Fic: Clean Getaway (2/2)

[vicious_trade]

Title: Clean Getaway
Author: vicious_trade 
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17  (like, for actual this time)
Words: 11,500
Summary: It was cute for about a week. But it it's been several months now and somehow Sam is still not getting it.

A/N: I had no intention of turning this into a 'verse when I first started on this journey, but apparently this one goes right along with Say It's Possible and ...And One More For the Road. You don't have to read those first, but it might help and make me happy at the same time :)
Has anyone ever seen the movie The Upside of Anger with Kevin Costner? A lot of the shower scenes were inspired by that.

Part One is here.


Dean builds a tower out of French fries at a diner in Kansas City a few days later. It’s a little after eleven in the morning, but the restaurant they found is freakin’ awesome - black and white tiles, jukebox in the corner, and waitresses with tits so gargantuan they just have to be smuggling half a box of Kleenex in there. Not to mention they serve burgers twenty-four hours a day.

He hears the sound of someone hacking up a lung even before he registers the bell dinging above the door. Not just anyone, though. The same lump of contagion that’s been huddled in the bed beside him for the past week now. The pale, red-nosed, miserable looking bastard currently standing by the entrance blinking owlishly around the room.

“Sam,” Dean calls reluctantly, because people are staring and he doesn’t really want to alert everyone that the walking epidemic belongs to him.

Sam nods and weaves his way through the crowd which doesn’t seem all that difficult, seeing as everyone pretty much steers a clear path around him and the trail of germ warfare he leaves in his wake. It’s like watching Moses part the red sea “Hey,” Sam sniffs, flopping down into the booth. “Sorry.”

Dean shoots him a look, trying to remember an incident that was apology-worthy and coming up empty. “Oh, yeah. You should be,” Dean retorts, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Glancing up with red, squinty eyes, Sam frowns guiltily. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, totally oblivious. “I couldn’t find the clean shirt I’d gotten from my bag, so then I looked everywhere for it but then I gave up. I had to pick another one, and when I went back into the bathroom to change I found it on the counter, and...” His voice squeaks out into a pitch that only dogs can understand, and that leads to a bout of painful-sounding coughs.

Grimacing, Dean rolls his eyes. “Okay, riveting story there, Aunt Mildred.” He feels the coil of worry he’s been working on for the last little while get tighter in his gut. Sam’s IQ always drops a few points when his fever spikes. “I was just kidding.”

“Oh,” Sam croaks, looking confused. One of his hands comes up and kneads at the center of his chest.

Dean watches, feeling his brows knit together. “You okay?”

Head snapping up, Sam blinks and drops his hand, scrambling for a menu. “Yeah, fine.” He clears his throat, wincing, and tries to hide behind the peeling laminate. “What’s the soup of the day?”

Dean’s eyes narrow. “Cream of bullshit.” He reaches out and tips the menu down that’s obscuring his brother’s face, feeling uneasy. “What’s wrong, Sam? Your chest hurt?” A million different possibilities start colliding around in his brain, none of which are all that good. Pneumonia being a scary option. Anthrax just as frightening, but less likely.

“No,” Sam starts, but his hand comes up again just as he’s saying it, shoulders hunched inwards. At the disbelieving look he’s getting he stops and relents. “Only when I...” And then he proceeds to give a live demonstration.

Which is really not necessary, but Dean doesn’t get a chance to tell him so before he has to slide over to the opposite end of the booth to watch and listen helplessly while Sam lapses into one hell of a coughing fit. The sound is wet and exhausting, worse than Dean can remember hearing before, and when he reaches out to rub Sam’s back, the kid flinches away from him like that’ll hurt, too.

If the duration and severity of the episode hadn’t been enough to convince him that Sam needed a doctor, the awful, crackling quality of Sam’s laboured breaths in the aftermath does the trick. It sounds like wrapping paper on Christmas morning and seems to sap just about every last remnant of Sam’s energy. “Okay,” he says decisively, all fake bravado as he flags down a waitress for the bill, “that’s it. We’re getting you checked out.”

Sam tries to argue with him but that proves to be impossible without a voice - go figure. They find a drop-in clinic with a quiet waiting room and perky receptionist and within an hour they’re seen by a doctor that makes disapproving, throaty noises when he listens to Sam’s lungs.

“Bronchitis.” He states coolly, scribbling on a prescription pad. “And a pretty developed case of it, too.” Like it’s an accomplishment.

Dean glances at Sam, who sits huddled and guilty-looking on the examination table. “How do you treat it? Can you give him some antibiotics?” He does a mental tally of what they’ve got on reserves in the first-aid kit, just in case Jim Baumgartner’s health card doesn’t cover Penicillin.

“Your brother’s case is viral, not bacterial. It’ll just have to run its course - as long as he gets plenty of rest and fluids. He’s going to need an inhaler for the more severe attacks. If he gets any worse or he’s still sick in a few weeks, he’ll have to come back in and be reassessed.” And then, because the guy is actually a huge dilhole, he uses high-tech terminology and zero explanation. “We don’t want it to become a COPD.”

Clearing his throat, Dean tries a few options out in his head first. “Carnivorous Octopus Pesticides...what?” He waits, neck craned expectantly.

The doctor gives him a look he tears off a sheet from his notepad. “Chronic Pulmonary Obstructive Disorder.” He hands over the piece of paper and a mock-sympathetic smile in Sam’s direction that has little to with his illness and more or less says I’m sorry your brother is a fucking moron.

Okay, so maybe Dean doesn’t know exactly what that is, it sure doesn’t sound good, but in all honesty, it doesn’t really matter - it’s not an option. A non-issue. Not on Dean’s watch.

Sam is a tightly-furled ball of misery by the time they get back to the room, one that Dean coaxes under a mountain of blankets, jacked up against a stack of pillows. With a convenience-store variety of beverages lining the side table and a slew of decongestant and fever medications at the ready, Dean hands over the remote control and stands aside, feeling clunky and useless.

The TV stays off, though. “This sucks.” Sam sighs breathily, sinking back pitifully.

“I know.” Dean replies, crossing and uncrossing his arms.

“A lot.”

“Not disagreeing here.”

“Sorry.”

Dean sighs, glaring down at the watery Anime-eyes that are staring up at him. “You know, you’re only allowed to look like that if the hunter is about to shoot your mother.”

With a little twitch of his lips, Sam snorts a laugh, which quickly disintegrates into the epic coughing fit that Will Not End. It pulls at something in Dean’s chest, watching Sam struggle like that to draw in each breath, the painful sounds in between, and he sits restlessly on the edge of the mattress, watching and waiting, brand new inhaler at the ready.

After what seems like an eternity they taper off, leaving Sam gasping and swiping weakly at the tears that have leaked from the corners of his eyes. “’Ough S’rup?”

Dean feels like the bad guy when he shakes his head. “No can do, babe. Doc said suppressing it is the worst thing we could do.” He sighs, taking a crumpled tissue from Sam’s hand and gently dabbing his face. “You’re just gonna have to cough all that crap out of your lungs.” It’s going to be a long couple of sleepless nights.

Sam lets out a feeble groan. “This. Sucks.”

He balls up the Kleenex and nods with a smile, smoothing his hands down the length of his thighs. “You said it.”

Just as he’s moving to stand, Sam’s hand shoots out and latches onto his wrist. “Where are you going?” He croaks, eyes impossibly wider.

And just like that, Dean feels a flood of warmth throughout his whole body, starting in his fingertips and radiating all the way down to his toes. His limbs go slack and a slow smile spreads halfway across his face. “Nowhere.” He promises, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of Sam’s hair off his forehead. Sam’s eyelids droop helplessly at the motion. “Nowhere,” he repeats.

Sam breathes in and out deeply a couple of times, just watching him in silence before letting his eyes fall shut. “Good.” He murmurs, grip loosening but only marginally, as he pulls Dean’s hand a little further up his chest.

It’s not the most comfortable of positions. Dean has to toe off his boots and slink up onto the mattress, one cheek on and one cheek off. Sam’s overheated body is like a furnace nestled up beside him, and he hasn’t exactly gotten a chance to take off his coat yet, so yeah, it’s a little toasty. Plus, there’s a wad of mucus-y tissue nestled wetly in his palm.

But there’s not a chance in hell that he’ll be moving anytime soon.

A week or so later finds them on a chilly evening in March. The weather in Nebraska can’t seem to make up its mind between pissing rain and sending down penny-sized hailstones, so right now it’s doing both. The combination is hammering down on the old tin roof of the motel they found off highway 99. It’s loud as hell, and it’s quite possible the old building isn’t going to make it through to morning light, but Dean’s been picking out a rhythm, and it sounds disturbingly like Thunderstuck, so maybe Mother Nature isn’t such a tasteless bitch, after all.

He’s almost faded off into sleep when a careful hand plucks at his wrist and lifts. One eye snapping open, Dean tears away and clamps back down on the warm body tucked up against his naked chest.

Sam makes a small sound of displeasure.

“Going somewhere?” Dean drawls slowly, and the gale outside is so loud, it almost drowns him out.

Squirming, Sam doesn’t turn around. “Shower,” he grunts.

So not happening. It’s the first night in what feels like forever that he’s been able to get a little action without Sam whining about contagion and gestation periods and he’s going to fucking enjoy it, God damn it. He hadn’t really even cared all that much about sharing a couple of germs with Sam in the first place, if it’d meant he’d be able to swap a little spit, at the very least. Which of course either means he’s got a death wish or is becoming a major fruit. One or the other.

“Tough,” Dean says, tightening his hold around Sam’s waist and letting his eyes fall shut again.

Sam, the wiry little bastard that he is, somehow manages to slither around until he’s on his back, glaring up at the ceiling. “Dean.” It sounds like a warning, or a plea.

Blinking, Dean is caught off guard just enough to give a little slack. “What?” He asks, incredulous.

It’s all the room Sam needs. Within seconds he’s pulled out of the hold and away from the warmth of the blankets. “I just...” He gets off the bed and turns to shoot Dean a look of genuine irritation, a hint of it surfacing in his voice. “I want to shower.”

Fortunately, Sam being the prude that he is, stops to pull his boxers back on before padding barefoot across the room. Unexpectedly alert, Dean lurches up from the comfort of the pillows and wraps his fingers around Sam’s forearm, stopping him before he can get too far away from the bed. “Why?” He demands, giving an experimental tug. “Why can’t you just skip it this once?”

Sam looks partly confused and mostly...like he’s stalling. “Why do you need me to?” He asks.

Dean rolls his eyes. “Because I want to be the big spoon, fuckwad. Do I need a reason? Can you just get your scrawny ass back into the bed?” He pulls a little harder and Sam has to take a staggering step back towards him. “Sam? Get back in the bed.” He tries it like a demand, just to see what’ll happen.

The result is Sam, glaring at him. “No.”

“Jesus!” Dean snaps, tightening his grip on Sam’s flesh just to see him flinch. “Are you seriously this anal? You can’t let yourself get comfortable for just a second?” He asks rhetorically, ready for a fight.

Sam does something tricky with his wrist that shakes him off almost effortlessly, stepping back and away. “No,” Sam mutters, little flash of something withering and wounded in his eyes, sarcastic smile playing across his lips. “I’m not stupid, Dean. I’m not about to let myself get comfortable. Not with you. Not even for a second.” Then he’s backing up slowly and turning away, disappearing into the bathroom.

It’s like a time bomb that takes a few seconds to go off. One minute, Dean is sitting dumbstruck on a pile or cooling, starchy sheets. The next there’s a wash of white-hot rage flooding through his system and all of a sudden he’s up and across the room, standing and staring sightlessly at a solid oak door.

The water has just turned on, screeching angrily through the pipes when Dean takes the first kick. The wood splinters and gives under his foot, and it’ll probably hurt later, but Dean doesn’t register it. The second kick has the old door busting off the hinges and falling inwards, crashing against the tiled floor and knocking into the rusty upright sink with a resounding crack.

Dust is settling in the air when Sam jumps out of the way, spinning on a dime and staring wide-eyed at the intrusion. “Dean...” He gasps, expression going instantly from exasperated to utterly bewildered.

Feeling his hands curl into fists at his sides, so tightly that his nails cut crescents into his palms, Dean only takes one shuddering step into the claustrophobic room before physically restraining himself. “I’ve never wanted to hit a person as much as I want to hit you right now.” He’s unfamiliar with the dark, grating voice that fills the room, but figures it must be his own.

Sam says nothing. He swallows audibly, tilting his chin skywards a little, like he’s ready for a punch. Like he deserves it.

The single, miniscule motion is what does it - what turns the key in the lock that holds all the things he’s not supposed to say and lets them come pouring out into the open. “I am so sick and tired of putting up with your shit. I do it because I know you, Sam. I know how your twisted little brain works and I know what you’re going through but it’s enough already!” He stops, drawing in the breath that’s somehow gotten away from him. “It’s a lot to ask of a patient motherfucker and we both know that I’m the farthest thing from that you’ll ever lay eyes on.”

For a long moment they are frozen in a standoff, and all Dean can see around the haze of red in his field of vision is Sam’s stunned features. But as the seconds tick by and his fingers unfurl themselves at his side, Dean’s legs remember how to move again and they turn him from the bathroom and all the way through the room to the one door he left standing.

This time he gets a hell of a lot farther than the parking lot.

It’s a little after three in the morning when he pulls in to the motel. The hail has long given up and even the rain seems to have lost the will to pound mercilessly on the asphalt, settling for a fine drizzle that mists up the air and makes it hard to breathe.

There’s a light on in the window, and really, Dean hadn’t expected any less.

When he first walks in, Sam is sitting rigidly on the end of the bed. His broad shoulders are set at a hard, straight line and the only movement he makes when the door opens and closes is minor and controlled, head lifting but not turning.

Dean stands by an empty coat rack and waits, but Sam doesn’t so much as look at him. The numb, hollow feeling he’d been working on for the duration of the fast and furious drive around town was quickly replaced with that same old slow burn, clenching his jaw and stalking slowly and silently to where his brother sat.

It’s like the closer he gets, the louder Sam breathes. By the time he’s standing inches from the bed, edge of his jeans brushing against Sam’s back, the kid has tensed impossibly tighter, muscles bunched and straining under the cotton of his t-shirt. Dean watches him, back heaving with raspy, irregular breaths and worries for a moment that they’re on their way to some kind of relapse, mentally reminding himself of where Sam’s inhaler is and the last time he used it.

But then a hand is gripping the middle of his shirt, blunt fingers twisting and scratching at the flesh of his stomach. Sam still isn’t looking at him, but he’s at least facing forward now, and Dean can see the crumpled expression, the screwed-up nose and the thinned line of his lips. He listens to the noisy breaths for another moment more before Sam’s hand is pulling at him, so hard that Dean ends up bent over and Sam’s eyes are suddenly right there.

Dean fists a hand in the long locks of hair at the back of Sam’s hand and pushes, but Sam comes eagerly, mouth hot and wet crushed against his. He says nothing but a barely contained whimper in the back of his throat when Dean sets a hard and ruthless pace, pliant under his touch. When Dean presses him down against the rumpled blankets, Sam falls slowly and lies there. Waits.

Dean takes his time with his own coat and shoes, but once he’s back, kneeling on the mattress, he tears hastily at Sam’s clothes, stripping off each layer like it’s an unnecessary barrier to his ultimate goal. Once there’s so much as a glimpse of golden skin at his fingertips, Dean goes to work, marking him with his lips, fingers, tongue. He wonders, not for the first time, how long it would take to touch every acre of the long, lean flesh. How it would feel to know every piece of Sam was truly his.

Sam trembles under him. “Dean,” he murmurs, voice absolutely wrecked.

Ignoring it, Dean plants two hands on Sam’s bare shoulders and pushes, sliding him across the sheets while Sam’s skin scrapes roughly past his lips. His mouth closes around a nipple and he lashes at it with his tongue, nipping with teeth while his fingers trail across Sam’s chest to pluck at the other one. His other hand goes to work, making a slow descent down to wrap around Sam’s dick, already hard and leaking in his fist.

“Dean...” Sam moans again, louder this time, head thrashing.

But Dean just shushes him, starting a slow, rolling rhythm. “I’ve got you.” He tells him gruffly. He’s always known what Sam needs.

Even when Sam doesn’t.

He waits until Sam is mindless and quivering under his touch before finally shucking his jeans. Sam lets out a gasp that sounds more like a sob when Dean lifts one mile-long leg over his shoulder, fingers cold and wet with lube tracing firmly around his hole. “Easy,” Dean says when first one, then two slip easily inside. He pumps in and out a few times before pulling out and wiping them dry roughly on the tender skin of Sam’s hip bone. “Easy.” He repeats, then lines himself up dead center. Sam whimpers right before he snaps his hips forward.

“Oh, God.” Sam moans, trying to rock up into the thrusts that Dean is pacing, but first it’s agonizingly slow, then wickedly fast and he must give up on the game Dean’s playing because soon he’s up on his elbows, hands greedily reaching out. “Dean, please.”

“Shh,” Dean murmurs, pushing until Sam is flat again. He finds Sam’s wrists and grips them both, pulling them up and over Sam’s head. When he leaves them like that, lying slack and useless against the pillows, Sam keeps them there like he’s been bound with imaginary rope.

It sets off something feral in his gut that has him pumping into Sam harder, faster. He realizes he’s not going to last long, not like this, but Dean knows the writhing body beneath him better than his own, and he knows exactly what he’s doing when he angles up, starts aiming his thrusts higher, deeper. Sam’s eyes slam closed and soon there’s an endless flood of pleas and obscenities streaming from his lips.

When Dean starts jacking him, hard and fast, rough sweep of his thumb over the leaking head, it’s all over. Sam goes rigid, crying out his name once before coming all over his hands, the sheets. Seconds later Dean lets himself go, spilling his load deep into Sam’s body and collapsing down on top of him, soaked in sweat and breathing hard.

They lay there like that as the wind and rain picks up again outside. A couple minutes later, Dean rolls over, punches up a pillow and closes his eyes. He waits for the moment when the bed will shift and Sam, who is currently lying there stone-still beside him, will get up and high-tail it to the shower.

When he’s still waiting five minutes later, Dean falls asleep. He assumes that it’s because without the door, the bathroom is a little drafty.

It takes awhile for things to go back to normal after that.

Sam tiptoes around him for a few days, even more awkward out in the open than before, although Dean didn’t think that was humanly possible. Dean starts limiting himself to the number of PDA’s in a given day, and Sam gets - weird. Like each time Dean allows himself to get close to him in a public setting he hovers somewhere between utter shock and relief, delayed realization playing out like an uncomfortable blind date.

The most fucked up part has got to be the way Sam stops taking showers. Not all together, because that would be, well, gross. But they start to get a little irregular, like at four in the morning when they’ve only been asleep for a few hours, or right in the middle of the day when they’ve just finished lunch. And every time he comes out of the bathroom, Sam’s got this caught-red-handed look on his face.

It’s actually pretty hilarious. For awhile, at least.

One day Dean comes back from picking up dinner to the infamous sound of water against porcelain and just lets himself right in, taking his seat on the closed lid of the toilet. Waiting.

Sam steps out a few minutes later completely oblivious until he towels off his dripping face. When he notices Dean, his eyes snap open and he gives an audible gulp, nervously covering his nether regions with a hand towel. “Um...” He’s glancing around the room, which is still in one piece, but he’s still not relaxing.

Dean smiles. “You know, I didn’t just come in here to see you naked,” He smirks, then nods at the entrance, “Or kick the door in. You know, been there. Done that.”

“Okay,” Sam starts, but doesn’t move.

Mood darkening, Dean lets out a weary sigh. Apparently Sam isn’t going to make this easy on him. “Are you happy?” He asks, point blank.

A crease appears between Sam’s eyes and that means he’s sorry - genuinely I-drove-the-Impala-and-now-it’s-making-a-weird-sound-but-I-didn’t-mean-it sorry, the kind that pulls at the heartstrings and usually gets him off the hook. “Dean...” he starts, unhappy little frown.

“I mean it, Sam. Are you happy? Because if you are, if I had to do this - this dance with you every single day and make you believe that I want you all over again for the rest of my life, I would. If it made you happy, I’d do it.” He stops because his voice is getting rough, his throat a little tight, and Sam is such an asshole for making him feel this much, this hard. “But I don’t think it does. And that’s all I’m in this for, Sam. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Sam blinks at him once and then looks away, around the room. He takes in a long, slow breath.

Dean sees it right away - the look in those hazel eyes that’s creeping up and always does the damage he’s helpless to stop or undo. “I know how you’re thinking right now - I can tell. You think you don’t deserve good things in your life. I’ve got to tell you, Sam, I used to think that way and I figured out pretty fast that life is short, and it’s fucking cruel.” He swallows hard, like he’s choking down glass, and waits until Sam looks at him. “And this is a good thing. I’m not letting you waste it. Not for you, and not for me.” Because you are, he thinks. You’re wasting this, and I’ve been letting you.

For a long time Sam stands there, dripping on the bathmat, just breathing silently and staring back. When he gives a tiny nod and swipes a hand down his face, Dean bobs his head as well and gets up, leaving the room.

On a Tuesday in Duluth, Dean wakes up to Sam kissing his chest, all pillow-tangled hair and boyish smiles. They drink coffee in bed and don’t even end up in clothes until sometime after one in the afternoon.

When they stop for dinner at a busy Chinese place a few blocks away, Sam lets him order too much food and reads their fortune cookies aloud. “Plan for many pleasures ahead,” Sam recites, grinning broadly because he obviously knows what’s coming next.

“In bed,” Dean supplies around a mouthful of chow mein. “Shit, Sammy, I don’t know. Sounds pretty accurate.”

“Yeah?” says Sam, quirking an eyebrow as he snags Dean’s cookie from the other end of the table and takes it in hand, deftly cracking it open. “Then figure this one out, Dean. Something you lost will soon turn up.” He lets the unspoken ending hang in the air.

Dean pouts, because that has got to be one of biggest future-telling let-downs in the history of the crystal balls. “What the fuck, dude? How lame is that?” He huffs, picking up the cookie remains and stuffing them in his mouth as a consolation prize. “What, I’m gonna find a set of keys under a pillow? That pair of underwear with the hole in the left ass-cheek? What do you lose in bed?”

The corner of Sam’s mouth crooks upwards, eyes flashing in amusement. “Your virginity?” He tries, smirking.

“Oh, we parted ways long ago, Sammy.” Dean tells him wisely, leaning back in his chair and patting a full stomach. “It ain’t comin’ back.”

Sam chuckles and shakes his head fondly. Then before either of them realizes it, his hand is stretched out across the table and laying warmly across Dean’s, pad of his thumb rubbing gentle circles on the inside of his wrist.

It’s not the motion itself that’s so - bizarre, or even the sentiment behind it. It’s a move Dean has probably done countless times in the past, one that usually has Sam turning several shades of red and squirming not to pull away. Now, though, they both come to the realization of what’s happening at the same time, and to an outsider’s perspective it must look pretty funny - the way Sam suddenly stops, going completely still as both of their eyes catch, exchanging confused and surprised looks.

Their waitress drops off the check and Dean jerks, sending Sam in immediate retreat. He finds himself blushing furiously when she smiles at them broadly and says something drippy about how cute they are.

Dean clears his throat awkwardly, looking down at his hands while he digs through his wallet for money. “Um,” he starts, unsure quite where this is going.

“Sorry,” Sam mutters, looking more than a little traumatized. “I...”

“No don’t...” Dean interrupts, frowning. Chewing on his lip, he rubs at the back of his neck uneasily, eyes flicking up. “Look, heart in the right place, but...”

“Never again?” Sam supplies, half smiling and relieved.

Barking out a laugh, Dean scrubs a hand self-consciously down his face, ridding the last vestiges of embarrassment. “Yeah,” he says, only half-serious. “Sounds good to me.” Then, just for good measure, he lets his leg brush against Sam’s under the table.

That night, both sated and bathed in sweat, Sam stays curled up beside him for a long, long time.

“So how long do we do this for?” He asks while he’s got Dean’s arm tight around his stomach and bare thighs tucked against his butt.

Eyelashes brushing against the fine hairs at the nape of Sam’s neck, Dean startles into awareness. “You need a timeframe for cuddling?” He asks incredulously.

“Ballpark it for me.”

“Holy fuck, Sam.” Dean snorts, one last squeeze for emphasis to tell him that this time? He’s so not going anywhere. “You need help. Seriously. And I don’t have the emotional tools to deal with your many neuroses.”

He can practically hear Sam roll his eyes. “You are an emotional tool.”

“Yeah, whatever. You love it.” Dean chortles, closing his eyes and trying to relax.

But Sam, he’s too quiet and too still, and that means... “You know, you could always take a shower with me.”

Eyes blinking open, Dean ponders that a moment while staring at the brown blur that is the back of Sam’s too-close head. Because the whole point had been to get Sam over the obsessive need to get clean in the immediate afterglow, right? Or was it something else a little more complicated and angsty? He’d lost track.

But the more he lay there thinking about it, the more greasy he started to feel - like Matthew McConaughey, only better looking and way less douchey. And maybe there was a really inappropriate itch he needed to scratch in the scrotum area that wasn’t good for any relationship despite the level of intimacy and just maybe...Sam was on to something, here.

He lifted his head. “You know, Sammy, I think that in therapy they call this moment the breakthrough.”

That earns him an eye roll and a pillow in the face but in the end that’s just fine. Because that shower?

Turns out to be the most epic compromise ever.

The End.