Rest Stop (I Knew You When Remix) [Supernatural; Sam, Dean]

[steelydanrydell.livejournal.com]

Title: Rest Stop (I Knew You When Remix)
Author: kyuuketsukirui
Summary: Maybe it's not fair to have this conversation now when Dean can't even get up by himself, but Sam doesn't care.
Rating: PG
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, Dean
Length: ~1100 words
Title, Author and URL of original story: Rest Stop - Near Leland, Mississippi by merryish
Notes: Commentary is available here.

They'd had to kill the old lady. Sam isn't happy about that, but what can you do? As Dean is quick to point out, it looked like the demon possessing her'd kept her alive long past her sell-by date.

Still, it's the easiest job they've had in months, pretty much in and out. Right up until a little girl comes flying out of the kitchen, knife in hand, and practically guts Dean before Sam can pull her off him.

"Lemme go!" she screeches, kicking and flailing. Sam's still got all his fingers when he finally gets the knife from her, but it's a close thing. "You better not hurt Brady!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Dean pants from the floor. He's got his hand pressed down over his chest, blood seeping out from under it, but he doesn't seem to be in imminent danger of bleeding to death.

The girl's glare falters, her gaze flickering to something behind Sam. He turns to look and she yells "Run, Brady!" at a wide-eyed boy standing in the kitchen doorway. The boy - presumably Brady - just shrinks back a bit.

"Hey," Sam says gently, "we're not gonna hurt you."

"Like hell we're not!"

"Shut up, Dean." Sam turns back to the girl. "Don't listen to him."

Once she's calmed down, it doesn't actually take long to convince her they're not murderers or kidnappers or demon-possessed themselves, and then it's just a matter of waiting for the kids' dad to get home and explaining to him why the babysitter's dead.

Dean's mostly stopped bleeding by the time they leave, but he's in no shape to drive, so Sam slides behind the wheel while Dean mutters to himself about bloodthirsty brats. Sam grins and shakes his head, and Dean snaps, "What?"

"She wasn't that bad," Sam says, turning the key in the ignition.

"She tried to kill me!"

"Maybe I just have a soft spot for overprotective big sisters."

And Dean just reaches over, turns up the stereo, and that's the end of that.

Sam watches him out of the corner of his eye. His mouth is tight, his shoulders tense and hunched, and there's a sharpness, like you'd cut yourself if you tried to touch him. What he looks like is Nadine, which is something Sam's never actually thought before.

They drive in silence, or as silent as you can get with the stereo blaring Metallica. When Sam pulls into a gas station and says, "I'm gonna get some bandages and stuff," Dean doesn't answer. He comes back with a couple of Red Bulls, a handful of candy bars, and some gauze and peroxide.

Dean makes a quip about the candy bars being older than Sam (quite possible from the looks of them), cracks open one of the Red Bulls and says, "What, not even a beer to dull the pain?" and it's like the whole thing never happened. Just like how Sam's supposed to forget he ever had a sister.

"You've got your flask," Sam says absently.

The highway's nearly empty for the next twenty miles, no one passing through middle-of-nowhere Mississippi unless they have to. They're both of them quiet, though it's a comfortable silence this time. Sam wishes Dean would say something, puts in Nirvana just to hear Dean's bitching, but it doesn't keep his mind from wandering.

He pulls off at a rest area that's even more deserted than the highway. He helps Dean to one of the picnic benches, lets him take a couple swigs of whiskey and then gets him laid out on the table. He takes his pocket knife and slices Dean's shirt open, slices through the tight sports bra thing underneath. He'd ask how Dean can stand that in the summer like this, but Dean won't look at him. This'll just be another thing that never happened.

The gash goes diagonally from his collarbone down across the curve of one breast. It's a surprise. Somehow he'd always thought Dean had managed to get surgery somewhere, wherever he got the hormones, maybe.

"She coulda done me a favor and cut 'em off."

Sam doesn't know what to say to that except "yeah". He pours peroxide over the cut and wipes it clean with one of the tattered edges of Dean's shirt, then starts sewing him up. A weird, detached part of his brain notes that he has no trouble thinking of Dean as him, even when he's up close and personal with his breasts.

But then thinking of Dean as his brother has never been a problem. A drunken phone call near the start of his sophomore year had given him plenty of time to get used to the thought and the internet had given him an idea of what to expect. He never saw the in-between. He just went away to college and then four years later, instead of a diploma, he had a brother.

"Looks all right," he murmurs, dabbing some more peroxide over the wound. He sets the bottle down on the bench next to the gauze and the little sewing kit they keep in the glove compartment, then motions for Dean to scoot over a little.

He stretches out next to Dean, legs hanging over the edge, and they lie there in the sticky heat, slapping at mosquitoes. Dean's arm is pressed against his, hairy and sweaty and definitely a guy's arm.

It's probably a bad idea, but Sam says, "You're my brother."

"Duh."

"No, I mean-"

"That's enough, Sammy." Dean's voice is low, dangerous. Sam can feel him tense up.

"Just let me talk! I'm trying to fucking apologize!"

Sam pushes himself up and slides off the table. Behind him, he can hear Dean struggle to sit up, can hear him swear and stop trying, and maybe it's not fair to have this conversation now when Dean can't even get up by himself, but Sam doesn't care.

"What I said earlier. I'm sorry. I didn't mean..." He kicks a rock and watches it skitter across the pavement. "You're my brother, all right, but I can't just do a search and replace in my memories. I can't just erase eighteen years of my life..."

There's no answer but the sound of Dean slapping away another mosquito. Eventually Sam gives up on ever getting one. He turns around, picks up the gauze, and helps Dean sit up. He pulls off the ruined shirt and sports bra thing - binder, he remembers now - and Dean silently holds up his arms as Sam starts wrapping the gauze around his chest.

Sam pulls off his own shirt and hands it to him, and Dean pulls it on with a grimace. He sways a little when he stands and Sam slides an arm around him, shoves the sewing kit in his pocket, and helps his brother to the car.

Comments

[merryish.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is so not what I expected, but it hit me in a really powerful way. It's so sad to watch Sam struggling to mourn while Dean's still right there, and Dean trying to figure out a way to make Sam understand. It's an added element that changes everything - which is just what a remix is supposed to do. I can tell you put a lot into this, and I really appreciate it - thank you! =)

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it.

I wrote commentary on it, btw, if you're interested in reading. It's here (http://kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com/852477.html).

[zillah975]

Oh, I love this! What an awesome twist on the original -- I love how you take that one parallel, the protective older sibling, and use it as a starting point for this switch. There are a lot of gender-fuck fics in SPN and a lot of them do a great job with it, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a transgender story - it's usually one of the guys gets swapped by a spell or something. To have it be deliberate and to show Sam trying to cope with it is new (to me) and awesome.

I love this: A weird, detached part of his brain notes that he has no trouble thinking of Dean as him, even when he's up close and personal with his breasts and this: He never saw the in-between. He just went away to college and then four years later, instead of a diploma, he had a brother and the way they underscore the problem that's stated shortly thereafter. It's not that he can't handle "Nadine" becoming "Dean", it's that he can't replace Nadine with Dean in his memories, and that's the struggle for him, or the struggle between them.

And I love that Dean doesn't answer, there at the end. That we don't get the easy wrap-up. This is just really terrific.

[merryish.livejournal.com]

I agree with like, every word of this. It's so cool that so much of what happened in my story happens in this one - but for completely different reasons, and with a completely different weight to it. To me, that's the very essence of a remix. And ... There's a lot of twisted-upness in Dean even in canon, and this added layer just -- I don't know, it calls that out, and it also kind of flips it on its side.

I also sort of love that it's Sam worried about this permanent, unstoppable (by Sam anyway) change in Dean, and what it means to both of them and how it changes the past as well as the future. It's a role-reversal from their canonical pattern that just makes me happy in ways I can't even explain. =) (which is why i am back here, re-reading it yet again!)

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :D

*not so secretly hopes to start a trend of ftm!Dean fics*

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, I was totally not expecting that twist, and it really packs a punch. I have to echo what the commenters above said--this is the first real transgender story I've seen in this fandom (as opposed to genderswap), and I love how you portray Sam's complicated emotional response here.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :) I haven't seen any SPN transfics, either, which I've been meaning to rectify for ages, and this finally gave me the kick in the pants I needed.

I wrote commentary about it here (http://kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com/852477.html), if you're interested.

[brynwulf]

In retrospect, the fact that Dean goes for a sex-change to become male makes total sense and I'm truly amazed it hasn't been tackled before. But then I wouldn't have enjoyed this so much, probably. :) Nice job.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :) It is really easy to see Dean as ftm, in that stage of trying to be ultra macho and rejecting everything feminine.

I wrote commentary about the fic here (http://kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com/852477.html), if you're interested.

[(Anonymous)]

There's an inherent logic to your premise that's quite fascinating. The young Dean/Dine of the pilot could easily, in retrospect, have been a tomboyish little girl, and the death/victimization of her mother could have bolstered her disinclination to grow into a woman, more vulnerable, more of a risk to herself and her family. On a practical level it would have been easier for John, and safer for 'Dine, to haul around two little boys, and easier to forget her gender than to face all the ways one little girl was getting her head and her life messed up. There's actually two stories here, one for if Dine/Dean actually was a true transgendered person and her transformation was a triumph of psyche over biology, and a second for the rejection of her own biology and sexuality as another example of the self-loathing and self-sacrifice that has come to characterize Dean on the show. Both very interesting stories. Thanks for sharing your work.

[grand-sophy.livejournal.com]

Darn, I was logged out. That was me.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Thanks for commenting. :)

I think the idea of Dean trying to be male for John is definitely an interesting one, though it's not what I was trying to do here. I think in that case I'd want to do it from Dean's POV, lest it come off as sounding like a denial of the possibility of genuine transness, you know? (Does that make sense?) It seems like a touchy situation. Though now I'm totally pondering such a fic... XD

I wrote commentary on this one, btw, if you're interested. It's here (http://kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com/852477.html).

[grand-sophy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link to your commentary. It's always interesting to get a peek into the mind of the author, and the effort and thoughtfulness revealed there makes me appreciate the story even more.