#SamGabeHSAU -
"Dean?"
What looks at first like a nod turns out to be an earbud-inspired headbang. Sam maneuvers himself in front of Dean. "Dean!"
The freakout is predictable. "Thought I told you to knock!" Earbuds drop and Metallica blares out in a tinny echo.
"I did, you didn't hear me!"
Dean doesn't have any valid response to this. "What do you want?"
"I... I have a question for you."
The hesitation in Sam's voice snaps Dean immediately from pissed-off teen to protective big brother. "Sit down." He gestures to the bed -- Dean himself is perched on his desk chair, doing something that might be studying and might not -- and Sam sits down, gingerly, like the bed might rise up and bite him. "What's up?"
Sam's thought about how to ask this. He starts out strong. "Suppose you have a really good friend. Someone like Cas." Castiel Engel is Dean's complete opposite and closest confidant. He's starched shirts and stern expressions. Sam has asserted that if he had a unibrow, he would be Bert from Sesame Street. "And suddenly someone says to you that he's gay."
"Cas?" Dean laughs. "Dude's asexual. Pretty sure he's totally junkless."
"Just suppose," Sam presses. "Think about it. You think you know him and then this comes out -- bad choice of words," he adds ruefully. Dean snickers. "How do you feel? What do you do?"
Dean doesn't waste any time pondering the actual question. He goes straight for the jugular. "Who is it?"
"It's a hypothetical, Dean! Jeez!"
"Yeah, and I'm Buffy the Vampire Layer." Sam rolls his eyes. "Seriously, did someone come out to you?"
Sam is glad he can shake his head truthfully to that. He's never been a good liar. "Can't you just answer the question?"
"No, cause I don't know what I'd do." Dean frowns abruptly. "Sammy?"
Sam swallows.
"This isn't... you know..."
"Isn't what?"
"This isn't about you, is it?"
Sam's jaw drops. "What? No! You dumbass." He gets up and kicks the leg of Dean's chair. Dean swears. Sam marches to the door, unsure why he's so pissed off. It has less to do with the substance than the thought he would fuck around with Dean like that. He doesn't play those games.
The anger, irrational as it is, flares up even farther when he hears, as he's walking out of the room, Dean say, "Good."
What the hell is that supposed to mean?