Why Did The Snakes Cross the Road? Part 1

So, why did the snakes cross the road?

Well, in real life, to get from high ground to low ground, from a dry place to water, and then from flooding back to the dry place again.

Seriously-- there's a place in Georgia where copperheads migrate twice a year. Fortunately it's part of a national park, so they're able to close the roads, and people just, you know... don't go down that road.

But...

Well, I had this wonderful, awful idea.

Lock two lovers in a car and send them down that road when they weren't expecting it. What would happen? What would they say? What would they do? How would each couple's reaction differ from the last's?

That, I thought, would be delightful.

It wouldn't matter how they got there (unless that was part of who they were) and it wouldn't matter how they got out--we shall just assume that eventually, they all get out, and nobody gets bit, and we don't have to shoot anything because of the snakes.

But for just a snippet of conversation, there's going to be guys, locked in a car, and there's gonna be snakes.

So Merry Christmas, everybody. I Wish you all hope and joy, family if they're good for you, peace if they're not. Kindness and food for your soul and, whatever your faith, I hope the next few days are full of solstice celebration of whatever belief gives you peace.

Now, if you're afraid of snakes, just stop there, because the rest of this is gonna be a big nope.

But if you can deal with snakes on the road... well, enjoy.  (And look for Part 2 in the next couple of days, too :-)

* * *

  

Regret Me Not-- Pierce and Hal


"Is it over?" Hal sounded peevish--and, for one of the rare times in their relationship, young.

"Is what over? I'm not looking either, remember?" But Pierce definitely sounded like a grumpy bastard.

"Oh Jesus. They climb up through the engine. I read that once. They can climb out of the ventilation at any time."

Pierce recoiled. He'd seen that meme too. "I hate you so much."

"I was going to offer you a blow job to pass the time."

For a moment Pierce forgot his fear and looked at Hal curiously, and Hal looked back, his magnificent amber eyes wide. Then they both clapped their hands over their eyes.

"OH holy trouser snakes, NO!" Pierce snapped.

"I may never have sex again," Hal said, sounding haunted. "I"m twenty-three. Those are some of my best years."

"We WILL have sex again!" Pierce said with determination. "But first..."

"One of us has to open his eyes."

They took a deep breath in tandem, and Pierce felt Hal's hand creep into his own. They laced their fingers together, and Pierce said, "Okay. On three. One, two, three, LOOK!"

"AUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHH!!!"

"THERE'S MORE OF THEM!"

"Oh Jesus God," Hal moaned. "We're going to die here. We're going to be the skeleton in Indiana Jones with the snakes coming out of the eyeballs."

"I hate you." PIerce thought he was going to throw up.

"But... but you love me, too, right?" Sudden vulnerability. Pierce opened his eyes and looked determinedly at Hal and only at Hal and not at the road in front of them.

"Yeah, baby. I still love you."

"Even though I took the wrong turn into the state park with the snake migration?"

Pierce breathed deeply. "It's going to make a great story. Just as soon as..."

"Yeah. As soon as the goddamned snakes stop crossing the road."


* * *


Fish Out of Water--Jackson and Ellery

Jackson couldn't help it. He stared at the road, fascinated. "I had no idea snakes did that," he mused, checking his phone. They'd been stuck there for about fifteen minutes, the engine running to keep the snakes from crawling up inside.  "How's the Lexus doing."

Ellery took a deep measured breath, the kind of thing he did when he was trying not to be perturbed. "Not overheating. Not guzzling gas. We're fine for another hour, and then we have bout fifty miles to find a gas station."  Another one of those deep, measured breaths, exhaled through his nose. "Do you think they'll be gone by then?"

Jackson assessed the situation with narrowed eyes.  When he and Ellery had first realized the gate must have been left mistakenly open, and had come to a halt, there had been two, maybe three snakes on the road, with four or five on their heels. Now there were a good ten snakes, all of them ignoring the hell out of the Lexus, intent on wherever they were going. 

"It's getting hot," he said after a moment. "You can tell--they're moving faster. Pretty soon it'll be too hot to hit the concrete, and then we can turn around and get out. See? That one there?"

He directed Ellery's attention to one of the smaller ones--a tender adolescent snake, as it were--which settled its chest on the asphalt and then lifted suddenly, unhappily. Well, Jackson wasn't fond of the heat either, and this part of the country didn't fuck around in the summer. 

"Yeah." Ellery studied the snake dispassionately. "He's going to cross, I think, but you're right. Not too many after him." 

"Poor guy." Jackson grimaced. "Guess you gotta do what you gotta do, you know?"

He became acutely aware of Ellery's deep brown eyes, running over his face. "Yeah," Ellery said again. "You gotta admire someone who works hard to survive."

Jackson's face heated. "These guys are going through that for a better spot," he said, knowing they were talking about his own life and not sure how not too. "I mean, that's good. They don't want to hurt anybody, but, you know, snakes gotta drink, snakes gotta hunt, snakes gotta not cook in the sun."

"Jackson's gotta eat, Jackson's gotta drink, Jackson's gotta not travel the world alone."

Jackson's mouth twisted fondly. "Ellery, I'm trapped in a car with you in the middle of a snake migration. I'm pretty sure I'm okay on the company front."

Ellery let out a sharp bark of laughter. "Although this was not quite what I had in mind."

Suddenly Jackson started to chuckle. "Hey, do we get cell reception?"

"Yeah..."

"We should call Kaden. He hates snakes. Wait, even better!" He pulled out his phone and started taking pictures. His brother was going to fucking kill him. "This is gonna be great."

"Mature, Jackson. I'm so proud."

"Whatever. Here--you take some too. I'll send to Kaden, you send to Mike--wait! Do you think Lucy Satan likes snakes?"

Ellery let out a pained sound. "I think it might be one of the few fears my mother has!" 

Jackson turned to him, eyes wide and full of light. "Please?" he begged.  Oh please. Please. Ellery's mother--the most terrifying woman on the planet. Just once... just once he would love to see her discombobulated. Just once.

Ellery's eyes narrowed. "You love my mother," he said mildly. "I'd hate to destroy that relationship."

"Killjoy."  Whatever. Jackson kept taking his own pictures. Ellery could play it safe with Lucy Satan, but Jackson's family would never forgive him if he didn't terrorize them with this experience via text.

*  *  * 

Keeping Promise Rock-- Deacon and Crick

"Seriously?" Crick asked for about the third time.

"Give them time," Deacon said calmly. "They'll move."

"Not fuckin' fond of snakes, Deacon."  Crick's shoulders twitched, probably remembering the snake he'd told Deacon about in the desert "I mean, these guys are fucking poisonous too."

Deacon grunted. He wasn't fond of snakes either--especially ones migrating in groups. "Yeah. That's why the car's on." It was a rental--they were visiting folks and had decided to go sightseeing before they had to be back in Atlanta to catch the plane. The wrong turn into the national forest had not been on their agenda.

"They're fucking creeping me out," Crick said darkly. He shifted in his seat and tried to stretch, and Deacon could see him dorsiflexing his foot and calf. 

"Turn your back to the door," Deacon told him, "and turn. I'll rub your leg."

Crick grunted and did what Deacon said, manually hauling his leg up and over the island.  Deacon went to work on his foot and calf. Crick sighed and released some of his tension, leaning gingerly back against the car.  "Thanks, Deacon. How you holding up?"  It was a valid question. They'd visited Drew's family and Martin's as well, since Benny and Drew were making the rounds with the birth of their new baby, and while traveling wasn't easy on Crick, visiting was pretty rough on Deacon. 

"At least the snakes don't talk," Deacon told him with a shrug.

"I knew it!" Crick said grimly. "You were really good with all those people, but I could tell."

Deacon had tried to hide his discomfort--had, in fact, been mostly victorious over the shyness that had so crippled him when they first got together. But new people were new people, and dammit, Deacon missed The Pulpit. And, "I miss our son," he said wistfully. The trip was a short one--five days--and J.D. had an ear infection just before they were supposed to get on the plane. Kimmy and Lucas had offered to help Missy watch him for them, but it was their first trip away from him since he'd been born. 

"Yeah, well." Crick let out a breath.  "I just wish, if we were going to have all that time away from him, that some of that time could have been for us."

Deacon stared at him. Oh my God. He was right. They'd been caught in a whirlwind of visiting and getting to know Martin's folks and Drew's folks and talking about their families--ambassadors of gay, as it were, to two families that weren't as familiar with LGBTQ folks as the people back home. But that whole time they'd been focused on Benny and Drew, Parry Angel and little Conrad, and on Martin, the young man who was going to move out to California permanently and become part of their friend Colin's business. 

This moment here, trapped by a snake migration neither of them had foreseen, was their first private moment in a week.

Deacon stopped massaging Crick's calf. "You got cell reception?" he asked, and Crick struggled for his phone from his back pocket. 

"Uh, yeah?"

"I'll push back the plane ticket and make a hotel reservation if you talk to Kimmy and Missy," he said decidedly. 

Crick gaped at him. "What?"

"Private time, Carrick James. Don't you... you know. Want some? Just us?"

Crick's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened comically. "Oh my God!" 

"What?" Oh no. Was Deacon being a bad father? A bad friend? Irresponsible? They had kids from Promise House working with the horses--would that be too much to ask Shane and Mickey? "Nevermi--"

"Deacon Parrish Winters, don't you dare walk that back!" Crick said urgently. "No--no. I think that's a great idea! I'm dying for some private time with you in a hotel room. Room service? Can we get room service?"

Deacon had to smile. Crick did most of the cooking back at home--having someone else make and serve him food must have sounded like heaven. "Yeah. We can get room service. So you want to try?"

Crick leaned his head back against the glass and just smiled, his narrow face looking youthful and sunshiny and all the things Deacon had loved about Crick from their very first meeting, when Crick had been just a boy, watching Deacon work out his horse. "It sounds like the most wonderful idea in the world."  He shivered, apparently excited about the idea. 

Deacon smiled, warmed by his enthusiasm. "Okay--so, phones out--"

"Can we do two days?" Crick asked wistfully. "Please?"

Deacon placed his hand on Crick's arch, pushing a little so the stretch wouldn't end. "Sure," he said. He'd never been able to refuse Crick anything. 

"Good. I'll hand you the phone when J.D.'s on. He'll want to talk to Deek-Deek."

Sure he would. J.D. was three now, but Deacon reckoned he'd be J.D.'s Deek-Deek for possibly the rest of his life. 

Before he looked up the number to change his tickets and book the hotel room, he took a gander outside the car. The snakes were still migrating, making their focused, wiggling way across the road. Deacon would never love snakes--but he had to admit, he Crick had time together, private time, because they'd decided to cross the road. 

It could be the one time in his life he was grateful for snakes. 

Lessons from the Universe--A Keeping Promise Rock ficlet

This takes place when J.D. is not quite three...
***

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes!"

Crick narrowed his eyes in the early March sunshine and latched his good arm more solidly around his son. "I said no, dammit. You can't stand on the top rung of the damned pen, because you are your father's son and you will fall off the top of the rail."

J.D. scowled at him from a pair of familiar green eyes and tossed his brown hair out of his eyes. "Cause I b'long dere!" he insisted. Oh God-- he didn't even have shoes on when he escaped. He was wearing an old onesie, because that was the only thing he had clean, and it was chilly in early March. His feet were covered in mud.

Crick tightened his hold and counted to ten, and Andrew looked up from where he was breaking a sweet little mare and laughed. "You're going to lose that battle," he said mildly.

"Yes," Crick agreed, "but not until he's five. He's two and a half."  Oh God. Crick's heart had stopped so many times after watching Deacon in the pen. "Deacon promised."

Andrew nodded. "I hear ya. I even agree. I"m just saying, you need to give him something or he's going to climb in here when someone's not looking, and that would be pretty bad too."

Crick's heart stuttered. The kid was just so fast. If it hadn't been for the dog, who tended to run around in circles wherever J.D. had wandered off to, Crick thought for sure they would have lost him before now.  His eyes burned in that terrible retroactive fear parents felt whenever they perceived a near thing.

"Daddy, too tight!"

Crick adjusted the little terror on his hip, scrubbed his face with his hand, and tried to get himself together. J.D.'s molars had been coming in and he fussed late into the night. He'd started potty training the month before, but the molar thing had happened and so had a lot of accidents. The result was a whole lot of Huggies Pull-Ups being used for their original intention: diapers.

And Deacon and Crick were exhausted.

Deacon, true to his gentleman's soul, took J.D. duty as soon as he came in and washed up. He got up in the night, got up early in the morning, and tried to give Crick a break in the middle of the day.  But Crick woke up every time Deacon got up, and during the day, J.D. just didn't quit. Deacon was gone at the moment because Crick had been so out of it he'd forgotten about Huggies and milk, and Crick and J.D. had been sleeping off an epic cry-athon.

"Sorry, buddy," Crick said, turning back into the house. "I just really need you to chill out until Deacon gets home, okay? He's going to have milk and snacks and Huggies and you and me can sit and watch cartoons and chill."

The house was not in great shape. Again, Deacon helped--but Crick had never realized how amazing his sister was to raise Parry and help Deacon with the business and go to school until right now.  Yeah, he remembered being tired during the first couple of months, but his body--not at optimum--was a hindrance now in ways he'd never imagined when he'd first come home.

Suddenly J.D. began to cry, curling into Crick's arm with a pathetic little sniffle. "'Toons?'"

"Yeah, buddy," Crick said wearily. The house could wait. Hell, they had fruit snacks and tinned chicken soup-- cooking could wait. "Toons."

A half an hour later they huddled on the couch while the brilliant March day went on around them.  J.D. had his face tucked into Crick's chest and Teen Titans, a cartoon Crick loathed played endlessly on the television. They were both covered in mashed cracker crumbs and chicken soup residue, and Crick wasn't sure he could move if a tornado touched down.

Deacon's tread in the house was as leaden as Crick felt, and like a coward, Crick closed his eyes and hoped the sleep card would get him out of being a grown up for one more chore. He listened as Deacon moved around the kitchen, putting stuff away and cleaning up the lunch mess and, oh thank you, singing quietly to himself--Damien Jurado, "Sheets".  Is he still coming around like an injured bird, leaving a nest...

Crick smiled softly, loving the song even though the story--that of a love triangle--was about the furthest thing from their lives right now.

The final thump and the final crinkle of a reusable bag, and the couch next to Crick depressed.

"C'mon, Crick, help me out and lean on my chest."

Oh, God, he sounded exhausted.

Crick did just that and snuggled. He hadn't showered that morning because they'd been that tired, and he smelled like horse and sweat and whatever J.D. had eaten that morning.

He smelled wonderful.

Crick allowed himself to be enveloped, and the three of them settled in to a drowsy, heavy-bodied nap on the couch.

He woke up and his game leg and arm were cramping like mad.

He gave a little cry and tried hard to stretch that side of his body without disturbing Deacon.  Deacon startled and then--prompted by a lot of nights when Crick would wake up in pain and need stretching, got with the program immediately, kneading his arm and pushing against his foot at the same time.

J.D. slept through it all.

Deacon laughed a little when Crick's last cramp gave, and he stood up and walked to the refrigerator, coming back with a soda and some Advil to loosen the muscles. Then he picked J.D. up and kissed his cheek.

"Damn, little guy, you sure do have us at our wit's end."

"Deac'n," J.D. murmured, and snuggled in some more.

"We're going to have to wake him soon," Crick mumbled. "Or we'll get our days and nights turned around."  It had happened in the first two months--sleeping in the day and being awake all night. They'd fixed it, but it had sucked.

"Yeah." Deacon took a swig of Crick's soda. "I'll take care of that. You go lay down and sleep off that cramp in the bed, Carrick. Don't worry about things tonight. We're tuckered."

Crick didn't even ask questions. He dragged his ass to bed, shucked his clothes and fell in. God, who knew the terrible twos were more terrible for the parents than the two-year-old?

He woke up, heart pounding, to the early spring evening chill.

On God. Deacon--J.D.!  Dinner, laundry, childcare--shit!

He threw on his jeans and and a T-shirt and limped out to the front room, looking around wildly.

Missy was home from junior college classes and was cleaning the kitchen. He vaguely remembered that it was her turn, but her schedule was pretty brutal, so they'd learned not to count on her. Kimmy was dusting in living room, and Benny was folding clothes on the couch.

"Oh, hell," Crick mumbled, feeling inadequate as hell. "Did Deacon call you all?"

"Missy called us, asshole," Benny muttered. "Jesus, look at this place. Why didn't you tell us J.D. was teething?"

"Because maybe I wanted to not be helpless," Crick muttered, stretching out his scarred arm with a vengeance.

"Oh please," Benny snorted. "I took help every chance I got. You weren't so squeamish when he was a fry."

"Sit down and have a cookie," Missy ordered. "Deacon bought the kind with a thousand milligrams of fat in them-- you need to have a few."

"Oh, God--someone needs to not let that man go shopping."  The shortbread with the fudge centers--every damned time.

"Well, better him than you when you're falling apart," Benny said practically, making a neat pile of J.D.'s jeans. A good thing too--he had actually been wearing a onesie that morning--because it was the only thing he had clean. "Honestly, Crick."  She stood, her tummy popping out just a tad from the waistband of her leggings.  "It's going to be hard. I mean, I know you managed diaper changing when he was tiny, but you're chasing after a kid who can outrun a fully functioning adult. It's going to tire you out."

Ugh.  Crick shoved half a cookie in his mouth and followed it with a gulp of milk. "Mothers have been raising toddlers while pregnant for years."

"Well yeah," Kimmy agreed, putting the feather duster in the cupboard by the washroom. "But usually with help from parents and family. I mean yeah, Shane and I were twins, but we had a nanny a piece."

"Fan-ceee!" Missy sneered--but playfully, which was a nice change from the surly child she had been.

"Yeah, it was," Kimmy agreed. "You do not know what I used to try to do to get their attention."

"What about Shane?" Crick asked curiously. Parenting--and what kind of parenting had gone into making his friends--had become his hobby in the last two years.

"Shane decided to save the world," Kimmy said, smiling with affection. "The first try didn't work great, so he tried again, and then a third time."

"Third time's the charm," Missy said, and not even she could be facetious about Kimmy's kind-natured brother.

"The point is," Benny said, grabbing her own cookie and drinking some of Crick's milk, "that whole village thing to raise a child is no joke."

Grimly Crick remembered their own parents--and the social workers who had kept trying to take Benny and Parry Angel away from Deacon. "As long as it's not the village idiots."

Missy guffawed and Benny giggled and Kimmy rolled her eyes.

"Here--I'm going to put in the lasagna Deacon bought and we can cookie and kvetch for a while."

"Lasagna? God, that man can't go shopping again!"  His heart was fine-- but that took hard work!

"I'm saying," Kimmy agreed. "I'll go next time. I'll call you and you give me a list."

Crick couldn't argue-- not after almost breaking into tears when J.D. had run out the front door that morning. "Thanks, Kimmy."  Gratitude didn't cover it.

"Yeah, well..."  She squeezed his shoulder as she took her spot at the table.

"Where is J.D.?"  he asked.  He'd known the baby was safe--but obviously not with any of the women since they were all in the kitchen.

"Outside with Deacon," Benny said blithely. "He's on that pony-- you know, the little one with the real sweet temper.  Deacon has him with a helmet and a belt-strap from Project Ride, and they've been going around in circles for like, an hour."

"He's on a horse?" Crick half stood up.  "We weren't supposed to do that when he was five?"

The women all looked at him blankly.

"He's on a pony," Benny said, nonplussed. "Strapped in, like the Project Ride people do. And a helmet. And Deacon and Drew. Crick, do you or do you not want to sleep tonight?"

"Oh God."  Crick buried his face in his hands. "I do. I so do."

"Well then, trust in the universe a little and let Deacon do his thing. Tire the kid out, make him happy, give him some Orajel and maybe be a human being tomorrow."  Benny could shrug. She'd been mommy for nearly nine years and Auntie Benny for two and a half, and she seemed to just have this shit all sorted. Once again, Crick couldn't find his if it was handed to him in  paper cup.

That night, though, Missy did the dishes and J.D. went down like a dream, and Deacon came to bed early.  It was... oh my God, an Easter miracle. 

Deacon slid into bed and had Crick roll over on his stomach while he gave him a rubdown, and then, when Crick had groaned and all his tight muscles felt like spaghetti, he settled back with his Kindle and a pair of reading glasses recently adopted for just this moment in time.

"That's it?" Crick asked, feeling a little bereft from Deacon's side.

Deacon looked at him, smiling sweetly, his green eyes lighting with a hint of mischief. "You were tired," he said mildly. "A man doesn't like to presume."

Crick thought about the shopping and the singing, the nap time and the taking the baby right when Crick thought he'd had his absolute limit.

"Presume," he said, grinning. "by all fucking means, presume all over me!"

Deacon laughed heartily, then stood up and locked the door and turned out the light. When he slid back into bed, he was naked and hard, his skin like silk and his muscles as reassuring and sexual as always. As Crick succumbed to their lovemaking in the dark, feeling Deacon's lips and hands on all of the places that made Crick's body sing the most, he had a passing thought.

All of it, sometimes, boiled down to making love in the dark. Trusting that, if you knew your partner, had chosen well, you could have a little faith in the universe, and even if it fucked you, it all felt so damned good.

And oh, yes. When Deacon was inside him, moving powerfully, kissing his back an his neck and his shoulders, it all felt so damned good.