Paranoid

Black Sabbath: Paranoid

*****

Sam Winchester finally gave up on research with a heavy sigh. Between the increasing noise in the bar, Dean’s constant pestering, and the way that Sam’s charger was becoming a trip hazard for the drunks… it would just have to wait for in the morning.

“Finally,” Dean grunted, finishing off his bottle of beer while Sam slid his laptop carefully in his backpack. Sam huffed at him, blowing his too long hair out of his face. He needed a damn haircut, he just didn’t trust any of the barbers that Dean let buzz his hair once a month.

“Thought I really lost ya, Sammy,” Dean said.

“You are, I’m headed back to the motel,” Sam deadpanned, only half meaning it. If Dean didn’t fight about it then he would, but…

“No freaking way,” Dean said immediately, grinning widely. “C’mon, dude. We can find a new case tomorrow. Let’s just relax tonight. Maybe play some pool, have some drinks, huh?”

Sam only gave a token complaint because that was his job, his role. Sam was the annoying little brother who eventually gave in with a laugh and offered to go buy the next round.

Dean kept Sam from getting too caught up in his own head, Sam kept Dean from getting too caught up in his confidence.

They kept each other alive, really.

The bar they were in was filling up quick with a mixture of tourists from the nearby airport, college kids from the nearby college, and a bunch of locals. It made Sam a little nostalgic, but not as sad as it would have made him a year ago.

“Excuse me.” Sam slid between a dude with sandy brown hair and a chick with pink hair to get to the counter. It wasn’t until the chick cleared her throat that Sam looked from left to right and felt himself blush.

Christ.

The dude was staring at Sam with one eyebrow barely lifted, but enough surprise in just that look for Sam to look to his right and realize the pink-haired chick was smirking, like Sam did something stupid as hell. Like Sam just walked up and stepped right between either a couple or two people headed that way pretty quickly

“Sorry,” Sam said sheepishly. He tried to shuffle over so the chick could get back to the dude, but she only laughed and slid closer to Sam’s side. She was pretty, big blue eyes with thick lashes, a heart-shaped face that was pale even for Michigan. When she flicked her hair over her shoulder, Sam caught a flash of a scar on the side of her neck, just one long, thin, silver line.

“Don’t be,” she told Sam, smiling up at him brightly. There was an accent to her voice, one Sam only guessed as British when she kept talking. “I was just telling Remus that Americans aren’t nearly as rude as my dad said they were and here you are! Proving me wrong!”

She didn’t seem mad, so Sam laughed and relaxed against the counter. The bartender was busy with a group of bottle-blondes at the other end, so he figured he had a minute.

“So I’m a stereotype?” Sam grinned. “Let me guess then, you love tea and have never tried sriracha sauce?”

“I…” The woman’s smile widened, and it was a nice smile. Sam unconsciously smiled right back, sort of forgetting about the possible boyfriend standing beside him.

“I do actually like tea,” she said. “And I don’t know what sir- how’d you say that? Sriracha? I don’t know what that is. But that doesn’t mean anything!” she added quickly. “Remus hates tea and he’s British as could be!”

“Welsh, Nymphadora,” the man drawled. A quick glance showed that he didn’t seem concerned with Sam talking to the woman - Nymphadora? He was leaning against the bar with his eyes wandering the bar, pausing here and there. Sam caught some nasty scars down the side of his face…

It actually looked something like a werewolf attack with the placement of them, but nobody could survive being attacked by a werewolf as many times as it would take to collect those scars.

Neither of them were very old, and they blended in well. Sam wouldn’t have pegged them as tourists, not in their casual blue jeans - hers a hell of a lot tighter than his - and the casual sweaters.

“So what brought you guys here?” Sam asked curiously. The bartender finally caught his eye and Sam just raised two fingers, not in any big rush. A quick check showed that Dean had gotten bored waiting for him and moved to the pool table, Sam’s backpack secured over his shoulder.

“I’m trying to convince Remus to elope with me,” the woman said airily. She plucked up her drink, a nearly empty cocktail of some sort, and grinned wickedly when Sam once again tried to shift out from in-between the couple.

“She’s having you on,” the man, Remus, said beside Sam with a chuckle. “Nymphadora has a - what did you call it, love? Your fuck it list?”

“A fuck it list,” Nymphadora confirmed, dead serious.

“It’s a fuck it list and she thinks if she’s coy enough, she’ll convince you to help her mark threesome with a stranger off it,” Remus went on. He drained the drink he had and set it on the counter before pushing himself up and shooting Sam’s blushing face a smirk. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Sam watched with his chin nearly on his chest as Remus just swaggered through the crowd, headed toward the bathrooms behind the crowded pool hall.

“Remus is being an arse,” Nymphadora said, her fingers light, tentative at first, when they touch Sam’s arm. Sam glanced over at her and saw an incredibly coy smile being given to him through thick lashes. “I was actually thinking that you’re quite tall… but I bet you’re still bloody terrible at darts, aren’t you?”

Sam? Sam who practically grew up in bars back when they weren’t so picky about letting kids inside them as long as they didn’t sit at the counter? Sam who grew up with Dean- the most competitive bastard Sam ever met?

“Yeah,” Sam grinned faintly and decided that for one night - for one damned night - he’d just be a dude in a bar. “Yeah, I bet I’m awful.”

Nymphadora laughed and hooked her arm in his, casual, but with a touch of confidence that was always sexy.

“Come on then, let me show you my excellent aim.”

Sam shrugged at the bartender who had been headed toward him just as Nymphadora led him away from the bar. Sam could get a drink later, how often did cute women want to play darts with him on nights when Sam didn’t feel like the world was crushing him in the dirt?

Never.

That was how often.

Remus made his way out of the loo and shook his head in amusement to see that Nymphadora truly did already desert him for the muggle.

Nymphadora was a twit, but Remus did adore her. Who else would accompany him on his brash journey to the States, disobeying every unspoken command of the Order, just to hide Sirius and his godson in Godforsaken-Nowhere, Michigan?

It was exhilarating, truly. It made Remus feel rather invincible, having just trampled all over the plans of fate. Albus thought Harry would be a soldier, Voldemort thought Harry would be an enemy to defeat.

And Remus Lupin - okay, Sirius and Nymphadora did help - said ‘go fuck yourself’ to both wizards and subverted their schemes.

It made Remus pause where he stood and strike up a casual pose against the wall so that his eyes could roam, see what other conquests he could make.

Nymphadora was distracted by her new friend; poor thing, Nymphadora was positively fawning on him while they played darts. Remus flashed a smile when he saw Nymphadora casually grope the muggle’s arse. She was shameless, not that the man seemed to be complaining, despite the blush he sported from her very brazen behavior.

There were plenty of options for Remus in the pub. With the dim lights, smoky air, and the intoxicating atmosphere… there were plenty of ways Remus could distract himself.

A blonde woman with a loud laugh at the counter drew Remus’s eyes for a moment. No, she was clearly seeking attention… needing it. There was no thrill in chasing someone who had a ‘catch me’ sign on their forehead.

Remus wanted something like a challenge… not a horrifying ‘I’m quite clearly uninterested’ challenge… but someone who would make it a game… someone who…

“Hey, buddy, you mind?”

Remus blinked and looked away from the bar counter to the man trying to get past him. Remus took a step to the side and eyed the man while he swapped the pool stick he had out for a different one on the shelf.

He was attractive, obviously. Attractive in the way that he knew he was and had no real reason to flaunt it. It was flaunted for him in the lines of his bootcut jeans, the broadness of his shoulders beneath the beaten leather jacket he wore. Even the smirk that twisted his lips as he chose a stick said that he knew someone would be checking him out.

And Remus was.

He was devastatingly attractive.

“You play?” the man asked, selecting a stick with an amber handle- a sign, Remus was certain.

Remus looked at the pool table that was set up, one that brought back memories of Remus as a much younger man, thoroughly trouncing James and Sirius in long games at trashy pubs.

“It’s been a while,” Remus prevaricated, forcing a tone of hesitance. “I might be rusty.”

“Eh, I haven’t played in a while either,” the man said, his green eyes sparkling with mischief. Remus would wager that he was an excellent player, one who thought he was making a sucker’s bet. “You wanna play or—” his eyes flicked around for a companion of Remus’s, “-you busy?”

Remus looked him over quickly, from his short and dark blonde hair to the freckles on his nose to the flannel and boots he wore like a sloppy uniform.

“I’ve never turned down a good game,” Remus said, dropping his voice low just for a moment to see if his intent would be well-received. When the spark of mischief lit up green eyes even brighter, Remus offered his hand with half a smile. “Remus Lupin.”

“Dean Hendrix,” Dean said, shaking Remus’s hand briefly. Dean had calloused hands, ones that spoke of the same hard labor his muscled body hinted at.

Remus cocked an eyebrow and turned to select a stick, avoiding the slightly bent one that Dean had returned to the rack.

“Any relation to Jimi?” Remus asked politely, if a touch mockingly. “I was unaware that we were giving fake names. In which case, you can, of course, call me Remus Osbourne.”

Dean laughed, almost in a surprised sort of way. As if he weren’t expecting to be made to laugh, as if he didn’t have a deep laugh that made Remus want to smile on instinct.

Remus selected the best stick he could find and turned to give Dean a charming enough smile.

“I’m ready for the game.”

Tonks laughed loudly at Sam.

That boy was a liar.

Not only was Sam tall, devastatingly handsome, witty, but he was a dab hand at darts as well.

“Careful.” Sam was the one who laughed then, catching Tonks by the arm when she threw a dart and nearly toppled over. The clumsiness, made worse by the low buzz of alcohol, played in Tonks’s favor in more ways than one when she hit close to the center of the board and had Sam holding her arm.

“My hero,” Tonks teased him, batting her lashes playfully.

Sam had a great smile; shy, sweet, and with the best dimples that popped out.

“Has anyone told you that you’re a little clumsy?” Sam asked, slowly dropping Tonks’s arm and plucking up his next dart.

Tonks leaned her elbow on the table they had taken to use, the one with spindly legs and an ashtray that was tempting Tonks to go purchase cigarettes from the bartender. Tonks didn’t usually smoke, but she also didn’t typically kidnap a fifteen year old and smuggle him out of the country with her escaped-convict cousin.

It was a weekend of new adventures!

“Ugh, you’re the worst!” Tonks cried, delighted when Sam’s dart hit the dead center of the board. Tonks bounced up on the toes of her sneakers and tried to look through the pub for Remus, shrugging when she couldn’t find him over the heads of everyone else.

Maybe he left. Maybe he went to shag some fit bloke or bird in the alley. Tonks wasn’t his babysitter, they’d meet up at the hotel eventually. And in the meantime - cigarettes.

“If I go buy us drinks and cigarettes, do you promise to not disappear?” Tonks asked Sam, quite enjoying his company.

“Uh… I don’t smoke,” Sam said, another boyish smile unfurling across his face. “Why don’t I get us drinks and you can try not falling over for two minutes?”

“Orrr,” Tonks drew the word out, trying to flirt and likely failing spectacularly, “we both go! Then you can buy a beautiful lady a drink and prove the kindness of Americans and I can have a smoke!”

“Sure, Nymphadora.” Sam took her arm, being such a gentleman, and helped steer her around the crowds. It was just for that that Tonks didn’t correct him on her name. “I’ll even prove how gallant and totally not stereotypical I am by telling you my brother has cigarettes in his car so you don’t have to buy any.”

Since that sounded a lot like Tonks getting alone with Sam, she smiled brightly all through them ordering drinks and smuggling them out of the pub.

“Oooh,” Tonks sighed wistfully when Sam led her out front and half a block down to the most beautiful car she had ever seen. It was a classic car, glossy black, and it just looked fast even without the engine on. Tonks ran her fingers across the hood while Sam rifled in the drivers side for cigarettes. “This is beautiful.”

“Yeah?” Sam walked over and leaned against the hood beside Tonks, prompting her to lean back against it as well. “It used to be my dad’s car, it’s my brother’s now. I practically grew up in here.”

Tonks hummed and decided to push her luck when Sam pulled a cigarette from a pack. Instead of taking it in her hand, she leaned closer to Sam and held his eyes while she parted her lips just slightly.

Sam seemed indecisive for only a second before he slowly placed the cigarette between her lips, his thumb brushing her lower lip when he pulled away.

“Should I smoke it for you too?” Sam teased her after he held up a muggle lighter for Tonks to light up with.

“Mm, no.” Tonks took a deep inhale, letting the unfamiliar rush of nicotine draw the alcohol up and make her feel warm and just on the comfortable side of fuzzy. Tonks held herself up with a hand between herself and Sam and held the cigarette out with the other hand so she didn’t blow smoke on Sam.

“That’s brilliant,” Tonks decided. She hadn’t smoked in years, not since… hm… her seventh year at Hogwarts? Sharing cigarettes and joints with Charlie and Johnny behind the greenhouses?

“Yeah?” Sam’s hand was rather close to Tonks’s on the hood of the car. It was easy for her to slide her hand some, let their pinkies brush. “You don’t really do this much - the whole bar and smoke thing, huh?”

“What gave me away?” Tonks laughed, loose limbed and loose tongued and having just the best time.

“You just… nobody else is having so much fun just drinking and throwing darts, but you’re having your own little party over it all,” Sam explained.

Oh. He was smart too; or perceptive, anyway.

Tonks looked over at him, studying his hazel eyes and tried to make her own assumptions. Despite what most people thought when they saw silly, simple, Tonks… Tonks liked to think that she was perceptive enough.

Moody never underestimated her once, he had told anyone who would listen to his mad rambling that Tonks would be the greatest auror in the department if she didn’t accidentally trip and kill them all.

It had been a flattering remark either way.

So Tonks let the cigarette in her right hand burn down some, carefully keeping it away from the classic car, while she looked in Sam’s eyes. At first glance, with his smile in place, they were just pretty eyes. Tonks tilted her head some, Sam mirrored her. His smile didn’t slip, but Tonks saw a tightness in his eyes then…

Sam had kind eyes, pretty and soft, but there was a weariness in them. Sam was an old soul, Tonks was quite interested.

“And you’re pretending to have fun while you’d rather be anywhere else,” Tonks murmured, holding his gaze while she took another hit off the cigarette. Sam didn’t look away either, he just melted some, his hand warm as his pinky and ring finger overlapped on Tonks’s hand.

“If you could be anywhere in the world, where would it be?” Tonks asked. She quirked her lips up in a smile, trying to break the wrong type of tension built between them. “Likely not on the hood of the car you grew up in?” she teased.

Sam threw his head back and laughed, his white teeth flashing in the dark of the night. Tonks gave up on any pretense and slid her hand underneath his fully where their hands sat between their bodies. While Sam laughed, Tonks took a last drag off her cigarette and flicked it away, enjoying the sound of Sam’s laughter.

“If I could be anywhere I wanted?” Sam quit laughing and he hummed, his face getting solemn as he seemed to consider it seriously.

But, Merlin. He did do brooding better than anyone.

“I’d be… I dunno, actually…” Sam blinked, surprised by his own indecision. His eyebrows scrunched down, just as cute as his smile. “I guess I’d be in this damn car with my brother, listening to crappy music and arguing about something stupid.”

“Wrong answer.” Tonks slid closer and brought her hand over to place lightly on Sam’s knee. He dipped his head to listen to her when she dropped her voice to something soft and playful. “You’re meant to say, ‘I’m perfectly happy right here, thanks’.”

“Yeah?” Sam brought his face even closer to Tonks’s and his breath smelled like beer and boy, an excellent mixture. “I don’t do hookups often, ever, really, but…” Sam began whispering and Tonks was truly hooked on the throaty noise he made that was positively sinful.

“I think we’d be a lot happier somewhere with a little more room to stretch out.”

Dean was sweating some, trying to hide it. He had offered to play pool with Remus when he thought it would be an easy way to make some quick cash.

Remus had a freaking cardigan on, for Christ’s sake.

Dean carefully lost the first game, working hard to suck worse than Remus did, then they made a wager on the second game.

“Beginners luck,” Dean said, pretending like he was all bitchy about losing. “C’mon, let’s play again. I bet I can win.”

Remus had smiled all cocky and sexy - damn it, that was Dean’s freaking grin.

“You’re certain you won’t suddenly be excellent at pool as soon as we place a bet?” Remus asked, drawling his words with the accent that was making Dean’s legs itch beneath his jeans.

“Hey, you got lucky,” Dean grumbled for show. Remus sucked bad, that first game, so Dean hadn’t been worried.

They placed a bet and Dean figured he was on his way to making an easy fifty bucks. Then Remus peeled his tan sweater off and game really started.

“You’re better when there’s money on the line,” Remus laughed, mocking Dean with his eyes when he hit another ball in on his first try.

“Seems like you are too,” Dean snarked, leaning against his stick and pretending not to notice or care that the game was tied and Dean didn’t have fifty bucks. The bucket of beers he ordered had gone on a tab that one of his credit cards covered, the only cash Dean had was maybe a ten in the console of his car.

If Dean lost and Remus caught an attitude about it, Dean didn’t know for sure who would win a fight and that wasn’t an admission Dean made easily.

Remus had been all innocent bookworm with his sweater on, but the second it was off Dean had noticed his build.

Dean didn’t make a habit out of picking up dudes, chicks were easier and didn’t make any wrong assumptions about who would be doing what, but Remus was stupid hot. All… lean muscles, silver scarred, and confident in his skin.

If he wasn’t about to fuck Dean on the pool table, Dean would be thinking about him fucking Dean… actually, yeah, on the pool table would be awesome.

“You from around here?” Dean asked casually when Remus missed his next shot by a hair and Dean stepped up to the table. There were a few easy shots Dean could make, but what was life without a little risk?

Dean lined up a trick shot, maybe showing off some, and bent over while Remus answered.

“Not at all, no.”

Dean bit back a smirk after he made the shot, though his eyes were plenty smug when he edged around Remus to get to his next one. Remus didn’t move an inch, he made Dean have to slide his backside against his front to get to the side of the table he wanted to be at.

Dick.

Dean’s blood was pumping like the thrill of a good hunt when he tried to decide if he could hit both the ten and fifteen in at the same time or not

“So what brought you here?” Dean asked. He had shed his jacket a few drinks ago and he pretended not to notice Remus’s eyes on his arms. Dean also pretended that he needed to flex to get his shot just right.

“Hm? Oh, human trafficking.”

Dean missed his shot by a fucking lot and his eyebrows were all the way up his forehead when he looked at Remus. Remus looked perfectly calm, bored even, where he was propped against the table that held their jackets, beers, and Sam’s bag.

There was a shit-eating look in his eyes though, like he dropped that little felony just in time to fuck up Dean’s game.

“Yeah?” Dean figured two could play that game then. Dean strutted over to the table slowly, making sure he rolled his shoulder and neck. When Dean reached the table, he intentionally brushed Remus’s bare arm when he reached for a beer.

As far as Dean hitting on someone went, it was tame. But picking up dudes took a different kind of art than chicks; at least the dudes Dean wanted to pick up did.

Remus’s eyes were hot and heavy as he watched Dean take a long drink of beer, intentionally baring his neck and exaggerating the movements. It always felt good, getting checked out. It would feel better if it fucked Remus’s game up.

“You traffic humans often?” Dean asked, licking the beer off his upper lip just before Remus smirked and did his own confident swagger to the table.

Remus was all long lines - long legs, long arms, long hair - as he bent over the table, easily making a shot Dean fucked up and getting himself two balls closer to a win.

“Not often, no. Special circumstances, you see,” Remus said, shooting Dean a momentarily puzzled look. “I forgot to ask, what do you do for work?”

“Me?” Dean almost said he was a fed, just to fuck with him. “I - mechanic. You?”

Dean would have put money on something rough, something involving animals. So he laughed when he thought Remus returned one lie with another.

“Teacher,” Remus said. Remus knocked his next ball in too, leaving just the five and eight before he won.

Which meant Dean needed to do something before he lost a game he couldn’t afford to lose. Dean walked around, eyes on the table, and accidentally brushed his hand on Remus’s lower back when he passed him.

A hiss of air, a ball bouncing off the side of the table.

Success.

Remus shot Dean a dark look, a challenge and reprimand in one. It was sexy and Dean didn’t relent, only smirking right back at him as the game stayed almost tied.

“Two can play that game, Dean,” Remus said, making Dean’s name sound filthy in his mouth.

Dean plucked up a fresh beer from their bucket and raised it with a wink.

“Bet.”

“This is not what I had in mind,” Sam laughed, looking up at Nymphadora and shaking his head. “You’re going to break your neck.”

“Will I?” Nymphadora asked, wiggling her eyebrows at Sam. “You’re not a chicken, are you, Sam? You’re not afraid of heights, right?”

Not even a little bit. It was just that when Sam had blushed his way through inviting Nymphadora back to his motel, he didn’t expect her to get distracted by a fire escape hooked to the apartment building between the bar and motel.

Nymphadora laughed, kicked off the heels she had on - she was short, maybe 5’7”, and it was killing Sam - then told Sam she would race him to the top. Nymphadora won because Sam had been worried she would fall at some point, but also…

Sam was human, sue him for noticing Nymphadora had a great ass.

Nymphadora sat on the edge of the rooftop, her bare feet dangling, grinning at where Sam still clung to the rusted fire escape. Sam cast a quick look around them and hoisted himself on the roof when he didn’t see any sort of security equipment anywhere.

“Success!” Nymphadora cried, throwing her hands in the air when Sam sat on the brick ledge beside her, letting his legs dangle down like hers were. She leaned on Sam’s side and instinct led him to wrap a secure arm around her waist.

“Double success,” she said, turning that damned bright smile on Sam.

Nymphadora was just one of those people that seemed happy to be alive, thrilled by everything. Sam used to be that person - before Madison, before Dad, before Jess, before the Stanford fight.

“You’re beautiful,” Sam said, the words slipping out. Nymphadora was, physically, but Sam meant the bubbly liveliness that made her seem so much brighter than even her pink hair.

And yeah, maybe Sam was a little buzzed. Maybe he was finally rebounding after Madison. Maybe it just felt like a night for new things.

But Nymphadora must have been just as caught up in the moment as Sam was because she leaned forward and her eyes screamed ‘kiss me’ when her chin raised…

So Sam kissed her. And it was good, it was so good.

Nymphadora had soft lips that moved under Sam’s. She had sharp nails that buried in his hair, around the back of his neck. And the way she gasped when Sam grabbed her by the hips and slung her over his lap in the same move as he backed away from the ledge went straight to his groin.

Just because Sam was horny didn’t mean he was stupid, he wasn’t about to fuck around on the edge of a roof with the clumsiest chick he ever met.

Nymphadora let Sam lead the kiss and he held her hips gently, slowly licking his way into her mouth. She had a fruity taste from her drink beneath the smoky taste from the cigarette - both tastes that had Sam carefully pulling his mouth from hers to look hard in her eyes.

She looked turned on, her pupils blown and her eyelids hooded, but not especially drunk.

“ABC’s backward?” Sam asked, dipping his head to mouth at her neck, tasting her skin and holding back a groan at the smell of whatever perfume she wore.

“Never even knew that sober,” Nymphadora breathed, tossing her head back and giving Sam better access. “Mm,” she sighed when Sam bit lightly at the side of her neck. “I could calculate the amount of alcohol I had against my general BMI then weigh out the time since my last drink and give you a guess at my current BAC.”

“What?” Sam laughed, surprised by that offer and he pulled himself away from her soft and slender neck to glance incredulously at her face. Nymphadora only blinked and pouted at the lack of Sam’s mouth on her body. “What are you? A cop or a nurse?” he joked.

Nymphadora let a hand trace down Sam’s spine and he only realized a second too late that she was fingering the handle of the pistol he always kept tucked in his waistband. Her eyes lit up when Sam twitched and her smile went from sultry to cheeky.

“I thought we were both cops?” Nymphadora teased.

Sam’s hand flew behind him, grabbing the handle of his gun and clicking the safety on as he slid it a few feet away from them. It wasn’t even freaking registered to Sam and he had a cop straddling his lap with her legs curled up against his thighs.

“Yeah,” Sam laughed breathlessly, his heart racing with the half-hardness he had and the rush of being made by a cop. Nymphadora didn’t seem suspicious though, only thrilled with discovering something she must have thought Sam was hiding.

God, she was cute. Even for a cop.

Sam wanted to be polite, he wanted to offer to take her back to his motel or anywhere with a bed. And maybe he would… later. But for then, Sam just shed his jacket and turned Nymphadora, getting a little squeal from her, then laid her back on his jacket so it was mildly more comfortable than the cement.

Nymphadora’s chest heaved under her baggy grey hoodie and Sam was the one to loop one leg over her waist, straddling her lap and keeping his weight off her. His fingers teased at the button of her jeans and she wriggled her arms to try and take her top off herself.

“You’re impatient,” Sam said, popping open her jeans and then taking the bottom hem of her hoodie and obliging her by pulling it up and off her. He stopped once the hood was off her head, leaving her arms still in it and over her head.

Christ.

“I was hoping I’d get lucky tonight,” Nymphadora said shamelessly when Sam swallowed a groan at the tight and lacy crop top she wore. She smirked, clearly knowing she had a gorgeous body. Sam ran a finger down the side of her neck, over her clavicle, then teasing her as he slid it down the swell of her breast. He brought it back down to the waistband of her jeans and she wriggled again.

“Stay still,” Sam told her. He tangled one hand up in the grey hoodie, keeping her arms locked where they were, and lifted himself so he could begin slowly pulling down her jeans.

Nymphadora laughed - a hypnotic and sexy laugh that had Sam aching - when she raised her hips to follow him, raising her ass up so he could pull off her jeans. She thrust against him with just as much forward force as she had used most of the night.

“Still like that?” she asked after Sam had her jeans down enough to see that she matched her panties to her crop top.

Sam slammed her hips down hard enough to make a point, not so hard that he would actually hurt her.

“Still like this,” Sam stressed, smirking at the sound she made.

Nymphadora licked her lips and met Sam’s eyes, hers were bright with need and Sam’s were dark with promise.

“Yes, sir,” she said, drawing the second word out in a way that made Sam shiver.

Alright, so Sam had something of a ‘fuck authority’ kink.

Sue him.

Dean – Winchester, according to the license that Remus carefully slipped from the wallet in his jacket – was adorable.

If he genuinely thought that Remus was going to be distracted from their game of pool by the game of coquettish flirting that Dean was playing, then clearly he had never heard of multitasking.

They were attracting some looks, two men not-so-subtly groping each other around a pool table in a rural part of Michigan were bound to, but none interrupted them.

Remus bit his lip to hide a smile when Dean bent over the table to take his next shot, his arse stuck out and the muscles in his arms flexing. Dean winked at Remus right before he sank his ball and Remus tried to will the flagging of his cock down.

Not yet, he told himself firmly. As usual, Remus’s body disobeyed him and he decided to use that disobedience to up the ante with Dean.

“Pardon me,” Remus murmured, brushing against Dean’s side as he moved around him to get to their table. Judging from the light twitch Dean made when Remus lingered for a moment and the way that Dean wasn’t in a rush to push him away, Remus thought they wouldn’t make a third game.

Remus laid his stick against a chair and grabbed a bottle of the disgusting beer that Dean liked to take a drink of. When Dean looked over his shoulder at Remus and saw that Remus didn’t intend to give him more room to make his next shot, Dean curled his lips in something wavering between a smirk and a grin. Remus shifted to the side so he wasn’t hit by the pool stick Dean aimed and listened as Dean called the pocket for the eight ball.

Then, just before Dean slammed the stick home in what would have likely been the winning shot, Remus casually reached forward and scratched his fingernails up the back of his blue-jean covered thigh.

Dean jolted, his aim went quite sideways, and Remus chuckled at the deathly scowl Dean gave him.

“You’re a damned cheater,” Dean declared, snatching the beer from Remus’s hand and drinking half of it in one impressive go.

“Oh, and you’re playing fair, lovey?” Remus mocked him. “Please, do feel free to use my tactics against me.”

What a horror, if Remus lost the game because a fit bloke decided to feel him up.

Dean looked determined to do just that and Remus felt the thrill of a good game coming to an inevitable conclusion when he grabbed his stick and moved to the foot of the table to take a shot. Dean followed him, playing it cool.

“Eight ball, middle pocket,” Remus said, using the stick to indicate which pocket he indicated. Dean nodded curtly and Remus was smirking hard as he bent over to line up the shot. If Dean was going to do something, he had –

Good Lord.

Dean had waited until the last possible nanosecond to reach over and grab a handful of Remus’s hair, yanking his head back hard.

“Missed,” Dean laughed loudly. Remus’s shot ricocheted, barely avoiding a scratch. Dean released Remus’s hair and there was mischief, challenge, and that thrill of taking something to the next level in his deep green eyes.

“Ah, so there’s no rules, got it,” Remus said slowly, letting his eyes rake blatantly down Dean’s chiseled chest to his jeans and then back up.

Aw, Dean blushed. That was adorable, honestly.

Remus loved when confident men blushed almost as much as he loved the needy and perfect whimpers they would make when Remus took his time taking them apart and then putting them back together. Sirius used to be that way, when they used each other as stress relief from a war they had no business fighting in.

It was a shame that excellent sexual chemistry didn’t implicitly correlate to innate trust… Remus would never get past Sirius keeping the swap of secret-keepers a secret from him just as Sirius would never get over Remus believing that Sirius would have ever betrayed James.

Their friendship was rocky as was, better once they plotted another grand Marauders prank again. Sex? That would never happen again… certainly not after Sirius caught Remus with Nymphadora bent over a table in Grimmauld Place.

Order meetings had just been so dry, so dull. Nymphadora attempting to get Remus hard beneath the table without either of them betraying their game had been the only spot of brightness they had. Even that though… Nymphadora was hot in bed, a dream, and the man that Remus saw her leave the pub with was lucky, but…

But Remus was perfectly happy with the games he played with Dean. Even if Dean managed to win the game of pool, Remus doubted if he would lose that night.

“There were never any rules,” Dean assured him, a double entendre that delighted Remus.

Rules were only made to be broken,

Remus waved his hand in a ‘go on then’ motion and stalked Dean like prey as he made his way to the far side of the pool table. Dean didn’t seem nervous with Remus standing beside him, a hand casually propped on the table. Dean only called his pocket and let his eyes flick from Remus’s hand to his eyes quickly before he shuffled his feet backward for a better stance.

Dean glanced at Remus again, clearly waiting to see what Remus would do, then set his jaw and – Remus shuffled closer, pressing against Dean’s side. Dean took a deep breath, settling himself, and pulled the stick pack with a small grin. When Dean made to move again, Remus pressed even closer.

“You can crawl in my lap, baby, and I’m still gonna win,” Dean muttered.

“I was thinking you would crawl in my lap and we could both win,” Remus suggested, his voice even and nowhere near a quiet whisper.

Dean shook his head, his face flushed again, and Remus placed a hand on the small of his back when Dean once again lined up his shot. Dean wore an unbuttoned flannel shirt, the sleeves pushed up. There was a black t-shirt beneath it, and beneath that, a…

“Sig 9 mil?” Remus guessed, his fingers brushing the handle of a gun he couldn’t see. It was a guess, an accurate one based on the way that Dean bounced the cue ball off the wall of the table, absolutely missing his shot and only barely avoiding a disqualification.

Dean straightened up and Remus only let his hand drop from Dean’s back because of the stiffness of his spine. Remus enjoyed the chase, never if the other was unwilling to play.

“I’m a cop, it’s my service weapon,” Dean said. He raised his chin stubbornly and dared Remus to call him out when he added, “I lied earlier about being a mechanic. The cop thing puts dudes off sometimes.”

Remus smiled widely, a touch too feral to pull off entirely human. “Liar.”

“Excuse you?”

Remus grasped Dean’s upper arm and leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I said: liar.”

Dean was as much an officer as Remus himself was. That was to say- not at all. Remus could smell cop from a kilometer or two away, a side-effect of the venturesome childhood he had as an orphan growing up in Cardiff. Cops tended to smell like professors, then aurors, and Remus never had much use for any of them.

Nymphadora hardly counted as an officer of any sort, not with her easy disregard of the law. Remus firmly believed that she had only joined the auror corps to better know how to evade arrest – the same reason that Sirius had once decided to sign up with.

Regardless, Dean Winchester with his toned body, weather-worn clothing, and the way his pistol was only secured enough to not fall from his waistband was absolutely not a cop.

“I’ve got a badge,” Dean said, narrowing his eyes at Remus.

“And I’ve got a condom,” Remus drawled, unimpressed. Forgeries were a simple matter if one knew the right people. “I wonder which pointless item will actually be used tonight.”

Condoms were never pointless with women- ever. But with a man? One that Remus could check his health before shagging with a subtle touch of his wand? If they were clean and didn’t ask for it, Remus didn’t use them.

And Dean’s sudden light of renewed interest told Remus that as long as Dean wasn’t hiding any diseases, they wouldn’t be using the condom Remus truly did have in his wallet.

“Whatever,” Dean said, shuffling to the side and nodding at the pool table that only held the cue and the eight. “Take your next shot, Remus.”

Oh, Remus quite liked hearing his name in Dean’s mouth. And, because Dean was clearly interested and Remus liked to flirt, Remus told him so.

“You like your name in my mouth?” Dean parroted, standing right behind Remus with his hands loosely on Remus’s hips. Remus shifted, felt proof that the tension building between them wasn’t one-sided, and Dean bent over so his chest touched Remus’s back as Remus aimed his final shot.

“Man, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you that it’s nothing compared to how much you’ll like your dick in my mouth.”

Remus warmed from the inside out, made his shot, and kept Dean from moving as he quickly spun around, placing his hands on Dean’s hips that time. Dean’s hands fluttered with adorable uncertainty before settling right back on Remus’s hips, his thumbs hooking in the loops.

“I win, lets go,” Remus said. He cocked his head to the side some, weighing how far his night might go. “Unless you preferred round one in the loo, lovey.”

“My motel’s only two blocks away,” Dean said, apparently not interested in Remus making him scream until they were kicked from the premises.

Pity.

“And…” Dean leaned in tantalizingly, his lips curled up in one side, that sparkle back in his eye that initially caught Remus’s interest. “You didn’t call it, so we tie on a forfeit.”

“Damn,” Remus said, mildly irritated by that. He narrowed his eyes at Dean and squeezed his fingers, promising to take that annoyance out on Dean’s arse. “You cheated.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed airily. “But, like you said, I think we both might win tonight.”

And since that was entirely true, Remus let his pool stick clatter to the floor as he pulled Dean from the pub with as much haste as he could without seeming desperate.

*****

Tonks laid on her back in the terrible motel bed that her and Sam had ended up in and just –

Merlin.

If Tonks had the energy to even turn her head, she would see Sam’s passive expression of contentment. But Tonks only mewled pathetically and shuffled her naked body closer to his, soaking in his warmth and sinewy muscles.

“Alright?” Sam asked, suddenly hesitant. Tonks always knew that quiet and swotty boys were freaks in bed – it was the entire reason she went for Professor Lupin who wore cardigans and carried books under his arms. Tonks just wasn’t used to quiet, swotty, muggle men positively wrecking her during sex.

It started on the rooftop with Tonks’s arms pinned above her head, a hold she could have easily broken if she didn’t enjoy playing along. That had been quick and messy, though entirely pleasurable. They then moved to the hotel room that Tonks and Remus were sharing for a few nights before they would fly back to London. The sex that happened in that room simply couldn’t be described in something as definitive as words.

Tonks thought that perhaps her entire life had been changed. ‘Alright’, it had not been.

“Mm, mind-blowing,” Tonks offered, snuggling closer to Sam. It wasn’t anything daft, it was just that Tonks sort of wanted to crawl inside his skin and live there.

Nothing daft.

Sam’s hand roamed Tonks’s body freely, his fingers gentle when he touched the places where he had bitten her hard, drawing blood once or twice. Tonks hadn’t minded, had told him to bite harder, and she certainly didn’t mind when Sam did such soft and sweet aftercare, complete with antibiotic cream so the bites wouldn’t be infected.

Tonks would spell them away later, no reason to do so then when she was in the comfortable and warm embrace of a muggle.

“Mind-blowing, huh?” Sam chuckled and let his hand rest on Tonks’s lower back. The other was crooked beneath his head, assisting him in lifting his head for a second so he could study the lazy and content expression Tonks’s face.

If Tonks were a cat, she would be purring. As it was, she was cuddling rather hard.

“Don’t get an ego, officer,” Tonks teased him half-heartedly, thoroughly worn out with the excellent sex-athon. “I only used you to mark rooftop orgasm off my fuck it list.”

Sam chuckled again and pressed a sweet kiss to Tonks’s forehead before he dropped his head back down. Sam used his legs to wrangle the blanket up, covering them both with it, and Tonks was thrilled that it seemed as if he planned on staying the night.

Sure, the room only had a queen sized bed, but if Remus returned and saw the bed was occupied, he could find another room or another bed to sleep in. Like Tonks, Remus didn’t tend to struggle to find bedmates.

Tonks had the advantage of being able to change her looks, be any blokes’ dream woman, but she pulled Sam’s fit arse while looking mostly like herself.

Or, the self that she decided on years ago. The one that she tended to revert to until she could no longer remember what her natural looks were. It was close, she was sure. Maybe not the pink hair, but who could blame her for wanting to add some color to the world on occasion?

“You’re fit, you know?” Tonks murmured, half-asleep and just talking nonsense from the blissful feeling in her head and the pleasant ache in the rest of her body. “’ve got a great cock too.”

Sam laughed, his chest shaking beneath Tonks’s head.

“You’re ridiculous,” Sam said, but he sounded shyly happy about what she said, so Tonks just kept rambling.

“’m not saying that I’ve shagged a lot of blokes, that would be bragging,” Tonks said, aiming for serious and landing somewhere around half-conscious and daft. “But… imagine a werewolf, Sam. Imagine their strength and stamina and size. You’re better.”

Sam’s muscles twitched beneath Tonks’s head and she would have assumed it was in laughter at what most muggles would see as a strange monster-shagging kink. Except Sam’s voice was tight with… suspicion? Maybe? when he answered her.

“You – have you slept with a lot of werewolves?”

That… hm… even in Tonks’s bliss there was something off about that question.

Tonks lifted her head to peer at Sam with sleepy eyes. Sam didn’t look sleepy at all, he looked apprehensive and there was a cute furl on his forehead that said he was a little confused. Which was quite fair really because Tonks was also confused.

Shouldn’t they be laughing her nonsense off and sleeping a couple of hours before waking up for round… four? Round five for Tonks, three for Sam, she thought. It was difficult to track when the sex was top notch.

“Just one,” she said, adding a wink for levity. “And you?”

Tonks was lowering her head back to Sam’s very comfortable chest when he answered and ruined the idea of sleeping anytime soon.

“One,” he whispered, throat tight.

Well… that wasn’t a normal response for a muggle.

Which, as it turned out, was because Sam was not a muggle at all.

Not really.

“You’re a muggle auror!” Tonks cried, so impressed that she wondered if Sam would let her climb back on his cock as a reward for such terrible bravery.

They had given up on sleep when Tonks began to get a prickle of unease at Sam’s very not-muggle-like words. Tonks sat up and Sam, very sweetly, wrapped the blanket around her while he laid on his side, covered only from the waist-down with the much less warm bedsheet. It was a win-win, truly. Tonks could admire his chest, not get distracted by his cock, and they could talk about their very separate experiences with werewolves.

Tonks’s one werewolf conquest was probably out getting laid.

Sam’s was dead… because he shot her after failing to cure the poor muggle girl that had been inflicted with lycanthropy.

Tonks asked a few questions, nothing too revealing on her part, and Sam was too easy to spill his soul about hunting down nasty poltergeists, vampires that killed muggles to survive, and werewolves that ate the hearts of any muggle they passed. Which, really, meant even if they weren’t both ‘cops’ (because Sam was a filthy liar with emphasis on filthy), they truly were both aurors!

Tonks just got paid for it.

“An auror? Is that what they call hunters in the UK?” Sam asked, his face lit up with excitement about the subject. He was a little swot, Tonks adored him. It was difficult to find men who were both excited about intelligent conversations and able to throw Tonks over their shoulder and pin her during sex.

Maybe Tonks could just… smuggle him home with her. If she handed him a wand and let him keep his gun… she bet he would be better than Robards on some cases.

“No, silly.” Tonks laughed and then tried to scoot up against Sam while she let the blanket fall. If they were awake anyway… Tonks could redirect that excitement on his face to something more productive. “That’s what they call witches and wizards who do what you do.”

It took a while to convince Sam that sex was more prudent than discussing the way Tonks accidentally let magic slip to someone who didn’t know the full extent of it, but Tonks was nothing if not determined. And she did get another two rounds before they finally passed out in her hotel bed, a mess of sweaty and naked limbs all tangled together.

*****

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

Dean hadn’t been fucked so good in… fuck.

In a long ass time, that was how long.

Remus, damned cocky bastard, turned his head to look at where Dean laid on his back beside him, and smirked.

“I’d prefer you not credit him, I did do most of the work, you see.”

“Man, shut the hell up,” Dean laughed, his voice raspy from the freaking sex-athon they just pulled off. It was a good thing that Sam seemed to have found somewhere else to stay for the night because Dean didn’t think that even having his little brother walk in while Dean sucked and fucked Remus all over their motel room would have stopped Dean.

Wait, that sounded wrong.

Dean chuckled at his own lazy thoughts and did a damn admirable job of rolling on his side, intending to push himself up and go hunt for the half-pack of smokes he kept either in his duffel or his car. Dean didn’t smoke often, almost as often as he sucked dick, but sex like that deserved a cigarette.

“Where you going?” Remus asked, watching as Dean groaned and grunted his way through pulling himself up off the floor with the nearby bed frame. Dean huffed another laugh when he saw that they really did break the damn bed. The headboard had a crack down the center of it, the wall behind it matched.

“Cigarette,” Dean grunted, still shaking his head at the plaster that covered the bed. That credit card was about to get charged with an extra fee. Sam might bitch, but damn if it wasn’t worth it.

Remus groaned as well when he stretched out on the floor, all long and fluid limbs covered in scars. Dean liked seeing that Remus had scars, made him think Remus didn’t mind all of his own scars. Dean couldn’t figure jack from shit how a teacher got fucked up as many times as Remus did, but Dean just assumed they’d both been lying their asses off about who they were and what they did.

“What’s so funny?” Remus asked, nearly knocking Dean back to the floor when he used Dean to pull himself up. Dean rolled his eyes at how quickly Remus bounced back, but it wasn’t Remus’s ass that took that monster dick, was it?

“You broke my bed,” Dean said, grinning against his better judgement. He snagged his duffel from where he had tossed it at the foot of the bed and then put it on Sam’s bed to dig through. Dean bypassed his clothes, not interested in being anything except bare-ass naked, and carefully sifted weapons around to see if his Marlboro’s were in there or not.

“I can fix that, lovey,” Remus said. “Share your smokes and I’ll just – reparo.”

Dean’s hackles went up immediately at what sounded like Latin and he spun around with a knife he instinctively fisted just in time to see Remus swish a stick and… and…

And the fucking bed fixed itself.

“What – you -” Dean’s reflexes weren’t usually so rusted, but he wasn’t usually surprised by – by some sort of fucking power being sprung on him when he was naked and covered in bite marks and developing bruises from what had been awesome sex.

Dean still slammed in Remus, knocking him to the bed, and he had his knife at Remus’s throat while he kept Remus pinned with his full weight on him.

“What the fuck was that?” Dean snarled, casting a quick and shifty look at the stick Remus held in his left hand.

“Is this foreplay?” Remus asked, not even pretending like he was worried about Dean on him. Dean pushed the knife’s blade against Remus’s throat and only got a slow grin for the effort. “You should have said you were into blood play, lovey. I had tried to avoid making you bleed, but you don’t want my blood, I promise.”

“What’s wrong with your blood?” Dean demanded, ignoring the flirting that Remus pulled off as easily as Dean did. There was something, nobody just had those powers.

Demon? It would explain the strength and the –

“Lycanthropy,” Remus said slowly, his forehead wrinkling when Dean’s expression slipped and showed his shock. “Lovey… you are a wizard, right?”

No, no Dean was not a freaking wizard.

Dean was apparently a dumbass who fucked a werewolf.

“You tattooed a rune of protection on your chest!” Remus cried, waving at the symbol to ward off demonic protection that Dean had on him.  

“It’s against demon possession,” Dean said, uneasily crossing his arms to cover his chest.

“You said that you used magic to rebuild your car!”

“I was freaking hitting on you! I said my hands worked some real magic to get Baby running again!”

“YOU ARE NOT A COP!”

“So you made the jump to wizard?!” Dean demanded, unsure how he even got himself in such a fucked situation. Remus was pacing the floor between the two beds while Dean gripped his knife in hand and sat on the edge of his bed, every muscle in his body tensed.

Trust Dean to find out the best sex of his life came from a freaking monster.

Remus looked as unimpressed as Dean was. He had one hand in his hair, tugging at the strands, and occasionally shot a bitchy glare Dean’s way.

“I’m sorry I didn’t consider a hunter,” Remus sneered the title Dean used to explain himself at him, “wouldn’t recognize the bloody obvious signs of lycanthropy. Merlin… I’m a muppet.”

Dean snorted at what he assumed was a Brit-ism. Muppet. That was kinda funny. He’d have to remember that to call Sam it eventually.

“This is not funny,” Remus hissed, pausing his pacing to stand in front of Dean with crossed arms and heated amber eyes. “You – you just… Good Lord, I should go.”

“Woah, not so fast.” Dean jumped up, internally wincing at the soreness in the entire lower-half of his body, and snatched Remus’s wrist to stop him. “You can’t just tell me you’re a freaking heart-eating monster and then run out the door. The next full moon is next week.”

“You don’t say?” Remus said with heavy sarcasm, eyeing Dean with enough dislike that it shouldn’t be turning Dean on some. “And you think that you’re going to stop me? Stab your little knife through my heart and save muggles from the teeth of a monster?”

Yeah, actually.

There was no way to cure a werewolf; Dean and Sam had tried with Madison. Fuck, the last thing Dean wanted to do was have a repeat of putting a silver bullet through Remus, but it was just above letting him leave and knowing he would be a monster on the loose in a week and killing people.

“Dean, I take a potion,” Remus said, sighing heavily and suddenly looking exhausted. “I was a wizard before I was a werewolf, I have options that muggles, non-magical humans, don’t have.”

To prove his point, Remus swished the stick he still held – a wand, he said – and had his clothes flying to him and landing neatly over his shoulder. Dean was kind of struck stupid, not sure what to say to that. Hell, Dean didn’t know anything about wizards or witches except for the fact witch-bitches loved to use hex bags and apparently wizards were a real thing. But when Remus began backing away from Dean while he tried to jump in his jeans, Dean found something to say.

“Don’t,” Dean said. He cleared his throat and shrugged when Remus paused and tilted his head curiously at him. “I mean… you fixed the bed, right?” Dean gestured to the headboard and wall that Remus had repaired. “I said I’d give you a cigarette.”

Remus smiled slowly while Dean tried to not feel so damn naked under his eyes. Not physically, Dean had a slammin’ body and didn’t care to flaunt it, but just Dean asking someone to stay made him feel raw and vulnerable.

It felt wrong, but when Remus let his jeans drop to the floor and he kicked them in the corner, his wand following the pile of clothes he made, it wasn’t so bad.

Not so bad at all, really.

*****

"Dude."

"Dude."

Sam and Dean Winchester stood outside the Impala, both of them watching as Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin crossed the road and made their way inside the airport that they drove them to.

It had been a wild few days, neither brother thought there was much to say past equally disbelieving 'dudes'. 

"So..." Sam finally climbed in the car after seeing one last wink and wave from Nymphadora and he ignored the twinge in his stomach that felt a lot like regret at knowing she was gone. Dean looked just as despondent, though you would have to know him pretty well to pick that emotion out of the blank and stoic mask he wore.

"You think we'll ever see them again?" Sam asked Dean.

Dean grunted while he gently shifted the Impala in drive and pulled out to join the flow of traffic leaving the airport.

"Probably not," Dean said, not seeming very happy with that answer.

"Yeah," Sam huffed, blowing his bangs off his face in his own unhappy move. "I bet you're right."

It was a long drive to nowhere, both brothers with their mind on the time they spent with Remus and Nymphadora. It had been - for lack of a better word - magical, really. It was bittersweet to see their time end, though at least it ended on a positive note, a rarity for the brothers. But with the other two gone, the boys got back to work.

Dean turned up the radio, blaring Black Sabbath until Sam could feel the bass in his teeth, and Sam opened the laptop that Dean had kept safe for him when he forgot it at the bar a few nights ago, searching for their next case.