He’s half-listening to whatever story Ekky’s telling in front of him, half-watching–no, monitoring–whatever’s going on behind the large gaggle of drunk dancers. The erratic sway of bodies is making it more and more difficult to see what’s happening clearly. 

So, he gets up, shaking his empty drink at the rest of the guys, and maneuvers out of the booth. He’s headed straight for the bar, using his height to track Misa over the crowd. Misa’s near some dark patch on the corner of the dance floor close to the speakers, leaning against the wall with some dude he’s never seen before. 

His teammate is leaning into this other guy’s space, rising a bit onto his toes to listen to whatever bullshit the guy’s spewing. 

He didn’t even see Misa drink all that much, so seeing him swaying a bit with a pink tinge high on his cheeks comes as a sort of surprise. 

He taps his ID on the bar top, a tad impatiently. Usually, he’d be pretty pissed because the bartenders are somewhere on the other side gossiping or flirting, but he’s found that he’s more than okay with it right now.

He keeps staring. 

Misa stumbles a bit, losing his balance and shoots a hand out to grab onto the wall. He steadies himself and smiles at the guy, small and sweet. Sam can almost picture his big brown eyes peering up, looking up at that random guy in the same way he looks at Sam after he’s done with his Reavo-special shake. 

It makes his jaw tighten and something swims low in his stomach, ugly and heavy. 

Finally, one of the bartenders notices him after wiping down the same place a fourth time. He’s kept count. He watches her walk over, smiling apologetically, and he straightens up. He gives her a smile because he’s not that much of an ass and he’s supposed to be in a good mood. 

He gets his third rum and coke for the night and goes to look up again. 

He doesn’t know what could’ve possibly happened in the past minute and a half, but he has to blink a few times to make sure he’s not just making this shit up. ‘Cause now Misa has his hand wrapped around the guy’s bicep, squeezing experimentally in the same way those really forward girls grab at Sam with a coy smile and a clear agenda for the night. 

That's kinda dumb, he thinks. It’s not like Misa hasn’t seen more impressive arms. He’s a professional hockey player for fuck’s sake. But he can’t take his eyes off of them. 

He watches with a breath he doesn’t even know he's holding as the guy steps closer, all up in Misa’s space, crowding him to the wall. Watches as Misa sinks down a little, letting his full weight fall onto the wall behind him, flush to his back. Watches as the guy trails his other hand–the one not being groped at–down Misa’s sides, starting near his ribs and making its way down, slowly. Watches as the hand stops, hooking into one of Misa’ belt loops. 

And Mis– Mis looks okay with this. More than okay if he really thinks about it. 

He’s moving before he’s fully decided to move, realises it about half-way there when he’s shouldered through at least four people grinding on each other. His hand is still shaped like it’s still holding something even when his drink is back at the bar, sweating into the counter. 

He tells himself Misa is drunk. Has to be. Probably because he’s the baby of the team, unused to handling the liquor Ekky and Reavo forced down his throat even if he knows that’s not true because Misa has an insane tolerance. 

The 20-something year old guy is just taking advantage of a rookie who can’t handle his liquor yet. A rookie who doesn’t understand the finger hooked into his belt loop for what it is even though he knows Misa has watched Sam pull that exact move a few times on other people–other girls. Knows that it’s ended with Sam heading back to their hotel room too late and a condom or two lighter. 

So, he does what any decent teammate would do. He steps in at an angle that puts himself between Misa and the guy without quite making it a thing, easy, casual, hand landing on Misa’ shoulder like he’s just wandered over mid-conversation.

“Hey, there you are,” he says, too loud over the bass, grinning like this is normal. “The guys are asking where you went. C’mon, I’ll walk you back.”

It’s an out. A clean one. He’s even angling his body so Misa has a clear shot of the booth.

Misa doesn’t take it.

Instead he gets a hand on Sam’s arm–not clinging, not unsteady, gripping and precise–and pulls him a step off to the side, out of the guy’s space. He stares up at him.

That stops Sam cold.

Because the sway is gone. The pink is still high on his cheeks, but his eyes are sharp. And it hits Sam all at once that Misa does understand what that finger hooked into his belt loop means, and Misa does understand what it means to touch a guy’s bicep like that. 

“I’m fine,” Misa says, quiet, just for him. “Go back to the guys.”

“Are you–”

“I mean it. Mind your business, Dick.”

He says it flat. Not mean, not really. Just final, the sort of final that leaves no room for argument. 

But he wants to argue anyway. 

Except Misa is already turned back around, already sliding back into the spot against the wall like he never left it, shoulders loose again, swaying as he tips his chin back up at the guy like nothing’s happened. 

Sam stands there a second too long. Doesn’t totally trust his legs to remember which direction the booth’s in. 

He walks back slowly, detouring by the bar first, and doesn’t bother with the straw when he’s back in his spot in front of Ekky, just tips his head back and drains the rum and coke in three long pulls, ignoring the cold sting of the ice on his teeth. 

What the actual fuck, he thinks. 

He feels someone nudge at his shoulder, he drops his glass onto the table, and turns towards them. The smile fades from Vin’s face, shrinking into a look of concern instead. Vin squints his eyes at him. “You good?”

He shrugs it off, schools his face back into something normal before Vin can dig any further. “I’m good.”

Vin doesn’t look totally convinced, but the rest of the table’s already circling. Apparently, an eleven minute drink run is exactly the kind of thing that gets noticed by a booth full of bored, drunk hockey players who already have somebody waiting at home for them. 

“Stop lying, Dickinson.” Reavo shouts from another table, swinging his half-full beer around. “You got shut down.”

The table erupts. He gets a bunch of aggressive noogies to the head, making his cap fall off completely. He pretends he’s annoyed for just a moment, glaring at them. Then he grabs Vin’s untouched whiskey sour, gulping it down with as much grace as possible. 

“She just doesn’t know what she could've had,” he says cheekily, bending over to grab his hat. 

The team laughs at that, someone throws a balled-up napkin at his head, and he lets himself get distracted. Lets the loud bass of the music wash over him. Lets Vin grumble and shove at him because he was totally drinking that. He settles back into the booth.

He keeps half an eye on the corner the whole time he’s doing it. Doesn’t think he’s doing it consciously, like Misa is Earth and Sam is the moon, pulled into his orbit no matter what. Maybe Misa is Jupiter, he thinks, he's pretty sure he remembers Jupiter having more than one moon. 

Dancers keep swallowing his line of sight, an ever shifting wall of bodies that clear for half a second here, a full second there, just enough to catch a glimpse of the guy’s back.

He tells himself he’s not checking.

He checks anyway, between Ekky’s chirps, between Vin’s indigent squawk at being drinkless. 

The next real gap he gets, the wall is just a wall. 

No Misa. No guy. Nothing.

He sits up a little straighter without meaning to, scanning the rest of the floor like they’ll turn up somewhere. He doesn’t spot them anywhere. 

His hand’s already moving for his phone before he’s decided to check it. Misa texts him when he leaves early like this, always, some dumb one-liner or a haphazardly taken selfie with Graf or Toff. 

There’s nothing. No text. No missed call. No snap. No selfie.

He looks up, finds Graf still in his spot by Ekky and Toff’s off somewhere on the rooftop with Smitty. 

“Sammy.” Ekky’s snapping fingers in front of his face, grinning. “That bad? What about them?” He points over to the bar where two girls are sitting at, turned towards them. 

Usually–especially–on a night like this he’d be all over that. Tonight, though, is different. He feels strung up, like he’s some sort of puppet and someone’s pulled him tight. “Not my type.” They are very much his usual type.