Chapter Text
Sam is a friendly drunk, right up to the point where he grows sullen, morose and broody. He can be sweetly charming when it hits just right, all smiles and dimples, tactile and warm and increasingly loose-limbed. Dean likes him on nights like those. Sam’s laugh is rare thing, anyway, so Dean takes what he can get when he can get it.
They have wound up some place called The Pocket or The Rocket or The Sprocket or something like that. Their waitress said "I'm not good with the menu, really" and snapped her gum at them. Sam had managed to roll his eyes without actually moving a muscle and that always impressed Dean. Dean hitched one shoulder in reply like "what are you going to do" and settled for ordering beer and promising Sam that they'd hit up the pizza place up the road once they had made some cash. There were pool tables in the back. This was definitely a pool hall and not a restaurant, the dismal chalk board listing the pretty typical crappy bar food not withstanding. Sam frowned but there was the slight break of his eyebrows that said "okay, fine, whatever".
On second thought, though, beer on an empty stomach is not necessarily practical. Or smart. Witness, Sam loose-limbed and laughing. He's actually making eyes at Dean across the room when there's a lull in the game Dean's playing. They’d split up from the bar and on out. Dean is really invested in a long game here, up against a local who is a bit better than he advertises, but not all that much. Dean figures this to be one of those times when the side action is going to be worth more than the game and he's relying on Sam for that, though judging from the way Sam is moving right now, all easy grace and smeared drunk eyes, he's not too sure Sam's got it in him to pay attention to the paycheck.
Brings back memories for Dean of what it was like those first months when Sam rode like a tense seething wraith next to him, pissy and judgmental and every bit as bad as he had been before he left for Stanford. Sam had bitched back then. Man, had he ever. Sam had bitched about how Dean made his money, but despite all that, it was still Dean that kept him fed and clothed and bought him a new laptop and whatever else he needed, same as always. He remembers needling Sam about being a "kept boy" and that had been when Sam started actively participating in whatever hustle Dean had going, which had sort of been the goal of the whole thing.
So, now Sam is obviously a little drunk and a little weighted down by it and he's fucking making eyes at Dean from across the room when he should be right here doing his part. Dean turns his back, because he can't really afford the distraction his little brother provides right now with his eyes and the effortlessness of his stance.
Dean gets his head back in the game, but that doesn't mean he can't see Sam in his peripheral, weaving through the thickening crowd to the bar and leaning in over the counter to get the bartender’s attention. He resolutely puts the long, strong line of his brother's back out of his mind and stares at the green felt until all he can see is angles and trajectories and waits for his turn. A botched bank shot later and it's maybe two minutes and then Sam's fingers stumble down Dean's arm. Dean looks up, kind of surprised, because that's not where he expected Sam to be at all. Sam smiles at him, sloppy, and hands over a bottle.
-Hey, he says. "Bought you a beer. Thought you might be thirsty."
His tone of voice is all fucking wrong. Dean's starting to wonder if Sam's had something slipped into his drink when he wasn't paying attention, because it sounds like Sam is sort-of hitting on him. He's just about to say "Sammy, what the hell..." when he catches a quicksilver glint in Sam's eyes and it's like. Fuck. So he smiles instead, the same smile he's been giving the guys around the table and takes the proffered bottle.
-Thanks. You play, or just watch?
Sam cocks his head as if he's thinking about it.
-Might play, Sam says. "Later. Just watching for right now, though."
There's something there in Sam's smile and in his gaze. Something that Dean thinks could be interpreted to mean he could get to play for real, if he wanted to. Dean's seen this look before, enough to know what it means when it's laid on him like that. He lets his smile slide a little further into appraisal and gives Sam a cursory once-over out of the corner of his eye, like he would if he was trying to gauge how far this could go.
Hitting on a guy is different, it just is. It doesn't matter how good you are at reading people, you always run the risk of having the guy who's been putting out all the right vibes turn out to be just friendly, or so far in the closet he's touching the snows of Narnia, and have him clean you clock instead of ringing your bell.
-Well, let me know when you feel like playing, Dean says low and rough, and for a full second there's amusement in Sam's eyes along with something supernova hot.
It's not that Dean thinks Sam is shy about what he wants exactly, 'cause fuck knows Sam has a tendency to go after what he really wants with everything he's got. Sam is cautious, though, and that's just prudent. The smile he gives Dean is still a thing of beauty and makes a little fever hot spike of anticipation shot up Dean’s spine.
Dean goes back to the game. The guy he's playing is looking at him curiously having seen that little exchange. Dean gives him his best shit-eating grin and goes right back to being almost good enough for a while. He makes a show out of it too, wondering how much of that is for Sam's benefit as he steadies his hand against the edge of the table and leans in. It's a little confusing, but not enough to ruin his concentration. There his ball sits in the jaws of the pocket and he almost forgets he's not supposed to be good enough to get an angled shot. It’s a near thing, though. Dean lets the other guy win, but not by much.
Sam gives Dean his condolences and smiles like someone Dean doesn’t know. Then he turns to the other guy, Oscar or something, and tells him he’s got to give Dean a rematch, just so Sam can win his money back. Sam passes a couple of crumpled notes to Latino guy almost as tall as himself and cocks and eyebrow at Dean.
-You bet on me? Dean asks, making his tone incredulous.
-Yeah, I bet on you. Looked like you knew what you were doing, Sam tells him with another of those liquid easy smiles and Dean is gone, just like that.
Fuck, if he didn’t know Sam, if he’d never met Sam before, he’d still take a shot at that, just to see what other kind of smiles he could get out of him, what noises. Sam is lit and bright and there’s still something a little too smart in Dean’s little brother’s eyes but that’s only there for Dean when no one else is looking. Sam is nowhere near as drunk as he seems.
Dean’s opponent says something about Sam wasting his money and Dean figures the trash talk is friendly enough so he comes right back with “oh, yeah, tough guy?” and Oscar grins and Sam smiles and Dean… well, Dean is kind of stupidly gone over Sam and pretty much just wants this part of the evening to be over so he can get Sam alone and do some seriously immoral things to him. Like put him on his knees. Or go on his knees himself. Dean’s not picky, it’s good either way.
Now. If Sam was some guy in a bar, someone Dean didn’t really know… well, Sam has that smile going for him. And a kind of relaxed vibe that seems little more-than-friendly ‘cause he put his hand on Dean without introducing himself and there’s an opening there. Never mind that he bought Dean beer, that could just as easily be a sally forth for sociable company. Not with tactile enhancement, though. That kind of contact, well, it says something.
Right about there Dean’s mind does one of those one-eighties that he really damn well hates. Freak kids, new in town in second hand clothes bought at goodwill and Sam skinny as a rake and too tan for the state, the season. Prodigy even then, fucking kid, better than anyone, smarter than all of them, and Dean would have killed, downright honest to God killed, anyone who called him a geek, a freak, a loser, a fag.
And now, here they are, a decade and some change later and Sam is wearing a shirt he bought at a yard sale in the outskirts of Miami. Still smarter than everyone, Dean included. Still a prodigy, still worth more than anything else Dean has. And Dean will still kill anyone who goes at Sam, calls him a freak, a fag, a weirdo. They are traveling and rootless, still making every crap motel their home and sleeping in the car when their money runs out.
Dean thinks the worst part about all those goodwill stores was the way the smell started becoming something familiar and almost comforting. Sam looking through shelves of paperbacks and picking up curious and making up stories and it was always kind of fun in a way the generic brand stores never could be. They’ve lived in the margin for so long it started looking like where they belong… and Dean needs to get off that track and just take his fucking shot already, because Sam has money riding on this game with three or four of the other patrons and maybe they can get out of here soon and go someplace where it will just be the two of them and the muted glow of neon lights through cheap motel curtains. Dean really wants that.
Flash forward or flash back and it’s the same goddamned deal. It’s him and Sam in some cheap rented room some place far off the grid enough that they can steal a few hours for themselves. Sometimes they just fall into bed and sleep, pressed in close together like they used to, for warmth, for safety, for peace of mind. Dean likes waking up with his nose pressed to Sam’s neck, breathing him in, knowing he’s there, solid. Alive.
Other times… well, other times it’s different. Sam’s hands eager on his skin and his clever fingers working their way inside. Dean kissing him like he forgot how to breathe without it and on nights like that it’s fast and hard and oh, God, Sam.
Time passes and the games go on. That's the way this stuff works. Dean knows Sam is going to leave before he does, so he's going to have to slip Sam the car keys at some point. Sam will be out there in the dark, lounging in the backseat. Fuck. Nothing Dean thinks seems to go anywhere clean right now.
Thing is, Dean's not done with all these thoughts of what Sam is like when he's not known, the way he is with Dean. What kind of a tumble would Sam be? Just for a one-nighter, what kind of guy is Sam? It drives Dean crazy that someone else might have, must have, had Sam like that, known him like that. Met him in some bar, some club, at some party somewhere and got a part of Sam that Dean is never going to get to have. He's not exactly jealous, but it's a near thing, something hot and pulsing in him, a steady beat. Sam almost-flirting with him like he has been all night only makes it worse.
His thoughts rove on what it would be like if Sam was a piece of pretty for Dean to take home and discover. Something new, something different. What would that be for Dean? How could he make it really fucking good for this tall, built guy with the shifting eyes and the unaffected grace? There are promises in how Sam moves, how he carries himself. Strength there, both in muscle mass and in will, and something else too, something lithe and lion-eyed. Dean is no doubt the one that has the deepest knowledge of his brother, but there is something to be said for being the one who gets to explore.
When Dean looks around the room next, he's still talking to the guy he's been playing and it's friendly and easy and "good job, man" and shit like that. Dean beat him by a narrow margin, no hurt pride anywhere and Dean knows he could have swept the table with the guy, but since he has been nice and gracious the whole way through Dean sees no reason to do that. Sam is standing by one of the tables, angled in and bent over, one big flat palm to the tabletop and talking in an animated way with the two guys sitting there. They're all smiling sociably and Dean doesn't mind that, but then Sam claps his hand on the one guy's shoulder and it's all he can do to not stalk over there and grab his boy, get the fuck out of here.
That is jealousy. No point in denying it.
The way his stomach curdles and his heart goes clank and boom and his palms prickle, all of it is green pulsing fucking jealousy. Dean hasn't really felt it like this, not this heavy. The insistence of his own heart beating out Mine Mine Mine, that's actually not something he's had to deal with before. Huh. Weird.
Dean gets called back to the conversation he's supposed to be having and has to stop looking at his little brother being all touchy-feely with some random guy. Okay, so that's a little unfair and Dean knows that, but Sam's looking a picture, big and just a little flushed in the close heat and Dean wants that. He wants the flush to be for him, the heat, Sam's smile, all of it. He wants those things like he has a God-given right to them. Sam is just schmoozing, he's being all agreeable and getting paid and Dean knows that, he does. Doesn’t really help, though.
Dean rubs his mouth with the back of his hand. He just can't seem to get a handle on this night, that's all. It's like when you've been up for forty-eight hours straight and there's no end in sight and everything has that sharp focus, hyper vigilance, heart doing weird loops in your chest in an off-beat rhythm and your mind going off is strange directions.
He can see, for instance, that under Sam's friendly, laid-back and loose body language there's something feral and sharp and that under the smiling kind stranger act Sam is assessing and calculating risk. It shouldn't be as hot as it is. It doesn't show, not really, not if you don't know how to quantify all the things Sam is good at, but Dean does and so he sees it all.
The other thing about that is that is makes Dean want to take Sam somewhere and get him to the stage where he really is unleashed and wild and out of control. Dean doesn't want him friendly tonight. Not malleable and soft-drunk and drowsy. He wants the other Sam, the one that is unrestrained and equal to Dean in every measure. He knows he can have that too, if he plays his cards right.
Once Sam has collected his winnings he comes back over to Dean and smiles his for-strangers-smile and Dean positions himself angled into Sam’s body, cradling the stick between his interlaced fingers and tilts his head, giving Sam a sly sideways glance that has a promise to it if you know how to look for that. Which Sam does. Dean sees Sam’s fingers twitch and he knows that aborted gesture for what it is, Sam wanting to grab hold of him in some way and controlling that forcibly.
-Hey, man, great game, Sam says.
-Thanks. Won you your money back?
-Yeah, it did. I feel like I owe you a beer or something.
Sam is flirting with him, subtly muted like he’s unsure of which way this is going to tilt. Dean looks up at him, giving a small answering smile before he swipes his tongue across his lips in an almost innocent gesture. Or, it could have been if Sam’s eyes hadn’t locked on his lips with something hungry coloring his expression.
-You know what? Dean says. “Food’s for shit in this joint. I kind of want some pizza to soak up the beer. You up for that?”
Sam’s smile tells him just how up for it he is when he takes a few minutes to deliberate that and then nods once.
-Yeah. Yeah, food would be good.
And they roll out of there. Good thing too, because Dean doesn’t want anyone else around now, he wants it to be him and Sam, just the two of them, and god, he should be sick of it just being him and Sam, but that really isn’t the way this works.
Sam can drive him nuts sometimes, all restless energy and button-pushing, but right now that’s not an issue. Right now all Dean wants is Sam tapping out a restless rhythm on his knee in the shotgun seat while they try to find a place to bunk down. Once they’re in the car and Dean goes to turn the ignition he can feel Sam looking at him. When he glances over he sees the torch burning in Sam for about a second before Sam shots him a quick smile and looks out the window.
-You promised pizza, Sam says.
-And I’ll get you pizza. Sheesh.
-No welshing.
-I wasn’t gonna. How much did you make?
-We did alright.
We. That sticks with Dean. They’re in this together. They’re in it all together.
So he pulls up at the pizza place.
Dean has to rein it in when he sees that they actually have a pizza called “Sam I Am”. He manages to keep it to a snort and that’s a good thing considering how hard Sam elbows him in the ribs.
-I’ll get the vegan, I swear, Sam says, low threat in the deep end of his register and Dean straightens out his face just so he can order them something with a little more moo to it.
Sam sticks by his side, a little too close to be casual while they wait. Some ancient part of Dean wants to shuffle, or jostle him to put some space between them, because they’ve been in too many places like this too many times and he’s still Sam’s big brother. He doesn’t, though. That has everything to do with the other things they are, the other things Dean wants.
The motel they find has three floors and no elevator and they’re at the top. The walls are thin and the sliding door to the balcony is broken. It looks like the 70s has thrown up in it. It’s home, sweet home the second Sam dumps his bags by the door and shuffles the pizza box onto the low table by two small, ridiculous-looking chairs by the window.
Dean seriously has no handle on this night. He’s just not getting what the hell it’s all about. He keeps thinking something’s going to break or leap out at him, but they stick to the routine and everything is just business as usual and it’s kind of killing him to be sitting there with Sam, eating pizza and watching Sam distractedly looking out the window at the shimmering glimmer of water in the surprisingly clean looking pool.
There’s no adrenaline, no rush, no heart stopping need. There’s just … this thing, this buzzing like a distant itch, like the way your throat feels just before you come down with a cold. It’s displacement of energy, or something. Fuck, it’s exasperating.
-Hey, Dean? Sam says and Dean’s eyes snap over to find Sam looking at him with slow burning intensity.
-Yeah?
-I watched you play tonight.
-Uh, yeah, I noticed.
Sam deliberately wipes his fingers on the paper napkin supplied by the pizza place and scoots his chair back, legs settling in an easy sprawl that looks suddenly like an open invitation.
-No. I watched you, Sam says slowly.
The low level buzz kicks up a notch, turns into a droning hum under Dean's skin. If you think about it it's all play anyway. He leans in and puts his elbows on the table. "Oh, Jesus", is mostly the way Dean's thoughts seem to be heading. It's all jumbled for him right now, like it's been all night.
-You like what you saw? Dean asks.
Sam smirks at him and then lets the smile skate into something wilder and warmer.
-Yeah, I did.
Sam strokes his hands up his own thighs until they settle right in the V of his spread legs, drawing attention to the outline of his interest. He just sits there waiting for whatever Dean is going to come back with. Dean lets his gaze rove. He can see Sam's breath pick up, the push of air almost audible. It hits Dean somewhere low the gut, this is what Sam is like. Not with some random stranger, not for some simple pick-up, but with him. And that matters more.
The night might have been amorphous and strangely shaped all the way through, but it's starting to crystallize now, beginning to make more sense.
Dean scoots his chair back and settles at an angle so he can reach out. Sam watches him move and stays stock still, smile still playing at the corners of his mouth. Dean reaches out and lets his knuckles ride the ridge of the outline of Sam's cock, feeling him through layers of clothes and there's anticipation building between them.
-I was watching you too. Flirting like a tease. And I was wondering what kind of lay you'd be. If you didn't know me, what would you let me do? How far would you take it?
Sam draws a sharp breath and lets it out slowly, his eyelids at half mast and his gaze burning at Dean. His hips move into the touch and Dean presses down a little harder. He can feel Sam starting to reach for him and turns his hand, cups Sam sure and solid. Sam mutters a low curse.
-What are you like, Sam? Would you go on your knees on a first date?
-Damn it. I don't... Sam starts, but he settles back and visibly relaxes even if it takes some effort. "For you? Yeah, I would."
-And then what?
-Take you all the way down, just long enough for you to start losing it. And then I'd pull back. Ask you to fuck me.
-Ask me?
-Beg, you fucker. I'd beg. Jesus, Dean.
Dean gets up out of his chair, keeps one hand steady on Sam and leans in over him. He gets in far enough to kiss and then he kind of loses the plot because Sam surges up at him, hard, licking into his mouth, all tongue and purpose and he kisses Dean, kisses like he knows him. Dean slides his free hand around Sam's neck, holding on and pulling him in. There are some pretty noises from Sam, a low base note to them that goes straight to Dean's cock. He pulls back just enough to lick his own lips and watches Sam's eyes slowly open back up. He's kept the pressure up the whole time and Sam's hips are working in counter rhythm, just subtle slight movements.
Sam lets him for a long drawn-out moment, so close Dean feels the way he heats up and flushes and then Sam pushes at him and stands. There are moments where Dean’s reminded of how tall and broad Sam really is, how he can press the physical advantage of the inches he has on Dean, and this is sort of like that, but in a really good way.
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