As far as Sam could tell, his series of bad decisions had started the day he allowed himself to be dragged off to god-only-knew-where by a blond named Balthazar. He hadn't known the man, hadn't cared to know him, and was still wishing that they hadn't met even as he sipped at the beer in his hand.
"You beautiful, huge creature," the man had cried upon seeing Sam. "My girls would absolutely adore you."
Sam froze at the statement and eyed the man with a sort of wary interest. "I'm sorry?" he said, clearing his throat anxiously and taking half a step back.
"Sorry?" Balthazar repeated, shocked. "My dear, you have nothing to apologize for," he said. He shook his head as if to clear away the astonishment. "You simply must come with me," he said. "I want to introduce you to Giulia and Amelie."
The next Sam knew, he was being forcibly manhandled out the door and into the arms of two gorgeous women, without getting much of a say in the matter. As it turned out, Giulia and Amelie were Balthazar's girlfriends. Or perhaps they were each other's girlfriends and Balthazar was something they shared; Sam wasn't entirely sure how it all worked. There was also a 2-year-old girl in their midst, a tiny little thing called Mina, though the parentage of said child was somewhat unclear.
Either way, they were gorgeous, and Balthazar was right. They adored Sam.
"Oh dear, what do you think? Perhaps Gabriel would like him– "Amelie started.
"Don't be ridiculous," Giulia said, smoothing her hands over Sam's arms. "Castiel has been single much longer."
"What?" Sam choked, looking back and forth between them a little frantically.
"Actually, darlings," Balthazar said, from where he was standing to the side. "I was thinking –"
"Hush dear," Giulia said.
"Yes," Amelie added. "The adults are talking."
"Yes, but – "Balthazar tried.
Amelie continued as if Balthazar hadn't spoken. "Giulia, love, not Castiel. It's an art form, learning to talk to him. It would take months and months to train someone in that area, and we simply don't have the time."
"Nick, then," Giulia said decisively. "Not Gabriel. That man is getting no more favors from me."
It was the start of a somewhat bewildering acquaintance, and what Balthazar would refer to as a magnificent friendship.
And that was how Sam found himself an hour later, sipping a beer in the middle of a house he'd never even been to before in the midst of some kind of mad celebration. He mostly succeeded in keeping to himself, ducking out of the way anytime Balthazar came sweeping through the crowd with a gleam in his eye.
He startled when a man sat down on the couch next to him, looking windswept and a little ferocious, and Sam shifted slightly away from him.
"You're not one of my relatives," the man said, with a note of relief.
"I don't even know anyone here," Sam said a little miserably. "I was at the library looking for a place to study when some madman named Balthazar came out of nowhere and kidnapped me."
"My cousin," the man said. It didn't sound like something he was proud of. "Nick Milton," he said, offering a hand.
"Sam Winchester." Sam took a deep breath. "And I just want you to know, before those insane women come back and try to hook me up with you, or god-knows who else they mentioned, that I have a girlfriend."
Nick let out a sharp, startled laugh. "Is that why they brought you here?"
It was quickly decided that it was in their best interests to band together against Nick's strange and persistent relatives, who, throughout the next month, descended upon Sam in hoards.
The next bad decision, as decisions went, came in the form of a short blond quite like Balthazar as far as lewd suggestions went, but absolutely hard wired for nothing but fun.
Sam met him completely on accident, and did not regard this as a pleasant experience.
"I'm not Nick's anything," he said exasperatedly, trying to ignore the fact that people were starting to stare.
Gabriel, the owner of little bakery, let out a delighted little laugh. "You mean you're single?" he leered.
"No! You're one of them, aren't you? One of Balthazar's relatives?" At Gabriel's affirmative, Sam groaned. "You're the third one I've met this week."
"Have you met Michael yet?" Gabe asked excitedly.
Sam's lip curled back involuntarily in disgust and Gabriel laughed loudly. "We're going to get along great," he said. "Come on to the back. I need a taste tester.
After that, it seemed every time Sam walked through the front doors he was whisked away to the back to sample a number of sweets. He wouldn't have minded very much if hadn't been for all of the poking and prodding, and then Sam was suddenly roped into working at the bakery as well. Sam also had very little interest in the three main points on Gabriel's agenda. One, get laid. Two, get Nick laid. And three, piss off Michael. Not necessarily in that order.
The next bad decision was when he agreed to go out for drinks with Castiel after stumbling into him on his way home from class.
Castiel wasn't nearly as bad as Gabe and Balthazar, but he wasn't anywhere close to normal either. He was Balthazar's younger brother, and in Sam's opinion, that was a horrible offense. Cas was messy haired and clad in a rumpled coat, with terribly bright, inquisitive eyes, and didn't seem to have a very good grasp on pop culture or personal space.
All in all, the situation was quite possibly the most baffling thing Sam had ever been a part of, and he would be lying if he said that it didn't make him miss his own brother.
When Sam had said he was going to college, he hadn't really envisioned himself pressed up against the wall of someone's dirty apartment with another man's mouth ghosting across his pulse point, but there he was. It was a bad idea, the worst really, because Nick was the closest thing he had to a friend besides Jess (since he was loathe to claim either Gabriel or Balthazar as his friends) and Sam didn't really want the added weight of expectation on his shoulders. He was also a little drunk, and he shouldn't have been cheating on a wonderful girl like Jess.
Nick must have felt his hesitation because he looked up at him and offered a sharp little smile that would have made a lesser man look crazy. On him, it was tired and a little self-deprecating. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked.
Sam leaned his head back against the wall. "Would I really be here if I wasn't?" Not that he knew exactly where here was. It wasn't Nick's apartment anyway, as far as he could tell, and he couldn't remember how they got here.
Nick laughed, low and smooth, and pressed closer. His hands found Sam's hips and curled around him. "No," he said. "But I can't help but wonder why you think this is a good idea."
"I don't," Sam said, not quite able to stop the small sound when Nick pulled him closer.
Nick's eyes flicked up to him again, blue-grey and a little serious, but his mouth was curling into a sardonic half smile. "Then you've come to the right place," he said.
When their lips met it was a little awkward, because no matter what it looked like, Sam didn't usually make a habit of kissing his close friends, or men, or people that weren't Jess, or even doing much of anything when he was drunk. But then Nick said, "relax, for fuck's sake," against his mouth, and pulled him in.
It was clumsy, but somehow they managed to make it work, even if it was more teeth and tongue then lips.
The 'why' was still something that Sam was working on, but he was pretty sure it was for a better reason than the way Nick's mouth felt pressed against his. 'How' was also something that Sam's alcohol infused brain hadn't quite processed yet, but he figured that that was Nick's area of expertise and he could only go along with it.
"Nick," said the short blond man in the doorway, with a pleased sort of surprise. "Getting a head start, I see." The man sort of resembled Nick, but not enough that Sam would have noticed if they hadn't been in the same room.
Then he recalled from some distant memory of several drinks ago, that oh yeah, they had come here with Gabriel, who looked flushed and was wearing significantly less clothing then what Sam remembered, but then he saw the half-naked woman and the camera, and suddenly everything clicked into place.
"Are we making a porno?" Sam asked, his mouth bumping into Nick's. "Is that what we're doing?" Something like a mixture of relief and terror settled over him.
"Wait," Nick said, arm curled around Sam's waist. "I'm not drunk enough yet. Sam, you want a drink?"
Sam found himself nodding without quite knowing why.
It was not actually until a few hours later, in which Sam woke up pinned underneath his friend and tangled in blankets and limbs, that he realized that this was just how trapped he was in this series of bad decisions that seemed to be leading to a place quickly going from bad to worse
He stared up at the ceiling and kept one arm loosely around Nick's waist. It was comfortable and familiar in a way that kissing Nick hadn't quite been. Kissing Nick? Sam thought suddenly. Jess, he thought with a groan.
Nick stirred and sat up a little, pushing down on Sam's chest. "Hey," he said, his voice rough with sleep. He blinked at Sam. "What are you doing here?"
Sam was still wondering that himself, actually. "We were making a porno," he said, which didn't exactly answer the question.
Nick rolled off of Sam and swiped a hand over his face. "I thought that was a dream." He stretched out, his t-shirt riding up to reveal a strip of bare skin. "This is still my brother's house, isn't it?" he asked, looking around. "Fucking Gabriel," he said tiredly, but his tone lacked real venom.
He hooked an arm around Sam's neck and dragged him closer. Sam collapsed, boneless, on top of him. "I have class in half an hour," he said into Nick's neck.
"Screw class," Nick said, dragging the blanket on top of them with his free hand. "Go back to sleep."
Sam was still missing some key details, namely, how he ended up in a situation that warranted making a porno with his 'employer', his only friend, and a girl he'd never seen before in his life, and he was hoping things would come together enough to shed some light on the situation.
He carefully extricated himself from the tangle of blankets and Nick's limbs and got up to find Gabriel. Not that that was necessarily a good decision either, but at this point, what was?