#the idea of sam changing his last name to Leahy made me Soft(tm)

[bowie-boy]

Saileen wedding ficlet in honor of the groom—

“So why are you changing your last name?”

The question came from Dean over breakfast, Cas in the other room with Jack cooking up the last of the pancake batter. Sam couldn’t help but flinch. He’d been afraid for weeks to tell Dean that it wouldn’t be Eileen Winchester, but Sam Leahy.

“Because I’m a feminist,” he replied easily, downing a sip of orange juice.

Sure, it was partially that. But it was other things, too.

To Dean, family had always been blood. Of course, blood wasn’t always family. But whenever Dean gave that sacred title to someone, that hard-earned title of “family”, their connection to him was considered stronger than any biology could have forged. A family member was a Winchester, plain and simple. It had never crossed Dean’s mind that Cas wouldn’t become Castiel Winchester. Of course he would be. He always had been, in a way, but their marriage made it official.

Sam had never seen family quite the same way.

The Winchester name was a keystone of Dean’s identity; for Sam, it was a shackle.

As long as he could remember, he’d felt different, and for good reason. There was more than Winchester blood stirring in him—demon blood and a curse he couldn’t quite shake. He was over it now, that demon blood. It was just another part of him, a part he’d started to accept long ago and finally had in their months of recovery from full-time hunting.

Sam couldn’t make Eileen a Winchester because he himself had never truly felt like one.

Well, that wasn’t fully true. He was Dean’s brother, of course, but he was more than that. He was a Singer. He was a Moore. He was a Turner and a Campbell, a Bradbury and a Fitzgerald, a Hanscum and a Mills. Sam felt that he was more than just a family name, a name passed down by a father who had struggled to love him, a father he’d struggled to love.

No name had ever really stuck with him, none was one he wanted to keep forever like a brand, another mark on his body or soul.

Until Eileen.

She was so like him and so unlike him, sunshine and moonlight, rigid muscle and soft laughter. Eileen was the first in a long time who made him feel like...well, a real person. A human being, flesh and blood and soul.

So yes, he would be Sam Leahy. And he didn’t care what Dean had to say about it.

But Dean didn’t seem to mind at all.

“Sammy Leahy,” Dean said to himself. He grinned. “Loving the consonance there.”

Sam allowed himself to be taken aback. You don’t mind that I won’t be a Winchester anymore? he tried to ask.

Dean’s eyes said it all: You’ll always be my little brother, Sammy.

Suddenly, Sam felt his eyes begin to get wet. He rubbed at them a little. He couldn’t start crying yet; it was only nine in the morning for crying out loud!

Sam tried to say thank you, I love you, anything, but what came out was: “Consonance? Is Cas teaching you big words now?”

“Oh, shut up!” Dean said, shoving Sam a little and laughing.

“I’m doing what?” Cas asked, bringing in a plate of fresh pancakes with Jack on his heels.

“Oh, nothing,” Dean said, pulling Cas down by the collar and planting a small kiss on his cheek. “Mr. Leahy here is just trying to call me stupid.”

Mr. Leahy. I like the sound of that.