Why Did the Snakes Cross the Road? Part 2

So this is a continuation from yesterday’s post wherein I put random characters in the middle of a great snake migration for no other reason than to see what they would do.  Now, when I post these ficlets, there’s usually one or two naughty scenes, but this time… well… I was having trouble.

I mean, my guys usually have pretty strong libidos, right? But they’re sitting in a middle of a snake migration. I mean… snakes.

So, of course, I had to ask my bestie. “Hey–which of my characters are DTF?”

Then I had to explain what DTF meant, but then, she gave me the perfect suggestion. You’ll know them when you see them.

So enjoy–and Merry Christmas from me and mine!

*  *  *

Harry and Suriel– Familiar Angel

 One minute Harry was driving the empty U-haul along a deserted road, Suriel sitting sunnily next to him, talking about how grateful their last batch of rescues had been to be reunited with family, and the next minute, he’d slammed on the brakes, threw the truck into park, and turned cat.

Very angry, hissing cat.

“Harry!” Suriel snapped. “Harry! I know they startled you, but I can’t drive the truck!”

Harry spat, leaping to the front window and clawing at the glass. Oh my God! Look at them! Writhing deadly nightmares! Harry the human could pull out a gun and kill them–but Harry the human didn’t like senseless slaughter.

Harry the cat, on the other hand, would be a fair fight. Between his magic and his enhanced hunting capabilities, Harry could go out into the wild, take down the snake colony, and feel good about himself.

Except Suriel had picked him up by the scruff of the neck and was shaking him gently. “Harry!” he snapped, “You have more intelligence than this! I have no magic, but you’ve studied for over a century.”

Harry growled, low in his throat, his tail lashing behind him. He twisted his body and gestured with his paw–could Suriel not see that one of his most primal enemies had the snake-sticles to cross the road unchecked. The logical thing to do was roll down the window and let Harry go out and fight!

Harry had always been their best fighter, and since Edward and Francis were in another car that apparently didn’t take this turnoff, this was Harry’s job and Harry’s job alone!

“No,” Suriel said, flat-eyed. Suriel didn’t tell him no often.

Harry spat and tried to claw his wrist, to show him that he didn’t like no.

“I don’t care if you don’t like no,” Suriel told him, magnificent brow lowered, angry brown eyes snapping with irritation. “You know better. Killing is never the answer.”

Still dangling by the scruff of his neck, Harry licked his paw to indicate boredom. Yes, telepathy was one of his first spells, but cat-language sometimes got the point across so much better.

“Harry…” Suriel warned. “You know I’m right.”

Harry rolled his eyes. You would think an angel would be less tolerant of a species that was said to bring down the entire human race, but no. Apparently that was a stupid human prejudice, and Suriel was all about enlightenment.    

Harry didn’t need enlightenment. He could clean his balls on the front seat of the car all day.

Suriel took a deep breath and tossed his glorious red-gold hair back. “I’m not putting you down until you turn–“

“Ouch,” Harry snapped. “Let go of my hair.”

“Have we come to our senses?” Suriel asked, and Harry’s brother Edward would have sounded like a sarcastic snotty twat.  Suriel sounded… sincere. As though the entire hissing episode were merely a lapse in judgment.

Harry scowled at the road, but he couldn’t bring himself to yell at Suriel. Of course, yelling at an angel was never a good idea, but now that Suriel’s wings were gone, Harry knew that it was only his love–real, passionate, eternal–for the man at his side that kept Harry from loosing the full fury of his razor tongue on Suriel’s tender back.

“What do you suggest I do?”  Harry stared at the arrogant fuckers crossing the road like his looks alone could frighten them into unmaking. “If I so much as drive the truck I’ll squash them all and wouldn’t that defeat the point?”

“You lack imagination,” Suriel said, sounding disappointed.

Oh God. Anything but disappointment. All they’d gone through to be together, and the idea of disappointing Suriel was one of Harry’s worst fears.

“What would you suggest?” Harry asked humbly, and to his dismay, Suriel shrugged.

“I don’t know what skills you have, Harry–or at least not all of them. But I do know you have more at your disposal than death and killing. Please–for me? Could you at least try something besides slaughtering the innocent beasts of the brush?”

Oh, fine. Harry closed his eyes, centered himself, and summoned one of his most difficult spells.  In his mind’s eye, he saw a brand of fire, and he used it to write the words, Latin this time, When serpents fly my way is clear. 


Because seriously– couldn’t the primal nightmares just get the fuck out of the way?

He grunted and waved his hand, and next to him, Suriel gasped in wonder. Harry looked up from his pout and felt his scowl loosen up a little.

They still slithered in the air, their muscular bodies sinuous and graceful. They didn’t look down, they didn’t panic, they just kept going, like if they made their bodies do what instinct told them, then the absence of ground beneath their bellies was immaterial. A swarm of them, continuing in their same path, their same pace, as the snakes migrated from dry high ground to wet low ground, and water, and safety, and relief from the searing heat.

They did look fairly impressive.

Harry kept muttering the spell until the last one he’d reached out for had sailed over the road and been deposited, none the worse for the air, down on the other side.

“Can we go n–“

Suriel leaned across the seat and kissed him on the cheek, and the last of Harry’s resentment faded. He turned and captured his angel’s mouth, tasting his very human warmth, and the joy that apparently came with not running out like a furry barbarian to battle.

“Mm…” Suriel pulled back and rubbed noses with him. “Thank you, brave Harry.”

Harry’s smile was unfettered and fond. “Anything for you, my angel,” he told him truthfully. “Shall we–“

In his head, he heard Edward, telepathy set on “freaked out”. Holy Jesus, Harry, did you see the fucking flying snakes? What in the holy hell was that? Frances is trying to chew the window glass with his fucking teeth!


Harry grunted. “We freaked Edward and Frances out,” he told Suriel, only a little cross. Cool your jets. Suriel didn’t want to see blood.


Edward’s voice in his head was just as sarcastic as Harry had anticipated. Well if you’d killed them fast enough, he wouldn’t have had to see it!


Look Edward–he doesn’t like senseless slaughter. They weren’t hurting anybody. He maybe has a point, you think?


Tell him I’ll forgive him when I get a chance to change my drawers and calm Frances down. There was a subtle shift, then, and Harry could picture is brother’s cool amusement. That really was amazing, Harry. We should try that again in battle someday.


Harry grinned, fierce and feral, and Suriel’s own expression in the car grew wary.

“What?” he asked. “What is that look?”

Harry just shook his head and put the truck back in gear. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I just think the next battle we have with the bad guys is going to be very interesting, that’s all.”

Suriel groaned. “This is all my fault, isn’t it?”

Harry thought of launching all nearby serpents at the last bevy of human traffickers they’d faced. “Nope,” he said, chuckling evilly. “Not even at all.”

Suriel sighed, but placed his warm hand on Harry’s knee through his jeans. “Just drive,” he said, resigned. “I liked that last hotel we visited very much. Perhaps this one will have a bed just as large.”

Harry shifted to the next gear, thought of Suriel, relaxed and grateful and naked on clean white sheets, and purred.

* * *

Ace and Sonny, Racing for the Sun


“You could have fuckin’ run them over, Ace. You know that, right? Fuckin’ snakes got no business in the fuckin’ road–you’re the bigger predator, you coulda fuckin’ taken them out.”

I glanced at Sonny and then glanced back at the snakes, appreciating the quiet hum of the borrowed SUV we were driving even if it did handle like shit. “It wouldn’t be fair,” I told him. “They got no self-defense when we’re in a car. It’s mean.”

Sonny growled. “I don’t give a shit. They’re in our fuckin’ way.”

“Yeah, well, it’s we’re trying to be better people than that,” I told him with dignity. An old snake, a big motherfucker, started to drift close to our front tire. I caught its eye and glared, cause not on my fuckin’ watch was that thing crawling up into our engine or through our ventilation, and the snake seemed to take the hint because it backed off. I reminded myself I was a better person and stared at the road ahead of me in something like despair. Next to me, Sonny was so desperate for something to dothat he practically twitched.

“We could play twenty questions,” I said hopefully. Sonny didn’t like word games usually, but this was not a usual situation.

“Okay, I’ll start. Why aren’t we runnin’ over the fuckin’ snakes again?”

“Because they weren’t hurting anything,” I snapped. “It’s like us. I’m not exactly an innocent little fuckin’ flower, Sonny, but unless you kick me or hurt my people I don’t bite. So we’re not killing snakes because they’re not hurting us, so leave it at that, okay?”

Sonny moaned and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, Ace,” he mumbled. “But nobody else is on this road–I’m starting to think that gate shoulda been closed, not open.”

I grunted and moved my hand to his neck so I could squeeze gently. “I think you’re right,” I said glumly. “I think we might be the only car for miles. But it’s almost dark, and I don’t think they do this at night. Let’s give them until sundown, okay? They’re already starting to taper off. See over there? It’s a turnoff. If we can just get the next thirty feet to the turnoff, we can turn this thing around and get the fuck out of here.”

Sonny moaned softly, coming apart in my hand as I worked some of the tension out of his muscles. “That’s a good plan,” he conceded, melting a little into the front seat. I dropped my hand and he stretched, hands over his head, and I appreciated the tightness of his scrawny little body. I made sure the car was in park and turned a little, so I could run my hand from his neck down to the softness of his concave abdomen. He shifted, sensuous as snake under my palm.

“Mm… that’s real nice, Ace. How hot is it outside?”

I glanced at the gauge on the dashboard. “High 70’s,” I said, wondering at the question.

“Will the snakes crawl up into the engine?” he asked, and I shrugged, hitting the gas pedal a couple of times to rev it.

“Don’t think so–engine’s hot and they’re looking for cool. It’s not exactly cold out there. Why?”

“Can we turn off the car?”

I sighed. I did appreciate good air conditioning but was probably for the best. It wasn’t like we didn’t live in the fuckin’ desert anyway, and the swamp cooler in our house was plum defeated in the hell of the summer. I killed the engine and the dampness of night in the deep South crept along our skin.

“We good now?” I asked, making sure.

He looked at me sideways, blue eyes wicked in the fading light. “Kiss me,” he said. “Then we will be.”

Oh. I smiled as I leaned over the island so I could take his mouth. He lunged into the kiss, like touching my skin was cool water on this sultry night, and I mauled him like he kept me sane.

Our touch started out passionate and amped up to incendiary in short order, kicking up even higher when I rucked up his T-shirt so I could suck on his pointy little nipples. I loved the way his body quivered in my arms, loved how once there were no prying eyes on us, he was so completely mine.

He grunted and lifted his hips, shoving his cargo shorts down to his angles and then turning in the seat so his back was against the car door.

He spread his thighs, exposing his cock and taint for me and dared me with his eyes to leave him high and dry.

Like I’d ignore an invitation like that. I gobbled his cock down, sucking his hardness to the back of my throat and gagging slightly–but not pulling back.

He cried out, dragging his nails over my scalp and thrusting into my mouth. He didn’t used to beg like this, didn’t use to be so shameless, but two years of us sharing a bed, fucking, sharing our skin like partners, and he made me proud by offering himself like his body was the thing I wanted most in the world.

I pulled back enough to let my spit slip from under my lips, coating him, letting more spit slide down between his cheeks so I could thrust a finger inside him. He grabbed his asscheeks and spread them wide, and I groaned. Of course I wanted more than a finger, but I didn’t have any lube. Sonny’d let me fuck him like an animal, but I didn’t do that. He deserved better.

I spat and thrust two fingers, shivering as he moaned, and then took him in my mouth again, shuddering as he breached the back of my throat.  Nobody tells you how good a cock feels in your mouth, how badly you’ll crave it when you’re sucking someone you’re crazy for, someone who’s crazy for you.

He cried out again and bucked, and begged, “More! Harder! Faster! God, Ace–I fuckin’ need–yes!”

I plunged my fingers as deep as I could and sucked him all the way down and he cried out, ass arching off the new upholstery as he came down my throat, body shivering around my fingers, hands flailing until I held up my hand and laced fingers with him. He moaned then, tightening his fingers and spilling one last spit of come down my throat, and I shuddered, hard and aching in my own shorts.

He pushed at my head which meant he was getting sore and I pulled off, grabbing some napkins from the side of the door to wipe off my mouth and my hand.

“God, that was good,” he rasped. “How you doin’? You need any, uh–?”

I grunted and turned around straight in the seat so my abs didn’t cramp. I was hard and aching, but I was also suddenly aware of our surroundings again. I turned the engine over, concerned when I heard a thump, but the sound quickly resolved itself.  With the engine running, I hit the lights and saw that the road was clear now.

“I’d love some,” I told him, “But we’re about forty-five minutes from our hotel after we hit the main road, and I’d rather get some then, if that’s okay.”

Sonny grinned at me, dirty and evil. “You’re way more grownup, Ace. I can let you suck me off pretty much anywhere and any time.”

I winked at him as I put the SUV into gear. “I’m happy to oblige,” I told him, the taste of his come strong like whiskey on my tongue.  He chuckled and pulled his shorts up and did his belt as I pulled forward.

We’d made the turnaround and were heading back on the other side of the road when I saw it. Sonny was playing with the radio, and I didn’t say anything, but there it was–the mangled corpse of a snake who’d probably gotten caught up in our engine when I’d turned the key.

I felt a little bad as we made our way through the Georgia night toward a hotel and a shower and God, yes, my share of the blowjobs, cause I was in need. The snake hadn’t thought he was doing wrong, just got caught in the wrong place, wrong time, that was all. But then, if he’d gotten up through the ventilation, he woulda been a problem for Sonny and me–might even have bitten one of us, and that would be bad, because I’d kill for Sonny and he didn’t function too well without me.

With that thought, I stopped feeling bad. We were like snakes, Sonny and I. We did our own thing and we didn’t hurt nobody–unless somebody hurt us. From one snake to another, that copperhead had been lucky. I had my brother’s knife on me, and if he’d bitten one of us, his ending wouldn’t be nearly so clean as the three pieces I’d seen on the road as we drove away.

As we hauled through the dark night to the safety ahead, I didn’t give that snake anymore thought than he probably gave his last meal.

And I had Sonny’s sweet mouth and sweet ass in my future, and after that, I had his company as we ate dinner and watched TV. That was my shelter, my low ground and water at night, and I’d kill anyone who tried to get in my way.

* * *
Dex and Kane– Dex in Blue

“Kane, you psychopath, I love you, I love you so goddamned much, but if you open that door I want a divorce.”

“But Dexter! Look at them!” The awe in Kane’s voice was unmistakeable. “They’re beautiful!”

Dex suppressed a shudder. “Yeah, sure. They’re beautiful. But look at their heads!”  He could admit that snakes possessed a certain muscular beauty, and Kane had made him hold Tomas, their garter snake, often enough for Dex to admire the smoothness of his scales, and the miracle of the way he moved.

But that was one non-venomous snake in controlled circumstances.

This was like a cgi nightmare designed to make fun of people who liked snakes.

“Oh yeah.”  Kane nodded with authority, assessing the wide, flat head of a snake with venom suppositories behind its teeth . “They’re copperheads–totally poisonous. I mean, they’re not interested in us, so much, but you’re right. We’d need equipment and shit–gloves and those long hooks and some antivenin–but it would totally be worth it, right?”

Kane turned his shining face toward Dex and his heart melted. He patted Kane’s shoulder and gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile and not a green death’s head grimace. “Who knows, baby–maybe you finish your degree, you’ll find a job that’ll let you do just that.”

“Yeah.” For a moment Kane slumped forward. “But not this spring.”  He was in all the classes that had not a damned thing to do with snakes or science this spring.  Dex knew it would happen–sooner or later every college student ended up with that semester that made them wonder if requirements weren’t just some sadists way of making young people suffer. Kane had spent a year taking classes, and while his enthusiasm for animals hadn’t dimmed one jot, his confidence that he’d be able to pass all his classes was a little low.

“Hey,” Dex soothed. “You know, maybe you’ll learn something surprising this year. Maybe you’ll get to research weird jobs, or the history of zoology or something.”

“You think?” Kane straightened hopefully. “Like, snake stories? Think we’d learn any snake stories?”

Dex smiled a little and took his hand, kissing the knuckles tenderly. “Like, one day two goombah’s are driving down the road after a Johnnies gig in Atlanta and one of them goes, ‘Hey, Dexter, I think we can take a shortcut here?'”

Kane chuckled a little, and rubbed Dex’s cheek with his knuckle. “And then they saw all these snakes, and the guy driving who doesn’t even like snakes stopped, because even though he doesn’t like snakes he’s still a good guy and didn’t want to hurt things even if they could hurt him.”

Aw. That was sweet. Dex would never tell him that he’d stopped out of sheer dumb panic. “Sure.  And then they had to sit and wait for it to get dark so they could turn around and get the hell out of there, and they didn’t have anything to do so–“

“They fucked?” Kane said hopefully.

Dex shuddered. “No.” Oh God no. Surrounded by snakes? Dex spent half his day on the computer–he’d seen footage of snakes coming through ventilation. And he’d spent a couple of nights with Tomas curled up by his balls. “Not gonna happen.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” Kane said sunnily.

Even though Kane had been the one who navigated him into this situation. “Nope.”

“So what did they do next?”

Dex let out a long breath. “They tell each other what they’re gonna do when one of them gets out of school and the other stops editing porn.”

Kane’s low, dirty laugh echoed through the car. “But you said we couldn’t do that here.”

Dex chuckled. “Besides that. Like, what if you could work at the zoo?”

“Yeah… or what if we could manage a reptile store?”

Ooh. “Both of us?”

“Yeah. And when Frances gets older she could work behind the counter and we could all do it together and we could have bunnies and mice in a different room and…”

And together, they spun a tale of far away in the future, when Kane could have animals to his hearts content, and Dex could manage everything in their world to perfection.

And the snakes could migrate majestically on.