I'll take my chance on a beautiful stranger (Sam/Dean, 3854 words, R)
A day of slobbery produced this. I have no other excuse.
I'll take my chance on a beautiful stranger
(Sam/Dean, 3854 words, R)
If Chase were a better friend, he might try to end the game now, before Brendan loses even more money. But if Brendan is a dick at Stanford, it’s nothing compared to how he is on break. Chase wishes he’d gone with Will and Sam to play pool, but he’d been too damn stuck on the long game, too stuck on Brendan Danver’s father being the Danver of Danver, Mitchell and Webb, the law firm that’s gonna give him his first job when he graduates.
So now they’re in this bar, which is full of smoke and the smell of stale piss, because Brendan wants to pretend he lives dangerously, on the edge, that his life’s not one big vapid, designer-dressed waste of time. And Brendan’s got himself into a game of poker with a hustler, who Chase keeps telling himself to stop staring at, and Brendan’s being taken for every last cent in his wallet.
“You sure you want to play another round, college boy?” the hustler asks, flicking a glance at Chase in case he wants to step in and save his friend. The guy has ridiculously green eyes. It makes Chase feel like a girl for thinking it, but they’re the kind of eyes he could spend a happy hour or two lost in. Not to mention the guy’s mouth, which is all plump, pink softness. Chase could easily spend all day lost in that mouth.
Chase clears his throat and takes a long, desperate gulp of his beer, keeping his eyes fixed on the scratched-varnish tabletop. Brendan slaps down another twenty.
“I can afford it,” he says, his voice slurred, drowned by too many beers. “Can you?”
“Mmm, considerate of you,” says the hustler, as he starts dealing the cards. It’s an old deck, yellowed with age and backed with a cheap paisley pattern in green and grey, but the cards dart from his fingers like fish flickering through water. He looks up with a smile and Chase feels his belly give a strange, light jump. “I think I can risk it.”
Brendan stabs a finger at him, leaning over the table towards him, his breath rasping through the thick, old air. The hustler doesn’t give an inch, just watches, with a dead smile on his face.
“I’m gonna wipe the floor with your ass. You’ll be sleeping in your truck tonight.”
The hustler flicks another glance at Chase and Brendan suddenly becomes a secret, shared joke between the two of them. The hustler’s eyes catch Chase’s and Chase is helpless against a grin. The hustler makes him grin and Chase is forced to hide in his beer glass again.
“Well, that’s a real shame,” says the hustler. “Because I don’t have a truck.”
Brendan snorts contemptuously at this and picks up his cards. There’s silence for a moment or two as they both look over their cards and Chase studies a poster tacked to the wall, advertising a concert from a few months ago by a local band comprised of grizzled old men in leather with beards and bandanas.
“So, you boys here for the skiing?” asks the hustler, his eyes still fixed on his cards.
“Yeah,” says Brendan. “We’re staying at my father’s cabin for Christmas while he winters in Germany. How about you? Guess if you don’t have a truck you probably don’t have a cabin either.”
Chase shifts in his chair. He wants to catch the hustler’s eye again, and make him see, somehow, that Chase isn’t like Brendan. Chase is only a pretend-jerk. He’s only doing it for ski-breaks in Aspen and a nice house on campus, and for an office with his name on the door someday.
“No, don’t have a cabin either,” the hustler agrees. “Reckon you’re not getting much skiing done though, are you? Three people gone missing out there already, and there’s another one in the hospital. Strange, don’t you think?”
“Maybe if you’ve never skied before,” says Brendan, “but to someone like me who’s been skiing since I was eight, it’s not that strange at all.”
The hustler looks up at this, his expression open and interested. It’s an act, Chase realises, all an act. The oh-so-harmless prettiness, the slightly parted lips and the wide-eyed guilelessness: it’s masking a deep, dark load of trouble. Brendan and Chase know nothing about him, except for the fact he’s one hundred and fifty dollars richer since they met him.
Chase’s spine prickles with unease, but it’s exhilarating too. Even if Brendan weren’t mostly drunk, he’d never realize that this, right here, was the spark of excitement he’d been looking for. Not the fights with local kids or the unmarked tablets bought from skanky-haired guys at the edge of nightclubs, but this: this hustler with danger signs written all over his pretty face.
“So what’s happening then? Mountain Rescue seem pretty stumped,” the hustler says.
Brendan rolls his eyes and finishes off his drink. He slams the glass down onto the table, foam still running down the sides, then shoves it towards the hustler.
“Get me another drink and I’ll explain it to you. I’ll even use very small words.”
Chase reaches out for the glass, mumbling I’ll get it, but the hustler’s hand closes about his wrist. His skin is warm and alive, and his grip is steady. Chase can feel his pulse thrumming against the hustler's dry fingertips. He looks at him and the hustler graces him with another of those smiles that turn Chase hot and heavy.
He takes the glass from Chase and crosses to the bar. The light hits his hair and catches the dark blond streaks that shoot through the brown. The sway of his hips, his ass, it’s half-mesmerizing and Chase doesn’t look away from it quick enough. As the hustler props himself up against the bar and chats easily with the barman, Brendan leans in close to whisper in Chase’s ear.
“Bet you’re wondering just how hungry for money he is, aren’t you? Want me to buy his faggy mouth for you? ‘Course, you don’t know where else it’s been, but the way you’re drooling, I bet you don’t care either.”
Chase elbows him away but he can feel his cheeks burn dark red. He ducks his head, away from the hustler coming back towards them. Brendan laughs, a gust of old alcohol and the chilli from dinner over Chase’s neck. The hustler sits back down and pushes Brendan’s glass towards him.
“So, you were gonna explain about what’s happening up on the mountain. Using real small words.”
Brendan’s thumbing through his cards. There’s a sulky frown on his face and the hustler gives Chase a look. He’s hoping for help of some kind but Chase doesn’t even want to look at him for too long. He feels dirty for wanting him, for those things Brendan said, even if the hustler didn’t hear them and Chase would never take him up on it. It’s just Brendan being an ass. He can’t help it sometimes. He likes to act sophisticated and open-minded about Chase, but the mask slips when he’s drunk or under pressure, and words like ‘fag’ and ‘cocksucker’ slip into his vocabulary.
“This hand’s shit,” says Brendan finally.
“That’s just the way the cards were dealt.”
A note of forced patience enters the hustler’s voice and Chase wants to get away, right now, wishes they’d never ever taken the hustler up on his offer, even though Chase knows he’s going to be jerking off tonight to the thought of green eyes and a lush mouth and a body of compact muscle.
“I don’t wanna play this hand,” says Brendan. “I want-“
He cuts off as the door swings open and the others come in. Sam looks to have had his hands full with Will, holding onto the back of Will’s jacket as he sways on his feet. Brendan waves them over then turns back to the hustler, smirking like he's already won.
“I want you to meet my ace in the hole. Sam! Sam, get over here! Need you to give this loser a game!”
The hustler’s sitting very still in his chair, like he’s getting ready to bolt. Chase almost wishes he would, because Sam’s uncanny with cards and he doesn’t want the hustler having to give any of Brendan’s money back. It’d be a game between Sam and the hustler, instead of the joke it’s been with Brendan.
Sam’s a man of unusual talents. Guns, cards, fixing noses broken after football: Sam’s your man. Odd, really, considering he’s useless when it comes to something as practical as setting up a bank account.
Sam crosses slowly to the table then stops. He doesn’t look well and Chase wonders how much he’s had to drink already. He stares at the hustler and the hustler stares at him and Chase feels himself drop out of the equation entirely. Then the hustler kicks a chair out for Sam and waves him towards it.
“C’mon, college boy, gimme a game.”
Sam turns his face away, his eyes sinking shut for a second. Chase thinks he’s gonna be sick at any moment and half-rises out of his chair towards him.
“I don’t wanna play,” says Sam.
Brendan wraps an arm tight about his shoulders, tugging him close and patting him clumsily on the chest, while Sam fidgets out of his grasp.
“Hey, c’mon, Winchester! I’m counting on you, man!”
The hustler laughs out loud then tries to stifle the sound in his fist, but he doesn’t try very hard. Sam’s head shoots back round and he glares at him, his lips thinning into a line and his eyes narrowed. The hustler raises an eyebrow at Sam and he’s smiling. But this smile is tight and pointed. The light in his eyes has become hard and sharp as glass.
“He’s counting on you, Winchester,” he says, jerking his head towards Brendan, a mocking lilt to his voice. “Don’t want to let the man down, now do you?”
Sam drops into the seat and shoves the cards back at the hustler. There’s something different about him in that second. It’s the way he tilts his head up into the light, the way he leans in towards the hustler, the way Chase suddenly realizes just how tall he is.
“How much have you lost, Brendan?” asks Sam. It’s not ‘have you lost much, Brendan?’ - just a simple recognition of the fact Brendan has to have lost.
“Hundred and fifty. You gonna win it back for me?”
Something like a smile catches at the corner of Sam’s lips. The hustler doesn’t make any attempt to hide his grin. Neither of them has taken their eyes off the other. Chase can’t make out whether it’s instant hostility or attraction. Maybe it’s both. Behind his smiles and gentle mockery, the hustler doesn’t stop studying Sam. Like he’s inventorying him. And Sam’s as intent and focused as Chase has ever seen him. His gaze doesn’t deviate from the hustler’s face, as if expecting him to vanish at any second.
“I’ll give it a go,” Sam says finally.
“That’s my man! You’ve got a reputation to uphold!” Brendan slaps him on the shoulder again and leans in to grin in the hustler’s face. “Sam’s a fucking class-A player. You’re gonna owe him your skin by the time he’s done with you.” He pauses then nudges Chase with his elbow, flashing him a sloppy grin. "Or maybe you'll wanna pay your debt some other way?"
Brendan collapses into helpless laughter. Will joins him in the chorus, but Chase doesn’t think he’s actually sober enough to get that a joke has just been told, let alone what it is. Not looking at them is as much of a protest as Chase can manage, but he does it as fiercely as he can: he stares at the ugly woolly hat that one of the men at the bar is wearing, at the tufts of gingerish hair poking out from underneath, at the man’s double chin and sagging gut. He stares at anything that isn’t the hustler or Stanford-related.
“One hand,” says the hustler, like nothing's been said. “For the whole one-fifty. You in, college boy?”
“I'm in. Let’s just get this over and done with,” Sam says.
The hustler gives this dry, empty laugh at that and deals the cards. Sam’s just scooping his into pile when the hustler throws his own hand down onto the table.
“I fold,” he says briskly. He tugs a wad of money from the back of his jeans’ waistband and throws it down next to his discarded cards. Sam’s staring up at him, his cards slipping from his slack hands, as the hustler stands and starts to walk away. “Have a good Christmas, Sammy.”
“Wait-“ Sam says, half-rising, but maybe the hustler can’t hear him over Brendan’s whoops of victory, or maybe he’s ignoring him. Either way, he doesn’t stop. Just disappears out the door.
Sam drops back into his chair, looking blind and dazed. Looking like he lost, even though the hustler didn't even put up a fight. It’s not much of a victory when the other side doesn’t even fight you for it. For reasons he can’t quite figure out, Chase reaches out and mucks the two hands back into the deck without turning them over.
“That was awesome!” Brendan says as he drops an arm round Sam’s shoulders. “Did you see that bastard turn tail?”
He leans over Sam to collect his money, and suddenly Sam seems to focus on him. He turns to him and his voice when it comes is polite but strained.
“Why did you say that? About him paying his debt another way? What did you mean?”
Brendan flicks him a look while he tucks the crinkled dollar bills back into his leather wallet. Then he lays a grin on Chase, like he’s part of the joke, part of this, and Chase’s stomach rolls over.
“It wasn’t just cards he was hustling, Sam.”
“You don’t know that,” says Chase but they don’t hear him. Sam’s on his feet and he’s so fucking tall, and he’s right in Brendan’s face. Six foot eternity of pissed off Sam Winchester is enough to give even a jerk like Brendan a second’s pause.
“What the hell are you saying?” Sam says. “What the hell…?”
Pity it’s only a second’s pause because Brendan’s smirking again by the time Sam’s broken off.
“Yeah, Chase here was all for me enquiring how much a half hour or so with his mouth would set me back but-“
“No!” says Chase, louder this time because Sam has to understand that Chase isn’t part of this. He grabs Brendan by the shoulder, alarm rattling him beyond what he’d normally dare to do, and tries to make Brendan look at him. “I never said anything like that-“
Brendan shakes him off easily and doesn’t shut up. He’s out of his head. Pupils are blown and there’s sweat on his skin, even though this damn bar’s got an edge of frost in the air. He doesn’t shut up and Chase can’t understand why he hasn’t noticed that Sam’s big, heavy hands have become fists.
“-But me and the guy said we’d figure out a reasonable price after we were done with cards.”
Even Will is quiet. Brendan’s voice hangs cracked and stupid in Sam’s silence. Any minute now, Chase knows Sam is going to beat the living shit out of Brendan and, screw the long game, Chase isn’t going to stop him. But Sam just turns around and walks out of the bar. The door slams shut behind him and as the sound levels in the room go back to normal, Chase realizes the size of the audience they had.
“What the fuck’s his problem?” says Brendan, staring after him.
Chase honestly doesn’t know. He knows he personally doesn’t like people thinking he’s the same as Brendan, willing to buy anything that people won’t automatically give to him for being one of the privileged elite. He knows he liked the hustler, liked him beyond simply wanting to fuck him, and he doesn’t like how Brendan treated him. And he knows he doesn’t like Brendan acting as though he was going to buy the hustler’s ass for Chase like some fucked-up idea of Christmas present.
But he doesn’t know what Sam’s problem is. And he’s more interested in that than he is in hanging around with Brendan. So he goes out after Sam.
It feels like the mountains are surrounding the street. Their shadows fall across the town and the night that Chase wanders out in to seems darker than it should. It’s too late for the bars to be emptying out; most people out drinking now are in for the long haul. Sam’s not in sight so Chase stops in the amber haze of a streetlight before venturing back in the direction of Brendan’s cabin. And he’s only gone a few steps when he hears Sam’s voice.
“That’s not what I’m asking. Is it true?”
“Shame there are only four of you,” comes the hustler’s voice, warm and amused, only totally not. “I give a discount for groups of five or more.”
There are the sounds of a scuffle, bodies against brick, and then a sharp gasp of breath.
“Shut the fuck up! Don’t say things like that!” Sam goes quiet for a moment, then goes softer, calmer. “Is it really like that for you? Really? Did you really say that to him?”
In the silence, crisp as the snow on the mountain, Chase edges closer. He presses his back to the wall and tries to picture what’s happening in the alley. He imagines Sam and the hustler, still staring at each other like they had been in the bar. He imagines Sam’s heavy forehead wrinkled into a frown, and the hustler’s mouth, his mouth that Chase just wants wants wants, curved into one of those forged smiles.
“What are you doing here?” says the hustler in a low, weary voice. “Why aren’t you back there with your friends? What the hell do you want from me? Go on, get out of here.”
“You did,” says Sam. “You did say it. How… Christ, how could you-?”
“I don’t have time for this! Think what you fucking well want.”
There’s another struggle and when Chase dares peek round the corner, he’s just in time to see Sam slam the hustler back up against the wall. Sam’s gripping the guy’s collar, yanking the battered leather jacket up against his ears, holding him in place so tight Chase’s surprised the hustler’s feet are even still on the ground.
“Just tell me,” says Sam. “C’mon, please, I’m begging you. Please, tell me you’re not…”
The hustler sighs and jerks free. He scrapes a hand through his hair and doesn’t look at Sam.
“I’m not. Of course I’m fucking not.” He takes a few steps clear of Sam and then, as if in safe water, tilts his face towards him, all smiles and fluttering eyelashes. “Though, I don’t see why it'd matter to you whether I was blowing cocks from here to Alabama, Sammy.”
Sam’s hands are on him again in an instant. The hustler doesn’t even fight him, just folds for him, just like he did in the game. He lets Sam press him into the wall. Sam’s fists are at his throat, his face moving towards him. And then he’s kissing him, rough and frantic. His mouth is covering the hustler’s, lips crushing his and Chase almost can’t bear to watch, but he can’t look away either. He can see the hustler’s hips jerking towards Sam but Sam won’t even let him move. He just holds him there and kisses him and kisses him.
And the moment he stops kissing him, his hand reaching down to tug at the hustler’s belt, the hustler turns needy and desperate. He chases after Sam’s mouth, his parted lips swollen and slick and his hands stretching up to tangle in Sam’s hair, trying to pull his face into reach.
“It matters,” Sam growls as he shoves his hand into the hustler’s jeans. “S’always gonna matter.”
There’s something right in front of Chase’s eyes, something significant being said, something significant about the way Sam makes the hustler arch against him, but Chase can’t make out its shape. He can only concentrate on the hustler’s head falling forward, his mouth resting against Sam’s shoulder as Sam’s wrist jerks, the sound of skin on skin cutting through the air.
Sam’s speaking but it takes a second for the words to make sense to Chase. And when they do, there isn’t any sense in them at all.
“I miss you.”
The scene should flicker, like something showing on a fucked-up TV. There should be a second of reorganisation to accommodate that what Chase is watching isn't what he thought it was. Even if he still doesn't know what it is.
But nothing happens, nothing changes. It's everything that it was: Sam jerking the hustler off, while the hustler bucks against him, his mouth moving over any inch of Sam's bare skin that he can find. It's just not what Chase thought it was.
He never stood a chance. He doesn't know if he should be gratified that the reason the hustler was all-eyes for Sam the moment he saw him was because he already knew Sam, or that he'd never had a hope in hell with the hustler.
The hustler makes a high, desperate noise that's cut off when Sam covers his mouth with his own, something that becomes a kiss - and that's when Chase walks away.
:::
It's late the next morning when Chase sees the hustler again. It's after Sam's left, after he came back to the cabin just long enough to pack his bag and punch Brendan in the jaw. Chase is the only one without a raging hangover so he volunteers to pick up some aspirin from town, leaving Will to press the icepack to Brendan's blooming bruise.
Chase realises he assumed when Sam left it was to go pick up with the hustler, but he's not with him. The hustler's with an older guy who Chase thinks he should know, but doesn't. They pass him by on the street and Chase sees the hustler see him, recognise him, but there's no spark in his eyes, his gaze just slides over him.
And that's it. There's no more.
Chase turns the incident over and over in his memory. He's looking for a clue, for the missing piece that will explain what happened that night. He goes over everything he can remember the hustler saying, what the hustler drank, what he was wearing. Then when term starts again, he scrutinises Sam, watches him in classes. Sam keeps his distance these days but Chase is careful, subtle.
But that's it. There's no more. Not until there's a photo of Sam on TV, wanted by the FBI, right alongside a picture of the hustler. And Chase learns the hustler's name.
~end
I'll take my chance on a beautiful stranger
(Sam/Dean, 3854 words, R)
If Chase were a better friend, he might try to end the game now, before Brendan loses even more money. But if Brendan is a dick at Stanford, it’s nothing compared to how he is on break. Chase wishes he’d gone with Will and Sam to play pool, but he’d been too damn stuck on the long game, too stuck on Brendan Danver’s father being the Danver of Danver, Mitchell and Webb, the law firm that’s gonna give him his first job when he graduates.
So now they’re in this bar, which is full of smoke and the smell of stale piss, because Brendan wants to pretend he lives dangerously, on the edge, that his life’s not one big vapid, designer-dressed waste of time. And Brendan’s got himself into a game of poker with a hustler, who Chase keeps telling himself to stop staring at, and Brendan’s being taken for every last cent in his wallet.
“You sure you want to play another round, college boy?” the hustler asks, flicking a glance at Chase in case he wants to step in and save his friend. The guy has ridiculously green eyes. It makes Chase feel like a girl for thinking it, but they’re the kind of eyes he could spend a happy hour or two lost in. Not to mention the guy’s mouth, which is all plump, pink softness. Chase could easily spend all day lost in that mouth.
Chase clears his throat and takes a long, desperate gulp of his beer, keeping his eyes fixed on the scratched-varnish tabletop. Brendan slaps down another twenty.
“I can afford it,” he says, his voice slurred, drowned by too many beers. “Can you?”
“Mmm, considerate of you,” says the hustler, as he starts dealing the cards. It’s an old deck, yellowed with age and backed with a cheap paisley pattern in green and grey, but the cards dart from his fingers like fish flickering through water. He looks up with a smile and Chase feels his belly give a strange, light jump. “I think I can risk it.”
Brendan stabs a finger at him, leaning over the table towards him, his breath rasping through the thick, old air. The hustler doesn’t give an inch, just watches, with a dead smile on his face.
“I’m gonna wipe the floor with your ass. You’ll be sleeping in your truck tonight.”
The hustler flicks another glance at Chase and Brendan suddenly becomes a secret, shared joke between the two of them. The hustler’s eyes catch Chase’s and Chase is helpless against a grin. The hustler makes him grin and Chase is forced to hide in his beer glass again.
“Well, that’s a real shame,” says the hustler. “Because I don’t have a truck.”
Brendan snorts contemptuously at this and picks up his cards. There’s silence for a moment or two as they both look over their cards and Chase studies a poster tacked to the wall, advertising a concert from a few months ago by a local band comprised of grizzled old men in leather with beards and bandanas.
“So, you boys here for the skiing?” asks the hustler, his eyes still fixed on his cards.
“Yeah,” says Brendan. “We’re staying at my father’s cabin for Christmas while he winters in Germany. How about you? Guess if you don’t have a truck you probably don’t have a cabin either.”
Chase shifts in his chair. He wants to catch the hustler’s eye again, and make him see, somehow, that Chase isn’t like Brendan. Chase is only a pretend-jerk. He’s only doing it for ski-breaks in Aspen and a nice house on campus, and for an office with his name on the door someday.
“No, don’t have a cabin either,” the hustler agrees. “Reckon you’re not getting much skiing done though, are you? Three people gone missing out there already, and there’s another one in the hospital. Strange, don’t you think?”
“Maybe if you’ve never skied before,” says Brendan, “but to someone like me who’s been skiing since I was eight, it’s not that strange at all.”
The hustler looks up at this, his expression open and interested. It’s an act, Chase realises, all an act. The oh-so-harmless prettiness, the slightly parted lips and the wide-eyed guilelessness: it’s masking a deep, dark load of trouble. Brendan and Chase know nothing about him, except for the fact he’s one hundred and fifty dollars richer since they met him.
Chase’s spine prickles with unease, but it’s exhilarating too. Even if Brendan weren’t mostly drunk, he’d never realize that this, right here, was the spark of excitement he’d been looking for. Not the fights with local kids or the unmarked tablets bought from skanky-haired guys at the edge of nightclubs, but this: this hustler with danger signs written all over his pretty face.
“So what’s happening then? Mountain Rescue seem pretty stumped,” the hustler says.
Brendan rolls his eyes and finishes off his drink. He slams the glass down onto the table, foam still running down the sides, then shoves it towards the hustler.
“Get me another drink and I’ll explain it to you. I’ll even use very small words.”
Chase reaches out for the glass, mumbling I’ll get it, but the hustler’s hand closes about his wrist. His skin is warm and alive, and his grip is steady. Chase can feel his pulse thrumming against the hustler's dry fingertips. He looks at him and the hustler graces him with another of those smiles that turn Chase hot and heavy.
He takes the glass from Chase and crosses to the bar. The light hits his hair and catches the dark blond streaks that shoot through the brown. The sway of his hips, his ass, it’s half-mesmerizing and Chase doesn’t look away from it quick enough. As the hustler props himself up against the bar and chats easily with the barman, Brendan leans in close to whisper in Chase’s ear.
“Bet you’re wondering just how hungry for money he is, aren’t you? Want me to buy his faggy mouth for you? ‘Course, you don’t know where else it’s been, but the way you’re drooling, I bet you don’t care either.”
Chase elbows him away but he can feel his cheeks burn dark red. He ducks his head, away from the hustler coming back towards them. Brendan laughs, a gust of old alcohol and the chilli from dinner over Chase’s neck. The hustler sits back down and pushes Brendan’s glass towards him.
“So, you were gonna explain about what’s happening up on the mountain. Using real small words.”
Brendan’s thumbing through his cards. There’s a sulky frown on his face and the hustler gives Chase a look. He’s hoping for help of some kind but Chase doesn’t even want to look at him for too long. He feels dirty for wanting him, for those things Brendan said, even if the hustler didn’t hear them and Chase would never take him up on it. It’s just Brendan being an ass. He can’t help it sometimes. He likes to act sophisticated and open-minded about Chase, but the mask slips when he’s drunk or under pressure, and words like ‘fag’ and ‘cocksucker’ slip into his vocabulary.
“This hand’s shit,” says Brendan finally.
“That’s just the way the cards were dealt.”
A note of forced patience enters the hustler’s voice and Chase wants to get away, right now, wishes they’d never ever taken the hustler up on his offer, even though Chase knows he’s going to be jerking off tonight to the thought of green eyes and a lush mouth and a body of compact muscle.
“I don’t wanna play this hand,” says Brendan. “I want-“
He cuts off as the door swings open and the others come in. Sam looks to have had his hands full with Will, holding onto the back of Will’s jacket as he sways on his feet. Brendan waves them over then turns back to the hustler, smirking like he's already won.
“I want you to meet my ace in the hole. Sam! Sam, get over here! Need you to give this loser a game!”
The hustler’s sitting very still in his chair, like he’s getting ready to bolt. Chase almost wishes he would, because Sam’s uncanny with cards and he doesn’t want the hustler having to give any of Brendan’s money back. It’d be a game between Sam and the hustler, instead of the joke it’s been with Brendan.
Sam’s a man of unusual talents. Guns, cards, fixing noses broken after football: Sam’s your man. Odd, really, considering he’s useless when it comes to something as practical as setting up a bank account.
Sam crosses slowly to the table then stops. He doesn’t look well and Chase wonders how much he’s had to drink already. He stares at the hustler and the hustler stares at him and Chase feels himself drop out of the equation entirely. Then the hustler kicks a chair out for Sam and waves him towards it.
“C’mon, college boy, gimme a game.”
Sam turns his face away, his eyes sinking shut for a second. Chase thinks he’s gonna be sick at any moment and half-rises out of his chair towards him.
“I don’t wanna play,” says Sam.
Brendan wraps an arm tight about his shoulders, tugging him close and patting him clumsily on the chest, while Sam fidgets out of his grasp.
“Hey, c’mon, Winchester! I’m counting on you, man!”
The hustler laughs out loud then tries to stifle the sound in his fist, but he doesn’t try very hard. Sam’s head shoots back round and he glares at him, his lips thinning into a line and his eyes narrowed. The hustler raises an eyebrow at Sam and he’s smiling. But this smile is tight and pointed. The light in his eyes has become hard and sharp as glass.
“He’s counting on you, Winchester,” he says, jerking his head towards Brendan, a mocking lilt to his voice. “Don’t want to let the man down, now do you?”
Sam drops into the seat and shoves the cards back at the hustler. There’s something different about him in that second. It’s the way he tilts his head up into the light, the way he leans in towards the hustler, the way Chase suddenly realizes just how tall he is.
“How much have you lost, Brendan?” asks Sam. It’s not ‘have you lost much, Brendan?’ - just a simple recognition of the fact Brendan has to have lost.
“Hundred and fifty. You gonna win it back for me?”
Something like a smile catches at the corner of Sam’s lips. The hustler doesn’t make any attempt to hide his grin. Neither of them has taken their eyes off the other. Chase can’t make out whether it’s instant hostility or attraction. Maybe it’s both. Behind his smiles and gentle mockery, the hustler doesn’t stop studying Sam. Like he’s inventorying him. And Sam’s as intent and focused as Chase has ever seen him. His gaze doesn’t deviate from the hustler’s face, as if expecting him to vanish at any second.
“I’ll give it a go,” Sam says finally.
“That’s my man! You’ve got a reputation to uphold!” Brendan slaps him on the shoulder again and leans in to grin in the hustler’s face. “Sam’s a fucking class-A player. You’re gonna owe him your skin by the time he’s done with you.” He pauses then nudges Chase with his elbow, flashing him a sloppy grin. "Or maybe you'll wanna pay your debt some other way?"
Brendan collapses into helpless laughter. Will joins him in the chorus, but Chase doesn’t think he’s actually sober enough to get that a joke has just been told, let alone what it is. Not looking at them is as much of a protest as Chase can manage, but he does it as fiercely as he can: he stares at the ugly woolly hat that one of the men at the bar is wearing, at the tufts of gingerish hair poking out from underneath, at the man’s double chin and sagging gut. He stares at anything that isn’t the hustler or Stanford-related.
“One hand,” says the hustler, like nothing's been said. “For the whole one-fifty. You in, college boy?”
“I'm in. Let’s just get this over and done with,” Sam says.
The hustler gives this dry, empty laugh at that and deals the cards. Sam’s just scooping his into pile when the hustler throws his own hand down onto the table.
“I fold,” he says briskly. He tugs a wad of money from the back of his jeans’ waistband and throws it down next to his discarded cards. Sam’s staring up at him, his cards slipping from his slack hands, as the hustler stands and starts to walk away. “Have a good Christmas, Sammy.”
“Wait-“ Sam says, half-rising, but maybe the hustler can’t hear him over Brendan’s whoops of victory, or maybe he’s ignoring him. Either way, he doesn’t stop. Just disappears out the door.
Sam drops back into his chair, looking blind and dazed. Looking like he lost, even though the hustler didn't even put up a fight. It’s not much of a victory when the other side doesn’t even fight you for it. For reasons he can’t quite figure out, Chase reaches out and mucks the two hands back into the deck without turning them over.
“That was awesome!” Brendan says as he drops an arm round Sam’s shoulders. “Did you see that bastard turn tail?”
He leans over Sam to collect his money, and suddenly Sam seems to focus on him. He turns to him and his voice when it comes is polite but strained.
“Why did you say that? About him paying his debt another way? What did you mean?”
Brendan flicks him a look while he tucks the crinkled dollar bills back into his leather wallet. Then he lays a grin on Chase, like he’s part of the joke, part of this, and Chase’s stomach rolls over.
“It wasn’t just cards he was hustling, Sam.”
“You don’t know that,” says Chase but they don’t hear him. Sam’s on his feet and he’s so fucking tall, and he’s right in Brendan’s face. Six foot eternity of pissed off Sam Winchester is enough to give even a jerk like Brendan a second’s pause.
“What the hell are you saying?” Sam says. “What the hell…?”
Pity it’s only a second’s pause because Brendan’s smirking again by the time Sam’s broken off.
“Yeah, Chase here was all for me enquiring how much a half hour or so with his mouth would set me back but-“
“No!” says Chase, louder this time because Sam has to understand that Chase isn’t part of this. He grabs Brendan by the shoulder, alarm rattling him beyond what he’d normally dare to do, and tries to make Brendan look at him. “I never said anything like that-“
Brendan shakes him off easily and doesn’t shut up. He’s out of his head. Pupils are blown and there’s sweat on his skin, even though this damn bar’s got an edge of frost in the air. He doesn’t shut up and Chase can’t understand why he hasn’t noticed that Sam’s big, heavy hands have become fists.
“-But me and the guy said we’d figure out a reasonable price after we were done with cards.”
Even Will is quiet. Brendan’s voice hangs cracked and stupid in Sam’s silence. Any minute now, Chase knows Sam is going to beat the living shit out of Brendan and, screw the long game, Chase isn’t going to stop him. But Sam just turns around and walks out of the bar. The door slams shut behind him and as the sound levels in the room go back to normal, Chase realizes the size of the audience they had.
“What the fuck’s his problem?” says Brendan, staring after him.
Chase honestly doesn’t know. He knows he personally doesn’t like people thinking he’s the same as Brendan, willing to buy anything that people won’t automatically give to him for being one of the privileged elite. He knows he liked the hustler, liked him beyond simply wanting to fuck him, and he doesn’t like how Brendan treated him. And he knows he doesn’t like Brendan acting as though he was going to buy the hustler’s ass for Chase like some fucked-up idea of Christmas present.
But he doesn’t know what Sam’s problem is. And he’s more interested in that than he is in hanging around with Brendan. So he goes out after Sam.
It feels like the mountains are surrounding the street. Their shadows fall across the town and the night that Chase wanders out in to seems darker than it should. It’s too late for the bars to be emptying out; most people out drinking now are in for the long haul. Sam’s not in sight so Chase stops in the amber haze of a streetlight before venturing back in the direction of Brendan’s cabin. And he’s only gone a few steps when he hears Sam’s voice.
“That’s not what I’m asking. Is it true?”
“Shame there are only four of you,” comes the hustler’s voice, warm and amused, only totally not. “I give a discount for groups of five or more.”
There are the sounds of a scuffle, bodies against brick, and then a sharp gasp of breath.
“Shut the fuck up! Don’t say things like that!” Sam goes quiet for a moment, then goes softer, calmer. “Is it really like that for you? Really? Did you really say that to him?”
In the silence, crisp as the snow on the mountain, Chase edges closer. He presses his back to the wall and tries to picture what’s happening in the alley. He imagines Sam and the hustler, still staring at each other like they had been in the bar. He imagines Sam’s heavy forehead wrinkled into a frown, and the hustler’s mouth, his mouth that Chase just wants wants wants, curved into one of those forged smiles.
“What are you doing here?” says the hustler in a low, weary voice. “Why aren’t you back there with your friends? What the hell do you want from me? Go on, get out of here.”
“You did,” says Sam. “You did say it. How… Christ, how could you-?”
“I don’t have time for this! Think what you fucking well want.”
There’s another struggle and when Chase dares peek round the corner, he’s just in time to see Sam slam the hustler back up against the wall. Sam’s gripping the guy’s collar, yanking the battered leather jacket up against his ears, holding him in place so tight Chase’s surprised the hustler’s feet are even still on the ground.
“Just tell me,” says Sam. “C’mon, please, I’m begging you. Please, tell me you’re not…”
The hustler sighs and jerks free. He scrapes a hand through his hair and doesn’t look at Sam.
“I’m not. Of course I’m fucking not.” He takes a few steps clear of Sam and then, as if in safe water, tilts his face towards him, all smiles and fluttering eyelashes. “Though, I don’t see why it'd matter to you whether I was blowing cocks from here to Alabama, Sammy.”
Sam’s hands are on him again in an instant. The hustler doesn’t even fight him, just folds for him, just like he did in the game. He lets Sam press him into the wall. Sam’s fists are at his throat, his face moving towards him. And then he’s kissing him, rough and frantic. His mouth is covering the hustler’s, lips crushing his and Chase almost can’t bear to watch, but he can’t look away either. He can see the hustler’s hips jerking towards Sam but Sam won’t even let him move. He just holds him there and kisses him and kisses him.
And the moment he stops kissing him, his hand reaching down to tug at the hustler’s belt, the hustler turns needy and desperate. He chases after Sam’s mouth, his parted lips swollen and slick and his hands stretching up to tangle in Sam’s hair, trying to pull his face into reach.
“It matters,” Sam growls as he shoves his hand into the hustler’s jeans. “S’always gonna matter.”
There’s something right in front of Chase’s eyes, something significant being said, something significant about the way Sam makes the hustler arch against him, but Chase can’t make out its shape. He can only concentrate on the hustler’s head falling forward, his mouth resting against Sam’s shoulder as Sam’s wrist jerks, the sound of skin on skin cutting through the air.
Sam’s speaking but it takes a second for the words to make sense to Chase. And when they do, there isn’t any sense in them at all.
“I miss you.”
The scene should flicker, like something showing on a fucked-up TV. There should be a second of reorganisation to accommodate that what Chase is watching isn't what he thought it was. Even if he still doesn't know what it is.
But nothing happens, nothing changes. It's everything that it was: Sam jerking the hustler off, while the hustler bucks against him, his mouth moving over any inch of Sam's bare skin that he can find. It's just not what Chase thought it was.
He never stood a chance. He doesn't know if he should be gratified that the reason the hustler was all-eyes for Sam the moment he saw him was because he already knew Sam, or that he'd never had a hope in hell with the hustler.
The hustler makes a high, desperate noise that's cut off when Sam covers his mouth with his own, something that becomes a kiss - and that's when Chase walks away.
:::
It's late the next morning when Chase sees the hustler again. It's after Sam's left, after he came back to the cabin just long enough to pack his bag and punch Brendan in the jaw. Chase is the only one without a raging hangover so he volunteers to pick up some aspirin from town, leaving Will to press the icepack to Brendan's blooming bruise.
Chase realises he assumed when Sam left it was to go pick up with the hustler, but he's not with him. The hustler's with an older guy who Chase thinks he should know, but doesn't. They pass him by on the street and Chase sees the hustler see him, recognise him, but there's no spark in his eyes, his gaze just slides over him.
And that's it. There's no more.
Chase turns the incident over and over in his memory. He's looking for a clue, for the missing piece that will explain what happened that night. He goes over everything he can remember the hustler saying, what the hustler drank, what he was wearing. Then when term starts again, he scrutinises Sam, watches him in classes. Sam keeps his distance these days but Chase is careful, subtle.
But that's it. There's no more. Not until there's a photo of Sam on TV, wanted by the FBI, right alongside a picture of the hustler. And Chase learns the hustler's name.
~end