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“I don’t really think I’m the right person to tell you about marriage, Sammy.”
“’S not like I have anyone else to ask,” Sam pouted, swinging his legs from the uncomfortable motel bed where they didn’t yet touch the floor. “Asked one of the kids at school and he looked at me like I was stupid for not knowing what it was.”
Dean rolled his eyes, flopping back on his own bed opposite Sam, indulging his brother.
“Fine. When two people think each other are really cool they go into a church and they promise to be together forever and everyone claps and then they they live together and have kids and stuff like Mom and Dad did. And then there’s like, a law, that says there’s a special connection between those two people. But it’s for normal people, Sammy. Hunters don’t get married. It’s too dangerous.”
Sam frowned. He kind of liked the sound of this whole marriage thing. He’d spent most of his childhood alone with nobody to talk to when his dad and brother left him behind to go on hunts, and he liked the idea that he wouldn’t always be alone. “You don’t think it’ll happen to me?”
Dean sighed, and Sam hadn’t meant it as a hard question, but it must have been, because Dean opened his mouth a few times and closed it again each time without answering.
Finally he said, “Ketchup or barbecue sauce on your mac and cheese?”
–
Years later, the two of them sat, again, on an uncomfortable motel bed. This time Sam’s legs did touch the floor. This time, the two of them were side by side, pressed up against each other, Dean’s arm looped around Sam’s waist and Sam’s fingers combing through Dean’s hair.
“So, uh, I’ve been giving some thought to where we should head to next,” Dean said a little too casually.
“Oh yeah?” Sam was comfortable and too sleepy to play Dean’s games. He was sure Dean would make his point eventually.
“Yeah, a hunter friend gave me a tip. Said there’s some vampires, out by Vegas. He doesn’t have the time to deal with them himself, but I thought we could take a crack.”
Sam chuckled, because even after all these years, his brother would forever be a mystery to him. “Dean, you don’t have any hunter friends. All your friends are dead. And that’s the fifth time you’ve tried to get us out to Vegas recently. What, do you have a secret gambling addiction I don’t know about?”
Sam had been expecting Dean to laugh, but instead, he flushed bright red.
“It’s not - I don’t have a gambling problem, Sammy, it’s a different reason.”
Sam stared at his brother, slowly putting the pieces together. Dean turned an even brighter red and hid his face.
“Look, I could be getting the wrong end of the stick here, but if you’re saying we should have a shotgun wedding–”
“It’s not a shotgun wedding! Cause that makes it sound like we’re rushing into it, but we’ve basically been married our whole lives. This’d just be making it - not even official, we’d be using fake IDs, but it’d just be nice to - stop picking holes in my plan, Sammy, it was a stupid idea, just forget it!”
Dean stood up and stalked towards the bathroom, grumbling to himself.
Sam jumped up, grabbing Dean’s shoulder and spinning him around. Dean stared up at him in shock.
“If you wanted to marry me, why didn’t you just ask me? What were you going to do, lure me into a chapel and say there was a vampire in there?”
Dean shrugged. “Not like I have many good examples of proposals to base this on.”
“Well - a ring usually helps. Down on one knee. Come on, you’ve seen movies…” Sam coaxed, and he knew his brother was scared, but if they were going to take this step, there had to be more to it than half-formed words and implications. He wanted Dean to actually admit his feelings for once.
But he definitely hadn’t been expecting Dean to detour over to where his bag lay on the floor, grabbing a tiny box out of the pocket and mumbling, “Yeah, I actually have one of those.”
“You what?” Sam breathed out, because holy shit, this was actually fucking happening, he wasn’t making this up, Dean was going to-
Dean crossed the room and got down on one knee next to Sam, staring at the floor so he didn’t have to look him in the eye. It looked like he was tying his shoelace.
It was a lot better than nothing.
“Sam. Sammy. Bitch.”
It was the moment at which Dean would usually have attempted a friendly punch on the arm to lighten the mood, if he hadn’t been, you know, on the floor.
Sam waited, ever patient, until-
“I… you and I, we’ve known a lot of people in our lives. And some of them have been cool. Some of them have tried to kill us, which is a different story, but that’s off topic… Point is, through all that, I’ve learned that there’s not many people I can rely on. People always end up leaving, whether they mean to or not. But you… you’ve died, you’ve been trapped in the Cage, you’ve been through ten times as much shit as anyone else I know and a lot of it’s been my fucking fault, but you always figure out a way back to me. And this ain’t a word I use a lot, but to me… that’s love. Deciding that someone’s worth the shit you’re gonna go through because of them. And I never knew any hunters that got married and actually managed to make it work, so I always thought, no point, right? But recently I’ve been thinking… maybe you and I can be the first. Hell, you’ve been keeping me human my entire life. What say we try out some stupid human tradition and say vows and wear monkey suits and then take a fucking vacation for once?”
Dean fumbled for the box, taking three tries to actually flip it open. When he finally managed it, he revealed a ring, a simple silver band with a miniscule copy of the anti-possession symbol inscribed into it. He held it out to Sam with a shaking hand.
Finally, ever so slowly, Dean tilted his head upwards until honest, vulnerable green eyes met hazel.
“So there’s no vampires in Vegas, not that I know of, but I’d still like to go there with you. Or anywhere you want. I just wanna marry you, Sammy.”
Sam sank to the floor and pretended that he didn’t see the tears in Dean’s eyes as he nodded, then cupped Dean’s face in his hands and kissed him softly. When he pulled away, there were matching tears on his own cheeks, and this was OK to admit, because it meant Dean could take care of him, just like he always had. Dean kissed away the tears on Sam’s cheeks and slid the ring onto his finger and there were mumbled promises of ‘soon’, but they were in no rush to do anything, both of them for now just wanting to appreciate the moment and take in how lucky they were to have this person they could always depend on.
It turned out that Dean was exactly the right person to talk to Sam about marriage.