Fic: Already Taken (Sam/Dean, PG)
Title: Already Taken
Author: smalltrolven
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 3291
Warning: Spoilers for episode 15.14, “Last Holiday”
Author’s Note: Not my characters, only my words.
Summary: Sam returns from his “date” with Eileen with more questions than he'd left with and the brothers deal with the aftermath of Mrs. Butters.
Read it over on AO3 right here.
*****
The next morning over the remains of Dean’s usual apology pancake breakfast, Sam surprised him when he decided to come clean to Dean instead of moping around, holding it all inside. It was like his little brother had finally realized that it’d been too many years doing that, and he was just going to hose Dean down with everything he’d been holding back. Dean was glad he’d added a little nip of whisky to his cup when Sam hadn’t been looking.
“I’m still mad that you didn’t call me when you and Jack were in trouble,” Sam said, sipping at his third cup of coffee.
“I didn’t want to interrupt you, like I said. You were finally getting some, dude,” Dean said with what he hoped was his most annoying leer.
Sam almost smiled but then seemed to correct himself with a frown that looked forced. “That’s not…you need to stop with that, seriously. It’s none of your business. But, Dean, I’m still mad that you didn’t call me when you needed help. I came home and you and Jack were, I mean, she almost…” Sam’s voice trailed off to nothing, like he just couldn’t finish what he’d needed to say.
“Ehhh, Mrs. Butters wasn’t all that,” Dean said. “We were gonna be fine.”
“No, you weren’t, Dean, that’s what I’m angry about. You and Jack, she was going to kill both of you. She told me that, you didn’t hear what she said,” Sam said, voice suddenly fierce with the memory.
“She wouldn’t have, no way. She was supposed to be our protector,” Dean said, wondering what the hell Mrs. Butters had said to Sam when she’d had he and Jack locked up in the dungeon.
“Mrs. Butters said you were infected by Jack, and that I was the only one she could still support. She even wanted me to help her kill you both. The way she was talking, I think she was really going to make me do it,” Sam said.
“Well, then I’m sorry that I didn’t call you right away. I guess I misunderstood how much danger we were really in,” Dean said. “I just didn’t want to call you at the exact wrong time, you know? I mean-you were finally on a date.”
“That wasn’t a possibility, being interrupted in anything,” Sam said. “But I guess you didn’t know that.”
“What do you mean? I thought Eileen was totally into you, dude,” Dean asked.
“Nah, it’s not like that with us. I thought it…uh, might be or maybe could be. But she set me straight right away last night. So if you’d called, you wouldn’t have been interrupting anything more than us sharing an order of wings and a pitcher of beer at Dukes.”
“No wonder you struck out, doofus, you took her to Dukes,” Dean said with a laugh.
“That’s not-no that’s not what happened,” Sam said. “God, never mind, I don’t know why I bothered even saying anything.”
“Sammy, c’mon, spill,” Dean said. “I don’t want to have you moping around and not know what the hell’s going on.”
“She said she didn’t see a point in trying to have a relationship with me,” Sam said in a dejected mumble.
“What the hell!” Dean shouted, surprised by how angry on his brother’s behalf he was in that instant. Rejecting Sam? Where did Eileen get the freaking nerve? Who could ever do that to Sam? Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to be with him?
“Stop shouting, I don’t want Jack to have to hear this, much less have to try to explain it to him,” Sam said, eyes darting to the still empty doorway.
“Don’t want him to hear what?” Dean asked, confused about Jack being brought into this already very-strange-for-them conversation.
“I don’t want him to have to hear me telling you why Eileen had decided I wasn’t worth the effort,” Sam said, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else than in their kitchen spilling his guts.
Dean took pity on him, he looked so-deflated and sad. He knew that if he wanted to hear the rest from Sam, he had to be encouraging here. “Go on.”
“She, uh, she said I was already taken, at least as far as she could tell. That it seemed like I was already set, and barely had room in my life for a friend, much less a girlfriend.”
“I repeat, What. The. Hell,” Dean said, his mouth in a straight line as he struggled to hold his anger inside.
“Don’t get mad at her, don’t do that, it’s not her fault for pointing it out. Because…uh, she’s kind of right,” Sam said.
“How exactly are you ‘taken’?” Dean asked, making the air quotes around the very idea of Sam possibly being taken. Neither of them had room for that in their life, they really didn’t. Sad but true. Friends with benefits, possibly, but certainly not a serious relationship, it just wasn’t in the cards for them.
Sam raised an eyebrow at his question and then didn’t say anything else, he just held Dean’s eyes like Dean was supposed to get what that look meant.
Finally the picture came back into focus, sudden and sharp, Dean’s stomach swooped with a strange twinned feeling of hope and terror. “Hold on, this hasn’t happened in a while, so I’m kinda out of practice. She thought that…you and me?” Dean asked, pointing between Sam and himself.
“Not exactly, but close enough, yeah,” Sam said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.
“You know we have the same tell, right?” Dean said, rubbing the back of his own neck in sympathy, and because he needed it.
“Not always, but about stuff like this, I suppose we do, yeah,” Sam said.
“Sammy, what did she say exactly?” Dean asked, trying to stall for time as his mind and heart raced to keep up with this whole thing. Was Sam really talking to him about this? Was this really happening or was he still stuck in his mind with Michael pulling his strings and mocking all his heart’s desires, thoughts and hopes?
Sam’s mouth went tight and Dean thought that would be the end of the conversation, but then he surprised both of them by continuing. “I’m not repeating the whole conversation, but the gist was that she thought I was already happy with you and she didn’t want to try and make a place for herself where there wasn’t room. I might have been mistranslating, because part of it was signing, but that’s pretty much it.”
“Are you?” Dean asked, unable to flesh out the question with all the millions of words that went with those two.
“Am I what?” Sam asked, mouth still tight, but not unhappy, and most importantly, not shutting up and fleeing quite yet.
“Happy…with…you know-me?” Dean asked, surprised that he was brave enough to put the words out there for Sam to do with what he would.
Sam looked at him even more closely, like he was turning up the magnification or zoom on a camera. His face changed, mouth relaxing from the tight line into a small smile. “Uh…yeah, I am. I mean, we’re on the same page, we have all this,” Sam gestured around at the bunker, “And yeah, I’m about as happy as I ever get these days.”
“Happier than you were with Amelia?” Dean asked in a rush, before he could think it through more thoroughly. Stupid, stupido, why the hell did he ask that?
“You happier than you were with Lisa?” Sam snarled in return, eyes snapping with a sudden angry heat.
“Hey, hey, calm down. I was just asking, trying to figure out if we’re talking about the same thing here,” Dean said, his hand massaging the back of his neck again, “Sammy, was Eileen right?”
Sam nodded, not meeting Dean’s eyes this time.
Dean clinked his coffee cup against Sam’s to get his attention. He saw that Sam was staring and focused on just his own hand, so he ran his fingers over Sam’s which were clenched around the cup. “Me too,” Dean said.
Sam looked up, his eyes clicking to Dean’s. The moment stretched out into an eternity where anything could have happened, until they were interrupted by Jack’s footsteps as he entered the kitchen.
“Hey, when’s lunch gonna be? Can I help make it?” Jack asked, looking back and forth between them.
“Heck yeah, you can help, buddy. Without Mrs. Butters around we all gotta pitch in again,” Dean said, clamping his hand around Sam’s briefly, before letting go and getting up from the table to get their lunch started. “How about we do some spaghetti and meatballs?”
“Yes!” Jack said, “Can I shred the Parmesan?”
“Of course, you know where everything is, get to it and do it,” Dean said.
****
Sam watched the two of them cooking and throwing elbows and laughing with each other. He downed the rest of his coffee to hide his misty eyes from anyone who might notice. Eileen was right, he really did feel happy. This was him being happy, huh, how about that?
A little later after lunch, Dean knocked at Sam’s door that wasn’t all the way closed. He’d left it that way on purpose, just in case Dean might want to keep talking. You never knew these days with him, things had changed after Michael had been in residence.
“Hey, uh, I just wanted to come say that I’m sorry, about earlier, that I brought up Amelia like that. It was kinda shitty of me,” Dean said.
“No shittier than me throwing in Lisa, I apologize too,” Sam said.
“Here, maybe we can wash the taste of apologies out of our mouths,” Dean said, handing Sam a whisky bottle he’d been hiding behind his back.
Sam took the bottle, uncapped it and swallowed down a healthy slug worth of whisky. He shifted over on the bed to make some room for Dean as he sat next to him. Sam handed the bottle back to Dean’s outstretched hand. He watched his brother as he drank from the bottle, licking a bit at the top of the bottle as if licking the taste Sam had just left behind.
“It’s different, this being happy thing. I mean, we’ve still got Chuck and all that craziness to worry about. But, Jack is back and coming out of his funk, and we’re good again. That’s what matters most, you and me,” Sam said.
“Huh, I guess Eileen’s an even sharper cookie than I’d thought she was,” Dean said.
“I only went because you kept pushing the whole ‘date’ thing,” Sam admitted.
“You should know better than to take advice from me, I’m just big-bro-ing you like I always do,” Dean said. “It’s kinda my job.”
“I…yeah, I should know better, but I still look up to you, not just because you’re my big brother, because you’re-you,” Sam said, feeling like it was the matter-of-fact truth, but realizing a beat later that he’d opened a big door he usually kept tightly locked with those words.
Dean looked at him, like he was surprised to hear something so different. “Meaning what, exactly?”
Sam took a deep breath and willed himself to keep up with the truth-telling. Dean wouldn’t be in here asking if he didn’t really want to hear it. “You’re the most authentic person I know,” Sam said, “Once I figure out how to look behind the bravado when you’re scared, there’s not a lot of artifice or playacting. You’ve settled into being a pretty awesome human being.”
“Awww, c’mon, cut it out,” Dean said, blushing high on his cheeks.
Sam reached out and brushed his finger along one of Dean’s cheekbones, unable to resist the urge to touch the pretty flushed skin. “It’s true though.”
Dean seemed to sway towards him, leaning into the touch of Sam’s finger against his heated skin. The weight of him pressing into that small point of contact made Sam’s stomach do a slow roll. In that moment he realized it had never seemed more possible. That realization made him tell the bare and honest truth once again.
“I only went on that date because I thought you were telling me… that you didn’t want me like that, like you couldn’t give me anything more than just this. Which I’m more than happy with by the way,” Sam said in a whisper, hoping that Dean wouldn’t kill him for opening this door, for speaking this truth that they’d never once discussed.
“Sammy,” Dean said in a matching whisper, cutting himself off with a barely audible choking noise like he was holding in something else.
“Just say it, c’mon-please,” Sam said, voice strained with trying not to obviously beg. He felt that he couldn’t possibly breathe until he heard Dean’s answer.
“I told you to go on that date and teased you about doing it because I thought she was….someone who you wanted. I was pretty sure she was a good possibility for you. I don’t have a claim on you like that, you know?” Dean asked.
“What if you did, though?” Sam asked, feeling himself go still and serious as a statue at the idea of Dean having a claim on him. Of course Dean did, he always had, and vice versa. They just hadn’t acknowledged it out loud-ever.
“How do you mean?” Dean asked, even though he obviously knew, his eyes darting around the room, his gaze landing anywhere but Sam’s face.
Sam took a deep breath, because this was it, the last chance for truth telling to make a difference. “Dean you were jealous, just from seeing the possibility of me starting something with Eileen. I saw it so clearly when I left and even more so when I got back, and I’m…it made me think this might be possible.” Even though he’d been scared nearly shitless by what Mrs. Butters had almost made him do, he hadn’t been able to shake those thoughts of how things might be between them. If only…if only.
“After all this time?” Dean asked.
Of course, Dean would do that, instead of asking what ‘this’ entailed, because they both knew, had known, for a very long time. The unavoidable truth of this choice was so plain before them. Sam knew he had to keep pushing, that Dean wouldn’t still be here in his room if he didn’t want to be pushed to finally actually confront this.
“Why not?” Sam asked, lifting his chin in a little-brother challenge he knew Dean would have to respond to.
***
Sam’s question seemed to pause in the air between them, coated in that little-brother dare that Dean could never seem to ignore. Not ever, and not this time. “What about the-“ Dean asked, interrupted by Sam’s lips on his.
It was a surprise. No-it was more like a slow-moving revelation of everything he’d ever made himself not dare to hope for. Sam started to pull back because Dean hadn’t responded yet. Dean’s hand came up to hold Sam’s head in place as he licked his way into his brother’s mouth. Sam’s moan was raw and unhinged, it felt beautiful as it vibrated through Dean’s body. Sam’s hands moved over Dean’s back, caressing, then holding him close.
The only sounds were their lips moving, and the small moans they traded back and forth like the world’s best currency. Dean felt himself vibrating with something he’d never experienced as they kissed, deep and exploring. There wasn’t time, there were no more excuses or reasons not to. The vibration was yes…and finally…this forever, please and thank you.
“You don’t have to say please or thank you,” Sam mumbled against Dean’s lips, laughing into his mouth, filling him up with the joy of this mutual surrender.
Dean didn’t have time to feel ashamed of speaking his thoughts out loud, or having Sam respond with the gentle mocking laughter. He was too busy soaking it up, the taste, the feel of him, giving himself over to Sam’s gentle hums and tugs at his hair, pulling him this way and that, making it more perfect, hotter and wetter, even more delicious. How could anyone taste this good, or feel this perfect? It was overwhelming, it was too much and not enough-all at the same time. He shuddered and pushed Sam away, almost too roughly.
Dean’s eyes roamed over his brother’s face, flushed pink cheeks, lips redder than usual and his eyes, always beautiful but now, filled with something he’d only caught glimpses of before.
“Dean?” Sam asked, tilting his head slightly, brow creasing in worry.
Dean reached out and smoothed a thumb over the crease, feeling the muscle relax at his touch. “It’s okay, I just needed a sec.”
Sam withdrew his hands from where they’d rested on Dean’s shoulders, folding them on his lap, fruitlessly hiding his obvious arousal.
“We…we really doin’ this?” Dean asked.
“Not if you don’t want to-” Sam said.
“No! I do, of course I do, it’s just…a lot, all at once,” Dean said, hand going to the back of his neck again.
“I have an idea, how about we go a little slower, huh? We’ve already taken all this time to get here, a little more won’t hurt anything,” Sam suggested.
“I don’t want you to think the wrong thing, I want this, Sammy. I want you, and you and me, for real,” Dean said.
“For real, yeah, for real, I like the sound of that,” Sam said, slow smile blooming on his lips.
Dean leaned in to taste it, kissing his way back into Sam’s mouth. They sighed together with relief and joy instead of the raw lust they’d felt before.
Sam pulled away this time, looking at Dean so closely, Dean thought he would melt under the heat of Sam’s gaze.
“I want to ask you something,” Sam asked, obviously holding back a smile.
“Yeah?”
“Dean, will you go out on a date with me tonight?” Sam asked, smiling wide and happy, apparently certain of the answer.
“As long as it’s not Duke’s, sure, it’s a date,” Dean said, matching his smile.
“Jack can heat up some of the leftovers from lunch,” Sam said.
“We gonna tell him?” Dean asked.
“Tell him what?” Sam asked.
“Isn’t he going to notice, you know-us being different?” Dean asked.
“He’s already asked me about us, a couple times,” Sam said.
“Really? What the hell did you tell him?” Dean asked.
“I told him about the soulmates thing. And that we loved each other more than most brothers do, kind of left it vague. He stopped asking,” Sam said.
“Good answer,” Dean said.
“That’s why it was funny, what Jack asked me, when I was getting ready to go out last night,” Sam said.
“What was that?” Dean asked.
“He asked whether the date was a real one or not. I think he was trying to compare it to some of the movies or tv shows that he’s seen,” Sam said.
“What’d you say?” Dean asked.
“I told him I wasn’t sure, but I would know one way or the other before I came back home,” Sam said.
“Already taken, she was right,” Dean said.