"So?" Dean asked with this knowing smile, so cocky over his morning cup of coffee.
"So what?" Sam asked right back, knowing full well what they weren't talking about, avoiding looking at his brother in favor of cutting up a banana to add to his cereal.
"Your date last night?"
"Yeah, thanks for that one, Dean." Sam kept cutting. "You do know I'm not gay, right?"
"You never told me you weren't." Dean could get so defensive so fast.
"It's kind of a safe assumption at this point." Sam tossed his knife in the sink and sat down at the table beside his brother. They shared a stony look, Sam doing his best to be as indignant as possible.
"You don't like the girls I've been finding for you- I thought it would be good to try a different approach. Besides, he's totally your type."
Sam took a slow breath through his nose. "And what is my type, Dean?"
"Blonde?"
"Thanks for clearing that up."
Dean sighed, setting down his mostly empty mug. "So you didn't like him?"
"We're going out this weekend." Sam said carefully, "as friends." He made sure to stress.
"Friends?" But Dean had this glint in his eyes like he knew he had somehow won.
"Yeah. We got to talking last night during our not-date and realized that we had a lot in common."
Dean was grinning at him.
"Like how we both like women and we both hate our jackass brothers. So we've got that going for us."
"Aw, don't be like that, Sammy." Dean got up, pushing at his kid brother's head, messing up his hair and dancing away before he could get hit. "You love me. I find new friends for you. Now you don't have to be so alone and pathetic all the time."
Sam took a bite of cereal, doing his best to ignore his brother. "You're going to be late for work."
"You're going to be late for class." Dean countered. "Hurry up. I'll give you a ride."
Despite his ability to get under Sam's skin like no other- he really did mean well.
.:.
"You want to play pool?" Sam repeated, looking sideways at his phone.
"Not necessarily." Nick's voice tumbled down the line, a bit of amusement coming through the background noise from wherever he was. "I'm asking if we can say we're going out to play pool."
He closed up his books, shoving them down into his backpack. "Do you need an alibi for tonight?"
Nick had this low, easy chuckle. "Gabriel wants to take me out for drinks to apologize for setting us up last weekend and I have a feeling it's a trap… I may have already told him to go screw himself because you and me have plans to go out again tonight."
"So we're already playing pool tonight." Sam pulled his bag over his shoulder and made for the stairs that would take him up out of the library's basement where all the worst study rooms could be found.
"Sorry. I panicked." Nick didn't sound all that sorry.
"It's alright. Taking a break might be good for me."
"Have you been studying hard like the good student you are?"
The cold winter sun was stunning when Sam finally reached outside and he had to turn his face away for a moment. "I've been in the library so long the sun hurts my eyes."
Nick laughed. "Poor kid."
One thing Sam never liked, it was being called 'kid', but they could talk about that later. Right now he was looking up at the clock tower, thinking he had time to get some lunch before going to his Sociology class. "There's a Hard Time billiards a few blocks from campus. I can meet you there around four?"
There was a moment of semi silence as Nick shuffled around, a muffled noise as he covered his phone to talk to someone else. "Sam? Yeah, I don't have another appointment until late tonight. Meet you at four."
"It's a date."
They both laughed a little uncomfortably at that, neither entirely sure if it was a joke or not.
As Sam put his phone away he realized that he was actually looking forward to seeing Nick again. It was a surprising feeling if nothing else. Somewhere behind the tired eyes and sarcastic words, Nick had friend potential.
There was a bit of a bounce in his weary steps and Sam thought that perhaps he might actually grow to like the other man.
But they were supposed to like each other. Right?
That was the whole plan after all… wasn't it?
.:.
Nick cheated at pool.
Not anything too overt, but he had this tendency to sneak up behind Sam and nudge his cue whenever he was trying to take a shot.
"Damn it, Nick." He said with force, turning to watch the shorter man walking easily around the table. "Knock it off. You're as bad as Dean."
"After our last discussion on brothers I take offence to that, sir." Nick put a hand to his chest, looking wounded.
"You made me miss." He pointed the blue chalked end of the cue across the table, threateningly.
"I would never." Nick lined up his shot, easily sinking a green stripped ball. "Have you ever considered that you're just bad at pool? You have missed every shot so far."
Sam thumped the butt of his cue against the floor, slow and steady like a war drum.
"Would you like me to teach you how to play?"
"No thanks." Sam didn't feel a need to share the fact that growing up in Kansas in place of a TV there had been a worn pool table where him and his brother had spent the majority of every summer for years shooting pool to pass the long hours.
Nick looked up from where he was leaned over his shot, his teeth caught against his lower lip in a concerning semblance of a smile. "We can start over."
Sam kept thumping his cue.
"I'll behave this time."An empty sounding promise if there ever was one.
But Sam started to rack up the balls again, setting the table for a new game.
"Looser buys drinks." Nick declared.
He glanced up. "I haven't even had dinner yet."
"Beer is basically bread. You'll be fine."
"I've got a night class."
"I think you're just worried you're going to lose." Nick had this innocent little smile, taking the triangle from Sam and rolling it over the felt top, the balls clacking together softly. "Come on, darlin'. I'll go easy on you."
Sam had never been all that good as suppressing his competitive nature. Too long fighting against a big brother who had felt a need to try and put him in his place ever since Sam turned fifteen and found himself looking down at Dean. Maybe it just ran in the family.
Nick was watching him from lidded eyes and when he spoke it was a low, soft taunt, not meant to be heard by anyone else. "I bet a fiddle of gold against your soul 'cus I think I'm better than you."
That cocky little smile did something bad to Sam and he leaned back against the wall fighting the urge to say something he could only get away with saying to his brother, something he might regret. "Go ahead. I'll let you break." Carefully chosen words carefully bitten off.
"How generous of you." Nick nodded in his direction, all mock gratitude. He broke and managed to sink two solids before missing a shot. He looked back at Sam with a smile and a shrug.
Sam walked around the table twice, making quiet calculations.
"I don't have all night." Nick sang softly.
Taking a slow breath Sam looked up from the table. "No cheating this time?"
Nick held his hands up in mock surrender, the smallest of smiles glinting in his eyes.
It took less than a minute for Sam to cleanly sink all the balls and when he looked up he had a hard time keeping a grin off his face.
"You… you're a hustler." Nick didn't sound at all mad, quite the opposite.
"I am not." Sam leaned a hip easily against the table, basking in the appreciative look he was getting. "And you owe me a drink."
Nick inclined his head and handed over his cue. "Indeed I do."
He came back with a beer and an orange juice and Sam laughed as he took the offering.
Nick lightly clanked his bottle against Sam's glass before taking a swig. "Any other talents I should know about before I gloriously lose another bet to you?"
Sam thought about that, about the things that he had spent so much time on when he was young enough to form strong neural pathways. He liked to read and argue and honestly had never thought of himself as a man of any real skill. He shrugged. "I guess I'm good with a gun."
"That sounds a lot more like a threat than a talent."
Sam grinned and shrugged, enjoying his well earned orange juice.
"I'll guess I'll make a point not to make you mad, darlin'." Nick decided aloud.
"You should be alright. We didn't plan for the breakup to get that exciting." Sam assured him as he set down his glass and racked up the balls again.
Nick watched him with a smile, dimpled slightly by the lip of his beer bottle, never quite letting it leave his mouth. "I'm thinking that as long as we stay just shy of physical violence it should be perfect."
"No fisticuffs." Sam agreed, taking the first shot.
Nick laughed, such a free and happy sound. "You did not just say fisticuffs to me."
Sam wouldn't meet his eye, worried that he would start laughing too and completely betray his well composed exterior.
"I have no idea what to do with someone like you." Nick confessed warmly, and he couldn't be drunk already, he wasn't even one bottle in, so Sam took it as honest affection.
Sometimes you meet someone and you can tell that you'll be friends.
They just feel right.
Nick felt right.
"Obviously you will date me," Sam said with a slow, sarcastic drawl, "fall madly in love with me, and even after our horrible breakup we will remain secret pen pals, sending texts and meeting for coffee in the middle of the night, never telling our brothers of secret relationship." He sunk too more balls, intentionally sending the cue ball into the corner pocket, scratching and letting Nick have a turn.
Nick fished out the white ball and gave Sam an even look. "Well, that all goes without saying. I mean tonight though. What am I doing with you tonight?"
"Tonight you are losing a few more games of pool to me, gracefully, before giving me a ride back to campus."
"As you command." Nick set his bottle aside and placed the cue ball.
He winked at Sam before taking the shot and Sam had to look away, chuckling softly and thinking to himself that this was the perfect break from studying tonight.
Even if only for an hour, and even if it's only every once in a while, it's important to look after your mental health.
Remember that.
By the time they reached their third game, Nick had resumed his cheating, just as blatant and shameless as before- occasionally going as far as to lean up beside Sam, close enough that their knees or shoulders brushed together.
"Jesus, Nick." Sam straightened, not even bothering to take his shot. He looked at the other man, close enough to really stare him down, using his full height in a way that never worked on Dean anymore. "Do you mind?"
Nick took a sip of his beer, passively calm expression. "Not at all. Please- continue."
"You wanna back up a bit first?"
"Not at all." He repeated with a smile that never left the corners of his eyes.
"This is cheating, you know."
"You, Sam, are a bona fide pool hustler, and I will take whatever advantage I can get."
Sam took the smallest little half step closer, their chests brushing. Nick never batted an eyelash.
"You gunna' take that shot or what, darlin'?" He spoke so slow and careful, not at all bothered by their newfound proximity.
Frustrated, Sam remembered that Nick had brothers too. Which meant that this sort of thing was nothing new to him and that meant that much like with Dean, such tactics were wasted.
"Hey!" Someone hollered. "Queers! Go get a room."
Sam immediately backed up, looking out at the neon tinged lighting of the pool hall. He couldn't tell who had yelled at them, but he had a feeling that it was someone in the little group of laughing, polo shirt and khaki wearing guys at the bar.
There was a quiet, indignant anger growing in Sam. He glared at the group of guys until they, as a unit, turned away, avoiding eye contact.
"Pricks." He muttered and rechalked his cue, little smears of blue on his fingers.
"You know them?" Nick was still watching the five or so guys, young college kids with not enough sense to keep their homophobic ideas to themselves.
"Happily not." He said sharply and leaned down to take his shot, deciding it best to ignore the asshats.
Now, Sam was about as straight as the next guy- but little things like what one guy chooses to stick in another guy, simply never concerned him. He had just always felt it best to stay with the 'live and let live' motto that his brother had taught him at a young age.
Maybe he was a bit of a hippy after all.
Nick stayed beside him, so still while Sam missed his shot. Slowly, ever so slow, the older man put a hand on his shoulder, long fingers steady. Sam looked up at him, a little unnerved to see the lack of expression.
"Yeah?"
Somewhere on the other side of the room one of the guys yelled "Fags!" and the others laughed.
Nick suddenly lit up, eyes fixed on those douchey guys- and he smiled. "Sam, do you mind waiting outside for me?"
"Why?" Sam straightened, not quite shrugging off Nick's hand.
"I'm going to get myself kicked out in a second and I told you I would give you a ride back to school." He let go of Sam and set down his bottle. "If you're already outside waiting it will streamline the whole process."
It took about five seconds for Sam's brain to catch up, to process all those words and file them away as a line of verification for what sort of man Nick was. But by that time, the blonde was already on the far side of the bar, easily picking out the guy who had been yelling from the pack of generic jerks. With a quick, easy movement, like he had done it a million times, Nick grabbed the guy by the collar, dragged him free of his friends and slugged him square in the jaw.
Sam had never been in a bar brawl before, and even if this couldn't really count as one (seeing at it was a pool hall, not a bar), but he was always interested in trying new things. Besides, he couldn't in good conscious let Nick be the only one to have the satisfaction of punching one of those jerks.
Two against five wasn't much of a fair fight, or it wouldn't have been if one of the two weren't a Winchester. It sort of swayed the odds in their favor.
And maybe that should have been listed as one of his assets. Having an 'alpha male' type for an older brother had taught Sam how to come out swinging.
Though as it turned out Nick didn't seem to need the help. He was holding his own just fine- and all Sam's help did was end the scuffle that much quicker.
They both got kicked out and Sam considered himself lucky that no one called the cops.
Nick was leaning against the back of the pool hall, blood on his teeth, grinning at Sam with wild eyes. "You're going to have the prettiest black eye tomorrow." He almost purred out the words, still running high on adrenaline.
Sam touched his face, wincing. "Bastard sucker punched me."
"And you paid him back for it good, didn't you?" Nick stretched his arms over his head, rolling his shoulders easy and languid like a big cat. "God, you were beautiful."
"You should have left them alone." Sam chided, choosing to ignore the… well it wasn't exactly a complement, but whatever it was, he didn't address it. "They were just being assholes."
"Come on, Sam." His vividly red grin was unsettling at best. "What kind of boyfriend would I be, letting someone talk to you like that?"
"I can handle myself." He said quietly.
"I saw." His manic smile softened, and he was calming down, or at least trying to for Sam's benefit. "Is brawling a prereq for all lawyers or were you just made this way?"
"There were a few years where me and my brother didn't get along so well. Dad called it growing pains, but it was more like eighteen stitches and four trips to the emergency room in the same year." He wiped at his nose, little smear of blood on the back of his hand. "We grew out of it."
"You look like you grew out of a lot of things."
Sam wiped his nose again, shaking his head, not rising to the bait or whatever Nick's words were meant to be now. "You should have left them alone."
Nick ran a hand through his short hair, looking up at the grey sky, the color reflecting in his pale eyes. "Honest, even if you weren't there, if they had been talking to two other guys all together… I still would have decked the bastard. Someone's got to keep them in their place."
He couldn't say whether or not Nick was right in his actions, so he decided not to say anything.
"Guys like those used to send my brother home with black eyes and split lips." There was no smile at all now, and Nick was dusting himself off, fishing in his pockets, trying to find where he put his keys. "Once or twice a week for almost a year… Cas was a small kid back in high school, you know, a really easy target. And maybe you aren't. Maybe you're the god dammed jolly green giant and you can give punches just as well as you can take them- but the next guy might not be." He held up his keys with a triumphant little shake. "So, for the sake of the next guy, I had to punch the bastard in the fucking face."
Sometimes you meet someone and you can tell that you'll be friends.
They just feel right.
Sam's mouth felt oddly cold and he realized it was because he was smiling a little too widely into the November wind.
Without anymore preamble, Nick swung a leg over his bike. "You still want a ride to school?"
Sam walked around the bike with long, easy strides, settling on almost comfortably behind the other man. "Can we swing by my house so I can get cleaned up first?"
Nick spit, red tinted onto the pavement. "I was a little drunk last time, so you'll have to give me directions."
Sam laughed, and his chest hurt. He could practically feel the bruises forming. Despite all that added to the fact that he still had to go to class in about an hour- it was a pretty good day.
At least that's what he thought, up until he saw the Impala sitting in the driveway, beautiful black beast guarding the house like a warning. Nick pulled up beside it, careful not to get to close, giving her a respectable amount of room. He killed the engine and pulled of his helmet.
"She's beautiful." He whispered in an awed sort of way.
"Don't let Dean catch you looking at her like that." Sam advised, climbing off, feeling just as weak in the knees as last time he had been on the bike. Maybe he just wasn't built to be on a motorcycle.
"She's your brother's?" Nick glanced over at Sam before looking the car up and down in an almost indecent fashion. "Then he is a lucky man with good taste in cars."
Sam gave a little taste of one of his better bitch-faces. "You promised you wouldn't leave me for my brother."
"But I made no such promises about leaving you for your brother's car." Nick said solemnly, propping out the kick stand before looking at Sam's pout with the same unimpressed expression he had back at the bar. Apparently he was not an easy man to intimidate. Sam would have to work harder.
He started up the walk towards the welcome glow of the porch light. "You'd have to fight Dean for her, and the only thing he's more possessive about than me is that car."
"Good thing I'm willing to settle for you then, isn't it."
"Settle?" Sam glanced back, trying his best not to smile. "Lucky me."
"Luck's got nothing to do with it, darlin'. That car doesn't have an ass like yours."
Sam stopped halfway through unlocking the door to really just look at Nick. "I'm worried I might have gotten myself mixed up with the wrong kind of guy."
"That's a good thing to worry about." He nodded in agreement.
Dean opened the door, apparently hearing the talking outside and getting tired of waiting for Sam to turn the handle.
"Hey, Sammy how- holly hell." Dean's face went from happy to angry in a second. "What happened to you?"
"I'm fine. I'm fine." He pushed Dean's hands away, oddly aware of Nick standing right beside him in full view of the man handling that his brother was suddenly subjecting him to.
"Is anything broken?" Worry mixing with the anger and it didn't matter that they had a spectator, because the thing that Dean was best at was fussing over his kid brother.
"I'm fine." He repeated more forcefully, grabbing Dean's wrists. "'This is Nick. He's fine too."
Dean's mouth was a thin, tight lipped smile just for Nick. "If you're the one who punched him I'm going to have to kill you, and I'll just apologize to Cas later."
Nick didn't say anything at first- he was busy looking over Dean the same way he had looked over Sam for the first time a few nights back. All calculating and quiet, taking in every little detail.
"I thought you'd be taller." He said finally.
Which was, for the record, the wrong thing to say.
Dean wasn't short by any kind of measurement, but at the same time he had never really come to terms with being shorter than his little brother. It was a sensitive spot with him.
"We weren't fighting with each other." Sam said quickly, seeing the heat in his brother's eyes. "We just got caught up in a fight down at the pool hall." He let go of his brother once he was sure that Dean wasn't about to do something bad in Nick's direction.
"You've got class tonight." Dean looked up at him, lecturing gently. Going from hot to cold and back in seconds.
"I know. I needed a clean shirt first."
"Then come in and get one. Why're you standing out here?" Dean got out of the way, letting them both in.
Sam didn't want to leave Nick and Dean alone, not after Nick so expertly insulted his big brother, but he also didn't want to be late for class.
Priorities sometimes got in the way of good sense.
The air in the living room was thick when he got back down stairs, the two men in his life still standing right where he left them beside the door.
"Come on, Nick." He tugged on the man's arm, pulling him along before glancing back at his brother. "I'll see you after class?"
"Yeah, just give me a call when you get out." Dean forged a small smile.
"I can walk." He was already opening the door, not interested in the same argument they had almost every night before he left for class. The same argument that he lost every night before class.
"It's too damn cold out. I'll be there at ten-thirty." His brother said with finality.
Sam rolled his eyes, but he meant thank you. They both knew it.
Nick followed close on Sam's heels, a warm, friendly goodbye shot in Dean's direction as they left. He knew how to rub people the wrong way when he wanted to. Apparently he had hidden talents too.
"Wasn't there some part of the plan that involved making nice with my brother?" Sam whispered harshly. "You keep that up and he's going to be happy when you're gone."
The blonde looked over at him as he climbed back on his bike. "I'll make it up to him." He said with confidence. "But I really did think he would be taller."
"He's like an inch shorter than you." Sam clamored on behind him.
"And you're like five inches taller than me- I just assumed he'd be a giant too."
"I'm six-four." Sometimes he hated being the tall one.
His arms fit comfortably around Nick's waist and the other man stiffened slightly at the advanced contact.
"Fine, two inches taller." He relaxed as Sam let go, putting hands on his waist instead. "But it feels like five. It's going to make kissing you awkward."
"We aren't really going to kiss, Nick." Sam said, but it was drowned out in the waking growl of the engine.
Nick drove him back to school, and he drove too fast, a little too reckless, almost laying the bike down as they rounded the last corner into one of the side parking lots. They came to a stop and the engine idled. Sam tried to catch his breath and was confused to discover that at some point his arms had found their way back around Nick's waist.
"It- it doesn't matter how tall I am, Nick." He tried to pick up right where they had left off, having this strong feeling that it would do no good to lecture on proper driving speeds. "We aren't going to actually be kissing at any point."
Nick looked back over his shoulder, eyes shadowed by his helmet. Expression unreadable. "I know that. And I don't give a good god damn how tall you are, but in a few days my brother will know you're some kind of giant- and he's going to love the fact that I'm shorter than you."
"I've already met Castiel. He knows I'm tall. Apparently it's my only defining characteristic."
"No. Gabriel."
"Why am I going to be meeting him?" From what little had had learned so far about brother number three- Sam had decided it best to avoid him as long as possible.
"He's going to demand that you and your brother join us for Thanksgiving. And he's very insistent when he wants something."
Sam glanced at the time and started to climb off the bike, his legs were even worse this time. "Why would we be invited to Thanksgiving?"
"Cas already invited your brother and hasn't gotten a definitive answer yet, but in our family a lack of a 'no' is just a 'yes' waiting to happen."
Which was a concerning family treatise if nothing else.
"Thanksgiving's next week." Why hadn't Dean mentioned this to him?
"Which means that next week we will be making eyes at each other over turkey and stuffing while I do my best to ignore Gabriel. You can do it too. It's not easy, but it's well worth it. I promise." The smile was there somewhere hidden in his voice.
"I-"
"Go. You'll be late for class." Nick gave him a little shove to get him going.
"I'll call you." Sam promised over his shoulder as he took off running.
He thought he heard the words 'I hope so' called after him, but he couldn't be sure. Was almost positive it was just a trick of the wind.
Dean was waiting to pick him up after class got out, black car gleaming under the street lamps. Sam hadn't even called him yet. His brother was just there.
The passenger door stuck and Sam's cold numbed fingers struggled with the handle for long enough that Dean started laughing audibly from the cab.
Sam settled in alongside him, closing the door with more force than necessary.
"Hey, Sammy." Dean cranked up the heater and turned down the stereo. "You learn all the good things tonight?"
"We were invited to Thanksgiving?" He hadn't intended for it to be the first thing out of his mouth, but it had been pressing on his mind all night.
"What?" Dean's smile went a little crooked in confusion.
"Nick, he said that Cas invited us to dinner. Are we going?"
Dean's hands drummed along the steering wheel, nervous gesture for some unknown reason before he put the car in gear and crept from the parking lot, careful to not hit any of the students walking through the dark to their own cars.
"He asked the same night that we ditched you at the restaurant. I was sort of waiting to see how pissed off you were about the whole thing before giving him an answer."
Normal Thanksgiving dinners, now that it was just the two of them, had been practically nonexistent. The last four years they had treated themselves to those little frozen turkey dinners that come in black plastic trays. It was a bit of a lackluster holiday at best.
"What are you going to tell him?"
"What do you want me to tell him?" Dean easily countered in a way that made it all Sam's choice. It was a habit of his, neither good nor bad, but pointedly annoying.
Sam looked out the window, black night punctuated by poorly spaced street lamps. He thought about Nick, not about the motorcycle ride, and not about his laugh as warm and dark as a summer night. He thought about the fist fight. He thought about why Nick had seen fit to haul off and punch some weasely little jerk in the face. His reasoning laid out for Sam so casual and concise.
"I'd like to go." He told his reflection in the window. "I think it'd be nice to have a real dinner."
"Alright." Dean said slowly, and Sam knew that his brother was trying to interpret the long silence that came before his answer. "I'll call Cas in the morning. Tell him to count us in."
"See if he wants us to bring a bottle of wine or a salad or something." Sam glanced back at his brother in time to see his eyes light up.
"We'll bring a pie."
"A pie?" Sam smiled.
"Two pies." Dean decided with a grin, all teeth and excitement. "Pumpkin and apple."
Nothing got him going quite like the promise of dessert.
The regularity of it was almost comforting. Something that Sam could always count on.
"One pie from each of us, don't I get to pick a flavor?"
"You going to do the baking?"
"No, are you?"
"Yes, and that means apple and pumpkin and you can shut up about it. No one likes that nasty rhubarb crap except you."
Sam never knew what to do when his brother got into the kitchen. It was always a bit of an adventure- a rare and exciting adventure.
Dean had been born with some kind of dark kitchen alchemy running through his blood. Maybe he had made a deal with a devil. Maybe it had just been the few extra years he had been allowed with their mom before she died, and she had taught him some tricks that he had never shared with his little brother. It didn't really matter how he came by his powers, just that he had them and rarely felt the need to use them. Dean hadn't made a pie for them in years.
He claimed that ones from the grocery store were just as good.
He was, of course lying and they both knew it.
All pies are not created equal.
Sam was suddenly just as thrilled by the prospect of Thanksgiving as his brother seemed to be.