"The Devil, You, and Me" (Supernatural; Sam, Brady; slight Sam/Brady)
Title: “The Devil, You, and Me”
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Brady; sort of Sam/Brady
Genre: Pre-series
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Non-consensual kissing and groping
Word Count: 2,553
Challenge: comment_fic/drabblewriter, “it’s just the two of them on Thanksgiving”
Summary: Sam has nowhere to go for Thanksgiving, so Brady stays and has lunch with him before going home for Thanksgiving dinner. But when he comes back from break, he’s changed.
Notes: Thanks to skylar_matthews for beta-ing. :)
Mirrors: AO3
“Not going home to your folks, then?”
Sam looks up from his textbook to see Brady leaning against the doorframe.
“I don’t think they’d be happy to see me,” he says, smiling ruefully. Brady raises an eyebrow, then straightens up and walks over to Sam.
“Oh, come on. What makes you say that? Is your relationship with your dad and brother so bad that they won’t even welcome you home for Thanksgiving?“
Sam shakes his head. “No, it’s just-well, you know how they are. I still don’t think my dad’s gotten over the fact that I’ve ditched the family business to go to college.” He rolls his eyes. “He wouldn’t speak to me for a week after I told him that I scored a full ride to Stanford. How messed up is that? Most dads would’ve been proud.”
He looks back down at his textbook, trying to focus on the words before him as a crushing feeling grips his chest and a lump rises in his throat. It’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving break, but he still feels a pressing need to study for his exams-and going through this time of year never gets any easier, even when he braces himself for the dread of hearing these questions.
Somebody upstairs has their music turned up loud enough that it rattles the ceiling; his ears latch onto a vaguely familiar tune, and a few choice memories flash across his mind: the scent of old leather. A calloused hand adjusting the rearview mirror. The sound of plastic rattling as cold air floods over his faces. The sound of the trunk popping open; the clink of various bits of metal smacking together and gleaming in the moonlight. Dark eyes observing the curve of a blade before sheathing it into a worn, leather belt.
“Hey, listen,” Brady says, sitting by Sam, who looks up, jerked out of his memories. “You wanna come over to my folks’ place for Thanksgiving? I’m sure we can have one more person at the table; we always have two or three days’ worth of leftovers anyway.”
Sam shakes his head. “Brady, I can’t impose something like that on you. Really.”
“Well, if you don’t want to come home with me for Thanksgiving, then we can have Thanksgiving lunch, at least. I can’t just leave you alone here.” He smiles. “I promised I’d be back for dinner, but I could just go back on Thursday afternoon instead of Wednesday night.”
Sam’s eyes widen. “You don’t have to do this.”
Brady chuckles. “Hey, they won’t mind. It’d be cruel of them to stop me from spending Thanksgiving with one of my best friends who doesn’t have anywhere else to go, right? And besides, I only live like half an hour away. It’s no big deal.”
“Well, if you say so.”
Brady grins, then pats Sam on the back. “Come on. It’s almost break. Lighten up and relax a little, yeah?”
Sam smiles.
“All right.”
❧
The Thanksgiving lunch they prepare isn’t anything fancy-the grocery stores have long since run out of cranberry sauce, turkey, and pumpkin pie, so they settle for chicken drumsticks, prepackaged salad, oranges, and a box of blueberry muffins. They spend an hour or so tossing together the few spices Sam has with the drumsticks and pretending they knew how to cook; they butter a couple slices of leftover wheat bread and toast it, calling it stuffing. It’s not a gourmet meal, but it’s hearty enough and gets the job done.
“Hey, I really appreciate this,” Sam says in between bites of chicken. “I hope your parents aren’t too pissed or anything.”
Brady laughs it off. “Nah, they’re not pissed at all,” he says. “They were disappointed that you didn’t want to come, actually. They told me to invite you next year if your dad still doesn’t want you over.”
Sam gulps a bit too fast and coughs. He doesn’t bother to correct Brady and tell him that it wasn’t that his father explicitly told him not to come over-it was just that even looking at his cell phone with the thought of dialing his father’s number grips him with anxiety and panic, makes him freeze and makes a wave of terror wash over him.
Besides-as he always tells himself whenever he grips the phone, his hand trembling as he stares at the glowing screen-his dad probably won’t even pick up. Dad, Sam imagines, is probably on a hunt, probably hasn’t looked at a calendar in days. He’ll probably take Dean to some fast food joint tonight, where they’ll both chow down on greasy, artery-clogging burgers before going out to track down whatever the monster of the week is. Neither of them will remember that it’s Thanksgiving. Dean might mention Sam, but when John’s face darkens, there won’t be another whisper of his name for weeks.
“Hey, you all right?” Brady says, craning his head to look at Sam, who clears his throat and tugs at his collar. “I learned the Heimlich maneuver just last week-”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Sam says, the corners of his lips twitching into a brief smile. He takes a deep breath, and then a sip of water. “So, uh-how’s the pre-med stuff coming along?“
The concern drops from Brady’s face as he shrugs. “It’s hard, man. Finals aren’t for another month, but I’m already stressed out as hell. To be honest, just the thought of all the work and reviewing and studying I have to do is making me sick to my stomach.” He rolls his eyes. “God, pre-med sucks.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Sam says as he peels an orange. “Didn’t you get the highest score in your chem class on the midterm?”
“Yeah, but then I bombed the next test,” Brady says, grimacing. Sam laughs.
“You got a B. That is not bombing.”
“It is to me!” Brady frowns and spears his drumstick, his fork piercing through the meat and hitting the plate with a chink. “I have to get a 4.0, Sam.”
“Dude, I don’t think med schools require you to have a 4.0. That’s just unreasonable.”
“No, they don’t require it, but think about how many other people I’m competing against. Having a 4.0 would put me ahead of everyone else.” He sighs. “You know, sometimes I wish I didn’t care so much about school. Life would be so much easier if I could let myself get Bs and Cs.”
Sam smiles. “Well, you’re just ambitious. It’s a good thing. Just don’t stress yourself out too much; you don’t want to burn out before going through another, what, eight years of med school?”
“Yeah.” Brady sighs again as he finishes up the rest of his salad. “And what do you want to do? I mean, after graduation?“
Sam shrugs. “I don’t know. Something. Anything. Just so long as it’s not the family business.” And so long as it’s something normal, he thinks. As normal as possible. “Maybe I’ll apply to law school. You know, be a lawyer or something-help out people in need and all.” He imagines himself in a suit and tie, poring over testimonies and evidence by the light of a small lamp at the corner of a broad, mahogany desk; a smile spreads across his face. “I think it’d be something I enjoy.”
Brady smiles. “Yeah, I think you’d make a good lawyer.”
“Yeah?” Sam sits back. “That’s reassuring, at least-knowing that someone has confidence in me.”
“Come on,” Brady says as he leans over and lightly punches Sam in the arm, “you know I’ll always believe in you.”
Sam looks down and blinks a few times, the tip of his nose tingling as warmth spreads through his whole body. He only looks back up at Brady once he’s sure that the few tears that welled up have dissipated.
“Thanks for that, Brady. I mean it.”
“You’re always such a huge sap,” Brady says, grinning. “Girls love sensitive guys. Still single?”
Sam laughs. “I’d rather focus on studying and getting good grades than focus on relationship crap, thanks.”
“Nerd.” Brady gets up and starts stacking the empty dishes in the sink; Sam pushes his chair back and darts before Brady, standing between him and the sink.
“Whoa whoa whoa. Come on, least I can do is clean up. Don’t keep your family waiting.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, if you say so.” Brady manages to worm his way around Sam to set the dish in his hand in the sink. He grabs his bag on his way over to the door.
“Need me to walk you out?” Sam calls out as he transfers plates and cookware to the sink. Brady pauses with his hand on the doorknob and looks back, his eyes twinkling as a small smile touches his lips.
“Nah. I’ll be fine.”
❧
When Sam opens the door a week after Thanksgiving break, he finds a very dishevelled Brady, his neat hair in a mess, his shirt untucked and wrinkled.
“Brady? Are you all right?“
Brady grins.
“Oh, I’m better than I’ve ever been,” he says, his words slurred, his lips in a crooked smile. Sam’s eyes widen as his eyebrows shoot up.
“I thought you didn’t drink.” He catches a whiff of something bitter. “Or smoke.”
Brady opens his arms and laughs. “Oh come on, you gotta let loose and have fun every now and then, right?”
Sam furrows his brow. “Dude, you were just telling me about how much work you have to do. What the hell are you doing partying?”
Brady chuckles. “Sam, Sam, Sam. Man, have we been missing out. SAE threw a fucking amazing party on Tuesday-you should’ve seen the chicks. Hot as all hell.” He mimes wiping sweat off his brow. “And there’s another party going down tomorrow. Come on, whaddya say we let loose, live it up?“
Sam takes a step back, his stomach twisting as his eyes flit over Brady’s half-lidded eyes and as he watches Brady sway, unsteady on his feet.
“All right, Brady, seriously, what happened to you? You told me how you thought ‘chick’ was a degrading term for women, and how college parties are our generation’s failure to learn to socialize without the use of alcohol and sex.” He steps back toward Brady and peers into his face, worry written across his own. “Are you-are you high or something?“
“High on life, man.” Brady crosses over the threshold of the door and shuts it behind him. “Seriously though-you really think this college thing is where you belong? You really think this is what your life’s supposed to be?“ His tone has turned dark, dangerous; Sam feels his heart thumping against his ribs. Brady chuckles. “Oh, Sam. You could do so much more than this. You could do much better than just sit around in a suit and tie, wielding power over some social misfits who run into the law-you could be the law, Sam.”
Sam turns his head. “I don’t understand.”
“No, not now you don’t,” Brady says, sighing and shrugging. “But it’ll all be clear in just a little bit, won’t it?“
“You’re not making sense.”
“Bottom line is,” Brady says, pinning Sam up against a wall, “you just gotta live. Have fun. Let out that little devil in you.”
“Brady-”
“Come on. Ever even been kissed before, Sam?”
Brady’s grin is malicious, twisted; his words come out in a low hiss. He presses his lips to Sam’s; Sam tries to fend him off, but Brady has him up against the wall with his arm jammed against Sam’s throat. He’s stronger than Sam could ever remember, and his lips are hungry, urgent; his teeth clack against Sam’s and his tongue worms its way into Sam’s mouth. Sam sputters and flails before biting down on Brady’s tongue. Brady draws back, one arm still firmly against Sam; he wipes blood away from his tongue with his other hand.
“Didn’t know you liked it rough,” Brady murmurs, smirking as a drop of blood trails down his lips; he tears the buttons off of Sam’s shirt, runs his fingers along Sam’s chest; Sam, gasping for air, finally kicks Brady off. Brady falls to a heap on the ground.
“Brady,” Sam says, his voice low and steady, “get yourself together. Lay off the alcohol and the drugs or whatever the hell you’re messing with.”
Brady looks up at Sam and grins.
“Oh, Sam. Come on. Just let your true self go free.”
Sam balls his hands into fists, and he considers grabbing Brady by the collar and throwing him out-but Brady’s eyes look strange, unfocused. He takes another deep breath and centers himself before helping Brady up and dragging him over to the couch.
“Look,” he says, his eyes fiery, his voice stern, “you’re my pal and all, but I’m not putting up with this. I’m not going to sit by and just watch as you ’live it up’ and throw away everything you’ve been working for.” He sighs and puts his hands on his hips, his gaze furious. “You are going to lie here and sleep it off. We’ll talk again in the morning. You got that?”
“Sure thing, Sammy,” Brady says, grinning madly, his eyes crazed, the smear of blood on his chin rapidly drying to a dark maroon.
“Do not call me ’Sammy’,” Sam says, glowering. The anger rising off of him is almost tangible, suffocating, and Brady’s grin fades to a faint smile. He lays his head against a pillow and closes his eyes. Within moments, his breathing slows and steadies. Sam watches him for a few more moments, his heart pounding.
Sam takes a quick shower and scrubs down his chest; as soon as he steps out of the shower, he pulls on his pajama pants and goes over to the sink to rinse his mouth out twice with mouthwash, wincing as the alcohol nips at his tongue and lips. He takes one last glance at Brady, soundly passed out on the couch, before going to bed, his neck still smarting where Brady’s arm was.
❧
The next morning, Brady is gone.
Sam curses underneath his breath. He picks up his phone and punches in Brady’s number; he lets out a frustrated growl when he hears the recorded sound of Brady’s voice telling him to leave his name, number, and a brief message.
“Yeah, Brady, it’s Sam,” he says. “Where are you? Listen, I’m worried about you. Call me back.”
He hangs up and tosses his phone on the table, where it remains silent for a moment before buzzing and flashing. Sam snatches it and glances at the caller ID-BRADY-and his fingers smash against a few extra keys in his hurry to answer the call.
“Brady?”
“Yeah, hey-I’m super sorry about last night-”
“Dude, what the hell was up with that? I’m seriously worried about you.”
Brady sighs on the other end of the line. “Look, it was my bad. Let me take you out to lunch and I’ll make it up to you.”
Sam frowns. “If you think you’re going to get out of this that easily-”
“You can pick wherever you want. Seriously. I’m sorry.”
“Brady-”
“And besides,” Brady says, and Sam can almost hear it as Brady’s lips curl into a grin, “there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Brady; sort of Sam/Brady
Genre: Pre-series
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Non-consensual kissing and groping
Word Count: 2,553
Challenge: comment_fic/drabblewriter, “it’s just the two of them on Thanksgiving”
Summary: Sam has nowhere to go for Thanksgiving, so Brady stays and has lunch with him before going home for Thanksgiving dinner. But when he comes back from break, he’s changed.
Notes: Thanks to skylar_matthews for beta-ing. :)
Mirrors: AO3
“Not going home to your folks, then?”
Sam looks up from his textbook to see Brady leaning against the doorframe.
“I don’t think they’d be happy to see me,” he says, smiling ruefully. Brady raises an eyebrow, then straightens up and walks over to Sam.
“Oh, come on. What makes you say that? Is your relationship with your dad and brother so bad that they won’t even welcome you home for Thanksgiving?“
Sam shakes his head. “No, it’s just-well, you know how they are. I still don’t think my dad’s gotten over the fact that I’ve ditched the family business to go to college.” He rolls his eyes. “He wouldn’t speak to me for a week after I told him that I scored a full ride to Stanford. How messed up is that? Most dads would’ve been proud.”
He looks back down at his textbook, trying to focus on the words before him as a crushing feeling grips his chest and a lump rises in his throat. It’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving break, but he still feels a pressing need to study for his exams-and going through this time of year never gets any easier, even when he braces himself for the dread of hearing these questions.
Somebody upstairs has their music turned up loud enough that it rattles the ceiling; his ears latch onto a vaguely familiar tune, and a few choice memories flash across his mind: the scent of old leather. A calloused hand adjusting the rearview mirror. The sound of plastic rattling as cold air floods over his faces. The sound of the trunk popping open; the clink of various bits of metal smacking together and gleaming in the moonlight. Dark eyes observing the curve of a blade before sheathing it into a worn, leather belt.
“Hey, listen,” Brady says, sitting by Sam, who looks up, jerked out of his memories. “You wanna come over to my folks’ place for Thanksgiving? I’m sure we can have one more person at the table; we always have two or three days’ worth of leftovers anyway.”
Sam shakes his head. “Brady, I can’t impose something like that on you. Really.”
“Well, if you don’t want to come home with me for Thanksgiving, then we can have Thanksgiving lunch, at least. I can’t just leave you alone here.” He smiles. “I promised I’d be back for dinner, but I could just go back on Thursday afternoon instead of Wednesday night.”
Sam’s eyes widen. “You don’t have to do this.”
Brady chuckles. “Hey, they won’t mind. It’d be cruel of them to stop me from spending Thanksgiving with one of my best friends who doesn’t have anywhere else to go, right? And besides, I only live like half an hour away. It’s no big deal.”
“Well, if you say so.”
Brady grins, then pats Sam on the back. “Come on. It’s almost break. Lighten up and relax a little, yeah?”
Sam smiles.
“All right.”
❧
The Thanksgiving lunch they prepare isn’t anything fancy-the grocery stores have long since run out of cranberry sauce, turkey, and pumpkin pie, so they settle for chicken drumsticks, prepackaged salad, oranges, and a box of blueberry muffins. They spend an hour or so tossing together the few spices Sam has with the drumsticks and pretending they knew how to cook; they butter a couple slices of leftover wheat bread and toast it, calling it stuffing. It’s not a gourmet meal, but it’s hearty enough and gets the job done.
“Hey, I really appreciate this,” Sam says in between bites of chicken. “I hope your parents aren’t too pissed or anything.”
Brady laughs it off. “Nah, they’re not pissed at all,” he says. “They were disappointed that you didn’t want to come, actually. They told me to invite you next year if your dad still doesn’t want you over.”
Sam gulps a bit too fast and coughs. He doesn’t bother to correct Brady and tell him that it wasn’t that his father explicitly told him not to come over-it was just that even looking at his cell phone with the thought of dialing his father’s number grips him with anxiety and panic, makes him freeze and makes a wave of terror wash over him.
Besides-as he always tells himself whenever he grips the phone, his hand trembling as he stares at the glowing screen-his dad probably won’t even pick up. Dad, Sam imagines, is probably on a hunt, probably hasn’t looked at a calendar in days. He’ll probably take Dean to some fast food joint tonight, where they’ll both chow down on greasy, artery-clogging burgers before going out to track down whatever the monster of the week is. Neither of them will remember that it’s Thanksgiving. Dean might mention Sam, but when John’s face darkens, there won’t be another whisper of his name for weeks.
“Hey, you all right?” Brady says, craning his head to look at Sam, who clears his throat and tugs at his collar. “I learned the Heimlich maneuver just last week-”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Sam says, the corners of his lips twitching into a brief smile. He takes a deep breath, and then a sip of water. “So, uh-how’s the pre-med stuff coming along?“
The concern drops from Brady’s face as he shrugs. “It’s hard, man. Finals aren’t for another month, but I’m already stressed out as hell. To be honest, just the thought of all the work and reviewing and studying I have to do is making me sick to my stomach.” He rolls his eyes. “God, pre-med sucks.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Sam says as he peels an orange. “Didn’t you get the highest score in your chem class on the midterm?”
“Yeah, but then I bombed the next test,” Brady says, grimacing. Sam laughs.
“You got a B. That is not bombing.”
“It is to me!” Brady frowns and spears his drumstick, his fork piercing through the meat and hitting the plate with a chink. “I have to get a 4.0, Sam.”
“Dude, I don’t think med schools require you to have a 4.0. That’s just unreasonable.”
“No, they don’t require it, but think about how many other people I’m competing against. Having a 4.0 would put me ahead of everyone else.” He sighs. “You know, sometimes I wish I didn’t care so much about school. Life would be so much easier if I could let myself get Bs and Cs.”
Sam smiles. “Well, you’re just ambitious. It’s a good thing. Just don’t stress yourself out too much; you don’t want to burn out before going through another, what, eight years of med school?”
“Yeah.” Brady sighs again as he finishes up the rest of his salad. “And what do you want to do? I mean, after graduation?“
Sam shrugs. “I don’t know. Something. Anything. Just so long as it’s not the family business.” And so long as it’s something normal, he thinks. As normal as possible. “Maybe I’ll apply to law school. You know, be a lawyer or something-help out people in need and all.” He imagines himself in a suit and tie, poring over testimonies and evidence by the light of a small lamp at the corner of a broad, mahogany desk; a smile spreads across his face. “I think it’d be something I enjoy.”
Brady smiles. “Yeah, I think you’d make a good lawyer.”
“Yeah?” Sam sits back. “That’s reassuring, at least-knowing that someone has confidence in me.”
“Come on,” Brady says as he leans over and lightly punches Sam in the arm, “you know I’ll always believe in you.”
Sam looks down and blinks a few times, the tip of his nose tingling as warmth spreads through his whole body. He only looks back up at Brady once he’s sure that the few tears that welled up have dissipated.
“Thanks for that, Brady. I mean it.”
“You’re always such a huge sap,” Brady says, grinning. “Girls love sensitive guys. Still single?”
Sam laughs. “I’d rather focus on studying and getting good grades than focus on relationship crap, thanks.”
“Nerd.” Brady gets up and starts stacking the empty dishes in the sink; Sam pushes his chair back and darts before Brady, standing between him and the sink.
“Whoa whoa whoa. Come on, least I can do is clean up. Don’t keep your family waiting.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, if you say so.” Brady manages to worm his way around Sam to set the dish in his hand in the sink. He grabs his bag on his way over to the door.
“Need me to walk you out?” Sam calls out as he transfers plates and cookware to the sink. Brady pauses with his hand on the doorknob and looks back, his eyes twinkling as a small smile touches his lips.
“Nah. I’ll be fine.”
❧
When Sam opens the door a week after Thanksgiving break, he finds a very dishevelled Brady, his neat hair in a mess, his shirt untucked and wrinkled.
“Brady? Are you all right?“
Brady grins.
“Oh, I’m better than I’ve ever been,” he says, his words slurred, his lips in a crooked smile. Sam’s eyes widen as his eyebrows shoot up.
“I thought you didn’t drink.” He catches a whiff of something bitter. “Or smoke.”
Brady opens his arms and laughs. “Oh come on, you gotta let loose and have fun every now and then, right?”
Sam furrows his brow. “Dude, you were just telling me about how much work you have to do. What the hell are you doing partying?”
Brady chuckles. “Sam, Sam, Sam. Man, have we been missing out. SAE threw a fucking amazing party on Tuesday-you should’ve seen the chicks. Hot as all hell.” He mimes wiping sweat off his brow. “And there’s another party going down tomorrow. Come on, whaddya say we let loose, live it up?“
Sam takes a step back, his stomach twisting as his eyes flit over Brady’s half-lidded eyes and as he watches Brady sway, unsteady on his feet.
“All right, Brady, seriously, what happened to you? You told me how you thought ‘chick’ was a degrading term for women, and how college parties are our generation’s failure to learn to socialize without the use of alcohol and sex.” He steps back toward Brady and peers into his face, worry written across his own. “Are you-are you high or something?“
“High on life, man.” Brady crosses over the threshold of the door and shuts it behind him. “Seriously though-you really think this college thing is where you belong? You really think this is what your life’s supposed to be?“ His tone has turned dark, dangerous; Sam feels his heart thumping against his ribs. Brady chuckles. “Oh, Sam. You could do so much more than this. You could do much better than just sit around in a suit and tie, wielding power over some social misfits who run into the law-you could be the law, Sam.”
Sam turns his head. “I don’t understand.”
“No, not now you don’t,” Brady says, sighing and shrugging. “But it’ll all be clear in just a little bit, won’t it?“
“You’re not making sense.”
“Bottom line is,” Brady says, pinning Sam up against a wall, “you just gotta live. Have fun. Let out that little devil in you.”
“Brady-”
“Come on. Ever even been kissed before, Sam?”
Brady’s grin is malicious, twisted; his words come out in a low hiss. He presses his lips to Sam’s; Sam tries to fend him off, but Brady has him up against the wall with his arm jammed against Sam’s throat. He’s stronger than Sam could ever remember, and his lips are hungry, urgent; his teeth clack against Sam’s and his tongue worms its way into Sam’s mouth. Sam sputters and flails before biting down on Brady’s tongue. Brady draws back, one arm still firmly against Sam; he wipes blood away from his tongue with his other hand.
“Didn’t know you liked it rough,” Brady murmurs, smirking as a drop of blood trails down his lips; he tears the buttons off of Sam’s shirt, runs his fingers along Sam’s chest; Sam, gasping for air, finally kicks Brady off. Brady falls to a heap on the ground.
“Brady,” Sam says, his voice low and steady, “get yourself together. Lay off the alcohol and the drugs or whatever the hell you’re messing with.”
Brady looks up at Sam and grins.
“Oh, Sam. Come on. Just let your true self go free.”
Sam balls his hands into fists, and he considers grabbing Brady by the collar and throwing him out-but Brady’s eyes look strange, unfocused. He takes another deep breath and centers himself before helping Brady up and dragging him over to the couch.
“Look,” he says, his eyes fiery, his voice stern, “you’re my pal and all, but I’m not putting up with this. I’m not going to sit by and just watch as you ’live it up’ and throw away everything you’ve been working for.” He sighs and puts his hands on his hips, his gaze furious. “You are going to lie here and sleep it off. We’ll talk again in the morning. You got that?”
“Sure thing, Sammy,” Brady says, grinning madly, his eyes crazed, the smear of blood on his chin rapidly drying to a dark maroon.
“Do not call me ’Sammy’,” Sam says, glowering. The anger rising off of him is almost tangible, suffocating, and Brady’s grin fades to a faint smile. He lays his head against a pillow and closes his eyes. Within moments, his breathing slows and steadies. Sam watches him for a few more moments, his heart pounding.
Sam takes a quick shower and scrubs down his chest; as soon as he steps out of the shower, he pulls on his pajama pants and goes over to the sink to rinse his mouth out twice with mouthwash, wincing as the alcohol nips at his tongue and lips. He takes one last glance at Brady, soundly passed out on the couch, before going to bed, his neck still smarting where Brady’s arm was.
❧
The next morning, Brady is gone.
Sam curses underneath his breath. He picks up his phone and punches in Brady’s number; he lets out a frustrated growl when he hears the recorded sound of Brady’s voice telling him to leave his name, number, and a brief message.
“Yeah, Brady, it’s Sam,” he says. “Where are you? Listen, I’m worried about you. Call me back.”
He hangs up and tosses his phone on the table, where it remains silent for a moment before buzzing and flashing. Sam snatches it and glances at the caller ID-BRADY-and his fingers smash against a few extra keys in his hurry to answer the call.
“Brady?”
“Yeah, hey-I’m super sorry about last night-”
“Dude, what the hell was up with that? I’m seriously worried about you.”
Brady sighs on the other end of the line. “Look, it was my bad. Let me take you out to lunch and I’ll make it up to you.”
Sam frowns. “If you think you’re going to get out of this that easily-”
“You can pick wherever you want. Seriously. I’m sorry.”
“Brady-”
“And besides,” Brady says, and Sam can almost hear it as Brady’s lips curl into a grin, “there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”