Dee had come out as trans, as female and the world hadn't ended. The Winchester nack for document forging had given her ready access to estrogen and testosterone blockers and it had taken a while but by the time she'd finally managed to drop out of high school, by the time she eeked out her G.E.D. It had become that much easier to register as Deanna instead of Dean.
With affirmation came a price, John barely looked her in the eyes anymore. Even when it was just the two of them sitting up, packing salt rounds at insane o'clock at night, the distance was only growing. It's not like he'd ever been that much of a talker but now it barely happened at all. Occasionally though, Dee thought she caught him staring. Staring at her like she was about to burst into flames, like she was a riddle that he just couldn't solve, like he didn't know her at all.
In the past she'd always been on the same page as her Dad and she could still see herself growing up to be just like him. "Daddy's girl" may have been right but apparently it meant less to John than "first born son", less than "good soldier". Something she most assuredly was.
Things inevitably came to a head during a job. It was a nasty one, the sight of an old prison full of angry ghosts woken up by a re development deal. It had taken too long to research and there were people in danger in the mean time. So while John trusted Sam to do his thing and find the grave of the mean bastard of a warden who'd started the whole thing, Dee followed her father like she always had. To save people who didn't know any better.
It was not going well.
Very quickly running out of ammo, she felt like half a construction sight was sticking out of her left leg. Metal and dirt and blood tore through jeans and she felt worse with every step. Slowing down however, was not an option. Barley aiming anymore, she opened fire over her shoulder. The poor night guard who'd simply wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time stumbled and tripped, flinching at every blast as he struggled to keep up. Smacking a palm between his should blades Dee re doubled their pace.
"Speed up old man!" She yelled, her voice raged and half obscured by her own gunfire.
The guard, who must have easily been in his sixties, lost his footing, the effort of a chase that he'd never signed up for finally overwhelming him. By sheer force of will and a tight grip on his collar Dee hauled him up right and back to his feet.
"Can't keep..going..." He spat out breathlessly as they rounded a corner.
That meant shit to the spirit of Arthur Jackson, beaten to death by guards under the watchful eye of warden Taylor in 1964. Another chunk of masonry blasted their way, this time barley missing Dee's face. Metal and concrete shards ripped through her jacket and tore open gashes along her jaw. The guard let out a scream of terror and finally fell to the floor in a fetal huddle as Dee spat blood, the familiar metallic tang filling her mouth.
"Son of a bitch." She cursed through gritted teeth as she loaded her last two salt rounds and turned to face the monster.
She didn't often think about dying, despite the seeming inevitability of it. Despite how regularly it was only moments away. She didn't pause to regret or feel her life flash before her eyes as she blasted a hole in Arthur Jackson's spirit, only to watch it re form and scream on towards her, barley slowing down.
Inches from her face, the angry ghost blew apart again, blurring to the side as the thunder of her father's shotgun rang in her ears.
"DEAN GET DOWN!" John yelled, barrelling in to her, sweeping her to the floor and some how gathering up the night guard too. He let out two more blasts from his right hand as he dragged a bag of salt across the floor with his left.
Arthur Jackson's ghost slammed into an invisible wall, it's screams echoing through the half completed halls of the construction sight as Dee gathered her breath, winded by her father's life saving tackle. She barely had time to gather herself before a different kind of onslaught began.
"What the hell do you think you were doing?!" John demanded, face red, fist slamming in frustration against a convenient wall.
"That was sloppy and half assed! You should be dead! So should this guy!" He added, gesturing to the night guard.
Dee held his glare, she'd survived as narrowly as this far more times than she could remember. She'd used all her resources, her skill and yes all of her ammo but she was alive. It pissed her off but this was happening more and more lately. Her Dad was second guessing her decisions. On and off the job, it was happening again and again. Any decision she made was automatically stupid or nieve, simply because it was her decision. She was damed if she was going to take it, even if they were in the middle of a job and surrounded by monsters.
"Well we're not dead!" She spat back, whipping blood from her teeth with what remained of her jacket's sleave.
"I don't know if you noticed Dad but I actually saved this guy's ass perfectly well without your help!" Rising to her feet she balled the tattered remains of her jacket around her fist.
"I ran out of salt rounds because guess what !? There's kinda a lot of angry spirits in this place okay and I may have been missing a few cuts and bruises if my partner hadn't disappeared down a hallway half an hour ago in the middle of a fire fight!"
Favouring her uninjured right leg she limped toward the third story window across the hall and turned again to face John.
"You get the other guy?" She demanded curtly.
John slung his arm around the night guard, hauling him to his feet.
"Already dead." He replied, taking one more look over his shoulder at the screaming face of Arthur Jackson.
"Go team." Dee declared as she smashed her fist through the locked window.
Securing an extended length of fire hose that John passed her way, she tossed it out, watching it fall the relatively short distance to the alley bellow.
Helping her father and the terrified night guard out and down Dee slowly climbed to the ledge herself, wincing in pain and cursing at how long her left leg would inevitably take to heal. Looking down to the street then turning back to the spirit still screaming in her direction, she grinned and flipped off the ghost of Arthur Jackson, beginning her decent.
"Yippee ki yay mother fucker." She whispered bitterly under her breath.
It turned out that Sam barely needed the time he had to finally locate warden Taylor's body. Apparently without his father and sister he actually worked faster. After tending to a pissed off and uncooperative Dee, John dragged him out the same night to finish the whole thing. Still angry, Dee couldn't help but feel a twisted sense of satisfaction at the thought of her father finishing the night saddled with Sammy's bitch face. As far as she was determined to stay concerned, that night, he deserved two pissed off kids making his life hell.
A day later she was layed up in bed, the nasty gashes in her shoulder, face and more importantly her leg, washed, dressed and beginning, in earnest, to heal. She hadn't spoken to John since they got back to the motel, save for acknowledgements, delivered through pouts and gritted teeth that her bandages were fine and that yes she definitely didn't have a concussion. Her father's concern was maybe inevitable but it felt ironic given that she was still basically blaming him for winding up alone in the middle of a fire fight.
Sam had seen injuries worse than this more than a few times in his life, despite his age. So it was nothing particularly new but this time he was sticking to her side like a puppy. Firmly positioned, not in the twin bed across the room but instead in a less than comfortable looking chair that he'd dragged next to her. Apparently both Winchester siblings were going to give their father the cold shoulder.
As Sammy sat at her side, inexplicably engrossed in school work as he often seemed to be on a Saturday morning, Dee flipped through channel after channel of unsatisfying T.V. She knew that in reality what happened had been both their faults. Both their faults for not listening to each other, for not trusting each other like they used to. The short hand that had once to come so easily between them broken, broken because of the elephant in the room...her.
It wasn't like John spent his time repeating a hundred different cliches that you might expect from an ex marine from Kansas. It wasn't like he'd spent the last couple of years screaming no son of mine...! or f*gg#t. The fact that she was trans, that she was a girl, just hung uncomfortably between them without any resolution other than it's reality. She really didn't know what he thought about it.
It was a strange contrast to his increasingly frequent conflicts with Sam. On that subject they both knew exactly where their father stood. Sam hated hunting, REALLY hated it and John was determined that it be the only thing that mattered. Sam would train, Sam would hunt and that was that. With her it was almost the opposite, sure she worked jobs with him and she honestly thought that she wasn't a half bad hunter, in fact she kinda loved it but John pulled away from her on the subject. Both he and Bobby seemed honestly confused at her insistence, her passion for the job. It had only gotten worse the more she'd physically changed. She didn't think that she was so dramatically different to how she'd been two years ago, except that at the same time she was. If she really admitted it, the young woman she'd grown into wasn't what her Dad ever expected. Her appearance was androgynous mainly by virtue of the heavy jeans and the goodwill plaid she wore. They were just fine, practical for hunting but they were also the path of least resistance in a family that had never expected a daughter. Still, to look at her, outside as well as inside, she was clearly, definitively female. It made all the difference, her body was finally beginning to make sense but to John it was strange new territory that only served to separate them.
Pouts and pointedly narrow eyes were kept firmly in place when John returned to their room with bleach and dirty rags in hand. He'd spent the morning cleaning the mess that Dee's injuries had left in the car. Suddenly, the television was absolutely fascinating and Sammy's school books apparently needed to be scowled at. The Winchesters had to solve this, for the sake of the job as well as all their lives. Dee however, found herself absolutely unable, unwilling to be productive on the matter. She understood how and why things had gotten so bad but she was also angry. Angry at her father that they had, angry that apparently being who and what she was could be enough to fuck things up.
"Blood came out of the seats just fine." John declared, heading for the sink to scrub his hands.
Their room's small kitchen unit shook into life. Ageing cupboards faced with plastic and rusty fittings that barely clung to the wall anymore rattled and banged as hot water shuddered from the faucet. Matter of factly John cleaned bleach and his eldest child's blood from his hands then turned, letting out a sigh and looked over his unresponsive children.
"Sam." He called, to absolutely no response.
"Sam." He insisted, louder this time.
The fourteen year old's attention only focused harder on his school book. Dee was still pissed but she had to stifle a laugh at her brother's epic ability to sulk. She felt pride and gratitude too. Comforted that at the end of the day, even if there was nobody else, she and Sammy had each other's backs.
John shook his head and through flared nostrils and gritted teeth, he tried again.
"You will listen to me when I talk to you young man." He insisted, his voice growing increasingly stern, turning to Dee he briefly added.
"That goes for you too."
Sam's eyes flared and he raised them to meet his father's.
Refusing for the time being to rise to an argument, John's tone softened. He dug into his pocket and retrieved a dog eared twenty dollar bill.
"We need bread and milk." He announced, carefully.
"Sam, I'd like you to go get some please."
Stocking up on groceries was even rarer for John Winchester than emotional acknowledgements or hugs and they all knew it.
"Really?" Sam shot back incredulously.
"Yes, now get going." John insisted.
The sudden need for a healthier diet or well stocked cupboards was fooling no one. Before Dee could call her father on his bullshit, before she could spit out a stomach full of repressed venom in his direction, Sam beat her to it.
"I'm not leaving you alone with her." He declared, raising squarely in his chair, fingers gripping tightly to the edges of his school book.
Pouty, stubborn, bitch faced Sam was something to behold. Even in the middle of her own drama Dee couldn't help but notice that however much he hated the idea, those same qualities might make him one hell of a hunter. She couldn't help but feel guilty too. Sammy was her little brother and she loved that he'd always have her back but it was still her job to take care of him. Not the other way around. If their father was going to make something of what happened, if the stalemate they'd been in since the previous night was going to be broken then she'd fight the battle herself. She certainly wasn't going to let her fourteen year old brother do it.
Turning her attention to Sam, she gave him a lop sided grin.
"It's okay Sammy." She assured.
"I got this."
Sam looked sceptical in return and narrowed his eyes, this time thoughtfully searching Dee's face.
"Go on, beat it." Dee insisted, grinning.
Sam stood up slowly, laying his school books on his own empty bed and grabbing his jacket. Passing John on the way out he pointedly took the money and turned back to Dee one final time before leaving.
"I'll be back soon." He announced, all precocious, earnest intent and an impressively furrowed brow.
As he turned to leave Dee yelled after him.
"Hey Sammy!"
Sam darted his head back around urgently and with enough worry for Dee to feel a pang of guilt.
"Yeah?" He asked.
"Bring back pie!" She called brightly through a smirk.
Sam rolled his eyes but smiled.
"Sure."
So, Dee and John were left, alone in the room, silently contemplating each other. Finally releasing some of the venom that she'd been bottling up, Dee sharply gestured in her father's direction, pointedly holding his stare.
"Well...!" She demanded, in what was probably a louder voice than she'd intended.
"What is it? You gonna tell me how sloppy I was or how real hunters don't complain..."
John only remained impassive, he slowly crossed the room, taking a chair and placing it at the foot of her bed. Sitting, he leant forward, firmly resting a palm on each knee.
He was doing the stoic thing. Between that and corporal Winchesters drill Sargent routine he kind of had a limited repertoire and Dee wasn't about to let him set the tone.
"How about some bullshit that starts with... if you were really serious about hunting... 'cause that's kinda turning into a classic." She continued, daring him to take offence. Offence at her tone, at her language, at anything that might make him show how he was really feeling..
It wasn't going to work.
"Mind your language." Was his only reply. Accompanied by a cautionary raised finger, it was quick and firm. Almost instinct and it had absolutely nothing to do with what they had to talk about.
Dee's anger only flashed hotter and she let out a bitter laugh.
"Fuck!" She spat back at him, eyes locked in defiance.
"fuckety, fuckety, fuckety, fuckety, fuck!"
It was stupid, but it felt good to just throw bile in his face.
John didn't rise to it, in fact Dee could swear she saw the barest hint of a smirk begin to creep onto his lips as they again sat staring at each other.
"You finished?" He finally asked after a moment.
There was no way that she was going to give him the yes sir that he wanted, that he couldn't have possibly expected, so she held her ground.
"Not even close." She promised, daring him.
John took a long, slow breath and ran a hand over his face, brushing at the stubble on his chin thoughtfully.
"This isn't working." He finally admitted.
That was the first thing he'd actually said that Dee could agree with. She was still angry but it felt like progress.
"Do ya think so?!" She shot back, slumping against her pillows.
"Look Dean..." John began, then paused, Dee's sharp intake of breath and the twist of her jaw at the name stopping him in his tracks.
"Look," He began again.
"We have a problem... we're not trusting each other and that's dangerous."
What he'd said was true, it was more than obvious and it wasn't enough to let her guard down.
"That's not on me!" She warned.
"It's on both of us." John admitted.
It almost sounded like her father finally taking some of the blame but his qualification was just bullshit. As far as Dee was concerned he was the one who was pulling back, he was the one who was freaking out because she was trans. All she was doing was trying to hunt.
Almost in acknowledgement of what she was thinking John carried on talking.
"I don't understand the girl thing. It's not going away and this..." He continued, gesturing between them.
"...is only getting worse."
"I'm gonna have a scar that agrees with you." She replied indignantly. Not that she really minded the scar, she had plenty of those, most of them were badges of honour, this one however, was a little different.
"...Right." John nodded, his eyes growing dark.
"That's the point. You could have died because we're not trusting each other. You're a good hunter..."
Dee briefly smiled but determined not to give ground, she quickly turned it into a defiant nod, punctuating her father's sentence.
"...but you're still a kid." He continued.
"You're learning, one way or another you're growing up and you need someone you can trust. Someone you can talk to other than your fourteen year old brother."
John pointedly paused, then stood and made his way across the room. Stopping at the fridge he retrieved a beer and cracking it open began again.
"So...that's what you're gonna get." He took a slug of beer and looked back in her direction, his eyebrows knotting together in thought.
" When you're healed up you're gonna take a trip. I've got a couple of jobs Bobby's lined up and while I'm doing that, you're gonna go somewhere..."
He raised his bottle and released a tiered sigh, gesturing at nothing in particular.
"Might do you good... might help."
A week later, with her leg safely clear of infection they watched as John pulled away, back toward interstate 80. She stood with Sam in front of what might have been very generously called a bar. It was all corrugated iron and well worn wood, the kind of place that probably wasn't on any state of Nebraska tourist map. There were a few beat up trucks gracing the dirt strip that led to it and the thump of music radiated from inside. The was a sign too, in dust speckled bulbs and neon it read, Harvelle's Roadhouse.