Sam never got that promised cup of tea.
Perhaps he was in the minority, but he liked sex better than tea. As it was, he wasn't all that broken up about it.
The two of them had stumbled to the couch, pulling jackets and clothing free, exposing winter pale skin- bare chests and arms exposed to the cold air of the apartment. Sam took a hard breath as Nick's hands brushed almost gently over the smattering of scars down his shoulders.
"Look at this mess." Nick's voice was rough and it didn't at all match the near reverence in his hands.
Sam would have replied with something evasive, but Nick… Nick had more tattoos than the hunter had originally guessed at. The inked sleeves of his arms trailed lightly onto his chest, the designs bleeding over the curve of his ribs, down his right side almost to a hip. And Sam recognized a simple black pentagram scrawled over the left side of Nick's chest. Just like the gun, it sent Sam's heart racing.
The other man followed his gaze and kind of shrugged. "I found it in a book forever ago. It's called a 'devil's trap'. My young and wild self thought- you know, I've got quite a few demons I need to keep inside. Maybe it will help?" He shrugged lazily. "It didn't, but it was worth a try."
Sam didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry. It was a horrible new feeling that threatened him. Instead of giving into it he kissed Nick. Not necessarily a healthy reaction, but Sam, much like his big brother, was well practiced in unhealthy avoidance techniques. And Nick grinned into the kiss, digging his fingers into Sam's shoulder, nails slick along old scars. As distractions go, it was a good one.
Nick, who had always been somewhere between possessive and aggravatingly gentle had used some of the filthiest language the young hunter had ever heard. It was no wonder the man had never made it as a priest.
The things he asked Sam to do to him.
The things Nick planned to do to him.
It was enough to make Sam shiver, whole body trembling with wicked promises. Nick wouldn't say no. Whatever Sam wanted he could take. Anything at all. The blonde had made himself expressly clear on that front. Terrible things he begged into Sam's ear, hands on his belt, rough grind of his hips.
Months, closer to a year than not, like half an eternity since Sam had touched someone like this. Since he had touched anyone. Since he had let anyone touch him. If it had been a woman it would have broken Sam, his whole mind recoiled at the prospect of being with another girl after Jess' death. But somehow this was different. There were no soft breasts pressed against his chest, warm under his roughly searching hands. No trim waist or traitorous hips for him to grab. Nick was comfortably solid against him. Strong arms and slightly soft around the middle. Everything about him from his touch to his smell to his stubble against Sam's neck was male. And if felt oddly ok. Right somehow. And maybe Nick wasn't a surrogate for what Sam really needed- but he wasn't part of the healing process either. Nick was a need that had lived deep down in the dark and neglected parts of Sam since he was a mess of a teenager first discovering that he needed to be touched.
Sam was fairly certain that he wasn't secretly gay.
Or even bisexual for that matter.
He just wanted Nick. Wanted Nick to touch him. Wanted Nick's mouth on him. Wanted every part of all those growled promises. He had wanted it since it had first been offered to his young, impressionable sixteen year old self.
Sam managed to stop blushing long enough to pull Nick back to the bedroom. They would only end up falling off the couch if they tried to do anything out here. It was far too short of a couch for legs like Sam's. The bedroom light was broken, as Nick breathily explained, teeth never really leaving Sam's throat, so it came out muffled- but Sam got the idea that there was a busted bulb, and he found that he didn't care. The city lights streaming in through the window were enough illumination. You don't need much light to undress each other. This was something that Sam learned.
You don't need much light to do most things that they did.
Slow and rough and it was all touch anyhow.
Who needed to see?
Sam was sprawled out, half asleep, hot satiated lust still curling in his stomach, when he heard his phone ringing in the other room. Had it really been two hours since Dean last called? He nudged Nick off, far from lucid, boneless and warm curled against Sam's side. Sam stumbled half blind and fully naked out to the living room to grab his phone. It had already gone to voicemail, silencing itself- but he called his brother back anyhow.
"Seriously, Sammy?" Dean's voice was sleep rough and Sam got the impression that his brother had been sleeping. It didn't surprise him that Dean would have woken himself up just to check on him, but that didn't mean that he understood it. "You had one job."
"I know, I know." He sighed down the line.
"Were you sleeping?" Dean shared a gently disbelieving laugh. Obviously mistaking the reason for his kid brother's drowsy tone. "Dude, you can't just go falling asleep at stranger's houses. It's not safe."
"I'm fine, Dean."
"You're not coming back tonight." It wasn't a question, just a grumpy realization.
It had never been the plan to return that night, but even still Sam found himself saying "I'll be back in the morning." He felt like a kid checking in with his dad- even though he had never felt the same warmth and affection for John as he did for his big brother.
"I still expect you to check in."
"I know."
"I mean it this time."
"Go back to bed, Dean."
"Don't tell me what to do." But the affection was bleeding back into his words.
"Goodnight." Sam said firmly, feeling like if he didn't end the conversation now he would be stuck here for the rest of the night.
Dean grumbled something crude that was secret brother code for 'I worry about you, be safe', before hanging up.
Sam took the phone back to bed with him, setting it beside the pillow he had at some point claimed as his own. He laid down, running a careful hand over Nick's shoulder, down his arm. The other man was lightly sleeping, breaths even and slow- and at the gentle touch he restlessly scooted over, giving Sam just enough room to curl around him. It wasn't a big bed, and the two of them slept with their legs entwined, Sam half laying on top of the other man like a heavy blanket.
Honestly, he hadn't slept so well in months. Even after weighing in the waking every couple of hours to text his brother little insults.
Hazy morning light woke him, offering no warmth, but Sam didn't need it. He was lost in a comfortable tangled of blankets and limbs. Sore in all the best places. He stretched lazily, shoulder popping startlingly loud in the quiet of the bedroom. San Francisco was a loud city, even on the best of days, but Sam figured that the hush had something to do with them being so high up. Maybe they had gotten above the noise somehow. Worlds away from the mess bellow.
Nick stirred ever so slightly, grumbling and hiding his face somewhere against Sam's chest, and Sam found himself smiling. Blushing with the memory of last night. He didn't often get himself in this kind of trouble. That made it all the more delicious.
He rubbed sleep from his eyes, looking blearily around the bedroom that had been lost before in dusky midnight. It was just as sparse as the rest of the apartment. Bare walls, banged up chest of drawers with a tiny lamp. Little nightstand beside the bed, supporting a bible, a well worn wallet, and Sam's cell. The whole room came off as more cozy than cell-like, but that might be simply sentimental on Sam's part.
A yawn and another stretch and Sam found his head tilted back at an angle that let him see the bed's headboard. Those blissfully good feelings suffered slightly, shrinking away as Sam looked up at the gun holster draped over the bedpost, at the very square back handle and blacker barrel.
He could see what he hadn't the night before. It was a Glock. Hard lined, utilitarian import of a gun. A sick feeling crawled in his stomach, prickling and slithering. Slowly he reached one long arm over to the nightstand, picking up Nick's wallet. Sam had certain suspicions, expectations to match that gun. Dark terrible thoughts that he didn't want to entertain.
He flipped open the other man's wallet, invading Nick's privacy in the worst sort of way. And Sam knew that he shouldn't, but he couldn't seem to stop himself.
That gun above his head was a policeman's gun. The wallet only confirmed Sam's suspicions. Nick had a badge. Only it wasn't police, because Sam couldn't just fuck up in regular amounts.
It was a US Marshal's badge.
Sam had once very similar back in the glove box of the Impala. Except Sam's was fake. There were subtle differences, if you knew what to look for.
Sam knew what to look for.
Sam thought he might be sick.
Nick's arm was warm as it slid around his waist, a weight once comfortable now horrifying in its possibilities.
It was only a few weeks gone that Dean's mug had been plastered all over the news out in St. Louis, suspect for murder. The skinwalker wearing his brother's face had been killed, but that didn't change the fact that Dean had to be on some kind of police radar by now- if he wasn't already for running credit card scams and impersonating an officer and who knows what else his brother had been tagged for in the four years that Sam had been away at school.
Nick had met Dean last night, kind of, sort of- and Sam had no idea if there had been any recognition. Just like he had no idea whether or not he had a place on any of those radars along with his brother.
Sam was a good kid (mostly), who stayed out of trouble... at least he tried.
But here he was.
Skin rough with dried sweat, body sore in all the best places, and he couldn't convince himself that running into Nick been something coincidental.
US Marshals don't happen coincidentally.
Sam carefully slid out from under Nick's arm, grabbing jeans off the floor and quickly dressing. He took his phone and his gun and hesitated at the front door. If he leaned enough to one side he could see a sliver of the bedroom at the end of the short hall. He could see the soft rise and fall of Nick's back as he slept on.
What the actually hell was Sam doing?
Making one more mistake in a long line, he supposed.
But what was that saying, if it's not broke don't fix it?
.:.
An hour and a BART ride later found him banging with the back of a fist against a motel door.
"Wake up, Dean." He glanced over his shoulder at the Impala parked in the wet grey mist, reassuring himself that it really was there, that Dean really was here too. He just wasn't getting his lazy ass out of bed, or answering his phone. "Come on. It's raining."
The deadbolt rattled and the door swung open just enough to show Dean's bleary, red rimmed eyes.
"Don't gatta yell. I can hear ya."
"I've been out here for five minutes."
"Two." Dean said with a curl of his lip before opening the door wide enough to let him pass.
Sam brushed past him, pushing a cup of coffee into his brother's hands before shrugging out of his very wet jacket.
Dean didn't say anything at first, just standing there in the jeans he had obviously slept in, awkwardly holding the tall white cup. As classy as his big brother always was, Dean had apparently fallen asleep in his clothes as well as enjoyed enough alcohol last night to give himself a hangover this morning.
"That's not your jacket." His brother said in a slow, certain tone.
The insinuation was as weird as it was absurd. This was Sam's jacket, it had been for years. He brought it with him when he left Stanford. He- he looked at it closely, felt the cloth between his fingers.
It wasn't his jacket.
He really hated when Dean was right.
He also hated the fact that Dean could tell the difference between Sam' military drab canvas jacket and Nick's military drab canvas jacket.
"Drink you coffee, Dean." He said in a way that he hopped was very innocent sounding.
"That's not your shirt either."
And there went Sam's very reasonable and believable excuse of grabbing the wrong jacket. Which was totally true, but now would sound like all kinds of lies.
Sam looked down at himself. Hadn't he been wearing a black t-shirt last night? He pulled the collar up and smelled it. Nope. Definitely Nick's as well.
"I thought you wanted to get on the road first thing this morning." He hastily tossed aside the offending jacket, and grabbed a clean, dry flannel from his bag.
And damn everything, because he had left his hoodie behind as well. The jacket could be replaced, but the hoodie was one that Dean had given to him the winter he was fifteen, swearing that he would grow into it. It was worn here and there and had only the most minimal of powder burns on the sleeve. Only the smallest blood stain on one of the pull strings. The jacket could easily be replaced. The sweater was special.
Sam shouldn't have dressed in such a hurry.
Dean was just standing there, looking at him, eyes narrowed just a hint, the corners of his mouth tight. He looked at his kid brother from top to bottom and for just a second his eyes widened the smallest fraction. The muscle along his jaw jumped as he let out a harsh breath through his nose.
Just like that, Dean knew.
He knew what Sam had done.
Dark dirty secrets that Sam never got a chance to hide. Never got the opportunity to lie about.
Dean's eyes were hot as an accusation, but then he took a drink of his coffee, shoulders relaxing into something that almost passed as comfortable and normal.
"Yup." He said in a voice too loud. "Got to get going if we wanna make it to Roswell before tomorrow." And he ran a hand through his hair, not quite looking at Sam any more.
"New Mexico?" Sam felt dazed. They were really talking about a case while Sam still had teeth marks on his hips?
"Roswell Georgia, where do you think, Sammy?." Dean rolled his eyes. "Yes, New Mexico. I need to get out of this rain." He grabbed up his keys from the nightstand and tossed them to Sam. "Go put the bags in the car. I'll check us out."
Sam stood there numbly, watching his brother slip into his shoes and shrug on his leather jacket. And maybe he just kind of hoped that he could exist in a magical world were somehow Dean would never know the perfectly indecent things that he and Nick had done- but that world was far, far away from the reality that they lived in.
They were in a bad place where Dean recognized in seconds that Sam was wearing the wrong jacket. There was no way that they could have gone more than a day before he guessed that his kid brother had spent the night getting lucky.
"Shake the lead out, kid." Dean thumped his arm, a little too hard, but at the same time just right. Their eyes met for a second and in that exchange Sam knew that it was ok.
He had no idea how it could be ok, but it was.
"I'll drive." Sam offered, because he couldn't stand the idea of sitting beside his brother for the next twenty hours with only horrible thoughts and beautiful memories to occupy him.
"Like hell." Dean laughed, but didn't take the keys back.
Sam gave what he hoped looked like a smile, thought it might have come off a little sickly on account of he was rapidly losing the fight against his own anxiety. The other shoe was bound to drop and when it did Sam would be there (probably in New Mexico) with no sweater, and an angry, drunk brother hypocritically lecturing him about sins of the flesh.
Even if he didn't get to drive, at least he had something to look forward to.