New Fic...Heat
It’s Baltimore and it’s midnight and it’s hot, the air thick with a wall of humidity that makes him struggle with every breath. Sam drags the back of his hand across his forehead, wiping beads of sweat to the ground with a brief wave and flick.
He glances at Dean who is sweaty too but at least he can sleep. At the moment Dean is snoring softly on the pull out bed, his arm dangling inches away from the stain splattered carpet. Dean can sleep anywhere, in the car, in a chair, curled up on the ground. God knows conditions don’t need to be optimal for Sam to sleep, he is a Winchester after all, but breathing air seems to be an important part of sleeping and this city is all but drowning him.
The TV is turned on; one of the three channels that work is grainy at best. Dad has managed to scrounge up a couple of fans and they are sluggishly moving hot air around, but even if Sam positions himself in front of one, it does nothing to stop the heat. Sam glances longingly at the window with the fire escape. There has to be air outside.
It is a dangerous proposition and the kicker is that the danger comes from his father, not some creepy spirit or revenant. Sam knows it will be the end of his sorry ass when and if he finds out. Dad has been pretty clear about staying inside. Hell, if Dean finds out Sam could find himself in hot water too, but Sam can schmooze his way with Dean. Give him that patented Sammy look and Dean will cave. Still, he needs to be careful.
Sam pads quietly to the window and for not the first time in his life, he is reluctantly thankful that his father insists on recon with everything and everywhere. He jimmies the window up; a window that by all rights should have been painted shut but Dad had insisted it be opened and checked as a possible way out. So it slides up easily with only a small scraping noise that is covered by the static of the of the TV.
As soon as the window is up, Sam tries to take a deep breath, but there is no movement in the air outside, at least not from his vantage point inside the apartment. Sam glances carefully at Dean and steps over the salt line. Not a grain of salt is disturbed as he moves quietly onto the fire escape. Sam pulls the window down, but not quite to the sash. He leans forward on the wrought iron fire escape, takes another deep breath. It doesn’t smell that great, but the slightly cooler air feels good in his lungs. He shifts his body and looks down into the alley. It is cluttered and dirty; the drop is maybe nine feet from the bottom of the fire escape. It would be easy to climb back up too. Even in the dim light, Sam can see the foothold in the rough brick, he can calculate the amount of energy needed to jump, grab and chin himself up.
Sam sometimes wonders if other people think about shit like that, like seeing the way down as well as the way back up. He thinks they probably don’t and it kind of pisses him off. Just like the heat and the dampness and the stink of the alley.
He straddles the fire escape railing. Sam trails his hand along the pitted metal; drops his other leg of the railing, leans out over the alley and jumps. He lands lightly in a slight crouch, listening for anything that might sound strange. He can’t help it-pissed or not, hot or not, his body is conditioned to respond.
Sam straightens, looks up at the apartment, orients himself and moves off quietly down the alley, headed toward the street. He hugs the shadows, moving easily in the dimness. There is just a hint of yellow light form the nearest streetlight where the alley ends. It’s feeble at best but Sam plans on avoiding it anyway.
Just before he steps out onto the sidewalk he smells cigarette smoke, drifting lazily across the mouth of the alley. Instantly, he stops and regroups. His heart thrums in his chest.
Sam turns to the left, still in the shadows and moves out warily from between the buildings. There is a girl sitting on the front stoop. He assesses her threat level automatically, rates it low at best. She is about his age, maybe a little older.
He scuffs his feet against the cement to give her some warning.
“Those things’ll kill ya.”
The girl turns to face him, not appearing terribly concerned. Takes another deep drag on the smoke. Sam watches as the cigarette glows hot.
“We all gotta go sometime. “ Her voice is huskier than he would have imagined. “You’re the kid who moved into that studio apartment next door huh?”“
Sam doesn’t want to confirm or deny, but he figures it’s not a loaded question.
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“Your window faces mine across the alley.” She offers a slight smile. “ Don’t worry. I ’m not a stalker. It’s just that the guy who lived there before you was creepy. He would watch me through his window. I got used to payin’ attention to where he was. It is kinda cool that someone normal has moved in.”
Sam can’t help but grin. Yeah, normal. Just him, his father, his brother and the shit that goes bump in the night.
Sam changes the subject.
“This city is hot as hell, huh?”
She smiles ruefully, “I hear that it’s way hotter out west, but Baltimore is a bitch in the summer. “
She mangles the word ‘’Baltimore”. It sounds to Sam like she is missing entire vowels. It sounds almost like Balmer. Sam finds her accent kind of strange; not really Southern but surely not a hard, clipped Northern accent either. But despite the strangeness of it, it sounds sweet when she says it.
She pulls her damp tank top away from her body. Sam can’t help but notice the sweat that vees down her shirt, and the fact that she has no bra on. He dwells on that for a minute. Her breasts are small and visible through the thin material and he feels his dick stir. Shit, that is embarrassing. He shifts his weight, determined not to adjust himself by hand. Then he counts to 10 mentally, as if that will stop his automatic response to boobs.
She looks at him like she knows what he is thinking. Despite the thinness of her body and the fact that she looks like a strong wind could blow her away, she seems older than her years. She smiles slowly and then offers her hand.
“Shelly…my name’s Shelly.”
Sam wipes his sweaty palm against his jeans, reaches for her hand. Hers is surprisingly cool.
“Sam,” he replies.
“Well, Sam, how the hell are ya?”
Sam looks at her, grimaces and chuffs.
“Well, okay I guess, if you like sweat.”
This time it’s Shelly’s turn to smile. “Yeah, it is hot alright. But I don’t mind it so much. It’s kinda sexy really.”
She reaches up and over; cups Sam’s face with her hand draws her thumb down Sam’s jaw line. Snaps her fingers at the end of his jaw and flicks a bead of sweat.
And right there, Sam almost loses it. Her touch is hot ; it burns a trail down his jaw. Sam breathes sharply as his dick goes from a twitch to hard as a rock, just like that. Fifteen is not what it is cracked up to be. He barely stifles a moan. Fuck, fuckity, fuck.
She smiles, blue eyes dancing at his predicament. Sam feels the heat as his face flushes. He bows his head, breathes deeply though his mouth and then looks back at her. He wonders briefly if anyone ever looked so beautiful sitting there in the yellow glow of a street light. Before he can say anything, not that he can get his mouth to work, she interrupts his thought process.
“I have to head in. My ol’ lady’s stoned beyond belief, but if she wakes up and I am not in there, she will have my ass.”
Shelly drops the smoke on the marble stoop, crushes it out then reaches down to pick the butt up. She looks at his amused expression.
“What? I might pollute the hell outa my lungs, but there ain’t no reason to fuck up this city anymore than it is.”
Sam nods his head. Makes sense to him. He’s thankful she doesn’t require any answer to the statement, because he still can’t speak.
“Maybe I’ll see ya around, Sam.” She leans in and ever so briefly, brushes her lips to his. It startles Sam. So much so that he does not even respond to the kiss. She tastes like smoke with an underlying sweetness he can’t identify. But all he can do is watch her awestruck as she turns away from him.
Shelly moves cat-like up the steps to her house and opens the screen door. She glances back just before she goes in and flashes him a smile, bright white in the yellowish glare of the streetlamp. He listens to the screen door bang hollowly against the jam, then the solid slam of the front door.
Sam sits down on the recently vacated stoop. He tries to remember to breathe. It occurs to him that was one of the reasons he wanted to get outside in the first place - to be able to breathe. The marble feels cooler on his ass than he figures it should. His stomach is in knots. He mentally kicks himself. What kind of moron responds to a kiss by just standing there? It’s embarrassing; that's for damn sure.
He figures he could sit here a while, trying to sort through what just happened and feeling the slightly cooler air, but he has been out longer than he anticipated. Dean’ll be worried if he wakes up and Sam is not there. Reluctantly he stands and pulls at his jeans, trying to ease some of the pressure. It’s a lesson in futility. There is no way he is going to get comfortable anytime soon. This is fucking ridiculous. Sam heads back down into the alley gingerly walking to the apartment’s fire escape.
It is just as easy to scramble back up the fire escape as he figured. A quick pull up, then arm over arm with a monkey like swing onto the fire escape. He lands kind of hard, far harder than he wanted.
“Damn!" The curse is low, but emphatic. So much for making an unannounced return; Dean will have to be really out not to have heard that.
Sam moves to the window, eases up the sash and steps back over the windowsill and the salt line. The apartment is dark and he can’t really see, so he gently shuts the window back down and heads toward the pull-out bed. It’s then that he realizes the TV is no longer on, hence the darkened room.
“Shit!”
“Pretty much, dickhead. Where the fuck were you?” Dean asks from the darkened room, his voice gravely with anger.
Sam sighs. He rolls his eyes too, but that is just habit, he doubts seriously that Dean can see that. Why does Dean have to be so damn difficult?
“Don’t roll your eyes at me, Sam. Just answer the fucking question.”
“Out, Dean. Just out. How about you mind your own business?” Sam is short and terse. The words are punctuated by a scowl.
In a moment Dean is up in Sam’s face, fisting his damp t-shirt with his right hand and effortlessly pulling him toward him with one arm.
“You are my business, turd. And if Dad was to come home and find you gone, we would both never hear the end of it. So I have some personal stake in keepin’ you safe and inside. “
Dean shakes Sam hard enough to rattle the gray matter a bit. He roughly pushes Sam into the nearest wall, releasing him with a shove.
“Jesus, Dean. I was just gettin’ some fresh air, is all.”
“You breathe the same stagnant shit that I breathe and like it.”
Sam sighs again.
“Whatever.”
Sam watches his brother run his hands through his hair. The sweat has made it stand up even spikier than normal. It is like some weird Winchester hair product and Sam grins in spite of himself.
“You look like a fuckin’ rooster, Dean.”
“Watch your language, dickhead.”
Dean reaches out to cuff Sam in the head, but Sam is ready for it and evades his brother easily. Dean starts after him and then lets his hand fall and flops down on the couch. “Fuck it. It’s too hot for this shit.”
Sam huffs in agreement and settles next to Dean on the couch facing the darkened TV. They sit companionably side by side in the stifling heat for a moment before Dean reaches for the remote and taps on the TV only to be rewarded by a grainy picture of what could be David Letterman.
“Ya know I always kind of like this part.“ Dean leans back further on the sofa and gestures vaguely toward the TV. He laughs as they watch a proud owner try to get his pig to play basketball in Stupid Pet Tricks. Sam laughs too, because it is goofy as all get -out.
“Who would think a pig could play basketball?”
“Pigs are actually pretty smart, Dean.”
“Yeah, well maybe, but Michael Jordan sure ain’t got nothing to worry about.”
Dean loops an arm around his brother, drags him roughly over to him.
“You reek, Sammy boy.”
"You don’t smell like fresh lilacs yourself, Dean.”
Dean grins and sniffs his pit. “I smell delightful. You on the other hand…” But he continues to hold Sam roughly in the semi-hug. Sam thinks he might even pull him a little closer.
“Don’t wander off again like that, Sam. You had me worried.” Dean’s voice is low, just above a whisper. Sam hears the quiet conspiratorial tone that the brothers use between themselves in the dark. Sam shifts his weight onto Dean’s shoulder for just a second.
Dean pushes Sam away with an elbow to the ribs. “Back off, geekboy. It’s too fuckin’ hot. “ Sam snorts, it is not like he is the one who pulled Dean into the rough hug anyway. No matter. He absently rubs his sore ribs and shakes his head. Yeah, Dean is a dick and a royal pain in the ass. But it is okay. There is nothing he can do about it.
He is not sure he wants to anyway.
He glances at Dean who is sweaty too but at least he can sleep. At the moment Dean is snoring softly on the pull out bed, his arm dangling inches away from the stain splattered carpet. Dean can sleep anywhere, in the car, in a chair, curled up on the ground. God knows conditions don’t need to be optimal for Sam to sleep, he is a Winchester after all, but breathing air seems to be an important part of sleeping and this city is all but drowning him.
The TV is turned on; one of the three channels that work is grainy at best. Dad has managed to scrounge up a couple of fans and they are sluggishly moving hot air around, but even if Sam positions himself in front of one, it does nothing to stop the heat. Sam glances longingly at the window with the fire escape. There has to be air outside.
It is a dangerous proposition and the kicker is that the danger comes from his father, not some creepy spirit or revenant. Sam knows it will be the end of his sorry ass when and if he finds out. Dad has been pretty clear about staying inside. Hell, if Dean finds out Sam could find himself in hot water too, but Sam can schmooze his way with Dean. Give him that patented Sammy look and Dean will cave. Still, he needs to be careful.
Sam pads quietly to the window and for not the first time in his life, he is reluctantly thankful that his father insists on recon with everything and everywhere. He jimmies the window up; a window that by all rights should have been painted shut but Dad had insisted it be opened and checked as a possible way out. So it slides up easily with only a small scraping noise that is covered by the static of the of the TV.
As soon as the window is up, Sam tries to take a deep breath, but there is no movement in the air outside, at least not from his vantage point inside the apartment. Sam glances carefully at Dean and steps over the salt line. Not a grain of salt is disturbed as he moves quietly onto the fire escape. Sam pulls the window down, but not quite to the sash. He leans forward on the wrought iron fire escape, takes another deep breath. It doesn’t smell that great, but the slightly cooler air feels good in his lungs. He shifts his body and looks down into the alley. It is cluttered and dirty; the drop is maybe nine feet from the bottom of the fire escape. It would be easy to climb back up too. Even in the dim light, Sam can see the foothold in the rough brick, he can calculate the amount of energy needed to jump, grab and chin himself up.
Sam sometimes wonders if other people think about shit like that, like seeing the way down as well as the way back up. He thinks they probably don’t and it kind of pisses him off. Just like the heat and the dampness and the stink of the alley.
He straddles the fire escape railing. Sam trails his hand along the pitted metal; drops his other leg of the railing, leans out over the alley and jumps. He lands lightly in a slight crouch, listening for anything that might sound strange. He can’t help it-pissed or not, hot or not, his body is conditioned to respond.
Sam straightens, looks up at the apartment, orients himself and moves off quietly down the alley, headed toward the street. He hugs the shadows, moving easily in the dimness. There is just a hint of yellow light form the nearest streetlight where the alley ends. It’s feeble at best but Sam plans on avoiding it anyway.
Just before he steps out onto the sidewalk he smells cigarette smoke, drifting lazily across the mouth of the alley. Instantly, he stops and regroups. His heart thrums in his chest.
Sam turns to the left, still in the shadows and moves out warily from between the buildings. There is a girl sitting on the front stoop. He assesses her threat level automatically, rates it low at best. She is about his age, maybe a little older.
He scuffs his feet against the cement to give her some warning.
“Those things’ll kill ya.”
The girl turns to face him, not appearing terribly concerned. Takes another deep drag on the smoke. Sam watches as the cigarette glows hot.
“We all gotta go sometime. “ Her voice is huskier than he would have imagined. “You’re the kid who moved into that studio apartment next door huh?”“
Sam doesn’t want to confirm or deny, but he figures it’s not a loaded question.
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“Your window faces mine across the alley.” She offers a slight smile. “ Don’t worry. I ’m not a stalker. It’s just that the guy who lived there before you was creepy. He would watch me through his window. I got used to payin’ attention to where he was. It is kinda cool that someone normal has moved in.”
Sam can’t help but grin. Yeah, normal. Just him, his father, his brother and the shit that goes bump in the night.
Sam changes the subject.
“This city is hot as hell, huh?”
She smiles ruefully, “I hear that it’s way hotter out west, but Baltimore is a bitch in the summer. “
She mangles the word ‘’Baltimore”. It sounds to Sam like she is missing entire vowels. It sounds almost like Balmer. Sam finds her accent kind of strange; not really Southern but surely not a hard, clipped Northern accent either. But despite the strangeness of it, it sounds sweet when she says it.
She pulls her damp tank top away from her body. Sam can’t help but notice the sweat that vees down her shirt, and the fact that she has no bra on. He dwells on that for a minute. Her breasts are small and visible through the thin material and he feels his dick stir. Shit, that is embarrassing. He shifts his weight, determined not to adjust himself by hand. Then he counts to 10 mentally, as if that will stop his automatic response to boobs.
She looks at him like she knows what he is thinking. Despite the thinness of her body and the fact that she looks like a strong wind could blow her away, she seems older than her years. She smiles slowly and then offers her hand.
“Shelly…my name’s Shelly.”
Sam wipes his sweaty palm against his jeans, reaches for her hand. Hers is surprisingly cool.
“Sam,” he replies.
“Well, Sam, how the hell are ya?”
Sam looks at her, grimaces and chuffs.
“Well, okay I guess, if you like sweat.”
This time it’s Shelly’s turn to smile. “Yeah, it is hot alright. But I don’t mind it so much. It’s kinda sexy really.”
She reaches up and over; cups Sam’s face with her hand draws her thumb down Sam’s jaw line. Snaps her fingers at the end of his jaw and flicks a bead of sweat.
And right there, Sam almost loses it. Her touch is hot ; it burns a trail down his jaw. Sam breathes sharply as his dick goes from a twitch to hard as a rock, just like that. Fifteen is not what it is cracked up to be. He barely stifles a moan. Fuck, fuckity, fuck.
She smiles, blue eyes dancing at his predicament. Sam feels the heat as his face flushes. He bows his head, breathes deeply though his mouth and then looks back at her. He wonders briefly if anyone ever looked so beautiful sitting there in the yellow glow of a street light. Before he can say anything, not that he can get his mouth to work, she interrupts his thought process.
“I have to head in. My ol’ lady’s stoned beyond belief, but if she wakes up and I am not in there, she will have my ass.”
Shelly drops the smoke on the marble stoop, crushes it out then reaches down to pick the butt up. She looks at his amused expression.
“What? I might pollute the hell outa my lungs, but there ain’t no reason to fuck up this city anymore than it is.”
Sam nods his head. Makes sense to him. He’s thankful she doesn’t require any answer to the statement, because he still can’t speak.
“Maybe I’ll see ya around, Sam.” She leans in and ever so briefly, brushes her lips to his. It startles Sam. So much so that he does not even respond to the kiss. She tastes like smoke with an underlying sweetness he can’t identify. But all he can do is watch her awestruck as she turns away from him.
Shelly moves cat-like up the steps to her house and opens the screen door. She glances back just before she goes in and flashes him a smile, bright white in the yellowish glare of the streetlamp. He listens to the screen door bang hollowly against the jam, then the solid slam of the front door.
Sam sits down on the recently vacated stoop. He tries to remember to breathe. It occurs to him that was one of the reasons he wanted to get outside in the first place - to be able to breathe. The marble feels cooler on his ass than he figures it should. His stomach is in knots. He mentally kicks himself. What kind of moron responds to a kiss by just standing there? It’s embarrassing; that's for damn sure.
He figures he could sit here a while, trying to sort through what just happened and feeling the slightly cooler air, but he has been out longer than he anticipated. Dean’ll be worried if he wakes up and Sam is not there. Reluctantly he stands and pulls at his jeans, trying to ease some of the pressure. It’s a lesson in futility. There is no way he is going to get comfortable anytime soon. This is fucking ridiculous. Sam heads back down into the alley gingerly walking to the apartment’s fire escape.
It is just as easy to scramble back up the fire escape as he figured. A quick pull up, then arm over arm with a monkey like swing onto the fire escape. He lands kind of hard, far harder than he wanted.
“Damn!" The curse is low, but emphatic. So much for making an unannounced return; Dean will have to be really out not to have heard that.
Sam moves to the window, eases up the sash and steps back over the windowsill and the salt line. The apartment is dark and he can’t really see, so he gently shuts the window back down and heads toward the pull-out bed. It’s then that he realizes the TV is no longer on, hence the darkened room.
“Shit!”
“Pretty much, dickhead. Where the fuck were you?” Dean asks from the darkened room, his voice gravely with anger.
Sam sighs. He rolls his eyes too, but that is just habit, he doubts seriously that Dean can see that. Why does Dean have to be so damn difficult?
“Don’t roll your eyes at me, Sam. Just answer the fucking question.”
“Out, Dean. Just out. How about you mind your own business?” Sam is short and terse. The words are punctuated by a scowl.
In a moment Dean is up in Sam’s face, fisting his damp t-shirt with his right hand and effortlessly pulling him toward him with one arm.
“You are my business, turd. And if Dad was to come home and find you gone, we would both never hear the end of it. So I have some personal stake in keepin’ you safe and inside. “
Dean shakes Sam hard enough to rattle the gray matter a bit. He roughly pushes Sam into the nearest wall, releasing him with a shove.
“Jesus, Dean. I was just gettin’ some fresh air, is all.”
“You breathe the same stagnant shit that I breathe and like it.”
Sam sighs again.
“Whatever.”
Sam watches his brother run his hands through his hair. The sweat has made it stand up even spikier than normal. It is like some weird Winchester hair product and Sam grins in spite of himself.
“You look like a fuckin’ rooster, Dean.”
“Watch your language, dickhead.”
Dean reaches out to cuff Sam in the head, but Sam is ready for it and evades his brother easily. Dean starts after him and then lets his hand fall and flops down on the couch. “Fuck it. It’s too hot for this shit.”
Sam huffs in agreement and settles next to Dean on the couch facing the darkened TV. They sit companionably side by side in the stifling heat for a moment before Dean reaches for the remote and taps on the TV only to be rewarded by a grainy picture of what could be David Letterman.
“Ya know I always kind of like this part.“ Dean leans back further on the sofa and gestures vaguely toward the TV. He laughs as they watch a proud owner try to get his pig to play basketball in Stupid Pet Tricks. Sam laughs too, because it is goofy as all get -out.
“Who would think a pig could play basketball?”
“Pigs are actually pretty smart, Dean.”
“Yeah, well maybe, but Michael Jordan sure ain’t got nothing to worry about.”
Dean loops an arm around his brother, drags him roughly over to him.
“You reek, Sammy boy.”
"You don’t smell like fresh lilacs yourself, Dean.”
Dean grins and sniffs his pit. “I smell delightful. You on the other hand…” But he continues to hold Sam roughly in the semi-hug. Sam thinks he might even pull him a little closer.
“Don’t wander off again like that, Sam. You had me worried.” Dean’s voice is low, just above a whisper. Sam hears the quiet conspiratorial tone that the brothers use between themselves in the dark. Sam shifts his weight onto Dean’s shoulder for just a second.
Dean pushes Sam away with an elbow to the ribs. “Back off, geekboy. It’s too fuckin’ hot. “ Sam snorts, it is not like he is the one who pulled Dean into the rough hug anyway. No matter. He absently rubs his sore ribs and shakes his head. Yeah, Dean is a dick and a royal pain in the ass. But it is okay. There is nothing he can do about it.
He is not sure he wants to anyway.