There are two halves of Sam Winchester: one that's always relieved when his half-brother shows up for their decided-on outings, and one that wishes the missed phone calls and half-assed excuses would turn into a more consistent pattern. He tries to drown out the second half as best he can, but it's hard. Seeing Adam is a choice he'll continue to make until he can't anymore, which in it's own way, stops it from being much of a choice at all. He's used to that. When Adam inevitably does stop answering him, he's not sure how he'll feel. Grateful because Adam does know how to cut ties, even if his choice in partners would say the opposite, or guilty because he couldn't do it first and let Adam live what little life he has without Sam's baggage weighing him down too? In any case, they're here, and Adam's sitting across from him and stirring his straw through a half-drunk milkshake at the quietest diner Sam could manage to find. Sam's pretending to eat. He's not fooling Adam, but maybe he'll get fewer weird looks from the waitress.
They've exhausted the few niceties they can remember to drag out. "How are you?" (Never answered honestly, but since they both know they're lying, it's fine.) and "How's your job?" (Adam works at a bookstore right now. Last time, it was a computer repair shop. Sam's not sure if he got fired or bored.) and "Nice weather we're having, huh?" (That one doesn't even get a pity answer, just a nod while Adam's eyes glide over the other patrons.) This is why they go out to eat for these meetings. It's easier to pretend they're comfortable in each other's presence when their mouths are too full to talk. Sam's about ready to call this one a bust. Adam breaks the silence before it becomes so unbearable Sam might be able to use it as an excuse to get the bill.
"Ghoul says you kissed him." Sam chokes on his water. He needs a minute to recover, during which Adam watches, making a face that's halfway between wondering if he should go over and help and wanting to look away and pretend nothing's happening to Sam. The latter impulse wins out. Sam's not surprised. It still stings, not that Adam could do anything. It's not like he has any power over water going the wrong pipe or the devil rearranging Sam's skeleton. Sam takes a breath, focuses on the question, and tries to figure out what Adam means.
"I'm didn't-" Because he's thinking about recently and about to tell Adam that the ghoul's making things up for shits and giggles, but the memory comes out of nowhere, hitting Sam like a train. It's not his fault. It happened a decade (or a few hundred years) ago. He sits up straighter in his seat and doesn't look Adam in the eyes.
"When he was pretending to be me. Before you killed him," Adam clarifies. Sam nods.
"Yeah, that-" He licks his lips. "Yeah." Adam raises an eyebrow.
"That's it?" Sam shrugs. "You seriously don't want to elaborate?"
"Not really."
"You wanted to kiss me."
"It wasn't even you," Sam protests, swerving past the actual point on purpose. Adam's been insulted by apologies for what Sam tried to do with the ghoul before, the attempted indoctrination into hunting and all, and it's not fair that he wants to treat it like it matters now. For this.
"You thought it was," Adam argues back, and Sam tries to recall whether or not he told the waitress that he was waiting for 'his half-brother' when she came around before Adam got here. Not that it'll matter after they leave, but other people deserve not to get caught in the wake of his mistakes. "I might've been stuck in Hell for a decade, but I'm pretty sure that's not normally how you bond with newly found family members." Adam says family like he wants it to cut. Sam flinches, and Adam draws back a little. "I'm curious. I'm not... holding it against you or- Ghoul came out of the blue with that info. I thought he was making it up for a minute, but, well. " He gestures at Sam's dour countenance. Sam should have just lied. He can smile and say, I'm great, thanks for asking, but he can't figure out how to get the words, no, I did not try to make out with you/the ghoul you are dating who was wearing your face after eating you alive, out of his mouth.
"I was in a bad place." As excuses go, it's bottom of the barrel.
"And is incest normally how you deal with... With..." Adam trails off. Sam watches his expression. It's an objectively fascinating journey, and one Sam's only seen a handful of people go through. Sam feels nauseous. Adam's eyes dart to Sam's left without meaning to before snapping back to his face. Sam's kind of surprised it took him this long. Surprised he didn't figure it out in the Cage, from watching the distant torture when Lucifer was getting particularly creative or from Michael telling him. There's not a lot of ways this can go now. Disgust's a popular choice. Anger, Sam's seen that one, too. Maybe it's that Adam's seen worse by this point or that his opinion of Sam can't actually get any lower or that he's willing to drop a little judgement given how he's fucking two creatures who look exactly like him, but he doesn't throw his milkshake at Sam or stand up and stomp out. His mouth twists. He takes a long sip of his shake until there's only a quarter left in it, most of which is whipped cream. "That's fucked up."
Sam snorts humorlessly and pretends that his chest doesn't feel hollowed out.
"We weren't... Not anymore. Not for a while." There were some things you didn't come back from. That first Apocalypse, and all the shit that got rolled into it and the aftermath, that was one of them. Sam loved Dean for the rest of his life, in every way imaginable, and he knows Dean- He likes to think that Dean loved him back. There were times Sam almost felt like they would fall back into old habits, when things were comfortable and safe for spare days at a time, but there was always another knife waiting to be twisted. It's over now, the good and the bad, and it's real. Sam's spent enough hours tearing open the old scar on his hand to confirm that.
"So, what, you thought you'd invite me to join the brotherfucking club?" Sam flinches again, and Adam tosses his head, exhaling. He doesn't take back the question.
"It wasn't about you. Me and Dean weren't on the best terms, and you- The ghoul was there, but it was never about you." If Sam's going to be honest about this, he might as well throw in everything. Doesn't Adam have a right to know? It was his body Sam made a move on. In another life, it could have been him. Adam makes a face.
"You see how that makes it worse, right?" Adam crosses his arms.
"I'm sorry?" Sam offers, not sure if Adam will accept it or not.
"You didn't try it with the real me. Why not? Things between you... got better?"
"Worse," Sam corrects, "and I spent a few months lying awake at night realizing what the hell I did." He runs a hand through his hair. "I mean, it seemed reasonable at the time, but I was thinking of you as if you were like me and Dean and not a normal kid." Adam frowns at being called that, but he doesn't interrupt. "But that's just it. It was normal, for us. How we grew up-"
"Please don't give me details."
"I'm trying to explain myself," Sam pleads. "I knew it was wrong, then, but I didn't get how deep in it we were until I was out." Adam doesn't look like he believes him. He's right to. Sam never got out. He knew it had gotten bad when the hole they dug went so far down, the light stopped reaching them, and he never really tried to climb up again. The only difference now is that Sam's the only one left in a grave built for two, shouting at Adam from the bottom. "I shouldn't have tried to kiss you. I'm sorry."
"Whatever. It was Ghoul you made out with, anyway." Adam's gone flippant, the way he always does when a conversation steers too close to discomfort on his end. Sam wishes someone would have the mercy to bury him alive, but Adam's not going to be that person. It's pretty likely that person doesn't exist. "You were his first kiss, did you know that?"
Sam doesn't answer. Adam tilts his milkshake glass one way until it almost starts to slide out before putting it back.
"You want to never talk about this again?" Adam suggests. Sam nods.
They get the bill.