Why Did the Snakes Cross the Road? Part 2

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

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. 

Ink

A brief Mackey and Trav moment, for you all--and oh!  BTW-- next week? I'm going to write a Skip and Richie ficlet-- so if you haven't gotten your copy of Winter Ball, now is the time to do it!

* * *

The needle drew blood at Trav's hipbone and he gritted his teeth. The hum continued, and he stoically ignored the muscular woman with the dyed mohawk who was currently inking his body. He'd heard she was the very best.

The thought did not console him.

Jesus--eight years in the military. Eight years--and he hadn't let a tattoo needle touch his skin. Shrapnel, knives, the occasional bullet, yes. Ink?

Not necessary. 

Until now. 

Anything was worth it to pull Mackey out of his funk. 

Trav was aware that recovering drug addicts were always recovering, and that the triggers that sometimes set them off couldn't be predicted or avoided.  But nothing--nothing--had prepared them for seeing Katie, a grown-up three and a half, the week before Christmas.

She was just so very grown up, so very savvy about the world. She knew that when Heather Sanders picked her up from her mother's house, she was going to get to fly on the plane, and go to the place where she would be spoiled rotten. Heather--being the good mom she was--made sure that Katie came loaded with pictures she had drawn, and photos that Samantha had taken--less and less reluctantly over the last two years. A month in the summer, three weeks during the rest of the year--that little girl was theirs. Sometimes it was Disneyland, sometimes, it was sitting and playing with Kyrie, Kellogg and Briony's little girl. 

They all loved it when she came--and hated it when she left. 

Mackey hadn't come out of their room in two days. Hadn't showered, hadn't barely eaten. He'd sat at his desk and written, picking up the guitar occasionally, but mostly, staring. Staring into space.

Trav had tried everything. Christmas was in two days, and Mackey hadn't done any of the things his brothers had established as normal. Hadn't made paper chains with musical notes sketched on them, to put around the tree. Hadn't done his gift wrapping. Hadn't eaten breakfast with his mother, which was his routine when she was in the house. 

Two days, he'd sat and brooded over his notebooks, grabbing the occasional cracker and drinking water when it suited him.  

Trav had called his shrink, but the guy had told him to wait it out just a little longer--but not to leave Mackey alone. When Trav had left to get his tattoo, he'd put Blake in charge of Mackey--don't alert the others, but don't leave the room, either. Just... read a book or watch TV and be there for him.

Blake had promised he would be.

The tattoo needle hit another bump and Trav looked down at the ink and scowled. "How much longer?" he asked, not impatiently, just trying to guess how long his nerves had to last.

"An hour," Minerva said gruffly. "Got somewhere to go, chief?"

"Yeah. This is sort of a present."

*  *  *

Mackey's pen moved over the paper, making that faint scratching sound he'd come to think of as the mother of music. Words... a lot of them stupid, but some of them real, poured across the page. He loved and hated this part, where his body was screaming at him to let it go and his mind and heart wouldn't stop. 

Right now he hated it. 

God, he was so fucking done with sadness.  It's just...she'd looked so much like him.

Her nose was developing that bridge--almost completely straight. Her eyes were that light brown, almost gold. And when Mackey looked at her, it's not so much that he saw Grant, but that he saw all Grant didn't get to have--and it hurt.

He hated talking to Trav about it. Trav knew-- what good was it to rub that shit in? Trav fucking knew Mackey missed Grant, and he knew that it wasn't even as a lover but as the family member he'd had since he was little. What was the use of telling him that when it was only going to make Trav feel like hell? 

So Mackey tried to put it out in songs, but all the songs felt like he'd sung them before, because they were about Grant, and he didn't feel that way anymore.

He wanted to be high so goddamned bad.

But he sat at his desk and wrote, watched the pen scratch across the paper one more time.

So beautiful, my baby, so much like your Dad

And your every breath hurts me

Through no fault of your own.

I want to possess you, keep you close to my heart

But I'm not your own father, nor the best that you've known.

He tried to hum it, find a melody, and the one he found was foul. He ripped the page off the notebook and was preparing to toss it into the trash can when--

"No! Don't throw it away! That wasn't half bad!"

Mackey half-stood from his chair as he whirled around, and then the chair caught him in the thigh and he bumped his knee. "Fuck," he snarled, grabbing the chair and resting his foot on it, checking out the bruise on his knee. "Blake! Jesus fuck you scared me."

Blake half-laughed.  "You were a little out of it," he conceded. "Trav didn't want you to be alone."

"Trav?" Mackey frowned. "Where'd he go, anyway?"

"Didn't say."  Blake had filled out in the past two years, and he'd shaved his scruffy beard and kept the u-bar mustache, which Mackey had to admit, suited his thin face. When he smiled now, it didn't look like he was imagining a knife in your back. It looked like he was hoping one never made it there.  

"How long ago?" Mackey stood and stretched, hearing the bones in his spine crack. "God! How long have I been up here?"

"Two days," Blake said quietly. He jerked his head in the direction of the desk and Mackey realized there were two boxes of Chicken'N'Biscuit crackers there, one of them opened.  "You wouldn't eat. Hardly spoke. We've been trying to have Christmas without you, but it's sort of awful, tell the truth."

Mackey grimaced. "Hell."  His throat got thick and he turned away. "Sorry, man. I didn't mean to--"

"We all get it, you know," Blake said quietly. "Even me."

Mackey just kept staring out the window.  Didn't even look like winter in LA-- their new slutty neighbor was still out by the pool with her top off. "What'd you get?" he asked Ms. C-cup.

"Sadness. Sometimes you just can't shake it. And you don't want to share it."

"Yeah." Mackey let out a shaky breath. "I didn't mean to worry everyone."

"Well, you did."

Mackey looked up quickly, and Blake didn't look away. Well, Blake had become the truth teller of them, the one who could say what the others were too mired in years of dysfunction to say. 

"You did worry us. It would worry us less if you came downstairs and cried. We could cry too. Do you think we don't miss her? God--Kell and Briony were a fucking mess, and I"ve got the room next to theirs."

Mackey felt a smile wobble. "You miss her too?" It made sense. Blake was the world's best uncle--and now that Sheila was pregnant, he was getting into the act with that one too. He loved buying the kids those little anime toys--Naruto, Pokemon, Blake was right their with the thousand and one stuffed animals.

"I never knew kids before," Blake said, shrugging. "She's my first. And yeah, just like you, sometimes when I really want a hit, just for old times sake, that pissing in a cup thing is the reason I stay clean."

Mackey nodded vigorously. "I want a drink so bad," he confessed, voice shaking.

Blake stood and held out his arms, and Mackey knew he wasn't Trav, but he was Mackey's brother now, and Mackey took full advantage and leaned on him.  He was holding on so tight that he didn't even feel Trav enter the room until Blake pulled away and Trav stepped in his place.

Mackey let out a sob he hadn't known he'd been holding in.

And then another.

And then a whole slough of them, and Trav held on tight, and to his surprise, Blake didn't go away. After a half an hour or so, Heather called up the stairs that she'd fixed them dinner. 

Blake stepped away and wiped his face with his palm. "I"ll go down and tell them you're coming," he said, without waiting for a reply.  

"Are we?" Trav asked carefully, and Mackey looked into his warm brown eyes and nodded. 

"Yeah." He took a deep breath and wiped his face with his palm, just like Blake. "where'd you go?"

Trav smiled faintly. "To do something for you," he said. "I'll show you after dinner."

Mackey nodded, distracted. "Let me go wash up, okay? My hair feels rank."

"It is. YOu're disgusting. But you've got five minutes, Mackey. If you're not down in five, I'll be down for you." 

Mackey nodded, and the only thing that kept him from kissing TRav and making it longer was knowing his breath was probably as rank as his hair.

* * * 

Dinner went well, to Trav's surprise. Blake started out talking about Katy, and how much he enjoyed the babies in the household and how he was glad they were still hanging out together, raising them. Kell and Briony started wondering when they were having another one, and Jefferson and Stevie accused them of showing off. Shelia sat and looked smug and serene and sweetly round at about five months along, and Mackey smiled shyly at everybody, as though aware they were trying their best, and it was good enough.

That night they sat around and watched Elf and Love Actually and Die Hard, because it was two nights before Christmas and the next night was reserved for Christmas Story.  When the movies were done, they made their way up to bed, and Mackey rounded on Trav as soon as they got up there.

"Okay, spill," he snapped as soon as Trav had closed the door to their room.

"Spill what?"'

"You kept poking me when I laid on you--what's wrong? Are you constipated?"

Trav felt his eyes bulge. "Have I ever been--"

"Stomach flu? What?"

"Jesus, Mackey-- how about a fucking tattoo-- are you happy now?"  With that Trav unsnapped his jeans and lifted his shirt, and Mackey's eyes bulged. 

Underneath the saran wrap that Minerva had put there to cover the antibiotics, Mackey would see the same tattoo that he and the other guy's sported. Sort of. The monkey on Trav's hip was a full body shot, and he had his hands in the air and was screaming at a bigger monkey. Who was screaming back.

Mackey looked at it some more, and to Trav's vast relief, a deep, dirty laugh bubbled out of him.

"You did that for me?" he asked.

"Yes," Trav muttered, red faced. 

"That's you and me, screaming at each other like a couple of gorillas."

"Yes, Mackey, that's us. Screaming."

Mackey looked up at him with that rare incorruptible smile.  "You like it when we fight," he said with surety.

Trav's irritation softened, and he smiled back. "I like it when we make up," he said, biting his lip, feeling unusually shy.

Mackey took a few steps closer, and at first Trav was hoping for a kiss, but Mackey did him one or two better. He bent down and opened his mouth, suckling in the tender skin of Trav's stomach and laving it with his tongue.

Trav gasped, and Mackey moved up, to his ribs, and--as Trav tore off his shirt--to Trav's nipple, which he pulled into his mouth and sucked.  Trav slid both palms to the outside of Mackey's stringy, muscled arms and kneaded Mackey's biceps.  Mackey moved to his other nipple and Trav moaned.

"Mackey?"

"Mmm..."

"Baby... let me take off your shirt. We haven't been naked together in too damned long."

Mackey pulled away and lifted his arms and Trav grabbed the hem of his shirt and lifted it over his head. Oh, God, he loved this stringy, bantam little body. Mackey let the shirt clear and then started shoving off his own jeans and his moccasins, and Trav did the same until they were tumbling, naked, on the bed together, and Trav was touching all Mackey's skin as much as he could.

Mackey kept trying to touch, to tease, but he had an unerring knack for poking Trav's tattoo completely on accident, and Trav, out of patience, grabbed both Mackey's hands in his one and shoved them up over his head. 

"Stay," he growled, and the little shit laughed in his face.

"Really?"

"I'm not dicking around," Trav growled. "I want you fucking bad!"

Mackey kept his hands over his head and widened his feet, baring his asshole and his groin and his stomach and his chest, and making himself all sorts of vulnerable in front of Trav--an honor Trav never took for granted. 

"Take me," he dared. "Cause right now, you're all talk---ahhhhh...."

Trav took Mackey's cock down his throat in one thrust, and then, with a quick squirt of lube, shoved two blunt fingers up Mackey's backside as Mackey keened with the sudden, brutal arousal. 

"That all?" he gasped, as Trav deep-throated and fingerfucked him simultaneously. "You think that's gonna do it? A tattoo and a finger-bang and --ahhh..."  Trav added another finger and spread them, and Mackey's ass came off the bed. "You talk big, Trav, but--"

Trav's cock dripped pre-cum, and he surged up the bed and into Mackey's body without any more introduction. Mackey grunt-screamed and lifted his ass in welcome as Trav buried himself to the root. 

Mackey raised one leg--the one not on the tattoo side--and using his heel on Trav's ass pushed down.  

"Impatient," Trav gasped, fucking hard and fast. "You think that's enough? You think your foot on my ass is enough?"

"You told me to fucking stay!" Mackey protested, and Trav looked up and realized that he'd wrapped the sheets in his fists in an effort to do what he was told.  

"Well fuck that," Trav panted. "Fucking touch me, Mackey, touch me!"

Mackey's wicked little fingers went straight to Trav's nipples, and Trav saw red and cried out as he came.  He thrust in one last time and rutted, pumping into Mackey's ass and grinding against Mackey's trapped cock until Mackey gasped, low and dirty, and spilled a long, glorious mess of cum on them both. 

Trav groaned and collapsed against him. Yeah, the tattoo stung like a motherfucker, but who cared? Mackey was there, in Trav's arms, where he belonged.

Ages later, after a washcloth and boxer shorts and a drink of water, Mackey lay with his chin on Trav's stomach and looked at the new ink.

"Why?" he asked after a few moments. "You put it off this long--why now?"

Trav played with his hair, which was still long and layer cut, and possibly always would be. "Because you were sad," he said after a minute. "I would have gotten a hundred of them if I could just hear you laugh again."

"You left Blake in charge."

"I'm sorry."

Mackey's gray eyes searched Trav's in the dark. "Don't be. I think when you're sad, company is company and love is love, you know?"

Trav nodded and smoothed the hair from his face again. Mackey turned his head and kissed Trav's palm. 

"Is it okay if I talk about Grant tonight?" Mackey asked, voice throbbing with stuff he probably hadn't said in two years.

"Yeah," Trav whispered. "Tell me how much Katy looks like him."

"Oh God, does she."  Mackey's voice cracked, but he kept talking, long, long into the night.

Check Mate

Okay-- so, Mackey and Trav may yet be on the roster, say, next week? But right now, this is a gift for Mary my Mary, whom I love and adore--for her I'll write ficlets forever and more ;-)

*  *  *

Check Mate--a Gambling Men Ficlet

They walked, shoulder to shoulder, down the streets of San Francisco, both of them imposing and crisp enough that none of the myriad bodies on the sidewalk separated them--or even imposed on their conversation.

The wind off the bay blew fiercely, but they were both wearing thick wool coats, and their stride was so confident nobody would even dream of getting in their way.

Or, well, nobody would dream of getting in Jace's way. Quent was a little more flexible--more like a fox and less like a shark, right down to his still neatly kept goatee, which made his face triangular and vulpine. But Quent didn't mind not scaring people--he'd never felt the need to make people tremble as he passed.

Jace on the other hand relished it. Quent knew--in the past five years he'd caught his husband practicing his menacing look in the mirror more than once. 

When Jase was in a crappy, bear of a mood, Quent could take him back down from DefCon 1 to DefCon 5 by making his eyebrows do that quirking thing that Jace used to terrify people into submission. It was a mighty power, and Quent only used it for the greater good, because he knew if he did it too much, Jase would simply practice another look.

Like right now, when he was trying to intimidate Quent into telling him something he knew better to ask. 

"A video game," he said, voice laden with irritation. "Please tell me it's a video game console. That would be acceptable."

"I hate the things," Quent said before smiling gently at an elderly woman and dodging aside to let her pass. Yeah, doing the "captains of the city" thing felt good from a confidence standpoint, but she'd been using a walker and Quent wasn't that much of a bastard. Jace wasn't really either, but he was bad at paying attention to other people, and odds were good he just hadn't seen her.

"Really?" Jace wrinkled his nose. "How did I not know that?"

Quent let out a sharp laugh. "You hate the things, so you've never noticed we didn't have any."

"Hunh."  Jace brooded. "Is there anything else I've deprived you of?"

"Yes. Living in the closet, boredom, and terminal loneliness. Are we done with this conversation?"

Jace's hand rose up to his short, dark-blond hair, and stopped. Thirteen years together--seven as friends, five as lovers--and as far as Quent knew, it was his only tic. He used to keep his hair cut stubble-close, and he'd had the habit of rubbing his cupped hand over his scalp. He'd grown his hair back four years ago, after their first year together, but that habit of palming his scalp-trim still plagued him when he was thinking. Except if he did it now, he'd mess up his closely cut, blow-dried, product enhanced hair.

"No. I still don't know what the big package is!"  Oh, yes. Jason Spade, stock broker, prodigy, money-maker extraordinaire and scary man in the big dark coat had reached his breaking point and now sounded like a spoiled child. 

Quent cackled. "And that's why we wait until Christmas!" 

"It's in two days! I don't see the point!"  

Oh man. "You still don't know what to get me, do you?"

Jace's growl of outrage was pure frustration. "Every year! Every goddamned year! It drives me banana shit! How do you manage the perfect present, special ordered in fucking November, and I'm racking my brains and end up buying you slippers and robes and shit!"

Quent's laugh rang across the Embarcadero.  Yes!  He paused at a corner and leaned in to kiss Jace's cheek before they continued their stride to work. "Jase, once a year I have you off balance and wondering what's going to happen next. You have me like that all the time. Fair's fair, poker player, and you know it!"

He caught Jace's scowl as they both entered the lobby of their building, and returned it with his sweetest smile. Suck on that Mr. Captain of the City. Quent wasn't going to tell Jace what his Christmas present was and that was that.

* * *

Jace went shopping at lunch, which Quent suspected he might, but he came back looking... odd. He was smiling, but his smile was a tight rictus over his cheeks, and his gait was... off. Strange. Elsie noticed right away.

"It's a stick or a butt plug," she said wisely over strong coffee. She'd laid off the tanning booths in recent years, but she was still stick thin and gaudily outrageous, and her hair was still platinum blonde. She and her mister had managed to get all four of their sons through college, and Quentin didn't think she was enjoying life any less now that her husband was retired and she was heading that way too. He and Jace had provided an awesome retirement plan, so he was hoping they'd RV all over the country and send them postcards. 

But not of Jace with a stick up his ass.

"What in the hell?" Quent asked. "No, seriously-- maybe he's constipated."

She looked at him pityingly. "Quentin, darling. You've only been together for five years--you're too young to be this jaded."

Quent pursed his mouth dubiously. Jace's digestion was... finicky. Forget fruit for breakfast or change when he had his coffee, and they'd all be dealing with the grizzly bear boss until his intestines got sorted.  "But... at work?"

Elsie cackled. "Remember when you two had wild banging sex for half-an hour in the copy room?"

Quent felt heat wash up his throat. Their other employees had moved on or moved up since then, and they had a whole new rotation of stockbrokers and secretaries in the still growing firm. Elsie was the only one there who remembered that--but he had the feeling that she'd told everybody else.

And then he thought about it. "Yeah," he said. "That was... well..."

"A while ago. Quick--go bend over in there now. I could use something to tell the hubs!"

Quent glared at her, but... well, greeting his husband with a passionate kiss wasn't beyond the realm of possibility, was it?

"Tell your hubs nothing," Quent warned. "But I'm going to go see what's doing."

Originally, they'd both had separate offices, but three years ago they'd gotten a remodel, putting both their desks in the same room, just like they'd been at college when they could bounce idea off each other. Jace had joked that if they were any more in each other's pockets, they'd walk down the street with Jace behind Quent, his cock lodged solidly in Quent's ass.

Quent hadn't laughed, because A. The visual had bothered him-- he couldn't figure out if he'd have his pants down to his ankles or if he'd have to cut a hole in all of his slacks, and B. He liked how close they were. Even their poker buddies liked how close they were. Every year Mitch had the big Christmas party where he invited all the guys and their families, but Jace and Quent had the big New Years Eve poker game, where it was just the guys, and any money they had leftover from Christmas.

But, not once, had they ever abused the locking door of their office, not in the last three years.

Quent walked in and very deliberately locked the door behind him. When he turned around, Jace was typing furiously on something at his desk, that desperate tension still in his jaw. 

Quent walked behind his desk chair and cupped the back of his head and bent down, waiting until Jace turned to kiss him, hot, wet, and open mouthed. 

Jace lunged out of the chair and knocked Quent on his back, savaging his mouth with a snarl that left Quent breathless. Quent moaned and licked at the inside of Jace's mouth, shoving his hands under Jace's waistband to have access to his washboard stomach and taut chest, to bathe his skin un Jace's boiling heat.

Jace moaned, seemingly undone by a simple cares, and Quent chased his advantage, pinching his nipples tight and hard, just like Jace liked it. Jace buried his face in the hollow of Quent's shoulder and growled, and his hands went straight to Quent's pants.

Before Quent quite knew what happened, Jace had swung his body around and shoved Quent's pants around his ankles. Jace's hand was fished over Quent's cock and his mouth was working the head, hard and fast, while Quent's brain tried to process going from zero to a zillion in the space of a kiss.

 It didn't work. There was no processing that, so Quent just fumbled with Jace's belt and tried to strip him while working upside down. Jace was making screaming in frustration noises over Quent's cock by the time the pants were shoved down around Jace's shapely backside, and Quent had his mouth wrapped around the engorged, purple and dripping head of Jace's dick. 

Oh God... their arousal was furious and delicious, and Quent kneaded Jace's backside with his fingers, trying to pull that cock further down his throat. And further. And...

What was that?

Jace made one of those out of control muffled noises, and Quent almost came. 

There was a plug in Jason Spade's ass. 

"Oh God," he groaned, Jase's cock slapping him in the face as he spoke. "You want to--"

"Fuck me!" Jase moaned, flopping to the side in a needy pile. "God, Quent... I thought I could wait until we got home but--"

Quent scrambled to his knees and rolled Jace over, just looking at it. Big and pink, it stretched Jace wide--probably uncomfortably so.  

"Oh Lord," Quent breathed, tonguing the skin around it, tasting silicon and lubricant and Jace's sweat. "You bastard."  He pulled the plug halfway out and released it back in. "I said I liked you off balance once a year and--" He did it again.

Jace kicked his pants off, then pulled up to his hands and knees, ass in the air, and bit his hand, probably to stave off the scream. "Yesssss..."  He half-sobbed into the carpet. "I did, and it backfired because I need you so fucking bad!"

Quent had been known to top in their relationship--enjoyed it on occasion. But in five years, he could never remember Jace being quite so desperate. 

Bastard. 

Quent flicked the thing again to watch him squirm. 

"Please, Quent!" Jace begged. "I'm sorry! I'll never try to outdo you at Christmas again."

For a moment, Quent entertained dragging his pants up and forcing him to walk home like this, cock hard in his boxers, ass stretched beyond comfort. But he was begging, and Jason Spade never begged. And Quent was so hard his cock was purple.

Nope-- having Jason Spade begging, just once, to be dominated, and wriggling apology on the carpet-- that was pretty much Quent's Christmas present for the next ten years, because it was never going to happen again. 

With a firm tug--and no mercy at all, Quent pulled the plug out and dropped it carefully on Jace's underwear. 

And then nothing in the world could have kept him from plunging hard and fast into Jace's ass, which gripped him sweetly like the home his cock had never known. 

He snapped his hips forward just to hear Jace howl, and after that, the sex, the sensation, the skin-searing pleasure--that was a blur. He didn't thrust so much as batter, hammering into his lover without rhyme or rhythm, just desperate, desperate to feel Jace contract around him. 

"Quent," Jace pleaded. "My cock!"

Oh man--Quent had been so intent on Jace's body he hadn't actually understood the scene. "Touch it," he ordered, because that's where Jace had been going with this. The one thing that Quentin never got--domination-- was the thing that Jace was trying to give him.

Jace sucked at submission. 

"Stroke it!" Quent urged. "And come, dammit, come!"

On God-- they were shouting sex words at each other on the floor of their office. If Elsie wanted the entire crop of new employees to know they were banging each other, she got her wish, but it didn't matter. Quent needed Jace to come so Jace could go back to being the one in charge.

He cried out in climax, ass rippling around Quent's cock, and Quent's entire body convulsed in the relief of orgasm. Jace collapsed on the floor, sweating, with Quent on top of him.

For a few moments, the only sound in the office was the sound of both their phones ringing insistently. Neither of them answered. 

"God," Jason groaned after a moment. "That was a bad idea."

"No," Quent said, kissing his neck. "That was a great idea. That was just the worst timing ever."

Jace hid his head with his arms. "I... I don't usually... fuck."

Quent laughed, grateful that the days when this would have hurt Jason irreparably were gone. At the beginning, his heart had been so very guarded, but now, Quent was inside the fortress. He got to see this, because Jace let him in."Yes, Jace. We usually do fuck. Just not here."

"I don't usually--"

"Submit." Quent whispered it in his ear like a naughty word. "Yeah. I know. It was a rush." He groaned and pulled out, grabbing Kleenex from the top of Jace's desk to clean them both off. "But... you know..."  Suddenly he grimaced, missing Jace in charge. "Maybe once a year, right?"

"Yeah." Jace reached back behind him and gestured imperiously for the Kleenex. "Give me those. Let's get cleaned up and unlock the door."

"Yes boss," Quent said, smiling hopefully, but it was no good. Jace was still avoiding his eyes.

Oh well.

They cleaned up, five years of being lovers not easing the embarrassment as much as it should. Finally, Jace was put together down to the last cufflink and smooth of his tie, and the offending item was wrapped in tissue and buried in Quent's briefcase. 

They both sat at their desks and tried to catch up the messages that had hit when they'd been fucking each other silly on the carpet, and for an hour, they didn't have a chance to look up so m much as say anything to each other.

And then, finally, blessed silence.

Quent looked up and caught Jace's eye and winked hopefully. "Elsie didn't say anything."

"Thank God," Jace growled.

"Uh, everybody seems to be keeping it to themselves."

Jace didn't look at him. "I'm much relieved."

"Uh, it's a giant chess table with carved stone pieces."

That got Jace's attention. "What?"

"Your Christmas present. You know. I got..." Quest's face heated. "I sort of got mine early, so, I thought, you know, I'd tell you what yours was."

Jace's face went slack with affection. He only looked at Quent that way. "Chess? Really?"

Quent nodded. "Yeah. Well, we seem to have mastered the poker thing. I thought we'd move to something else. I mean, you know, just between us."

The corners of Jace's mouth quirked up. "So... what we just did?"

"I have no idea," Quent said, flailing for the metaphor. "Wait! Wait!" He grinned. "I just took my king. Check mate!"

Jace smiled at him, the warmth and ease back between them that Quent relied on to get him through each day, every day.  "Tonight, maybe a rematch."

"Deal." 

"Can't deal chess, Quent. I think you need to set up the board."

Quent's evil chuckle echoed through their office. "Or, you know... put the pieces in place."

Jace's grin was feral and wicked, all teeth. 

Quent's shark was ready for another bite.

Santa Turtle With a Flower

Aherm. You all asked for it. That's all I've got to say.  Oh! And every time I typed "Dex" my damned computer tried to make it "Sex"-- I think I out-Dexed autocorrect eventually, but if you see "Sex said," or "Sex and Kane exchanged glances" know it was the damned program and NOT me! Swear!

* *  *

"Ka--Carlos, quit playing with the manipulatives." 

Kane didn't even look up at him. "If they didn't want us to play with the toys, they shouldna left them here for us to play with," he mumbled. He'd gotten into the bucket of math toys and was making patterns out of the colored stackable blocks.  

"We're trying to look like parents here," Dex hissed. God. They were in a teacher's classroom. Frances was going to pre-school now, the kind where they trained you for Kindergarten. She'd been coming home all happy and excited about learning, and suddenly they'd gotten the note. The note that said their kid had said something inappropriate and now they were in trouble. So here they were, two weeks before Christmas, looking around the classroom like it was worse than a pit of snakes.

Kane probably would have preferred the pit of snakes. 

At the moment, Mrs. Richards, a tiny--as in, sub-5-foot-- woman, was talking soberly to a giantess about no sugary drinks in the lunch, and Dex was trying to remember what Frances had been eating for the past two months.

"What'd you put in her lunch yesterday?" he asked, because Kane had been in charge of dropping off. 

Kane looked up at him blankly. "Bologna, cheese, mayo, wheat bread, apple slices, one cookie and a quarter for milk," he recited. "Why?"

"Well, it's not that." Dex barely refrained from tapping his toes. Dammit-- that note could have been a little more forthcoming.

Little Mrs. Richards said goodbye to the giantess, who lumbered away in what Dex could sympathetically see was mortification.  The tiny teacher--in her fifties, with dyed reddish hair and bright brown eyes--grabbed a folder from the desk and came to sit down at the child's desk where Dex and Kane were sitting with their knees up to their chins.

"How are you all?" she said. "We're Frances Nuno's guardians?"

Dex pushed himself up off the tiny little chair behind him, and bent down to shake her hand. God. Four-foot-nine, maybe. He'd never in his life "loomed" over anyone at the same time he'd been made to feel uncomfortable.

"Hi, ma'am, I'm David Worrall. This is my husband, Carlos Ramirez, we're Frances's uncles."

Woman didn't even blink.  "So lovely to meet you. Do sit down." She winked. "Or, remain sitting, Mr. Ramirez." 

Kane looked up from the blocks and said, "Look, Dex, when you do your times tables in color, it makes a pattern."

Dex blinked. Well, he was right, it did. "That's great," he said sincerely, because he loved watching Kane discover stuff that he'd missed when he'd been small.  There was a wonder on his square jawed face, a purity of heart. It was why he had so much fun playing learning games with Frances. "Kane, uh, Carlos, this is Mrs. Richards. Mrs. Richards, this is Mr. Ramirez."

That made her blink. "Oh-- that makes sense," she said, nodding. "Frances calls you Uncle Dex and Uncle Kane. I didn't realize they were nicknames-- I thought your extended family must be quite large."

Oh shit. Dex swallowed. "Well, uh, yeah." Great. They had a four year old girl calling them by their porn names. They were going to hell.

"So, is one of you named John or Galen or Chase or Tommy?" she asked, still smiling.

Dex shook his head. "No--those are... well, friends. I mean, John's my boss, uh, Galen's his boyfriend.  And Kane's, uh, Carlos's, I mean, you know, Kane's. But... you know. Family."

She nodded. "Oh, of course, I understand. And Uncle Ethan and Uncle Jonah--"

"Also friends," Dex confirmed. "Ethan provided daycare for her for part of last year."

"Yes, I got that impression. She was not happy to leave the babies--I haven't figured out whose they are, but I gathered she only got a couple of months with them."

"We visit," Kane said, voice wounded, and it was time for Dex to intervene.

"Yes-- well, uhm, besides family, was their any other reason for the conference?"

Mrs. Richards gave him a professional smile. "Well, first of all, Frances is very bright. I know you were worried about her language acquisition because she'd been sick as an infant, but she's catching up phenomenally. She says that her Uncle Kane helps her at night, and that he pretends he's not very good at reading to let her help."

Dex and Kane met gazes and Kane grimaced. He'd actually gotten to high school reading level this year, but he still had problems with some words he hadn't been able to pronounce when he'd been small with a cleft palate. Some sort of mental block. 

"Kane's wonderful with her," Dex said softly. "They're really good together." 

The little hobbit or pixy or gnome or whatever smiled. "That's so good to hear. And I understand that not everybody's family situation is usual or the same. But... well, I just have some concerns about her basic knowledge of animals."

Dex straightened, his eyes going big. "Animals?"

To his left, Kane said, "Uh-oh."

That tiny smiled in the wrinkling face became decidedly uncomfortable. "So, Mr. Worrall, we asked the children to tell us a story about animals, and to draw us a picture."

Dex said, "Uh-oh."

Kane said, "Oh my God."

She pulled out the drawing--very colorfully done, in five kinds of crayon. 

"Could you gentlemen explain what this is?"

Dex said "Oh Dear Lord."

Kane said, "I had no idea she saw that."

Mrs. Richards said, "Yes, but what is it? She kept calling it a flower. She said that when the turtle saw his favorite snake, Tomas, he brought it flowers."

"Aw," said Kane. "Isn't that sweet? She thinks the turtle's courting!"

Dex stared a him. "Courting."

"Yeah! Like when I bring you cookies because I fucked something up and I don't want you to be mad."

"You bring me..."

Kane chuckled, the sound disproportionately low and sexy in this child's classroom full of colored paper projects, bright fuzzy yarn, and manipulative toys. "Flowers, Dexter. Get it? Flowers?"

Dex said, "Oh my God."

"So... the turtle does have a flower?" Mrs. Richards asked uncomfortably.

"Well," Dex said, "Uh, all turtles have flowers. All, uh, boy turtles have flowers."

"Oh my God," Said Mrs. Richards.

"Yeah, uh..." Dex looked over his shoulder at Kane, who sort of shrugged. "See... this turtle here is a box turtle. And we usually keep him and his... uh, buddy, outside in a brick tank under the tree. But it's been really stormy lately, and their tanks a little flooded, and they like a little water, but you don't want them to get too cold, you know?"

"So you bring them inside."

"Yeah," Kane said, nodding. "And we have to put them in their old tank, but, you know, turtles get big, and then they break your house!"

"So, the turtles got out?" Mrs. Richards said, sounding a little stunned.

"Yeah," Dex nodded, grateful she seemed to be getting it. "And one of them we could keep in the bathtub.  But the other one kept getting out--"

"He got sort of a hard-o...uh, crush, on my snake," Kane said seriously. 

"Your snake-- so, that's Tomas?"  Like she was making sure.

Dex nodded. "Yeah-- which is sort of fruitless--"

"Tomas is sort of in love with Dex," Kane said, chuckling. "It's not even funny-- that snake fell in love the first time he escaped and found Dex's, uh..."

"Leg," Dex said darkly. Whenever Kane left Tomas out, that animal had an uncanny ability to find Dex's balls. It was like a superpower. 

"Yeah," Kane smirked. "Uh, leg. But this turtle, he's got a crush, and so every day when we leave, he escapes the bathtub and crashes--"

"He broke the door!" Dex said, outraged. "Like, pushed the door so hard it busted the little lock. That fu...uh, animal is breaking my house!"

"Yeah," Kane agreed. "Sorry, Dexter. We should give him to Chase and Tommy-- they've got a big heated terrarium in the baby's room. Anyway-- so we get home the other day, and, well, the damned turtle is, uh..."

"Courting," Mrs. Richards supplied, her eyes big.

Dex nodded. "Courting. He's, uh, courting the snake. Against the glass side of the terrarium."

Dex had actually worried that the terrarium would crack, and then the turtle had finished and they'd just needed a shitton of windex.

"With his 'flower.'" Mrs. Richards clarified.

Dex nodded weakly. "It's not really a flower." 

"She gave the turtle a santa hat," the teacher said, her voice as dry as toast.

"I saw that."  Dex tried his best smile. "It looks great."

"She says all santa turtles bring flowers for snakes, and she knows this because Uncle John and Uncle Galen told her that."

"I swear," Kane muttered. "Galen is a sarcastic, snarky sonuva--"

"But apparently, Uncle Galen told her that the snakes usually hid inside the flowers, and now she's very confused."

"He's a lawyer," Dex  told her without blinking. "They've got a very dry sense of humor."

"So I gather," Mrs. Richards said. "What I would like to know, is how we're going to explain flowers and snakes to a four year old girl."

"Just tell her the turtle's in love," Kane said simply. "Turtles bring flowers, men bring... flowers or, you know, sometimes snakes, and that bringing a gift is never a bad thing even if the snake wants another snake."

Mrs. Richards sighed. "Or I could just tell her that turtle is in love, and turtle penises look like flowers, and that all the men she knows are gay."

"That would work," Dex said, nodding helpfully. "But I think she's figured out about all the men she knows."

"Does she know any women?" Mrs. Richards asked.

"Yeah, yeah-- Kelsey helps Ethan and Jonah watch kids. And, uh, she knows you!" Kane could be charming too when he turned on his dimples.

"Well then. Now that I know what that picture is, and we're all on the same page, I think I can let you gentlemen resume your day."

Dex managed to stand up again, and he gave Kane a hand so Kane could leverage up too. "Thank you, ma'am--"

"Uh, Mr. Ramirez?"

"Yes ma'am?"

"You need to leave the manipulatives here."

Kane sighed. "I swear-- kids have all the best fun."

*  *  *

Dex was still reeling in mortification at the end of the day. He and Kane had taken separate cars to the teacher conference because Kane had school that day, and he got home a little late because he'd needed to pick Frances up from Ethan's after he got off work. He'd tried-- in vain-- to explain the turtles with flowers and santa hats debacle to Ethan and Jonah, but those hosers had lost their nut at the part where the turtle had been fucking the terrarium, and so his humiliation at having the teacher call them in for turtle porn remained unassuaged. 

He walked into the house, Frances trailing after him, wondering what he was going to pull out of his ass for dinner, only to be met with the smell of homemade Kane-made pizza cooking, and a variety of things on and next to the kitchen table. 

Next to the kitchen table was a large, trench-shaped terrarium that hugged the dining room wall and took very little space in their soon-to-be-cramped house. It was made of inch-thick fiberglass, and looked like it would hold against the turtle's very determined courtship--at least until spring hit and they could put the turtles back in the brick terrarium outside.

ON the table was a big old vase of real flowers. With a stuffed snake around the vase.

Kane was in the kitchen tossing salad--actual food, this time, although Dex was starting to feel a strong urge to toss Kane's salad for him at bedtime.  

"Hey," he said, smiling at Kane through a sort of hazy joy. 

"Hey, Dexter. You recovered yet?"

Dex shook his head. He and Frances had held the "Turtles in love" discussion in the car on the way home and he was still traumatized. "Nope," he said bleakly. "Still a little..."

Kane grinned and came around the counter. "Frances, bunny, go put your backpack in your room, okay?"

"Okay, Unca Carlos.  Love you!"

"Love you too."

He kissed her on the top of her little head and she skipped off, probably to play with her dolls before dinner.

Then he stood and pulled Dex by the hips until their groins touched. "You sure you're not recovered?"

"We got called in for a teacher's conference because our niece saw turtle porn," Dex said, feeling the embarrassment deeply. "They're gonna take away our parent card for this, Carlos."

Kane laughed gently, and pulled Dex's head so he could whisper in his ear. "Would you like to see my snake, Dexter? Cause it sure would like to explore your flower tonight?"

Reluctantly, Dex smiled. "Sex? Can we call it sex?" he asked plaintively. 

"I'll go you one better, Dexter. You and I will fuck tonight, until neither one of us can see straight. After this afternoon, we're totally due."

Dex kissed him-- he had to. Because snakes and turtles might be destined for unhappy endings, but he and Kane were going to have a happy ending of their own that night, and he was so damned grateful he could cry.