Crossover fic: Lost/SPN: Coda (Sawyer/Sam, AU)
Important note: Suspend your disbelief. Seriously, dude. I can't make it any less weird, so I stopped trying. I'm kinda sick of looking at it anyway.
Title: Coda
Crossover: Lost/Supernatural
Pairing: Sawyer/Sam
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 11,500 words…sorry, it kinda got away from me
Summary: Sawyer + Sam + angsty music + lots of whiskey + probably too much talking = mucho smut…eventually.
Notes:
1) This takes place in my AU where Sawyer is a bartender in a place that frequently has live music, although this story can be read totally independently of Foreplay (Sawyer/Jack) and Afterglow (Sawyer/Sayid). It is, however, relatively the same world-weary, booty-hound, slightly younger but just as snarky version of our canon Sawyer. I think this story probably comes before those other two.
2) But who the hell knows where this takes place, time-wise, for Sam. He leaves school to go on the road with Dean, but apparently he takes a break from Dean for a while for unknown reasons (not related to chasing his father; some personal angst? Neither I nor Sawyer can figure that out conclusively). For crying out loud, I'm just borrowing the younger Winchester to debauch him, so just go with it. Also, just go with the song I have Sam singing. It doesn't make much sense to me either as a choice, but it's what the muse latched onto, and it's pointless to argue with the muse.
3) Feel free to read any faint Wincest-y overtones you want into the story. However, if you're not into Wincest, rest assured: neither am I, so it's equally as possible to read this and not see it.
For gottalovev, whose lovely idea the pairing was. Any random mopiness or OOC sluttiness on Sam's part is entirely the fault of my weary but deprived muse and my own often off-kilter vision of Sam. I like him slutty. So sue me. :)
Coda
They were a good band, all things considered, even if Sawyer had yet to figure out just how to classify their sound. There were so many gradations of whiny, melodramatic popular music that he couldn't keep the labels, much less the supposedly distinct sounds, straight. As he poured pitcher after pitcher of Miller draft, only half listening to the patrons at the bar much less the band on stage, all he could say was their sound was rough but still grounded in some pop sensibility, and, thankfully, it didn't tend too far into over-the-top hard metal territory. Maybe they'd even call themselves an indie rock band, whatever that nebulous term meant. Bluestreak was the kind of band that had competent musicians and enough stage presence to entertain you if you wanted to be entertained, but it was also the kind of band you might easily ignore.
Sawyer vacillated between those two options, unable to decide if he was truly as uninterested as he knew he should be, and it was the fault of one young man in particular. Though Sawyer couldn't give a subtle, informed description of the band's sound, he recognized that it was the sort of music that showcased-and depended almost solely upon-the charisma of the lead singer. Most good lead singers had a very calculated stage presence, just as real as Sawyer's easy smiles as he slid a run and coke across the bar. This lead singer was definitely putting on an act, but it was a rather enthralling one-mainly because Sawyer had a sneaking suspicion at least some of it was real, not that he could in the least decide which parts.
He had his suspicions, but the act changed often enough he couldn't get a handle on it. Who the lead singer seemed to be depended highly upon the song. The set had started out with faster, livelier tunes-fashionably dark but with a relentless, driving beat. The singer was all bombast then, and although his flailing about seemed to please the younger patrons, it somehow rubbed Sawyer the wrong way. The performance felt forced, the energy skewed all wrong. As the set went on, the band settled into a groove they seemed more comfortable with, a little slower, more melancholy. It was then, strangely, as the songs veered toward a whiny tone Sawyer normally abhorred, that the music-and the singer-actually began to have an effect on him.
It shouldn't have worked. Sawyer didn't care much for contrivances of emotion, but that was just it: there was something sincere about the singer's voice that drew Sawyer in. Looking at him over the tap from where he reclined back against the bar during those infrequent downtimes, he puzzled over exactly what darkness the singer seemed to be tapping into. The boy cast no filter over his anger and frustration, but rather than scream and jump all over the stage to release that energy, he channeled it into words and the careful way he delivered them: cool but with something dangerous bubbling beneath the surface, sometimes the heat creeping in with a rasp or, even more rarely, a sublime thickness and deepness of sound. He looked and sounded about like Sawyer felt most of the time, but he was less afraid to own up to it, let it go. It made Sawyer oddly nervous for him, but he couldn't stop watching.
Sawyer hadn't even noticed him until that middle part of the set, when their tone changed. When Sawyer did take the time to really look him over, he couldn't figure out how that dark, painful voice could belong to the kid. Just looking at him, you could tell he was the upstanding, do-gooder sort, maybe a farm kid or a small-town frat boy in another life: well-meaning, sheltered.
His dark hair was long and shaggy the way they wore it now, falling over his eyes, although when he occasionally turned his head up and his bangs fell out of his face, Sawyer could see that he'd lined his eyes a charcoal black. It wasn't often they got the eyeliner sort to fill up their stage, and when they did, it usually came along with a uniform of black, heavier makeup, and several piercings. This boy, however, had no makeup aside from the eyeliner and no visible piercings other than a tongue ring he didn't feel the need to draw attention to.
He didn't wear black, either. If he'd chosen his look, it wasn't in fealty to any particular style. To be sure, he had the thrift store look down, but he wore faded brown cords and a warm forest green t-shirt sporting the name of some band Sawyer had never heard of over a gray-blue thermal undershirt. He looked healthy and clean, which was more than he could say for half the lead singers that graced that stage, but he carried himself like a skinnier, scrawnier man, affecting the lanky, half-strungout vibe of a good, tortured rock singer, even if he was built more like a running back, maybe a pitcher. Tall, lean, cut.
This odd amalgamation of styles and attitudes shouldn't have worked, but it did. On anyone else, Sawyer would've assumed that wardrobe screamed rebellious phase, a kid trying to decide between the two or three worlds he was straddling. Although Sawyer wasn't altogether convinced this guy had himself figured out, he didn't sense a lot of hesitancy in him or lack of confidence. Of course, that might've had something to do with the way the kid was watching him.
He hadn't noticed his cool brown gaze until the second or third slower song. He'd been stared at before by lead singers, and he'd been more or less sung to often enough, but this kid wasn't trying to project his attention to the bar. What he did was just let his eyes drift over Sawyer, quick, and it was halfway unnerving. One moment, the kid seemed tentative, as though he were searching out something from Sawyer's face; the next, he seemed like he was reassuring himself that Sawyer was still there, like Sawyer was his touchstone or anchor. A few times, he looked directly into Sawyer's eyes for that split second, and Sawyer got the distinct impression something was being communicated in those looks that he wasn't catching. He could not get a handle on the kid, and he began to think it wasn't possible to.
When Bluestreak came out of that evocative middle part of their set, they jumped back into another couple of crowd-pleasing but derivative numbers to reclaim their audience from the bar. The singer clamped back down on whatever it was that had been so fascinating to watch but undoubtedly painful to deliver and in its place forced enough bravado that, at the end of one song, he had ratcheted it up high enough to take the microphone out of the mike stand and call back to the bar for a couple of drinks: more Rolling Rock for Frank and a double shot of whiskey for himself. He'd already had several, and Sawyer was beginning to think that wasn't accidental.
Sawyer waited until the end of the next song to carry the drinks out there, pushing his way through a sloppy cluster of college kids. The closer he got, the older the boy began to look. Maybe as old as 25, given the lines on his face and the sharpness of his gaze. Sawyer handed the beer up to the bassist and bent over slightly to slide the glass onto the stage for the singer, but he reached down and took it out of his hand, brushing his fingers just enough it would only seem like an accident to someone who hadn't felt it. Sawyer could practically feel the heat radiating off of him; his hair was coated in sweat and his hand was just as sweaty. "Hold up," the singer said, suddenly sounding fourteen as he motioned to him while he downed the drink in one long gulp. He dropped the glass back into Sawyer's hand, giving him just a hint of a playful smile.
That was Sawyer's mistake, locking onto the kid's face. He wavered there, below the stage, threaded into that crowd of people, caught up in studying squinted brown eyes as the singer cocked his head to one side, similarly oblivious to the world that wasn't Sawyer. Sawyer finally shook his head and made to part the crowd, but he felt something hit his back. When he turned back, he saw the cord from the singer's microphone swinging back away from him.
Sawyer frowned at him as he put his hand over the microphone and shouted over the din: "So Joe Slim, the drummer, says a person can only really be into Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin-one or the other, not both."
Sawyer shrugged his shoulders. "So?"
"So, which are you?"
Sawyer couldn't help it. For the first time that evening, a genuine smile came over his face, and he flashed a grin at this strange singer and said, "If you have to ask…"
He sauntered back to the bar very intentionally, determined both to ignore the kid and get his attention, all at once. Who knew what kind of game he was playing, but if it was a game, Sawyer had nothing better to do than play. If nothing else, the flirtation would be a distraction.
*****
The crowd hadn't thinned out in the least. The college-age kids milled around in front of the stage, while the regulars sat along the wall and spilled into the back room, oblivious of the music, talking about the shit they always talked about. Sawyer prided himself in being able to move through both groups with ease.
To the frat boys, he was just enough good old boy to make them feel comfortable, but he was mostly all business. To the young women, he was charming and obvious with his compliments but decidedly blue-collar so as not to be a threat to the college guys. To the older women, he was a little more subtle but no less charming, playing up his dimples less, his cynicism and the dark scruff on his face more. To the older men, good old boys themselves, he was just another like them, hard-working without taking himself too seriously. He could peg a person when they walked up to him, and he could put on whatever face they wanted to see, give them sympathy or sarcasm, flirtation or friendship, or simply space to breathe. He considered that ability one of his strengths, cultivated because it was necessary to his survival. Perhaps that's why he was fixated on the only person in the entire bar he couldn't precisely read.
Sawyer tried not to think about it, even if he had engaged for a moment in the game. He spent a lot of time bent over the sink, washing glasses, and he made frequent trips to the back for supplies. He came back through the door in time to hear the chatter between songs, and the word cover cut through the cacophony of voices around the bar. He almost groaned, given the nature of most of the cover bands they'd had in to play, but he found himself curious to know what sort of music a band like this would own up to being influenced by.
"What these assholes that sing for you never tell you," the singer was saying, "is that they like to fuck around with the classics, sit in their garages and pretend to be The Clash or The Stones." Sawyer squinted through the smoke; the word fuck sounded so odd out of that mouth, despite everything else he'd seen. Come to think about it, he didn't even remember that word being in the lyrics of any of the songs so far. Given the clumsy way the kid snapped the mike back into the stand, he was just a little drunk. Or maybe a lot.
He continued, louder now: "The only trouble is, Joe Slim back there gets bored with the drums in "London Calling," and Frank hates hates hates it when I do my best Mick Jagger, no matter how much we want to have a big fucking orgy with the Stones. Besides, Steve-o over here"-he rolled his eyes and tilted his head to the very serious lead guitarist-"likes a challenge, apparently. Now, the harmonica isn't exactly a challenging instrument for me to play, but Stevie-he loves to hear me scream."
The guitarist had apparently figured out where this was heading, and he looked more than slightly annoyed, mouthing the words you miserable fuck face before going about furiously tuning his guitar. But that didn't seem to deter the singer; he just grinned back at the drummer and then tossed his head in the lead guitarist's general direction: "You know what that means." The guitarist flipped him off, and the kid added, "Steve-o would want me to warn you we never play Zeppelin besides in Frank's garage. But just for y'all, just for tonight, I'm in the mood. How about it?"
He almost sold it, that casual I-don't-give-a-fuck-I'm-wild-and-spontaneous vibe that lead singers in bars always find indispensable. He probably did sell it to the half-wasted crowd who applauded appreciatively, and maybe even to himself; he was surely drunk enough to believe his own swagger. But Sawyer was the one person the kid wasn't trying to fool. In fact, after he hunted down his harmonica and the band fumbled to get it together, he looked at him so long and hard that Sawyer might've sworn the kid had been planning this longer than three songs ago.
The coda to that long look was an ethereal smile as the drums started and his hips began to shift. Sawyer walked to the sink without taking his eyes off the boy and washed glasses without looking, suddenly feeling surreal. What he heard didn't sound exactly like "When The Levee Breaks," given that the guitar player wasn't Jimmy Page and with his baritone voice, the kid would have an interesting time trying to do justice to Robert Plant's wailing, but it was close enough to make him feel like he was in a different bar, maybe at a different time. Even the kid's approximation of the harmonica part seemed light years from where he was.
The singer probably wasn't even born when the song was recorded; Sawyer didn't the he was was either, but as a teenager he had picked up the habit of listening to classic rock radio. He had little patience with Led Zeppelin, preferring his music less self-consciously weird. CCR didn't sing about drug-induced hallucinations of J. R. R. Tolkien, and Ronnie Van Zandt didn't need to scream incoherently as if to inject even more tension into a Skynyrd song. Like most, Sawyer would put "Stairway to Heaven" right up there with all that was right with rock 'n roll, although it would fall farther down the list than "Free Bird," but overall, he didn't have much use for Zeppelin. Not that he had any great love for Pink Floyd either. It was even farther out there. The kid was wrong-a person could like neither band. That's what made the singer's choice of that song remarkable: it was one of the very few Led Zeppelin songs Sawyer actually liked.
The song seemed balanced, somehow, in a way that the others didn't, and it suited the kid's voice well, despite how he had to stretch it. Sawyer watched his body as he sank into the music, retreating inside himself in such a way that his bare-bones harmonica playing seemed subdued and his singing was like a message he was delivering from far away.
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break. If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break. When the levee breaks, I'll have no place to stay.
Mean old levee, taught me to weep and moan, oh oh oh. Mean old levee, taught me to weep and mo-o-oan. Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home, oh well oh well oh well.
Even if a live version by amateurs would never compare to the carefully-produced real thing, Sawyer loved the way the song just seemed to move steadily forward, carried on the measured rhythm of the harmonica, backed by strange, atmospheric drumming that felt both bouncy and heavy somehow at the same time. The kid was subdued, just rocking with the tempo, until the song began to build to what, for lack of a better term, Sawyer called the bridge, where, like with all Led Zeppelin songs, there was the obligatory outburst of vocals and guitar. As the drums faded a bit and Steve-o strummed out those chords that led up to the bridge, Sawyer watched the kid's hands clench into fists at his sides. Then they drifted up to the microphone. His eyes were closed for the longest time, and when he finally opened them, a couple of beats before he took that in-breath to propel him into the scream, he looked directly at Sawyer and gave him an inscrutable look that might've been a smile.
But when he sang those notes, his eyes were fixed on something on the ceiling above Sawyer's head. His tall frame contorted until he was hunched over the microphone, and the harsh, powerful tone of his voice sounded just as real as it had during those slower songs. To his credit, he hit all the notes, even if it sounded like it was wreaking havoc on his throat to reach them. It must have, because when that part was over, he half-heartedly tackled the vocal meanderings that followed like an echo, giving them up in favor of a long breath and an even longer look at Sawyer, his eyes drifting toward the glass in Sawyer's hand. Sawyer nodded at him, and then he was halfway startled to realize it was the same glass he had been washing when the song started.
Sawyer poured another double whiskey, but he didn't take it out to him. It was too nice to simply watch as the song wound down. "When the Levee Breaks" must be a nearly 8-minute song, Sawyer recalled, but once the lead guitarist got over his petulance, he had fun doing things Page wouldn't have dreamed with the guitar riffs, some for good reason. But it fit well enough, in the same way a doe-eyed kid wearing carefully-chosen thrift store clothes could belt out the song unironically, skewing it just enough to be interesting but not too much to jolt the crowd out of what they remembered. The essence of a good cover. The kid seemed to have spent a lot of his energy already, because he piped up with the rest of the subdued vocals without adding much flourish, but still retaining that bluesy intensity.
Crying won't help ya, praying won't do ya no good. Crying won't help ya, praying won't do ya no good. When the levee breaks, mama you got to move.
All last night, sat on the levee and moaned, oh-oh-oh. All last night, sat on the levee and moaned. Think about my baby and my happy home.
He didn't overindulge in the repetitions at the end of the song; in fact, it seemed for the first time all night he was backing off, determined to let the band carry the song. Unfortunately, that left him with unfocused energy, enough to let him stare across the bar at Sawyer, smiling contentedly, as though he'd made it through this ordeal of a show and might just go out and conquer anything. Perhaps Sawyer, perhaps not.
They followed that song with more Zeppelin, a fast song that would leave the audience on an energetic up-beat. For their efforts, they managed to draw applause from the young crowd as well as some of the regulars, those that weren't grousing about "these punk kids fucking up good music." They hadn't fucked it up, though. Never mind that the kid was so randomly wearing eyeliner and Sawyer could see his tongue-ring glint in the light when he opened his mouth wide to wail his way through notes he knew he couldn't hit; he was trying, weirdly, to do the song justice. And, hell, hadn't Robert Plant worn weirder shit, and acted a hell of a lot weirder on stage?
Sawyer held the drink at the bar, watching as they broke down their equipment to see what he would do now that the spotlight was off them. No doubt about it, the way his shoulders moved as he hefted the amps and carried them out the door, the lead singer was built in that way good, God-fearing Midwestern boys always are, and he smiled just about as widely and easily, not exactly like a different person than he was on stage but a distinctly lighter version of that man. Sawyer lost track of him in the flurry of drink orders that came after the music stopped, and when he looked up again, they were gone and Rat Trap was setting up on stage, looking like something that was sure to run off the regulars or at least merit a good bit of bitching afterward. They wouldn't be back, but Bluestreak might. Sawyer didn't know. He was sure, though, that the singer would be back that night, if he had even left.
*****
Bluestreak apparently liked the new band about as much as everyone else did, because the four of them kept disappearing for long intervals out the back door with new drinks, shaking out cigarettes from a communal pack. Sawyer didn't see the kid take one, and he didn't know if he was disappointed. Might've been nice to taste him like that, Camels and cheap whiskey, but Sawyer had a feeling the kid had a strong taste all his own, and he'd let Sawyer kiss him just as long and wet as he wanted. But Sawyer tried not to think too much ahead of himself. He had no idea whether the kid had any experience or if he was simply experimenting. Maybe he was pushing toward something without wanting the follow-through. Or maybe he was just a dick-tease. Wouldn't be the first one of those he'd attracted the attention of. But while the kid's performance had been about as sensual as anything he'd seen in a while, it wasn't just about that-not exactly-and the singer was probably completely unaware of how a pair of narrow hips and broad shoulders and brown eyes could always make Sawyer twitchy and eager.
Finally, at nearly 2 a.m., when Rat Trap was blissfully gone and most of the patrons had wandered into the cool night, the singer came and sat down at the bar. Without missing a beat, Sawyer sat the double whiskey in front of him, and the kid laughed, shaking his shaggy hair out of his eyes.
His voice was deeper and smoother when he talked. "You don't get a lot of bands like us in here, do you?"
"Enough."
The kid took a slow drink, frowning for a moment and then looking at Sawyer quizzically. So he was at least worldly enough to know the difference between shit whiskey and the good stuff. He smiled, then he just kept staring, but he didn't talk.
Sawyer fiddled with the bottles in front of him. He said, "Am I supposed to think you're psychic?"
"What?" he said, for a moment wide-eyed, bewildered.
"You picked Led Zeppelin…?"
"Oh," he said, sighing into an easy smile. "Not really. But I was right?"
"Seems like it. Just a lucky guess?"
"Let's call it hope," he said. "I really don't love Pink Floyd." Sawyer snorted under his breath. "I'm Sam. Sam Johnson." He stuck out his hand, and his grip was firm; it didn't hurt that his hands were enormous.
"Sawyer," he replied. "How come you don't play guitar with hands like that?"
He shrugged. "No coordination. Especially when I drink."
"So why drink?"
His nostrils flared a little, and his eyes went pinched before he forced his face to relax. He was already doing an astounding amount of over-correcting, and they'd only just started talking. Sawyer knew this one would be difficult, wear him out with the mental gymnastics. Hopefully, he would be worth it.
Sam chased his nostril flaring with a shake of his head. He said, "Have you ever sang in front of a crowd before?"
"Can't say as I have."
"Don't try. I've only been at this a few months, but whatever it is that makes me think I can, it comes and goes. And it likes whiskey."
"Why do you do it, then?"
"Money," he said simply. "Because I can." With a touch of self-deprecating sarcasm: "Catharsis."
"You don't sound like you're from around here."
"Kansas." He took another slow drink and then turned that face up finally, dark-lined eyes focused on his. "It's too late, isn't it?"
"For what?"
"We've both used it up already. Normally, I can talk to anybody, but I just don't have…Shit, I don't know. And you're no help."
Sawyer frowned.
"No, I just meant… Goddammit," he mumbled. He was about to get up, but Sawyer let the whiskey bottle clink against the glass as he topped it off. Sam looked up at him through those bangs and gave an exhausted laugh as he settled back onto the stool.
Sawyer said, "I should just tell you I much prefer it when people don't act like they have to entertain me."
"Yeah?"
"Everything's easier without the bullshit."
"So it's not out of line for me to tell you how fucking distracted you've made me all night?"
"Nope." Sawyer loved that first admittance, made with words instead of looks and movements. Words seemed to get inside him faster than any amount of hip-shaking and piercing stares. He hid a smile as he turned back to the bottles behind him and examined their contents, making a mental note to bring out some more of that sweet blue liqueur that seemed indispensable to vodka nowadays, almost as indispensable as that vile green schnapps.
Sam said, "But I'm sure you know exactly how distracting you are."
"I know how much I want to be, and to whom. But never whether I've succeeded."
"Bullshit."
Sawyer turned back. "Okay, sometimes."
"Somehow, I still don't believe that." He gave him a wary look that said he was well-acquainted with Sawyer's kind of charm, not that he didn't give into it of his own accord sometimes.
Sam seemed content to just stare at him now that he had permission and was apparently too tired to pretend to have any other goal, but it made Sawyer just a little nervous for some reason. He fell back on his usual sort of bar chatter: "So how is it a nice Kansas boy ends up in Knoxville, singing when he doesn't want to?"
"That question already has two problems with it. One, I do want to sing, it's just hard sometimes. And, two, I never said I was nice."
"Didn't have to."
That earned him a glare, the ferocity of which he hadn't quite expected. Sam's voice even went up in pitch when he replied, "Maybe I was a long time ago, but that's not me anymore."
"People don't change that much. And whoever said there was anything wrong with being nice?"
Sam took a deep breath before he spoke, and his voice was softer. Sawyer wasn't even sure he was talking to him, maybe simply talking to himself: "Sometimes I wonder why I don't just go back and finish. I was more than halfway done."
This was bad. Decidedly bad. Sawyer had managed to tap one of the ongoing conversations in the boy's head, the kind he'd had over and over without a resolution. He wasn't likely to find one tonight, but there was no getting out of it now, so Sawyer just dug in a little deeper. That's what a bartender did. He said, "Finish what?"
"College."
"So why don't you?"
"I've got another life now. It's more important." He glanced up at Sawyer. "Not this."
"Oh."
"About the same, though. Always moving, never with much of an idea where to, other than what looks good at the time." His eyes suddenly went flat. "It makes me so fucking tired, man."
"I can understand that."
He began to gesticulate with his hands. "I just couldn't do it anymore. And now I just keep thinking about how things were supposed to turn out. I was supposed to be…God, I don't know. I really don't. That's the problem." With a heave of his chest, a silent inward chuckle, he said, "What the hell's wrong with me, dumping all this whiny bullshit on you?"
Sawyer grinned, dimples in full effect. "Especially when that's not what you hung around for."
He didn't reply, instead studying Sawyer's face with a smirk. Finally, he said, "Well, since we've both decided we don’t have the energy for being coy about it, what time do you get off?"
"Hour, give or take."
"Good," he said, rolling off the bar stool. "Give me time to sober up a little."
"Yeah?"
He leaned in. "I give better head when I'm not drunk off my ass."
Sawyer smelled a faint note of aftershave mingled in with the alcohol, but no cigarettes, before Sam pushed himself off the bar and ambled toward the back door.
Sawyer's fellow bartender, Karen, mid-thirties but looking closer to fifty, came out of the back and nudged him as they both watched the way those corduroy pants hugged Sam's ass as he stumbled into the night.
She said, "Cute. Wouldn't have thought he was your type, though."
"Since when have you known me to have a type?"
"Point taken."
"Jealous of this one or something?"
She shook her head. "Nope. That has got to be the weirdest motherfucker you've ever picked up."
It startled him to hear her say that, even if upon reflection he knew it to be true, if someone being painfully normal and honest made him weird in this place. "Nah," he said, dropping Sam's glass into the soapy water as if completely unconcerned. "Remember that short guy that rolled around on the stage…? Didn't seem to realize one Lizard King was more than enough in the history of overblown poetry…?"
She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. "Okay, so maybe that boy's the most nervous motherfucker you've ever picked up."
"It's not nerves."
Karen went back through the swinging door without comment. Sawyer knew that Sam wasn't nervous, nor was he confused or self-destructive. The better word would be conflicted. When he came back inside and sat down at the bar, smiling and cool, Sawyer could see that he had forced himself to shift out of whatever funk he'd been in. He smiled a little more, didn't seem as shut up inside his head. It was odd, because as much as he was trying to be easy-going, Sawyer could still see how he fought being that person, so normal and solid, as if every problem he had resulted from him being too good or too dependable or too strong. It was a shame, because that solidness was exactly what he exuded when he forgot to wallow, and it was pretty fucking attractive.
*****
Sam stopped drinking whiskey when he came back in, so Sawyer poured him the last of the old, warmed-over coffee and went about cleaning up the bar.
Sam smiled and tossed his hair out of his eyes. "Now, I've got a good healthy respect for AC/DC, but Metallica? Seriously?"
"Isn't that more your age bracket?"
"How old do you think I am?"
"25?"
He chuckled. "I'm probably just getting my ass in trouble here, but Metallica is before my time. I was born in 83."
Sawyer didn't have to calculate for too long, given the year on the no sales to minors calendar that he had spent the whole evening glancing at. "You're only 22?"
"Nearly 23."
"Godamighty."
"Why? How old are you?"
"Old enough to hear new Zeppelin on the radio."
"Bullshit."
"Well, I was alive in the late seventies, anyway. I've got exactly a decade on you."
"I'd've thought you were older than that. Or least cooler than a person who claims to like Metallica."
"I don't like Metallica. I tolerate them."
"What do you like, then?"
"I've got…eclectic taste."
"Well, I didn't think I was the first musician you took a liking to."
"We were talking about music."
"In that case, I didn't think I was the first musician whose music you figured out a way to tolerate."
"It wasn't that bad."
"Give me a break. I'm not blind."
"Well neither am I, son," he said with a leer. When the kid laughed, Sawyer didn't even bother to hide a smile. Karen came through the doors then, ceremoniously, and gave him an odd look.
"Ford," she said. "Go on home. Ain't much left to do tonight."
"You sure?"
"Just get out before I change my mind." With another long look at Sam, she went out around the bar and started loading glasses onto a tray.
Sawyer pocketed his keys and waited.
"I suppose we're going back to your place," Sam said.
"Looks like," Sawyer replied, even though it went against every instinct. He simply didn't bring people back to his apartment, but he found that he didn't have the will to say no to this one.
"Frank's got my car, so you'll have to ride me out there." Sam added, "Frank'll come get me when I call him."
"Okay," Sawyer replied, trying not to think that far ahead or wonder what state he'd left his apartment in when he finally rolled out of bed with just enough time to get dressed, make himself a sandwich to eat on the way to work.
Sawyer led him out to his old blue F-150 pickup and the boy immediately climbed in, banged the door shut, and rolled down the window. It was between 55 and 60 degrees outside, but the bar had been stuffy, too warm, and Sawyer could see a thin layer of sweat still lingering on Sam's forehead and under his eyes, making his eyeliner run just a little.
"So, what's up with the eyeliner?"
"I don't know. Just felt like it, I guess. Does it work?"
"For those of us who don't have sticks up our asses."
When they got out on the road, the breeze felt better than just about anything Sawyer could remember. He'd been in that fucking bar too fucking long.
Sam asked, "You bi or gay?"
Sawyer wasn't accustomed to talking about this shit so openly, nor did he like that particular question. Terms like gay and bisexual seemed inadequate to describe a whole range of predilections and preferences. "Does it matter?"
Sam stared out the window, his arm resting on the track. "Maybe not. Just curious."
"You?"
"Who the hell knows. Mostly into guys, I guess."
"I'm not."
His head whipped around, probably faster than he meant it to. "No?"
"Don't get me wrong, I like attractive people that hit me with the right sort of chemistry, but I usually go for women. Men, however, go for me, so I don't argue."
Sam chuckled and without warning slid his hand over Sawyer's thigh. "So what do you do?"
"That an existential question, or are we just filling out a census form?"
Sam's voice went deeper. "I mean, what are you willing to do with a man, and what aren't you?"
Sawyer felt his cock stir, maybe from that voice or maybe from the way those long fingers wandered up his inseam. Sam had turned in the seat, and he was now staring at Sawyer. He could feel his eyes. "You make a person nervous, you know that?"
"Sorry," he replied. "That's what I've been told."
"Have you also been told it's dangerous to distract a man when he's driving?"
Sam chuckled again, and before he knew it, Sam was popping the button on Sawyer's jeans and pulling down the zipper, for a moment just brushing his palm over the head of his cock through his boxers.
"Jesus Christ."
That must've been enough invitation, or enough show of weakness, because Sawyer soon found the kid suddenly right beside him, mouth against his ear. "I feel like I know you, Sawyer? Why is that?" His hand was still just teasing up and down his cock, now fully hard and begging for those fingers to slide just a little farther, slip into that slit in the fabric.
"I'm beginning to think you're a mite crazy."
His lips touched his earlobe and pulled up and over the shell of his ear. "Not likely. I've always been very dependable."
"Is that what this is? You trying to prove you're impulsive?"
"Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. But if you're worried that you're corrupting me or something…"
"Not worried. Don't care."
"Good. Now, come on, does this feel like an experiment to you?"
"I don't know what this feels like."
That got him exactly what he wanted but didn't really need while he was trying to switch lanes: Sam's warm hand slid into his boxers and gripped him firmly. Sawyer groaned and said, "We're almost there."
"Good." As his mouth descended on Sawyer's neck, he murmured, "I think it might be awkward if I try to blow you while you're driving."
Sawyer swallowed and tried to make his eyes focus on the road south that would take him to his apartment. He hoped to God he made it that long.
on to the rest of the story-->
Title: Coda
Crossover: Lost/Supernatural
Pairing: Sawyer/Sam
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 11,500 words…sorry, it kinda got away from me
Summary: Sawyer + Sam + angsty music + lots of whiskey + probably too much talking = mucho smut…eventually.
Notes:
1) This takes place in my AU where Sawyer is a bartender in a place that frequently has live music, although this story can be read totally independently of Foreplay (Sawyer/Jack) and Afterglow (Sawyer/Sayid). It is, however, relatively the same world-weary, booty-hound, slightly younger but just as snarky version of our canon Sawyer. I think this story probably comes before those other two.
2) But who the hell knows where this takes place, time-wise, for Sam. He leaves school to go on the road with Dean, but apparently he takes a break from Dean for a while for unknown reasons (not related to chasing his father; some personal angst? Neither I nor Sawyer can figure that out conclusively). For crying out loud, I'm just borrowing the younger Winchester to debauch him, so just go with it. Also, just go with the song I have Sam singing. It doesn't make much sense to me either as a choice, but it's what the muse latched onto, and it's pointless to argue with the muse.
3) Feel free to read any faint Wincest-y overtones you want into the story. However, if you're not into Wincest, rest assured: neither am I, so it's equally as possible to read this and not see it.
For gottalovev, whose lovely idea the pairing was. Any random mopiness or OOC sluttiness on Sam's part is entirely the fault of my weary but deprived muse and my own often off-kilter vision of Sam. I like him slutty. So sue me. :)
Coda
They were a good band, all things considered, even if Sawyer had yet to figure out just how to classify their sound. There were so many gradations of whiny, melodramatic popular music that he couldn't keep the labels, much less the supposedly distinct sounds, straight. As he poured pitcher after pitcher of Miller draft, only half listening to the patrons at the bar much less the band on stage, all he could say was their sound was rough but still grounded in some pop sensibility, and, thankfully, it didn't tend too far into over-the-top hard metal territory. Maybe they'd even call themselves an indie rock band, whatever that nebulous term meant. Bluestreak was the kind of band that had competent musicians and enough stage presence to entertain you if you wanted to be entertained, but it was also the kind of band you might easily ignore.
Sawyer vacillated between those two options, unable to decide if he was truly as uninterested as he knew he should be, and it was the fault of one young man in particular. Though Sawyer couldn't give a subtle, informed description of the band's sound, he recognized that it was the sort of music that showcased-and depended almost solely upon-the charisma of the lead singer. Most good lead singers had a very calculated stage presence, just as real as Sawyer's easy smiles as he slid a run and coke across the bar. This lead singer was definitely putting on an act, but it was a rather enthralling one-mainly because Sawyer had a sneaking suspicion at least some of it was real, not that he could in the least decide which parts.
He had his suspicions, but the act changed often enough he couldn't get a handle on it. Who the lead singer seemed to be depended highly upon the song. The set had started out with faster, livelier tunes-fashionably dark but with a relentless, driving beat. The singer was all bombast then, and although his flailing about seemed to please the younger patrons, it somehow rubbed Sawyer the wrong way. The performance felt forced, the energy skewed all wrong. As the set went on, the band settled into a groove they seemed more comfortable with, a little slower, more melancholy. It was then, strangely, as the songs veered toward a whiny tone Sawyer normally abhorred, that the music-and the singer-actually began to have an effect on him.
It shouldn't have worked. Sawyer didn't care much for contrivances of emotion, but that was just it: there was something sincere about the singer's voice that drew Sawyer in. Looking at him over the tap from where he reclined back against the bar during those infrequent downtimes, he puzzled over exactly what darkness the singer seemed to be tapping into. The boy cast no filter over his anger and frustration, but rather than scream and jump all over the stage to release that energy, he channeled it into words and the careful way he delivered them: cool but with something dangerous bubbling beneath the surface, sometimes the heat creeping in with a rasp or, even more rarely, a sublime thickness and deepness of sound. He looked and sounded about like Sawyer felt most of the time, but he was less afraid to own up to it, let it go. It made Sawyer oddly nervous for him, but he couldn't stop watching.
Sawyer hadn't even noticed him until that middle part of the set, when their tone changed. When Sawyer did take the time to really look him over, he couldn't figure out how that dark, painful voice could belong to the kid. Just looking at him, you could tell he was the upstanding, do-gooder sort, maybe a farm kid or a small-town frat boy in another life: well-meaning, sheltered.
His dark hair was long and shaggy the way they wore it now, falling over his eyes, although when he occasionally turned his head up and his bangs fell out of his face, Sawyer could see that he'd lined his eyes a charcoal black. It wasn't often they got the eyeliner sort to fill up their stage, and when they did, it usually came along with a uniform of black, heavier makeup, and several piercings. This boy, however, had no makeup aside from the eyeliner and no visible piercings other than a tongue ring he didn't feel the need to draw attention to.
He didn't wear black, either. If he'd chosen his look, it wasn't in fealty to any particular style. To be sure, he had the thrift store look down, but he wore faded brown cords and a warm forest green t-shirt sporting the name of some band Sawyer had never heard of over a gray-blue thermal undershirt. He looked healthy and clean, which was more than he could say for half the lead singers that graced that stage, but he carried himself like a skinnier, scrawnier man, affecting the lanky, half-strungout vibe of a good, tortured rock singer, even if he was built more like a running back, maybe a pitcher. Tall, lean, cut.
This odd amalgamation of styles and attitudes shouldn't have worked, but it did. On anyone else, Sawyer would've assumed that wardrobe screamed rebellious phase, a kid trying to decide between the two or three worlds he was straddling. Although Sawyer wasn't altogether convinced this guy had himself figured out, he didn't sense a lot of hesitancy in him or lack of confidence. Of course, that might've had something to do with the way the kid was watching him.
He hadn't noticed his cool brown gaze until the second or third slower song. He'd been stared at before by lead singers, and he'd been more or less sung to often enough, but this kid wasn't trying to project his attention to the bar. What he did was just let his eyes drift over Sawyer, quick, and it was halfway unnerving. One moment, the kid seemed tentative, as though he were searching out something from Sawyer's face; the next, he seemed like he was reassuring himself that Sawyer was still there, like Sawyer was his touchstone or anchor. A few times, he looked directly into Sawyer's eyes for that split second, and Sawyer got the distinct impression something was being communicated in those looks that he wasn't catching. He could not get a handle on the kid, and he began to think it wasn't possible to.
When Bluestreak came out of that evocative middle part of their set, they jumped back into another couple of crowd-pleasing but derivative numbers to reclaim their audience from the bar. The singer clamped back down on whatever it was that had been so fascinating to watch but undoubtedly painful to deliver and in its place forced enough bravado that, at the end of one song, he had ratcheted it up high enough to take the microphone out of the mike stand and call back to the bar for a couple of drinks: more Rolling Rock for Frank and a double shot of whiskey for himself. He'd already had several, and Sawyer was beginning to think that wasn't accidental.
Sawyer waited until the end of the next song to carry the drinks out there, pushing his way through a sloppy cluster of college kids. The closer he got, the older the boy began to look. Maybe as old as 25, given the lines on his face and the sharpness of his gaze. Sawyer handed the beer up to the bassist and bent over slightly to slide the glass onto the stage for the singer, but he reached down and took it out of his hand, brushing his fingers just enough it would only seem like an accident to someone who hadn't felt it. Sawyer could practically feel the heat radiating off of him; his hair was coated in sweat and his hand was just as sweaty. "Hold up," the singer said, suddenly sounding fourteen as he motioned to him while he downed the drink in one long gulp. He dropped the glass back into Sawyer's hand, giving him just a hint of a playful smile.
That was Sawyer's mistake, locking onto the kid's face. He wavered there, below the stage, threaded into that crowd of people, caught up in studying squinted brown eyes as the singer cocked his head to one side, similarly oblivious to the world that wasn't Sawyer. Sawyer finally shook his head and made to part the crowd, but he felt something hit his back. When he turned back, he saw the cord from the singer's microphone swinging back away from him.
Sawyer frowned at him as he put his hand over the microphone and shouted over the din: "So Joe Slim, the drummer, says a person can only really be into Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin-one or the other, not both."
Sawyer shrugged his shoulders. "So?"
"So, which are you?"
Sawyer couldn't help it. For the first time that evening, a genuine smile came over his face, and he flashed a grin at this strange singer and said, "If you have to ask…"
He sauntered back to the bar very intentionally, determined both to ignore the kid and get his attention, all at once. Who knew what kind of game he was playing, but if it was a game, Sawyer had nothing better to do than play. If nothing else, the flirtation would be a distraction.
*****
The crowd hadn't thinned out in the least. The college-age kids milled around in front of the stage, while the regulars sat along the wall and spilled into the back room, oblivious of the music, talking about the shit they always talked about. Sawyer prided himself in being able to move through both groups with ease.
To the frat boys, he was just enough good old boy to make them feel comfortable, but he was mostly all business. To the young women, he was charming and obvious with his compliments but decidedly blue-collar so as not to be a threat to the college guys. To the older women, he was a little more subtle but no less charming, playing up his dimples less, his cynicism and the dark scruff on his face more. To the older men, good old boys themselves, he was just another like them, hard-working without taking himself too seriously. He could peg a person when they walked up to him, and he could put on whatever face they wanted to see, give them sympathy or sarcasm, flirtation or friendship, or simply space to breathe. He considered that ability one of his strengths, cultivated because it was necessary to his survival. Perhaps that's why he was fixated on the only person in the entire bar he couldn't precisely read.
Sawyer tried not to think about it, even if he had engaged for a moment in the game. He spent a lot of time bent over the sink, washing glasses, and he made frequent trips to the back for supplies. He came back through the door in time to hear the chatter between songs, and the word cover cut through the cacophony of voices around the bar. He almost groaned, given the nature of most of the cover bands they'd had in to play, but he found himself curious to know what sort of music a band like this would own up to being influenced by.
"What these assholes that sing for you never tell you," the singer was saying, "is that they like to fuck around with the classics, sit in their garages and pretend to be The Clash or The Stones." Sawyer squinted through the smoke; the word fuck sounded so odd out of that mouth, despite everything else he'd seen. Come to think about it, he didn't even remember that word being in the lyrics of any of the songs so far. Given the clumsy way the kid snapped the mike back into the stand, he was just a little drunk. Or maybe a lot.
He continued, louder now: "The only trouble is, Joe Slim back there gets bored with the drums in "London Calling," and Frank hates hates hates it when I do my best Mick Jagger, no matter how much we want to have a big fucking orgy with the Stones. Besides, Steve-o over here"-he rolled his eyes and tilted his head to the very serious lead guitarist-"likes a challenge, apparently. Now, the harmonica isn't exactly a challenging instrument for me to play, but Stevie-he loves to hear me scream."
The guitarist had apparently figured out where this was heading, and he looked more than slightly annoyed, mouthing the words you miserable fuck face before going about furiously tuning his guitar. But that didn't seem to deter the singer; he just grinned back at the drummer and then tossed his head in the lead guitarist's general direction: "You know what that means." The guitarist flipped him off, and the kid added, "Steve-o would want me to warn you we never play Zeppelin besides in Frank's garage. But just for y'all, just for tonight, I'm in the mood. How about it?"
He almost sold it, that casual I-don't-give-a-fuck-I'm-wild-and-spontaneous vibe that lead singers in bars always find indispensable. He probably did sell it to the half-wasted crowd who applauded appreciatively, and maybe even to himself; he was surely drunk enough to believe his own swagger. But Sawyer was the one person the kid wasn't trying to fool. In fact, after he hunted down his harmonica and the band fumbled to get it together, he looked at him so long and hard that Sawyer might've sworn the kid had been planning this longer than three songs ago.
The coda to that long look was an ethereal smile as the drums started and his hips began to shift. Sawyer walked to the sink without taking his eyes off the boy and washed glasses without looking, suddenly feeling surreal. What he heard didn't sound exactly like "When The Levee Breaks," given that the guitar player wasn't Jimmy Page and with his baritone voice, the kid would have an interesting time trying to do justice to Robert Plant's wailing, but it was close enough to make him feel like he was in a different bar, maybe at a different time. Even the kid's approximation of the harmonica part seemed light years from where he was.
The singer probably wasn't even born when the song was recorded; Sawyer didn't the he was was either, but as a teenager he had picked up the habit of listening to classic rock radio. He had little patience with Led Zeppelin, preferring his music less self-consciously weird. CCR didn't sing about drug-induced hallucinations of J. R. R. Tolkien, and Ronnie Van Zandt didn't need to scream incoherently as if to inject even more tension into a Skynyrd song. Like most, Sawyer would put "Stairway to Heaven" right up there with all that was right with rock 'n roll, although it would fall farther down the list than "Free Bird," but overall, he didn't have much use for Zeppelin. Not that he had any great love for Pink Floyd either. It was even farther out there. The kid was wrong-a person could like neither band. That's what made the singer's choice of that song remarkable: it was one of the very few Led Zeppelin songs Sawyer actually liked.
The song seemed balanced, somehow, in a way that the others didn't, and it suited the kid's voice well, despite how he had to stretch it. Sawyer watched his body as he sank into the music, retreating inside himself in such a way that his bare-bones harmonica playing seemed subdued and his singing was like a message he was delivering from far away.
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break. If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break. When the levee breaks, I'll have no place to stay.
Mean old levee, taught me to weep and moan, oh oh oh. Mean old levee, taught me to weep and mo-o-oan. Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home, oh well oh well oh well.
Even if a live version by amateurs would never compare to the carefully-produced real thing, Sawyer loved the way the song just seemed to move steadily forward, carried on the measured rhythm of the harmonica, backed by strange, atmospheric drumming that felt both bouncy and heavy somehow at the same time. The kid was subdued, just rocking with the tempo, until the song began to build to what, for lack of a better term, Sawyer called the bridge, where, like with all Led Zeppelin songs, there was the obligatory outburst of vocals and guitar. As the drums faded a bit and Steve-o strummed out those chords that led up to the bridge, Sawyer watched the kid's hands clench into fists at his sides. Then they drifted up to the microphone. His eyes were closed for the longest time, and when he finally opened them, a couple of beats before he took that in-breath to propel him into the scream, he looked directly at Sawyer and gave him an inscrutable look that might've been a smile.
But when he sang those notes, his eyes were fixed on something on the ceiling above Sawyer's head. His tall frame contorted until he was hunched over the microphone, and the harsh, powerful tone of his voice sounded just as real as it had during those slower songs. To his credit, he hit all the notes, even if it sounded like it was wreaking havoc on his throat to reach them. It must have, because when that part was over, he half-heartedly tackled the vocal meanderings that followed like an echo, giving them up in favor of a long breath and an even longer look at Sawyer, his eyes drifting toward the glass in Sawyer's hand. Sawyer nodded at him, and then he was halfway startled to realize it was the same glass he had been washing when the song started.
Sawyer poured another double whiskey, but he didn't take it out to him. It was too nice to simply watch as the song wound down. "When the Levee Breaks" must be a nearly 8-minute song, Sawyer recalled, but once the lead guitarist got over his petulance, he had fun doing things Page wouldn't have dreamed with the guitar riffs, some for good reason. But it fit well enough, in the same way a doe-eyed kid wearing carefully-chosen thrift store clothes could belt out the song unironically, skewing it just enough to be interesting but not too much to jolt the crowd out of what they remembered. The essence of a good cover. The kid seemed to have spent a lot of his energy already, because he piped up with the rest of the subdued vocals without adding much flourish, but still retaining that bluesy intensity.
Crying won't help ya, praying won't do ya no good. Crying won't help ya, praying won't do ya no good. When the levee breaks, mama you got to move.
All last night, sat on the levee and moaned, oh-oh-oh. All last night, sat on the levee and moaned. Think about my baby and my happy home.
He didn't overindulge in the repetitions at the end of the song; in fact, it seemed for the first time all night he was backing off, determined to let the band carry the song. Unfortunately, that left him with unfocused energy, enough to let him stare across the bar at Sawyer, smiling contentedly, as though he'd made it through this ordeal of a show and might just go out and conquer anything. Perhaps Sawyer, perhaps not.
They followed that song with more Zeppelin, a fast song that would leave the audience on an energetic up-beat. For their efforts, they managed to draw applause from the young crowd as well as some of the regulars, those that weren't grousing about "these punk kids fucking up good music." They hadn't fucked it up, though. Never mind that the kid was so randomly wearing eyeliner and Sawyer could see his tongue-ring glint in the light when he opened his mouth wide to wail his way through notes he knew he couldn't hit; he was trying, weirdly, to do the song justice. And, hell, hadn't Robert Plant worn weirder shit, and acted a hell of a lot weirder on stage?
Sawyer held the drink at the bar, watching as they broke down their equipment to see what he would do now that the spotlight was off them. No doubt about it, the way his shoulders moved as he hefted the amps and carried them out the door, the lead singer was built in that way good, God-fearing Midwestern boys always are, and he smiled just about as widely and easily, not exactly like a different person than he was on stage but a distinctly lighter version of that man. Sawyer lost track of him in the flurry of drink orders that came after the music stopped, and when he looked up again, they were gone and Rat Trap was setting up on stage, looking like something that was sure to run off the regulars or at least merit a good bit of bitching afterward. They wouldn't be back, but Bluestreak might. Sawyer didn't know. He was sure, though, that the singer would be back that night, if he had even left.
*****
Bluestreak apparently liked the new band about as much as everyone else did, because the four of them kept disappearing for long intervals out the back door with new drinks, shaking out cigarettes from a communal pack. Sawyer didn't see the kid take one, and he didn't know if he was disappointed. Might've been nice to taste him like that, Camels and cheap whiskey, but Sawyer had a feeling the kid had a strong taste all his own, and he'd let Sawyer kiss him just as long and wet as he wanted. But Sawyer tried not to think too much ahead of himself. He had no idea whether the kid had any experience or if he was simply experimenting. Maybe he was pushing toward something without wanting the follow-through. Or maybe he was just a dick-tease. Wouldn't be the first one of those he'd attracted the attention of. But while the kid's performance had been about as sensual as anything he'd seen in a while, it wasn't just about that-not exactly-and the singer was probably completely unaware of how a pair of narrow hips and broad shoulders and brown eyes could always make Sawyer twitchy and eager.
Finally, at nearly 2 a.m., when Rat Trap was blissfully gone and most of the patrons had wandered into the cool night, the singer came and sat down at the bar. Without missing a beat, Sawyer sat the double whiskey in front of him, and the kid laughed, shaking his shaggy hair out of his eyes.
His voice was deeper and smoother when he talked. "You don't get a lot of bands like us in here, do you?"
"Enough."
The kid took a slow drink, frowning for a moment and then looking at Sawyer quizzically. So he was at least worldly enough to know the difference between shit whiskey and the good stuff. He smiled, then he just kept staring, but he didn't talk.
Sawyer fiddled with the bottles in front of him. He said, "Am I supposed to think you're psychic?"
"What?" he said, for a moment wide-eyed, bewildered.
"You picked Led Zeppelin…?"
"Oh," he said, sighing into an easy smile. "Not really. But I was right?"
"Seems like it. Just a lucky guess?"
"Let's call it hope," he said. "I really don't love Pink Floyd." Sawyer snorted under his breath. "I'm Sam. Sam Johnson." He stuck out his hand, and his grip was firm; it didn't hurt that his hands were enormous.
"Sawyer," he replied. "How come you don't play guitar with hands like that?"
He shrugged. "No coordination. Especially when I drink."
"So why drink?"
His nostrils flared a little, and his eyes went pinched before he forced his face to relax. He was already doing an astounding amount of over-correcting, and they'd only just started talking. Sawyer knew this one would be difficult, wear him out with the mental gymnastics. Hopefully, he would be worth it.
Sam chased his nostril flaring with a shake of his head. He said, "Have you ever sang in front of a crowd before?"
"Can't say as I have."
"Don't try. I've only been at this a few months, but whatever it is that makes me think I can, it comes and goes. And it likes whiskey."
"Why do you do it, then?"
"Money," he said simply. "Because I can." With a touch of self-deprecating sarcasm: "Catharsis."
"You don't sound like you're from around here."
"Kansas." He took another slow drink and then turned that face up finally, dark-lined eyes focused on his. "It's too late, isn't it?"
"For what?"
"We've both used it up already. Normally, I can talk to anybody, but I just don't have…Shit, I don't know. And you're no help."
Sawyer frowned.
"No, I just meant… Goddammit," he mumbled. He was about to get up, but Sawyer let the whiskey bottle clink against the glass as he topped it off. Sam looked up at him through those bangs and gave an exhausted laugh as he settled back onto the stool.
Sawyer said, "I should just tell you I much prefer it when people don't act like they have to entertain me."
"Yeah?"
"Everything's easier without the bullshit."
"So it's not out of line for me to tell you how fucking distracted you've made me all night?"
"Nope." Sawyer loved that first admittance, made with words instead of looks and movements. Words seemed to get inside him faster than any amount of hip-shaking and piercing stares. He hid a smile as he turned back to the bottles behind him and examined their contents, making a mental note to bring out some more of that sweet blue liqueur that seemed indispensable to vodka nowadays, almost as indispensable as that vile green schnapps.
Sam said, "But I'm sure you know exactly how distracting you are."
"I know how much I want to be, and to whom. But never whether I've succeeded."
"Bullshit."
Sawyer turned back. "Okay, sometimes."
"Somehow, I still don't believe that." He gave him a wary look that said he was well-acquainted with Sawyer's kind of charm, not that he didn't give into it of his own accord sometimes.
Sam seemed content to just stare at him now that he had permission and was apparently too tired to pretend to have any other goal, but it made Sawyer just a little nervous for some reason. He fell back on his usual sort of bar chatter: "So how is it a nice Kansas boy ends up in Knoxville, singing when he doesn't want to?"
"That question already has two problems with it. One, I do want to sing, it's just hard sometimes. And, two, I never said I was nice."
"Didn't have to."
That earned him a glare, the ferocity of which he hadn't quite expected. Sam's voice even went up in pitch when he replied, "Maybe I was a long time ago, but that's not me anymore."
"People don't change that much. And whoever said there was anything wrong with being nice?"
Sam took a deep breath before he spoke, and his voice was softer. Sawyer wasn't even sure he was talking to him, maybe simply talking to himself: "Sometimes I wonder why I don't just go back and finish. I was more than halfway done."
This was bad. Decidedly bad. Sawyer had managed to tap one of the ongoing conversations in the boy's head, the kind he'd had over and over without a resolution. He wasn't likely to find one tonight, but there was no getting out of it now, so Sawyer just dug in a little deeper. That's what a bartender did. He said, "Finish what?"
"College."
"So why don't you?"
"I've got another life now. It's more important." He glanced up at Sawyer. "Not this."
"Oh."
"About the same, though. Always moving, never with much of an idea where to, other than what looks good at the time." His eyes suddenly went flat. "It makes me so fucking tired, man."
"I can understand that."
He began to gesticulate with his hands. "I just couldn't do it anymore. And now I just keep thinking about how things were supposed to turn out. I was supposed to be…God, I don't know. I really don't. That's the problem." With a heave of his chest, a silent inward chuckle, he said, "What the hell's wrong with me, dumping all this whiny bullshit on you?"
Sawyer grinned, dimples in full effect. "Especially when that's not what you hung around for."
He didn't reply, instead studying Sawyer's face with a smirk. Finally, he said, "Well, since we've both decided we don’t have the energy for being coy about it, what time do you get off?"
"Hour, give or take."
"Good," he said, rolling off the bar stool. "Give me time to sober up a little."
"Yeah?"
He leaned in. "I give better head when I'm not drunk off my ass."
Sawyer smelled a faint note of aftershave mingled in with the alcohol, but no cigarettes, before Sam pushed himself off the bar and ambled toward the back door.
Sawyer's fellow bartender, Karen, mid-thirties but looking closer to fifty, came out of the back and nudged him as they both watched the way those corduroy pants hugged Sam's ass as he stumbled into the night.
She said, "Cute. Wouldn't have thought he was your type, though."
"Since when have you known me to have a type?"
"Point taken."
"Jealous of this one or something?"
She shook her head. "Nope. That has got to be the weirdest motherfucker you've ever picked up."
It startled him to hear her say that, even if upon reflection he knew it to be true, if someone being painfully normal and honest made him weird in this place. "Nah," he said, dropping Sam's glass into the soapy water as if completely unconcerned. "Remember that short guy that rolled around on the stage…? Didn't seem to realize one Lizard King was more than enough in the history of overblown poetry…?"
She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. "Okay, so maybe that boy's the most nervous motherfucker you've ever picked up."
"It's not nerves."
Karen went back through the swinging door without comment. Sawyer knew that Sam wasn't nervous, nor was he confused or self-destructive. The better word would be conflicted. When he came back inside and sat down at the bar, smiling and cool, Sawyer could see that he had forced himself to shift out of whatever funk he'd been in. He smiled a little more, didn't seem as shut up inside his head. It was odd, because as much as he was trying to be easy-going, Sawyer could still see how he fought being that person, so normal and solid, as if every problem he had resulted from him being too good or too dependable or too strong. It was a shame, because that solidness was exactly what he exuded when he forgot to wallow, and it was pretty fucking attractive.
*****
Sam stopped drinking whiskey when he came back in, so Sawyer poured him the last of the old, warmed-over coffee and went about cleaning up the bar.
Sam smiled and tossed his hair out of his eyes. "Now, I've got a good healthy respect for AC/DC, but Metallica? Seriously?"
"Isn't that more your age bracket?"
"How old do you think I am?"
"25?"
He chuckled. "I'm probably just getting my ass in trouble here, but Metallica is before my time. I was born in 83."
Sawyer didn't have to calculate for too long, given the year on the no sales to minors calendar that he had spent the whole evening glancing at. "You're only 22?"
"Nearly 23."
"Godamighty."
"Why? How old are you?"
"Old enough to hear new Zeppelin on the radio."
"Bullshit."
"Well, I was alive in the late seventies, anyway. I've got exactly a decade on you."
"I'd've thought you were older than that. Or least cooler than a person who claims to like Metallica."
"I don't like Metallica. I tolerate them."
"What do you like, then?"
"I've got…eclectic taste."
"Well, I didn't think I was the first musician you took a liking to."
"We were talking about music."
"In that case, I didn't think I was the first musician whose music you figured out a way to tolerate."
"It wasn't that bad."
"Give me a break. I'm not blind."
"Well neither am I, son," he said with a leer. When the kid laughed, Sawyer didn't even bother to hide a smile. Karen came through the doors then, ceremoniously, and gave him an odd look.
"Ford," she said. "Go on home. Ain't much left to do tonight."
"You sure?"
"Just get out before I change my mind." With another long look at Sam, she went out around the bar and started loading glasses onto a tray.
Sawyer pocketed his keys and waited.
"I suppose we're going back to your place," Sam said.
"Looks like," Sawyer replied, even though it went against every instinct. He simply didn't bring people back to his apartment, but he found that he didn't have the will to say no to this one.
"Frank's got my car, so you'll have to ride me out there." Sam added, "Frank'll come get me when I call him."
"Okay," Sawyer replied, trying not to think that far ahead or wonder what state he'd left his apartment in when he finally rolled out of bed with just enough time to get dressed, make himself a sandwich to eat on the way to work.
Sawyer led him out to his old blue F-150 pickup and the boy immediately climbed in, banged the door shut, and rolled down the window. It was between 55 and 60 degrees outside, but the bar had been stuffy, too warm, and Sawyer could see a thin layer of sweat still lingering on Sam's forehead and under his eyes, making his eyeliner run just a little.
"So, what's up with the eyeliner?"
"I don't know. Just felt like it, I guess. Does it work?"
"For those of us who don't have sticks up our asses."
When they got out on the road, the breeze felt better than just about anything Sawyer could remember. He'd been in that fucking bar too fucking long.
Sam asked, "You bi or gay?"
Sawyer wasn't accustomed to talking about this shit so openly, nor did he like that particular question. Terms like gay and bisexual seemed inadequate to describe a whole range of predilections and preferences. "Does it matter?"
Sam stared out the window, his arm resting on the track. "Maybe not. Just curious."
"You?"
"Who the hell knows. Mostly into guys, I guess."
"I'm not."
His head whipped around, probably faster than he meant it to. "No?"
"Don't get me wrong, I like attractive people that hit me with the right sort of chemistry, but I usually go for women. Men, however, go for me, so I don't argue."
Sam chuckled and without warning slid his hand over Sawyer's thigh. "So what do you do?"
"That an existential question, or are we just filling out a census form?"
Sam's voice went deeper. "I mean, what are you willing to do with a man, and what aren't you?"
Sawyer felt his cock stir, maybe from that voice or maybe from the way those long fingers wandered up his inseam. Sam had turned in the seat, and he was now staring at Sawyer. He could feel his eyes. "You make a person nervous, you know that?"
"Sorry," he replied. "That's what I've been told."
"Have you also been told it's dangerous to distract a man when he's driving?"
Sam chuckled again, and before he knew it, Sam was popping the button on Sawyer's jeans and pulling down the zipper, for a moment just brushing his palm over the head of his cock through his boxers.
"Jesus Christ."
That must've been enough invitation, or enough show of weakness, because Sawyer soon found the kid suddenly right beside him, mouth against his ear. "I feel like I know you, Sawyer? Why is that?" His hand was still just teasing up and down his cock, now fully hard and begging for those fingers to slide just a little farther, slip into that slit in the fabric.
"I'm beginning to think you're a mite crazy."
His lips touched his earlobe and pulled up and over the shell of his ear. "Not likely. I've always been very dependable."
"Is that what this is? You trying to prove you're impulsive?"
"Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. But if you're worried that you're corrupting me or something…"
"Not worried. Don't care."
"Good. Now, come on, does this feel like an experiment to you?"
"I don't know what this feels like."
That got him exactly what he wanted but didn't really need while he was trying to switch lanes: Sam's warm hand slid into his boxers and gripped him firmly. Sawyer groaned and said, "We're almost there."
"Good." As his mouth descended on Sawyer's neck, he murmured, "I think it might be awkward if I try to blow you while you're driving."
Sawyer swallowed and tried to make his eyes focus on the road south that would take him to his apartment. He hoped to God he made it that long.
on to the rest of the story-->