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Dean is six years old when John rips his favorite teddy bear from his little hands and replaces it with a gun.
Dean’s eyes well up with tears as he tries to push the gun back into his dad’s hands and take his beloved bear back. John holds the teddy bear out of reach behind his back and says, “No.”
The bear is raggedy, fur matted over on one arm from where Dean used to chew on it. It’s missing one eye and white stuffing puffs out a tear along its left side. The bear is well loved. It’s the only thing of Dean’s that survived the fire, and that’s only because it had been left in the Impala the day before. That was part of the reason Dean couldn’t sleep that night, why he’d pushed himself out of bed and creeped down the hall in time to see his mother burn and for his father to shove Sammy into his arm and shout, “Run!”
Tears track down Dean’s cheeks as he whimpers. He wants his bear back.
John shakes his head and tosses the bear onto the kitchen counter. They’re staying at a small house this time. Dean misses his old house. He misses his room and his toys and his mom.
“Cut it out,” John grits, nudging Dean hard on the shoulder and ushering him toward the back door. It’s not the first time he’s said the words like that, but it’s this moment that he’ll remember in stark clarity as the beginning. “You’re too old for toys like that now. Can’t be soft like that anymore. Gotta start teaching you how to protect yourself. And Sammy.”
Always Sammy.
Dean continues to cry as John sets up cans in a line. He cries silently as John shows him how to use the small gun and take aim. He cries as he manages to shoot every can. When he looks up at his father, he finds him smiling. Dean wipes his face with the back of his hand.
“Good job, Dean. Knew you were ready for this.”
***
Dean is forty-three with a sewing needle in his hand. He sits at the big kitchen table that he built himself. Sunlight streams in golden rays from the window over the sink.
Dean sticks the needle into Marvelous Marvin, the Talking Teddy. There’s a tear running up its side, from where it caught on something yesterday, stuffing puffing out. He carefully pokes the white fluff back in and moves the needle deftly in and out, closing up the wound with practiced ease. He’s been doing this gig a long time. It’s nice to get to stitch something back up without the smell of copper and whiskey in the air.
He sets the teddy bear down in front of Jack’s seat and gives ol’ Marvin an affectionate pat before turning to rummage through the cabinets and set out the supplies he’ll need for Jack’s cake.
This is the second cake he’s ever made for Jack. The first was a questionable-looking first try after the whole Mrs. Butters incident. He’d never baked a cake before! And it hadn’t even been Jack’s real birthday. When his birthday did come around a few months later, no one really felt like celebrating much, least of all Dean. They’d been in the thick of trying to get Cas back from the Empty, hitting dead end after dead end. Dean’s not too proud of how he acted then. He’d blown off the kid completely, said there was no point in celebrating anything, even if the world was saved now.
He’s been trying to do better since then.
From upstairs, two pairs of feet shuffle into the hall and down the creaking stairs. Dean hears the indistinct murmur of their voices as they descend and approach the kitchen.
“Mornin’ birthday boy!” Dean exclaims, turning around just as Jack and Cas fill up the archway into the kitchen. Jack grins, his eyes quickly finding his beloved teddy bear.
“Marvin!” He rushes over to the table and picks him up, holding the stuffed animal to his chest. “Oh, you fixed him!”
“Sure did,” Dean nods. Cas leans against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest, and watches them fondly. Dean picks up a whisk and holds it out to Jack. “C’mon, kid. You’re helping me with this. Gonna teach you how to bake.”
“Really?” Jack says with wonder. “I get to help?”
“‘Course you do. Cas, too. Get over here.” He waves his hand beckoning his husband to join them. “You don’t get to just stand there lookin’ pretty.”
Cas rolls his eyes with affection and pushes up off the doorframe. Dean hands him a measuring cup.
There are no guns, no rows of cans, no tears here.
When Jack gets the hang of using the whisk and the mixer Dean pats him on the shoulder and grins. “Good job, Jack. Knew you could do it.”
***
Dean is eight when he sees a commercial for an Easy Bake Oven. His eyes go big with wonder and excitement. He always loved when his mom would bake him pies and cookies and cupcakes. He misses those special treats. Living out of motels means they don’t get a chance to cook much anymore, but the little oven on the TV screen could move around with them.
He watches as the kids bake little cakes and cookies. He doesn’t notice that the kids are all girls. He doesn’t notice that the oven is pink. He grins and says to Sammy, “We should get one!” From the table by the window, John stops tinkering with his guns and listens. “I could make us little cakes!”
Sammy grins back. “Oooh, yeah!”
Dean turns to his dad, his small round face split wide with an eager grin. This is a good idea, he thinks. Dad will like this. I’ll be able to make more stuff for Sammy. I can take better care of him.
“Can we get one, Dad?”
He knows he’s messed up when he sees the way his dad’s eyes harden and the muscle in his neck jumps out a little as he clenches his jaw. “No.”
Dean should let it go, he should, but he doesn’t understand. Why is dad angry? “But it’s small! We can take it on the road—”
“Cut that shit out, Dean .” The words splash over Dean like icy water. Dean’s little smile falls off his face. Bad, bad, he thinks. I’m doing something wrong again. “That’s a fucking girl’s toy,” John says.
And oh.
John gives him the look, the one Dean knows well, the one that makes him think Oh, Dad doesn’t like this. He’s looking at me funny again. Gotta stop doing this thing. Can’t let Dad know I like this thing. Dad doesn’t like me when I’m like this. Need Dad to like me.
He curls into himself. The commercial ends and John doesn’t say another word, the sound of hands reassembling guns filling Dean’s ears.
By the time Dean’s ten he’ll already know how to work a real oven and when he’s older he’ll learn those Easy Bake Ovens weren’t worth shit. But at eight, he yearns for a chance to make something. To use his hands for more than aiming a gun at a target. He doesn’t understand what’s so wrong about that. But he learns. He learns to keep his soft underbelly hidden from his dad’s cutting eyes.
***
Dean is eleven when he uses the grocery money to buy pink strawberry milk powder—they were out of chocolate and Sammy didn’t want regular milk—and half-priced Easter candy. John’s been gone for four days.
Dean’s mixing the pink powder into the milk when the motel room door bangs open and John staggers in. He has a bloody gash on the side of his forehead and tracks mud in from his caked boots.
At the foot of the bed, Sammy sits watching the TV and eating sticky, bright pink Peeps. Dean immediately tenses and shoves the container of pink powder behind his back, turning around to lean against the kitchenette counter.
“D-dad,” he stutters. “You’re back.”
John collapses into one of the chairs at the wobbly table by the window. “First aid kit,” he says, peeling his weary eyes open to pierce Dean with a hard, assessing stare. Those eyes spur Dean into action as he darts away from the counter without thinking and scrambles for the first aid kit in his duffle.
John’s dark eyes continue rove across the room, not missing a thing. When Dean approaches his dad with the kit, John gazes straight past him to the counter where the incriminating milk sits. Dean’s muscles lock up the minute he realizes. He waits for the rebuke but this time it doesn’t come.
But John doesn’t need to say it. Just one look at Dean hears the words ping around the inside of his skull. Cut that shit out. Cut it out!
He stands there frozen for what feels like forever but is probably only mere seconds. He stands there, mind racing frantically with the familiar mantra of, Dad doesn’t like this. He’s looking at me funny again. Gotta stop. Dad doesn’t like me when I’m like this. Need Dad to like me.
He should know better by now really, and that’s what gets Dean the most. He feels a sick wave of nausea roll through his too-empty belly but pushes the feeling aside long enough to help patch his dad up.
“Sam, stop eating that shit,” John grunts as Dean tucks the kit back into his duffle. Sam cries out as John yanks the Peeps from his small hand and chucks them into the trash bin by the door. “And dump that milk,” he tells Dean, collapsing roughly on the second bed. “Shit’s full of sugar. Waste of fucking money. Idiot. ”
With trembling hands Dean takes the glass into the bathroom and dumps it down the drain. He shuts the door, already hearing John’s snores on the other side, and sinks down onto the sweaty linoleum, finally letting the sickness wash over him. Drawing his knees to his chest and burying his face in his arms Dean cries silently over the stupid pink milk, nails digging into his arms, teeth biting down hard on his cheek to keep from making a sound. The pain makes him feel better, ground him. It’s punishment. He deserves the sting of it for messing up. Again .
***
They frost the cake pink, made with real strawberries, no food dye. Dean’s got all the proper tools, special frosting knives and a cake stand that spins.
Jack laughs as Dean shouts, “Weee!” spinning the cake and following the motion with his frosting knife. They dump rainbow sprinkles all over and sparkly ones too that Cas brought home the other day. They look like glitter and Dean’s a little skeptical about whether or not they’re really edible, but Jack’s face lights up when he sees them, so Dean will risk possibly eating real glitter if it makes his kid happy.
As they frost and sprinkle and glitter the cake, Jack rambles on and on about Riverdale and Archie. Dean’s not too crazy about the show, but he and Cas listen with rapt attention as Jack explains the latest storyline and describes Archie’s outfits in a little too much detail. It’s cute. He has a crush.
Dean remembers being twelve and first starting to figure himself out. He remembers watching Scooby-Doo and telling Sammy that Fred was his favorite.
John hadn’t liked that very much. Grunting from his perpetual post stripping guns at the motel-of-the-week’s dining table he said, “Fred’s a damn queer.”
Dean can still feel the phantom tension now, seize him. Cas shoots him a subtle but knowing look. His eyes asking, Are you alright? And he is, now. He’s okay. He’s safe in his home with his family.
But John’s ghost is an echo in his chest, squeezing a fist around the core of Dean, around the tender bruise on his heart that at twelve he’d only just begun to understand.
“But—Daphne—” Dean had stammered, desperate to prove his dad wrong, to keep him from looking too closely at all the wrong bits Dean still couldn’t quite cut out.
John grunted again, said something about that gay scarf around his neck and what real men wear, before waving a dismissive hand at the TV. “You’re too old to be watching cartoons anyway. Cut that shit out and help me strip these guns.”
Quietly, he’d responded, “Yes, sir.”
Across the kitchen island, Jack beams at Dean and says he wants to be just like Archie. And Dean remembers saying things like that too. Getting a little too excited about Han Solo, Patrick Swayze, Gunnar Lawless and dozens of other celebrity men and insisting he just really wanted to be like them. “Wanna drive the Millenium Falcon.” “Wanna get the girl.” “Wanna be strong and fight like him.”
When he said stuff like that, John didn’t look at him funny, didn’t tell him to cut it out . Wanting to be like men instead of just liking them was safe.
Dean reaches out and claps a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “It’s okay to just like him,” he says. Cas squints his eyes curiously, no doubt trying to parse out where Dean is going with this. “We like you just the way you are, kid. You don’t gotta be someone else.”
“I know!” Jack says, munching on some pastel colored M&Ms left over from Easter. “But Archie’s so cool. And I like how he dresses and his hair. Can I dye my hair? And he’s super strong and fit—”
Dean can’t help the small bubble of laughter that escapes his lips. “Yeah, yeah that’s called a crush, kid.”
Jack’s mouth drops open in a small, surprised ‘o’ shape. “Really? ”
Cas grins at them from across the island, the gummy nose-scrunching grin Dean loves. “He’s right, Jack. It sounds like you have a crush.”
“Wow,” Jack says with wonder, eyes glazed over in thought. When he lifts his gaze to dart between Dean and Cas he grins, wide and gap-toothed. “My first crush!”
Dean laughs and laughs, bright and warm and happy. Cas and Jack join in, their joy and love filling the kitchen and casting out the ghosts of dead fathers.
Later, when Sam and Eileen and Jody and Donna and the girls all come over Dean brings out the cake and lights five candles with the same silver lighter he used to light up bones.
He tells Jack to be careful as he leans forward, doesn’t want him to get burnt by the flames. It doesn’t matter that he’s a nephilim and can heal himself. He thinks about that time he walked in on Jack stabbing himself and shudders.
Dean knows pain. Dean knows punishment. Self-inflicted and not. He never, ever wants Jack to know that hurt. Never wants him to feel any pain again.
So he holds out a hand in warning to not get too close to the flames. It’s silly and overprotective, he knows. After the candles are blown out and wishes are made, Dean insists on cutting everyone a piece. He’ll wield the knife himself and make sure no one gets hurt.
***
At fourteen, Dean gets called ‘pretty’ outside a bar for the first time. It’s not a compliment. His hair has gotten longer, like Sam’s. Like this, it’s easier to see the blonde streaks. He likes it. Reminds him of his mom, golden silky threads.
John doesn’t hear the man that first time, but Dean does, and it scares the shit outta him because it’s proof that other people can see it—the wrongness. He’s failing. He’s not a real boy.
And he hasn’t really ever felt like the other boys his age. He’s tried to fit in at every new school, but it’s like they all know—there’s something off about him. Behind the rugged mask, behind the uncaring facade, he’s soft. He’s got that peach-bruise on his heart.
Another bar, another man—a hunter this time—jokes Dean’s got some mighty delicate features for a hun’er and Dean goes cold and ridged in his seat. He swallows tightly and blinks against the welling tears, because Dad’s looking at me. He’s looking at me like he wants to kill me. God, I need to get out of here, I need them all to stop looking—
Time slips away and the next thing he knows he’s being shoved roughly across the parking lot to the Impala, John’s fist around the collar of his flannel. “You’re a fucking embarrassment,” he grits, breath hot and sour with the stench of whiskey against Dean’s skin.
Dean knows better than to cry, but John’s grip tightens, catching and yanking on a few strands of hair and a pained whimper slips out.
“You’re cutting this shit when we get back to the motel,” he sneers, releasing his grip forcefully and flicking at Dean’s hair. “You look like a fucking girl.” Dean stumbles forward with the momentum, losing his balance and catching himself with a palm scraping rough against the asphalt.
In the bathroom that night, John holds the clippers to his scalp. Dean grips at the sides of the sink, head bowed. He can’t look at his face in the mirror. He keeps his eyes on the linoleum instead, watching as long tufts of golden hair fall at his feet.
When he alone after, crawling on his hands and knees to clean up the mess, he lets his tears fall, mingling with the strands. He sits on the floor for a long time, flicks out his pocket knife and tries to really cut at that overripe spot in him.
Sam’s hair gets to stay long, of course. Dean keeps his cropped short for a long, long time. The men don’t stop calling him pretty, but Dean starts to let his face get caught in fist fights. He wears the scrapes and bruises like a badge. Hopes they make him look tough. Cool. Like in the movies.
***
Dean is at the tail end of sixteen when John finds out.
He comes home early and finds Sam alone in the motel room. He’s pissed. When Dean walks through the door at 2 AM John is sitting in the dark at the table by the window.
“Where were you?” His voice is steady, level, so Dean knows this is gonna be bad. It’s always easier when he shouts. It’s easier when he’s drunk and staggering. The fists never land good, then.
Dean doesn’t answer right away. He’s got three hundred dollars burning a hole in his pocket, his body’s sore and his jaw aches. He doesn’t want to do this right now. At least Sammy’s asleep, but he won’t be for long if this turns into a shouting match.
John gets to his feet and walks over to Dean who’s still standing frozen in the open doorway. He’s pushed out onto the sidewalk by John’s advance, slow feet shuffling backwards. The door shuts behind them.
“Answer me, boy!” and Dean flinches away from his father. He just wants to sleep. It rained recently, slicking the parking lot so the asphalt shimmers like an oil spill under the neon vacancy sign. Dean keeps his eyes trained on those reflected lights as John speaks. “You leave Sam alone when you know what’s out there? What the hell’s the matter with you? You do this a lot, don’t you?” John stalks forward, hot breath and flecks of spit hitting Dean’s skin. Dean takes several steps back until he bumps against Baby and there’s nowhere left to go. “You leave Sam alone so you can go out and fuck around with some chick?”
Dean scoffs, turning his cheek. John’s eyes follow him. “You wanna know what I was doing?” he rasps, throat raw and fucked out. He cuts his gaze up from the oily neon puddles. “What do you think I was doing, huh?” Maybe he does need to get hit tonight. Maybe he needs to have another piece of this—this thing inside him knocked out. “Ask me!” he shouts, goading his father. “ Ask me what I was doing!? Ask me how I make enough money to feed us and pay for all of Sam’s shit.” Dean's nose clogs up. He tastes salt on his lips. “Ask me how I can make three hundred dollars in one night!”
And, yeah, Dad’s looking at me funny now. Oh, Dad doesn’t like this. Dad doesn’t like me. Dad won’t ever like me.
He wipes at his face, smearing snot and tears all around. “No,” he says bitterly. “No you don’t wanna know. Don’t wanna know about your fag son turning tricks!”
Across the parking lot a couple stops and stares. No one comes to stop this car crash. But John doesn’t shout. He doesn’t punch Dean's lights out. He just stares at him. Those same eyes that have been following him since he was six years old, when he first poked at the soft thing inside of him. It’s the look he always gives before he says it.
“Cut it out, Dean. ”
That’s all he says. That’s it. He stalks back into the room, leaving Dean sobbing in the parking lot.
They never talk about it again.
Sometimes Dean forgets his dad even knows about any of it. John doesn’t tell him to stop, doesn’t start leaving them with more money. They both go on pretending he doesn’t know a damn thing.
On Dean’s seventeenth birthday, though, he’s reminded of just how much his dad really knows about him.
It’s his first solo hunt. He should feel good about it, it should be a symbolic rite of passage. But all he feels is cold as he stands over the bones of two women who loved each other. It’s a test and lesson, he knows.
He doesn’t believe in Heaven or higher powers, doesn’t have faith in much beyond what he can see with his own two eyes, but he sends up a prayer to whatever may be out there that these women will find peace. That their souls may rest. He hopes there’s a place for him somewhere out there too.
He strikes the match and watches them burn. He feels a part of him burn with them.
***
When Dean meets Rhonda Hurley, he’s nineteen and on a solo case in Nevada. His whole world tips on its axis when she puts her satiny pink panties in his hand and tells him he can try them on if he’d like.
He rubs the fabric beneath his fingers. No one has ever asked him what he’d like, what he wants. He’s never had permission to want.
The fabric glides up his legs. He shivers at the sensation. Rhonda is all curvy and thick thighs so the panties actually cover him up, mostly. Dean steps up to the full length mirror beside her dresser, his arms wrapped around his torso, self conscious and shy. He lifts his eyes up his body, long legs dusted with fine golden hairs. Muscled thighs. The bulge of his crotch covered in shiny pink fabric. Rhonda comes up behind him, weaving her arms under his own and pulling them away from his chest.
“Don’t be shy, darlin’,” she coos. “You’re gorgeous.”
And—he is. His hair’s longer now. Been growing it back out. John can’t force him to cut it anymore. He’s not some kid.
Dean looks in the mirror, at long eyelashes and plush pink lips and high cheekbones and golden hair swooping over his forehead and for the first time in his life he thinks pretty, and it’s not an insult. The gauzy lamplight casts everything in a soft dreamlike glow. He feels warm and safe and happy.
His lower lip catches between his teeth, tongue poking out as he bites back a smile.
Rhonda grins at him in the mirror, hands cupping his pecs and shaking him. “Look at you!” she beams, peppering kisses up his neck.
And Dean looks. He looks.
And there’s no one there to tell him to Cut that shit out!
Instead, he stitches it in. This thing inside him, it’s satiny soft. It’s the pink shimmering center of him.
Rhonda lays him down on the bed, on top of soft silky sheets. She takes him apart slow, mouthing at pink panties, slipping them to the side to take him out, holding him in the circle of her fist as her tongue and lips work to draw soft sounds out of him he never knew he could make.
It’s never been like this before. Because this part of him has never been there before when he’s with other people.
She calls him pretty and gorgeous and sweetheart and darlin’. He preens at the attention and his whole body flushes pink to match now-ruined panties.
The next time John tells him to Cut that shit out, after a hunt gone wrong that left Dean too emotional, too soft, Dean remembers that person in the mirror. The soft shimmering pink of his heart. He’ll keep pretending for John and the world, but he won’t cut that out. Not anymore.
***
They all clamor into the living room after the cake’s been eaten to open presents. Gift after gift after gift is passed along to Jack who carefully peels back the wrapping paper and sets it aside. He’ll reuse it all for his crafts and scrapbooks.
There are a vast array of gifts, from books and concert tickets from Sam and Eileen, to video games, art supplies, and clothes from Jody, Donna, and the girls. Claire gets him a box of bright red hair dye saying with a wink, “So you can be just like Archie.”
Apparently Dean and Cas aren’t the only ones he’s rambled to about his crush.
Cas gifts him a mug he made in his pottery class. It’s light blue with “JACK” spelled out in yellow letters. There are fluffy clouds painted all over. The second part of his gift is a small handbag Cas crocheted and inside is filled with different pairs of earrings. Jack doesn’t have his ears pierced yet; that’s part of the gift too.
“Oh my gosh, thank you!” Jack exclaims, jumping up to throw his arms around Cas. Cas holds him tight, strong arms cradling his kid. Their kid.
Dean sniffs and swipes a thumb under his eyes. Shit . He fumbles with his gift bag, handing it over to Jack with a mumbled love you, kid.
Like with all the others, Jack carefully plucks the tissue paper out of the bag and sets it aside. He reaches into the bag and pulls out a cassette tape. The label reads, JACK’S TOP TRAXX.
Jack tilts his head to the side and peers up at Dean.
“It’s, uh, it’s a blank tape,” Dean explains, a self-conscious hand rubbing at the back of his neck. Maybe this is a lame gift. At least there’s a part two in the bag that he’s sure Jack will like. “I thought I could, uh, help you make your own mix. Put on your favorite songs so you got your own tape when we go for drives.”
Jack’s eyes glisten, or maybe that’s just Dean’s eyes making everything go watery. The next second he’s got Jack crashing into his chest, squeezing him tight. “Thank you,” he breathes.
Everyone in the room lets them have their moment. They all know what it means for Dean to relinquish control of the tape deck to someone else. The only other person who has music privileges is Cas.
Dean wraps his arms around his kid and holds him tight, swaying them both back and forth a little. “There’s something else in there too,” he whispers after a moment, nudging Jack back toward the gift bag.
Jack pulls out a pack of nail polish. There’s blue and purple and teal and pink. Claire painted Jack’s nails black the last time she visited and he’s been wanting to get more colors ever since.
Dean clears his throat. “Thought we could do this together too,” he says.
“Can we do it now?!” Jack asks, bursting with excitement.
Dean chuckles and nods. “Sure we can. It’s your birthday, after all. You call the shots, kid.”
So Dean sits down on the floor, legs criss-crossed—which will be hell on his knees and back later but he doesn’t care—and spreads his hands out on the coffee table. Claire scooches over to give Jack pointers and technique suggestions. Mainly, use your thumbs to swipe at the edges when you mess up, that’s what I do. She shrugs. Dean thinks it’s sound advice.
“What color do you want?” Jack asks.
Dean swallows around the lump in his throat, John’s voice rattling around in his head. “Pink,” he says, voice tight.
Jack nods. “A good choice.”
Cas joins them on the floor then, pressing up beside Dean and shooting him a fond, eye-crinkling grin. “A very good choice,” he agrees. “Beautiful,” he adds, pecking a quick kiss to Dean’s cheek. Dean tucks his chin down to his chest, hiding his bashful smile but slides his eyes to Cas anyway just so he can see.
The rest of the afternoon is spent with Jack painting everyone’s nails. After Dean’s he does Cas’s in blue. Then Sam and Eileen in matching purple. Jody and Donna go for alternating patterns of pink and teal. Dean paints Jack’s own nails, as he said they’d do this together. Jack wants pink to match Dean’s. He beams, putting both their hands side by side on the coffee table and exclaims, “We’re the same!”
Dean’s heart swells, soft and warm.
This is a birthday with no hunts. They haven’t been on one in a long, long time. There are no bones to burn here. No tests or lessons or punishments. There are no guns at the table. There are no targets to shoot at. No knives aimed at flesh. There’s nothing to cut out in this house. This is a home of hands that mend and make. Cas hooks and weaves his crochet needle. He shapes wet clay with strong fingers. They both bury hands in dirt, tending to their garden. Dean’s hands also knead dough and shape cookies. They hold whisks and spatulas now instead of weapons. His nails are painted bright pink. He uses his fingers to hold a needle and sew up his son’s teddy bear and replace missing buttons on his husband’s dress shirts.
John Winchester has been dead a long time and there is no one to tell Dean to cut anything out of himself. Over the years, that tender spot has grown, flourishing soft and overripe sweetness.
He has sewn himself back together with patient hands. He has mended the parts that had been cut into, torn up, stomped out, left to rot.
There are flowers on his kitchen table. There is a ring on his finger, given to him by a man he loves. He likes to cuddle and be held. He wears silky panties, sometimes for sex but mostly because he just likes them. His favorite show is a soap opera about a sexy man in cowboy boots. He likes tacky, patterned clothing. Fred is his favorite Scooby-Doo character, and the ascot is definitely a big part of the appeal. He enjoys baking and regularly comments on recipe blogs run by middle aged women. He paints his nails with his kid. He prefers his hair long. He’s forty-three years old and sometimes the shimmering pink center of him feels like a woman.
He doesn’t know what to call that. He knows there are words for it, knows that Jack sometimes feels that way too. Fluid, he thinks Jack said. Dean’s talked to Cas about it, in the quiet safety on their bed, head pillowed on Cas’s chest, long fingers running through Dean’s hair.
“I don’t wanna change anything, not really,” he murmurs the first time Cas asks him if he wants to be called something else or use different pronouns like they sometimes do with Jack when it’s a “they” day or a “she” day. “I’m good with all that. ‘Sides, I don’t really care what people call me.” He burrows into Cas’s chest. “Been called lots of shit my whole life. This isn’t about other people, or for them it’s just—”
“About how you feel,” Cas says, dancing his fingers up to cup at Dean’s jaw and turn his face toward him.
“Yeah,” Dean breathes. “It’s just—I just need to know it’s there, that part of me. That it’s real and exists and that I can just exist. Just be. Whatever that is. Just—be Dean.”
“I’ve seen it, you know,” Cas says, smoothing Dean’s hair back. “What you describe as the ‘shimmering pink center.’” He uses one hand to make air quotes. Dean grins and rubs his cheek against Cas’s chest, exasperated and fond, despite the well of emotion filling up inside him. “Your soul, at the core of it, at its center, is a burst of color, shifting and shimmering. When you’re at your happiest, when you’re at peace, it glows in colors humans cannot even perceive. Some of those shades are versions of pink. You know this already but it bears repeating, your soul is the most beautiful one I have ever seen, Dean.”
Dean’s breath hitches, wet trails sliding down his cheeks over his lips and down his chin as he surges up to kiss Cas. It’s too much sometimes, the things Cas says about him, the way he makes him feel.
He never wants to stop feeling it.
That first conversation ends with quiet acknowledgement, Dean giving himself permission to just be and know that with Cas, with his family, he’ll always be safe and free to just exist as Dean. And that—that feels like the first breath of new life.
Sometimes, still, like today—days that are heavy with memories of the past, days when Dean is trying hard to be better to his kid than John ever was to him—John’s voice will rattle around his head, that old ghost that will never quite leave him no matter how many times he burns its bones. It’ll whisper or shout or sneer, Cut that shit out! Cut it out, Dean. Cut it out!
But Dean’s gotten good at shutting it up. Nah, he sneers back, sarcastic and biting. I think I’ll sew it back in.
And he does, he does, he does.