#hustling pool

Dean broke Sam so totally and completely beyond repair.

He remembers the things he said, as a demon, because he remembers meaning them. But he doesn’t mean them now and he doesn’t know how to fix this.

Castiel had brought him food from the local diner after he was cured, said Sam placed the order and picked it up but couldn’t bring it to Dean himself. He’d told Cas he just needed time, and Dean will give him that, as much as it hurts having his little brother hide from him.

Sam ordered him a cheeseburger extra onion and double French fries, just like he likes, with two slices of apple pie for dessert. Even sad and scared, Sam will always think about Dean above himself.

He’d asked Cas if Sam got himself a salad like the health nerd he is. Cas just gave him a pitying smile, which told Dean everything he needed to know.

Now, almost a week since he was cured, Dean knows Sam hasn’t been eating enough, and that Sam spends a lot of time at the local bar outside Lebanon. It’s a couple steps down from a dive, but it has its share of rowdy drunks, a pool table for some good hustlin’, and bartenders that aren’t scared to kick you out on your ass. Dean would know.

And Sam has been there at least four nights this week.

It’s the fifth night that he hears the creak of the door open and slam shut that alerts Dean to Sam leaving again. It’s just after nine. Dean weighs his options and decides to follow Sam there but remain hidden; he’s gotten good at hiding since he got the mark of Cain.

He gives him an hour head start before heading over, driving through the lot to locate the car that Sam seems to take whenever he goes off alone, then parks in the back so Sam can’t find Baby and know that Dean came.

The bartender knows him, lets Dean take up a shadowed corner with a couple’a beers and hunker down to watch the show.

Sam seems to be two or three beers in; he’s swaying on his feet, cheeks flushed and hair a mess like he ran his fingers through it several times in frustration.

And he appears to be hustling, except the little shit is drunk and not just faking it to play the guys he’s hustling. If Sam does this every night without backup, Dean is going to kill him.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” one of the guys slurs, leaning too close to Sam for Dean’s liking. Dean never was fond of anyone touching Sam or calling him pet names. That’s Dean’s baby brother and Dean doesn’t play nice when it comes to Sammy. He watches as Sam visibly tenses – knows what’s making his brother uncomfortable – and steps back. “Oh, don’t be like that, pretty, you know you can’t win this, don’t ya? I’m givin’ you an out. Your arm’s broken, ain’t it?”

“No,” Sam replies, bumping the pool table in his haste to put more distance between them, grunting in pain at the contact. “Already told you… I lose an’ you take me for all the money I got, or you lose, and I take you for all the money you got – no more no less. I can beat you, sprained elbow or not.”

Dean smirks with pride. His brother may be drunk but he’s not stupid. Sam can play pool left handed or right handed. They trained themselves over the years how to use both hands in case their dominant hand becomes incapacitated somehow in the middle of a hunt. Always need a contingency plan when your life’s on the line.

“We’ll see about that,” the man growls, leering at Sam, eyes roaming his body up and down. That kind of scrutiny would have Dean wanting to shower and scrub himself raw; he can’t imagine how Sammy feels. “It’s prudes like you that beg for cock when it’s presented to them.”

That has Dean half standing, anticipating. He’s furious that anyone would say that to Sam. It has Dean’s skin crawling and the mark on his arm burning, begging for bloodshed. Dean wants to slit this man’s throat for even thinking of Sam that way. He wants to torture him and make him beg for Sam’s forgiveness.

He wants to bash his face in.

Sam shoves the guy’s shoulder and says, “Just play pool, man,” and Dean sits back down. The game resumes and Dean keeps a watchful eye as Sam fumbles his way through the game, drunk off his ass. Sam accepts drink after drink and Dean knows his little brother isn’t going to win this game with that much alcohol in his system, but he’s waiting until Sam actually needs help to step in.

“You’ve been alone for awhile, sugar. You waitin’ for someone?” a smooth woman’s voice says from his left. He looks up just as she’s sliding into the seat across from him and blocking his view of Sam and the guys he’s hustling. He needs to get her out of here fast.

“I’m just enjoying some time alone,” he replies, not trying to sound rude but wanting her gone.

Her smile is predatory when she asks, “Would you like some company?”

“I’m sorry, darlin’,” he tries to sound remorseful but misses by a mile as he leans slightly to the right to try to get an eye on Sam.

She must notice he’s distracted because she turns her body slightly to the left and cranes her neck to see what Dean is looking at before turning back to him. “That tall glass of water, huh? It’s always the gorgeous ones,” she says wistfully with a shake of her head and winks at him as she gets up from her chair. “If you strike out, I’ll be at the bar, sugar.”

It had to be less than a minute between the time she looked at Sam and then left the table, but by the time Dean’s view cleared, Sam and the guys at the pool table were gone. Dean almost knocked over his chair in his haste to get up and find Sam. It was barely 11, and the past week Sam hadn’t been coming home until well after midnight. Last call was 1:30 but Sam has always been the type to leave well before last call to avoid being “one of those people,” he’d say. His little brother was such a nerd.

Sam’s a grown man. 32 years old and 6’4”, he shouldn’t need Dean’s protection, but that will never stop the big brother side of Dean from protecting his little brother. And now, with this mark burning into his arm, Dean’s more protective than usual. More agitated, angry. He’s itching to make someone hurt, someone bleed, and if tonight it happens to be some guys Sam beat at pool then so be it.

He bypasses the pool table they were hanging at -- the  drink Sam had been drinking rests on the edge of the table, condensation leaving a ring on the lacquered wood finish -- and heads for the hall leading to the bathroom. He stops at the sound of voices in the middle of an argument.

“I told you, nothing more nothing less,” Sam’s voice carries down the hallway and Dean waits, wanting to give Sam the benefit of the doubt. He didn’t see how many of the guys followed but even inebriated he knows Sam can hold his own. It’s just the protective part inside him that wants to beat this guy’s face in for thinking he can get something from Sam.

“I might’a let you go if you didn’t hustle me an’ my boys for all we got,” the man replies huskily. There’s a thud and Sam grunts. It sets Dean’s teeth on edge and makes his hand twitch for a blade. He peers around the corner and sees that Sam’s pressed against the wall by the man he was playing when Dean got to the bar, the other two that had been hanging around the pool table watching them play were flanking the two of them. Dean could only make out Sam’s shaggy head of hair. “Now we’re gonna take it out on your ass for all we lost.”

Sam tries to shove at the guy’s shoulders, says, “Just because I can outplay you in pool with my arm in a sling doesn’t mean I cheated. You just lack skill.”

It’s Sam’s smart mouth that Dean both loves and hates. His baby brother can be a huge pain in the ass with his book intelligence, but sometimes he lacks severe street intelligence. He wonders how often this has happened before; he’s going to have to have a talk with Sammy after he saves his ass, literally.

He has half a mind to let these guys fuck with Sam a little bit to teach him a lesson; give himself a better excuse to beat them half to death for touching his brother.

He wants to be Sam’s savior and then punish him accordingly, both for running away from him and for putting himself in deliberate danger.

He’s going to punish Sam regardless.

“Get off’a me!” Sam shouts, trying to shove harder, but he’s outnumbered and while Sam is tall and strong, these guys have more muscle mass on him and they just laugh as Sam struggles against them, his arm in the sling cradled against his chest. He can’t use all his strength because of the damn sling and his hurt elbow.

Being bitten by a vampire while Sam watches crosses his mind and he feels less inclined to jump in just yet, wanting to see how this plays out. Sam had no soul, he reminds himself, but at the same time… Dean feels like he doesn’t have a soul right now, too. Just dark thoughts swirling around in his head about his little brother and pain.

“Aw, come on, pretty boy,” another one of the men taunts, gripping Sam’s chin and turning him to face him. “Don’t be a prude. You look like you’re desperate to get fucked. Just turn around and we’ll make you feel good, baby.”

“No!”

Hearing this sleazeball call Sammy “baby” is enough for Dean. He steps away from hiding just as they’re turning Sam to face the wall, fiddling with Sam’s belt buckle as his little brother squirms in their grip.

“Let him go,” Dean growls.

“Mind ya own business, pal.”

“I said,” Dean speaks slow, as if talking to a child who broke the rules, “Let,” he steps closer, “Him go.”

“Dean,” Sam says, voice quivering both in fear of the men trying to have their way with him and possibly at Dean himself. Sam hasn’t looked Dean in the eye since Dean was cured; he’s been ducking out of the bunker before Dean can emerge from his bedroom, or the bathroom. Dean had been longing to catch Sam in the library again, reading a book, happy and comfortable like he used to be. But as far as he knows, Sam stays in his room, or leaves the bunker altogether to run away from Dean.

That stops now.

“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean says, “I’m here.”

“Listen, buddy,” the man that Sam beat speaks up again, “Find your own bitch, this one’s ours.”

Despite the burning of the mark, begging for Dean to slit the throats of these men, Dean actually laughs out loud. “You’re right,” he shrugs, a smirk growing on his face as he steps closer. “He is a bitch, but he’s my bitch, and I’m not going to let scumbags like you taint him.” He grabs the hair of the one who had grabbed Sam’s chin and yanks him away roughly. “If you don’t want to die today, let him go.”

“Alright, asshole--” The first guy releases Sam and lunges at Dean, who slams the guy he has by the hair face first into the wooden wall of the hallway next to the bathroom. He whirls around before the guy reaches him to throw a right hook into his chin, sending him flying back. The third guy releases Sam completely with a shout and lunges, too, but Sam sticks a foot back and trips him so he falls face first.

“Like I said,” Dean says with finality.

“Dean,” Sam repeats his name, looking at him fully. He still has fear showing in his face but Dean is just glad to hear his voice. “You--”

“Sammy,” he says softly, stepping over the man he knocked out with a right hook and pressing Sam back against the wall. He almost backs away when Sam’s beautiful hazel eyes flash with fear -- the last time he had Sam against a wall, he had a hammer and was going to kill Sam and Sam had a knife to his throat that Dean knew he wouldn’t use on him -- but he doesn’t. He holds his ground. “Sammy,” he repeats, raising a hand to caress his little brother’s alcohol flushed cheek. “I don’t want you doing this anymore.”

“Dean, I- I just needed time and--”

He doesn’t know why he does it -- actually, that’s a lie because he knows why he does it, he’s always wanted to do it -- but he leans in and kisses Sam, effectively quieting him. Sam gasps against his lips and accidentally grants access to Dean’s tongue. Dean holds Sam’s chin with one hand while the other trails downward and grips Sam’s hip to press it tightly to the wall, keeping him still. His hips follow soon after and press against Sam’s. He’s careful where they press together so he doesn’t put pressure on Sam’s hurt arm as he deepens the kiss.

Sam doesn’t fight. His free arm lifts up and he wraps his thin fingers into the collar of Dean’s shirt and pulls him closer. Dean smiles into the kiss before pulling away, says softly, “Come back home, Sammy,” and gives him another chaste kiss.

~~FLASHBACK~~

“Star?” Samantha asked, perplexed when the word had slipped through his buzzed lips.

“Well yea,” Dean answered, “Calling you Sam or Sammy is just confusing. Samantha just seems so….formal. Not to mention, a mouthful,” he explained before he took another drink from his bottle. “And Tex is too common for someone from Texas.”

“So why Star?” she inquired.

“Well, Texas is known as the Lone Star state and I was just thinking….you could be a Star. I can think of something else if you don’t like it,” he had said, sounding defeated.

“Ok, Star it is then,” she smiled as she reached over and clicked the necks of the beer bottles together.

~~END FLASHBACK~~

Tonight, they were all out to celebrate a job well done. The ghost of a college professor who wanted revenge on those who cost him his tenure position and family had been haunting his old office building. Turns out the man had practically cost himself the job when it was determined that many students received extra credit for “extra work”. A notebook listing the names of the students and what sexual favors they had performed was hidden in the wall of his office and somehow he was attached to that. Throwing the notebook onto a flame laid the ghost to rest and put the students and other professors at ease. Now here they were, three tricenarians, in a college hangout to officially close out the case.

Star and Sam found a booth near the back while Dean approached the bar to get the first round.

Four beers later, Dean and Star had switched to shots and Sam had headed back to the motel. For someone in his early 30s, Sam was a wet towel when it came to celebrating. As Dean was sitting up the next row of shots, Star began surveying their surroundings. The dance floor was packed with college aged kids grinding to whatever trash the jukebox was belting out. The modern music was nothing she enjoyed; give her classic rock or a good slow song any day. This garbage that was being released now days grated on her nerves. Over in the corner a group of coeds were sitting around a table, drinking and laughing. In the very back of the bar, Star saw a couple of guys surrounding a pool table, both with a cue in their hand.

“Hey Dean,” she asked as she turned her attention back to her drinking partner. “How’s our funds looking?”

Dean took his first shot and hissed through his teeth, the burn of the liquor still fresh. “Dwindling. If we don’t make some soon, we’ll be sleeping in Baby.”

Star smiled and took her shot, not wanting to get too far behind and listen to the ridiculing. “I have an idea. Gimme fifteen.” She lifted the next glass in her row and downed the amber liquid, shaking her head.

Making her way through the masses, Star approached the pool table. “Hey guys! Whatcha doing?” she slurred, although she wasn’t nearly drunk enough to actually not be able to form words correctly.

A blue-eyed, blonde haired guy turned toward her and eyed her up and down. “Just shooting pool. What’s a gorgeous girl like you doing all by yourself?”

Star pretended to be affected by his obvious flirtation by bowing her head and giggling.

“Ah, come on sweet cheeks, no need to be embarrassed,” 'Blondie' teased. His buddy, approaches her from the opposite side.

“No reason to be all shy around us. We’re harmless,” 'Buddy' says as he sweeps her hair off her shoulder. “So why did you come over here? You see something you like?”

“Hey, Carl. Lay off dude. You’re going to scare her off,” Blondie told Carl, who backed away. “I’m Greg. What’s your name sweet cheeks?”

“Samantha.”

“Pretty name for a pretty girl,” Greg said. He handed a pool cue her way. “Wanna play?”

Star hid a smirk as she took the stick. “I’m not any good, but sure.” She knew she had them hooked because Dean had taught her how to play pool and she was extremely good at it.

Carl gathered up the colorful balls and put them in the triangle. Once they were to his liking he lifted the rack and Greg handed her the white cue. “Ladies first.”

Star placed the cue ball on the felt and went to position herself for the first shot. Carl and Greg started laughing and she stood up, looking at them. “What? Am I doing it wrong?”

Greg stopped laughing long enough to tell her, “You’re holding the stick backwards.”

Star fake laughed at herself and turned the stick around. “Oops.”

Carl walked up to the table and placed a $50 bill on the edge. “Let’s make this interesting. This here-” he said, holding the note on the wood. “-is yours if you can make at least 5 in.”

“Pfft,” Star huffed. “I can’t do that. I’ll be lucky to break them apart.”

Greg came up behind her. “How about I teach you?” He put one of his hand over hers on the stick and the other on her lower back. “Make him eat his words. What do you say?”

Star giggled. “Okay.” She allowed Greg to ‘teach’ her how to play the game until all that was left on the table was the black 8-ball.

“I think I got the hang of it.” she said as she leaned over the edge of the table, lined up the shot and took it. She pretended to be stunned as the 8-ball landed in it’s mark. “Oh my god! I did it!”

Star, Greg and Carl played two more games, the boys of course winning both of them and was racking up the third game when Dean sauntered over, pretending to be drunk.

“Hey fellas,” Dean slurred perfectly. He squinted toward Star and smiled. “And lady.” Star rolled her eyes at the dramatics Dean was going to in order to play off their friendship. Greg stepped over to her and draped his arm around her shoulders, apparently trying to protect her from the drunken man who had interrupted them. ‘Oh if only you knew you have no chance in hell against him,’ she thought to herself.

Dean talked the two college boys into playing a game against him and after losing the first one, the betting began. Dean bent down to start the next game and subtly glanced up at Star across the table, dropping that Winchester smirk. He knew they had the college boys hook, line and sinker  

When it was all said and done, Star and Dean were almost $1K richer and Greg and Carl was in the corner licking their wounds.

Dean grabbed Star’s hand, linking their fingers as they passed by the lads. “Thanks for the entertainment fellas. Me and my girl had a blast!” Star’s laughter rang throughout the bar as she and Dean walked out and headed toward the Impala.

Dean opens the passenger door for her and shuts it after she is in. Star watches as Dean walks around the front of the car and slides into the driver seat. Something he said in the bar had struck a chord with her and she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel about it. She didn’t want to end the night on a somber note.

Once they arrived at the motel, Dean followed her to her room and as she stuck her keycard in to unlock the door she took the chance. “Dean, can I ask you something?” she asked turning the knob but looking over her shoulder at her best friend and hunting partner.

“Sure. What’s up?” Dean asked as he followed her into her room.

Sitting the key on the little table at the side, Star took a breath and turned toward him. “Back at the bar you said something and I don’t know….” she trailed off, not sure how to continue. Gathering her courage, she looked up into his eyes and went for it. “You called me ‘your girl’.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

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