somewhere in the midst of chapter 9- and Nick had never been all that good at justifying his actions.

Georgia was the kind of woman that radiated trouble. The problem was that Nick liked trouble. It explained his short but glorious police record, his even shorter marriage to the female version of Satan, his drinking problem, his obvious suicidal deal with Sam, and the brunet currently sitting on his knee.

They didn't have much to say to each other. They never did. She tossed back her shot of whisky, wrinkling her little freckled nose, and pressed a kiss into Nick's neck. She was soft in the right places and not quite warm enough, but this was honestly the most action that he'd managed to get since October- which incidentally was the last time that Georgia had come by his shop and asked for a ride home.

He wished that it was in his power to tell her no. But she had looked up at him, smiled with those dimples, and he was leaving work early and taking her out for a drink. His head was telling him no. Big blaring 'NO's with neon lights and a marching band and his body was having none of it. It was like having a bite of cake in your mouth (the best cake you've had all year) and being told to spit it out because there's pie waiting at home for you that you're not allowed to eat, but you can look at it- and how dare he eat someone else's dessert.

"One more?" She tapped her shot glass on the bar.

Nick nodded to the bartender, pushing his own glass towards hers.

"You've been taking care of yourself, Nick?" She asked, straightening the collar of his jacket. "You look better than last time I came through."

"I've… I've actually started dating someone. I think it's good for me." He took his refilled shot and nodded to her before tossing it back.

"Oh yeah?" It spoke to what a strange relationship that they had because she honestly sounded happy for him. "She better to you than the last one was?"

"She's a he."

To which Georgia grinned. White teeth and red, red lipstick. "You wanna give him a call, see if he wants to join us?"

Nick refused- ABSOLUTLY REFUSED to entertain that idea. He'd made a promise to himself to not consider Sam as anything other than a fully dressed, completely unsexual creature. A male creature specifically. And it shouldn't be that difficult to remember that Sam was a boy and that no part of Nick's body was interested in those sorts of bodies. Not enough variety once the clothes came off. Nick needed that variety.

He kissed Georgia instead of thinking about Sam and she laughed at him because they weren't friends and she knew what a mess Nick was without prejudice or judgment.

With a great purpose, he did his best to refamiliarize himself of the contours of her mouth, to find that little dip at the base of her spine. And it was a good distraction right up until she pulled away to order yet another drink. Of the few things that Nick had learned about her through their few and far between meetings, the only one that was polite to make note of in mixed company was that she could drink him under the table when the mood struck her.

She glanced up at him through thick lashes. "Nick, does your boyfriend happen to be an angry looking man with short dark hair and Ken doll cheek bones?"

"No?" Nick laughed, but then he saw who she was talking about.

There on the far side of the bar was Dean- because of course there was Dean- and Castiel?

It would be fair to point out that Nick had never considered himself lucky.

If he had been then he would have picked somewhere else to stop in and get a drink- and not the same bar that his kid brother had decided to take his non-boyfriend to.

Maybe it wasn't luck though. Maybe it was just stupidity, or senility, that lead him to telling Georgia yes tonight. Because certainly he had to blame something. But he had only agreed to give her a ride home, and there were no rules against this sort of thing. No need to. Nick was only dating Sam under pretense. Mutual benefit and mutual destruction. It's not like they were actually dating, so it's not like he was actually cheating on Sam.

Somehow reminding himself of that fact did absolutely nothing to ease his sudden guilt.

For whatever it was worth, Cas didn't look mad, just disappointed and a little sad, big dark eyes boring into Nick from the other side of the room. This did not help Nick one bit- nor did it stop Dean from coming over.

And about three minutes later Nick could taste blood and he wondered to himself if Sam knew what sort of brother he had. Sam- now Sam was lucky. Not everyone had family members quite as angry and protective and indignant as Dean managed to get so quickly over something as innocent as infidelity.

An evening that should have ended with Nick on his back with a beautiful view of a very naked brunet ended instead of with him sitting on a very uncomfortable hospital chair with his brother patting his knee. And Nick didn't hurt that bad. Mind you one hand had a few fingers that were a lovely shade of midnight, and the bar napkins that he'd been sucking on had soaked up just about as much blood as they could. But this wasn't his first emergency room. And this by far wasn't the worst injury he had sustained by being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the right company.

A nurse finally came to take Nick back after only a few hours of waiting and a few quarts of blood loss.

"I don't want to see you around my brother anymore." Dean didn't lift his head from where he was resting it back against a plastic, potted plant. Just like he didn't open his eyes, one of which was bruising a beautiful purple to offset the smear of red under his nose that had stopped bleeding a while back. "Don't come over, don't call him. Just fuck off or I swear I'll do more than break your hand."

And Nick wasn't sure exactly how Dean intended to let Sam know that he was now down a boyfriend, but that seemed to be semantics at this point.

There was no doubt in his mind that Dean would see an end to the little game that Nick had been playing with his younger brother.

It had been a good game while it lasted and he was more than sorry to see it ending.

Sorry and angry. Angry at the son of a bitch sitting there, holding Cas' hand. Angry at Georgia for coming out of nowhere like she always did, with that smile and swagger and promise of the bad things that she would do to him.

Mostly he was just angry with himself. Angry with himself for seemingly having no control over his own body or its impulses.

Was it so wrong to want a little pleasant company every once in a while?

"You know what, Dean? You can go fuck yourself." Which was a hell of a lot easier to say than 'I screwed up'.

"Are you coming or should I call someone else?" The nurse had raised her clip board and looked about ready to start hitting both men indiscriminately at this point if they were going to start arguing again.

Nick followed her, but only because standing up had reminded his body that he was too old to be getting into fights with people who knew what they were doing.

He got to go and sit on a stiff hospital bed while his nurse mercilessly set his fingers, taped them, and put little stitches in his lip. It hurt like a son of a bitch, and the stern woman didn't even offer him morphine. Which was just cruel.

Instead she informed him that he should avoid spicy food and any aggressive mouth activities. He got the basic idea of what she meant, and what did it matter at this point because it's not like anyone was going to be offering to do anything good to his mouth for quite some time.

Dean would go home and tattle on him- and if Nick was going to have to say goodbye to Sam early than planned that he had certainly picked a damned awful way to do it.

Nick was losing the best thing he currently had going for him and he wasn't even getting laid tonight because of it. There was no good trade going on. Just him burning a perfectly good bridge.

No one offered him a prescription for the pain, just a little paper cup with a handful of white pills which he was told not to mix with alcohol. Needless to say it was the very first thing that he chose to do when he finally got home. He knew it was a bad idea, but if he wasn't going to get off tonight then he could at least get drunk. Drunk enough that he was still hurting from it the next afternoon.

He was dozing at work, taking comfort in the familiar smells and sounds. It felt more like home to him than any other place and right now he needed this. He needed that reassurance. He felt far too much like the miserable son of a bitch that he was.

Someone smacked his leg, startling him out of his half sleep. He sat, bolt upright in his chair, blinking wildly into the bright lights and of all the people to see standing over him, there was Sam.

Dean must have talked to him last night, and Sam must have not been satisfied to just let it go. One furious Winchester had been enough and Nick honestly didn't think that he had another fight in him at this point. In fact, he knew he didn't.

Sam would tell him what an awful human being he was and Nick wouldn't really have a rebuttal for that.

Knowing that this could only end badly, Nick found himself getting defensive before anything else. "God damn it, Sam. You can't go sneaking up on me like that."

"What happened to you?" He asked like he didn't know.

"Nice to see you too, Sam. How have you been?"

"I'm… I'm better than you I guess." Sam shrugged, a passably worried look on his face, and he was a better actor that Nick had been giving him credit for. "Holly hell."

"Thanks." He sighed, because the last thing he needed was to be reminded what a mess he looked like at this point. He rubbed at an eye that he knew was bloodshot, then touched his lip, a short catalog of injuries. God, but it hurt now that he was sober.

He looked up at Sam who was doing a spectacular job of still looming over him. Had the kid really come all this way to just rub some salt in those wounds? It was a bit more vindictive than Nick had expected, but no less than he felt he deserved.

"Are you alright?"

What a question.

"I'm peachy. How's your brother?"

That seemed to startle Sam for some reason. "He's… fine. How are your brothers?"

Were they really going to just drag this out? The anticipation of the impending fight was making his teeth hurt. He wanted to get it over with. He wanted to simply say their goodbyes with anger and irreverence and regret and then go back to his corner and go back to pretending that he was fine.

"Why are you here, Sam?"

"I just hadn't seen you in a few days. Wanted to say hi… I brought you a coffee."

And it dawned on Nick that the kid might not be acting. It wasn't feigned ignorance just to get under his skin. It was honest honesty.

There really was a coffee sitting there just for Nick and Sam didn't know about last night.

Sam wasn't leaving.

Nick knew he had no right to feel as relieved or as happy as he suddenly did. Because even if Sam didn't know about it- last night had still happened. Dean and he had broken each other bad enough that the nurses had asked if either of them was intending to file a police report- but how do you tell a nurse that you had been caught cheating on your fake boyfriend (which makes it not cheating at all) and honestly felt like you deserved your injuries? You tell them about the same way that you tell your fake boyfriend.

Which was to say that you don't tell.

Not a word of it.

Self preservation won out over guilt.

He wasn't a good man. He didn't deserve nice things. So when they suddenly fell in his lap he clung to them for as long as he could before someone noticed the error and took them away.

God, but Sam was one of those nice things that promised not to last much longer and Nick was every much the son of a bitch that Dean had accused him of being last night.

He took his coffee and he took Sam's uncertain smile. He took whatever he could get while he could still get it.

He even took Sam's permission to get a little something-something on the side as needed.

And it was a shame that Sam was so understanding and accommodating. It was a shame that the best relationship that Nick had ever had was just an elaborate lie.

It was a damn shame that Sam's mouth was so soft when he kissed Nick's cheek.

At least the coffee was good.