Supernatural/Homicide: Life on the Streets (NC-17)
Title: Charm City
Pairing: Sam Winchester/Tim Bayliss
Author on LJ: hth_the_first
Author Website: http://hth.gatefiction.com/
Why this must be read: When I read this, I'd just barely begun watching Homicide and I really didn't like Tim Bayliss. Well. Me and Tim are still not great friends. Nonetheless, I adore this story, which should be a strong indicator how good it is. I "knew" Hth pretty exclusively from Stargate fandom, but I was deeply excited to see her venturing into Supernatural and the specter of Tim Bayliss was not going to keep me from reading the story, thank goodness.
There are so many things I really enjoyed about this story; Sam's attraction to Tim (a considerably older man, at this point) is cute, sweet and oddly hot in all the ways that first flustery attraction to someone IS, complicated by Dean's "help" and sarcastic, older brothery commentary. Her Dean, though largely not physically present, is very much part of the story and is embarrassing, profane, nosy and interfering in all the ways we know and love. And, despite my dislike for Tim, Hth has captured his voice and mannerisms with eerie and loving accuracy, transforming him into a character that is still recognizable as canonical and yet tips over that bulwark into someone I actually liked and cared about by the end of the story.
(I can't emphasize enough what an accomplishment that was.)
That morning Mr. Big comes in wearing a suit, which he’s never done before, and a cheap brown trench coat over it. He steers away from his usual table and comes right to the counter, brushed up against Dean, who’s looking punch-drunk and insanely dangerous, at least if humiliation really can kill. “Hi,” he says, a little breathlessly. “Hey, is there any way I can get some food to go?”
“Sure thing, sailor,” Dean answers for him, and the guy looks down at him, vaguely puzzled.
“Of course,” Sam says quickly. “You want the- “
“Yeah, yeah, that’d be great,” he says. “Thanks so much.”
Sam rings him up while the order’s in the back, but when he tries to give back the $3.12 in change from his ten, Mr. Big puts his hand on the side of Sam’s and pushes it gently away. “No, you keep that,” he says. “I didn’t mean to cost you your tip.”
His tip from that table is usually a dollar, once in a while two. He would argue, except that, God, those hands. He can’t make his voice work at all, so he’s just standing there dumbly, holding $3.12 in his hand.
When the sandwich comes up, Jimmy puts it in a white styrofoam carton, and Sam hands that to him along with a large to-go cup of coffee, and it almost works, everything is almost fine and normal and cool, until fucking Dean Winchester, Sam’s reason to live and the bane of his goddamn existence, says, “Whoa, whoa, wait just a second, there,” and pulls the styrofoam out of Mr. Big’s hand while both he and Sam watch in shock. Dean grabs a black marker from on top of the register and pulls the cap off with his teeth, then spits it out and says as he writes, “This handsome bastard here is my little brother Sam, and don’t take this the wrong way, but he’s kind of got this thing for you. So if that’s not your cup of tea, no harm no foul, but otherwise you should think about giving him a call, all right?”
Sam is staring at his own cell phone number written in huge black numbers on white styrofoam, and he can’t - he can’t believe Dean, he can’t-
“Oh,” Mr. Big says faintly. “Um. Thanks. Sam.”
There's a very palpable sense of two travelers finding succor and comfort in the all-too-brief eye of a storm here; a Zen-like moment of time when all that exists is the now and it is beautiful.
Tim would approve. And so do I.
Please, if you haven't already, go read this story. You really don't have to be exceptionally familiar with either fandom to take pleasure in it.
Charm City
Pairing: Sam Winchester/Tim Bayliss
Author on LJ: hth_the_first
Author Website: http://hth.gatefiction.com/
Why this must be read: When I read this, I'd just barely begun watching Homicide and I really didn't like Tim Bayliss. Well. Me and Tim are still not great friends. Nonetheless, I adore this story, which should be a strong indicator how good it is. I "knew" Hth pretty exclusively from Stargate fandom, but I was deeply excited to see her venturing into Supernatural and the specter of Tim Bayliss was not going to keep me from reading the story, thank goodness.
There are so many things I really enjoyed about this story; Sam's attraction to Tim (a considerably older man, at this point) is cute, sweet and oddly hot in all the ways that first flustery attraction to someone IS, complicated by Dean's "help" and sarcastic, older brothery commentary. Her Dean, though largely not physically present, is very much part of the story and is embarrassing, profane, nosy and interfering in all the ways we know and love. And, despite my dislike for Tim, Hth has captured his voice and mannerisms with eerie and loving accuracy, transforming him into a character that is still recognizable as canonical and yet tips over that bulwark into someone I actually liked and cared about by the end of the story.
(I can't emphasize enough what an accomplishment that was.)
That morning Mr. Big comes in wearing a suit, which he’s never done before, and a cheap brown trench coat over it. He steers away from his usual table and comes right to the counter, brushed up against Dean, who’s looking punch-drunk and insanely dangerous, at least if humiliation really can kill. “Hi,” he says, a little breathlessly. “Hey, is there any way I can get some food to go?”
“Sure thing, sailor,” Dean answers for him, and the guy looks down at him, vaguely puzzled.
“Of course,” Sam says quickly. “You want the- “
“Yeah, yeah, that’d be great,” he says. “Thanks so much.”
Sam rings him up while the order’s in the back, but when he tries to give back the $3.12 in change from his ten, Mr. Big puts his hand on the side of Sam’s and pushes it gently away. “No, you keep that,” he says. “I didn’t mean to cost you your tip.”
His tip from that table is usually a dollar, once in a while two. He would argue, except that, God, those hands. He can’t make his voice work at all, so he’s just standing there dumbly, holding $3.12 in his hand.
When the sandwich comes up, Jimmy puts it in a white styrofoam carton, and Sam hands that to him along with a large to-go cup of coffee, and it almost works, everything is almost fine and normal and cool, until fucking Dean Winchester, Sam’s reason to live and the bane of his goddamn existence, says, “Whoa, whoa, wait just a second, there,” and pulls the styrofoam out of Mr. Big’s hand while both he and Sam watch in shock. Dean grabs a black marker from on top of the register and pulls the cap off with his teeth, then spits it out and says as he writes, “This handsome bastard here is my little brother Sam, and don’t take this the wrong way, but he’s kind of got this thing for you. So if that’s not your cup of tea, no harm no foul, but otherwise you should think about giving him a call, all right?”
Sam is staring at his own cell phone number written in huge black numbers on white styrofoam, and he can’t - he can’t believe Dean, he can’t-
“Oh,” Mr. Big says faintly. “Um. Thanks. Sam.”
There's a very palpable sense of two travelers finding succor and comfort in the all-too-brief eye of a storm here; a Zen-like moment of time when all that exists is the now and it is beautiful.
Tim would approve. And so do I.
Please, if you haven't already, go read this story. You really don't have to be exceptionally familiar with either fandom to take pleasure in it.
Charm City