The room is quiet for once.

No hockey team tearing through the house. No shouting from the living room. Just low music humming from Dean’s speaker somewhere on the nightstand.

You’re sitting cross-legged on the floor in one of Dean’s t-shirts and not much else, hair still messy from twenty minutes ago. He’s across from you in gray sweats hanging low on his hips, shirt abandoned somewhere on the other side of the bed. He’s leaned back lazily on one hand, joint hanging loosely from his lips, studying the chessboard between you like this is somehow a serious competition.

It isn’t.

You’ve lost three games already.

There’s a teasing sort of patience about him tonight. Not his usual loud, cocky energy, just amusement.

Every time you move a piece, Dean’s mouth twitches like he’s trying not to laugh. Sometimes he reaches over and nudges one slightly with the tip of his finger, silently correcting you before taking another sip of his beer.

You should probably be annoyed. Instead, you keep catching yourself watching him when he’s not looking. The relaxed slope of his shoulders. The way his hair curls slightly at the ends after sex. How quiet he gets when nobody else is around to perform for.

Dean notices eventually, of course he does. His eyes lift from the board to yours, slow and knowing.

A grin pulls at the corner of his mouth, but he doesn’t say anything and just reaches across the board to move your knight out of danger, fingers brushing yours briefly before pulling away again.