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Dean’s been gone less than an hour when Sam gets the call, and then he immediately wishes he hadn’t picked up.
It isn’t the inconvenience of having to go down to Monarch’s to bring his brother his forgotten wallet. After all, tomorrow’s Saturday and Sam’s actually caught up with all of his cases for once. It isn’t the fact that the dim lighting of the bar, combined with the raucous noise of the inevitable crowd, reminds him too much of the life he and Dean have left behind. It isn’t even the fact that he’s fucking exhausted right now and doesn’t want to have to brave the Friday night subway and all that it entails.
“What do you even need it for, anyway?” he demands, pinching his nose. “You’re supposed to be serving the drinks, not buying them.”
“Excuse me for wanting to have some identification on me if I get jumped coming home.”
Oh, for Christ’s ... “You’re not going to get jumped,” Sam responds, keeping his voice even.
“I’m a gimp, Sammy. Prime meat for that kind of thing.”
“Even if someone did try something, how many knives do you have on you right now?” Sam asks. “Two?” More, probably, knowing Dean’s motto of ‘better armed than sorry’.
“Dude, who do you think I am, Little Bo Peep? It’s NYC, of course I’m packing.”
Sam snorts into the phone. “That’s my point, Dean. Honestly? I feel sorry for any mugger stupid enough to be taken in by the whole wolf in gimp’s clothing thing you’ve got going on.”
Dean’s silent for a moment—long enough for Sam to lower his hand and lift his head, chest tense with the hope that he actually won this one—and then he says, “Okay, okay. I owe a guy some money.”
Groaning, Sam slumps forward and thumps his forehead against the kitchen table where he’s sitting.
“It’s not a lot,” Dean hastens to add.
“I can’t believe you,” Sam mutters, turning his face to one side so that words don’t get mashed up in the wood. “No, scratch that. This is exactly like you.”
“Hey, don’t blame me! Blame the Sox. They totally blew that game on me, and I—”
“Stop,” Sam interrupts, forcing himself back up into a sitting position. “Just ... Stop.”
There’s a beat of silence and then Dean says, “Dude, I’ll make it up to you, okay? And it’s not like you have to stay. Just pop in, toss me the wallet, and then you can go home and get back to the whole Killjoy Counselor thing.”
Sam scowls and gives his cell the finger, secure in the knowledge that even if Dean can’t see the gesture, he can probably sense it.
He knows he’s right when the next thing he hears coming out of his cell’s speaker is, “Aw, don’t be like that, baby. You know I’ll make it up to you.”
Sam tries to cling to his sour mood but can’t quite resist the Pavlovian response to those words. Dean has a bad habit of riling Sam up and then blowing him until he can’t spell his own name anymore, let alone remember why he was so upset in the first place.
“How’re you gonna do that?” he asks finally, drawing the words out reluctantly as he gets up and starts looking for his keys.
“Thought I’d start by licking your balls until you come,” Dean answers immediately, his voice dropped to a low, intimate rasp. “Then maybe I’ll rim you for a while—you know, til you’re recovered—and then you can fuck me.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
Some of Sam’s annoyance returns on the subway, when he’s standing wedged between New York’s sweatiest man and its stinkiest (dude smells like week old fish). He’s tall enough that it isn’t as disgusting as it could be, but the entire situation is so unpleasant that the images Dean put into his head start to blacken and curl around the edges. Which leaves him sullenly thinking about the real reason he didn’t want to make this trip.
Memories flicker through his mind—not just of the few times he's been to visit Dean at work here, but from their lives Before, when Sam was growing up and Dean was still doing his damnedest to ignore the heat between them. Girls with sultry smiles and low-cut tops and tantalizing flashes of belly showing. Girls with red hair, or black, or blonde. Girls with enough curves to derail a train, or with tight, tomboyish lines. Girls who took one look at Dean’s face and body and tossed all traces of dignity and restraint out the window.
Being Dean, Sam’s brother lapped all that attention up like a cat with a fresh bowl of cream—let them touch him, and fawn at him, and slip him phone numbers that he always took and sometimes kept.
Just because Sam knows Dean immediately tosses all those numbers into a trashcan beneath the bar these days, doesn’t mean he likes seeing it happen any more than he used to. Sam’s stomach always coils just as tight as ever. His mouth goes just as sour, and he’s just as tempted to haul Dean across the bar and stake his claim then and there.
Easier to stay away where he can pretend it isn’t happening, that Dean isn’t being ogled and propositioned. Easier that way to delude himself with the thought that Dean can be satisfied with just him—just them. That he actually likes being with the same person day in and day out.
As the subway comes to a screeching halt at his stop, Sam grips the handrail tightly to avoid touching Mr. Perspiration any more than he absolutely has to and then eases past Fish Man and lets himself off. After a quick pat down to make sure he still has all of his belongings, he jogs after everyone else, up the stairs and out into the fresh night air.
Monarch’s is less than three blocks away, and Sam strides toward it resolutely, determined to get this over with as quickly as possible. Right now he just wants to get in, give Dean his damned wallet, and get out. If he moves quickly enough and is really, really lucky, maybe he can avoid seeing Dean’s latest conquest doing her best to eyefuck his clothes off.
Fucking bartender job. Things were so much better when Dean was playing cabbie and terrorizing the tourists by driving down side streets at fifty miles per hour.
Unfortunately, none of the companies were willing to keep a cabbie with a 100% complaint rate on the books. Dean had been pissed about that one as well, Sam remembers: spent the night pacing back and forth in their apartment as best as he was able and growling about pansy-ass tourists: tell you to step on it and then flip their lids when you do. Fucking morons!
It didn’t take him more than a couple of days to find this job, though, and as little as Sam likes it, he has to admit that Dean makes an excellent bartender. His leg might be royally fucked up, but he doesn’t actually need it to mix a cosmo or a martini. Not that Sam saw him make many of those when he visited. The girls who made sure to come to Dean’s end of the bar were usually more creative with their drink requests.
Caribbean Kiss. Buttery Nipple. Screaming Orgasm. Sex on the Beach.
By the time Sam finally pushes his way into Monarch’s five minutes later, he’s worked himself up enough that the first, warning pulses of a tension headache are pushing at the back of his eyes. The bar is as full as ever, he sees at first glance, and when he looks toward the bar in search of his brother, he notes that nothing has changed there either. Dean is surrounded by women in halter-tops or backless numbers secured by nothing but a thin string or chain.
Not that Sam can really blame them, with Dean looking the way he does: hair styled into a casual mess of spikes, eyes crinkling around the edges with his smile, black t-shirt clinging to the muscular lines of his torso.
Clenching his jaw, Sam returns his focus to his immediate vicinity and starts to push his way up to the bar. It takes him almost as long to reach his brother as it did to get to Monarch’s in the first place, and he’s already been propositioned twice himself by drunken college girls before he feels sticky, polished wood beneath his fingertips.
He wonders how many numbers Dean has been slipped so far tonight.
“Sammy!” Dean says brightly as he notices Sam in the throng jostling for his attention.
Sam grunts a greeting of his own and then digs Dean’s wallet out of his back pocket so he can slam it down on the bar in front of his brother. “You owe me,” he reminds Dean, and then turns to start forcing his retreat.
Only to be hauled back firmly against the bar when strong fingers hook the back of his coat.
“Woah!” Dean calls, shouting to be heard over the press of people. “Hold up, Sammy, I gotta talk to you.”
“What?” Sam snaps, turning around. His seething irritation falls away immediately as he catches sight of Dean hoisting himself up on top of the bar—with a good deal of discomfort, from the way his face is scrunched up.
“Dean!” he hisses, reaching up to grope for his brother’s shirt. “Stop it!”
Dean smacks his hand away and, with a grunt of effort, gets one knee up on the bar. And then pauses, a light sheen of sweat breaking out over his face, to pull his bad leg up to join it.
“You stupid idiot!” Sam growls, trying to figure out how to get Dean back down from the bar before he really hurts himself—fuck, what does he even think he’s doing? He can barely make it across their bedroom without his cane, never mind pulling this kind of acrobatic stunt.
But Dean is stubborn as ever, and after a few false starts, he manages to get to his feet. The bar has quieted a great deal already—one of the bartenders climbing up onto the counter isn’t exactly an inconspicuous occurrence—but the hum of conversation dims even further as Dean holds up his hands and shouts, “Can I have everyone’s attention?”
“Dean!” Sam hisses again. “What the hell are you doing?” He knows that his bewilderment and concern for his brother (Dean’s lost his goddamned mind) are making his voice come out sharper than he means, but he can’t really help that right now. He’s too caught up in the adrenaline rush: heart pounding and breath coming too fast.
Dean ignores him—and the hand Sam gets up to tug at his brother’s good leg—and waits for the bar to grow silent before continuing, “So most of you know who I am, but I wanted to introduce you to someone you probably haven’t met.” Then, looking down at Sam with a grin, Dean holds his hand out and says, “Get up here, Sammy.”
Sam’s cheeks heat with a sudden, painful flush as the girls surrounding him stare at him with expressions ranging from resentment to mild curiosity. “I’m not getting on the bar, dude,” he says, keeping his voice soft but vehement.
Dean’s smile doesn’t shift so much that anyone else would notice a change, but Sam knows him well enough to read annoyance in the slight tightening of his mouth. “Dude, you’re ruining the moment.”
There’s a moment here?
“Also,” Dean adds, speaking out of the corner of his mouth through the smile, “If you don’t get your ass up here in about five seconds, I’m gonna start filling everyone in on your obsession with My Little Ponies.”
“I was four years old,” Sam shoots back in a harsh whisper.
Dean’s returning smile is sweet enough to rot teeth. “Not the way I’ll tell it,” he says.
Goddamn it.
Swearing under his breath and feeling like ten kinds of an idiot, Sam grips the sticky edge of the bar and clambers up, knocking a half-empty glass of beer over as he goes. He half-expects someone to yell at him for it, but apparently the drink was abandoned because the bar is as silent as ever.
Sam doesn’t think he’s ever felt this clumsy and conspicuous.
“Okay, awesome,” Dean says, turning his attention back to the bar full of patrons and rubbing his hands together briskly. “So, this is Sam. Say hi to the people, Sam.”
Plastering what he hopes looks like a friendly smile on his face, Sam raises his hand and mutters, “Uh. Hi.”
There are a few scattered, “Hi, Sam’s” from people who are either wiseasses or too drunk to know better, but mostly people are quiet.
“And now that we all know each other, I’ll get this over with so you can get back to your drinking.” And then, to Sam’s concern and horror, Dean starts the awkward, painful process of getting down on his knees again.
“Dean!” he hisses, grabbing his brother’s elbow in an attempt to hold him upright.
Dean shakes him off, loses his footing, and goes down on one knee hard enough that his face goes white. Sam forgets about the crowd of spectators as he crouches himself, grabbing frantically at his brother’s shirt and trying to get a look past his body at his back leg. “Oh fuck, Dean, are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”
Dean gives his head a short shake and mutters a sarcastic, “No, that felt awesome,” and immediately starts to shove at Sam. “Dude, get off. I’m fine. And you’re supposed to be standing.”
“I’m what?” Sam says. But he’s reassured enough by Dean’s response (if he’s this cranky about his fall, then it isn’t serious) and confused enough by what his brother is saying that he allows himself to be pushed back to his feet.
It isn’t until Dean gets the black velvet box out of his back pocket that Sam realizes what position that leaves them in, and then all of the blood drains from his face, leaving him cold and numb. His fingertips are tingling. He’s pretty sure that lobotomy patients have had more intelligent expressions than the one he’s currently wearing.
Wordlessly, Dean opens the box and then holds it up higher, letting Sam see the twin gold rings inside. And then stays there with all of his weight on one knee and his bad leg serving as a balance. There’s no fear in his eyes, no anxiety. Like Sam’s response is a foregone conclusion.
“Come on, dude,” he says finally, with a hint of a smile playing over his lips. “Don’t make me say it.”
Something about the awkward humor in the words, or maybe the fondness in Dean’s expression, breaks through Sam’s paralysis and he reaches down, bypassing the rings, and gets a grip on his brother’s bicep. This time, when he tugs, Dean comes willingly, letting Sam pull him up into a kiss.
There are cheers and catcalls from the onlookers, and Sam would normally be blushing like crazy but right now he can’t think past this moment. He can’t think past Dean’s mouth on his; Dean’s plush lips parted so that Sam can wet them with his tongue before slipping it inside and deepening the kiss.
Mine, he thinks dazedly. He’s mine.
When they finally come up for air, it takes a little bit of effort to get Dean down from the bar—and grand gesture or not, Sam’s giving him hell for that when they get home. He can tell Dean pulled something when he fell on his knee as well—mostly from the way Dean’s hand immediately shoots out to grip the counter once he’s back on the ground where he belongs.
“I’m taking you home,” he says, getting a better grip on his brother’s elbow.
“No, you aren’t,” Dean answers as he pulls himself up straighter. “I’m on until 3:00.”
“Not anymore you’re not.”
Dean grumbles a bit, but Sam can tell that his heart isn’t in it. He doesn’t raise more than a halfhearted protest when Sam talks to the manager (Joe’s a good guy, and waves him off without any trouble), and doesn’t say anything at all when Sam insists on flagging down a cab rather than braving the subway.
It isn’t until they’re both safely home and Sam has Dean icing his leg on the couch that Dean finally says, “So, you gonna put it on or what?”
The overwhelming wave of emotion Sam has been holding off since the bar—mostly by focusing on how stupid Dean is to have done that, he could have seriously injured himself, why the fuck did he pick now to be conventional—crashes into him at the question, and any response he might have made gets trapped on the other side of the hot, painful lump that forms in his throat. He takes the box out from his coat pocket where he dropped it for safekeeping and, sitting on the couch next to his brother, opens it again with trembling fingers to take a closer look.
The rings are identical at first glance, both wound through with protective symbols on the outside (and leave it to Dean to infuse his own brand of practicality into this gesture).
“One on the right’s yours,” Dean tells him, giving him a nudge.
Sam obediently tugs the ring out and starts to slide it on his finger. At the uneven, rough slide of the inner band against his skin, he pulls it off again and tilts it so that the light shines on the hidden inscription.
The tears Sam has been avoiding since he figured out what was going on blur his vision and he wipes a hand across his eyes in a quick, preventative motion. He doesn’t resist as Dean reaches out, taking the ring from him.
“You’re such a sap,” Dean accuses gently, and then slides the ring onto Sam’s finger where it belongs.
“You,” Sam rasps, and then has to clear his throat to finish, “You didn’t forget your wallet, did you?”
“No,” Dean answers as he strokes his fingertips over Sam’s palm. “The part about owing the money was true, though. I swear to god, I’m never betting on the Sox again. Bad juju.”
Sam laughs softly, rubbing his eyes again and then pulling the other ring out of the box. He laughs again when he reads the motto on the inside of this one.
“Semper fidelis, Dean?” he says, feeling his chest light up with warmth as his brother gives him an unrepentant shrug.
“What? It fits.” His expression shifts slightly then, turning hesitant. “You know that, right?” he asks.
In answer, Sam slides the ring into place on his brother’s finger and then pulls him into a hug. He has to twist almost completely sideways to manage it, but the discomfort is worth the comforting weight of Dean’s arms linked loosely behind his neck.
“Yeah,” he breathes. “I know.”