an:/ so yeah... hai.
Not the happiest chapter, but I will sing to you my promises of a happy ending to this beast. There will be hand holding and some puppies and it will all work out for the best.
The studio was next to the college. Sam literally passed it every day on his way to school. He'd always thought it was some kind of office building, or an offsite set of classrooms. It was a low, plain, boring looking building with no street facing windows.
Sam parked along the side of the road, sitting there and lightly smacking his hands against the steering wheel, trying to reclaim a bit of the fervor that had pushed him out the front door in the first place. He was half tempted to call June back and see if she had any more encouraging words for him.
He could have sat there all night. Doubting. Arguing with himself. Settling oh so easily back into that same gross manic feeling that he got every time he remembered that it hadn't been Nick who had answered the door when he'd come over.
And why should it have been?
They'd never made any promises to one another.
What the hell had they been thinking?
Theirs was not a relationship that was made to last. They had literally gotten together solely with a mutual asinine need to avoid actually having to date anyone. They'd formed a tentative friendship with out much of a foundation, and it had grown, but it had always been a little fragile at best. And then Sam, Sam had taken literally the only thing he knew about Nick's past and used it to hurt him.
He supposed that that said a lot more about himself then it said about Nick.
Sam couldn't blame Nick for wanting it to just be over. A clean break.
They probably weren't good for one another.
If Sam lashed out like that and all the other man had done was make a sideways comment about John, how bad would it be next time?
He ran his hands through his hair, shaking it from his face and putting the keys back in the ignition. Dean was right. Or course he was right. This was stupid. Coming here tonight wasn't going to change anything.
It was over.
And it would be a healthy step in the right direction to acknowledge that and start making an effort to actually move on instead of dwelling on the fact that Nick hadn't called him up to apologize. It wasn't going to happen.
It didn't need to happen.
Why had Sam even come here?
He couldn't seem to remember.
He almost drove back home, a grim determination forming in him to accompany the reckless feelings that he'd had since February. The car was on. The heavy, eco-unfriendly engine warming up quickly. But Sam took one last glance at the studio, because he felt that no one in his situation would have actually been able to simply drive off without at least one pointed look back, and saw a rather small young woman wrestling with a heavy portfolio under one arm while balancing what looked like a toolbox, a set of keys, and one of those coffee holders weighted down with two tall, white cups.
She wasn't going to make it. Something was going to hit the sidewalk, and without even thinking Sam had killed the engine and was out of the car- crossing the sidewalk in quick, long strides to reach her side.
"Here, I got it." He managed to take the portfolio, which was large enough to use as a card table, and was starting to shift from her the surprisingly heavy tool box when she looked up at him.
A 'thank you' died on her lips as her dark eyes went wide. The coffee fell. Both cups hitting the ground with a moist pop slap sound that sent Sam and her both dancing away from the scalding spray and rapidly spreading puddle.
" .God." Despite the decidedly Asian cast to the girl's features, her words were perfectly shaped to that Northern valley accent which said that she'd been born and raised out here in California.
"I'm so sorry." Sam apologized in a rushed breath.
"It's you,"
"-what?"
"You. You're The Perfect Man."
And Sam had been called lots of things in his life, but this one was new to him.
"What?"
"You're the guy that Nick was painting. Oh god. Oh god. Like, we didn't think you were real- I mean, look at you. Yeah, that's not what real men look like. And then he was painting over you and we were yelling at him to stop- because you're The Perfect Man and it was a crime, but he was all like 'I changed my mind'." Her mouth turned into a little 'o' of surprise. "What did you do to Nick?"
It was a bit much to take in a single breath and Sam struggled to catch up. "We… broke up?"
He mouth turned into a wicked grin. "Shut. Up. Nick is gay?"
"No," great job here, Sam. Fantastic form. Like always. "He's… we were… we used to be friends."
"Oh, I've gotta tell Dianne. She needs to know." She was already trading her keys for her phone and texting furiously even as she spoke.
"Don't. Please don't do that."
"But you're The Perfect Man. It's like finding a unicorn. You aren't supposed to be real… Oh! Can we take a selfie, because she's not going to believe it otherwise."
Sam folded one massive hand around her phone and her rapidly moving thumbs stilled as she looked back up at him, all the way up at him from her five foot nothing height, and her eyes went a wide once more.
"Please. I just wanted to stop in and talk to Nick really quick." Sam spoke gently, not wanting to intimidate, just wanting her to listen for one second. "Is he still here?"
She licked her lips. "He better still be. I was bringing coffee for him and he owes me two bucks… you made me drop all the coffee."
"I'm really sorry." Sam let go of her hands. "Can I pay for another round?"
"Well, yeah. You're getting me a frapachino. And I've got coffee all over my boots. So you owe me."
And really, Sam didn't think that is was fair. It wasn't really his fault that she'd thrown everything on the sidewalk- but he thought that the offer might get him somewhere. Like inside the studio.
"I can take your stuff in for you, and give you… a ten? Would that cover new drinks?" He was bribing her. There had to be something unethical about this, but he had seen the key ring, and as close as he was he could see the heavy lock on the door. He wasn't likely to get in without an invitation. Maybe he could just stand out here and wait for Nick to leave, but he'd lose his nerve if he had to wait again.
"Yeah… I can bring you your change." She said, not exactly taking the bribe, but at the same time passing off her art things to Sam's open arms.
"Was he really painting me?"
She grinned again, holding her phone tight to her chest for a moment before quickly scrolling through images. "It wasn't just a painting. There were preliminary sketches up on his side of the room for months. We thought you might be some kind of French model, of just this amalgamation of ideal man-bits. Here, here," she held her phone up and Sam frowned before taking it, bringing it closer to his face to see more clearly.
It was a drawing of him. Definitely him. Only Sam never look that good when he smiled. Deep dimples, eyes dark and shining. Open and careless and- and even Sam had to admit that he looked good.
"Nick drew this?"
"Well yeah. I mean, you posed for them, right. He never showed you the finished pieces?"
To his knowledge Sam had never posed for anything. "...them?"
"Yeah, scroll over. I only got a few before he took them all down. I mean, I mostly do landscapes, but his work is so clean, and his sense of balance and color- it really inspires me, you know?"
Sam looked through the three pictures that she had saved in her phone, seeing himself in a way that he never had before.
The way that Nick used to.
He passed back her phone with the firm knowledge that he couldn't go in there. Not now.
But the girl was unlocking the door for him, tucking her phone into a pocket of her jacket. "Just leave my stuff next to the blue painting on the far side of the room." She pointed and Sam kind of nodded and grabbed the edge of the door. Then she was scooping up the wasted coffee cups and heading off down the street to the Starbucks on the corner.
It was a large square room, with no proper windows, so much as the back was just a wall of glass. Old converted industrial space with a ceiling that felt forever away and acoustics that were downright unforgiving.
There was a small fridge and a row of cabinets, a tub sized sink that looked gritty with reddish clay, a weird tall wheel table thing that Sam could only assume was related to the clay, and Nick.
His back to the door, and shockingly orange, chunky headphones clashing with his hair. A black tshirt stretched tight over the slump of his shoulders. It matched the black cast that was wrapped around his right leg all the way up to his knee. Painfully dark and impossible to ignore, his pale blue jeans rolled up over that one leg, putting it on display.
He was half perched on a stool, sort of hovering over it as he leaned into a painting that matched the room in scale. Nearly eight feet tall, and looking for all the world like a door opened to another room, giving an uncomfortably voyeuristic feeling of standing at the foot of a bed, looking at this gorgeous, cinnamon colored woman who was laying on her stomach, slash of moonlight on her bare skin as she looked over her shoulder at the viewer. Shadows were still hazy, the black of her hair melding with the open window behind the bed. Details were lost, only hinted at, like a photo gone out of focus around the edges.
It was stunning.
Sam had had no idea.
He stood there a little too long, looking at her, her looking back, before he finally shook himself free and hauled the art supplies that he'd been entrusted with to the far side of the room. Gingerly setting them down beside an easel holding a painting of a city skyline.
Nick still hadn't noticed that he had company, even as Sam slowly and carefully made his way over. The man was nodding along with music that only he could hear, softly mouthing words. He had on those thick black glasses of his that he seemed to only take out if absolutely necessary- he also looked like he hadn't shaved in nearly a month. Stubble dark and making him looked oddly older and somehow all the more inviting because of it. There were scars on both arms now, and that was really the only other difference after all this time. New marks, slick red lines and smears breaking up the once beautiful patterns.
There wasn't any good way for Sam to announce himself. Nick was obviously engrossed in what he was doing, carefully laying paint, making shadows in the dark folds of the blankets rucked down around the woman's hips.
Now that he was closer Sam could see that she was probably in her late teens, young enough that Sam suddenly felt marginally uncomfortable for admiring the way that the muscles of her back hugged her spine, showing off the shallow dimples right above the curve of her backside. With a start, he realized that he recognized her. A bit younger, the shape of her a bit more athletic and less sensual- but it was Gabriel's wife Rehka. Probably about ten or fifteen years ago. And Sam didn't know how to feel about that in the slightest.
Nick leaned back a bit, using the wrong end of his paint brush to slip under his cast and scratch an itch, other hand picking up a cigarette that Sam hadn't even noticed. It didn't smell like tobacco - but Sam realized that the smell he'd mistaken for incense or something was actually the soft smell of a clove cigarette.
"I didn't know you smoke." He said in a way he hoped was loud enough to be heard over the faint white noise and steady thrum of Nick's headphones.
The man's eyebrows went down and he half turned to Sam as he took a drag. There was a sharp jolt and he almost fell off his stool, jaw clenching even as his eyes went wide with surprise.
With the long, thin cigarette still between his lips, Nick pushed his headphones off letting them settle around his neck, washing them both in garbled sounding music too big for the little speakers.
"I didn't know you smoke." Sam repeated a little quieter now that he had all that attention and no idea what to do with it.
Nick pulled a battered ipod off the little table at his side and the music cut off, then he took a long, slow drag from his cigarette, the tip glowing red hot for a second. "I don't. I quit a few years ago."
Sam nodded like he didn't quite believe that one. The proof, after all, was a bit lacking.
"I had no idea you could paint like this. It's really… she's beautiful."
Nick scratched at his cheek, leaving a smear of deep purpley-red paint behind like a bruise. "How did you get in here?"
"The little Korean girl with coffee let me in." Sam kind of nodded towards the things that he'd set down in her corner.
"Nari." Nick said the name like a curse.
"But your brother gave me the address." Sam passed the blame to someone who he thought could handle it a bit better.
Nick put out his cigarette and cleared his throat. He didn't ask if Sam needed something. He didn't offer any kind of hello, or any indication that he was even marginally pleased with what was suddenly happening.
Simply standing here was no good reason for his heart to be racing like it was. "I just found out about the accident. Are you ok?"
Nick looked around. First at himself, at his arms and their fresh, shiny scars, and down at his leg. Then he looked around the room for a few seconds too long to be anything other than sarcastic before settling back on Sam. "Do I look ok?"
"Well, you're not dead… and Castiel said that you're doing better."
"There you go. Cassy obviously knows better than I do. I'm doing better. So why the fuck are you here?" The question hadn't been asked with any venom, but a tired, resigned voice. It didn't make it any easier to hear. Or answer.
Sam shrank back. "Kind of got the feeling that calling you wasn't going to get me anywhere."
"You should have given it a try. I'd prefer talking on the phone. I really didn't want to see you again."
Again, no anger. Just short, harshly clipped words. But his knuckles were white where he had a death grip around his paintbrush, the other hand balled into a tight fist resting against his knee.
Sam, who had never been afraid of Nick for even an instant before this point found that he wanted to shrink away. Anger would have been easier to handle. Sam would have known which way to duck.
"I left messages, but you never called me back."
"I... never got any messages."
"Yeah. I somehow got Gabriel on your phone at some point. He didn't sound like he had any plans to tell you I called."
Nick mouthed something that looked an awful lot like 'fuck Gabriel' before closing his eyes and taking in a slow breath. The wrong end of the paintbrush was used to scratch another itch beneath the heavy looking cast. It was a strangely relaxed gesture in comparison to everything else.
"And the I tried to come over to your palace... back in the beginning of March, but your wife answered the door naked and I… I just couldn't."
Nick got oh so very still once more. "Lilith?"
"She wasn't naked, naked. I mean she had on one of your shirts, but that was it, and she made it kind of clear why you weren't coming to the door."
"And why wasn't I coming to the door?" But from the dead way he asked, Nick already knew the answer.
"Look- I-I get it. You and I'd had a fight, and she was your wife-"
"Ex-wife. She is my ex-wife, and I would blow Michael before I would willingly touch that cumguzzling psyco bitch ever again. And you should know that."
Irrational little anger coming to the surface and Sam heard his voice unevenly laughing at the idea. "I should know? How the hell am I supposed to know anything about anything because you never talk. If I'd have known who it was when she came to the door I would have been suspicious- but I just found out tonight that that was your- that that was Lilith. I've never seen any pictures. You've never really talked about her-"
"Why the hell would I want to talk about the worst part of my life- especially with a vindictive bastard like you?"
Sam actually took a step back. Little stagger like he'd been hit. "Excuse me?"
"I tell you one thing. One fucking thing about myself because you begged me to, and then you turn around and shove it down my throat." Nick took his headphones from around his neck and tossed them onto the table. "Look, I've got a type, apparently. Heartless, fucking bitches. And I guess that changing from females to males didn't make a goddamned difference. Because I know how to pick 'em."
And right up until that very moment, Sam had never considered how badly he'd actually hurt his friend. Nick was supposed to be strong. A solid, quiet kind of man who couldn't get shaken down to his foundations by a few misplaced words.
"Nick. I am so sorry for what I said. I-I didn't mean it. You have to know I didn't mean it."
"I don't have to do anything." Which was childish and a bit spiteful and Sam honestly hadn't expected anything else. Didn't deserve more than what he was getting.
It wasn't reassuring in the slightest to know that Nick was just as human and fragile as everyone else.
It was terrifying.
"I'm sorry." He repeated a little more softly. It wasn't enough. Obviously. But he didn't know what else to say.
"Great. Well. Look, I've got to work on this painting and then I've got some place to be. I really can't do this right now."
"Is there a better time? I could come back-"
Nick sighed and rubbed a hand over his mouth. "I was trying to be nice. There's always going to be something else." He sat up a little straighter, gathering himself together rather noticeably. "I don't want to do this and I'm not going to."
Which was some stunning directness that Sam hadn't really been expecting. "Nick, I need to-"
"Not. Doing. This." Nick showed a bit too much teeth. "Any of it. Just no."
Sam ran his hands through his hair. Wondering how Dean would feel to know how right he'd been about tonight's chances of success. "You can't- fuck, Nick. You can't just say NO."
"Well, I did. And if you somehow missed it I will say it again. No."
"Listen. I just…" Just what? Never got to say goodbye. Needed to know that you knew I was sorry for what I said. Wanted to see you again because maybe I could remember how to be mad at you and maybe miss you a little less. There wasn't a good answer. At least not one that Sam could think of. So he shrugged weakly.
Nick made some long eye contact, pulling his glasses off and baring his teeth for the second time since Sam had come in.
"Sam…" The first time in months that the younger man had a chance to hear that voice say his name. So careful. But Nick looked away. That little hint of a fight going out of him so fast. "It wasn't ever going to work. You knew that, right? You wanted a mean, old, drunk, bastard because it was familiar and good. But you can do better. You don't want to be with someone like me. Go find yourself a nice, sweet girlfriend. Someone your brother will approve of. Who won't remind you so much of your dad."
Sam had no words. None. What are you supposed to say when you hear the craziest thing you've ever heard?
"Just go home. Ok? I've really got stuff to work on."
And, because there was only one thing that Sam was really good at doing, and that was being a complete jackass who says the wrong thing whenever possible- Sam said something awful, but it was good to keep things going at the same terrifying kilter. "You don't get to decide what I want. Or who." He ran his hands through his hair again, making fists tight enough that his scalp hurt. "And I don't- you're not- damn it, Nick. I don't know what glue you've been huffing since I last saw you. But you are not my dad. You're not even fucking close. So don't you dare."
But Nick, who'd never once been intimidated by Sam, hadn't changed over the weeks that they'd been apart. He simply folded his arms over his chest and the hand that Sam could still see rubbed in an agitated way at one of the new scars.
"I- I don't care what Dean thinks. I just... it's just you Nick. I don't want to find someone else. I don't want anyone else. I want you and your stupid laugh. I want the guy with the soft voice and rough hands that played Thin Lizzies for me in a parking garage like it was a symphony. I want the guy who always starts getting weird about how my hands are bigger than his when he's had too much to drink." Breathing hurt, but he kept on going. "And those stupid bracelets that you are still wearing even though it's been months, and … and you always play with your lip or bite your thumb when you're thinking and it's distracting as hell… and… and it's just you. There's nothing deeper and more sinister going on. There's no psychology. It's just fucking you, Nick. It's just… you.
"I was with you because I wanted you. Because I fell in love with you." He reached out to the other man, but saw that his hand was shaking so he let it drop. "I still do… I still am."
There was no one in the world quite as good at embracing the silence as Nick. He just sat there, no longer rubbing his scars. Still and completely unmoved by the confession.
Nothing good at all was going to come from Sam being here tonight.
"I guess maybe that's why I'm here. You're mad at me- and you have every right. I wouldn't want to be with me either. I… obviously you're moving on. And you don't miss me anymore. But I'm not there yet. And I don't know if I'm ever going to be. I needed you to know that for some reason." He shoved his hands down deep into his pockets because it made him feel a little more stable. "It's a really, really beautiful painting. You've got an amazing gift."
Nick blinked and the muscles in his jaw jumped, but he didn't even say thank you for the complement.
Sam left.
He even almost managed to go home.
Got himself back to his own driveway in any case, but absolutely could not remember how to get out of the car, or why he should.
How was he supposed to tell Dean that he'd been right?
All that gloating was going to be insufferable.
And Sam hadn't even remembered to fill up the gas tank.
Hindsight let him know that he should have just gone up to his room to study after Dean and Castiel came over with their pizza. He would have been better off going back over his notes for debate class.
At least he still could have been angry at Nick and managed to get in some good studying.
Angry was so much better than whatever the hell this new feeling was.
His phone was going off. Probably had been for a while. But the little screen said 'Nick' and Sam found himself struggling to figure out why it would do something like that.
"… yes?" Oh, that didn't sound like Sam's voice though. I was too small and uncertain.
Which was alright, because it certainly wasn't Nick's that answered him. "We had a plan, Mr. Sam." June reminded him sternly.
"Sorry, kido." Definitely not Sam talking. "I gave it my best shot."
"Have you ever had Papa make you breakfast?"
You know what? "Can't say I have."
"No one can. He has coffee and makes me some instant oatmeal, or a bowl of cereal. It's not real food. But you seem like a pancakes and bacon kind of guy."
"Do I?" He was distantly aware that he was still answering like a normal person, even if he felt like some kind of dried up husk.
"Hey. I saw the flannel shirts. I'm actually wearing one that you left here. You're a lumberjack. And lumberjacks love pancakes."
Sam felt a small smile tugging at the edge of his mouth as he leaned forward and rested his head against the steering wheel. "Sorry to disappoint. I'm an awful cook too. I'd probably just bring you some cold pizza."
"Aw, cold pizza would be super awesome." She sighed. "Papa can do almost anything. Be he's bad at breakfast."
"That's rough."
June sighed. "So… it didn't work out?" She would have had a hard time making a bigger understatement.
"Guess not."
"That's what I figured when he came to get me and was all quiet and broody."
"June," and that was Nick's unmistakable voice, far away but still clear. "Who you talking to, baby? It's late."
"Just a friend, Papa." June sang.
"Yeah, well, tell her good night. You girls can talk tomorrow."
"Ok."
"Ok." Nick repeated, but much closer.
"I love you, Papa."
"I love you too, June-bug. But get off the phone."
"All right." She clicked her teeth and there came the sound of a door opening and closing. "He thinks you're a girl."
Sam's eyes felt hot, his throat a little tight, and he didn't know why. "Yeah, well. You really should go to bed. It's pretty late and you've probably got school tomorrow."
"I do, but… ok. Do you know someone else that my Papa might like if he doesn't like you anymore? Someone who can cook, and has nice legs?"
Sam ran a hand over his mouth. "No. Sorry."
She grumbled. "Alright. But if you learn how to make pancakes you give me a call."
"Sure thing."
"Goodnight, I guess." Resignation and disappointment deep in her voice.
Sam could relate. "Good night, June."
And just because Sam couldn't have nice things anymore, there was Dean sitting on the couch when he came in. Just waiting. He didn't get up, just watched quietly as Sam locked the door behind him and tossed the keys down onto the little table.
Forcing a smile that didn't feel at all right, Sam nodded to his big brother.
"God damn it, Sam." Dean got to his feet. "Just sit down."
And Sam had never really been all that good at following orders, but he didn't have much in him to do otherwise or any will to fight the gentle momentum that carried him to the couch.
Dean left the room and returned too fast with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.
"I don't want a drink." Sam muttered half to himself.
"They're both for me, bitch. I'm going to need 'em if I have to listen to this heart wrenching bullshit about how terrible your ex is."
"There's nothing to talk about." He promised- which roughly meant that there was nothing that he wanted to talk about, and nothing that Dean wanted to hear.
But that didn't stop Dean from filling the two little glasses with the same poison that was inevitably killing their dad somewhere on the other side of the country, and Sam took the one that was passed over to him.
After all, not wanting a drink and not needing them were two separate categories.
"Do you wanna' start this off with an apologetic 'Dean, you were right, like always'' or should I go straight to asking where you think we should dump the body?"
Sam tossed back the shot and coughed slightly as the alcohol flayed his throat raw. "You never should have set us up."
"Oh, you're not going to blame me for this one. I did it as a joke, and thought that if you got laid out of it, all the better. I never told you to fall for the bastard. In fact, I remember telling you to dump the son of a bitch pretty early on."
And for all the world, Sam wished he could have simply said that Dean was wrong, that he'd never fallen in love with Nick. Instead he poured himself another shot and rested his elbows on his knees.
None of the things he could think to say seemed like good things. No one involved got to keep all the blame. Sam and Nick- and incidentally (and to a lesser extent) Dean and Gabriel were all sort of playing equally important villainous roles in this. In the end it just meant that everyone who had become involved just kind of sucked.
Sometimes there are no good outcomes.
Only some a little less shitty than others.
"We weren't really dating, you know." Sam notched his thumb along the lip of the glass, breathing through his teeth. "Me and Nick...we worked it all out together the first night we met, when we figured out what you and Cas were up to. We thought 'oh, we'll show them. We will pretend to date and pretend to fall in love and have such a break up, and they will feel so bad for picking on us.' We were so god damned smart."
Dean quietly pulled the bottle away from Sam and eyed him suspiciously. "You wanna run that on by me again?"
"We were lying to you guys. We were never actually a couple."
"That's a really laugh. First off, you're not that good of a liar, or an actor. Second, dude was sucking you off on our stairs. That's some committed lie. Huge sacrifice on your part, Sammy."
Oh, and Dean didn't need to keep bringing that one up. It made Sam's stomach ache. That morning on the stairs, it had kind of been a first time thing for both of the men involved. He couldn't call it 'special' because that made it seem romantic or some other garbage kind of title that it didn't deserve. Nick had simply suggested it in his off handed way, half joking, and Sam had laughed nervously. A little prodding later and the older man had figured out that Sam had never had the pleasure- and the next thing Sam knew Nick was fumbling at his belt, not patience to even make it all the way up to the bedroom. The sinfully distracting memory of the way that Nick had looked up at him while licking a thin stripe down Sam's hip… it wasn't playing well with the current feelings he was drowning in.
Sam crossed his legs and downed the second shot. It wasn't much smoother than the first and he found himself coughing wetly again while trying very hard not to make eye contact with his brother.
Coming clean was supposed to be liberating.
He should have felt a weight lifting off his shoulders. Some kind of peace.
He didn't of course. But maybe that would just come in time.
"We sort of… the pretend part of the dating work out like we thought it would." One more glaring understatement, what difference would it make now?
There was a tightness to Dean. His shoulders hunched. The edges of his mouth turned down. He had never really liked being lied to. "How well did the pretend breaking up go?"
"Oh that part was… is a lot more real than I was expecting."
"Just how do you manage to get from trying to get back at me for setting you up on a date with a guy- to fucking one on a regular basis?"
"I guess that we just lied about it well enough that we started believing it too."
Dean took a slow drink straight from the bottle instead of just yelling. So he was obviously taking this a lot better than Sam thought that he would.
The gentle ticking of the clock was the only noise for a bit. Time stretching out to an uncomfortable thinness. Dean took another long drink and set the bottle on the coffee table close enough to Sam to more of a suggestion than anything else.
So Sam took it, and poured himself a half shot and just held it. Wrapping his hands around the little glass until it was out of sight. It helped hide the fact that he was shaking again. Maybe he'd never stopped. Strung out on adrenaline and angst, and starving for another hit.
"You're... not going to say anything?"
"You don't want me to say anything right now, Sammy."
And Dean was already right about so many other things, it only seemed like a safe bet to go ahead and keep on trusting in him.
They just needed a moment. A little time for Dean to sort through what Sam had told him. Time to drink a little more. Abandon a few half formed sentences. And in the end just look fantastically furious.
Which meant that everything was going pretty much exactly how Sam thought that it would.
It didn't make that aggressive silence any easier to take.
He looked at the familiar walls that he'd helped to paint. The carpet that they'd laid out a couple years back. The ugly furniture that they'd picked out together, scraping up the needed cash and laughing because they hadn't been able to afford anything nicer.
It felt like a lifetime ago by now, but this was the actual couch that Nick and he had sat on while the older man had charmed him like a snake oil salesman into going along with this plan that was doomed from the start. Sam had been reluctant and he should have trusted in that initial feeling.
"God, I need a drink."
Dean pointed to the bottle without a word.
"Of water." The whiskey wasn't sitting well on his stomach. No real surprise there. He'd never been all that good at drinking.
By the time he came back to the couch, ready to endure the rest of his well earned silent treatment, Dean had managed to knock the bottle down to half way.
It was going to be one of those nights apparently.
As long as they were in it together.
Sam nursed his tall glass of water, glancing towards the clock from time to time, waiting for the liquor to hit Dean hard enough that he'd be ready to yell at Sam- because right now Sam either wanted advice, or a fight. He'd take which ever he could get at this point.
"Dean?"
"No."
"I think I really, really fucked this one up."
Dean actually nodded slightly, and it was nicer than it should have been to have that level of confirmation.
"It's just… he was my best friend, you know?"
His big brother's words only slurred a little on the edges, impressive levels of sobriety in the face of so much alcohol. But Dean had always been a fairly impressive drunk. "At what point did that son of a bitch replace me as your best friend?"
"Around the same time I realized how awesome it is to have a best friend you can also make out with." He admitted softly.
Some obvious consideration passed over Dean's face, bit of a sneer as he sized up Sam. "Yeah, I'm not really into that whole homo erotic, incest-y thing." He caught the top of the whisky bottle and kind of rolled the neck between his thumb and forefinger. "Can you at least- I mean, without going into detail, tell me you weren't also lying about who was on top. I can't handle the idea of you getting pounded by that bastard."
"...pounded?"
"Up the ass." Dean clarified.
Which was, for the record, not even close to what Sam was expecting. "Are you… you're making fun of me?"
"Dude, you lied to me. Lied to my face. For months. But you also ended up getting pretty fucked over in the end- so between the two of us I'm actually the only one who's doing ok. And you've got to admit… it's kind of funny."
Sam looked at Dean. Really, really just looked at him. There was a comfortable haze of liquor, a redness to his cheeks, a hardness to the line of his mouth, but everything else was just poorly disguised pitty.
Only he didn't want pity. He had plenty enough on his own without borrowing any.
"You should have told me he'd been in an accident." Sam spoke quietly. Digging himself a little hole, still looking for that fight.
Dean groaned and toyed with the bottle. "Yeah, you an Cas say that- but what did knowing get you? Didn't make him any less in the hospital, and didn't make you and him any less not-dating."
Which was true.
"I'm not a little kid anymore. You have to let me screw up my own life. And you have to let me pick myself back up."
"Look, it's my job to protect you from your own stupid, to make sure that you don't end up with miserable sons of bitches who don't make you happy."
Sam made a bitter noise, leaning away from Dean, holding himself steady. "What are you, the happiness police?
"No. I'm your fucking big brother," Dean thunked a fist against the back of the couch. "And I always will be- no matter how tall you decide to get. So get used to it."
This was also true. But it didn't mean that Sam had asked for any of it, or that he wanted it.
"Sammy, if you knew he was hurt you would have run to the hospital and cried and held his hand," Dean kept on going, rambling drunkenly. "He would have apologized and you would have apologized, maybe he could have braided your hair, and you both would have gotten your periods at the same time. It would have been pretty freaking magical."
Dean's terrible words from earlier that evening still ringing in him clear as church bells. He doesn't want you. Just because something was true didn't make it any easier to swallow.
"Shut up."
"You don't get it, do you? It was going to happen eventually. But it would have broken you a few months back. You were in it in a bad way." Dean shrugged. "Tonight you're doing ok. You've had time for your little shell to harden."
"Dean, I'm ...not ok."
"You fucking will be." He managed to make it sound like a threat. Dean knew him. Knew him better than he knew himself most of the time. And Dean saw through the ruffled feathers and the red rimmed eyes that had nothing to do with whiskey because Sam hadn't really had all that much to drink any ways.
"Sammich," one clumsy hand smacked him on the shoulder, gripping the collar of his shirt and shaking him like Dean meant to knock something loose. "Tomorrow we are going to the shooting range. We're going to blow off a few rounds, and I'm going to let you pretend that you're a better shot than me, because you're my baby brother an I feel bad for you."
They hadn't been shooting since the first summer out here in California.
The offer threw Sam. Unexpected and strangely inviting.
"Then I'm going to introduce you to these twins I met last week. They're biology… medical intern… whatever. And I can't tell them apart, but they are both solid tens and I am willing to share with you. You'd like them, they're out here studying like… sea grass or some shit."
"No." Sam said very firmly.
Dean made a face. "You can't lick your wounds forever."
"No twins."
"...can we still go to the range?"
See, Dean was a fixer. And problematically, Sam was currently limping along, just as he had been since the first fight with Nick months ago.
And he'd grown accustomed to it, sort of comfortable with the knowledge that it was never going to feel better, fucking up on this grand of a level.
But maybe be he could do them both a favor and let his big brother do what he did best.
He gathered up the glasses from the table, drinking the half shot he'd poured for himself earlier. "If you're not too hung over." He promised.
.:.
It was just a simple text message that woke him up early on his Friday morning.
-I'm sorry. Can we talk?
Sam looked at his phone. The very awful non-conversation that he'd had with Nick almost a week ago was still fairly fresh in his mind. Had kept him on the edge of distraction for days now, making schoolwork a bit more difficult to focus on than normal.
What was he supposed to say?
He wanted to throw his phone. Maybe yell some obscenities at it.
-yeah he typed back instead before tossing it onto the bed beside him. It was a tough kind of choice so early in the morning, but if felt like the right one.
Half an hour later, with a time and a place to meet up sent to him from Nick's phone, and Sam suddenly had a million doubts. But he'd also had some coffee and a shower and was awake enough to really savor the misgiving of his impulsive response.
He wanted to write Nick off. To move on. To stop dwelling so much, because trying to figure out what the hell had happened the other night had only served to give him a week long headache.
Meeting up with Nick wasn't going to be a step forward.
They'd already said all the things that there were to say between them.
He went anyways.
It was stupid and he knew it.
But sometimes love is admitting that you aren't better than stupid.
They'd agreed to meet at a little coffee shop. He'd never been here with Nick before, but this was a college town and they both lived within spitting distance of campus. There were roughly twenty places just like it nearby. All those students needed their coffee after all.
Despite having already had a cup before he'd left home, Sam found himself buying a drink, because it gave his hands something to hold. He sat as near to the back of the cafe as possible, where he could watch the door and wait, knee bouncing beneath the table. Anxious from more than just the double shot of caffeine.
Almost five minutes after Nick was supposed to be there at that little table making uncomfortable conversations with Sam, the young man was ready to give up. But before he managed to get to his feet, the chair across from his was pulled out and he suddenly had company.
Though it wasn't Nick, the resemblance was a little eerie.
She had the same almost strawberry blonde hair, the same tired looking, sea glass blue eyes, and when she smiled up at him it was the same tight lipped, round cheeked expression her father would always use. The older version of the little girl from the photo Nick kept on his dresser. She even had one of those plastic beaded bracelets that Nick hadn't been without since Christmas. This one mostly made of stars- all her own, not one of her Dad's.
Sam would have called her beautiful in the way that some little kids just are. Perfect features, very symmetrical, with all that long, silky blonde hair pulled over a shoulder, slender and lithe, tan with a splash of freckles- but Sam could see the faded scar that ran down her jaw and neck, not quite hidden by all that hair. And he could see at least two little pink perfect circles on her lower left arm where the rolled up flannel sleeves didn't quite cover. Old marks that she would have to carry for the rest of her life.
Sam felt irrationally angry, and protective, and a little sick to his stomach.
And she just smiled up at him.
"You're a lot taller than I thought you would be."
"June… shouldn't you be in school?"
Her smile turned into a grin. "Well, I had to meet you, didn't I? So when I got dropped off at school I just kept walking. I really didn't know if you would come or not."
"I didn't know it was you that had texted me."
She kept that sharklike grin in place. "If you had, would you not have come?"
Sam felt a bit of the tension easing out of him. He'd been gearing up for the possibility of another argument and now the world as a whole felt anti climactic. He ran a hand through his hair. "No. I probably would still be here- but I wouldn't have encouraged you to ditch school. I would have tried to meet later in the afternoon."
"I'm almost ten- that's pretty much a teenager. I can skip class if I need to."
"You should be in school. Come on, I'll walk you back." He wanted to make sure she got there. The last thing he needed was for her to go missing and Sam to be the last one to have seen here. He didn't know why that's where his mind went- but not a whole lot of things felt like making sense to him right now.
June rolled her eyes but got up. "Will you buy me a scone?"
"You telling me you're not full from your oatmeal this morning?"
"I talked Papa into getting us some toaster waffles… but I'm always hungry."
So Sam bought her a cranberry-orange scone and a hot chocolate before they started walking.
"You can't do this again- ok?" He found that looking down at her while they were moving was difficult. Her head didn't even come up to his chest and it made the angle for eye contact really low and weird. "I don't think your dad would be happy about this."
"Well I'm not going to tell him, and you aren't. So we should be fine."
"I don't know if you're trying to pull some Parent Trap nonsense here, but you can't do this again." He repeated more firmly. "You're dad and I just… we just don't. And you're really weirdly ok with the fact that I was your dad's boyfriend."
"My mom is a Vegas show girl. She had at least two new boyfriends a week, every one was an A+ creep, but at least they left before breakfast. And Sean, the guy she's marrying, he's the worst one. Always asking me to come sit on his lap, and touching my hair. Super, extra creep, you know? But you seem nice and normal. So why would it matter if you're a guy?"
There was that slightly nauseous feeling again. "...because you're dad is a guy too."
"Nah, he's not a guy. He's just Papa. He had boyfriends, mom had boyfriends. Even I've had a boyfriend. People just have boyfriends sometimes."
"That's a… really progressive view."
"Progressive." She repeated before taking a big, crumbly bite of her pasty and then talking with her mouth still full. "You talk like uncle Cassy."
Sam just sort of shrugged.
"I like it. Uncle Cassy is weird by nice. Like… maybe the nicest person I've ever met."
"I can see that."
"But you know, I was talking to him about it this morning, and we both think that Papa needs someone, and that that someone should be you. Apparently you're the only person he's ever dated since he and Mom got a divorce. So that makes you like really, really important."
"Well, like you said, Cas is weird." Sam didn't know if he should take comfort or if he should worry for the fact that Castiel had a favorable opinion on this spectacularly failed relationship- especially since he knew that the majority of it (at least in a chronological sense) had been an enormous lie. "And you're not allowed to have formed an opinion on a relationship that you never saw. I know you think he's still got a bit of a crush on me or something- but I talked to him the other night. It's definitely over."
She aimed a crooked expression up at him, her little nose wrinkling over a lopsided frown. "Oh… but you're super pretty. And Uncle Cassy said that you were always sweet to Papa even when he was an ass." She whispered the last, and Sam had a feeling it was probably a word that she wasn't supposed to be using.
"Unfortunately relationships are more complicated than just whether or not the two people are nice to each other." And even if that was the sole basis, they would have failed at it spectacularly.
"I guess… I mean, Uncle Gabriel said you and Papa had a big fight one time and that you were mean. But I don't think that's true. You don't seem mean at all, and Uncle Gabriel exaggerates. All the time. Like he said that Papa couldn't get custody of me if he was dating a guy- because the judge already hated him, and I think that's kind of stupid. Him having a boyfriend would be a really stupid reason to not let me live with him. And anyways, I wasn't going to tell the judge. He had big, weird eyebrows, and it really should just be all about if you're nice to each other."
"Sometimes people just aren't supposed to be together I think."
For a multitude of different reasons.
Like when someone picks their daughter over you, and you just have to kind of learn to accept it.
Sam thought that maybe this new knowledge should have made him angry. He really wished that it did. But he just felt all the more like Nick was justified in calling it quits.
"This is my school." June gestured broadly, arms wide like she planned to embrace the building. "Isn't it ugly? My old school was so much nicer. And it had all my friends at it."
"That's rough. But you'll make new friends… cool California friends."
"No one says cool anymore." She looked up at him with a disappointed expression.
"I moved out here from Kansas just a few years ago. It sucks going to a new school so far from home. But the weather out here is nice, and you've got the beach, and all kinds of… really interesting family."
She tugged on the straps of her backpack. "I've never been to the beach before."
"Really?"
"The ocean doesn't reach Las Vegas."
"You should ask your dad if he'll take you once school is out for the summer. He used to go with his brothers when they were younger, and burn all their old homework." Sam found himself smiling in a way that didn't even remotely feel like happy. "I bet he'd love to take you."
"Really?" She lit up. "That sounds really cool."
"I thought no one says cool anymore."
"Well, now it's retro. Retro is cool."
"Go to class, June." Sam instructed through a laugh.
"Can we get scones and cocoa again next Friday?"
He shook his head. "No. Come on. It was great to meet you. I know that your dad loves you very much and I'm happy that you two have each other. But he doesn't like me- for good reasons that you don't really need to know about. And we can't hang out and get breakfast."
"Come on."
"He might actually kill me."
"You'll be fine. He's a lover, not a fighter."
"Do you even know what that means?"
"I know that you're nice, and if I wait for you next week at the same time at the same coffee shop that you might show up to walk me back to school."
Not knowing Lilith, it was hard to say if June took more after her mother or father. But either way she clearly knew how to work a system.
"I could just tell your dad what you're doing. Ditching school, hanging out with gross old men."
"Yeah, you won't tell him." She leaned into Sam for a moment, her shoulder and the crown of her head hitting the bend of his elbow. "I'll see you next week, Mr. Sam." And she waved and ran up to the school, long blonde hair whipping behind her like a flag.
Sam stood there reeling with new, curious feelings that he didn't like at all, before realizing that he was loitering in front of an elementary school and very likely to actually get pegged as a 'gross old man' and that was going to be really hard to explain to Dean when his big brother came to pick him up down at the police station.
He made his way back towards the coffee shop, in the direction of his own school, thinking that he could go hide out in the library for a while and try to get a little studying in- because if nothing else, for those few minutes of clarity when he was actually able to focus every now and then, he enjoyed being a student again and not wallowing in self pity over all the things that he'd let go horrifically wrong these past few months.
Over the little things that he started letting go wrong every Friday morning.
First at about eight-fifteen, then (after an early text to let him know of the time change) closer to seven-thirty. Apparently Cas drove his niece to school, and thought it was more ethical and safer to just drive her straight to the coffee shop with enough moring left to get to school on time. The adults didn't talk about the arrangement, and Sam had his suspicions that it was for plausible deniability if they ever got caught.
Not that they intended to get caught.
But Sam had never had all that much luck with well laid plans.