he offers Mina the first sip.
"Mmm." Her tongue swipes across her lower lip. "Yummy."
"Right?" Dean accepts the drink when she hands it back, savoring the forbidden apple-y sweetness. Mina orders something else, which arrives outrageously pink and garnished with cherries. Mina lets Dean steal a taste in return. It tastes like pie. Is this what he's been missing out on? Being a man sucks.
Mina's cute. Dean lets her ramble about her shitty day, her shitty pay, and her shitty friends, and she prods Dean for details that he is markedly sparse with. Somehow, that only seems to draw her in even more. He can remember how much his buddy Sid used to grill him for answers that Dean would always semi-skillfully dance right around. Fuck, he hasn't thought about Sid and his wife in a minute. That one still stings.
It must show on his face, 'cause Mina nudges his knee with hers. "You okay? You were such a sweetheart to me before, and I feel like I'm just talking your head off."
"I like listening to you talk," Dean says, 'cause it's true. It's weirdly a total relief to hear about a normal person's problems for a change. It's also a relief not to have to explain whatever's going on with him to anyone else. Just the thought of it makes him want to drink until he can't think anymore. He's floating along pleasantly right now, and he'd hate to ruin that.
Mina's shy smile brightens her whole face, rounds her cheeks and puts a flush in them. "Shut up. You're outta your mind. I'm serious, there's… I dunno, there's something about you." She looks up at him, her big brown eyes peeking over the frames of her glasses. Something in Dean's stomach twists, caught between nausea and excitement.
The girl from the other table is suddenly in Dean's peripheral, looking suspicious and impatient. "Where'd you go?"
"I've been here," Mina says innocently.
"Been talking about going over to DJ's next, you wanna come, or…?"
Mina looks at Dean, lips parted on a question she hasn't asked yet.
"If you wanna, go have fun. Or I can give you a ride home if you need one," Dean says, offering her an out.
"You don't have to do that," she says, but she smiles like she'd love it if he did that.
"It's no trouble. I got nowhere to be." If he were a guy, that'd be a prelude to a pickup. Speaking from experience, girls don't generally take rides from strange guys unless a ride's not all they want. But Dean's a woman, or at least appears to be, so Mina probably thinks it's safe enough to go with him. That makes him worry a little for her, because in a world full of vampires and shapeshifters, Dean's learned to always have his guard up, but it also makes him feel a little pleased to be the safe choice for once in his life.
"That is so sweet of you, thank you so much," Mina says. She turns to her friend. "You off tomorrow?"
"Nah, I'm closing."
"See you Monday, then!" Mina waves goodbye. Her friend lifts her eyebrows in response, then returns to her group, still in the midst of settling their tabs and gathering their things. When she turns back to Dean, she looks positively giddy. "She's gonna be all up my ass about that later."
"Sorry, don't wanna cause a… problem?" Dean's apparently waded right into the middle of some kind of weird girl fight.
"Not a problem, hon," Mina says, taking one last sip of her cherry pie cocktail. "Let me get your tab, I gotta thank you for helping me out."
Dean gives in after a little arguing. Normally he wouldn't let a woman pay for him, but he's already paid for his food and his other drinks, and it's not like he can call on his masculine pride as an excuse. Also, frankly, it's a relief not to dip even further into his remaining funds. Baby's his dream girl, but she's also a gas guzzler.
He's a little nervous, walking Mina outside. He likes to show Baby off, but Mina's already shown how few shits she gives about cars. It makes him relish the little look of surprise that rounds Mina's eyes when she sees her.
"This is your car?"
"Yeah? Thought you didn't care about cars," Dean says, preening. He unlocks the side door, opening it for her in a gentlemanly way without thinking. Fuck, he's really bad at acting girly today. Mina sinks into the passenger's side, stretching her legs out in front of her. It's usually Sam sitting in her spot, and his legs have gotta be twice as long as hers.
"I mean, I don't really, but this is a cool freaking car," she says. Dean comes around the front, sliding in next to her and starting up the engine. Mina startles next to him, laughing nervously. "Haha, and loud!"
Dean keeps the music down so he can hear Mina giving him directions. He pulls up at a cookie cutter apartment complex, which looks as still as a mausoleum when the engine cuts off and silence falls around them. Mina looks over at him, barely illuminated by the streetlight in the parking lot.
"Thanks for the ride," she says. "You wanna come up?"
"Yeah?" Dean's stomach flutters again. He knows how to follow this script as a man, but he's not sure that still applies here. Is she asking if he needs to use her bathroom?
"Yeah, we can talk a little more. Maybe you can get me to come around on liking cars." She smooths out her jeans, tucking her hands into the oversized sleeves of her sweater. "Or we can call it a night, and I can say thank you for giving me a ride home, because that was really amazingly nice of you."
"Oh, uh…" Dean clears his throat. "I mean, yeah, sure. That'd be cool."
"What kind of car is that? It looks old. Oh, not like— not old old, like. Classic old?" She leads Dean up the stairs to the second level, fishing her keys out of her purse. She flicks a switch as soon as they pass the threshold and slips out of her flats. Dean follows her example, kneeling down to unlace his boots. It's small and tidy inside, with a sagging black couch and a bright orange armchair. The carpet and the walls are the bland gray and white of rentals everywhere, but there are bright pops of color all over.
"'67 Chevy Impala," Dean answers, and Mina nods politely like that means anything to her.
"That's so cool. You fix it up yourself?"
"Uh, yeah," he says. "A few times, actually. Got in a pretty bad wreck a while ago, basically had to rebuild her, but she still runs like a dream."
"Oh my god. Well, I'm glad you're okay," Mina says, all sincerity. Dean huffs a laugh without meaning to, his stomach turning over. 'Okay.' Right.
"Yeah, uh. I almost didn't… Well, my dad actually…" Dean takes a deep breath. "An eighteen-wheeler crashed into us. It was... She was, uh, she used to be his car."
"Shit. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I didn't realize." Mina touches his arm, her eyes apologetic. Dean just wants to go back to the part where they were having a good time. He shrugs.
"It's okay. That was a few years ago. I mean, it sucks. It was really hard. But you know, that car's been in my family since before I was born. It's only ‘cause she's as sturdy as she is that, you know, that all of us didn't… She sorta protects us," Dean says. Like a guardian angel, he doesn't say, and his stomach twists again at the thought. What's Cas doing right now? Fighting angels? Winning? Losing? He said once he wasn't one for perching on shoulders, but Dean sort of misses always having Cas right behind him. "If you take care of a good car, it'll take care of you too."
"Right. I think I get it now," Mina says kindly. She squeezes Dean's arm, then releases him. "Can I get you anything? Water? I've got, um, Diet Coke…"
"Water's good."
Mina brings out two glasses of water, and when she sits next to him on the couch, she tucks her feet up under herself. They talk for a little bit, and thanks to Dean's earlier admission, she seems more willing to let him go without saying much about himself, maybe afraid to pry too deep. She lives with a roommate (out of town for the weekend, she says), she's applying to grad schools, and she's got framed posters of something that looks like anime on her walls. When Dean points one out, Mina covers her face, hunched over in shame.
"Don't laugh at me, okay?"
"Who's laughing?" Dean says, though he is laughing a little bit. "It's not the kind with tentacles, is it?"
"You're awful," she moans, smacking his leg with the back of her hand. "No, it's not! Not all anime is porno! And we all had an otaku phase in high school, anyone who says they didn't is lying."
"A what phase? Is that an anime?"
"No, it's— you know what, never mind, I've embarrassed myself enough in front of you. I already cried in a public bathroom today, you're not gonna catch me telling you, 'Actually, it's a legitimate art form, and, and, and…'" She descends into giggles, pulling her glasses off so she can wipe tears from her eyes. Dean grins, leaning back so she can set her glasses on the side table next to him. Sam's always been the one who went in for nerdy girls, but he can see the appeal.
The longer they talk, the more Mina seems to drift into his space, touching his knee, or his arm, leaning her head on the couch and curling towards him. Girls touch each other more freely than guys do, he's pretty sure, but it's still hard to know how far he's allowed to go with that. They fall into a silence, and Mina looks up at him, her eyes dark and a little out of focus. He wonders how much she can see without her glasses.
"Um…" She starts, then breaks off, laughing nervously. "So, um, look, am I reading this wrong, or… If I am, that's totally okay, but."
Dean frowns, lost in the unspoken half of her sentence.
"I really want to kiss you. Can I?"
In a friendly way? Dean thinks desperately. 'Cause women kiss their friends?
"Uh. Sure. Yeah, that'd be cool."
"Cool," Mina says, and leans in, and kisses him.
It's just a gentle thing at first, a brush of lips. Mina pulls back a moment, looking up at him. There's no room for Dean to think about what it might mean. Then she leans back in, a curl of hair brushing his cheek, and kisses him again. She untucks her legs, crawling into his lap, and her arms slide over his shoulders.
Oh, he thinks in mild alarm, that's pretty friendly.
He kisses back more out of muscle memory than anything, gripping her hips for lack of anywhere less awkward to put his hands. It's not that kissing a woman is any kind of hardship. More than he had no idea this was where the night was going, and he's wondering how he could have missed a signal that big when he's usually the expert on picking them up. He hadn't gotten a single hint that Mina was a lesbian, is the main thing, but apparently that doesn't mean shit. What are the ethics here? Is it wrong for Dean to let her keep kissing him? It's hard to think straight with a lapful of cute girl shoving her tongue in his mouth. He jolts when she slides her hand under the hem of his shirt and brushes his stomach. Danger, danger!
"Are you okay?" Mina breaks away, giving Dean space to breathe a little. Now that he can, he realizes he has kind of locked up under her. She slides off his lap, keeping a hand on his knee as the only point of contact. "Too much? You wanna stop?"
"No, uh— No, it's—" Dean shakes his head, trying to formulate the words. He feels like he wandered onto the wrong movie set or something. He's got the wrong script.
"If I'm rushing this— I mean, I was having the worst fucking day, and then this cute butch comes to my rescue, and I just thought…"
Dean doesn't just have the wrong script, the whole thing's in the wrong damn language. He's in the wrong country entirely. Butch? Is Dean butch? Should his masculinity be flattered by that? He feels like he's spent his whole life until now covering up how soft he is, and after years of that, he's officially got license to try pushing it in the other direction. He'd thought he was looking pretty blatantly feminine, except for his height and his haircut. Is that enough for him to read butch? Is it the flannel? Mina did say he was cute, but…
She must see the look in his eyes, because she takes her hand away, her face falling.
"I did. I messed up. I'm sorry, I didn't—"
"No, no, it's okay, I'm sorry, I'm just a little… Bad breakup," Dean says, another sort-of-truth. "A little while ago, but I haven't really… been with anyone else since then."
"Oh. Shit." Mina's distress sobers. "Me too. I don't normally, um, take people home like this, yeah?" She stares at her hands in her lap. "I'm… I mean, I'm so over him, but watching people flirt while they act like I'm not there isn't super fun right now. So I guess I thought, hey, why not be crazy? You know?"
Dean needs a translator if he's going to follow this conversation at all. "Your ex is a guy?"
"Yeah," Mina says, borderline defensive. "Why?"
"Uh." Abort, abort! "I just—I mean, that's cool. Not cool that you broke up, but." Dean winces, because what the fuck is he saying right now. He swipes his hand across his face, like he can wipe the blush of embarrassment away. "I'm sorry, can we back up to the part where everything was going really good, 'cause I sound like an idiot right now."
Mina laughs a little, which Dean counts as a good thing, because it's better than looking at him like she's afraid of what he'll say next. She's right to be afraid, though, because his head is a staticky radio flipping through channels of shit he absolutely shouldn't say, like, So she's not a lesbian? Does she like both, or does she only like me because she usually likes guys? Can people tell just by looking at me? Can everyone tell? Am I that bad at being a woman? Are we still gonna have sex? Should I just leave now?
Mina turns towards him, pushing her hair away from her face and straightening her shoulders. "Dean?" She says it like a question, like she's asking if she got it right.
"Yeah."
"I like you a lot. But if you're uncomfortable, it's cool. We can just..."
Dean has never been talked to like this by a woman before. "I'm not uncomfortable," he lies. "I like you too. We were having fun." He didn't plan for things to go this way, no, but he should be leaping at the opportunity to have sex with her. A year ago, he would have. Right? Even in this body, 'cause what red-blooded heterosexual man hasn't enjoyed watching a little girl-on-girl action? And he is. That's what he is, he tells himself. He is.
"Good. Okay. I'm sorry I'm being such a headcase," Mina says, and Dean stops her with a kiss pressed to her chin. He lingers over her mouth, a question. Mina sighs and pulls him in the rest of the way as an answer.
This is the easy part, now that he knows where they stand. He's good at this part.
They spend a while just necking on the couch like teenagers, which is definitely fun. Dean tries not to think about what he looks like, or what Mina thinks of him, or what this might mean, and just feels her slotted up against him on her sunken old couch, the tickle of her hair across the backs of his hands, and the way she still kind of tastes like cherry pie.
She invites him to her room, which is small and neat, with a little desk in the corner. She flips open a laptop and clicks around for a minute, and suddenly there's music. Not Dean's choice of tunes, but it'll help shut his head up, at least.
Mina's laughing shyly. "This is usually what I listen to when I study. If it's weird I can turn it off."
"It's fine," Dean says. "We gonna be studying?"
"I don't do roleplay before the third date," she says, and sticks out her tongue. She's too short to kiss him when he's standing up, not without him leaning down to meet her halfway, but she solves the issue by sitting him down and climbing into his lap again.
A while later, he's got Mina's sweater off, and then her jeans. Her hair's a curly halo behind her head while she leans back and sighs, letting him press his mouth to her breasts, tugging the cups of her bra down to tease her nipples with his teeth. He feels her damp heat through her cotton panties, her thighs clenched around his hand.
He likes getting girls off. Maybe it's bragging to say he's good at it, but there's few things he considers himself really good at, and he's gonna take what he can get. Listening to someone getting their jollies starts a pleasurable little feedback loop in his brain, makes him that much harder, makes it that much better when he finally gets around to himself. Except he's not hard, because he doesn't have a dick. He doesn't miss it as much as he ought to, probably. If anything, he can focus a little better, because there's no insistent need to touch himself to take the pressure off. He's turned on, but it's more like he's on a low simmer than a high boil. Mina unhooks her bra, tossing it into the corner while Dean slides her panties off, down her thighs and over her ankles. He tosses them into the same corner.
"You're still dressed," Mina says, a little breathlessly, going to her knees to kiss his mouth again. He lets her for a moment or two, little teasing tastes, and she slides his flannel off over his shoulders, hiking up the tank he's wearing. He lets her take it off, looking down at her hands against his skin, tracing over stolen black lace, over the ink of his tattoo. That's nice. He likes the way that looks. He's a little more embarrassed to take off his pants, because he hasn't shaved, not having planned on anyone seeing him undressed tonight, but it's dark in the room, just faint blue light from Mina's laptop and the orange glow of a streetlight through her blinds.
"I just wanna focus on you," he says quietly, coming back to kiss her again. She hums into his mouth, acquiescent. That's good. Now that he's this far undressed, he sort of doesn't want to go further. Maybe it's stupid, but they're pretty, these new clothes of his, and somehow they make him prettier just by being on him. He sort of needs that right now. He's not interested in thinking about why. It's much simpler to just lean his head back, tugging Mina's hips up until she's straddling his chin.
"Oh my god," she says quietly, a breathless admission when he first touches his tongue to her. Dean likes it like this, jaw bracketed by soft thighs, all of his senses occupied. He can smell her, taste her, feel her sliding wet against his chin. When he opens his eyes, she's all he can see, breasts small and swaying as she curls over him to grip her headboard.
He's done this before. Not just the part where someone sits on his face. He can't help but remember her: Rhonda, hallowed be her name, and her pink panties. He doesn't know why he didn't think about her sooner. He'd liked it then, too, he thinks, his head swimming. Not even just when he'd been hard and straining through the satin, though he'd definitely liked that, but the aftermath. He fits the clothes better now, he thinks, and they're his. He can wear them as much as he wants. He doesn't need someone else's permission.
He fucks Mina on his tongue, nosing her clit and she quakes above him, trembling as she comes.
She's dewy with sweat, giggling as she sucks in breaths when she falls to the bed next to him. Dean licks her from his lips, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, then turns over to kiss her neck and stroke her stomach while she comes down. She shivers faintly. He can feel her fine hairs standing on end, the goosebumps tickling their way across. She stretches, arms above her head, and lets out a satisfied groan. Her hand comes to rest over his, small and delicate next to his, with finely tapered fingernails.
"Hey," she says, and tugs Dean in for another kiss, palming his breast. She presses Dean down, turning him over to kiss him into the bed, sliding her hand under the lace of his bra. It's good, and it tingles all the way down, but he goes still again when she tries to slip her hand around to his back.
"You can leave it on," he says. He likes himself better when it's on. He doesn't really care if that makes him look like a PG-13 sex scene on daytime TV. Mina looks at him curiously, but she doesn't push him on it.
Dean's too tall, his body too long for her to kiss him while she tiptoes her fingers down his stomach and under the band of his panties. He feels enormous next to her, somehow, taking up too much space in her little bedroom. She tugs the cups of his bra down to expose his nipples, a fun loophole to his bra-on rule that lets her slide her fingers into him while she mouths at his breasts. He does like that, the wet heat of her mouth followed by a shock of cold. She tries to slide his panties off, and he stops her again, praying she doesn't make him explain. Thankfully, she just keeps going, working his clit between her fingers.
It's not that it isn't good. He knows it's good, has figured out himself how to make it good, and by all definitions, he should be tipping overboard by now. But he's not. He's hitting that same frustrating wave of diminishing returns, and all the low and pulsing want he'd been feeling recedes.
This has happened to him before, too. Not just since the witch got him. Not very often before last year, but often enough when he was with Lisa that he knows he's not gonna be able to finish.
It wasn't that him and Lisa didn't have good sex, because when they were both bringing their A game, they knocked it out of the damn park. But Lisa had a kid, and a day job, school nights and early mornings, and Dean had night terrors and a bottle in his bedside drawer. All those things together added up to, more often than not, an utterly chaste sleeping arrangement. But when Ben was over at a friend's, and Lisa was feeling happy and loose and full of want, wanting Dean, even then, there were nights when he just couldn't. He'd give her what she needed with his mouth or his hands, and then she'd try, for a little while, to get him to the same place. Sometimes it worked, and he could unblock whatever messed up snag in his mind was stopping him from letting go. Sometimes it didn't, and he told her he was tired from working all day, that he just needed to sleep it off and he'd be fine in the morning.
He pushes Mina's hand away as carefully as he can. "I'm good," he mutters. "Don't worry about it." He scoots down on the bed so he can face her, kissing the expression of concern off her face instead of explaining himself. "I had a good time. Did you have a good time?"
"Hah, yeah," she huffs, and they kiss a while more, light and slow. Soothing tactics, but it seems to work.
Eventually, he asks, "Mind if I use your bathroom?"
He grabs his clothes, does what he needs to, washes his hands. Redresses. He looks at himself, trying to remember how he felt, seeing himself in the mirror after Rhonda was done with him. Pink and glowing. Soft as satin. Round edges made malleable where he had been hard.
When he goes back to Mina's room, she's in an oversized t-shirt sitting on the edge of the bed. Dean kisses her again, one for the road, and asks her for a pen and paper. He jots down Bobby's number, writes down "Dean," hesitating a moment before he adds "Singer."
"You ever need something fixed, you call my uncle Bobby, okay?"
Mina folds up the slip of paper, sliding it into a book on her side table. "Yeah, sure," she says, holding her lower lip between her teeth. "Um… thanks."
Dean smiles, and then he's gone.
He drives back to Bobby's in relative quiet, and when he parks and turns the car off, he sits there in the driver's seat in the quiet a while longer, hands at 10 and 2, staring out into the darkness of the scrapyard.
He probably left too quickly. That girl will be thinking she did something wrong after all. But she didn't. It's not her fault Dean's screwed up.
He sleeps too late, missing breakfast by hours, and when he trudges into the kitchen, the only coffee that's left is sludgy and gritty. He and Bobby bounce off each other like the only two bumper cars on the track, pissy and irritable, but with plenty of space to spread out when Bobby's sick of his attitude, or when Dean's sick of Bobby's prodding.
Dean's got this memory that floats back around from time to time. He was young, maybe eight, holding Sam's hand as he toddled along beside him. It was day one of some hunt their dad was on, and he was checking them into the motel for what would end up being a week-long stay. Dean couldn't remember where it was anymore. Maybe Nevada, because it's all neon signs and dusty parking lots in his mind. There was a woman loitering in the stairwell, putting out a cigarette with her heel. She had yellow-blonde hair that was brown at the roots and makeup that shadowed her eyes so darkly that she looked to Dean like one of those doe-eyed porcelain figurines you'd find in a kitsch shop. But what really stood out was the dress. It was red and glossy, like a fresh coat of paint on a Corvette. It was a dress that demanded you look, so Dean did.
John was just getting the keys in the lock when Dean said, "I like your dress." The woman looked over at him and smiled a red Coca-Cola smile.
"Quit staring, Dean," John said, and cuffed Dean on the back of the head, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him whip his head back down and hold Sam's sticky little fist tighter. Inside the room, John continued, "Don't bother her. You don't talk to girls like that."
"Yes, sir," Dean said, because that was what you did when John Winchester gave you an order. He'd learned that by now.
"Why?" asked Sam, because he hadn't learned it yet, and seemed unlikely to. Ever since Sam had started speaking in complete sentences, everything out of his mouth was a question or an argument. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the two.
Their father answered: "'Cause they're working."
Dean drives into town.
He tries on a red dress.
It's fitted around the bust, and flares out underneath, giving him the illusion of rounder hips. It's short on him, reaching just above his knees. He'll need to finally shave, or wax, or something. Or maybe get some black pantyhose. He doesn't like his arms, the way his shoulders and his biceps stand out, but he thinks it would look good with his leather jacket over it, and that would make it work better with the one pair of boots he's got. The dress makes his breasts look bigger, somehow, front and center and demanding attention. His tattoo peeks out from the plunging neckline.
It's the kind of outfit he'd never let Bobby see him in, the kind of thing that would have gotten John Winchester calling him girls like that. He thinks about when he'd tried on that red lipstick, how he'd looked at himself in the mirror and thought, Stripper.
He buys the dress.
He rents a motel room outside of Sioux Falls and spends the next two hours painstakingly (and sometimes bloodily) shaving his legs. When he's done, he feels like a plucked chicken, smooth and alien, and it's weird how much just that changes the way he moves, the way he walks. He lines his eyes next, and breaks out the things he hadn't messed with too much before, the mascara, the eyeshadow. He's shaky and unpracticed, but he does his best. The addition of the lipstick feels like sealing it with a kiss.
The guy that takes him home doesn't care what his name is, or how cool his taste in drinks is, or even how much time Dean spent trying to make himself look like a centerfold. He's not taller than Dean, but he's broader, and his hands are thick and rough and perfect when they peel Dean out of his little red dress like peeling the sticker off an apple.
He's crossing a line. He's crossing every line there is. But his mind won't settle until he knows what's on the other side of it.
He's never had sex with a man. He doesn't count what him and Lee used to do together sex, 'cause that was just hand stuff. Plenty of straight guys mess around sometimes, and then they get over it, Dean thinks. He's never let a guy fuck him, is the point. He let a girl stick her finger in his ass once, when she was blowing him, and he'd liked that enough he couldn't really look her in the eye after, but that was nothing like getting fucked.
He has the presence of mind to make sure the guy puts on a condom. Everything after that defies logic. Dean's strong. He's fought any number of supernatural assholes bare-handed. He ought to fight when he's shoved to his back on the bed, but he goes down like dead weight, the springs creaking riotously under him. The guy kneels over him, the mattress dipping, and unbuttons his fly, the sound of the sinking zipper drawing a shiver down Dean's spine. The guy doesn't bother with Dean's bra beyond tugging it down to his ribs. His breasts spill out, the straps sliding over his shoulders, and he must make a face, 'cause the guy laughs, and gives one a squeeze. Dean's skin is so hot he thinks he must be the same shade of red as his lipstick. He hikes Dean's legs up over his hips and bends him wherever he wants, tugging his panties to the side. The elastic presses against Dean's clit. He whines without meaning to.
"Yeah. You want this fat cock?" It should sound stupid, this garbage porno talk, but Dean's answering without thinking, Yeah, yeah I want it. Give it to me. Come on, please. He doesn't want to ask about Dean's feelings, he doesn't want to interrogate why Dean's there, letting someone manhandle him and call him a slut. It's simple. Straightforward. It's so easy to just fall back and let this happen.
The guy grabs his dick and presses the head against him. He shouldn't go so fast, Dean thinks wildly. I've never done this before. It startles an unsteady laugh out of him, until the press of that hard, blunt length breaches him and punches the air from his lungs. He looks down, eyes round. His dick doesn't look big, but it feels huge. Is it gonna fit? He doesn't realize he's asked that out loud until the guy laughs, looking proud of himself. He pushes in deeper. Every time Dean thinks there's no way he can get any fuller, he does. He has no idea how to describe the feeling. He has no frame of reference for this. When he finally bottoms out, Dean's head falls back, his eyes pricking with tears, not from pain or pleasure, but just sheer sensory overload. He's overwhelmed.
The guy moves. Dean moves with him.
When he finishes, he ties off the condom and tosses it in the trash. The guy yanks his pants back up. He hadn't even taken his shoes off. Dean tugs his underwear back into place. He didn't come, but he feels like he got what he was looking for anyway. He's got the same deep-tissue burn he feels after spending all night digging up graves, just in different places. He thinks he'll sleep tonight about as well as he would after a few drinks. Getting fucked by a stranger: just what the doctor ordered.
As soon as he staggers outside, Dean feels lighter. He got what he wanted. Now he knows exactly what it feels like from this end. He's satisfied his curiosity, and now he can keep moving forward. He doesn't regret it. He doesn't even feel ashamed of himself, even though he thinks logically he ought to. It takes him a few steps before his legs feel steady, but the night air is cool and easy, and he feels light enough for it to pass right through him. It's a mile or two back to where his car is parked, lack of foresight on his part, but he doesn't mind.
He's jogging across the deserted street when he spots the squad car, just a second too late. It doesn't flash its lights or turn on its siren. It just creeps up on him, trailing him at a turtle's pace before it catches up. He draws his arms tighter around his body. If some pig tries to pick him up for jaywalking at three in the goddamn morning he's gonna hit something.
The window rolls down. He keeps his eyes trained to the front.
"Evening, miss," says the cop. Dean's a little surprised to hear a woman's voice. "Kinda late to be out, huh?"
"Just tryna get home, Officer," Dean says. He knows he doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to law enforcement, and wills himself to keep the backtalk to a minimum. He just wants to get back to his car. Just let him get back to his car without anyone else seeing him, please.
"Need a ride? I'd be happy to take you the rest of the way."
The wind caresses his bare legs. The back of Dean's neck prickles as he remembers how he's dressed, what he must look like.
Jesus. Jesus, if Bobby has to bail him out because he got taken in for— no, no fucking way.
"That's all right. Not too far, now."
"You live on this block?"
Dean breathes in slow, trying not to look as freaked as he feels. At least if he gets taken in, they probably won't match him to his existing arrest warrants, looking the way he does.
"No, ma'am, but my car's parked a ways up the road."
"Not trying to go all mom on you," the policewoman says, "but it'll make me feel better if I make sure you get there in one piece."
Yeah, Dean thinks, likely fucking story. You'll tell me to hop in the back, where the doors don't open from the inside, and next thing I know I'm using my one phonecall and Bobby's asking me why Roxanne had to go and put on the red light.
"Look, it's really not far, and I—" Dean turns to plead with her and stops dead. The car drifts another couple inches before it brakes. "Jody?"
Sheriff Jody Mills squints at him in the dim light through the open window. "Have we met?"
Dean winces. Shit, shit, shit, if he'd have just kept his mouth shut— "Uhh." Shit. She's gonna know who he is as soon as she sees the car, anyway. "No."
"Right," Jody says. It's dark out, and Dean's dressed like a hooker, so he can't blame her for not recognizing him. He really wishes he'd kept his stupid mouth shut. "Why dontcha hop in?"
Dean swallows, his throat dry. Jody's lips purse, her chin wrinkling.
"Front seat, dear," she says softly. "You're not in trouble."
Dean walks woodenly to the opposite side of the car. He is in trouble. Just not the kind Jody thinks he's in. He lowers himself into the passenger side, smoothing his dress down over his legs. Jody flicks on the overhead light. Dean winces away from it.
"Okay, yeah, look— this is, um, it's gonna be kinda hard to explain—"
Jody leans back, giving him space. Dean pictures himself through Jody's gaze, a billboard with haunted eyes and the number for a hotline for victims of human trafficking. An unsteady laugh escapes him.
"I'm Dean Winchester."
Jody shifts in her seat, the rustle of polyester on vinyl. Her mouth opens, then hangs there, silent.
"I'm a hunter?"
Jody's jaw works. Her head cocked, she asks, "Bobby Singer's boy?"
Dean's ears burn. He nods once, sharply.
"You wanna run that one by me again?"
"A witch hit me with a curse, I'm stuck like this for a couple weeks, yadda yadda yadda, it's no big deal, really." He tosses his hands up. "There you go. So you don't need to go bustin' down any doors lookin' for—I mean, I can prove it, just take me back to my car, I've got, you know, all my stuff's in the trunk. I'm headin' back to Bobby's soon. And if we could just… never, ever mention this to him, or anyone else, that would be—that'd be fuckin' fantastic, yeah?"
Jody is frowning down at her hands where they grip the wheel. She breathes, puzzling through it.
"A witch turned you…"
"Into a chick, yeah, hilarious move on her part. Are we good?"
"And the spell made you look like…"
Dean's face burns. "N—Does—I mean, what does it matter, it's just. It's a thing! It happened! Look, can I go? Please? Can we both just go and forget we ever saw each other? Jesus."
Jody runs her hand over her mouth, then sucks in a breath. "Where's your car parked?"
"That bar up the street," Dean says, tight-lipped, shoulders up to his chin. The cruiser eases into drive, creeping along the empty road.
Jody pulls her squad car into a space, just down the way from where the Impala is still parked. The engine idles. She studies her hands on the wheels. Dean can feel that she's not finished with him yet, so he stays where he is, knuckles clenched tight in his jacket.
"You probably don't need me to give you a lecture about being careful, huh?" She looks over at him, stern lines at the corners of her mouth.
"I got an arsenal in the trunk," Dean says. "I think I'm good, Sheriff."
"That's not what I mean, and you know it." She scratches her fingers back through her hair, stopping where her ponytail pulls it tight. "I. You know you can do whatever you want with your life, right? You don't have to wait for… for something crazy like a witch to come and give you an excuse."
Dean looks at her. Something in his face makes her put up her hands, placating.
"You can take that however you want. I just think… I mean, I've known Bobby a long time. Maybe not as long as you, but I've heard how he talks about you and your brother when you're not around. And I know if my son—" Jody sucks in a breath, and it shudders out on the exhale. "I don't know how you're imagining it's gonna go, but if you're worried about what Bobby'll say, you shouldn't."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Dean huffs. "And Bobby's not my dad."
"Okay," Jody says.
His own voice repeats itself in Dean's head, on a loop. Bobby's not my dad.
And he's right. He's right, but he's not sure what he means by it anymore.
"Okay," Jody says again, more firmly. "You been drinking, Dean?"
"I'm good to drive," Dean says, eyes fixed out the window. Aside from him and Jody and the Impala, the parking lot is empty, and the windows of the bar have gone dark. He can see the moon over the treeline, a round, yellow clockface. His time isn't anywhere close to up, not yet.
"You got your phone on you?"
Dean turns to look at her, then, feeling some of the calm weariness seeping back into his limbs. He sees her more clearly now, without his heart in his throat. It's been around a year since they met, on what he can guess was probably the worst day of Jody's life, because that's usually the case in his line of work. He hasn't asked if she's been all right, but he can guess that too. She's working the night shift, with new lines by her mouth and dark circles under her eyes, and she's wasting her time worrying about his dumb ass.
He pulls his cell out of his jacket and lets her program her number into it. When she hands it back, she looks satisfied, relieved Dean is allowing her to care. He ducks his head, steadying his breath before he steps out of the car.
Jody waits for him to start his car and drive away before she follows. He's popped a different tape into the deck for the drive back, one of the ones Dad would only listen to when he was real quiet and feeling sorry for himself, because Mom had loved it. Judy Collins croons, low and rambling, and then jubilant, Ready as a man to be born, only to be born again, and again and again and again. Hello! Hooray! Let the show begin, I'm ready...
Taking it slow over the gravel drive, he parks a good distance from the leaning structure of Bobby's house, among the gutted frames of junked cars. No lights are on inside. He slips in the back, creeps his way up the stairs, the house settling around him. He locks the door of the bathroom behind himself. The red dress crumples to the floor like discarded Christmas paper. He boils himself in the shower and lets all the black drip down his cheeks, onto his chest and belly, trickling down his silky smooth legs and down the drain. He feels purified, like sucking poison out of a snakebite.
Clean and dressed in different clothes, he puts on a pot of coffee. It's nearly dawn anyway. When Bobby tromps his way down the creaking stairs and comes into the kitchen, he gives Dean a measured look.
"Where you been all night?"
Dean smiles and hands him a mug. "Working."