title: the date

author: m

rating: Pg13

pairing: none

author note: this is a genderbender written for a prompt from a friend during a LJ blackout (girl's gotta amuse herself somehow and felonies tend to require planning)...the request was girl!Sam's view of her big brother when he's getting ready for a date.

"You know the drill right?"

Sam tucked her legs up against her chest, grabbed her math textbook, and huffed breath to blow a curl out of her eyes. She knew the drill; she'd had it pounded into her head since, like, before she'd even mastered tying her shoes.

Dean'd taught her that. She'd tried for days on that dummy thing they had in Kindergarten, crying when she failed. She could load the .45 Dad made her practice with in about thirty seconds, ready to fire but she couldn't tie her own damn shoes?

She couldn't tell the teacher that, second rule after learning how to fire the gun was never telling anyone she knew how, but she could tell Dean and she had. Curled up at her brother's side she'd tearfully confessed the truth. He'd hugged her tight and promised her it'd be ok.

The next night, when Dad went out, they sat down with every pair of shoes they had that laced up. They didn't get up again until Sam knew how to tie her shoes.

"Sammy?" Dean stopped primping; he hated when she called it that but he spent more time in front of a mirror than she did, and turned to look at her with a frown. "You listenin' to me?"

"Stay inside, keep the gun handy, shoot anything that moves that's not you or Dad," she looked up at him through her bangs with a scowl. "Yeah, I know and don't call me that."

He snickered at the expression on her face. "You finally got hormones to worry about little sister?"

She threw a pencil at him. "Fuck off."

"HEY!" Dean pointed at her. "Dad'll take a strip off your hide he hears you talkin' like that, where'd you learn it anyway?"

She tilted her head and pasted on her best well DUH expression. "You."

He winced and turned back to the mirror without comment.

"Your hair looks fine, Dean," she said by way of apology. "Guaranteed to make her melt."

He grinned into the mirror. "That your official girl opinion or you just trying to get me out of here faster?"

Sam dug around in her backpack for her calculator. "Whichever works the fastest." She didn't like it when Dean went out like this. It was weird but she didn't. Dad's doing probably; distrust anybody who wasn't family unless they were Pastor Jim or Caleb or somebody. Some random girl with big boobs, bigger hair, and ugly pink lipstick definitely didn't qualify.

"You ok, Sammy?" She looked up to find her brother, the guy who punched out every single person who ever picked on her, the guy who checked under their bed for monsters with a gun in his hand and a warning scowl on his face, looking at her with worried eyes. "Cause, if something's up, I can totally blow this chick off. We got a few days, nobody says I can't reschedule."

Sam bit her lip, feeling just a little guilty for wanting to tell him yes, do it. They could spend the night working on her homework, Dean learning probably as much from it as she did. When he really did homework, like when he wasn't trying to pick up some girl at school, he did it with her. Sometimes Dad helped, but he'd get that look in his eye and it'd be just her and Dean again. Just like it always was.

"I'm ok," she said finally, not giving in. "Bring me back something to eat, ok?"

He grinned, quick and broad. "Got it." Messing up her hair, he bounded away and Sam went back to her homework. She was not going to cry, she was not going to cry.

It was stupid to cry but she wanted to anyway. It wasn't that he was going on a date, it was what it meant. Everything was changing and someday...

Someday he was going to do that and he wasn't going to come back.

She didn't know what she'd do then.

"Have a good time."

"Always do, little sister," he grinned at her, flipped up his collar like Dad wore his and then he was gone, locking the door behind him.

Sam bit her lip harder, looking over at the gun beside her and tried not to listen to the silence.

finis