"So," Nick announced as he slid into the car beside Sam, "I'm calling this 'our first date three months too late'."

"I didn't know it needed a name." Sam scoffed, putting the Impala in reverse and carefully rolling back out of Nick's apartment complex. "Also, this isn't a first date."

But Nick had made a decision this afternoon and he would not be swayed. There came a time and a point in which you can't just let the world keep moving around you. If you want the impossible you have to make it want you back. " 's totally a date. You stole your brother's car. We're getting dinner and a movie. I've only heard one story about it, but as far as I know this is actually how you do date people."

"I was sixteen then, Dean knows I took the car tonight, and neither of us are losing anything in the backseat." He gave Nick a very significant amount of side eye and kept driving. "And the trip to San Francisco was a date."

"That was a business meeting."

Sam let out a startled yip of a laugh.

"We were figuring out a plan of attack." Nick argued easily. "It wasn't a date."

"You literally slept in my bed and used me as a blanket. How is that not a date?"

"There was no intention behind it. Just a need for warmth. You can't count that."

Sam drummed his fingers over the steering wheel, sucking little hollow dents in his cheeks. "Is there intention behind tonight?"

And, to his credit, Nick didn't actually chicken out for once. "I figure all this 'pretend dating' and lying about what's going on between us for the past few months- maybe we earned one real night out."

Well, he didn't say exactly what he had meant to, but he didn't just frown and look out the window either. He was going to count it as a win in his book.

"So…" Sam's eyebrows went low and he glared at a traffic light as the car idled. "So is this a real date?"

"It's an I don't know what the fuck it is, I just know that I want it to be with you."

Sam didn't look over at him, but even being half turned away couldn't quite hide the hint of a smile that curled the edges of his lips. "That's almost romantic, Luci."

And this was precisely why they couldn't do nice things. Nick chewed the inside of his cheek and pulled an arm around the back of the seats, hand resting behind Sam's neck, so close but not quite touching. "Aw, Sammy, you know I can't help myself around you."

Sam just sighed in surrender. "Shut up."

And Nick wanted to say 'make me', but he wasn't that childish. Instead he took a liberal handful of the kid's hair and gave it a firm tug.

Back arching in a rather interesting way, Sam hissed softly before he licked his lips and gave Nick some more of that side eye he did so well. "Don't you make me pull this car over."

If that was the worst temptation that Nick had to endure tonight he was going to be ok.

He let Sam pick where they were going tonight, so they ended up at an upscale pizza joint that apparently had really great salads. Despite this depressing information, Nick's affections for his friend were not lessened.

They were put in a booth in a back corner, and for the night before Valentine's Day, the place was almost dead. He would have been willing to bet money that there would have been a long wait, what with all those amazing salads… but no.

It was just them with their round table and high backed benches, and handful of other people. What looked like three couples on dates, one cluster of slightly rowdy twenty somethings, and that was about it.

Nick ordered a pizza, because he wasn't some kind of six foot tall princess lumberjack unlike the glorious creature beside him.

He propped his feet up on the bench seat beside Sam's hip, reclining and finding comfort in just sitting here where he could admire all the things that he couldn't have. They talked while they waited for their food to get there. About nothing, and everything and just all the stupid inbetween that you can get lost in with someone you love listening to.

It was a shame when their food got there, gently interrupting them.

"Are those really artichoke hearts on your pizza?" Sam looked like he was holding back a laugh as he watched Nick taking a big bite of his dinner.

"So?"

"For someone who was just mocking my salad…"

"It's also got bacon on it." He pointed out defensively around a mouthful of deliciousness. "It's a man's pizza. Swine."

Sam smiled at him with both dimples, laughing and looking away.

And Nick didn't whimper, or confess undying love in response to that- which mean that he still had the smallest control over his crippled self-control.

The two of them ended up closing the restaurant down, completely losing all track of time as they talked about some of the most dumb ass things. Arguing about the old Scooby Doo cartoon, and who was hotter, Velma or Daphne. About whether or not every man in the world was prepared to make an exception to his sexuality for David Bowie, or it just so happened that they both had that in common. He couldn't even remember half the stuff they discussed by the time that the staff chased them out with dirty looks.

Nick left a forty dollar tip on the table and a toothy apology, bravely taking Sam's hand as they wandered out into the parking lot.

"I think we missed the movie." He breathed the words up at the sky.

Sam raised their twined fingers high enough to give them a bit of narrow eyed scrutiny before shrugging and giving Nick a little squeeze. "You wanna catch a later showing?"

"As opposed to…?"

"Fooling around in the backseat of the car?"

His breath caught in his throat for a second. "Yes- yes, that's exactly what we should do." There was no contest. "Please." Hell, asking had worked fairly well for him the other day when he'd been trying to leave Sam's house. It was worth a try.

Sam just laughed and unlocked the driver's side, and to Nick's surprise, the kid didn't let go of his hand, but used it as leverage to shove Nick into the car, crawling in after him.

And despite any embarrassment that accompanied it, he found himself chuckling nervously and Sam bore down on him.

"Font seat- little less traditional, little less room, but fuck yeah." His mouth running on its own.

"Oh my god, Nick." And Sam started laughing too, only in a significantly less nervous way, letting go of his hand and swinging his legs around so that he could sit on his ass instead of kneeling between Nick's knees. "I was joking."

Well… yeah… of course he was- it didn't mean that Nick was prohibited from hoping, or dreaming. "Come on, someone needs to bite my neck and I can't do it myself." The best he could manage right then was to joke and hope Sam didn't catch on.

Sam laughed a little more, slamming the driver's side door and leaning back on it.

"Just for the record, as a boyfriend, you're mean to me." Nick pointed out, mirroring the younger man, drawing his knees to his chest.

"Not as mean as you want me to be."

"The night is still young, Sam- and hope springs eternal." There might be a way that Nick could sweet talk a little kissing into this evening. He'd have to be sly about it, passing it off as some kind of necessity… just so they wouldn't be out of practice for when they inevitably reached the end of this and started (real) dating other people.

Sam checked his watch and peeked up with a wry little smile. "It's after eleven. We're almost out of tonight and into tomorrow at this point."

"You say it like we haven't pulled all nighters before."

One of Sam's feet darted out, nudging him. "We're not having sex, pretend or otherwise in Dean's car, but I'll stay up with you as late as you want."

It was… a pretty good offer. Probably the best he was going to get, so Nick wasn't about to turn it down.

"We can't even lie to him that we had just a little sex in his car?"

"How do you have just a little sex?"

Nick bit his lip, trying not to smile. "I can show you."

Sam just started laughing again. "You're not allowed to drink when we go out anymore."

Nick had only had half of the beer that he'd ordered, not even enough to get a comfortable buzz, but Sam probably hadn't' been paying attention to the attempt that was going on over here.

It was a legitimate struggle. Nick swore he could feel the lack of alcohol all the way down to his fingers. The slight tingle and odd numbness that ran up into that hollow craving in his gut that had been gnawing away at him for a few weeks now. He still had his after work shot of whiskey, but every other bottle in his house had run dry and not been replaced. And it wasn't like he was making this change for Sam specifically- but… but… ok, so it was wholly for Sam.

The kid had mentioned in the worst passive aggressive way possible, on numerous occasions, that he thought Nick drank too much. The world as a whole thought that Nick drank too much, so there was nothing new there. But the world didn't have Sam's dimples, and the world had never gotten lost with Nick in a kiss that was only supposed to be for show. The world also didn't possibly have the same mean as fuck alcoholic father that Sam had gone cross country to avoid.

So Nick was making an effort that no one else had acknowledge yet, and that was ok he guessed. Kind of.

He smiled at Sam, tightlipped and showing none of the shaking withdrawal that was constantly chipping away at him. Because this goofy kid who had launched back into some convoluted story about giving his uncle's dogs peanut butter when he was a kid, accompanied with elaborate hand gestures and a very distracting thing with his tongue. And Nick was happy with the choices that he'd made.

The windows were white and Nick's chest hurt from laughing so hard by the time his phone started ringing. It was after midnight, and no one should have been calling him at this hour. He nudged Sam's knee with one of his own, not entirely sure when they'd managed to get their limbs so tangled, but oh well, and he dug his phone from a pocket.

He glanced at the caller id and grunted in annoyance, tossing his phone onto the dash.

"You're not going to answer that?"

"It's just Gabriel."

"What if it's important?"

"It's… just Gabriel." When had his brother ever had anything even remotely important to ask in the middle of the night?

But Sam was doing that thing where his eyes went round and dark and pleading. Worry for no good reason.

Nick grunted and picked back up his phone. "What?"

"Whoa, hey, mister grumpy." Gabriel laughed. "Hello works too."

Nick found himself looking towards Sam for strength, but the other man was just grinning. Completely useless.

"Hi." He said tightly. "What do you want?"

"God, you make it seem like a chore. Am I interrupting something?"

"I mean, I've got Sam's legs up over my shoulders here and we're kind of in the middle of it, but I can take a minute if you needed something important."

There was a funny thunk sound as Sam threw his head back, stifling silent laughter and knocking himself against the window.

Nick grinned.

Gabriel was just quiet for a few really nice seconds that didn't last. "Speaker phone."

"Hell no." Why did everyone take him so seriously?

"Come on, I'll be real quiet. You won't even know I'm here."

"I'm not letting you listen to me have sex with my boyfriend." He found he couldn't quite make eye contact with Sam while saying those words, and that probably meant something, but it wasn't something that he wanted to think about right now, in these close confines where he couldn't really do anything about it.

"Come on, you're going to be doing it anyways, can't I-"

But Nick lost the end of that because Sam had rocked forward, close to the phone, considerable closer to Nick, his eyes drifting half closed as he let out of breathy kind of moan.

"I'm so close." Sam's voice had managed to drop down to a husky kind of growl to match the dark look passing over his face. "Fuck, Nick, don't stop."

And Nick almost dropped his phone.

He had no idea what was happening, but he knew he liked it, and if at all possible he wanted more of it.

"Oh my god." Gabriel said in a small voice against his ear and it scared the crap out of Nick, startling him away from the almost inescapable gravity of Sam and his exaggerated breaths, and that sly slime, the little wink.

That's right. They weren't actually slowly dancing around each other with the intent of eventually making a deeper relationship out of this. It was still just this enormous train wreck of a plan to convince their brother's that there was something deeper.

Funny how Nick kept forgetting that.

But it was hard to not let himself get sidetracked by Sam.

Especially in moments like this.

He fumbled the end call button and found himself grateful for the dark of the car so that Sam would never know about the heat creeping up his neck. Far too damn old to be blushing like a kid, but Sam was throwing his head back and laughing and how else was Nick supposed to handle it?

"You are the worst." He managed to say softly, dragging his eyes away from Sam, jamming his phone back into a pocket.

"What did he say- what did he say?" Sam grinned around the question.

"He was too stunned to say anything," and then Nick was returning the grin with an unbalance feeling. "So… good job I guess." He leaned back against the cold window, trying to give himself a bit of space for safety reasons.

Sam just looked proud.

"Warn me next time, ok?"

But Sam just bit his lip and shook his head, far too pleased with himself.

"You're the worst."

"You liked it."

And Nick did. But no good could come from admitting it out loud.