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Lying in the sunlight waiting for Dean to wake up had been a great idea. Sam was in the perfect position to roll over and kiss all of the inevitable denials and excuses from his brother’s lips. The only problem with his brilliant plan was that Dean seemed intent on sleeping into next year, and a spectacular hangover had swooped in on Sam as soon as the rest of his alcoholic haze wore off.
The sun had gotten higher and hotter, lying in a blinding band across Sam’s eyes. Pain pounded against his forehead, pulsing in time with his heart. Every sound from outside—mostly mid-morning departures by the motel’s other guests and huge semis blasting past on the road out front—dug into his brain like shards of glass. And then his stomach got into the mix, rolling and heaving and determined that it wasn’t going to put up with this shit.
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. It was wake Dean up or puke all over the bed.
Sam reached over with his free arm and shook Dean’s shoulder. “Dean,” he whispered, and then winced as his head threatened to explode.
Dean made an inarticulate grunt and snuggled closer, tucking his head down against Sam’s shoulder and nuzzling into his neck.
Sam tightened his grip and shook his brother again. “Dean.”
“Whassit?” Dean finally lifted his head and blinked at Sam, still more than half asleep. There was a hickey on his neck that Sam didn’t remember putting there and his hair was sticking up in a way that Sam would have found endearing if he wasn’t in immediate danger of dying from pain and nausea.
He shoved at Dean a little, trying to get him off. “Dean, man, you gotta move. I’m gonna throw up.”
Instantly alert, Dean scrambled backwards out of the bed, grabbing a blanket off the floor to wrap around his waist.
Sam had a second to notice that Dean’s chest was littered with mouth-shaped bruises—did I do all that?— and then he was up and running to the bathroom as fast as he was able to move. He slammed the door shut behind him—cause really, the sound of Sam puking wasn’t the first thing Dean would want to hear in the morning—and dropped to his knees in front of the toilet. Where he retched until there were spots dancing in front of his eyes.
When his stomach had finally settled, Sam laid his head against the side of the toilet. His left arm—the one Dean had been draped over—was a mass of pins and needles as circulation returned, but his headache had dimmed from the refreshing coolness of the porcelain, so he figured that was a win. Tilting his head to find a fresh cool spot, Sam decided that ice would feel even better. Maybe Dean would run out and get some for him.
Eventually, he got up from the floor and stumbled over to dunk his head in the sink. Ran cold water over his neck and the back of his head until he was shivering and felt a little more human. When he turned the faucet off, Sam could hear Dean moving around out in the bedroom and swearing under his breath. Probably the expected freak out about what they’d done in their drunken stupor last night.
Sam groaned. He really wasn’t in any condition to deal with Dean’s issues right now. Maybe they could do the whole “not talking” thing for a few hours until his hangover died down. Dean wouldn’t have a problem with that: was probably already planning on pretending that nothing had happened until Sam—inevitably—brought it up.
Opening the bathroom door, Sam hung onto the frame and peered out.
Dean was moving around the room with an awkward, limping gait that would have been funny at any other time. Guess that answers the ‘who topped?’ question, Sam thought, and then frowned when he realized that Dean was already fully dressed and was shoving the rest of his stuff into his bag as quickly as he could. He didn’t really expect Sam to travel now, did he?
“Dean, I don’t think I’m up for—”
Dean jumped and spun around, wincing at the sudden movement, and when Sam looked past him, he caught sight of the motel room’s table. Of the wad of cash lying next to the keys to the Impala.
Keys that never left Dean’s pockets unless they were in the ignition.
“What’s going on?” Sam tried to demand, but his headache was making it difficult to concentrate so it probably came out sounding a little confused instead.
Dean somehow managed to square his shoulders and hunch down at the same time. His eyes, watching Sam, were shuttered. Sam waited for his brother to answer the question, but Dean just stood there quietly. Expectant, like he was waiting for something.
And really, all Sam wanted to do was go back to bed and sleep until his head stopped trying to implode. He rubbed one hand across his eyes. “Look, Dean, just—I’ve got a killer hangover here, man—”
Now there was a flicker of identifiable emotion—guilt—as Dean dug through his bag and pulled out a bottle of extra-strength Tylenol. He hobbled over to Sam while opening the bottle and, standing back as far as he could, emptied six out into Sam’s hand. Sam started to protest that the recommended dose was only two, but reconsidered as his head gave a particularly vicious pulse. He swallowed the pills dry.
“Thanks,” he said hoarsely. “Can you get me some ice?” He felt his way over to the bed, a little confused when Dean’s hand didn’t immediately drop underneath his elbow to support him, but too distracted by pain to dwell on it.
Sam heard the door click closed as he collapsed onto the nearest bed—the one that he would have spent last night in, if things between him and Dean hadn’t … well, happened. He considered tossing Dean’s bag out of the bathroom window while his brother was out of the room—Dean wouldn’t go anywhere without his stuff—and then just lay where he was instead. Dean probably wouldn’t leave while Sam was in pain, either.
But when his brother came back with the ice, Sam refused to settle down until he’d made Dean take off his coat and stolen it to use as an extra pillow. The scent of leather—of Dean—helped to relax him.
“Asshole,” Sam muttered. “Better be here when I wake up.”
Then the drugs kicked in and he drifted back to sleep.
When Sam woke up again, his headache was only a faint tightness in his forehead. He could look at the sun-brightened window without wincing and his stomach was calm. He just wished he could say the same thing for his state of mind.
For a few moments, he thought that Dean was gone—that he had left anyway—but when he sat up and turned around, he saw that his brother had pulled a chair over to the far side of the room and was sitting in it with his back bowed and his head in his hands.
“Dean,” Sam said.
Dean’s head jerked up and he climbed to his feet, stance uncomfortable.
Sam frowned, brushing a stray clump of hair out of his eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked and then, quickly, because he already knew the answer to that question, he clarified, “Did I hurt you?”
He slid off of the bed and Dean swallowed, immediately averting his eyes. Glancing down, Sam realized that he was still naked. Aha. He thought about covering himself and then discarded the idea. Might as well just take the bull by the horns, so to speak.
“Look at me, Dean.”
“Sam—”
“Look at me.”
Dean’s eyes flickered up at the command and then dropped again. “No. I’m sorry, Sam, I swear to God I am, and you can beat the crap out of me if you want to, but I can’t—”
“Why would I want to beat the crap out of you?” Sam asked, genuinely confused.
Dean opened his mouth to say something and then shut it again, clenching his jaw. Stubborn son of a bitch.
Sighing, Sam moved toward his brother. “Dean, I—”
He reached out his hand, not really sure what he meant to do—hug Dean? Give him an awkward pat on the shoulder?—and Dean shoved it away. Made a move to brush past Sam and out of range and then stopped. Squared his shoulders and just stood there with his face turned away.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “Do whatever you have to, but don’t—don’t touch me.”
As ready as he’d been for Dean’s resistance, Sam’s chest clenched painfully at his brother’s words. “Please,” he begged. “Dean, man, please. I know that you’re freaking out about last night, but it’s okay. I—”
“‘Okay’?” Dean repeated incredulously. “Jesus Christ, Sam, I fucked you! That’s not even in the same country as ‘okay’.”
“Actually, I’m pretty sure that I fucked you.”
Dean flushed at that, which was pretty hot because Dean never got flustered. “You know what I mean,” he mumbled.
“Look, Dean, we were drunk, and we didn’t—”
“You were drunk,” Dean interrupted, his voice harsh.
Sam blinked at him. “What?”
Finally, Dean lifted his head up. His eyes were bloodshot, like he’d been crying or hadn’t gotten much sleep. “You were drunk, Sammy. You were drunk and I was stone cold sober and I fucked you.”
“But … but you were drinking too,” Sam said, trying to piece everything together. “We were both—”
“I stopped, okay? I cut myself off. Figured that one of us should be responsible.” He gave a short laugh. “That worked really fucking well.”
“Stop saying that,” Sam muttered. His throat was dry. Dean had been sober. Which meant … what, exactly?
“What, ‘fuck’? Why? That’s what we did, isn’t it? We fucked.”
Sam flinched. Yeah, they had, but … but the way Dean was saying it: the way his lips were twisting around the word, making it something obscene and wrong … “You don’t have to make it sound so … dirty.”
“Well how the fuck else is it supposed to sound, Sam? I fucked my brother. My drunken, horny baby brother. There’s a word for that, you know. They teach it to you in college? Did they teach you about inc—”
Sam punched him. Had to shut Dean up somehow before he said that word, curling those lips around it in some kind of vile caress.
Dean’s head snapped to one side with the force of the blow and when he looked back he was smirking, his eyes bright with relief. Bastard had wanted Sam to hit him.
“That all you got, Sammy?” he asked.
Sam turned around and started back for the beds. Clothes were looking like a good idea right about now. He expected Dean to leave him alone to get dressed but Dean followed him instead, nagging like some kind of masochistic puppy.
“Come on, Sam,” he was saying, “Don’t you want to talk about your feelings anymore? Don’t you want to talk about how fucking your brother felt, cause I felt fucking great, with your co—”
Sam spun and grabbed Dean’s arms, not sure if he was pissed or depressed as hell but damned certain that he couldn’t listen to Dean talking in that cruel, mocking tone of voice anymore. And if he wasn’t willing to beat Dean up to stop the flow of words, then there was really only one other thing to do.
He dropped his lips on top of his brother’s and shoved his tongue inside of Dean’s mouth and turned them both so that, when he stepped forward, Sam walked the back of his brother’s legs into the bed. Dean fell over backwards with Sam on top of him. Sam swallowed the grunt of pain his brother made at the impact, which couldn’t have felt great if Dean’s ass was as sore as he suspected.
Dean was struggling to get up but Sam had all the leverage and Dean wasn’t going anywhere until he had calmed down. Which meant that Sam could either sit here for a few days or he could stop those gears in his brother’s head from turning. Best way to stall Dean’s upstairs brain out was to kick start his downstairs one.
So Sam sucked Dean’s lower lip into his mouth and bit down on it. Worked his knee in between his brother’s legs and then shoved his thigh against Dean’s crotch. Sam felt the exact moment when Dean realized that all his struggles were doing was providing friction in a very interesting place because his brother went stone still.
I don’t think so, Sam thought grimly. Dean wasn’t just going to lie there and take it, damn it. That was Not Acceptable.
Sam pushed his thigh in harder and Dean made a low moan against his mouth, hips bucking up once instinctively before he remembered to stop them. Encouraged, Sam pushed in again, and damned if this wasn’t turning him on: Dean lying vulnerable and hard beneath him, Dean’s mouth pressed against his.
Come on, Dean, stop thinking about it.
Sam dropped his weight more firmly down on top of his brother and then risked letting go of one of Dean’s arms to slide his right hand up underneath his shirt. Felt the surprised intake of breath flutter through Dean’s stomach muscles before reaching higher to find one of his nipples. Sam ran his fingers over it, wishing he could put his mouth there—later, he promised himself—and Dean’s entire body shuddered.
His free hand came up to slide across Sam’s lower back, curled possessively around his ass, and then finally came to rest clenched around his upper leg. Sam was grinning as he pressed his way back into Dean’s mouth because Dean was finally getting with the program here. Was using his hand to pull Sam’s thigh against his crotch while simultaneously thrusting up in a steadily increasing rhythm.
Sam caught Dean’s hardening nipple between his thumb and his forefinger and gave it a brief squeeze, testing the waters, and Dean’s head slammed down into the bed as his back arched up. Sam lost his brother’s lips for a few seconds and Dean panted, “Sam—Sammy—you fucking asshole—you—” before he managed to clamp down on them again.
Dean immediately bit down on Sam’s lip, thrusting his left hip up at the same time as he pulled down with his right hand. Sam was flipped off of his brother onto the bed and then Dean was above him. He knelt on Sam’s stomach with one knee while gripping his shoulder tightly, thumb digging into a pressure point and making Sam’s entire arm go numb and limp.
Sam licked his lips and tasted blood—Dean hadn’t been fooling around with that bite—but he didn’t complain. He just lay there with his dick hard and pressing against Dean’s lower leg where Dean was kneeling on him, and looked up at his brother.
“You’re a shithead, you know that, Sammy?” Dean panted.
“What’s wrong?” Sam shot back, more than a little angry. Why the hell did Dean have to make everything so damned difficult? “Thought you said it felt fucking great.”
Dean’s face crumpled and Sam’s anger evaporated as he realized that his brother was seconds away from crying. Good one, Sam. When Dean released him without saying anything, Sam sat up and reached out to pull the sheet over his lap.
Standing next to the bed, Dean nodded. “Thanks,” he said softly.
“Dean, I don’t know what to—you were just so angry, and I couldn’t listen to you talk like that anymore and I thought—I don’t know what I thought—I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have done that and I’m—I’m sorry.”
But Dean swiped his hand across his face. “Jesus Christ, Sammy. This isn’t—none of this is your fault.”
“That’s not how I remember it.” What little Sam could remember.
He must have been right, though, because Dean didn’t even bother arguing that point and only said, “You were drunk.”
“I’m not drunk now,” Sam pointed out. He scooted toward the edge of the bed, careful to keep the sheet over his ignored erection, and Dean backed up a step.
“Sam,” he choked out.
“I’m not gonna do anything. Just listen to me for a minute, okay?”
Dean swallowed with obvious effort and nodded.
“What happened last night … I’m not sorry. I want it again—I want—hell, Dean, I want you.”
Dean shifted his eyes away uneasily, muscles tense and ready to run. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yeah, Dean, I do.”
Dean’s mouth twisted and he ran a hand through his hair roughly. “No, Sam, you don’t. Can you honestly tell me you gave this one thought before last night? You whack off to thoughts of me in the shower? Spend your nights thinking up erotic fantasies about doing me on the Impala?”
Well, Sam was sure as hell going to be thinking about it now. Shit, this wasn’t helping the serious case of blue balls he had going on. Sam forced his mind back on the subject.
“No,” he admitted, “But, Dean, that doesn’t—”
“Didn’t think so.” Dean reached around Sam and grabbed his jacket, then shrugged into it. “Give it a few weeks, Sammy, and—”
“You think I’ve got a crush on you?” Sam demanded.
Dean shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets.
Anger stirred in Sam’s stomach again. “You’re not that good a lay, dude. I barely remember what happened last night.”
Which was the wrong thing to say because there was that guilt again and now Dean was turning away. Was moving toward the door. “I’ll see you around, Sammy,” he said without looking over his shoulder, and then jumped as Sam’s hand slammed down on the door just as he started to pull it open.
Sam stared at his hand in surprise as well because he didn’t remember getting up, but he must have because now he was standing right behind Dean with one hand holding the door shut and the other holding the sheet up around his waist.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he growled.
“Back off, Sam,” Dean said without turning around.
“No.”
Dean’s shoulders tensed. “Goddamn it, Sammy. Move.” He was gearing himself up to fight his way out the door: Sam could hear it in his voice.
Panicked, he blurted, “Okay, you don’t want to do this. Fine. We won’t. I’ll never bring it up again, okay? But you have got to promise me that you aren’t going to leave the second my back’s turned.”
“Sammy—” Dean sighed, finally turning to look at him.
“You’ve got until the count of three to promise and then I’m shooting you in the leg. One.”
“You don’t even have your gun,” Dean pointed out.
“Way you’re walking today, I can get to it before you make it outside. Two.”
“Fine!” Dean snapped, shoving past Sam to stomp over to the table and drop into the chair with a firmness that made Sam wince in sympathy. But he wasn’t letting his brother off that easily.
Following Dean over, he prodded, “Fine what?”
Dean’s mouth was set in a sulky frown as he ground out, “I promise.”
“You promise you’re not going to leave. Say it.”
“I promise I’m not going to leave your sorry ass. Happy now?”
No, Sam wasn’t. Not by a long shot. But apparently this was the best he was going to get. “Yes,” he lied.
“Good.” Dean folded his arms across his chest and tossed his legs up on the table. Only a slight crinkling of lines around the corners of his eyes and mouth told Sam that it sitting like that was at all painful. Stubborn, proud bastard.
Dean flicked his eyes up at Sam and wrinkled his nose. “Dude, go shower. You stink.”
“Yeah, okay,” Sam said softly, and he slunk away to the bathroom. Turned on the shower and stood just outside of it, breathing in the scent of Dean and sex that still clung to his skin. Just a few hours ago he’d been so fucking happy. So peaceful.
Should have known then that something would screw it up.
Dean wouldn’t touch him anymore. Not that they’d been all that tactile to begin with, but even those accidental touches that came part and parcel with living in each other’s pockets stopped. Their shoulders never brushed because Dean always kept at least a foot between him and Sam whenever they were walking. He was careful not to let their fingers meet when he passed Sam a gun, or ammo, or the salt at one of the greasy spoons they ate lunch in.
When Sam came out from his showers with his hair damp and a towel wrapped around his waist, Dean wouldn’t even look at him.
But at the same time, Dean was doing his best to pretend that nothing had ever happened between them. He teased Sam and called him stupid names. He threw stray napkins and French fries at him across the table. He played Zeppelin too loud and on a seemingly endless loop. He padded around their motel room in nothing but his boxers: flopped down on the bed and balanced a box of loaded nachos on his bare stomach.
For his own part, Sam spent his time reminding himself that he couldn’t touch Dean. That he couldn’t just reach out and take what he wanted—what they both wanted—because he’d made a promise to his brother. Really bad idea in retrospect, but hindsight was 20/20.
When it got to be too much for him to handle, and he caught himself sliding closer to Dean in the car, or counting the inches between their beds at night, he either called for a rest stop or just got up and went into the bathroom. Stepped into a stall or the shower and leaned his forehead against the tiles and jacked off to thoughts of Dean’s mouth, Dean’s hands, Dean’s ass. Of taking Dean against the wall in the motel room, by the side of the road on the Impala, on top of the counter at one of those nameless diners that spotted America’s highways. He tried to be quiet, especially at night, and Dean never said anything about it, but Sam was pretty sure that his brother heard him.
Dean always heard when Sam called his name.
“Don’t wait up,” Dean announced, shrugging into his leather jacket. It was three weeks after that night that had never happened, and Dean was walking easy now. His torso and neck were clean, all the evidence washed away.
“Where are you going?” Sam sat up straighter from his cross-legged position on the bed, where he’d been doing an internet search for information on what could possibly be snacking on people fishing in the Red Kill River.
“Out.”
“Out where?”
Dean’s voice was dull. “Just out.”
“Going to a bar?” Sam asked softly.
Dean’s shoulders lifted in a shrug and bitter anger surged through Sam, twisting his stomach into knots. But his brother’s eyes were challenging him. They dared Sam to break his side of the promise so that Dean could leave. Sam tightened his jaw and dropped his eyes. Fuck you, Dean.
“We’re in the middle of a job,” he said carefully. “You really think now is the best time to be getting wasted?”
Sam narrowed his search parameters, keeping his eyes focused on the screen and his shoulders as loose as he could make them. He listened for the sound of the door opening: of Dean heading out anyway. But instead it was quiet for a few minutes and then there was only the sound of Dean swearing as he yanked his coat off.
“There better be something good on TV,” he grunted, dropping down onto his own bed and grabbing the remote off the nightstand.
But Sam’s stomach didn’t settle, and a chill had taken root at the base of his spine. This was only a reprieve, not a solution.
Turned out that there was a kappa in the Red Kill River. Damned thing should have been in Japan, but instead it was over here in upper Pennsylvania raking Sam across the thigh with its claws. Then Dean cracked its skull open with an axe and spilled bloody water out across the ground, ending the kappa’s raking days for good.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean growled, hauling Sam up to his feet. “Are you okay? Never mind: stupid question.” He slung Sam’s arm around his shoulders and helped him hobble over to the Impala. Practically carried him inside the motel room before peeling off his ruined jeans and forcing a pill down his throat.
Sam was feeling pretty good when Dean finally started stitching. He was leaning back on the bed with his boxers pushed up and Dean crouched in between his legs. Dean had his hands all over Sam’s skin and his breath was tickling the hairs on Sam’s inner thigh and wow, really inappropriate time to be getting a boner.
Luckily, Dean was so focused on getting him patched up that he didn’t even notice. Sam had to be some kind of kinky bastard to be getting off on this kind of shit. Or maybe he was just kind of high.
Finally, Dean stood, wiping the blood from his hands with a spare towel. He gestured to Sam’s thigh with one hand and said, “I’ll get some antiseptic on that and then we’ll bandage it up, okay? Kappa scratches can get infected.”
“’S not a scratch. ‘S a wound,” Sam corrected, and what the hell had Dean given him, anyway?
Dean just rolled his eyes and started to turn away.
“Dean!”
“Yeah, Sammy?” Oh God, that mouth. Those lips turned up in a wry little smile and Jesus but they would look so fucking pretty stretched around his cock.
Everything Sam had been about to say flew right out the window at that mental image and he had to bite his lip to keep from saying, Suck me off right now and I swear to God I’ll never ask you for anything else as long as I live. When that suicidal impulse had passed, he let his mouth fall open again and said, “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it, dude.”
Dean smeared a thick layer of antiseptic cream over the stitches and then slapped a bandage on top and that was the end of the touching. Sam almost hoped for an infection, anything so that Dean would touch him again, and was vaguely disappointed when the wound healed up healthy.
But Dean didn’t go out for the next few nights either, so it looked like the damned kappa was good for something after all.
Dean didn’t say anything when he left the motel room at dusk four days later. He slipped out while Sam was in the bathroom and by the time Sam could hobble out, Dean was long gone. Sam spent the rest of the night surfing the web aimlessly while his healing leg itched. Read up on some experimental rounds the army was testing that sounded like they’d be pretty useful against zombies.
You know, in case any hoodoo priests got egomaniacal and conjured themselves up a legion of undead. What? It could totally happen.
He didn’t think about Dean. About the tired old line his brother was trotting out down at the local bar. About the way that the girl would laugh at it, but wouldn’t brush Dean off because there wasn’t a woman born that Sam’s brother couldn’t charm.
Sam didn’t wonder where Dean would fuck her. Whether he’d take her in the alley behind the bar, up against a brick wall next to an overflowing dumpster, or if he’d bang her in the backseat of the Impala, knee slipping on leather as he thrust in. Or maybe the girl would have an apartment: some tacky, rundown place with a pink lava lamp and an old shag carpet and maybe a poster of Jim Morrison hanging in the bedroom.
Dean came back around dawn, smelling like perfume and cigarettes and beer. Smelling like sex. When he stripped down for bed, there were fresh hickeys on his chest. Long, thin scratches on his back.
Sam wasn’t going to say anything. Wasn’t going to let Dean know that he’d stayed awake all night. That he’d laid down in bed at some point because it seemed like the right thing to do but had spent the remaining hours staring at the door, waiting for it to open.
But in the end he couldn’t resist. Must have been the masochistic streak in him.
“Have fun?” he asked.
Dean didn’t start. Must have already known Sam was awake somehow. But he didn’t answer Sam either. Didn’t look at him.
Just went into the bathroom and shut the door behind him and turned on the shower.
Dean went out every night after that when they weren’t actively working a case. He never asked Sam to come along, and Sam never bothered to volunteer himself. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep from doing something stupid if he actually had to watch Dean hitting on some brainless bimbo.
After that first night, Sam didn’t speak when Dean finally staggered back to the room. He lay in bed quietly and counted the bites and the scratches on Dean’s skin and logged them in his mind for future reference.
In the morning, Sam would blink back to awareness to find a steaming cup of coffee on the table, and a chocolate frosted donut in a little bag. Dean would be dressed and sitting on the curb outside, waiting for him.
The first night Dean came home with aftershave on him instead of perfume, Sam waited for his brother to finish getting ready for bed and then got up without a word, went into the bathroom, and shut the door. He leaned on the sink and stared at his reflection: skin too pale, eyes too dark. Well, that’s what came of sitting up all night waiting for his asshole brother to come home.
It was so damned difficult not to just grab Dean and hold him down until he saw reason. Not to crawl into his brother’s bed in the middle of the night and wrap his lips around Dean’s cock. So difficult not to pull over to the side of the road and yank his brother’s mouth down on top of his own.
Hell, right now Sam was trembling with the urge to march back into the room and fuck the scent of that other man off of Dean. To mark Dean’s skin with his hands and his teeth so that everyone knew that Dean was his. That Dean was Off Limits.
You promised, he reminded himself, tightening his grip on the sink. You promised to leave him alone about it if he stayed.
Yeah, but he’s not playing fair.
So?
So why should I play nice?
For a few seconds, Sam couldn’t come up with an answer to that question, and then he thought, If he thinks you’re trying to push this, he’ll run.
Then I’ll have to be careful. Slow and steady, right?
He dropped his head against the glass. Felt his stomach settling now that he had the beginnings of a plan. Now that he could see a way out of this fucked up mess they’d gotten themselves into.
Slow and steady ...