Fic: Just What You've Always Wanted, (Sam/Dean, PG)

[smalltrolven]

Title: Just What You’ve Always Wanted

Author: smalltrolven

Artist: dwimpala67

Pairing: Sam/Dean, established

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 11,909

Warnings: Vague references to former Sam/Jess.

Author’s Note: Not my characters, only my words. This is a season 12 AU that occurs after some of the events in episode 12.01, “Keep Calm and Carry On.” Written for the 2020 spn-canon-bigbang.  Thank you so much DWImpala67, your great art and constant support were crucial for this story getting posted. Thanks to the mods for letting me post late.

Summary: Amara gave Dean just what he’s always wanted—Mom. But she also did the same for Sam—Jess. The two women returning makes the brothers have to reevaluate how they’ve been living their lives together.

Art Masterpost is here.

Read it over on AO3 right here.

~~**~~

When Dean was given ‘what he’s always wanted’—at least according to Amara, he was of course over-the-moon happy to get to see Mary once again, flat out thrilled even. But when he finally got his mother back home to the bunker and saw Sam, bleeding from a gunshot wound, Dean’s happiness instantly dimmed to less than nothing. Then came the very next instant filled with confusion, because he noticed someone else, it was Jess who was holding a gun on an angry blonde woman yelling obscenities with a distinctly British accent.

Wait…hold on a second…Jess?

Dean honestly wasn’t sure what the hell was even happening. Or if any of it was even real, who knew with Amara, right? The whole thing might be some kind of projection. But all that really mattered to Dean was that his brother was injured and possibly about to be killed.

“Heya, Sammy, you okay? Who the hell is this and, uh…why is Jess here?” Dean asked from the top of the stairway, going with assuming it was all real and just as bat-crap crazy as it seemed.

Sam blinked up at him several times, to Dean’s eyes it seemed like Sam was probably trying to figure out if he was hallucinating again. Sam didn’t say anything in return to Dean’s greeting, he just watched as Dean descended the staircase with wide, almost scared eyes. Dean didn’t notice how upset Sam really was, as far as Dean knew, there wasn’t a damn thing wrong in the world. Because there wasn’t, right? He’d just survived being a soul bomb, negotiated a truce between Chuck and Amara and gotten home to Sam, with a bonus resurrected Mom in tow. All good…right?

Dean finally realized his sudden appearance was too much when he saw Sam’s face turn to horror instead of confusion. Mary stood behind Dean on the landing and looked down the stairway at Sam. When Sam’s eyes shifted to her and bugged out even wider than before, Dean could tell that Sam thought that now he really was hallucinating. It seemed like Sam was about to have a complete breakdown. Dean rushed down the last few steps, his arms outstretched for Sam.

“It’s me, Sammy, you’re okay, I swear it’s really me. Remember, stone number one,” Dean said, hoping that would help his brother avoid the oncoming breakdown. His arms were still open wide, but Sam hadn’t come to him yet.

“Dean how can it really be you? Why is Mom here, she’s dead right, but so’s Jess, she’s dead too, right? Wait, why are you here? I thought…the world didn’t end, so that meant you were blown up, but you’re…you're not,” Sam asked in a rush, crashing into Dean’s arms.

They held each other tightly for a moment that went over into well past too long. Only Mary’s ‘ahem’ broke them out of it.

“It was Amara, she and Chuck made up because I got ‘em to talk. No one blew up anything or anyone, especially me,” Dean said, mumbling the words into Sam’s hair as they pressed themselves together, heedless of anyone else in the room.

“It’s really you, you’re really here,” Sam said, stroking Dean’s shoulders with both of his hands, not letting go of their physical connection for a moment.

Dean reached up and held his brother’s hands, pressing them down against his own shoulders, so Sam would know that he didn’t want Sam going anywhere. Sam’s face was full of awe and joy and relief and he was so completely beautiful in this moment of yet another bizarre reunion.

“Amara said she’d give me what I’d always wanted as like…uh, a reward for helping her work things out with Chuck. So… here Mom is. And I‘m guessing that’s why Jess is here too, she must be your reward,” Dean said, nodding over to Jess.

Jess’s attention had been focused on the two men hugging in front of her, so that the woman who’d been cursing at her in increasingly colorful terms was able to kick the gun out of her hands. It flew through the air and landed on the floor in a wild spin near Mary. Luckily she knew how to handle a gun and competently scooped it up to turn it on the still cursing woman. The woman went very still as she could obviously see Mary knew what she was doing with the gun.

Dean let go of Sam’s hands to take his own gun out from the back of his waistband and waved it towards the British woman, so that she’d sit down at one of the library tables. “What’s your story, lady, and why the fuck did you shoot my brother?” He slipped an arm around Sam’s waist to keep him close.

“I’m from the Men of Letters in England. I was sent to either bring you boys in or take you out,” she said with a sniff of obvious disdain as she arranged herself primly in the chair.

“No, no, no, this isn’t an episode of Buffy for chrissakes, c’mon you can do better than that story,” Dean said.

“I am not certain who this Buffy might be, but that is indeed my mission. If you’d only let me access my phone, I shall contact my superior, perhaps he can speak in more easily understood terms,” she offered, looking steadily at Dean across the table, her hands sneaking down to her lap.

“No thanks, we’ll stick with just you for now, and keep your goddamn hands on the table where I can see ‘em!” Dean barked, waving the gun.

She glared daggers at Dean and put her hands back up on the table’s surface.

Dean still had one arm around Sam’s waist, it felt right to keep it there after their extended hug. Sam wasn’t protesting or moving away even though other people were there. Usually they didn’t do any PDA of any kind, but even Dean could admit to himself that they both needed it. He squeezed Sam a little and finally let go of him, sitting down at the table across from the snotty woman. “Why don’t you start with telling us your name? You owe us that at least,” Dean said, leaning back in the chair slightly so that the back of his head brushed across the front of Sam where he’d stepped up behind him.

The woman just made an ugly grimace at him across the table instead of answering, her hands clenching into fists. Her eyes shifted and she glared up at Sam.

“She calls herself Lady Antonia Bevell. She said that we’re in trouble with the Men of Letters for what we’ve been playing around with—Death and Chuck and Amara, all of that,” Sam said from behind and above Dean.

“Hold on just a damn minute! You’re saying my boys are in trouble? After everything they’ve done to save this planet?” Mary asked, white-hot motherly anger rising in her tone, she stepped closer to the table, the gun she held still trained on this Lady Bevell person.

“Thanks, Mom,” Sam said, staring over at her with a wide smile.

“You’re welcome, son,” Mary answered, smiling up at him and hugging him around the waist as Dean had been. The three Winchesters presented a united-as-one front as Dean held a gun on this Antonia person across the table and Mary also pointed one at her from behind him.

Lady Bevell laughed at all three of them, the smile on her face didn’t match her eyes, which remained cold and deadly. She was putting on a pretty good show to not seem worried about the two guns being pointed in her direction. “As I was told, the Brothers Winchester have caused several near-apocalypses, madam. We are well within our rights and obligations to contain the danger that your sons may yet still wreak on our planet.”

“Lady, I just played Dr. Phil to God and his freaking sister. Amara was about to wipe out existence as we know it, including Him, and I was the one that got the two of them to talk it out. Could your bosses, or you have done that with your fancy spells and ancient lore? I kinda doubt it.” Sam’s hands massaged at Dean’s shoulders so he leaned back into Sam a little more for the connection.

“Why would they have gotten a reward like having Mary and myself come back here from Heaven if they weren’t on the right side of things?” Jess asked, finally breaking into the conversation.

“That’s a damn good question, and heya, Jess,” Dean said with a smile.

Jess nodded at him and returned his smile, shifting over to stand closer at Mary’s side.

“You two ladies are a bit biased, no? And perhaps out of touch with what has been going on here on Earth as you’ve been dead for many years at this point, no?” Antonia asked.

“Hell no, we’re not out of fucking touch,” Mary laughed, “we’ve both been watching them all this time. They’ve been kicking ass and taking names just like they were supposed to. We couldn’t be prouder of the two of them, right, Jess?”

“Hell yeah!” Jess said, stepping up next to Mary. “They’ve saved the whole world several times, when has your group ever done something like that?”

“That is information well above your pay grade,” Antonia sniffed.

Her haughty reaction made all four of them laugh out loud at her. God, how awesome was it to get to laugh out loud together with these two women and his brother? Dean remembered the last time the four of them had been together, it had been in his djinn dream, but none of them had been real of course, and no one had been laughing.

Dean didn’t want to think about that too much, so he pushed himself up to standing and motioned with the gun. “C’mon, let’s go. Time to stow this one in the dungeon until she feels more like sharing.”

“Hold on one second, a dungeon?” Antonia asked, standing up slowly, her face finally looking just a bit worried.

“Oh c’mon, you don’t have those in the British version of the Men of Letters? I find that very hard to believe,” Sam said, moving to stay behind Dean.

“We’ll be right back with you ladies,” Dean said over his shoulder as they walked Antonia out of the War Room.

They marched her down the hall to an increasing litany of curses and threats. While Dean kept the gun on her, Sam struggled to secure the cuffs on her wrists and ankles as she tried to thrash out of his hold. Finally he got her tied down to the sturdy metal chair in the center of the dungeon. It still had a devil’s trap painted on the floor, left over from their previous activities in the room. Dean wondered if it would come in handy, it was possible she was part demon the way she was fighting.

“You cool off in here for a while,” Dean said, splashing a bit of holy water on her from one of the flasks on the table.

Antonia spluttered and screamed another round of curses. She wasn’t sizzling like a demon, so that was good information to know about their unknown and uninvited guest. Dean watched as Sam grabbed a silver knife off the table. He sliced the back of her neck, smiling sideways at Dean as she screamed. Still no sizzling, just a stupid human to deal with.

“Don’t go anywhere, we’ll be back eventually,” Sam said, shutting the lights off and closing the door behind them, blocking out Toni’s screams of protest.

“Fuck, you’re so damn hot when you take control like that,” Dean said, pressing him up against the door and pulling Sam down into a rough kiss.

Sam kissed him back, passionately and thoroughly, one of those kisses neither of them had ever been able to hold back from. At this point in their lives they’d had way too many chances to practice the you’re-back-from-the-dead kiss, it wasn’t one bit funny that they were both so damn good at it by now.

“You’re bleeding on me, dude,” Dean said, staring at the blood that had soaked into his jeans from Sam’s bloody bullet wound.

“Oh…I should probably—“ Sam started and then trailed off, practically swooning into Dean’s arms.

Dean made an oof sound and managed to hold Sam up, guiding him down the hall towards the infirmary. “Where the hell is Cas? I thought he’d be here with you. I asked him to make sure you were okay.”

“She…uh…she used the angel banishing sigil thingy on him,” Sam murmured as Dean heaved him up onto one of the gurneys.

“He’ll probably be back here pretty soon then. But you’re bleeding a lot, so we can’t wait for him to come back and take care of this.” Dean rolled Sam under the surgery light and flipped the switch. He frowned at where the bullet had ripped into Sam’s jeans. The wound seemed to be right above his knee, in the outer meaty part of Sam’s thigh. One of the least damaging places to get shot, so at least the bitch had good aim. Thank whatever deities that were remaining that she hadn’t pegged Sam in the kneecap.

“She had just gotten rid of Cas, and…I…uh…I was just telling her I didn’t think she’d really shoot me. But she did it…she shot me—“ Sam trailed off like a fading radio station.

“I can see that, dude,” Dean said, gathering the supplies he’d need to stitch Sam up, he shook his brother’s shoulder just a little to get the rest of the story out of him and to keep him from passing out.

“And…uh…and then all of a sudden Jess showed up. It shocked Toni and I so much we both just froze, which was lucky, it gave Jess a chance to get the gun away from Toni.”

“Toni, wait who’s Toni?” Dean asked as he worked to get Sam’s jeans down low enough so he could operate.

“Lady Antonia Bevell, Toni for short, that’s what she told us to call her right before you got here,” Sam said, wincing at the pain of the wrecked jeans moving over his wound.

Dean made a low whistling sound when he saw his brother’s ripped up skin. “Well, she’s got good aim at least, it’s a through and through and no arteries hit. She’s still a raging bitch for actually shooting you though.”

“What do you think it means, that she’s saying that she has orders to kill us or take us in?” Sam asked.

“I’ve got no freaking clue, dude. I’m confused about this whole British Men of Letters thing in the first place. Is that really a thing, did we even know about them?” Dean asked in a tight voice, as he worked to cauterize the small veins in Sam’s wound that were still bleeding.

“I knew The Letters was a worldwide organization with chapters all over the world, but I guess since we never heard from anyone when we got into the bunker and activated everything, I just figured Abaddon had been really thorough in destroying the Letters worldwide. A bad assumption on my part, apparently.”

“Remember what Bobby always used to say about that?” Dean asked.

“Never assume a thing, cause it makes an ass outta you and me,” Sam said in a soft voice.

“Wonder what their version of the bunker looks like over in England?” Dean asked as he stitched Sam’s skin back together. “Probably like something straight out of Harry Potter, or maybe a James Bond secret MI-6 thing.”

“It’s probably a boring old library, in a cold drafty castle,” Sam said, groaning with the sharp pain of being stitched up.

“What do we do with her now, though? Can we send her back to her drafty castle with a thanks but no thanks to pass on to her boss? Maybe tell them to throw her in the castle moat for all we care?” Dean asked.

“I have a feeling it’ll be a little more complicated than that,” Sam said. “But we need to keep her in the dungeon at least for a little while. Maybe her bosses will contact us or something.”

“I hope they don’t just show up unannounced. Do you think we need to get ready for something like that?”

“I’m guessing that she probably has a back up out there somewhere,” Sam said. “We need to tell Jess and Mom to be prepared for anything. She had to have a Men of Letters key to get herself inside here, so the backup might have one too.”

Dean carefully taped up the wound, and laid his hand above it on Sam’s bare upper thigh. He leaned forward and kissed the skin that wasn’t bloody. His lips moved in a silent prayer against Sam’s warm skin.

“What’re you saying?” Sam asked, one of his hands gently stroking Dean’s hair.

Dean looked up and was surprised all over again at how much he loved this man. “Bunch of secret stuff,” Dean said with a grin.

“C’mere,” Sam said, pulling Dean down for a kiss. He wrapped his arms around Dean’s shoulders, like he was desperate all of a sudden to hold onto him.

“It’s okay, Sammy, I’m here, not going anywhere,” Dean murmured into Sam’s mouth, kissing the promise into him.

****

“You got Sam all taken care of?” Mary asked as Dean poked his head into the kitchen.

Jess was busy making a pot of tea and Mary was cutting up some fruit at the counter.

“Yeah, he’s sleeping it off for now. What is this, tea time or something?” Dean asked.

“Yes, we decided we’re going to slowly reacclimate ourselves to eating and drinking. It seemed like tea and fruit would be an easy start,” Mary said.

“Yeah, it’s been a while since we’ve been corporeal, you know? We thought diving into swilling down whisky and eating cheeseburgers with you might be a little too shocking to our systems just yet,” Jess said with a grin.

“Hey, I resemble that remark,” Dean protested.

All three of them laughed.

Dean sat at the table and watched the two women work together, already moving like a well-rehearsed team. Jess was tall and leggy, just like Sam, with Mary shorter and wider-shouldered, just like him. It was an interesting thing to observe. He drank from his flask because he didn’t want to think much more on that subject. There were going to be issues about he and Sam being together, how could there not be? His mom would likely be disgusted and so would Jess, and then they would leave and then what? He drank again, definitely not wanting to think too much about why Jess was even here. Was she really what Sam wanted? Otherwise, why would Amara have brought her back along with mom?

“I was going to offer you some tea, but I see you’ve already got your beverage choice handled,” Mary said, watching Dean drain the rest of the contents of his flask.

Great, just what he needed, yet another person around to criticize his drinking habits.

“It’s been a long couple of days, I’m not explaining it to you past that,” Dean grumbled.

“Dude, she’s kidding, and we know, believe me we know how hard it’s been the last few years much less days for you guys,” Jess said, sitting down at the table with three mugs for the tea.

Mary sat down with the plate of cut up apples and pears. “I think you deserve that drink and many more, Dean. You guys saved the world again. Like we said earlier, we couldn’t be prouder of you, and that includes your dad too, by the way.”

“Dad? You mean you all have been watching us?” Dean asked, his stomach plummeting with the thought.

“Yeah, we have, and we turn the channel when things get hot and heavy with you two, don’t worry,” Jess said.

“Wait, you guys know…about Sam and me being together?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, we know, Dean, and we think it’s beautiful. You see things differently looking down on Earth from Heaven. The soul bond thing that Chuck gave you two, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world, truly,” Mary said.

Dean almost burst into tears at her words, a wave of hot emotion, relief and love all mixed together. “So…you guys think it’s okay that Sam and I are together like we are? Even Dad thinks so?”

“Yes, Dean, even your father. It’s all cool with us, really, just stop worrying about it. As far as I care, you guys are a meant-to-be sort of situation, the rules were made to be bent just for cases like you,” Mary said. “John thinks it’s adorable, he was really happy when you finally got together.”

“You watch us all the time, like some marathon tv show?” Dean asked.

“It’s not the only thing we do, but yes, we check in on you frequently. It’s not like we can do anything about what you’re going through, but we at least feel like we’re with you in spirit,” Jess said.

“I’m sorry, it’s hard to think about being observed all this time, honestly, between you and Cas watching us, it’s a little creepy really,” Dean said.

“I can see how it’d feel like that, but know that it comes from a place of love. All of us love you and Sam very much, and since you couldn’t call us or send us letters or anything, this was the next best thing,” Mary said.

“Sam’s gonna flip the fuck out when he hears this,” Dean said.

“You mean kinda like you are right now?” Mary asked with a one-sided grin.

“Yeah, pretty much, maybe worse, we’ll see,” Dean grumbled, refilling his whisky flask with his spare bottle hidden in the cabinet under the coffee maker.

***

Sam woke up alone in his bed, tucked in very tightly, by Dean, no doubt. At least his brother had changed him out of those bloody, ruined jeans and into clean, comfortable sweat pants. His leg throbbed and droned at him through the fading painkiller haze. He soon got bored of laying on his bed all alone in his room, he really was feeling a little more rested. He struggled to pull himself together enough to go be useful. He didn’t feel up to talking to their two visitors quite yet so he got busy with the usual visitor preparations.

First, Sam made sure there were two bedrooms set up and clean enough for the two new additions to the bunker to use later that night. There were lots of sheets in the linen closet, and they didn’t smell too terribly musty. He was struck with the memory of their first visitors in the bunker, Prometheus, Hayley and their little kid, Oliver. God, that kid had been cute, Sam remembered the pillow fight he’d gotten to have with him while his mom and Prometheus had been helping do the research. That had been an unexpectedly nice moment for Sam, a moment of pure joy that hadn’t been tainted afterwards.

Way back when they’d first moved into the bunker, Dean had teased Sam about his campaign to wash all the fine linen sheets that they’d found in the closet. Sam had insisted that it was just in case they needed them. Dean had insisted it was Sam just being OCD and weird about it, but then they’d needed the sheets almost immediately and it had been a good feeling to be able to easily offer hospitality to guests who really needed it. Over the years, Dean had gotten on board with the idea and helped him keep the linens squared away, clean and ready to use.

All of a sudden Sam had to sit down to rest after making up two beds with fresh sheets, all that bending and stretching on top of the recent blood loss making him woozy. He thought about how many guests they’d had in their three short years living in the bunker. Castiel had his own room by this point, and Kevin had too, at least he had right up until…Sam didn’t want to think about all that. Instead he switched to recalling Charlie’s brief stay with them when she was hacking the bunker’s ancient mainframe computer. How they’d basically gotten to have a slumber party with her up until the whole Oz business. And then after Charlie had returned from Oz they’d had a pizza party with her and Cas, shortly before she’d ended up murdered by the Stynes.

Sigh—another loss he didn’t want to think about. As usual being closely associated with the Winchesters tended to shorten their friend’s lives. Linda Tran had stayed with them briefly too, when they’d discovered Kevin’s ghost. At least she’d managed to escape from their circle alive. He wondered how she was doing these days and made a mental note to send her an email.

They’d recently had both Lucifer and God himself in the form of Chuck as houseguests too, as well as the most powerful witch they’d ever met, Rowena and the prophet Donatello who had been activated to take over after Kevin had died. A regular who’s who of the important movers and shakers in the supernatural world had stayed in these very rooms and slept on these very sheets. It was all kind of wild, after a lifetime of living in motels, they had ended up running a motel of sorts that was all their own.

After all that thinking and remembering and resting Sam felt better enough to get the job done the rest of the way. He wiped down the surfaces in the two rooms and made sure there were enough blankets and pillows on each bed.

Once the rooms were squared away and ready to use, he noticed the enticing smell of something cooking and made his way slowly down the hall to the kitchen. He peeked in and saw the three of them working together, laughing and drinking beer. It was homey in the bunker all of a sudden, like it had been just a few times before when they’d had dinners with Cas and others. This was different though, it was a real occasion to have these two women back in their lives. It was all pretty extraordinary, really. He wasn’t sure how it was going to go, how they could possibly all adjust to such an enormous change, but it was going to be interesting.

***

To Part Two