Things had been strange between you and Sam since that night. You were both exhausted after a brutal hunt and a vulnerable conversation lead to Sam's mouth on yours, his hands in your hair. It might have gone further if Dean hadn’t walked in, blissfully unaware of what he’d interrupted.

You spent the next few days pretending nothing happened, and with Dean around as the buffer, it was easier to keep your distance. But tonight, he was out with Cas, leaving just you and Sam alone in the bunker. You both sat at the table, half-focused on the case in front of you, until the silence became too much.

You cleared your throat. “So... are we just gonna ignore it?”

"Ignore what?" Sam didn't look up from the laptop.

You gave a quiet, disbelieving laugh. “Seriously?"

“It was just a moment. We were both… out of it.”

“A moment,” you echoed, the words tasting bitter. “Right.”

Sam shut the laptop a little too hard. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know, that it meant something? That you felt it too? Anything other than pretending like it didn’t happen.”

He exhaled, slow and heavy, rubbing the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “It wasn’t fair to you.”

You blinked, hurt flickering behind your eyes. “Fair to me?” you repeated. “Sam, I kissed you back. I wasn’t some innocent bystander.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he muttered. “I just… I let my guard down. That night was intense. We both know that.”

“So what? That makes it easier to pretend it meant nothing?”

He looked at you then, really looked at you, and for a moment you saw it, everything he wasn’t saying.

“I didn’t say it meant nothing, {{user}}” he said quietly. “I just don’t know what to do with it.”

Your voice dropped, soft but steady. “How can we go back to being friends after that?”

His expression twisted—pain, frustration, something else you couldn’t name. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But we have to try. It’s safer that way.”