Hibbing XXX

 Sam knows there's gonna be an issue the moment they show up at the retreat. Yeah, they've been impersonating feds for over a decade, but spending a weekend with every sheriff in three states could spell trouble, even if they are small town cops. Sometimes small town cops are worse than big city ones too- more to prove, more wary of difference. And then there's the look he spots in Dean's eyes when they walk in- it's fifty percent scoping the joint, and fifty percent checking out the hats, the badges, the guns, the boots. 'Cause damn, no matter how hard he denies it, Dean has a thing for uniforms and people wearing them, and Sam is tired of always having to worry about Dean in situations like this. It's like the LARPing all over again, and when Dean's a fed, he's no handmaiden- he's the king.

 But then Sam sees Jody, and he mostly stops worrying. She's smart, and she's a cop, and she's gonna help them solve this case quick. Not that he doesn't want to spend some extra time with her, he'd just rather it wasn't while surrounded by two hundred cops. She looks good in her uniform too (Sam does not have a thing for uniforms. He does not. It's just Jody.) And Jody's got everything under control. She's taking care of Donna, she's taking care of the case, and she's taking care of him and Dean, like always.

 He shouldn't have let himself feel relieved. There are too many sheriffs, plus a deputy- it's always a deputy- a young good looking guy who rubs Dean the wrong way, and it escalates so fast that before Sam can even say much, Dean is asking, "Is there a problem?" with that macho bullshit voice, and Deputy Graham is calling their investigation "cute," and Dean's growling, "oh pal, the FBI doesn't do cute-"

 "Sheriff Cuse," Sam interrupts, because someone's gonna whip a dick out, and Sam so doesn't need that right now, "We were just hoping there might be some surveillance footage of the attacks, maybe a traffic camera caught something?" And of course, there's nothing. Because two hundred sheriffs can't even do that right. Dean's still just having some secret staring contest with Graham that's a little too intense ('cause Dean's about as subtle as a fucking gorilla), so it looks like Sam's gonna be doing the bulk of the work on this one. Luckily the sheriff (of Hibbing) is obviously lying, so they at least have somewhere to start. He says so as the cops head off towards the weapons expo, but Dean is only half listening, half staring a little too hard at the deputy walking away.

 Sam sighs. "I'll go and try to crack the police server, maybe something showed up on surveillance." Dean shakes his head, "Yeah, maybe I'll go crack the deputy." It takes every muscle in his body for Sam to leave that one alone. Because Dean just walked right into it, laid it out on the table for Sam to pick up, but they do not talk about this stuff. Not when they were teenagers and Dad was around, not when Sam came back to Dean after Stanford, not after hell, not after purgatory, not with the mark- Sam figures they'll never talk about it, but he knows about the guys Dean picks up almost as often as he picks up chicks. And Dean knows that he knows. Probably.

 "Right, but this time try to be a little less defensive of your pretend job?" And maybe cool it with the hyper-masculine posturing? The staring? The checking out his ass? Dean spews some bullshit about his Kinko's badge meaning something, and walks off to do 'his part' of the investigation.

 When Sam turns to take a last look around the room before heading to the impala for his laptop he sees Dean and the deputy standing WAY too close, and there's a lot of smirking and winking and- honestly Sam is getting a bit sick of this. At this point, it's like every fucking town there's some cop Dean has to get in a pissing contest with that turns into him boning the guy in their motel later, and Sam would really just like to not get kicked out of his own fucking motel room once a month. That's all. Dean is thirty six, not even counting the forty years in hell, he should be able to keep it in his pants. And if Dean keeps it up (no pun intended, gross, he doesn't want to think about that) they're going to get a reputation as the weird gay feds.