Between 11 and 12

Twenty-four.

There were twenty-four notable ridges to Sam's spine before the curve of muscle dipped too low and too interesting to follow.

Twenty-four. Nick knew. He had counted them almost a hundred times over the last hour, his fingertips running almost slick with the thin sheen of sweat, pressing into each dip and arch. And wasn't your body temperature supposed to drop when you've been drinking? Nick swore he could remember reading that somewhere- that even though you feel hot, it's just you're blood running thin and you're actually much colder than you should be.

What did he know though?

Sam was practically burning. Smoldering and heavy against him, sleeping sprawled out, pinning Nick down with weighted limbs against his chest and whisky sour breath along his throat. Immovable. The both of them. One too drunk, the other too much a coward to do anything about it.

The kid had told Nick that he wanted to get drunk.

Nick had helped.

At the time it had seemed like the right thing to do.

To help even if he wasn't sure that this was the best way.

A few hours later and Nick had doubts.

But it was too late.

What's the saying though- you've made your bed, now sleep in it?

Except they weren't in bed, they were stuck on the stupid couch. The couch which Nick had always thought was a bit too short, and was now convinced of it, as well as it being too narrow. It wasn't exactly comfortable. Though it wasn't exactly uncomfortable either.

He let his fingers drift dangerously low, over skin, over denim, over the pleasant curve of Sam's ass before he realized what he was doing and quickly moved his hand back up to a safer hemisphere. Though to be fair, his hand was still under Sam's shirt and he hadn't really moved it back up there as quickly as he knew he should have.

Nick's cell phone vibrated noisily against the table, just out of reach. Sam didn't even flinch, didn't stir. Just as good as dead to the world. It was only his deep, slow breaths and staggering body temperature that let Nick know that he was even still alive at this point. The kid had managed to drink almost a fifth of whisky before he passed out, and for someone who supposedly wasn't all that good at drinking it had been impressive.

Sam was an interesting drunk if nothing else, though interesting was a very gentle term for it. Intimidating was a bit better, though Nick had a feeling that he only considered that particular word due to the fact that Sam was roughly twice the size of a normal human. Which meant that there was a lot more of him to be drunk than Nick usually had to deal with. He was also a surly drunk. Very handsy. Very mouthy. Very… expressive.

Nick closed his eyes and started counting again, slowly, from one to twenty-four.

His phone started ringing again.

It had been doing that a lot lately.

It might have had something to do with the fact that he kept on not answering it.

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

His door handle rattled and Nick opened his eyes, would have sat up if he didn't have what he estimated to be roughly two hundred pounds of man laying on top of him.

"Nick?" The voice was soft all the way on the other side of the door.

Oh god. Nick cringed and closed his eyes tight, praying that Gabriel might just go away on his own if not answered.

The handle rattled again. "Nick. You in there?"

"No." He whispered with passion, not wanting to wake Sam- even though he didn't think he could at this point even if he needed to.

But the damn door opened because Gabriel never had let little things like locks slow him down. He looked pale, wide eyed, uncharacteristic worry written on his face for a fraction of a second before he honed in on the couch, taking in the pile of Nick and Sam- then he slipped easily into one of those knowing smirks of his. Smug for no good reason other than that he could be.

"And here I was, worried about leaving you like you were last night." He let himself in, as comfortably as if he lived here. "Then you weren't answering your phone, and I though, holy hell, Nick's gone and done something painfully stupid again- but look at you. You took Rehka's advice."

"I didn't apologize to him." Nick carefully adjusted Sam's shirt, making sure that he was as covered as he could be, because Gabriel was not allowed to see any more of Sam than absolutely necessary.

"Did you just win him back with the promise of booze?" Gabriel investigated the mostly empty pile of shot glasses with a skeptical eye. He lifted one and took a sniff before making a face and putting it back on the table. "Sorry, I mean paint thinner. Seriously, how do you drink this?"

"With my mouth." Nick clicked his teeth for emphasis, an aggressive little noise which didn't even make Gabriel flinch.

"You two kids do a lot of fun things with your mouths today?"

Nick happily suggested his brother go do something to himself that was almost definitely anatomically impossible.

Gabriel only grinned and sat himself down on the coffee table, picking up Nick's phone and poking at the screen. "Apparently Rehka left her earrings here last night. She told me to come get them after work- but I think she did it on purpose so that she'd have an excuse to make me come check on you."

"Get the damn earrings. Tell the goddess that I didn't drink myself into a coma, or reenlist, or anything even half as damaging to my health. Then kindly go the fuck away."

"I get it. I get it." Gabriel was typing something into Nick's phone, cheerful little jabs of his fingers. "You want more alone time with your boy toy- can't say I blame you one bit. But you seem to have found his limit… about three shots ago if my guess is right, and I'm not actually interrupting anything good. God, but I wish I was." He gave them both a lecherous look before resuming his typing. "You two must be hotter than hell when you get going. But this? This is just… it's cute, Nick. You're adorable." He said it almost like a bad word.

"Shut up."

"Did you call him or did he call you?" His eyebrows furrowed just a touch and he scrolled along Nick's cell screen. "Neither, but you've been texting his brother?"

"Give me the damn phone." Nick held a hand out, fingers reaching.

"What the hell is this?" Gabriel held the phone aloft, easily out of reach even if he was only a few feet away. Because he was sitting up and Nick was laying and it made all the difference in the world. He started to read the text aloud, but Nick wasn't listening. He knew the few short texts by heart. Dean wasn't the kind of guy to mess around with extra words.

-if he means fucking anything to you come get Sam out of the house right now

- and don't be gay about it.

Gabriel managed to make all Dean's demands one big question.

Nick let his hand fall, giving up on that course of action in favor of devoting every though to a good lie for this one.

"You ask what's wrong and he says 'just come get him'?" Gabriel wasn't looking at the phone now, he wasn't even looking at Nick, his pale eyes were all for Sam. "Was he just as much a mess without you as you were without him?"

And that would have been a good enough excuse, but it gave a weakness to Sam that Nick didn't feel entitled to impart. Despite everything else, he honestly struggled to do his best to portray Sam as he was- or at least as he viewed the young man to be. A gentle giant. Strong, and almost naively sweet, but rough when he wanted to be. Nick had never felt comfortable adding on to those traits, even for the sake of a good story. He couldn't lie and make Sam a kinky son of a bitch in bed any more than he could say that the guy was weak enough to actually need someone like Nick in his life.

"Not even half right." He put his arm over his eyes, blocking out the light as best as he could. Not even half as drunk as Sam had managed to get himself, but his head was still starting to pound anyways. "He doesn't get along with his father and Dean needed a good excuse to get Sam out of the house before things got bad." This was a condensed and cleaned up version of the mess that Sam had told him about halfway into their game of checkers. It was close enough to what Nick assumed was the truth without giving out too much information that Gabriel frankly didn't need. And the best kinds of lies were always made up of bits of truth anyways.

"Oh, he's got daddy problems?" Gabriel lit up for all the wrong reasons, latching on to his brother's words in a way he wasn't meant to. "Some of the hottest girls I've met had daddy problems."

Gabriel was a family divorce lawyer and Nick really didn't want to think about the circumstances in which the man might have had opportunity to meet such girls.

"Seriously, Gabe. Go find her earrings and get out."

"Why? I mean, again, I'm not interrupting anything good- and I am worried about you."

"I'm fine." He managed to put a lot of aggression into those two words and was rather proud of himself for it.

"I mean like, seriously worried at this point, Nick. You've got yourself a young, gorgeous, leggy piece of man all to yourself. And I can only assume that he picked you because you fill some need to have an old, mean, drunk bastard in his life- hello dad complex? And instead of apologizing for cheating on him, taking him back to your place, and giving him a good spanking like I'm sure he would love- you two play checkers and pass out drunk?"

"I'm not drunk or passed out." He ground his teeth, doing his best to focus on how much Gabriel made his headache worse, and less on how the man's words had struck a nerve. It was a good thing that every bit of what was going on between them was based on a mutual lie, because it ruled out Nick being some kind of weird, stand in, abusive father figure. The idea made him uncomfortable in ways he didn't know he could be.

"Were you vodka or whisky this time?"

"Vodka." Nick admitted uneasily.

Gabriel counted the undrunken shots before giving his brother a knowing look. "Not passed out, but nowhere near sober by this point. I'm surprised that you're not slurring worse than you are."

"I'm… I'm not slurring."

"Ah, but you are, you just can't tell- which probably puts you at about a seven out of ten on the drunk o'meter."

Nick peeked out from under his arm, wincing a little at the sunlight that could suddenly reach him.

"Maybe you've just gained a plus two to your alcohol tolerance since we last went out drinking together." He was looking through Nick's phone again. "You know what I find the most depressing about all this? You don't even have any dirty pics in your phone. No sexts. No nothing. You two are seriously boring. Did you know that?"

"I'm old and tired. What were you expecting?"

"He's not old. He's what, nineteen? He's made to be hot and wild. Chalk full of hormones and bad ideas. Mmnh." Gabriel bit his lip. "I remember when I was his age. A seven nation army couldn't make me keep it in my pants."

"First off, he's in his twenties." Nick insisted, because this was a vital point that obviously needed clarification. "And second, not everyone is a frisky little bastard like you were back in the day… or like you still are for that matter."

"Aw, you noticed." He peered up from the phone, a mock bashful expression on his stupid little face.

"It's hard not to notice being related to the god damned reincarnation of fucking Lord Byron."

Gabriel lit up, slapping the phone down on the table. "Is that what happened? He figured out that you're not actually as stupid as you try to come off as and you guys have some kind of deep seeded nerdy love going on now? Like you talk about books and philosophy and crap like that instead of having rough, borderline illegal sex like you should be?"

"Just because I don't save incriminating dick pics to my phone doesn't mean that there's anything deeper going on between us. No one said anything about love. Nerdy or otherwise."

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, Luci." So damn smug, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, chin cradled between his hands. "Rehka told me about what you said last night, and that woman knows a smitten kitten when she sees one."

"Seriously?" Maybe Nick was a bit more drunk than he felt interested in admitting. But smitten kitten? Oh hell no.

"Come on. You two have a fight last week. You revert back to the same miserable you that you've been for years. Then he needs you and you rush in to save him, and you two cuddle and nap." He made a face. "I'm doing my damndest to rile you up, but you're too happy because you have your Sam back. Admit it. He makes you happy, even without the sex weighing in." Gabriel accused. "You're all bark and no bite. And according to a very reliable source it was quite the other way around last night."

Nick wondered if he let himself get angry enough he would be able to summon up some inhuman strength to push Sam off and go for his brother's skinny little neck.

"I don't mind you borrowing my wife every now and then. But I would appreciate it if you sent her back to me in roughly the same condition that you found her in. You may have other options in your little black book, but she's the only one I've got."

"She's the only one who puts up with the fact that you're an abrasive jackass."

"She is a patient and longsuffering woman." Gabriel agreed with a smile, completely unphased by his brother's insults.

Nick put his arm back over his eyes and did his best to just sink into the couch. To disappear between cushions and unconscious boyfriend, somewhere dark and quiet where awful little men couldn't say horrible things.

Gabriel was an obnoxious ass who liked to rub everyone the wrong way like it was the best game since Hungry Hungry Hippos. But he also raised some unpleasant ideas that were more than a little hard to shake.

"How's about shutting that god ugly mouth of yours and helping me get Sam to bed so he can be passed out in peace. Then I'll help you find your wife's earrings."

"You can't move him on your own?"

"He's half man, half sequoia. Even if I could somehow pick him up, which I don't have the leverage to do, he's too long for me to carry without dragging."

"I bet he's long."

"Don't." Was all Nick said to that. The one word thick with warning.

Gabriel got up reluctantly and took Sam's comically long legs. "Fine. I'll help but only because I want to."

Nick managed to slide himself off the couch, no grace and all clumsy coordination made worse from the after buzz of drinking. "You touch him more than you need to, more than necessary to carry his gangly ass to bed, I'll throw you out the window."

For a second, the younger brother looked like he wanted to argue, to say that there was no way that Nick would actually toss him from the fourth floor, but their eyes met and Gabriel looked away first. "You really like him, don't you?" He asked as the two of them they carried-slash-dragged him to the bedroom.

Nick didn't answer Gabriel's question because at this point lying to keep up the lie and telling the truth would both produce the same response and that sort of scared him. It shouldn't. But it did. So he did his best to busy his mind and hands with unlacing Sam's shoes and tossing them beneath the bed, aware that his brother was watching every little movement. Judging.

Gabriel prodded the mess of blankets, curious expression. "Was he mad about last night?"

"About me and your wife? No." Sam didn't know about the weird relationship that Nick had with his sister-in-law. He didn't know that she had spent the night last night. There was no reason for him to be mad.

"No." Gabriel repeated in a mocking tone. "He must either really like you or really hate his dad."

"Why it can't be both?" He pulled a blanket over Sam and went to go look for Rehka's earrings.

"Have you met yourself?" Gabriel followed on his heels, relentless. "You are probably the biggest reason as to why he can't possibly like you."

"Thanks."

Gabriel stood uncomfortably close, as was his practice, and offered no help what so ever in the search for his wife's misplaced jewelry. "Hey, I'm just being honest. You're not the easiest guy to like. You're a mean, sarcastic, son of a bitch and that's on your good days."

"Again, thanks." If he wasn't already halfway to a walking hangover he would probably have taken a swing at his brother just on principle, even knowing it wouldn't help. It's not like Gabriel was lying, so smacking him around wouldn't really serve a purpose other than to make himself feel better.

"You know I love you. You're my big, grumpy, space princess. But I've known you since before your glorious fall from grace, back when you still remembered how to smile. Does that big drunk college boy in there know that you?"

"I told you not to call me that." Nick rubbed a hand over his mouth, pointedly not looking over at his brother, trying to find those damned earrings.

"Does he know about how you almost got a Masters degree but dropped out to play house with the psycho bitch? Or that every year you take Cas to the dentist and hold his hand because he's too scared to go on his own- because you still feel guilty about showing him that horror movie with the evil dentist when he was fourteen?"

"Not really things that were important enough to bring up." He actually really enjoyed not talking about himself to Sam... or really anyone.

"Does he know that you can make grown men weep with your violin playing? Or that you carry a saint Jude medallion because you actually think that it might help you. That you taught little kidies in Sunday school for almost three years? And that you're pen pals with a little girl in Las Vegas who you are legally not allowed contact with mainly because you threatened the judge at the custody hearing with bodily harm if he tried to take you daughter away from you?"

Nick found the ear rings and pressed them into Gabriel's hand. "I'm all grown up now. Just a big, mean, son of a bitch. And the big drunk college boy in the other room likes me that way. God knows why. But I'm not going to question it and neither should you. Now go home to your wife."

Gabriel almost looked serious for about three seconds, a pained expression passing through his eyes, words he couldn't voice because they'd never had that kind of relationship- at least not when one of them was still sober. But he shrugged it off with a smile, and held the ear rings up, examining them as if they might be someone else's and he needed to be sure. "Can you do me a favor, Luci?"

"If it gets you out of here faster, sure."

"When he wakes up, and the hangover wears off, and you two start getting all touchy because it's been a week and you missed each other's naked man bodies- can I get a picture?"

"A picture of what?"

"Your smoking hot naked boyfriend. Duh."

"Go home, Gabe."

"I don't need the full monty. Maybe just a bit of those hips, or glimpse of that ass…" He got a distant, almost dreamy look in his eyes.

Nick took him by the shoulders and steered him towards the door, giving him all the help in the world to get the hell out. "Go home."

"Come on, man. I lent you my wife. The least you could do is let me ogle your boyfriend once in a while."

Nick opened the door. "You do know that all she did was make herself a martini and we laid in bed eating ice cream, watching westerns, and talking about how much we hate you?"

"You both love me."

"We both hope that you get lost in the woods and eaten by wild dogs." He leaned down and pressed a small kiss to the corner of Gabriel's mouth. "Drive safe."

"God, you smell like a distillery." But he said it so fondly it was almost a complement. "When he wakes up, even if you're not feeling it, apologize to him. He deserves a good man and you used to be one. Lie and pretend that you still are."

"Shut up." Nick could hear the affection in his own voice and he hated it.

"We all saw the two of you during Christmas, smiling and laughing. Hell, you actually came to Christmas for the first time since you and Michael had that throw down after the divorce. The kid's good for you."

"He's too good for me."

"Don't fuck it up, Nick." Gabriel warned sternly.

It was good advice.

He wished he was allowed to follow it.