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"What are you talking about, Garth? Kiss his hem? Dude, my mama taught me everything and anything about how to seduce a man, right, left, up, down and sideways. And in all her tutelage, there wasn't a damn thing about kissing no hems. If I was gonna kiss anything belonging to Sam Winchester, believe me, it would not be his hem." And then Max, cocking his handsome head sideways, grins to himself. "Even if he was wearing a dress," Garth agrees, taking his point. They're quietly hanging out at a Donut-Hole around midnight - finished off a nest of homicidal pixies an hour back, and now they're just kicking back and getting to know each other a little better, having been drafted into wiping out an unruly wolf clan a couple months back by alt-world Bobby Singer. But. Garth peels the vanilla icing off his cherry pie, and takes another run at it. "It's an expression, Max. Mediaeval knights, if they expressed a desire to kiss the hem of their lady's dress, it was a metaphor for their intense devotion."
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(Garth's a renfaire enthusiast and major-league mediaeval LARPer. Hands up, anyone surprised? Because Max is most surely not, and already had his suspicions before now.)
Max nods solemnly now, but goes on to point out, "That's fine, Garthy baby. Although you still haven't explained exactly why you think I've got a thing for Sam Winchester in the first place, right?"
That gets him a sideways look from Garth: who is mid-bite of his jumbo-cherry-pie slice, reminiscent of an alligator wolfing down half a cow in one go. But he seizes up right in the middle of dislocating his jaw, and his eyes fix on Max's eyes. Then he just grins.
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And Max could only wish that Garth would finish chewing, before he comments. It's a vain dream.
"Uh, sure," Garth says - a little more sardonic, a little less sweet than usual. He grins, and a crumb of pastry falls off his stubbly chin. (They've been hunting. In the woods. This return to civilization, to hot water and hotter guys, is making a midnight supper in a donut joint into a beautiful dream for Max.)
"And maybe I'd go along with your delusions: if you'd spent the last forty-eight hours talking about anything else, other than Sam Winchester!"
Max scoffs at this, wordlessly. As if! As very if! (Okay. His primary policy: admit nothing, especially when you haven't yet determined how the hunt's gonna play out. Especially in relation to a dude as supernaturally superfine as one Sammy Winchester.)
"Seriously, Max, my man," Garth lectures him now, wagging a bony finger, leaning forward apparently to make sure his words hit home, but also to steal a fry from Max's plate. For a skellington with skin, Garth eats like he shares DNA with a woolly mammoth. Or a wendigo. "When we were sneaking up on that vampire-inhabited cabin? 'Oh, Garthy, do you think Sam Winchester has ever had a homosexual-friendly thought? Like, about me?"
Max swats him with the menu: hard, too, because saying it is one thing, but using the voice of a queen-bee seven-year-old girl is totally another.
Garth is undeterred. Giggling, and undeterred.
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"And when the seethe queen bitch was having a few good goes at smashing in my skull with the porch-light? 'Gee, Garthy, if Sammy Winchester invited me to cotillion, what style of prom dress d'you think I oughtta wear? What dress would Sammy like, Garthy, hon?'
Just for the record, Max has at no point uttered the above words. As a second point, he might have a go at Garth's skull with a porch-light himself, tonight, if he gets much more provocation. And thirdly, he's putting it off, for the moment. Not out of mercy: but he's finishing his pie first. It's damn good.
(To be strictly factual, Max may have wondered - out loud - if skinny jeans are over enough that it might have been a mistake to wear them, last time he saw Sammy at the bunker conclave about the latest threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of monsters.)
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"Hooooo yeah, and when we were done, and surrounded by hacked-off vampire limbs and decapitated heads, doing clean-up, sageing the place out and checking for any useful charm-y magicabilia? And I got freaked out on account of getting a splash of vampire blood in my eye? Like it's not enough being a werewolf, I need to deal with being were-vamped?" Garth is getting excited, now. He's nodding to himself, and grinning, and chewing all at the same time as talking, and - yeah, everything the Winchesters had to say about him was true. But he is a little cutie.
Max breathes deep, and counsels patience to himself. "Yeah, Garth? That 'vampire blood' was ninety-nine percent hot water, and another half percent was bleach. Plus, dude, this isn't 28 Days Later. Or Buffy. You need a whole lot more bitey action to get vamped out. You know that, buddy! How long you been at this business, anyhow?!"
Garth just flaps a negligently contradictory hand at him, like he's the Brit Queen Mum in a fancy gilt pumpkin carriage, passing by. "Yeah, Max my buddy, okay - but what you actually had to say at the time?" 'Aw, Garth, I'm sure you'll be fine - and that reminds me of a really fascinating charm that Sam
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Winchester told me about when we were kicking back after the conclave. Just me and Sammy, dude, and we talked for so long, and GARTHY DO YOU THINK SAM WINCHESTER LIIIIIKES ME?!?????"
Garth doesn't wait for the swat, or getting the sugar bowl thrown at his head: he's up and running, doing a lap of the place even before he's finished teasing Max. Because - Garth is an old hand at this game, now - despite his scrawny appearance, he's a fearsome warrior in battle, when it really comes down to it, and everyone knows it too.
But still: god bless the sister who comes between Max and his mister, and especially if that mister is (potentially) Sam Winchester.
Max isn't really mad: and Garth knows it, too. He's been longing to talk - to really talk, specifically about Sam Winchester, for a while now. And Garth is a (highly qualified) shoulder to cry on. Super highly qualified: Max doesn't know exactly where he finds the time, what with being a consultant-level board-certified dentist, and a hunter, and a werewolf into the bargain. But he's also - it has come out in conversation - a doctoral candidate in Reichian psychotherapeutics, with a strong Jungian component and maybe just a dash of Illich. He's also kind, and trustworthy, and a good friend to have in a tight spot, by repute. (By repute of the Winchesters, and that's a hell of a reference.)
Max really needs to talk, man.
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When they're driving back, Max takes his chance. They're in Garth's truck, him driving and intending to drop Max off at a train station to get back to his home state. (At Max's insistence. Sure, it would have been a long drive, and inconvenienced his new buddy and fellow-hunter a fair bit. He also has reasons why no other hunter can ever just casually drop by or hang out at his own little den. Not any more. Max doesn't even really want one of them in his town, or state. Or planet.
Alicia is all he has left: she is his darling, and keeps him sane, keeps him here and grounded and still fighting the good fight. She's awfully convincing. Good enough to fool him most of the time, although it's not hard to fool someone who wants to be fooled. He's not sure if she could 100% kid a trained Man of Letters, or even a hunter as sharp and educated and well-researched as Garth.
Not all of the hunters, all of the time. His beautiful doll must never be allowed to run that risk: no-one is going to break up the twigs and twine that make up his baby sis, and put her on the bonfire. Not even Garth.
Not even Sam Winchester.
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But Garth isn't coming home with him: and this is a little moment outside of his regular life, gazing out at the dark and the other cars whooshing past and the stars littering up the sky. A moment where he can pretend he's not a motherless hunter, caretaking a human-size Barbie, and utterly alone. He can - pretend - to be the Max he used to be - the hot and flirty Max, who would have had Sam Winchester for breakfast, the inexorable irresistible force he was as the biggest man-slut in college.
Oh, he can let himself dream a little, and pine. A lot.
"What if I said maybe you were right, Garth," he says, quietly. Not too quiet for wolf-ears, though.
"Like I don't already know," Garth scoffs, eyes on the road. He doesn't even ask what it is he's right about. Like he doesn't know! But his face relaxes a little, into his deep, deep kindness.
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"You got it bad, Maxie?" he asks now - in a casual, idling voice, like it's no big deal. But Max knows better, and so does Garth, he's aware. It's nice just to say it - to say it to someone he trusts implicitly, even though both of them getting hoicked into that wolf-hunt by alt-Bobby was the first time they'd even laid eyes on each other, three months back. Garth is good people, and Max would know it even without the Winchesters vouching for him. He got good instincts from his mama. As well as amazing cheekbones, and a knack for the wiccan arts.
"You don't know how bad I got it," he says, simply - everything he's been denying, even to himself, for what, nearly a year? No, longer than that: because love is a sneaky little bastard that creeps up on you, all unawares, and it has you, before you even know you're in deep trouble.
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Garth sucks in a breath: eyes still on the road, but Max knows he's got his buddy's attention. "Damn. Been there, my friend," he says simply. "If there's anything that hurts worse, I don't know about it. And I've been half-way down a stray Leviathan's digestive system, before I managed to crunch the borax pill I'd hid in my false tooth and he puked me up again."
"God damn," Max yelps, momentarily distracted. "I thought they were all gone!"
"Should've been," Garth agrees. "Anyhow. Let's get back to your sex-life, Max buddy. Tell me, what is it that you've actually done about good ol' Sammy W., thus far? I mean, in terms of getting into his pants?"
Max winces: and begins to second-guess himself about his choice of confidante. "It's not all about sex, Garth," he says, in his best, most repressive versh of Dorothy out of the Golden Girls.
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"Not when you've been married for five years, most certainly, it ain't! But the first three months, or so - the first month - the weeks before you've even bumped uglies - my God, it's about 98 per cent, Maxie! Come on. You know it."
Garth nudges him, hard, grinning to himself as his gaze ranges over the lights of the highway and the darkness of the road, the road signs whooshing past. "Don't tell me you haven't been having some mighty fevered dreams, featuring ole Sammy W. lately, buddy. And some interesting hour-long shower experiences!"
Max would deny it - for the sake of his dignity - if he could. But they're both red-blooded guys, with just a little blip in terms of preference. They know what they know.
It's a wonder Max can walk upright, some days, with what's going on in his brain non-stop, like some Harlequinized 24-hour 360 degree surround-sound porno theatre, with a single star. Plus Max.
God damn. What he needs is a nice handy alien attack - something fresh, something new. Something to take his mind off Sammy W.
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"Irrespective of - all that," he says, now, trying to take control back of the situation. "Up until now, I've - well - I've-" The truth is, he's done damn all. It's pathetic, considering how hands-on - ahem - he's been in the past, how pro-active - even with the most casual fancy, the most apathetic needs-must-and-who's-handy hook-up. But when it comes to Sammy Winchester - Max has, dismayingly, found himself as shy as a grade school kid trying to write a Valentine to the obliviously adored queen bee of sixth grade.
And he has learnt - as a result - to respect his limitations - even if they are limitations he was never previously aware of possessing. Months, and months it's been, now - and he's relied on happenstance and luck, on monsters and hunts close enough to his home ground that he could horn in on Winchester fights with a fig-leaf of credibility.
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He doesn't have a word to say, it turns out, in his own defence. Because he knows full well, that daydreaming 24/7, and hoping, and wishing, is not a policy for a grown-ass man to pursue in any avenue of life. And definitely not when it comes to matters of the heart. and the tighty-whities-related region of the anatomy. But Max is aware that Garth hasn't stopped scrutinizing him, little glances away from the road. Very thoughtful glances, and probably a damn sight too thoughtful for his own good. But when he speaks, Garth's voice is light, like he's dismissing the subject, a substitute teacher excusing a shy kid too embarrassed to read out a romantic passage in English class.
"Well, I'll take that under advisement," he says, and pats Max's knee. And Max is too relieved - too harrowed, too scorched and flayed with his own yearning - to analyse that, much.
Which is where he makes his mistake, and couldn't anyone tell him as much?
They get to the station, anyhow, with chat on the way defaulting to the hunt of the year, of the decade, of the century, as it always must with hunters.
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Garth almost busts him an extra rib hugging him on the station platform once they get there - like he needs another broken bone, like any of them do! But when he steps back, his eyes are troubled, even creased up in a smile. "Now, you're not just gonna disappear off into the mist and I won't hear from you for a year, am I right?" he asks.
The temptation to solemnly reply, 'No, mom,' is real.
"Remember, the missus is expecting you for Thanksgiving! Your sister, too!"
Like that's gonna happen: but Garth is a furnace of human kindness you can warm yourself on temporarily, and Max initiates the hug, this time. He leans out the window to wave goodbye as the train leaves the station: and, just like he'd known he would, Garth stands and waves him off until he's out of sight.
God damn. For forty-eight hours there, it was almost like having family again.
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Not that he doesn't have his own family, still: after a fashion, at least. and that's where he makes his way homeward -to the little house he bought after his family was razed to the ground by that monstrous dark witch with her dolly-making fixation. Before that day, they'dbeen
fond but independent agents, him and Alicia. Both with studies and jobs and an interesting sex life each, both pursuing a little witchcraft as a side hustle and hunting when a case came up. Hunting together, quite often, but not always. They were close enough: not too close,because between even the most loving siblings there tend to be things you're happier not knowing. Now, though. Now, he wants Alicia always under his wing: never out and flying free, up to things he can't monitor and watch out for. Things that might not be safe: too close to