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Sam glared at Dean through the smoke from his vantage point in the corner, watching as Dean matched some random (hot) stranger shot for shot. Dean was like this after an unsuccessful hunt; tried to drink his sorrows away, and where did that just come from? Sam looked down at his own hands, and stared uncertainly at the glass he was holding. The empty shot glass, and the others that littered the table top. Huh. Looks like Dean wasn’t the only one who liked to get drunk (to drown his sorrows).
Back to Dean. The stranger laughed, clapped Dean on his back, then pointed to his shirt. The words “only one layer for easy removal” filtered through the smoke to Sam, and Dean laughed. How dare he laugh when Sam was sitting there, being miserable! The shot glass rattled as it hit the table, causing a sympathetic rattle from its fellows (and, hey, look, Sam’s kind of drunk).
Sam stood up (kind of) and gracefully staggered his way over to his brother. Who chose that moment to point to his own shirts and say “more layers, more protection” before leaning over and putting his hand on the stranger’s leg (for balance, but who’s thinking with his upstairs brain? Not Sam). Sam saw red. He growled; they were commiserating. Dean was commiserating without him.
“Dean.” Sam thought he was being very calm about his brother blatantly flirting with another man. “Dean.” a little more forcefully, this time. “Dean!” he tried again, before realizing that both his brother and the stranger had been looking at him since the first time. “Who’s. Uh. What’s your name?” and didn’t Sam feel like he was four years old and meeting his brother’s friends for the first time all over again.
“DiNozzo.” Huh. That’s pretty… hard to say, when you’re three sheets to the wind (heh. Three sheets to the wind. That’s a stupid saying. And hey) “You’re hot.” (Oh god. Oh god. Sam did not just say that out loud.) Quickly, he turned to Dean. Or tried to, as he overshot. He tries again, more carefully this time. “Uh. I think we should go. You know. Back to the. Uh. Motel. Place. Yeah.”
Dean gaped at him. The hot guy (DiNozzo) gaped at him. Then DiNozzo said “Yeah, okay.” And Sam turned to go and— What?! But then they were both standing up (kind of), and the DiNozzo guy really was hot, and then they were outside and now they were talking about pants and Sam was starting to feel like he was missing something here.
“Are you two, uh. Talking about… clothes?” Because there was “knowing” Dean was gay, and then there was knowing (and shhhhh, Dean didn’t know about, couldn’t know about him. Because Dean was oblivious. Like any other straight man. Because Dean wasn’t gay).
“Yeah.” Except for how Dean was totally gay. Sam gaped.
DiNozzo laughed (in a really hot way), before adding, “It’s not whatever you’re thinking; we’re comparing notes. Since we both hunt the bad guys. We’re just saying what works better in the field, and your brother here thinks that trousers restrict movement more than circulation destroying jeans.” Which… what? Sam looked at the window front mannequin in askance, but to his disappointment (or maybe not; he’d watched a lot of old Doctor Who episodes as a kid, and moving mannequins, even of a mechanical nature, kind of freaked him out. Shut up.), the mannequin didn’t answer.
“Hey, I’m just sayin’…” and that was Dean, holding his hands up in a placating gesture Sam had seen hundreds of times before. “And I bet you wear tighty whities too, just to add to the problem.”
That seemed to rile DiNozzo up; an “I do not!” barely registers with Sam before he realizes DiNozzo just pulled down his pants. To reveal a pair of shiny, white-with-yellow-smiley-faces boxers. “Boxers are nice and loose; no restrictions. On anything. The best kind of underwear to wear when you’re hunting down baddies.” and the way he said “anything” was getting Sam pretty hot too, but Sam wasn’t gonna say that one out loud, no way in—
And then Dean pulled down his own pants, and coherent thought left Sam’s (already barely functioning) upstairs brain. Dean was wearing a pair of navy blue boxer-briefs. Sam’s navy blue boxer-briefs which— they really needed to do laundry. But Dean was pantless. And saying “Boxer-briefs are better man. Because there’s not a ton of extra fabric to get in the way, no chafing, and you still get the whole no restriction on any important bits part, which, I totally get, is really important.”
And that’s just about when Sam realizes that his brother and DiNozzo are standing half-naked in front of a strip mall with no pants on comparing underwear. And that cellphone cameras are really, really handy.
And the rest? Is a story for another day.