Archive of Our Own ^beta

It's late at night when Sam and Dean decide to stop on their way to their motel. Or rather, Dean does. Sam only follows because he doesn't want to walk in the dark and there's no way he'd let his brother alone without Baby as his emergency vehicle after the particularly long day they had —another close call, another type of anxiety added to the collection, Sam will keep an even closer eye on Dean for the foreseeable future now. And it will be reciprocated tenth-fold because they're both toxic and possessive of each other like that. He doesn't even know what to think of it anymore. It used to anger him. Then he realized that he wasn't any better than Dean and... yeah, whatever, not the point. The point is that the motel isn't far from the bar but that he prefers to stay close to Dean still. Who knows what can happen this late anyway? Sam will never be too prepared to anything. Not with the life he eventually, defeatedly, willingly chose.

He's tired and moody and stiff from having fought another couple of monsters he wants to forget the name of, which is why he chose to slump on a wobbly bar stool instead of going to hustle with his brother. He's fighting to keep at least a little bit upright though, hands clutched hard around his beer bottle, while Dean wins their money back against an impressive biker bear-like man. He should be smiling at the sight, what with the height and width difference, but he can only watch the bar, forcing his eyes to focus on the dirty wood under his arms and the condensation his drink leaves on it. He just really wants to go back to the motel and pass out but guess what, he's apparently needed right here for his brother to win the games. Which is a total lie, not even mentioning the fact that he didn't want to leave Dean alone in the first place, because he's perfectly aware that Dean doesn't need him at all to win any bet; he's a pro at pool games. So is Sam, but yeah, fatigue and all that...

And so he nurses his beer in the relative quiet surrounding him, close enough from the pool tables for Dean to see him, but far enough to have some semblance of seclusion and dissuade any adventurous people.

"Hey girl," a low voice interrupts his brooding thoughts. He refrains to sigh, because he's still too polite for his own good, but really? He should have known better. "Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?" the voice, absolutely masculine, continues and Sam frowns.

It's actually not his first time hearing that lame pick up line directed at him but it usually comes from high‐pitched voices, however weird that feels, so— what the fuck? He frowns harder and turns to the surprisingly quite good-looking man smirking at him. He wants to (politely) tell him to get lost but stops in his tracks when the man immediately does a double take, realizing his mistake.

"It's okay…" Sam says instead. He refrains from sighing —again— but shrugs awkwardly. "Happens a lot."

Which should be weirder because even from the back, Sam doesn't think he looks that much of a woman: way too tall, shoulders too broad, stance too imposing, but he still gets mistaken as one. No wonder Dean always teases him with that annoying smile of his.

"Well, that doesn't change anything for me actually," the man retorts once he's snapped out of it, and his eyes travel along his body, clearly appreciative. "I'm still in if you want."

Now, Sam isn't the kind of guy to dismiss people complimenting him, whatever gender they are, but this one just gave him the creeps with the way he checked him out. So he fully turns to him on his bar stool, suddenly more awake, and matches his position, plan A already playing in his head. He kinda wants some fun now and if it fails, plan B is currently standing at the pool tables, and this one will definitely not fail, fatigue or not. Speaking of, he can feel Dean's gaze on him before seeing him in his peripheral vision when his brother moves around, and he jerks his head in a way that can be him just shaking his hair out of his face but that tells his brother that he doesn't need help yet, so Dean resumes his game. Sam knows that his mind is not quite fully back on it however and the thought makes him smiles, which unfortunately makes the man in front of him smile as well.

"So?" the creeper asks.

"I'm not from Heaven. I didn't fall."

"Yeah, I could tell."

Well, that was new.

"That obvious, uh?"

"Duh. Someone as hot as you can only come from a hot place like Hell."

That... was smooth as fuck, wow. If only he knew though… But then, after all, why not use that as leverage and just— tell the truth? Not that the man would know or he wouldn't have approached him the way he did. Maybe Sam will use that as a therapy. He knows he needs a lot of it.
From the corner of his eyes, he notices that Dean eventually got the idea of what's happening because he's stopped hustling, now fully playing, and his opponent is looking halfway between distressed and angry at his own credulity.

"Yeah, okay, you got me. I actually crawled up from Hell."

"Was it hard?"

Is the man dumb or just very horny? Sam's not sure anymore. He continues anyway, trying not to bring back too many awful memories; therapies are hard after all.

"Oh, you know, the usual. I had to dig through layers of haunted, rotting souls…" Sam can almost see them again. He swallows heavily and clenches the hand still around his beer, the other a fist on his knee. "...through the insidious screams of—" Of something he once was, something Dean once was… "demons…"

"Wow, you look like you lived it."

Sam blinks, clears his throat, and blinks again. "What?"

"You're like— keeping your rage in check, like you want to scream with the demons or something."

Well, he obviously failed at keeping his memories at bay if it shows that much. Who is he to try and fool himself? Therapies are hard.

"Because I did. I wanted to scream, but at them, because I hated to be there," he says seriously, but then he quickly —miraculously— gets back on track and continues his story, hoping to scare the man off soon. "It took me years of clawing my way out of eternal darkness, I had to—"

"Oh my god, you're going wild, I love it." The man, who was still standing up to that point, eventually sits on the bar stool next to his, visibly ecstatic.

Sam stops short then, confused, and he can't help but glance at Dean who's now watching him intently, arms crossed on his chest and one eyebrow arched in a mocking gesture. He won the pool game, Sam knows it, doesn't even have to look for his sulking opponent somewhere else, and he's clearly waiting for a sign that'll call him in, whether Sam does or not. He's waiting for a sign that Sam knows won't last before coming.

"Keep going, I'm entranced."

Tiredness is coming back now, he can feel it.

"Are you serious?"

"Why? You telling me you're not trying to win me over? I mean, I was already all in, I engaged first after all, but your storytelling, man… Come on—" he excitedly taps a few times on Sam's knee before taking a swig of his cocktail, a curious choice in a bar in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, but Sam doesn't judge, not really, "—keep going, keep going!"

Sam is even more confused now because he doesn't think he's got that good skills at storytelling and maybe the creep isn't as innocent as he thought. He straightens a bit at that and tries to find a comeback. Belatedly, he realized that that was the sign that Dean was waiting for because his brother subtly shows up, sliding in the tiny space between the both of them, and taking Sam's bottle from his loose fingers on the bar. He gulps half of it in the next second before turning around to face Stranger Creeper.

"Hi, there," he says kindly and Sam has to hook his chin on Dean's shoulder to keep seeing the other man. Dean uses that move to lean on him, pushing Sam's legs apart and filling the new space between them. And now, Sam puts his free hand on his brother's waist, feeling awkward to let it hang between their bodies otherwise. "You're not annoying my baby brother, are you?"

"Uh. What? Brothers? You— No? What's happening?"

Sam chuckles, feeling a new wave of tiredness overcoming him now that Dean's warmth is seeping into him. "I think you broke him, man."

"Me? Dude, you started it with your face in my neck."

"Well, you're the one who came plastering your back to my front."

"Because I'm polite enough to face my interlocutor, Sammy."

"And I'm polite enough to try and watch who I'm talking to. You were blocking the view."

"The view? Wait, is he your type? Dude, he's—" Dean interrupts himself to blatantly ogle the man in front of them and Sam whispers-shouts to him to stop it, in vain because Dean's next words are "You know what, yeah, I can see that."

Sam chokes on air. What the fuck? Where does that come from?

"Erm. Hello?" Stranger Creeper stutters, eyes wide. "Remember me? I'm still here." He waves at them awkwardly, eyes traveling fast from one brother to the other, confused and a little concerned.

"We know, we're looking at you right now. Ain't we, Sammy?" Dean asks with a barely there glance to him, but his smirk says a lot.

"I'm not really up for a threesome, just so you know... Even less when it's incestuous. I'm not judging though!" Stranger Creeper quickly adds with placating hands. "You both look consenting enough to me... Erm."

"Oh, he doesn't want an incestuous threesome," Dean repeats idly, this time fully turning his head, which puts his face so close to Sam's that his nose bumps into his brother's cheek, making him wince. "Wait, when's the last time you shaved?"

"Uh?"

"You look scruffier than usual."

"Gee, thanks... You look good too." Sam rolls his eyes but doesn't move away. "Probably because we've been awake for nearly—" he takes Dean's phone from his front pocket, easier than shimmying his own from his sitting position with his brother serving as a giant bolster, and read the time over Dean's shoulder, "—oh, great, 26 hours." Fatigue slams into him as soon as he reads the time and he yawns unapologetically. "I need to sleep for an entire day at least. Can we go home now, please?"

From the corner of his eyes, Sam sees Stranger Creeper slowly stand up, probably ready to fly out of their vicinity if he goes by his panicked face, and he honestly doesn't blame him —Dean and himself can be a lot for the non initiated into their relationship.

His brother happily ignores the fleeing man and starts to disentangle himself from Sam. "Yeah. I won enough money to last us three days, maybe four if we don't eat too much. Let's go." When Sam closes his other arm around him and tightens his embrace, he frowns and looks back at him, this time his nose crashing into a mop of hair. "What?"

"Who, from the two of us, eat the most, hm?" Sam asks, his face comfortably smashed into the collar of Dean's shirt. He really needs to sleep.

"I won't answer that. Come on, Sasquatch, lemme go."

"Too tired."

"That's why you have to let me go. So we can go home and sleep. Come on, you're creeping the creeper."

"'s still there?" Sam mumbles, eyes barely visible from Dean's neck as he scans the area. Stranger Creeper is farther than arm length now. "Oh, hey. Sorry 'bout that, 'm too sleepy t' carry on..."

"Erm, yeah. It's okay, I just— I'm gonna—" He awkwardly points somewhere behind him, stepping backwards. "Yeah? Okay, bye." And just like that, he leaves with haste, not even turning back to judge them. Which is a good surprise.

Dean chuckles at that and Sam hides his smile on his brother's skin.

"That was fun," he says without moving an inch.

"He doesn't like threesomes, dude! Who doesn't like threesomes?"

Sam groans for all answer and weakly pushes Dean out of his embrace, earning a confused look. He groans again and retorts, "You're not vanilla, Dean, having a threesome isn't vanilla."

"So what, incestuous threesomes are kinky now?"

"Oh my god, shut up. I'm not having that conversation again before having slept the day away."

Sam stands up flimsily, helping himself by pulling on the wooden bar, and slowly walks to the exit, Dean following him with complaints he doesn't listen to. He'll have to wait for the next day for Sam to scar his brain with yet another sexual conversation with his kinky brother who considers himself as vanilla. What the hell.

What is his life?