They sat at the tiny kitchen's even tinier table. Sam on the lone chair, Nick leaning against the ledge of the windowsill a few feet away. The caretaker had offered Sam something to drink (even if he wasn't from around here, he obviously hadn't neglected to acquire some of that southern hospitality which ran rampant in these parts), and when Sam asked for a beer he actually got a bit of a laugh out of the man.
The glass of lemonade sweated between Sam's hands, it was refreshing, even if it was more tart than anything else.
"So how does someone get to be a caretaker of a church in the middle of nowhere?" It was only a hint more than small talk- Sam was honestly curious. If he found a way to escape his Dad and their nomadic lifestyle, settling down in a peaceful little place like this, to be alone with his books and nature… Sam had dreams like this. Good dreams.
Nick turned his gaze away from the rain running in a shallow river over his window. "I don't know about normal people, but I inherited the job." He shifted where he was resting his glass against a knee, leaving behind a dark ring of moisture. "The guys in my family are all priests. My brother, my father, and so on." He nodded his head to the side a little, giving Sam the idea that the family business went back quite a ways. "When we were teenagers my brother would stay up late studying scripture and I would be getting dragged home by the local police." His smile from earlier flashed through his eyes, and Sam couldn't really look away. "It was obvious that I was never going to make it as a minister, so after I finished seminary they dumped me here to keep me out of trouble."
Seminary? Did that mean that he really was a priest? Or at least was qualified on some level…? Sam wished he knew a bit more about these kinds of things, but it's not like it came up often. He tried to imagine Nick dressed in the black suit with the white collar, and then had to change his mind because those probably went with Catholic priests not Baptist- and he would do some research tomorrow at the library.
"And how's that working?" He tried not to be too obvious when he looked at Nick's tattoos. One arm had a hammerhead shark and other nautical things, all the way down to his wrist- there was writing on his left forearm, but by how it was rested against his leg Sam couldn't make out what it said. "That whole keeping out of trouble business?"
"Some nights are better than others." Nick said, his voice soft and more than a little amused, and that funny feeling in Sam's stomach was back as easily as if it had never left.
Sam wasn't the kind of teenager who spent all his time chasing girls- but it wasn't like he didn't find girls to be charming and distracting either. It was more like he was still trying to get used to the new length of his limbs and it made him a clumsy kind of awkward that was more embarrassing than anything else... that and he just didn't want to have to compete with Dean.
His studies always seemed like a more productive use to his time anyways. He wanted out of this life, and good grades would certainly give him a better chance of that than fooling around in the back of a car with some girl he didn't really know.
He always did his best to keep his hormones in line- and it had never really been an issue before.
Nick hid a smile behind his lemonade.
Sam did the same.
"You're not from around here." Nick glanced back out the window. It wasn't really a question, but Sam answered anyhow.
"Nah, me and my family are just passing through." He set his glass down gently, not taking his eyes from Nick's strong profile, the long line of his neck. "We move around a lot. This is the seventh school I've been in this year."
The blonde looked back at him, eyes widened a little in surprise. "That's rough."
"Yeah." He managed to look away, suddenly uncomfortable. He never really liked talking about himself. "How's that rain going?"
"It's not going." Nick slid from the windowsill and went to rummage in a kitchen cabinet. "But these summer storms can get a little rough."
Sam turned in his seat, straining to watch the other man, but at the same time to not look too obvious about it. Nick had pulled out a bottle that looked suspiciously like vodka and poured a little into his lemonade.
"You might just be stuck here until morning, Sam."
And Sam kind of liked how he said his name, slow, careful, like he was testing it. He smiled into his drink again, thinking that it was still far too hot in here despite the rain or the ceiling fan that lazily spun overhead.
"I don't have a phone for you to call home. I'm sorry." He put the bottle away and came back to the table, to his windowsill.
"That's alright. I don't have anyone waiting up for me." And what made him say that? That wasn't the kind of information that you tell strange men you've just met out in the middle of nowhere. Granted, Nick hadn't set off any of Sam's alarms, but still. If you're ever alone with strangers, you make them believe that you've got someone out there looking for you. It tended to keep any ill intent from coming out. People were less likely to try something bad when they knew that someone would notice if you went missing.
Nick was watching Sam, in that slow, unthreatening way that he had to practice in front of a mirror or something for it to be as perfect as it was. His eyes reminded Sam of a glacier he had seen a few years back when a hunt had taken them all the way up to Alaska, clear and wintry and impossibly blue. Nick's gaze didn't quite meet Sam's, it was a little far south, on Sam's mouth.
They both seemed to notice at about the same time and Nick was suddenly looking back out the window and Sam found the melting ice in his drink very interesting.
He didn't know what was wrong with him. He'd never looked twice at guy in his life, never even thought about them in the shower or anything. But here was this man, a far bit too old for Sam, with arms like a prison convict's, and a smile that moved over his face like good memory.
Sam was suddenly plagued by thoughts of warm, dark corners, bodies pressed together, breaths mingling. His face felt hot and he consulted his drink about it, pressing the cool glass to his left cheek, closing his eyes. With his arm raised it put his shoulder just a bit closer to his mouth and nose, and he could smell Nick on the borrowed clothes. Or at least that was Sam assumed the smell was. It was a good smell, even if unfamiliar. Cool, clean, and positively intoxicating. Sam took a slow, even breath through his nose and smiled against the soft material.
"You alright?"
Sam's eyes flew open and he felt heat climbing up his neck. " 'm fine. Just getting a bit tired I guess."
Nick looked from Sam to the old clock above the stove. It had to be broken, its face dusty, the secondhand still. "Right." He set his drink on the table beside Sam's. "I've got an extra blanket, if you don't mind sleeping on one of the pews in the chapel."
Sam felt himself frown just a touch and he didn't know why. He just supposed that Nick would have, at some point, told him that due to the church being so small there was only one little room… one little bed… and Sam was welcome to share it with him-
He shook himself, banishing the unfamiliar thoughts, praying that none of them showed on his face. "I don't mind." Honestly, he had slept worse places than on a church pew.
He followed Nick down the hall to the chapel, trying his best not to admire the view. He had enough problems right now- namely that the jeans he was struggling to keep on were a few sizes too big for him and he had to hold them to keep them up, fist against his hip, while kind of goose stepping in an effort to not trip over the long legs trapping his feet. It wasn't the Nick was taller, not at all, but he had that wonderfully solid muscle to him that came with age. Sam was strong, but all his muscle was stretched thin over his bones, strung tight like a violin, all cords and sinew. If Dean growth was any kind of foreshadowing, Sam would get more solid around the time he hit nineteen, but that was years off and for now he was a scarecrow.
"It's not much." Nick gestured to the chapel like a prize model on a game show. There was an alter, six whole rows of worn, wooden benches and six tall arching windows giving an oddly picturesque view of the cypress trees wadding deep in the night black water of the swamps outside.
Sam hadn't seen the swamps while he was walking, but it definitely drove home the fact that he had gotten off track at some point. The house off Mullan road didn't back into the swamps- there were a good few miles of forest between where he and Dean were camping out and the slow moving river. Sam would have to do a lot of backtracking tomorrow morning to get back where he was supposed to be.
"It's fine." He pushed some hair from his eyes and smiled at Nick, deep enough that he could feel his cheeks dimpling. He was grateful for a place to stay, and he knew that it didn't hurt to show it.
Nick didn't say anything for a long breath, standing far too close, little flick of his eyes back to Sam's mouth. The blonde took the smallest of steps closer to him and Sam's smile withered on the edges, uncertain, his heart coming up to his throat.
But Nick stepped around him and started off down the hall, talking over his shoulder as he went. "I'll find you that blanket. Those benches are damned uncomfortable."
"Th-thanks." He sort of mumbled before turning into the chapel, settling himself down on the last bench, the one closest to the door. The wood was so old it felt soft, worn by so much use and so many years. It was a quiet room, if you could ignore the rain and wind outside, just a pocket of peacefulness in the midst of the summer storm. Sam knew he would sleep well in here- even if he didn't have his gun, even if there wasn't salt at each window. This was a GOOD place. He could feel it in his bones.
Nick placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and Sam almost jumped out of his skin. He half pulled away, death grip on the back of the bench, eyes wide, looking up at the other man. "Christ! Make some noise when you walk or something, dude."
Nick's smile was small and a little chiding.
"Sorry." Sam shifted uncomfortably, realizing he had just blasphemed, quite loudly, in a church. Not that he had ever worried too much about the sorts of things he said, the language he used, especially when he compared his vocabulary to Dean's. Sam was an eloquent gentleman by comparison. But Dean wasn't here and Sam had yelled at a very nice stranger in a church. "Sorry." He said again sheepishly. "I'm just not good with people sneaking up on me."
"I'll try and be loud for you." His hand was still on Sam's shoulder, fingers cool through the thin fabric of the tshirt. He let go slowly and held out a thick linen blanket.
Sam swallowed and felt a little nervous when he saw Nick's eyes follow the bob of his throat. "Thanks again." He balled the blanket against his chest like he could use it to keep in the odd flutter in his chest. "Hey, you want to stay for a bit?" His mouth was moving, saying all kinds of words that he didn't intend to say and he couldn't seem to stop them. "I just- just figure you're here all by yourself except on Sundays, and maybe you'd like some company."
He knew he was blushing like an idiot, he could feel it on his neck and cheeks like a sunburn- and maybe he really should leave this kind of thing to Dean. He wasn't ready for… for whatever it was that his mouth seemed to be offering.
Unfortunately, Nick either didn't notice Sam's borderline panic, didn't care, or found it endearing- because he smiled again and moved to sit on the benches in front of Sam, facing backwards, one knee crooked to his chest.
Silence, peppered by the sound of the rain, fell around them and the longer it stretched the more Sam found himself smiling. It wasn't that he was particularly comfortable with Nick only a few feet away, chin rested on his knee, watching Sam with those impassive blue eyes of his. In fact, Sam had reached a new and special level of awkward that made something very much like hysteria jumble around in his chest like a trapped animal. He smiled instead because it gave his mouth something to do other than giggle nervously.
"I get thirteen widows and two ex-marines who are as deaf as posts in here every Sunday morning. Octogenarians don't make the best company- even if they do have good stories from time to time… when they can remember them." Nick folded his arms around his knee, running a thumb over his lower lip, showing a flash of teeth. "I haven't seen anyone other than them in three years."
A small noise escaped Sam, not really believing what he was hearing. "Really? The whole town's just right down the road… and how do you get food it you don't leave?"
"Myrtle brings me groceries once a week, except when she's got the vapors," something like a laugh flicked through his eyes as he put a heavy southern drawl into that one word. "Then Peggy brings me food." He scratched idly at his jaw and the light bit of stubble. "They're lovely old broads. Like a flock of grandmothers I never asked for."
"Why not just go into town yourself?"
Something all together different flicked through Nick's eyes then, and even if Sam couldn't name what it was he knew he didn't like it.
Instead of answering Nick asked a question of his own. "How is it someone like you left the school dance early and so very alone?"
Sam fiddled with the fringe on the edge of the blanket, watching his own hands because watching Nick play with his lip made his thoughts tangle around themselves. "I told you- we move around a lot. I don't really have any friends around here- no one to walk home with."
"Then why go to the dance at all?"
Sam got a little frown, not sure if he ever even mentioned where he had come from. "My brother, Dean, he talked me into going."
"But not into staying?" Nick just had this way about him, how he talked, so even and slow- curious without feeling intrusive- even though by all rights he was being incredibly so.
"He took off before I did." Sam said carefully, the first hint of unease settling into the back of his mind- but he tried to convince himself that it was nothing. This was a small town, and apparently the only company Nick had were a heard of old ladies. It was very possible that they had told the man about the dance. Hell, before the storm started, it was possible that Nick could have heard the dance. It's not like it had been a quiet affair. "Took the head cheerleader and his car and left me to get myself home."
Nick seemed to consider this before slowly nodding. "You're the younger brother, aren't you? I am too- though my brother Michael sounds a bit more tame than yours."
That inkling of a bad feeling in Sam washed away as he smiled. There was a solidarity held by all younger brothers around the world- a lifetime of long suffering that only they could truly understand.
Nick met his smile for a heartbeat before looking away, just a soft downturn of his gaze, his eyebrows creeping up. "You know, I think one of the main reasons they sent me out here was to keep me away from smiles like yours."
Sam's face froze for a second and he swallowed roughly. "What?"
"Nothing. Never mind." He looked up at Sam from beneath his lashes, a crooked, sharp edge of a smile still on his lips. "Tell us a story, Sam. You look like you've got a bunch of good stories in you."
Sam was sure that the room was sustaining its temperature purely from his blushing alone. "I- I don't really have any... I don't like talking about myself."
"Never said to tell me a story about you." Nick grasped his own elbows, leaning forward as much as the back of the bench would allow. "Make up something- just make it a good."
"I-"
"Come on. Sunday's in two days and I'm going to have to listen to Darryl telling me about the time he was a boy and learned what makes popcorn pop- for the hundredth time." His smile got caught on the other side of his mouth and it was almost a grin now. "I get bored, Sam." Nick said his name again, drawing it out just a bit too long, making it more of a sigh than a name, like pleading.
"Well," his thoughts were already racing. He had roughly a million stories at this point in his life, almost all of them true and not a single one of them believable. "Alright- but then you have to tell me what makes popcorn pop."