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“But I thought that girls turning to girls ‘cause they can’t get a man thing was just a myth.” said Dean, his forehead crinkling in confusion. “You’re too much of a badass to be that cowardly, Charlie.”
“Oh my god, that is not what I was saying at all,” huffed Charlie. “Way to be an insensitive dickbag. Although, kudos to you for managing to slip a compliment in there as well. Never let anyone tell you that you haven’t got skills, Dean Winchester.”
She took a swig from her almost empty beer bottle and fixed him with a glower. “Okay, imagine yourself in my place. No, wait. Imagine me in yours. So, I’m you alright, and I like girls and boys. But not only am I terribly awkward with boys, who never seem to warm up to me, but I’m great with the ladies. So I stick to women, so over time I get even better at women, so that I can get virtually any lady - that’s into my gender - that I want. And I find most guys to be assholes, who don’t respect me. Who would you go for?”
Dean considered it for a moment, before conceding her point. “Fair enough.”
For a few minutes, they drink in silence, Dean running his thumb over a droplet of condensation on his cool beer absentmindedly. He’s not thinking about anything in particular; he’s gotten over the slight surprise that was Charlie admonishing him for assuming she was a lesbian, when actually she’s a bisexual with a strong preference for women. Dean’s never really believed the bisexual thing; he just thought it was gay people being too chickenshit to admit it, and straddling the fence so as not to disappoint their grandchildren-wanting parents. Charlie’s given him something to think about, though, since she’s pretty adamant that it’s really a thing. And not just a way for women to get free drinks out of guys at the promise of threesomes or girl on girl kisses at the bar.
Then Charlie shifted in her seat and said: “Is that how it is for you?”
Dean blinks, not entirely sure he knows what she’s asking. Eloquently, he says; “What?” in a bid for further clarification.
“You know,” Charlie grinned, “Is that why you’ve never acted on your interest in guys? ‘Cause girls are easier?”
Dean’s mind went blank, his body rigid with shock. Then, he started to laugh. “I’m not- Charlie, I’m straight. Totally. No special preference or label required. I’m all about the ladies, man.”
Charlie fixed him with her steely, take-no-bullshit gaze, and raised perfectly maintained eyebrow. “Oh really? That’s not the impression I got from the books.”
Dean rolled his eyes, dismissively. “The fans of that trash Chuck wrote, think I’m fucking my brother, for Christsakes. You can’t think-”
Charlie shook her head adamantly, and the red waves of her hair bounced gently. “No of course not. Although you and Sam do have some serious repression issues, and I won’t say that a little therapy wouldn’t help with your codependency - but that’s beside the point. I’m talking about all those times you flirted with guys.”
“What are you talking about?” Dean scoffed, “I’ve never flirted with a dude!”
“I beg to differ.” Charlie leaned over to set her empty beer bottle on the dresser table. They were chilling in Dean’s room, and his bed gave a little squeak when she sat back down. “You said those books were true, right? Well there’s times when you flirt with guys. Off the top of my head I can think of at least three examples.”
Unimpressed, but a little morbidly curious, Dean shrugged. “Go on then.”
He could debunk her wild accusations one by one.
“Well, in Yellow Fever, when you’re like, infected with fear, you came on to a cop at the station.”
Dean tried to think of what she was talking about, but it was so long ago and that was during his year before Hell; a lot of it is a fear-drenched hangover blur.
“I don’t remember.” He eventually admitted, reluctantly.
“Well, during that chapter, Sam interrupts - which, he does a lot by the way. Did you ever tell him he’s a major cockblock?”
“Like, every week.” Dean said, with great relish. Wait till he told Sammy that Charlie said it wasn’t just his imagination.
“Anyway, Sam interrupts and takes you away from the guy, in almost the exact same manner as he interrupted you in another book. Sin City, you know, the time you were distracted by a woman in that town where you got trapped in a basement with a hot girl and she told you about her faith in Lucifer?”
Now that, Dean remembers. It was the first time a creature had talked about the Devil as though he was a real thing. He shivered at the memory. Predictably, Charlie was still talking.
“I mean, Edlund used almost word for word the same description of Sam being annoyed at you for being ‘distracted on the job’ and most people take it as the first real evidence of your bisexuality.”
“Well that’s just-” Dean flailed his hand a little, the one not holding the bottle, at a loss for a comeback. It would help if he could remember these examples, but he really doesn’t. Too much important shit has happened since then.
Huh. Maybe he ought to read through those books.
“What else?” Dean finally said, unwilling to concede just yet.
“Well, there’s plenty that would argue your interaction with Sam might get a mention next. But since to me you’re not fictional characters, but actual real dudes with guns, I’m gonna go for Dr. Sexy.”
Dean could feel himself blushing something fierce. “It’s a guilty pleasure show! It doesn’t make me half-gay or whatever, just ‘cause I watch one hospital drama.”
Charlie laughed, throwing back her head. “Not the fact that you watch it, dumbo. That time you met the actor in Gabriel’s TV version of it.”
Well, great. Now Dean feels like even more of an idiot. He doesn’t get the chance to say anything about his interaction with the fake Dr. Sexy though, because Charlie soldiers on;
“You were very flustered. And Sam was written in the show as being a lady doctor’s boyfriend, but you... you were left to your own devises, and he was the only one who made you go tongue-tied.”
“I was star-struck!” Dean protested. “You see what happens when your favourite fictional characters come to life. It makes you stupid, just look at Becky Rosen.”
Wow. Is Dean really comparing himself to that psycho? Yes, it appears he is.
“She was pretty kooky,” Charlie agreed. “But those things pale in comparison to my final candidate.”
Dean sighed, ready to be done with this conversation, already. “Hit me with it.”
Charlie smirked, unrepentant.
“Castiel.”
Dean frowned. “What about him?”
And then he got it.
“What? Oh, no. No, no way. I do not flirt with Mr I Don’t Get That Reference. That’s ridiculous, Charlie.”
Charlie’s grin was blinding. “Whatever, Winchester. Just calling it like I see it.”
Dean opened his mouth to protest; they were absolutely not leaving it there, but then Sam walked in, freshly clean and dry from the shower.
“Hey, guys. Ready to get this show on the road?” He asked, and Dean jumped up from the bed, seizing on the chance for a subject change.
“Yeah,” he said, like he wasn’t being totally weird, ignoring Sam’s look of confusion, and snatching up the boxset of Game of Thrones.
Charlie wiggled her eyebrows at him when he sat back down and the dramatic title music began. He had a bad feeling their conversation wasn’t over, but he pushed down the flutter in his stomach, eager to forget everything she’d made him rethink about the world in the last half hour or so. Damn woman was too clever for her own good; and if that were true, Dean didn’t want to know what it meant for his heterosexuality, which he’d been so secure and happy in, before.
Thirty-four was too old to have a sexuality crisis, anyway.