A/N: The final chapter, starting with Sam again. Fingers crossed it works out for the boys...

Love Etc (Chapter 10) by frostygossamer

Sam stood in the middle of his street, shirtless and barefoot, staring at the spot where he had just glimpsed the new object of his love step on a departing bus.

He didn't get it. He honestly didn't get it. He had thought that at last everything had worked out great. But he had reckoned without a Dean who was superhumanly capable of still being in denial AFTER the fact.

Sam walked back into his apartment and collapsed in an armchair. "This can't be happening," he thought.

The guy had come home with him willingly enough. He had made love with him without coercion. He had stayed the night because he wanted to. Or so Sam had thought. So why the blue funk?

He was mulling the chain of events over in his head like a bad dream when his telephone rang. He picked it up.

"Hi, Sam," It was Rachel.

"Oh hi, Rach," Sam replied, his voice conveying a little of his gloom.

"You wanna hear my news?" she asked excitedly.

Sam sighed theatrically. "Sure," he replied. "Fire away."

But Rachel seemed to detect something amiss in his tone.

"What's wrong?" she asked kindly. "You got a hangover? Cos I got a doozy," and she chuckled then winced.

"No. Well, yeah. A little. But it's not that," Sam replied. "You see, my bus guy, he was tending bar."

Rachel inhaled in surprise. "That hottie? That was the bus guy? Say, I told you you needed to come along."

Sam grumbled and went on, "He spent the night, but I, uh, I guess I frightened him away."

"Frightened him AWAY?!" Rachel echoed. "What in Hell did you do? Tie him to the bed naked and whip him with a bunch of wet celery?"

Sam almost but didn't quite manage a laugh. "Guess I overwhelmed him, Rach. He ran outta here like a startled rabbit."

"Oh God, Sam," Rachel gasped. "That's a bummer. I guess you don't need my news then."

Sam sighed. "C'mon. Out with it, Rach," he encouraged.

"I've gotten engaged. Dan asked me to marry him. Last night. Be pleased for me, Sam."

"Yeah," Sam responded. "Sure, I'm pleased for you, Rach. He's one lucky guy."

He only wished he had been so lucky.

All day at work, Sam wandered around in a dejected fog. It really was stupid, he knew. But, heck, it was his company. He could bring down everyone's mood if he wanted to.

"Figured we were finally in sync," he told his bemused assistant Andy.

"Shoulda kept my freakin' mouth shut," he bellyached to Rachel. "Told him all the dumb story I dreamed up about him. Musta sounded like a damn fool."

"Did I offend him?" he asked the mirror in the men's room.

Had he come over as some kind of a snob? Honestly he could care less that Dean was blue-collar. He had had plenty students with an unfortunate lack of early chances, who had only gotten to Stanford on a full ride scholarship. He had nothing but admiration for them. They had always been his best pupils. Did that sound patronizing?

The story he had invented was nothing to do with that. It was just romantic nonsense, concocted by a creative mind. He hadn't fallen in love with 'Don'. He had fallen in love with Dean, the flesh-and-blood guy he met on that damn bus. He thought that he had shown him plenty evidence of that last night.

His head was still full of second-guesses when Bobby walked in his office and mouthed "Food?" He nodded and followed the older man across the street to a little cafe they often used. If Bobby had known he was going to have to act Dutch uncle he would have skipped lunch.

"So why did Dean bolt?" Sam moaned. "I remember the way he looked, the sound of his voice, when he told me, '...this is not gonna work... I'm sorry.' So freakin' tense."

Bobby scoffed and shook his head. "The guy was SCARED," he pronounced sagely.

Sam ran his hands threw his floppy hair, realization hitting him.

"He was scared? Damn it, yeah. Came on too fast and too strong, and I scared the life outta the guy. Such a freakin' doofus!"

Once Bobby had come up with the idea, Sam saw it kind of made sense. Dean had panicked. He was a totally straight-acting guy from a roughneck, masculine world. He had just come from a straight relationship with a woman, and Sam was expecting him to swap teams like it was nothing. Him and his damn la-di-da, liberal lifestyle.

OK. So Sam had to make it right. Dave could go stuff himself, he had to find Dean. He had to talk to him. He was going to have to take a step backward and get this thing back on track, or he was going to lose Dean for good.

And that was so NOT going to happen.

Early next morning, Dean boarded his regular bus. As usual, it was pretty full, but he managed to find himself a place on the first forward-facing seat. He got himself as comfortable as he could, and plunged his head into AC/DC.

Sam was not going to be a problem. Sam had his SUV and, Dean had reason to know, that baby was running like herd of wild horses. He wouldn't be seeing that guy's ass on the bus for a LONG time. If ever.

Farther along the route, Sam scoped the bus as he stood in line to board. He had driven to his office from home precisely to meet with this particular bus, the one he knew, fingers crossed, Dean SHOULD be riding this morning. Sure enough, there he was.

Dean's eyes were shut, and he was swaying almost imperceptibly in his seat, to the iPod clone plugged into his neat little ears. Sam slipped on the bus and quickly scanned what he called the trip'u'up seats at the side. Who should be occupying the side-seat right in front of Dean, but that pudgy-assed business suit who had caused so much trouble, when the poor kid with a broken leg needed a sit-down.

The short, obnoxious guy glanced idly up, and he blanched when he locked eyes with Sam. Clearly he hadn't forgotten the scene he had caused the last time. Smiling sheepishly, he got up out of his seat and creeped away into the back of the noisy, crowded bus.

Sam flopped down in his place quietly, and simply beamed at Dean's oblivious face for a few moments before reaching over and yanking an earbud out of the guy's perfect earhole.

"Hey!" came out automatically, but then Dean registered who it was sitting right by him. "Sam!" he growled reproachfully.

Sam chuckled. "Yeah," he said. "The self-same, dumb-ass jerk Sam Winchester."

"And it gets worse," he warned, slipping onto his knees in the limited space between seats.

Dean glanced around the bus, stricken. "For God's sake, Sam, you're NOT gonna..."

Sam stopped him by putting his big hand on his left knee and squeezing.

"Sure am," he said calmly. "Just let it happen."

It wasn't like Dean could do anything about it. The bus was packed. It would have turned into a huge scene if he had tried to get off between stops. And it wasn't like anyone was going to hear Sam over the general hubbub anyways. He sighed loudly and turned his eyes to the roof.

Sam took a breath. "Gotta tell you," he began. "You were right."

"About what?" drawled Dean, flatly.

"About every damn thing," Sam answered. "But mainly about me. I AM a jerk-ass. Don't deserve you, but I mean to someday. So I'm gonna ride this bus every morning."

Dean made a protesting noise, which Sam ignored.

"Every day I'm gonna sit beside you and we're gonna talk. We're gonna talk about you and we're gonna talk about me, and we're gonna get to know each other. And then, when we both have each other by heart, I'm gonna ask you to come live with me in sunny Palo Alto. But not till then. And I'm confident, well pretty confident, that you're gonna say yes."

Dean made another noise that wasn't quite as dismissive, and he lowered his face to look at Sam.

After a long pause he opened his sweet pink mouth and said, "Maybe."

The bus straight up ERUPTED with applause and wolf-whistles.

Neither guy had noticed that the entire vehicle had fallen silent during Sam's little speech. Every one of them, the little old ladies, the mothers and kids, the businessmen and wage slaves, and the snaky weirdos in the back. They were all hanging on his every word.

The driver, a tough larger woman, pulled over and turned around in her seat.

"Thank you, Baby Jesus," she said. "We been running a book on whether you two dumb-asses were ever gonna get it together."

There was only one thing Dean could do after that news. He grabbed Sam and gave his lips a good bruising, right there in front of the whole bus.

"From now on," he whispered hoarsely in the big guy's ear. "You're gonna give me a ride every day in that freakin' SUV."

Sam could only moan dirtily, "Baby, that better be a promise."

The End

A/N: There you are. Hope you enjoyed it. I never expected it to turn out as long. First WIP I've ever written too so it's been... busy.

Many thanks to TheResurrectionist for letting me use your original one-shot. I hope you like what I did with it.