Title: Six Times the Winchesters Met Someone of Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual Orientation
Author: Silverkitsune1
Summary: The title pretty much sums it up.
Warnings: Spoilers through All Hell Breaks Lose Part I
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own Sam, Dean or the world of the Supernatural. I do however lay claim to all the OCs that show up in here.
Author's Note 1: Bonus points and a big cookie to anyone who recognizes the young adult author I threw in here. Because I'm fun like that.
Author's Notes: Big thanks to Christie as always for the beta, and who created a line that we just had to see come out of Dean's mouth. Also, a big thanks to consandcritters hte LJ group. The people there are solid gold and wonderful.
1.
There were three Del Toro brothers. The oldest was Jose who Dean put around eighteen, followed by Benicio who Dean guessed was somewhere around sixteen. Gustavo was the youngest at thirteen maybe fourteen. Sam found the three of them trapped in the back of a mountain troll's cave on their way to becoming lunch meat, and while Dean was busy putting a round of bullets into the hairy thing's ass Sam dragged the lot of them to safety.
There were a fair amount of cuts and bruises covering the three Del Toros, but no one had received a knock to the head and they were all able to walk under their own power. It made the hike down the mountainside stress free and almost enjoyable.
Sam stood guard at the rear of their little party, and Dean took the position of leader. He could hear Sam speaking to Jose and Benicio, and while he was unable to pick out the individual words and sentences he knew the conversation was filled with reassurances, and half truths.
Gustavo walked next to Dean. Or at least he did after a half an hour of cautiously dogging the hunter's steps, moving close to Dean's side and then shyly falling back.
The sun was rising over the hills and the early morning chill made the hairs on Dean's arms rise. The sweat from the hunt weighed down his shirt and he craved a shave, a shower and a warm meal.
"That was really cool," Gustavo said from Dean's left shoulder. "When you killed that thing. It was really cool."
Dean nodded, and gave the teenager a tired smile. "Thanks."
The trail got choppy, and Dean's focus shifted to his feet so he missed the blush that flushed through Gustavo's face.
Gustavo began to talk after that. Hesitantly, he told Dean where in Virginia they were from. He told him that it had been Jose's idea to go camping, and how none of this would have happened if they'd just gone to Busch Gardens and ridden the roller coasters like he and Benicio had wanted to do.
Dean nodded in all the right places. He asked the kid about school and his friends and then moved onto baseball trivia when Gustavo mentioned that he played.
"We're the Tigers, and we sort of suck, but I play third base."
It was the baseball topic that really got Gustavo going, and the teenager's hesitant speech mutated into full blown chatter. It was a state of being that had Dean comparing the chubby teenager to the cubby 12 year old Sam had been once upon a time. When the words came so fast they began to blur together Dean playfully nudged Gustavo with his shoulder. "Jesus, take a breath!"
Gustavo's smile practically glowed.
2.
"I'm not saying this out loud, Sam."
"Why not?"
"Because it's stupid."
"You asked me what I thought you should say if someone hits on you. That's what I think you should say."
"You honestly think I should say, 'While I respect your lifestyle and appreciate the courage it takes to be out in the world today, I myself prefer the company of women.' You think I should say that?"
"Yeah."
"You're full of it."
"Dean, it's just a gay bar. You're not going to get jumped or anything. No, means no in the gay community too. Don't be so freaking homophobic."
"I'm not homophobic! I saw Brokeback Mountain. I rooted for the gay cowboys."
"You're a regular Harvey Milk, big brother."
"Who?"
"Never mind."
"Sam, I don't mind if some guy looks. If I were gay, and I saw me, I'd look too. What am I supposed to say if someone does more than look?"
"Just tell him the same thing you'd tell a girl you weren't interested in."
"There's no such thing as an uninteresting girl, Sammy."
"Just read the paper I gave you."
3.
Ashley was three years old, and she was a cute little thing with long black bangs that flopped over her eyes, and teeth that Dean bet would eventually get fitted with a pair of braces. She was an only child, and she was adopted. Well, Dean assumed she was adopted, and unless it had become possible for two black guys to give birth to a Chinese girl he'd say it was a pretty good assumption.
Her fathers (the William-Blakes, the Blake-Willams or 'just Alex and Joseph, please' depending on who was making the introductions), discovered a ghost in the living room two weeks ago. The ghost wasn't violent, yet, but it had been keeping everyone awake with incessant piano playing, and they wanted it gone. Dean was up for any gig that allowed him to set things on fire, and the William-Blakes, Blake-Willams insisted on paying them in clean beds and home-cooked meals.
The house was in the suburbs, and Dean mentally cringed at the sight of so many cookie-cutter lawns, attached to cookie-cutter houses, filled with cookie-cutter people, living cookie-cutter lives. Sam gave the block a wistful once over, and then followed Dean up the front steps.
The first floor of the house was no different than any of the other suburban dwellings Dean had seen. It was the second floor, wallpapered from floor to ceiling with Ashley's drawings that got their attention. Dozens of construction paper squares had been colored with markers and watercolors, colored pencils and crayons. None of them showed anything specific. Some possessed no rhyme or reason while others had found balance between swirling colors and sharp-edged shapes. They reminded Dean of sunsets. Sam muttered something about abstract art as he peered curiously at a bright yellow and white stripped one that hung on Ashley's bedroom door.
When Dean, desperate for topics that made appropriate small talk, brought them up over dinner Alex laughed in a jittery nervous way that made Dean wonder if he'd accidentally said the word "porn" instead of "daughter's drawings."
"They're souls," Ashley announced, beaming. "I drew them. That one is Daddy's, and that one is Daddy's."
"We can't figure it out either," Joseph said to Dean's bewildered look. But Alex laughed nervously again, and Dean noticed the way Joseph's hand tightened over the knife he was using to cut his daughter's meat.
"They're all very pretty," Sam said to the little girl. Sam's smile went all the way to his eyes, and no one was surprised when Ashley decided to make him her new best friend.
The ghost was easy enough to evict, and even though they'd been forced to dig up the garage floor no one complained. Before they left, Ashley presented Sam with a picture full of blues, greens and dark purples that she'd dipped in glue and gold glitter.
"Yours," she said pressing her still sticky hand to Sam's chest. "You can keep it. 'Cause it's yours."
"Very cool. Thank you," Sam said, and crouched next to the girl. There was a second drawing underneath the first, and the two pieces of artwork had to be peeled away from one another since the glue on the second paper hadn't had time to dry before the first had been stacked on top. "Is this one for Dean?"
The second drawing was an amalgam of reds, oranges, yellows, greens and pinks with a variety of glittery glue drawn triangles floating lazily across the square of paper.
Ashley blew her bangs out of her eyes, and nodded.
4.
There was no wind. No howling voice sprinted across the cabin's wood paneling or banged against the heavy wooden door. There was just the snow, a calm ocean of white. Dean didn't think they'd be able to look at it once the sun rose. Light caromed off drifts taller than him, taller than Sam, taller than the cabin would be blinding.
Dean wasn't cold. The five space heaters hummed mosquito like, and the fire bristled and snarled as it gnawed through the dry wood. He sat close to the fire, and his hands, wrapped around a delicate china tea cup, were uncomfortably warm.
"My Eve, she's good at what she does," Vidhi reassured him. The short woman's own hands traveled from head to fingerboard to soundhole as she worked to tune a well loved guitar. She twisted its pegs, and plucked the strings experimentally. Dean expected that the distraction was the only thing keeping her hands from shaking.
"Eve blew through nursing school. I almost fainted the first time I saw a cadaver, and Eve, she'd been standing next to me, she shoved her smelling salts under my nose, and then started asking questions about the nervous system. I tease her about it. I tell her she was Florence Nightingale in a past life or something. My girl, she knows what she's doing. She'll do everything she can."
Dean tipped the cup from left to right, and watched the amber liquid slide up and down the clean white sides.
Vidhi, her guitar finally tuned, began to play a slow moving melody that Dean wasn't familiar with. It lulled him, and made his tired body ache for sleep.
The tune ended abruptly when the door at the other end of the room creaked open.
There was blood on Eve's hands. The woman looked tired, and massaged her temples as she crossed the room with quick strides.
"Can you give your brother blood?"
Dean hated the question. It always required him to give the same disappointing answer.
"No. I don't match."
Vidhi abandoned the guitar, and swung her feet off the couch. "Time for the universal donor to save the day."
Dean followed the two women; both of them old enough to be his mother, but when they reached the door Eve turned sharply and pressed her hand against his chest. Dean's mouth went dry. "How bad?"
Eve shook her head, her hand already closing around the door knob. Dean caught a glimpse of Sam as the door was pulled closed, and the sight made what little heat he'd accumulated from the fire was lost and his guts turned to ice.
5.
The guy's name was Brent, and he was a writer (or maybe he'd said pastry chef) and his partner's name was Michael (or had it been Mario?) and he ran a web site (or maybe it was a dojo). Dean hadn't paid much attention during introductions.
Sam hung between them, just teetering on the edge of consciousness, with his head resting on Brent's (Brian's? Bartleby's?) shoulder. The younger hunter was covered in a thick purple slime that flattened his hair, and soaked his clothes, but both the author (pastry chef?) and his web page running (dojo owning?) partner were covered in the same stuff.
"Hey Sammy," Dean said with a grin. The gun was still warm in Dean's hand, and he slid the piece into the waiting holster before lifting his little brother's head up to meet his eyes. "You're dripping with goo."
Dean laughed, but he didn't feel too weird about it since Brent the pastry making author (because maybe Dean had hear both and the guy was just really good at multitasking) snorted a little, though the snort may just have been him blowing purple goo out of his nose. Sam, glassy eyed and fading didn't respond.
"Give him to me," Dean said.
"I think you should take him to the hospital," Michael (Mitch?) responded, helping to transfer Sam over to his brother's hold.
Dean hooked his arms under Sam's arm pits. His younger brother's knees buckled and he toppled forward, nothing but dead weight in Dean's arms, his nose pressed into Dean's neck.
"I liked your book," Sam mumbled.
"Sammy, it's me."
"Oh. Tell him I liked his book."
Dean rolled his eyes.
"Ah, thanks for the help guys," Dean said fighting to find a better grip. Ribbons of purple sludge hung off the two men. One of the ribbons snapped and hit the concrete with a wet slap.
Sam slipped and Dean's own knees buckled in his attempt to keep him upright. "That stuff should wash right off. It's not toxic or anything."
The two men exchanged a glance.
"Our car is that way." Dean nodded to the left. "But it was nice meeting both of you."
6.
If Alana was single it would have been Sam who caught her eye, and it would have been because of his hands. Alana had a slight thing for hands, and she couldn't help but admire Sam's. The man had broad palms with long callused fingers that could encircle other hands or skirt their way around shoulders and waists with ease. But Alana wasn't single, and while she still had a smile for Sam it was born out of exhaustion and deep gratitude. Sitting in the back of a large black car, the name and model unfamiliar, she took several slow deep breaths.
The dog (and it had been a dog damn it), had left her legs covered in long shallow scratches. The cuts no longer bled, and Alana could already feel the itch that came along with the healing. She'd done worse to herself shaving her legs.
"You doing OK?" Sam asked. One of the streetlights momentarily lit the man's face, and Alana saw sincere concern molding Sam's features.
"Peachy," Alana said. She pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. It was supposed to be purple, but her natural hair color had made the final product look black. The only time it appeared was when she was in direct sunlight and the light would ripple through her locks and show off the color.
"Where am I turning?" Dean asked.
"Next street," Alana informed him. "Queenscove. It's the third house on the block."
"Your girlfriend going to be there?" Sam asked. "We can take you somewhere else if she's not."
"No, she's there. I called her."
She was on the front porch when they pulled up, and Alana was out of the car in a heartbeat.
Her girlfriend's warm hands went to Alana's face, tracing the cut that decorated her forehead. Blonde hair tickled Alana's nose as hands wound around her back, pulled her close and rested at the base of her tail bone
"Are you ok?" Lily asked. Alana could feel the cross her girlfriend always wore digging into her breastbone, but she didn't move from the safe space created by Lily's soft palms, and delicate white fingers.
"Yeah. I'm great."
