ds_flashfiction | Sweat Challenge by Mouse

Title: Shot in the dark
Author:

mousewrites
Pairing: Ray K./Ray V.
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there...
Notes: I realized that I'll be away from my computer when this the deadline will roll around, so I pushed a bit and got this done. Of course, that means it's unbeta'ed, but maybe you'll forgive me.

It’s hot. Beyond hot. Hot is Chicago summertime, humidity up around 900%, sitting on a porch with the sun beating down on your head. This is… something else.

I can feel sweat dripping down my back. My hair’s wet with it, unspiked and limp, and I just can’t bring myself to care. It’s not like Vecchio can see me. Too dark.

Fraser’ll be back in a while. He said it’d take him three hours to get from the truck back to the main road, and, assuming somebody will stop, another hour to get a team out here to get us out. I lean my head back on the metal wall, my face wet. Even the walls are hot, now; the sun is heating up our metal prison quite nicely.

We’re in one of them Easy bake ovens, thug version. I snigger, rolling my head. My muscles feel like they’ve been cooked. I always wanted one of those as a kid. Easy Bake Oven, I mean. Not that I’d have ever let on, of course; that kind of thing that gets you beat up. Well, beat up more. I wanted one because I wanted to make Stella cake. She loves cake, not that you can tell by looking at her. I wanted one, and now I’m in one. Ironic.

No, it can’t be an Easy Bake oven. Those were all bright inside, lightbulb-cooked or something. It’s dark here. Real dark. Dark enough that I can’t see my hand in front of my face.

Dark, and hot, and my brain is slowly turning to mush. At least I’ve got company. Not that Vecchio’s happy to be here. He hasn’t stopped complaining since Fraser left, left us trapped in a tractor-trailer full of stolen goods, sitting in the middle of Death Valley.

Don’t ask, Ok? Just… don’t. It has to do with a paperback book, a broken rubber band, and three small kittens. Real small.

Last I saw them, they were crawling all over Deif. Fraser said he was ‘quite put out’ but I think he wants to be their mother… father… whatever. Even if he can’t, because they’re kittens, not puppies… um, cubs? Anyhow, the PTA won’t have it. They frown on that sort of cross animal fraternization thing…

Oh god, I think my brain is turning to mush.

“Vecchio, how long we got?”

“Until we die of heat prostration? I’d say about an hour.”

“Ha ha, very funny. How long we got until Fraser gets back?”

A fucking bright light blooms in the darkness, and I twist my head away. It’s just his watch light, but after the darkness of the trailer it's painful. Even after it blinks off, my vision is white and blue and black. I blink, rubbing at my eyes. A blurry afterimage of his face, shiny with sweat, slides past my eyes.

“He’s been gone for an hour and fifteen minutes. We’ve got a while to go yet. Why? Can’t stand the heat?”

“Fuck you. You’re not doing any better than me, Mister big shot. I’d thought you’d be fine out here, after living in Las Vegas for so long.”

“I didn’t live out in the dessert, idiot. I had the penthouse suite, all air conditioned and clean.” He cracks his neck, loud in the dark. I hear him open another bottle of water.

“Don’t drink up all the water,” I say, and he snorts.

“Stanley, we’ve got five cases of it. We’re not going to run out.”

“Says you. Give me one before you drink it all up.”

He mutters something, but I can’t hear him. I can hear him rummaging in the cardboard box. “Catch!” he says, and I put my hands up without thinking about it.

The water bottle hits me in the side of the head. “Ow!”

“Oh. Um, sorry.”

“Right.” I rub my head, feeling for the bottle in the dark. It’s still somewhat cool. It tastes wonderful, and I gulp it, the bottle wheezing as I suck it dry, water running over my chin and down my shirt. It feels great, fantastic, and I dribble the last of it over my head, feeling it sink down into my plastered hair. “God, that’s what I need. Gimmie another.”

He rustles in the dark. “You better slow down, you have to drive later.”

“Asshole.”

“Prick. Say please.”

“Gimmie another, please, you asshole.”

He rolls this one to me, and I pick it up when it bumps my shoe. I tip half of it over my head, groaning. My shirt is soaked. I rub my hands through my hair. The water on my face tastes of sweat, salty, faintly gritty.

“Hey, are you wasting water?”

“Fuck you. I’m hot.”

“So am I, but you don’t see me wasting water.”

“I don’t see you doing anything. I don’t see anything. You said we had five cases of water. I’m just making myself more comfortable. ”

There’s a pause, and then a fabric-y sound. He shifts, standing up. More fabric noises. “Hey, what are you doing? Are you taking off your pants?”

“Just because you’ll pour water all over your clothes, don’t assume I will. I like these clothes.”

“You like all of your clothes.” I mean it as a dig. Of course, he doesn’t take it that way.

“Yes. That’s why I wear them. Maybe if you liked your clothes, you wouldn’t look like you do.”

Sarcastic bastard. “I like my clothes fine.”

“Sure you do. That’s why you’re sitting there, soaking wet, letting the rust from the bed of this thing ruin a perfectly good pair of jeans?”

“You’re not getting naked, are you?” I say, unnerved. It’s one thing to be trading jibes with the guy, but its too hot and too dark for him to be naked. I mean, I’m only human, and it’s been a while, and his clothes do make him look nice-

and that’s enough of that, I think, thumping my head back on the wall. The water on my face has dried, and a new layer of sweat is beading on my face. I lick my lips.

“Afraid you won’t be able to control yourself?” he says, and I flip him off in the dark.

“Yeah. Good thing it’s dark, or I’d be all over your hot eye-talian body.”

He laughs, and I hear water splashing, and he lets out this… moan.

Not good. Not. Good. I fumble for my water, taking a long gulp. Another splash, and a slick sound.

“Are you taking a bath?” I say, my eyes straining in the dark. I shut them resulutly.

He chuckles and another bottle of water rolls at me.

“Shut up and take a bath, Stanley,” he says, “You smell.”

I stick my nose in my pit. “I do not!” Well, I did, a bit, but I’d been sweating in a box for almost two hours. Nobody alive could smell perfectly fresh after that.

Maybe Fraser. But nobody human.

“Liar. You stink. Don’t get your panties in a bunch; I do too. God, the water feels nice, though.”

I stand up, using the wall at my back. My shirt sticks to my skin. I crack open the bottle.

“Hey, are you going to wet your pants, or what?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I go from zero to pissed in a heartbeat. I take a step toward him. I’m on edge; just the heat, I tell myself. Just the heat.

“You going to take your pants off?”

Oh. Oh. Right. I don’t want to take them off, though. Just… don’t. No use risking it. I’m a jumpy little hornball in the best of situations, and this is *not the best of situations. “How do you know I didn’t take them off already?”

“Because they’re zip fly, and I didn’t hear a zipper.”

… Well, that’s interesting.

“You been starin’ at my pants, Vecchio?” I get this image of him checking out my package, and roll my hands over it, hooking my thumbs in my pockets, fingers bracketing my dick. Showing myself off for him? I’m insane; it’s the heat. “You want me to take them off? You want me out of my pants?”

He takes a breath, and chuckles again, but it sounds strained. “You wish, Kowalski.”

I swallow, my mouth dry. Maybe I do wish. Maybe the heat’s done my brain in, but I do. I’m suddenly so hard in my jeans that I swear I can hear them creak. Christ, what a time for my queerness to flare up. I usually got it handled.

“Maybe I do,” I say slowly, and I peel my shirt over my head. My skin is cool for a moment before the heat slides in, coating me like a blanket.

“What, you playing for the other team now? Always knew you were bent.”

“Bent? That’s me. Ray ‘bent-penny' Kowalski. And you’re the one naked, you know.”

Nothing. No noise but his breath, soft and even, and I want to make him say something, suddenly. I toe my shoes of, letting them thump onto the floor. His breath catches a hair, and I smirk at him.

I pop the button on my jeans, pull the zipper down. It sounds huge in the dark, a grating, snarling thing, and my dick pushes out, my boxers damp with sweat. It takes some time to get the jeans off; they’re not tight, but my skin is moist, sticky. I finally pull them off, flinging them at where I think he’s standing.

They must catch him in the chest or something, because he grunts. “Oh, very nice,” he says, “You strip down and then throw the pants. You trying out as a dancing girl? ‘cuz I don’t think you got the rack for it.” No heat in his voice, just… that weird, strangled sound.

“No? Too bad. I love to dance,” I say, and gulp some more water. I’m hot, so hot. The sweat rolls down my back. I move a bit, a quick little two-step, and the air moving over my skin feels good. I move again, giving myself a beat, my toes finding all the boxes before my shins do. I’m dancing in the dark, in my boxers, my dick hard, my half naked partner a few feet away from me.

I wonder if he’s hard.

I stumble over a box, and go down, yelling. He’s there, somehow, his hands clamped hard on my arm and hip, but we fall anyway, my skin too slick with sweat for him to hang onto. We end up tangled on what feels like a bag of beanbag chairs, my legs snarled up with his, his hip pressed into my thigh.

He’s as hard as I am.

We both freeze, our breath loud in the dark. I’m afraid to move.

A drop of sweat rolls down my neck, sliding over my shoulder. I feel it stop, hang. I don’t breathe.

He makes a wet little noise when it drips on him, and suddenly he’s moving, his hands sliding up my back to tangle in my wet hair.

His mouth is hot, wet, sticky with sweat, and I don’t care, I don’t, and I’m kissing him back hard, my hips pressing into him. He moans, his hand spasming in my hair, and I pull back for a moment, whishing I could see in the dark. His hands are hotter than the air, leaving wet tracks in the dark, down my back to my ass.

He grabs my ass with one hand, both hands, my boxers plastered to my skin, my dick digging into his. His fingers clench, forcing wet cloth into my crack, and I grunt into his mouth. I can smell him, musk and sweat and some spicy cologne buried underneath, and I suck at his neck, tasting the remnants of his aftershave.

“Oh god, oh, god,” he’s chanting, and I grin, feral and dark, nipping at his throat. He’s working me against him, hands moving me like he wants, and I’m almost there already, my dick drooling against his, separated by our shorts.

“Wait, wait,” I say, reaching between us, my hand fumbling as I get us both out into the air. His dick is wet, hard, and I grind into him, my dick slipping into the fly of his boxers, pushing into damp pubic hair, and he’s licking my neck, my ear, and it’s perfect, hot and dirty and wet and I can taste sweat, sweat in my mouth and my hair and my fingers, pooling between us and slicking our dicks and I’m just about there, legs tightening on him, and he’s grinding me against him hard enough that I’m sure he’ll have Ray shaped bruises on his hips.

He comes first, arching against me, something hotter and slicker than sweat splashing between us. Tthe smell, sharp and bitter and hot, sets me off, and I come, pushing into his hip, filling the seam of his leg with my come, shooting hard, forever.

****

It’s cooler now, all washed up and dressed, sitting back to back away from the hot walls of the trailer. Fraser’ll be back soon, I’m sure, and then he’ll get the doors open, and we’ll have to face the day. We’ll go back to LA and catch an air-conditioned plane home, and Fraser’ll sit between us, calm and cool. We’ll snark and bicker, and I’ll brush my teeth with cool minty toothpaste and try to forget the taste of his sweat.