Fic: Boys Don’t Talk About Their Feelings (#7 - Fanboy Sam Talks to Everybody About His Feelings)
Title: Boys Don’t Talk About Their Feelings (Or: Part Seven - Fanboy Sam Talks to Everybody About His Feelings)
Author: tawg
Word count: ~5,500
Rating: PG (some language, one or two mentions of sexy things)
Pairings/characters: Sam/Balthazar, Sam/Castiel, past Castiel/Balthazar, John Winchester.
Notes: Apologies for the lateness. Thank you to my tumblr anon for poking me about this occasionally.
Summary: Sam tries to do the mature, responsible thing and completely ignore the tangled mess that is his love life, a new friend steps in and tells him to suck it up, and Castiel and Jo discuss the merits of Sam's ass in jeans.
Sam didn’t know which was more distressing - the sudden explosion of activity (or, at least, expressions of interest) in his love life, or the flu that Castiel had very inconsiderately passed to Sam. Given that Sam didn’t do anything important on the show, he just made the words fit the time allotted to them and inserted continuity and managed Chuck’s increasingly frequent meltdowns (as Crowley put it, “Nothing we couldn’t train another monkey to do,”), he did not get the luxury of getting sent home sick when he showed up on Wednesday morning. He just had to deal with every single friend he had on set hurling packets of throat lozenges, and tissues, and day-and-night flu tablets at his head. At high velocity. When he was least expecting it.
Friends were such a blessing.
So Sam stayed holed up in the trailer with his computer, and the photocopier, and his stuffy nose and sore joints, and Chuck’s panicked sobs. Sam had flu chills on top of his regular Vancouver-in-winter-is-fucking-cold-no-I-am-serious-stop-laughing-Dean chills. Sam existed under a mountain of wraps and layers. In his weaker moments he had a hot water bottle on his lap. Even Chuck started to question Sam’s ability to survive in the wild.
Though Jo refused to deliver Sam’s lunch to him, which would have saved him from leaving his toasty little cocoon, Balthazar did turn up with sandwiches and a cup of soup on Sam’s third day of flu-ridden misery. “How’s our little bed bug?” he asked, stealing Chuck’s seat and straddling it backwards.
“Phlegmy,” Sam replied dourly.
“Charming,” Balthazar returned with a grimace.
“That’s me,” Sam replied around a mouthful of sandwich. “Living the glamorous life.” He frowned at his sandwich. “Is this lettuce or spinach?” he asked, his words thick as he swiped at his runny nose with the sleeve of his hoodie and simultaneously licked at his gums to shift some bread that had gotten stuck against his teeth.
“You know,” Balthazar said after a loaded pause, “you’re lucky that you have a winning personality.”
Sam looked down at himself - there were tissues and lozenge wrappers littered around him, and his table manners had been on par with Dean’s since his nose had started running. “Sorry,” he apologised. “I become a bit of a slob when I get sick.”
Balthazar propped his chin on his palm and stared at Sam with a perfectly guileless expression. “You don’t say?”
Sam didn’t reply. He had been gently avoiding being around Castiel or Balthazar since his night with Castiel. Which sounded a lot more incriminating than it was. But the honest truth was that Sam had had two of his co-workers tongues in his mouth in the space of about a week. Given that the co-workers had once been in a relationship with each other, were carrying around more baggage from that failed romance than the average airport, and, oh yes, could probably get Sam fired if he managed to make things between them even more insufferable, Sam was floundering and completely unsure as to what he should do.
Was he even allowed to be in a relationship with one of the stars? He hadn’t seen anything about it in his contract, but he honestly hadn’t gone through it with such things in mind. On reflection, it seemed like a very unprofessional indulgence, and probably a conflict of interest considering that Sam was on the writing staff. Not an important member of the staff, certainly, but Sam knew the internet, and knew exactly what kind of a response the headline “Fallen star is sleeping with show writer” would bring. (Largely suspicion and catty remarks. Probably a slice of envy, too, which sent a small thrill through Sam.)
“Are you free tomorrow night?” Balthazar asked idly, still watching Sam. He swivelled back and forth slightly in Chuck’s chair. “After we wrap. I was thinking of going for a drink.”
Sam started, and then coughed and spluttered for air. He had to pause to blow his nose, an arduous task that required multiple tissues. “Ugh,” he finally managed. “Like, the two of us?”
“No,” Balthazar replied, and Sam did his best to look entirely neutral while his heart sank. “I asked Crowley and Gabriel-” possibly the oddest pair of drinking cohorts that Sam could have picked “-and Crowley asked Singer, and Gabriel invited that brother of yours.” Balthazar gave Sam a longsuffering look, and Sam could only give him a sympathetic shrug in response.
“Sounds good,” Sam said at last. It probably would be fun, give him a chance to get to know Crowley as something other than the great, dark power lording over the show. And it would get Dean off his back for his lack of social life, for a while at least.
Balthazar smiled, but it was a little sharp at the edges, considering. “Tell you what,” he said in a smooth, lazy voice. “We’ll stay out late, just the two of us. I’ll show you a good time.” He stood up then, swinging a leg over Chuck’s chair with a slinky movement of hips that, coupled with the amended invitation, left Sam’s mouth dry. “You should start resting up now,” Balthazar advised over his shoulder as he sauntered out of the trailer.
Sam stared after him for a long, dazed moment. Well. His plan to avoid any sexually changed moments on set was going swimmingly.
~*~
Sam slunk out of his trailer early in the evening. He wasn’t working the following day, and between having to comb through the scripts for the upcoming episodes and polish specific scenes to be shot in the near future, and rewriting scenes that were being shot even as Sam was tweaking them, he was feeling more than a little frazzled. The feeling didn’t abate when, after wandering around the car park like a lost puppy for several minutes, he thought to check his phone and discovered that his car pool had left without him. Which was entirely in Dean’s right - as the driver, he dictated both home time and the car stereo - but it mean that Sam was a little stranded. He sighed and thumbed through his phone, looking for a taxi company and pushing down his annoyance at the expense. Sam finally got invited out by charming, attractive company and he would be mooching drinks off his big brother for most of the evening. Sam was indulging in a particularly angst-filled sigh when a hand clapped down on his shoulder, scaring the life out of him.
John took a startled step back. “Wow,” he said. “That was some yelp. I’m sorry if I startled you.”
“No,” Sam replied, running a hand through his hair. “It’s cool. I always make that noise when someone talks to me. It’s to make sure they really want to talk, you know?”
John laughed once, a loud bark of a sound that left a wide grin in its wake. “Well, you were looking a little lost, and I want to offer you a lift if you need it.”
“Really?”
“Sure. You saved me for the trailer-maze, I can save you from walking home.”
“Wow, thanks. That would be great.” Sam slid his phone back into his back pocket. He followed John over to a black pickup truck that was a little worse for wear, but was clean on the outside and tidy on the inside. He ran his hand over the dash, thumbing a worn area absent-mindedly.
“She’s not quite as pretty as your brother’s ride,” John admitted as he buckled up.
“No, it’s good. My dad used to say that there was no point in being precious about a car - trying to keep one pristine means that you’re not letting it do its job.”
“Sounds like you come from a family of car nuts.”
Sam shrugged, suddenly feeling a little awkward. “Dad was pretty passionate about them, in a practical way. And he and Dean bonded over that a lot. The Impala was Dad’s car, and it’s the only one Dean’s ever owned.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
Sam stared out the window, watching the scenery start to roll by as John pulled out of the studio parking lot. “I guess.”
“What about you? What did you bond with your folks over?”
Sam had to think before answering. He hadn’t spoken to his dad for nearly two years, not after the bust up they’d had when Sam poured out the whole mess with Jess and Ruby. And even before that, his father hadn’t been thrilled with him going all the way to California to go to college. Sam had figured that it served him right to end up with two sons in another country. But before that... There must have been times before that.
“Sport?” Sam tried. “I was on the soccer team for a few years. He drove me to away games, sold fundraising chocolates and pens and stuff through the garage. We used to go out for burgers after each game and just kind of go over the plays. Though I think that was mainly me complaining about other people screwing up and him agreeing with me, and Dean complaining about how it wasn’t real football and Dad agreeing with him.”
John laughed. “So he wasn’t one of those hard-ass, coach-monster dads?”
“No, thank god.” John glanced over with his eyebrows raised, and Sam elaborated. “He doesn’t have a lot of patience for screw ups. If we ever bombed a test or got in trouble he wouldn’t listen to any excuses. I hear there are parents out there who are happy if you try your best, but Dad. There was just this bar in his head, and he couldn’t understand why we couldn’t reach it sometimes.”
“Sounds rough,” John said with a relaxed loyalty.
“He was doing the best he could,” Sam replied. “I know that. But we’re not exactly close.”
“You and Dean are tight though, right?”
“Oh yeah. We drive each other nuts, but I’d go through hell for him and he’d probably follow me down and drag me back out.” John grinned at that, and Sam could feel that his friend was pleased. “What about you? You got any family around?”
“Nope,” John replied.
Sam blinked, stunned. “None?”
“Well, I’ve got some cousins around but I don’t know them. Dad died young, no siblings. Mom passed a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
John glanced over at Sam, and his smile had a sharp, painful edge to it. “Yeah,” he said. “I was too. But these things happen, and I was pretty lucky to have the family I had.” He shrugged one shoulder as he put his indicator on for the exit to Vancouver proper. “It makes celebrating rough, but other than that you get used to it.”
“What did you want to celebrate?”
John’s face softened a little, some happy pride seeping across his features. “I actually had some lines today. If the scene doesn’t get cut, it’ll be the first time this face will be on tv during primetime.”
Sam cast his mind over John’s role, and its tendency to crop up while Chuck tore his hair out and stared at his computer screen with the look of a man who had only one choice to make and wasn’t ready to accept that responsibility. “Oh,” he said, aiming for ambiguity and not quite hitting his mark, “I’m pretty sure it won’t get cut.” John’s smile spread, and Sam couldn’t remember seeing anyone look so pleased with themselves since the time Dean replaced the Impala’s fanbelt with Sam’s soccer socks and a lot of tape, and managed to convince his baby to limp to the next town over. “Listen,” Sam said, “my plans for this evening mainly involved moping and being a loner. I’m willing to sacrifice that good time and celebrate with you. You know, as a favour. Because you’re driving me home.”
“If you’re in my car already, couldn’t I just kidnap you and force you into celebrating with my anyway? That way I could save up that favour for when I really need it.”
“I’m pretty sure that kidnapping negates any transport-related favours I may owe you.”
“Nah,” John replied. “Canada has a favour allocation policy that covers such things. I’m afraid you’d still owe me one.”
Sam sighed, and made a show of slumping down in his seat. “Freaking Canada.”
~*~
They went to an Italian restaurant near Sam’s apartment that felt a lot more like a bar than a dinner joint, but it did good pizzas and cheap pasta, and they gave you a glass when you ordered a bottle of beer, so Sam felt that it offered everything that he needed. Hanging out with John was probably the first social thing Sam had done in Canada that hadn’t been centred around team building or Dean dragging him out of his apartment.
Maybe Dean had a point about Sam needing a social life.
They split a pizza. And a serve of garlic bread. And a basket of fries. John drank his beer out of the bottle, and asked Sam the usual ‘getting to know you questions’, and listened with his head tilted to one side when Sam answered. And then they swapped, with Sam sipping his beer from the frosted glass, and asking John about where he’d been and where he was going. John wanted to get married and have kids some day, and was acting as a way to get money rolling in rather than any real love for it.
“I couldn’t afford to go to college,” he explained. “So I’d just do any job that came along. I’d lay concrete in the morning, shower and head off to an audition for acting or modelling or voice work or whatever, then go straight from that to some bar job.”
“Wow. That’s crazy.”
“Tell me about it. I should have just moved to Australia. You know you can get twenty bucks an hour there bagging groceries?”
“Really?”
“Really. Sure as hell beats pay checks where you get zero income after tax. For a while after my mom died I was sleeping out of my car because I couldn’t afford to rent.” John had no bitterness, or the hard kind of pride that Sam had experienced when talking to people who had done it rough. He talked about it the same way Sam had talked about liking History more than English only moments earlier.
“I don’t think it’d be very fulfilling though. I did the customer service thing when I was working IT. It sucks your soul out.”
John shrugged. “Greeting people, bagging things... Someone’s got to do it, right?”
“I guess,” Sam replied. He’d tried working as just a means to an ends. It hadn’t worked out especially well for anyone involved. There may have been some destruction of property shortly before he’d been fired. (Though Sam still maintained that you could not actually fire someone who had already yelled ‘I quit! I quit!’ at the top of their lungs, even if they had been using a desk chair to smash a phone headset at the time. In fact, as far as Sam was concerned? That just made their statement of resignation all the more final. But he’d still been dragged before the boss, and told there was no longer a place for him in the company. And then they’d made him clean up the bits of broken headset that had been embedded in the carpet. It had kind of softened the effect a little.)
“What about you?” John asked, covering his mouth with one hand as he chewed some fries. “How’d you get into writing?”
Sam shifted awkwardly. “I’ve just always done it. I loved writing short stories at school. I did a lot of professional writing stuff at college.”
“You studied writing?”
“No. I, uh, I did pre-law.”
John raised his eyebrows. “Huh.”
“Yeah,” Sam rubbed the back of his neck. “That didn’t work out. So I did took the first job I could get, which was in an IT call centre, working for this big company and people would just call in and want to know why their calendars weren’t synching and stuff. And that sucked, so I moved up here when Dean suggested it, and got pretty much the exact same job up here, So I did a lot of writing while I was at work, just to keep me from going insane. Then Dean heard that they needed another pleb to fix typos and stuff, so he volunteered me for the job.”
“Wow. That’s pretty cool.” But Sam could hear the distance in John’s voice, the surprise that Sam would be a writer when he could be a lawyer, the marked decrease in respect at learning that Sam had gotten his job through nepotism. He’d held his own in the interview, he was perfectly qualified. But Sam knew that he never would have gotten his foot in the door without Dean paving the way. Never would have applied for the job in a million years.
“I’ve been really fortunate,” Sam said honestly.
John gave Sam a considerate look over the table. “Now you just need to figure out how to use your powers for good, grasshopper.”
“Oh yeah? And how would you use my amazing powers of ‘fetching coffees’ and ‘printing out new pages’ for good?”
“Well for starters, I’d print those pages so that my character got all of the lines. And then, when the whole show was about me and they couldn’t possibly get rid of me, I’d change everyone’s coffees to decaf with skim milk. Get everyone off those stimulants.”
Sam couldn’t fight the grin on his face. “You mess with the caffeine addictions of the powers that be, you could be god himself and they would still find a way to kill you off.”
“Does anyone really stay dead in television? The last show I watched regularly was Harmony-”
“Wait, you watch Harmony?”
“-and I swear that witch lady died something like eight times. And that show? With the FBI and the aliens? Someone died every single season finale, and in the first episode of the next season it had always been a trick.”
“You switch the set to decaf and I don’t think it’ll matter if Hastur lives or dies, you’ll be buried in a ditch somewhere and unable to play him.”
“Don’t be silly,” John replied, waving Sam off. “We both know they hide the bodies under the trailers.” John gave Sam a scrutinising look. “Is that what you were doing when I first met you? Filling in a shallow grave?”
“More like trying to hide in one,” Sam replied. John raised his eyebrows, giving Sam a patient ‘I can wait all night for this story’ look. “It’s... No, this is way too embarrassing to talk about.”
John leaned both elbows on the table. “Come on, I bet it’s a really great story,” he cajoled. “It’s not a proper pizza and beer night without embarrassing stories.”
“Sorry man,” Sam returned. “Being entertaining is just not a good enough cause for me to spill my guts on this one.”
John propped his chin on the palm of one hand. “How about because you owe me one?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “You’re worse than Dean,” he complained.
“That means that you’re going to tell me, right? That face is a sign of your resolve crumbling. I can tell.”
Sam gave John the most unimpressed look he could muster, and John matched it with a patient, beatific look until, yes, okay, Sam’s resolve may have... Not crumbled. Because Sam was above being coerced by persistent good humour. But maybe it cracked just a little. And maybe some information that could be considered by some as being slightly relevant to his current situation may have leaked through that teeny tiny crack. Just a little.
“I like two people,” Sam blurted out. “And they both seem to like me.”
John tilted his head in a conceding motion. “Well, you’re a pretty likeable guy.” Sam gave him a pointed look. “Oh, right. That kind of ‘like’.”
Sam looked down at his glass of beer. “I don’t know what I should do about it.”
“Well, obvious question first, do you like one of them back? More than the other?”
Sam hunched over, apparently studying his beer more intently. “I like both of them.”
“Huh.” John settled back in his seat and thought it over. “Seems like you’re God’s gift to women then.”
Sam bit at his fingernail. “Neither of them are women,” he mumbled into the dim lighting of the restaurant.
“Huh,” John repeated, slumping down in his seat a little. “Well, this is officially outside my area of expertise.”
“Same,” Sam replied heavily.
“Well,” John paused to think for a moment before starting again. “Well, where are you at? Are you dating either of these,” he scrambled for the right word, “people?”
“No. Maybe? I’ve watched movies with one, and that was cool. And I’m going out for drinks with the other soon. And there’s been, you know, other stuff going on.”
John raised his eyebrows, then settled his face back into polite curiosity. “Do they know about each other?”
“Yeah. I don’t think they’re, like, comparing notes or anything. But they both know that the other is, you know, expressing an interest.”
“Huh.” Sam was beginning to realise that sound was John’s fallback when he was stumped. “Well, I hate to say it, but there’s really only one way to get everything figure out.” Sam looked at John hopefully, fingers crossed that he would get some enlightening advice. John lifted his beer, and pointed one finger at Sam. “You’ve got to sit them down and talk it out.”
“What?”
“It’s the only way. Make sure everyone is on the same page, make sure everyone lays out what they want. I mean, if you want to settle down with kids one day - or dogs or... I don’t know - and one of them would rather cut his eyelids off? That’s something you should know early on.”
“Well, I guess. But-”
“And relationships mean different things to different people, so you need to get that stuff straight. Wait, does that phrase still work with gay people?”
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “I’m kind of new to this.”
“You should definitely mention that. And, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with dating, right? So long as everyone is aware and on the same page and stuff.”
“Right,” Sam said dully.
“Because you don’t want anyone getting hurt or feeling cheated, you know?”
“Oh yeah,” Sam replied, frowning down at his beer. “I know.”
“So... That’s it. That’s my big advice - go talk about it.”
“It’s good advice,” Sam admitted.
“I don’t know,” John replied. “My strengths as a bar tender lay more with trashing local sports teams and pouring shooters than with doling out the advice.”
“Well, fuck that local sports team is all I can say,” Sam replied with some light, playful anger in his voice.
John barked a laugh. “I know. What the hell was that score last game? Unbe-freaking-lievable.”
Sam looked up at John and gave him a cautious smile, which only grew as John returned it with a grin. “Okay,” he said. “That’s my homework for the weekend I guess.”
“Damn skippy. And I guess I’d better get you home, since you have homework to do.”
“That’s very considerate of you,” Sam replied, standing up and stretching. They split the bill, and John left a generous tip. “And, uh, could you not tell anyone about this? It’s just...”
“You don’t want everyone on set meddling in your love life?”
“Pretty much.”
John winked at him. “Your secrets are safe with me.”
“Cool. And thanks. It was nice to be able to talk to someone about this stuff.”
John pulled his leather jacket on as they stepped outside into the cold, January night. “Your family wouldn’t be cool with this?”
“The gay thing?” Sam paused to think about the question. “I don’t know. Dean’d probably just kind of push that bit to one side and process it on his own, you know? With Dad, I think the ‘two people at once’ part of it might be the bigger issue for him.”
John shrugged. “Well, you’re not your dad, and you’ve just gotta remember that. Don’t be afraid to go your own way.”
Sam gave John a sidelong look. “You got any other empowering slogans to throw at me?”
“You gotta do what you gotta do? Be your own hero? With great power comes great responsibility?”
“Okay, I think I’ve got it now.”
“Yippee-ki-yay motherfucker?” John tried.
Sam snorted. “Christ, just get in the car.”
~*~
Sam spent most of Saturday bundled up on his couch, watching a Hey Arnold marathon. Castiel and Balthazar were at a location shoot in a nearby forest (Fallen had a lot of location shoots - Michael liked nature, Lucifer preferred urban settings - and Crowley liked to try and get as many scenes filmed in one hit as possible to keep the budget down, meaning that the forest scenes for several episodes were crammed into one weekend, the walking-down-the-street scenes crammed into a day. It drove everyone nuts, which Gabriel seemed to think was Crowley’s actual goal) and Castiel was bored out of his mind. Sam texted him trivia questions to keep him from sulking, and Castiel kept Sam up to date with who had slipped over in the mud and how many times wardrobe had yelled at Balthazar for getting his pants dirty.
Eventually Sam bit the bullet. “Going out on the town tonight with some Fallen people. What should I wear?” Because while keeping Cas up to date with things was important, Sam was also kind of worried about looking like a hobo around the people who were employing him.
Castiel responded almost immediately. “Something nice. Crowley will be in a suit, Bobby in a clean shirt. Gabriel is stealing ties from wardrobe.”
Sam groaned. “I don’t really have dressy clothes. I have one suit and the pants are too short.”
It took longer for the next reply. “Jo suggested the dark jeans you wore last week, the ones that brought attention to certain attributes. Apparently she slapped you.” Sam knew exactly which pants Castiel meant, and he flushed slightly because he could heard in his head Jo extolling the virtue of the ‘ass-tacular denim display’ to anyone within earshot.
Sam’s phone vibrated again, pulling him away from his embarrassment. “The blue sweater you wore to the Thanksgiving party was nice.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. He had no idea that Castiel had even noticed him at that party, let alone committed his outfit to memory. Sam wondered if Castiel had been interested in Sam way back then (very unlikely), or if he really paid close attention to clothes (given Castiel’s personal clothing combinations, also unlikely). Sam tapped the corner of his phone against his teeth, staring blankly at the television screen. He wondered why Castiel had gone to the trouble of, essentially, dressing Sam up nice for Balthazar.
“Are u coming tonight?” he texted.
“No. I had to turn down Dean’s invitation.”
Sam felt relieved that Castiel had at least been invited, though a little surprised that it had been by Dean. Dean and Cas seemed to excel in rubbing each other the wrong way at times, but then, Dean did love a good argument and most people simply avoided Castiel when he was in a bad mood. Dean probably also got some pleasure out of being around anyone who was worse with technology than he was, and Castiel seemed to get baffled entertainment out of Dean’s incredibly enthusiastic album reviews (complete with rants about changed line ups and air-guitar performances of the more memorable solos).
“So what are ur secret plans for tonight then?” Sam asked.
“My sister, Anna, has a concert. I will be watching the live stream on my neighbour’s computer.”
“She’s a musician?”
“She is a soprano soloist for the Illinois State Concert Choir, though she is working to extend her range.”
Sam didn’t know that Illinois had a state choir. Did that mean every state had one? If Dean ever managed to drag Sam back to Kansas, Sam was going to buy the three of them tickets to see a choir. If Sam had to put up with the noise of his dad yelling at him and Dean cranking up some Black Sabbath to try and drown out the sounds of Winchester domesticity, Dean could damn well put up with a bunch of women singing Paul McCartney songs.
“I hope you enjoy yourself, and I hope ur sister has a good performance,” Sam replied. After a moment of thought he added, “It’ll b nice to have someone to text when I get bored tonight.”
In the pause between that text and the reply, Sam watched a whole episode of Hey Arnold and got up to make a late lunch. No doubt Castiel and Balthazar were getting put through their paces in the damp, freezing forestland outside of Vancouver.
Castiel’s reply came an hour later, “I doubt it will come to that.”
Sam wondered if Castiel knew that Balthazar had been the one to invite Sam along. He wondered if Castiel knew about Balthazar’s promise to show him a good time, just the two of them. Sam wondered if he could call in sick on the whole expedition and spend the night curled up in bed re-reading Harry Potter. But then, sticking his head in the sand had never once solved a problem. Maybe going out tonight would make things easier.
Maybe Sam would be swept off his feet (metaphorically, that is. He was simply too tall and heavy for that to happen literally). Maybe Balthazar would be awful and obnoxious and have sex with random people in bathrooms. Maybe Sam would get hit on the head and that would send him into a coma, which would actually be him waking up from this bizarre dreamland in which even his problems were still too good to be true. He could return to reality, and his IT job, and his wardrobe full of those little lemon-yellow uniform polo shirts, and the friend’s house he’d been couch surfing at because Jess had took her furniture when she’d left him and Ruby had sold everything he’d left behind when he finally walked away from her.
Maybe Sam was being entirely too melodramatic about the whole thing.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight,” Sam finally texted back. Castiel knew that Sam and Balthazar had kissed - everyone knew that they had kissed at Balthazar’s birthday party - and he knew that Balthazar was expressing his interest in Sam by flaunting his casual, flirty touches in Castiel’s face.
Castiel took his sweet time replying, which Sam had to admit was pretty fair, because how do you reply to something like that? So Sam pulled on his running shoes, and his hoodie, and spent a good ten minutes psyching himself up to leaving his apartment without his customary twenty layers of insulation. He had intended to go for a jog around a few blocks, try to flush out the gross feeling his week of influenza and comfort eating had left him with, but then he hit his stride and the running felt natural. After the first five times of having to stop, and hack and wheeze, and spit phlegm into the gutter (Sam Winchester, you charming devil) it actually felt good to suck in deep breaths of cool, crisp air.
He was drenched with sweat when he finally returned to his apartment, but his body felt good. Sam honestly spent too much time sitting in front of computers (not that he would ever, ever admit that in front of Dean). There was a voicemail from Dean on his phone. “We’re not sure who’s picking you up. Or when. Just be ready by six.” There was also a text from Cas, but Sam saved it until after he had showered and shaved. Until after he’d spent far too much time staring at his hair and frowning (the problem with growing out any haircut that had layers and bangs, Sam was learning, was that period that could potentially last for years of looking like a complete and utter tool. But short hair made him look like a man-sized twelve year old, so Sam was determined to stick it out).
“You will have a good time,” Castiel wrote. “Balthazar will be very charming, and he will make sure that everyone is nice to you.”
Sam stared down at the text, straddling the line between surprised and stunned. Then a follow up text came through.
“You will probably receive oral sex.”
Well.
Author: tawg
Word count: ~5,500
Rating: PG (some language, one or two mentions of sexy things)
Pairings/characters: Sam/Balthazar, Sam/Castiel, past Castiel/Balthazar, John Winchester.
Notes: Apologies for the lateness. Thank you to my tumblr anon for poking me about this occasionally.
Summary: Sam tries to do the mature, responsible thing and completely ignore the tangled mess that is his love life, a new friend steps in and tells him to suck it up, and Castiel and Jo discuss the merits of Sam's ass in jeans.
Sam didn’t know which was more distressing - the sudden explosion of activity (or, at least, expressions of interest) in his love life, or the flu that Castiel had very inconsiderately passed to Sam. Given that Sam didn’t do anything important on the show, he just made the words fit the time allotted to them and inserted continuity and managed Chuck’s increasingly frequent meltdowns (as Crowley put it, “Nothing we couldn’t train another monkey to do,”), he did not get the luxury of getting sent home sick when he showed up on Wednesday morning. He just had to deal with every single friend he had on set hurling packets of throat lozenges, and tissues, and day-and-night flu tablets at his head. At high velocity. When he was least expecting it.
Friends were such a blessing.
So Sam stayed holed up in the trailer with his computer, and the photocopier, and his stuffy nose and sore joints, and Chuck’s panicked sobs. Sam had flu chills on top of his regular Vancouver-in-winter-is-fucking-cold-no-I-am-serious-stop-laughing-Dean chills. Sam existed under a mountain of wraps and layers. In his weaker moments he had a hot water bottle on his lap. Even Chuck started to question Sam’s ability to survive in the wild.
Though Jo refused to deliver Sam’s lunch to him, which would have saved him from leaving his toasty little cocoon, Balthazar did turn up with sandwiches and a cup of soup on Sam’s third day of flu-ridden misery. “How’s our little bed bug?” he asked, stealing Chuck’s seat and straddling it backwards.
“Phlegmy,” Sam replied dourly.
“Charming,” Balthazar returned with a grimace.
“That’s me,” Sam replied around a mouthful of sandwich. “Living the glamorous life.” He frowned at his sandwich. “Is this lettuce or spinach?” he asked, his words thick as he swiped at his runny nose with the sleeve of his hoodie and simultaneously licked at his gums to shift some bread that had gotten stuck against his teeth.
“You know,” Balthazar said after a loaded pause, “you’re lucky that you have a winning personality.”
Sam looked down at himself - there were tissues and lozenge wrappers littered around him, and his table manners had been on par with Dean’s since his nose had started running. “Sorry,” he apologised. “I become a bit of a slob when I get sick.”
Balthazar propped his chin on his palm and stared at Sam with a perfectly guileless expression. “You don’t say?”
Sam didn’t reply. He had been gently avoiding being around Castiel or Balthazar since his night with Castiel. Which sounded a lot more incriminating than it was. But the honest truth was that Sam had had two of his co-workers tongues in his mouth in the space of about a week. Given that the co-workers had once been in a relationship with each other, were carrying around more baggage from that failed romance than the average airport, and, oh yes, could probably get Sam fired if he managed to make things between them even more insufferable, Sam was floundering and completely unsure as to what he should do.
Was he even allowed to be in a relationship with one of the stars? He hadn’t seen anything about it in his contract, but he honestly hadn’t gone through it with such things in mind. On reflection, it seemed like a very unprofessional indulgence, and probably a conflict of interest considering that Sam was on the writing staff. Not an important member of the staff, certainly, but Sam knew the internet, and knew exactly what kind of a response the headline “Fallen star is sleeping with show writer” would bring. (Largely suspicion and catty remarks. Probably a slice of envy, too, which sent a small thrill through Sam.)
“Are you free tomorrow night?” Balthazar asked idly, still watching Sam. He swivelled back and forth slightly in Chuck’s chair. “After we wrap. I was thinking of going for a drink.”
Sam started, and then coughed and spluttered for air. He had to pause to blow his nose, an arduous task that required multiple tissues. “Ugh,” he finally managed. “Like, the two of us?”
“No,” Balthazar replied, and Sam did his best to look entirely neutral while his heart sank. “I asked Crowley and Gabriel-” possibly the oddest pair of drinking cohorts that Sam could have picked “-and Crowley asked Singer, and Gabriel invited that brother of yours.” Balthazar gave Sam a longsuffering look, and Sam could only give him a sympathetic shrug in response.
“Sounds good,” Sam said at last. It probably would be fun, give him a chance to get to know Crowley as something other than the great, dark power lording over the show. And it would get Dean off his back for his lack of social life, for a while at least.
Balthazar smiled, but it was a little sharp at the edges, considering. “Tell you what,” he said in a smooth, lazy voice. “We’ll stay out late, just the two of us. I’ll show you a good time.” He stood up then, swinging a leg over Chuck’s chair with a slinky movement of hips that, coupled with the amended invitation, left Sam’s mouth dry. “You should start resting up now,” Balthazar advised over his shoulder as he sauntered out of the trailer.
Sam stared after him for a long, dazed moment. Well. His plan to avoid any sexually changed moments on set was going swimmingly.
~*~
Sam slunk out of his trailer early in the evening. He wasn’t working the following day, and between having to comb through the scripts for the upcoming episodes and polish specific scenes to be shot in the near future, and rewriting scenes that were being shot even as Sam was tweaking them, he was feeling more than a little frazzled. The feeling didn’t abate when, after wandering around the car park like a lost puppy for several minutes, he thought to check his phone and discovered that his car pool had left without him. Which was entirely in Dean’s right - as the driver, he dictated both home time and the car stereo - but it mean that Sam was a little stranded. He sighed and thumbed through his phone, looking for a taxi company and pushing down his annoyance at the expense. Sam finally got invited out by charming, attractive company and he would be mooching drinks off his big brother for most of the evening. Sam was indulging in a particularly angst-filled sigh when a hand clapped down on his shoulder, scaring the life out of him.
John took a startled step back. “Wow,” he said. “That was some yelp. I’m sorry if I startled you.”
“No,” Sam replied, running a hand through his hair. “It’s cool. I always make that noise when someone talks to me. It’s to make sure they really want to talk, you know?”
John laughed once, a loud bark of a sound that left a wide grin in its wake. “Well, you were looking a little lost, and I want to offer you a lift if you need it.”
“Really?”
“Sure. You saved me for the trailer-maze, I can save you from walking home.”
“Wow, thanks. That would be great.” Sam slid his phone back into his back pocket. He followed John over to a black pickup truck that was a little worse for wear, but was clean on the outside and tidy on the inside. He ran his hand over the dash, thumbing a worn area absent-mindedly.
“She’s not quite as pretty as your brother’s ride,” John admitted as he buckled up.
“No, it’s good. My dad used to say that there was no point in being precious about a car - trying to keep one pristine means that you’re not letting it do its job.”
“Sounds like you come from a family of car nuts.”
Sam shrugged, suddenly feeling a little awkward. “Dad was pretty passionate about them, in a practical way. And he and Dean bonded over that a lot. The Impala was Dad’s car, and it’s the only one Dean’s ever owned.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
Sam stared out the window, watching the scenery start to roll by as John pulled out of the studio parking lot. “I guess.”
“What about you? What did you bond with your folks over?”
Sam had to think before answering. He hadn’t spoken to his dad for nearly two years, not after the bust up they’d had when Sam poured out the whole mess with Jess and Ruby. And even before that, his father hadn’t been thrilled with him going all the way to California to go to college. Sam had figured that it served him right to end up with two sons in another country. But before that... There must have been times before that.
“Sport?” Sam tried. “I was on the soccer team for a few years. He drove me to away games, sold fundraising chocolates and pens and stuff through the garage. We used to go out for burgers after each game and just kind of go over the plays. Though I think that was mainly me complaining about other people screwing up and him agreeing with me, and Dean complaining about how it wasn’t real football and Dad agreeing with him.”
John laughed. “So he wasn’t one of those hard-ass, coach-monster dads?”
“No, thank god.” John glanced over with his eyebrows raised, and Sam elaborated. “He doesn’t have a lot of patience for screw ups. If we ever bombed a test or got in trouble he wouldn’t listen to any excuses. I hear there are parents out there who are happy if you try your best, but Dad. There was just this bar in his head, and he couldn’t understand why we couldn’t reach it sometimes.”
“Sounds rough,” John said with a relaxed loyalty.
“He was doing the best he could,” Sam replied. “I know that. But we’re not exactly close.”
“You and Dean are tight though, right?”
“Oh yeah. We drive each other nuts, but I’d go through hell for him and he’d probably follow me down and drag me back out.” John grinned at that, and Sam could feel that his friend was pleased. “What about you? You got any family around?”
“Nope,” John replied.
Sam blinked, stunned. “None?”
“Well, I’ve got some cousins around but I don’t know them. Dad died young, no siblings. Mom passed a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
John glanced over at Sam, and his smile had a sharp, painful edge to it. “Yeah,” he said. “I was too. But these things happen, and I was pretty lucky to have the family I had.” He shrugged one shoulder as he put his indicator on for the exit to Vancouver proper. “It makes celebrating rough, but other than that you get used to it.”
“What did you want to celebrate?”
John’s face softened a little, some happy pride seeping across his features. “I actually had some lines today. If the scene doesn’t get cut, it’ll be the first time this face will be on tv during primetime.”
Sam cast his mind over John’s role, and its tendency to crop up while Chuck tore his hair out and stared at his computer screen with the look of a man who had only one choice to make and wasn’t ready to accept that responsibility. “Oh,” he said, aiming for ambiguity and not quite hitting his mark, “I’m pretty sure it won’t get cut.” John’s smile spread, and Sam couldn’t remember seeing anyone look so pleased with themselves since the time Dean replaced the Impala’s fanbelt with Sam’s soccer socks and a lot of tape, and managed to convince his baby to limp to the next town over. “Listen,” Sam said, “my plans for this evening mainly involved moping and being a loner. I’m willing to sacrifice that good time and celebrate with you. You know, as a favour. Because you’re driving me home.”
“If you’re in my car already, couldn’t I just kidnap you and force you into celebrating with my anyway? That way I could save up that favour for when I really need it.”
“I’m pretty sure that kidnapping negates any transport-related favours I may owe you.”
“Nah,” John replied. “Canada has a favour allocation policy that covers such things. I’m afraid you’d still owe me one.”
Sam sighed, and made a show of slumping down in his seat. “Freaking Canada.”
~*~
They went to an Italian restaurant near Sam’s apartment that felt a lot more like a bar than a dinner joint, but it did good pizzas and cheap pasta, and they gave you a glass when you ordered a bottle of beer, so Sam felt that it offered everything that he needed. Hanging out with John was probably the first social thing Sam had done in Canada that hadn’t been centred around team building or Dean dragging him out of his apartment.
Maybe Dean had a point about Sam needing a social life.
They split a pizza. And a serve of garlic bread. And a basket of fries. John drank his beer out of the bottle, and asked Sam the usual ‘getting to know you questions’, and listened with his head tilted to one side when Sam answered. And then they swapped, with Sam sipping his beer from the frosted glass, and asking John about where he’d been and where he was going. John wanted to get married and have kids some day, and was acting as a way to get money rolling in rather than any real love for it.
“I couldn’t afford to go to college,” he explained. “So I’d just do any job that came along. I’d lay concrete in the morning, shower and head off to an audition for acting or modelling or voice work or whatever, then go straight from that to some bar job.”
“Wow. That’s crazy.”
“Tell me about it. I should have just moved to Australia. You know you can get twenty bucks an hour there bagging groceries?”
“Really?”
“Really. Sure as hell beats pay checks where you get zero income after tax. For a while after my mom died I was sleeping out of my car because I couldn’t afford to rent.” John had no bitterness, or the hard kind of pride that Sam had experienced when talking to people who had done it rough. He talked about it the same way Sam had talked about liking History more than English only moments earlier.
“I don’t think it’d be very fulfilling though. I did the customer service thing when I was working IT. It sucks your soul out.”
John shrugged. “Greeting people, bagging things... Someone’s got to do it, right?”
“I guess,” Sam replied. He’d tried working as just a means to an ends. It hadn’t worked out especially well for anyone involved. There may have been some destruction of property shortly before he’d been fired. (Though Sam still maintained that you could not actually fire someone who had already yelled ‘I quit! I quit!’ at the top of their lungs, even if they had been using a desk chair to smash a phone headset at the time. In fact, as far as Sam was concerned? That just made their statement of resignation all the more final. But he’d still been dragged before the boss, and told there was no longer a place for him in the company. And then they’d made him clean up the bits of broken headset that had been embedded in the carpet. It had kind of softened the effect a little.)
“What about you?” John asked, covering his mouth with one hand as he chewed some fries. “How’d you get into writing?”
Sam shifted awkwardly. “I’ve just always done it. I loved writing short stories at school. I did a lot of professional writing stuff at college.”
“You studied writing?”
“No. I, uh, I did pre-law.”
John raised his eyebrows. “Huh.”
“Yeah,” Sam rubbed the back of his neck. “That didn’t work out. So I did took the first job I could get, which was in an IT call centre, working for this big company and people would just call in and want to know why their calendars weren’t synching and stuff. And that sucked, so I moved up here when Dean suggested it, and got pretty much the exact same job up here, So I did a lot of writing while I was at work, just to keep me from going insane. Then Dean heard that they needed another pleb to fix typos and stuff, so he volunteered me for the job.”
“Wow. That’s pretty cool.” But Sam could hear the distance in John’s voice, the surprise that Sam would be a writer when he could be a lawyer, the marked decrease in respect at learning that Sam had gotten his job through nepotism. He’d held his own in the interview, he was perfectly qualified. But Sam knew that he never would have gotten his foot in the door without Dean paving the way. Never would have applied for the job in a million years.
“I’ve been really fortunate,” Sam said honestly.
John gave Sam a considerate look over the table. “Now you just need to figure out how to use your powers for good, grasshopper.”
“Oh yeah? And how would you use my amazing powers of ‘fetching coffees’ and ‘printing out new pages’ for good?”
“Well for starters, I’d print those pages so that my character got all of the lines. And then, when the whole show was about me and they couldn’t possibly get rid of me, I’d change everyone’s coffees to decaf with skim milk. Get everyone off those stimulants.”
Sam couldn’t fight the grin on his face. “You mess with the caffeine addictions of the powers that be, you could be god himself and they would still find a way to kill you off.”
“Does anyone really stay dead in television? The last show I watched regularly was Harmony-”
“Wait, you watch Harmony?”
“-and I swear that witch lady died something like eight times. And that show? With the FBI and the aliens? Someone died every single season finale, and in the first episode of the next season it had always been a trick.”
“You switch the set to decaf and I don’t think it’ll matter if Hastur lives or dies, you’ll be buried in a ditch somewhere and unable to play him.”
“Don’t be silly,” John replied, waving Sam off. “We both know they hide the bodies under the trailers.” John gave Sam a scrutinising look. “Is that what you were doing when I first met you? Filling in a shallow grave?”
“More like trying to hide in one,” Sam replied. John raised his eyebrows, giving Sam a patient ‘I can wait all night for this story’ look. “It’s... No, this is way too embarrassing to talk about.”
John leaned both elbows on the table. “Come on, I bet it’s a really great story,” he cajoled. “It’s not a proper pizza and beer night without embarrassing stories.”
“Sorry man,” Sam returned. “Being entertaining is just not a good enough cause for me to spill my guts on this one.”
John propped his chin on the palm of one hand. “How about because you owe me one?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “You’re worse than Dean,” he complained.
“That means that you’re going to tell me, right? That face is a sign of your resolve crumbling. I can tell.”
Sam gave John the most unimpressed look he could muster, and John matched it with a patient, beatific look until, yes, okay, Sam’s resolve may have... Not crumbled. Because Sam was above being coerced by persistent good humour. But maybe it cracked just a little. And maybe some information that could be considered by some as being slightly relevant to his current situation may have leaked through that teeny tiny crack. Just a little.
“I like two people,” Sam blurted out. “And they both seem to like me.”
John tilted his head in a conceding motion. “Well, you’re a pretty likeable guy.” Sam gave him a pointed look. “Oh, right. That kind of ‘like’.”
Sam looked down at his glass of beer. “I don’t know what I should do about it.”
“Well, obvious question first, do you like one of them back? More than the other?”
Sam hunched over, apparently studying his beer more intently. “I like both of them.”
“Huh.” John settled back in his seat and thought it over. “Seems like you’re God’s gift to women then.”
Sam bit at his fingernail. “Neither of them are women,” he mumbled into the dim lighting of the restaurant.
“Huh,” John repeated, slumping down in his seat a little. “Well, this is officially outside my area of expertise.”
“Same,” Sam replied heavily.
“Well,” John paused to think for a moment before starting again. “Well, where are you at? Are you dating either of these,” he scrambled for the right word, “people?”
“No. Maybe? I’ve watched movies with one, and that was cool. And I’m going out for drinks with the other soon. And there’s been, you know, other stuff going on.”
John raised his eyebrows, then settled his face back into polite curiosity. “Do they know about each other?”
“Yeah. I don’t think they’re, like, comparing notes or anything. But they both know that the other is, you know, expressing an interest.”
“Huh.” Sam was beginning to realise that sound was John’s fallback when he was stumped. “Well, I hate to say it, but there’s really only one way to get everything figure out.” Sam looked at John hopefully, fingers crossed that he would get some enlightening advice. John lifted his beer, and pointed one finger at Sam. “You’ve got to sit them down and talk it out.”
“What?”
“It’s the only way. Make sure everyone is on the same page, make sure everyone lays out what they want. I mean, if you want to settle down with kids one day - or dogs or... I don’t know - and one of them would rather cut his eyelids off? That’s something you should know early on.”
“Well, I guess. But-”
“And relationships mean different things to different people, so you need to get that stuff straight. Wait, does that phrase still work with gay people?”
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “I’m kind of new to this.”
“You should definitely mention that. And, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with dating, right? So long as everyone is aware and on the same page and stuff.”
“Right,” Sam said dully.
“Because you don’t want anyone getting hurt or feeling cheated, you know?”
“Oh yeah,” Sam replied, frowning down at his beer. “I know.”
“So... That’s it. That’s my big advice - go talk about it.”
“It’s good advice,” Sam admitted.
“I don’t know,” John replied. “My strengths as a bar tender lay more with trashing local sports teams and pouring shooters than with doling out the advice.”
“Well, fuck that local sports team is all I can say,” Sam replied with some light, playful anger in his voice.
John barked a laugh. “I know. What the hell was that score last game? Unbe-freaking-lievable.”
Sam looked up at John and gave him a cautious smile, which only grew as John returned it with a grin. “Okay,” he said. “That’s my homework for the weekend I guess.”
“Damn skippy. And I guess I’d better get you home, since you have homework to do.”
“That’s very considerate of you,” Sam replied, standing up and stretching. They split the bill, and John left a generous tip. “And, uh, could you not tell anyone about this? It’s just...”
“You don’t want everyone on set meddling in your love life?”
“Pretty much.”
John winked at him. “Your secrets are safe with me.”
“Cool. And thanks. It was nice to be able to talk to someone about this stuff.”
John pulled his leather jacket on as they stepped outside into the cold, January night. “Your family wouldn’t be cool with this?”
“The gay thing?” Sam paused to think about the question. “I don’t know. Dean’d probably just kind of push that bit to one side and process it on his own, you know? With Dad, I think the ‘two people at once’ part of it might be the bigger issue for him.”
John shrugged. “Well, you’re not your dad, and you’ve just gotta remember that. Don’t be afraid to go your own way.”
Sam gave John a sidelong look. “You got any other empowering slogans to throw at me?”
“You gotta do what you gotta do? Be your own hero? With great power comes great responsibility?”
“Okay, I think I’ve got it now.”
“Yippee-ki-yay motherfucker?” John tried.
Sam snorted. “Christ, just get in the car.”
~*~
Sam spent most of Saturday bundled up on his couch, watching a Hey Arnold marathon. Castiel and Balthazar were at a location shoot in a nearby forest (Fallen had a lot of location shoots - Michael liked nature, Lucifer preferred urban settings - and Crowley liked to try and get as many scenes filmed in one hit as possible to keep the budget down, meaning that the forest scenes for several episodes were crammed into one weekend, the walking-down-the-street scenes crammed into a day. It drove everyone nuts, which Gabriel seemed to think was Crowley’s actual goal) and Castiel was bored out of his mind. Sam texted him trivia questions to keep him from sulking, and Castiel kept Sam up to date with who had slipped over in the mud and how many times wardrobe had yelled at Balthazar for getting his pants dirty.
Eventually Sam bit the bullet. “Going out on the town tonight with some Fallen people. What should I wear?” Because while keeping Cas up to date with things was important, Sam was also kind of worried about looking like a hobo around the people who were employing him.
Castiel responded almost immediately. “Something nice. Crowley will be in a suit, Bobby in a clean shirt. Gabriel is stealing ties from wardrobe.”
Sam groaned. “I don’t really have dressy clothes. I have one suit and the pants are too short.”
It took longer for the next reply. “Jo suggested the dark jeans you wore last week, the ones that brought attention to certain attributes. Apparently she slapped you.” Sam knew exactly which pants Castiel meant, and he flushed slightly because he could heard in his head Jo extolling the virtue of the ‘ass-tacular denim display’ to anyone within earshot.
Sam’s phone vibrated again, pulling him away from his embarrassment. “The blue sweater you wore to the Thanksgiving party was nice.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. He had no idea that Castiel had even noticed him at that party, let alone committed his outfit to memory. Sam wondered if Castiel had been interested in Sam way back then (very unlikely), or if he really paid close attention to clothes (given Castiel’s personal clothing combinations, also unlikely). Sam tapped the corner of his phone against his teeth, staring blankly at the television screen. He wondered why Castiel had gone to the trouble of, essentially, dressing Sam up nice for Balthazar.
“Are u coming tonight?” he texted.
“No. I had to turn down Dean’s invitation.”
Sam felt relieved that Castiel had at least been invited, though a little surprised that it had been by Dean. Dean and Cas seemed to excel in rubbing each other the wrong way at times, but then, Dean did love a good argument and most people simply avoided Castiel when he was in a bad mood. Dean probably also got some pleasure out of being around anyone who was worse with technology than he was, and Castiel seemed to get baffled entertainment out of Dean’s incredibly enthusiastic album reviews (complete with rants about changed line ups and air-guitar performances of the more memorable solos).
“So what are ur secret plans for tonight then?” Sam asked.
“My sister, Anna, has a concert. I will be watching the live stream on my neighbour’s computer.”
“She’s a musician?”
“She is a soprano soloist for the Illinois State Concert Choir, though she is working to extend her range.”
Sam didn’t know that Illinois had a state choir. Did that mean every state had one? If Dean ever managed to drag Sam back to Kansas, Sam was going to buy the three of them tickets to see a choir. If Sam had to put up with the noise of his dad yelling at him and Dean cranking up some Black Sabbath to try and drown out the sounds of Winchester domesticity, Dean could damn well put up with a bunch of women singing Paul McCartney songs.
“I hope you enjoy yourself, and I hope ur sister has a good performance,” Sam replied. After a moment of thought he added, “It’ll b nice to have someone to text when I get bored tonight.”
In the pause between that text and the reply, Sam watched a whole episode of Hey Arnold and got up to make a late lunch. No doubt Castiel and Balthazar were getting put through their paces in the damp, freezing forestland outside of Vancouver.
Castiel’s reply came an hour later, “I doubt it will come to that.”
Sam wondered if Castiel knew that Balthazar had been the one to invite Sam along. He wondered if Castiel knew about Balthazar’s promise to show him a good time, just the two of them. Sam wondered if he could call in sick on the whole expedition and spend the night curled up in bed re-reading Harry Potter. But then, sticking his head in the sand had never once solved a problem. Maybe going out tonight would make things easier.
Maybe Sam would be swept off his feet (metaphorically, that is. He was simply too tall and heavy for that to happen literally). Maybe Balthazar would be awful and obnoxious and have sex with random people in bathrooms. Maybe Sam would get hit on the head and that would send him into a coma, which would actually be him waking up from this bizarre dreamland in which even his problems were still too good to be true. He could return to reality, and his IT job, and his wardrobe full of those little lemon-yellow uniform polo shirts, and the friend’s house he’d been couch surfing at because Jess had took her furniture when she’d left him and Ruby had sold everything he’d left behind when he finally walked away from her.
Maybe Sam was being entirely too melodramatic about the whole thing.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight,” Sam finally texted back. Castiel knew that Sam and Balthazar had kissed - everyone knew that they had kissed at Balthazar’s birthday party - and he knew that Balthazar was expressing his interest in Sam by flaunting his casual, flirty touches in Castiel’s face.
Castiel took his sweet time replying, which Sam had to admit was pretty fair, because how do you reply to something like that? So Sam pulled on his running shoes, and his hoodie, and spent a good ten minutes psyching himself up to leaving his apartment without his customary twenty layers of insulation. He had intended to go for a jog around a few blocks, try to flush out the gross feeling his week of influenza and comfort eating had left him with, but then he hit his stride and the running felt natural. After the first five times of having to stop, and hack and wheeze, and spit phlegm into the gutter (Sam Winchester, you charming devil) it actually felt good to suck in deep breaths of cool, crisp air.
He was drenched with sweat when he finally returned to his apartment, but his body felt good. Sam honestly spent too much time sitting in front of computers (not that he would ever, ever admit that in front of Dean). There was a voicemail from Dean on his phone. “We’re not sure who’s picking you up. Or when. Just be ready by six.” There was also a text from Cas, but Sam saved it until after he had showered and shaved. Until after he’d spent far too much time staring at his hair and frowning (the problem with growing out any haircut that had layers and bangs, Sam was learning, was that period that could potentially last for years of looking like a complete and utter tool. But short hair made him look like a man-sized twelve year old, so Sam was determined to stick it out).
“You will have a good time,” Castiel wrote. “Balthazar will be very charming, and he will make sure that everyone is nice to you.”
Sam stared down at the text, straddling the line between surprised and stunned. Then a follow up text came through.
“You will probably receive oral sex.”
Well.