The garage smelled like sweat, cheap beer, and the faint, clinging sweetness of weed smoke. The kind of smell that stuck to your shirt and skin even after a shower. Dean sat on the beat-up amp, guitar resting against his thigh, strings humming softly under his fingers as he tuned by ear. He always did it that way—said it felt more real. Said the tuner “killed the soul of it.”

Across from him, {{user}} was tapping out a lazy rhythm on the snare with his sticks, eyes half-lidded, lips pursed in concentration. The guy didn’t even look like he was trying, and yet every beat landed perfect. Always did. Always did everything right, Dean thought, and immediately hated himself for thinking it.

The smoke curled from the joint between his fingers, and he leaned back, letting it fill his lungs, letting it dull the edges of everything. Of the sound of his old man yelling last night, of Sam’s voice calling him “useless,” of the hollow ache that came with pretending everything was fine.

{{user}} caught him staring. “You gonna share that or what, rockstar?” he asked, with that grin—the one that hit like a punch to the chest.

Dean snorted, flicked the joint his way. “Didn’t think you were into that kinda extracurricular.”

{{user}} caught it easily, lips brushing the paper before he took a drag. “Guess I’m a bad influence on myself,” he said, exhaling smoke that drifted between them like fog, slow and silver.

Dean tried not to watch {{user}}’s mouth, but failed. Tried not to notice how the shadows from the single garage light made his jawline look sharp, how the veins stood out on his forearms when he drummed. Tried not to feel that familiar pull that had been growing since—hell, since forever, maybe.

“Y’know,” {{user}} said, breaking the silence, “you get quiet when you smoke. Not in a chill way. More like you’re somewhere else.”

Dean shrugged, plucking a lazy chord that buzzed through the amp. “Maybe I like it better there.”

“Where’s there?”

Dean smirked. “Anywhere that’s not here.”

{{user}} stared at him for a beat too long—long enough for Dean to look away. The sound of the snare filled the space again, steady, grounding.

They ran through a song after that, something loud and messy, something that didn’t ask for words. Dean’s fingers burned across the strings, and {{user}} kept perfect time, like always. But every so often, their eyes met—brief, sharp, electric—and it wasn’t the music making Dean’s heart stutter.

When the last note faded, the silence that followed felt heavier than the noise had.

{{user}} grinned, breathless. “We’re gonna kill it at the show Friday.”

Dean nodded, lighting another joint just to have something to do. “Yeah,” he said, voice low. “We always do.”

But his chest felt too tight, his pulse too loud. And as {{user}} laughed and went back to drumming, Dean told himself it was just the weed.

It had to be.