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The car ride from Sam's Stanford apartment to whatever middle-of-nowhere town dad's got them chasing to now is spent in silence. Sam gazes out the window, studiously avoiding Dean's eyes, and Dean only speaks when it's to ask Sam for directions from the map Sam is holding. Both of them want to say so much, and neither of them know how to say it.
Whatever Sam had been expecting from reuniting with their brother after upwards of two years apart, it wasn't this. For starters, she hadn't expected a brother.
It started around half past three in the morning, when Sam heard a noise from the tiny excuse for a living room in the apartment he'd bought with Jess on their eight-month anniversary. She'd slipped out of their bed, silent so as not to wake Jess, who was still snoring on her pillow, and grabbed the baseball bat out of the hall closet. It's still strange, to go for something so ordinary instead of a shotgun or a machete, but she's getting used to it.
She'd made it to the living room, where they'd promptly gotten jumped by a mysterious stranger who laughed after tackling her to the floor, like they hadn't broken into Sam's apartment and probably-kinda-maybe given him a head injury.
She really should've guessed it was Dean; only he would have the audacity to pull a stunt like that.
When the stranger had her pinned down by her wrists, the shadows had shifted enough that she could actually see their face. There'd been something familiar about it, a shape of the nose and slant of the cheekbones and lips that put him in mind of his sister. His sister was the one of the only people who could beat him in hand-to-hand combat. But this was a guy, something Sam's sister very much was not.
They snort. Got that much wrong.
It was Deanna that pinned Sam to the floor, Deanna that told her "whoa, easy, tiger," Deanna that flirted with Jess like it was the easiest thing in the world. Only it wasn't Deanna now, it was Dean. A change that Sam was very much looking forward to asking about, and one that Dean had brushed off whenever she'd brought it up, from the apartment to this car ride, here and now.
So now they're sitting in the silent '67 Impala that apparently belongs to Dean now, and Sam is burning with about a dozen questions. Dean must be equally confused, but he's very resolutely not saying squat.
Fine. If that's how he wants to be, then Sam will just have to make the first move.
"You know, Dean," he says, casual as can be, "I realized I wasn't a guy in my first year of college. Four years ago, now. How 'bout you?" Dean's grip is so firm on the steering wheel that his knuckles have turned white. Sam has a feeling that if Dean didn't love this car like nothing else, he would've crashed it into a tree just to avoid this conversation.
"I. Well. About that time, too." Sam lets out a breath. That's progress.
"Cool. So you're just Dean now, huh?"
Dean grimaces. "Yup." Then, turning to Sam, "and you?"
"Oh. I guess I'm just a Sam? I mean, I started using she during sophomore year, and I've been experimenting with they for a couple months, but I'm still comfortable using he, so if there's a word for what you'd call me, I haven't-"
Dean cuts her off. "Sammy. Rambling."
She laughs nervously. "Right. Sorry." For all their nonchalance and attempts to get Dean to open up, Sam is pretty freaking nervous about all this crap. During her years at Stanford, they had obsessed over what they were gonna tell their family, if they ever chose to see them again. With Dean, he'd decided however he reacted, Dean would still love him. He was safe to tell. He had to be. Sam wouldn’t know what he’d do if he wasn’t. With her dad, she had landed pretty easily on 'never breathe a word about it and wait for him to keel over.' It was easier, now, telling Dean, because clearly he'd been going through the same shit, but it's still pretty fucking nerve-wracking.
"It's cool, Sammy. You know," Dean pauses, apparently weighing his next words carefully. "I- I worried over how I was gonna tell you, if ever. I mean, not everyday you wake up and see your brother is- you know. So it's... nice, I guess. Easier than I expected." He nudges Sam in the ribs playfully. "And I was right about you being kinda gay."
Sam rolls her eyes. "Haha, asshat. I'm not even-"
Dean waves a finger in the air. "Nope, don't even try to deny it. Weird-ass gender counts as gay in my book."
Sam leans over and punches his arm. "That makes you kinda gay, too. You've dated plenty of dudes, and if you were a guy all along-"
Dean silences him with a look and a too-serious "shut up, Sam." Ooookay. Whatever sexuality crisis his brother is in the middle of, Sam doesn't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole.
She starts to speak again, to say anything to lighten the suddenly-tense mood, but the words die in their mouth. They spend the next few miles in silence, besides the wind whistling past the windows and Led Zeppelin on the radio.
After almost thirty minutes of quiet, Sam decides she's done. The words come tumbling out of her mouth before she can stop them. "Hey, Dean?"
"Hm?" He says, keeping his eyes on the road.
"You don't..." she trails off, already regretting what she was going to say, but they've caught Dean's attention.
"What's up, Sammy?"
She swallows. No time like the present, and all that. "You don't... think I'm- I'm a freak, or anything, do you?" She doesn't know why she's asking. He- he wouldn't, he can't, he's just like them. It's irrational. But the doubt, the fear, keeps gnawing at the back of their mind, and she can't help but ask.
Dean shoots him a look, eyebrows knitted together. He takes a long second before answering, but when he does, his voice is sure and strong. ""Course not, Sammy. And hey," he ruffles Sam's hair. "If you're a freak, that makes me one too."
Sam grins. "Well, you're definitely a freak, freak." Dean socks him in the head, but he's grinning too. He can't say how relieved he is at Dean's reaction; if her brother had hated her for this, he doesn't know what he'd do. Now, instead of feeling like another thing alienating them, singling her out as the freak, it's just something she can share with his big brother.
All of a sudden, Dean busts out laughing. Sam shoots him a curious look. "What's so funny?"
"Oh, nothing," Dean half says, half laughs. "Just thinking about how this is gonna make dad's day. Not just one of us, but two?" Despite herself, Sam snorts, and collapses into giggles beside her brother.
"Imagine the look on his face," they whisper, and they both give in to another fit of laughter. Sam hadn't realized how much he missed this, being able to sit with Dean, just talk to him. It's a strange, new feeling, but it's good, too.
She looks at her brother, still chuckling as he gazes out onto the road, and knows, somehow, however this search for dad turns out, they're gonna be okay.