Title: Creepy Crawlies
Author: Esynnaj
Email: vebesahchalarc@sbcglobal.net
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Genre: Slash
Permission to Archive: WWOMB, CSI Slash, all others please ask first
Pairing: Gil/Warrick
Rating: FRAO
Warnings: Slight spoilers for "Grave Danger" and "Bodies in Motion"
Summary: Grissom's love of all things from the land of reptiles bugs Warrick.
Disclaimer: CSI and all characters from it belong to CBS Productions, Touchstone Television, Alliance Atlantis Communications and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Acknowledgement: Thank you, Karen, for the challenge. You are very much appreciated.
CREEPY CRAWLIES
Warrick hadn't wanted to call off for the coming shift, but I had insisted. Despite all the medication I had been force feeding him and heavy doses of his grandmother's healing chicken soup, he was still running the residue of what had a high fever a couple of days ago, still suffering from a lingering cough that had been lung rattling. He still could barely pull oxygen into a severely stuffed nose. Even through the door of the small, in home laboratory, where I kept my aquariums, containers and cages of insects, arachnids and other creatures, I heard excruciating sounds as he tried to breathe through simultaneously clogged up and runny nasal passages. I leaned over to open the door and call to him, "I can hear you sniffing out there. You aren't feeling all that much better yet, are you?"
"Hell no."
"Ricky, are you sure you're up to still handing out candy to the trick or treaters?"
"Yeah, I am and wish you'd stop asking. As long as I don't breathe on them or the candy, it's all good. Besides, I'm not about to have you running back and forth in and out of the bug room with your hairy eight legged freaks out and about loose in there. They'd end up out here terrorizing these kids for real. Give 'em heart attacks so their parents sue us. Besides, it's getting late and things are starting to slow down. All the mommies and daddies are finally beginning to take the tiny tykes home. The last few have been teenagers bigger'n me who're mainly out to commandeer some candy."
"Well, if you do start feeling too tired, just let me know and I'll take over for awhile."
"Nah, don't worry about it. Just make sure you've put everything up in there before you go into work. Those spiders aren't dogs, Gil. It ain't like they gotta go on daily walks, ya know."
"Every caged creature needs freedom, Warrick. Have a heart."
I went back to what I was doing, but couldn't concentrate. Warrick had been mainly stretched on the sofa watching a series of national and college basketball games except for the times when he answered the door bell to hand out candy. On one of those trips, as he walked by and I caught sight of him strolling back to the sofa, I suddenly found I preferred his attention on me rather than on the television. I had been puttering about transferring a new collection of spiders I'd ordered over the Internet to their traveling boxes to glass and wire cages but accidentally on purpose allowed one of the larger and hairier but patently harmless arachnids to escape. Then I sat back and was very still after shooing it in the direction of the living room to watch it scurry out toward where Warrick had returned to sit.
I giggled, which I'll never openly admit that I sometimes will do in private, as I heard an incensed, high pitched yelp of unmanly surprise, followed by a litany of colorful curses. I rose and strolled in to discover Warrick camped on the back of the sofa, his stocking feet planted on the seat cushions, securely out the path of the spider rushing across the floor.
Giving me a baleful stare as he shot a long finger at me, he indignantly snapped, sounding terribly congested, "Goddamnit, Grissom, you and your bugs are gonna be the death of me!!!"
Kneeling down to gently recapture the spider which was trying to disappear beneath the leather sofa, I explained, "It isn't a bug, Warrick, it's a spider and it's not one that can hurt you."
Sniffling and snarling under his breath, Warrick followed from a safe distance as I returned the spider to the room where my other specimens were and put it in its container. With the spider caged, he peered over my shoulder and grumbled, "Well, how the hell was I supposed to know that? When something looks dangerous; and that damned thing does; the assumption of a body interested in self preservation; that, in this case, being me; is that it is dangerous. If it walks like a duck, then it is a duck. Therefore, Gil Grissom, if that thing ever again comes anywhere near me and my toes, it's gonna get stomped on."
After his very unkind pronouncement, Warrick turned and stalked back to the living room to plant himself right back in front of the television I had, unsuccessfully, tried to pry him away from. Hearing his threat to stomp my spider was a tad annoying and alarming, so I continued to putter with them instead of dealing with Warrick and his self-righteous, insect hating attitude. Well, just for that, maybe I should have let one of the snakes from the collection I was taking care of for Steve Gardner while he was out of town out into the living room rather than the spider.
Warrick's not afraid of any man or woman walking the face of the Earth, but does admit to being nervous about reptiles or mammals smaller than a rat with the capacity to bite or climb up his trouser leg. And like many other human beings, snakes rank much higher on his anxiety scale than my spiders. No matter how often I've tried to inform him how snakes keep the rodent population manageable, how useful they are to society and the environment and how most of them are as harmless as my spiders, my explanations have fallen on deaf ears.
His final words on the subject are always, "Gotcha on that, Gris and sorry, but we ain't gonna come to a meeting of the minds on this. I've told you about the time Grams and I were visiting relatives in North Carolina when I was a kid and a milk snake fell outa this bush onto my head and slid down inside my shirt. It was biting me and I was screaming hysterically and nobody could figure out what was wrong and it took me forever to get it outa there. I can't get over that. I can still feel the thing wriggling around against my back and its fangs stinging me like it was just yesterday. By the time I got done clawing that fucker outa my shirt, I'd choked it to death with my bare hands, but was in shock or something and still screaming. I couldn't let go of the goddamned snake. It was dead, but my uncle still had to pry it outa my hands. So I don't care how many good points they got or how much you tell me they're not slimy. They're still slithery and wiggly and the thought of touching one makes my skin crawl. Even the ones that aren't poisonous still bite. Hell, sometimes I turn queasy just from lookin' at 'em. One touch me, it'd be heart attack or stroke time for me. Far as I'm concerned, only good snake is a dead snake, thank you very much. Otherwise, they'd best keep to their territory while I keep to mine. Both of us will live longer that way."
So, I hadn't told Warrick about the four nonpoisonous, completely harmless black snakes I had been keeping for more than a week and a half while Steve was on vacation. He teaches middle school special ed and had purchased the snakes for his classroom because he had discovered most of his kids were interested in all kinds of examples of the animal kingdom. The kids have a small creature menagerie ranging from guinea pigs to fish and, since Steve hadn’t wanted his substitutes to be responsible for them, he had parceled them out to families of his students or friends. With too many of them either unwilling to keep the snakes due to the negativity humans have for most reptiles, particularly snakes, or having little knowledge about their care and not wanting to learn, I had volunteered to keep them for him.
Knowing how Warrick felt about snakes, I hadn't told him about them being in the condo, thinking they'd only be there a couple of weeks and gone without him having to know they were ever there, since he never goes into what he referred to as my bug room unless I'm with him. I fed them just before I left for work and will never know how they got out. I'm sure I closed the latch on their cage door, I'm absolutely positive that I did. I could not have possibly left it open. I couldn't've made a passive/aggressive, Freudian slip like that, just because Warrick was being uncooperative, could I have...?
His being sick and unable to come into the lab was a definite irritant. I never enjoy my job as much when he's not there. Even if he's not in the office when I am or and is working a crime scene that I'm not, just the realization he's on the clock at the same time as I am somehow comforts me, always has and always will. Even before we admitted our mutual love and begun our relationship, I'd let him get away with things I shouldn't have or protected him more than I ever had any other staff members under my supervision solely to assure he remained employed as a LVPD forensic scientist. His presence is necessary to me and I prefer it on a 24/7 basis.
I had been gladdened to discover this feeling is as mutual as our love. Others have noted that he tends to be restless and out of sorts whenever I'm not around and, on my nights off, he calls to wake me up just to hear my voice much more than I'll do to him. The mere notion of that melts the cold away from my heart and reinforces my recognition that he loves me as much as I love him, a phenomena I had once thought of as unlikely. It hadn't been nearly as difficult to admit I cared for him as it had been to allow him into a continual and permanent forever partnership with me. I also must acknowledge he's been wonderfully patient about letting me define the boundaries of our lives together and fitting himself into them.
Just as he effectively and efficiently deals with my array of emotional quirks and quibbles, it's only fair that I deal with his temper and tendency to put his mouth in gear before his brain is engaged as coolly as possible. Therefore, when I got the call on my cell and it was an indignant Warrick enraged to a near point of furiously cursing speechlessness, I knew there was a problem I was going to have to handle.
All of us, Catherine, Nick, Sara and myself, were at a scene where a neighbor had heard screams from nearby and, upon checking them out, seen a man come from a house across the street to wrestle a limp woman into a car then run back and forth several times, loading the trunk with bulging plastic bags. The neighbor had called the police and they had arrived to find the front door open, nobody home and splattered blood in several locations within the house. That meant my team and I had to be called in.
I was taking another look at the pattern of the blood spray, walking away from it then returning to examine it from a fresh angle, when my cell rang. As soon as I put it to my ear, I heard, "Gris?!! Is this you, Gris?!! This better be you!! This's all your fault!! I KNOW this's all your fault!! There's SNAKES in here!! They're all over the place and I ain't havin' it!! You'd better get back here and do something about 'em right now or I'm gonna shoot every one of the muthafuckers!!!"
"Are you telling me the snakes are out?"
"Oh, what, now you suddenly don't speak English?!!! Isn't that what I just said?!!!"
"Warrick, you need to calm down. They're very tame, nonpoisonous black racers, so can't do you any serious injury. They move fast, but will only move away from you, as they're much more afraid of you that you are of them."
"BULLSHIT!! That is BULLSHIT!! No fuckin' WAY can they be more afraid of me than I am of them!!!"
"Warrick, they won't hurt you at all if you just stay away from them."
"What the HELL do you think I'm tryin' to do?!! That's ALL I'm doing!!! I didn't go in there where they were!! They came out here where I was!! You come home!!! You come home right the fuck now!!!"
"Ricky, I can't do that. I'm on a scene right now and can't leave just yet. But we're almost finished here and I'll be there as soon as I can."
"No!! No!! That's not good enough!! These snakes have taken over!! You need to come home now!! WHY are they here, Gil?!! What the FUCK are they doing here?!!! I agreed to live with you and your bugs!! I NEVER said a goddamned thing about living with any goddamned snakes!!!"
His voice had risen to such a level, I had to hold the phone away from my ear as he repeatedly informed me in no uncertain terms that I had to come home and come home now because of my blasted snakes' escape. I listened to his tirade for a moment then replied quietly, "Warrick, I said I'll be there as soon as I can."
That was absolutely not what he wanted to hear. After a few seconds of simmering silence, he snarled, "Gris, I don't care what you're doing!!! If you're not home in the next 15 minutes, I'm gonna put so many holes in these snakes, you'll be able to skin 'em, sew 'em together and use 'em for a net!!"
"Warrick, please don't do that. They won't hurt you and they're not mine. I'm keeping them for a friend."
"Well, whoever that may be, he or she is no friend of mine and you can tell 'em I shot the goddamn snakes for whatever stupid reason you want, including I did it to preserve the sanctity and security of my home or what you seem to wanna insist is my superfluous instinct for survival!! You can tell 'em whatever the fuck you want, but I swear before God, you'll definitely be telling 'em their snakes are dead if you don't come home RIGHT THE HELL NOW!!!"
"Warrick, you've got to be practical about this. You know I can't do that."
That, of course, was totally unacceptable. And, after stringing together an exasperated sequence of unintelligible and nonsensical noises apparently reiterating all of what he had just said, he hung up on me. That was disturbing. I can't stand it when Warrick's discontented with me, even if his reasons for being so are ill-defined, illogical and unwarranted. As I stood there staring at the dead phone like it could make sense of this man with whom I was so unusually and deliciously in love to consequently tell me how to make him happy, Catherine broke into my reverie, asking with the cruelest laughter running through her voice, "Trouble on the homefront, Gil?"
I turned to see her, Nick and Sara crowding around me. She and Nick had grins on their faces, but Sara was studying me with that remote gravity she'd displayed toward me since Warrick and I had openly expressed the fact that were together and moved into our jointly owned condo. Nick waved apologetically as he said, "Sorry. We didn't mean to eavesdrop. But Warrick was talkin' kinda loud. Even from 20 feet away, it wasn't especially hard to hear what he was saying."
Sara said, "We're about done with this crime scene, Grissom. I can pack up and go over there to put the snakes up for ya. I'm not afraid of them like Warrick is."
After cutting a brief glance at Sara, Nick said, "Warrick's got good reasons for being afraid of snakes. One bit him when he was about eight or nine years old."
"Yeah, I've heard that story," Sara said. "His grandmother told it at that Christmas dinner we had over at her house a few years ago. But she said it was just a garden snake. I don't know why it's such a big deal now. Warrick's a grown man and should behave like one instead of calling and whining to his boss when he's at work about something that's so unimportant."
Catherine had to put her two cents in, saying and still sounding too amused, "He IS behaving like a grown man. Most men are, way down deep and whether they wanna admit it or not, great big babies. Gil, there's nothing much else we can do here. It'll take about ten minutes to finish up. All the pertinent evidence's been collected. All we really have to do now is get it back to the lab. After that, we can all go over to your place. From how Warrick was sounding, you might appreciate having a little back-up to run interference for ya, once you get home."
I sighed. "I'd like to say that's needless, but you may be right. He certainly won't be pleased that I can't be there for him for another hour or more."
Nick asked, sounding worried, "Are you sure he'll be all right until then? I mean, he's really, really scared of snakes, Grissom."
I smiled, shaking my head, "I'm sure Warrick's much stronger than he gives himself credit for being and will be just fine until we can get to him."
When I unlocked the door to our condominium and the four of us walked in, I discovered that, oh my, Warrick Brown is infinitely fine. He had been squatting on the safety of the dining room, peering sternly about at the floor with narrowed eyes but turned that squint on me as I entered. He was wearing nothing but one of the pairs of colorful silk boxers I'd bought for him and rose from his kneeling position, slowly coming up like lovely, midnight madness, a darkling male Venus rising from the foam of the sea. Once he had reached his full height, holding a loaded Colt 45 in one hand and a broom in the other, he stilled to resentfully say nothing, just glare emerald green fire flecked with golden spears of heated fury at me.
He shook the broom he had in one hand and I heard, as we walked toward him, Catherine breathe deeply as she murmured, "Oh, he really is mad, isn't he? You see that look on his face? He's furious with you. That's a look of your ass is grass." She dug me in the ribs as she added, "But, you know what else? God, Gil, he looks like one of those Masai warrior in National Geographic about to go out and shoot or spear himself a lion or something, standing up there and all frowned up. You know, you be around a person day and day out, you forget how beautiful they really are until you get the opportunity to see 'em like this. You are to be congratulated. That is one prime piece of meat you've got brought down there."
"I'm very much aware of that, Catherine, and if you don't have anything to say that's less transparently chauvinistic and more relevant to the current situation, I suggest you start looking for the snakes so I can convince him to climb down from the table, which I'm confident he won't do until we can assure him the snakes are back in their cage."
"Hey, I never said I was gonna look for snakes, never said anything about going near one. That was all Sara and Nick. What I say was I'd come along to lend you moral support when you talked to Warrick."
"If that's the case, you can have a seat and relax. I believe I can handle this myself without your assistance because he doesn't look as mad as I thought he'd be."
"Fine then, I'll just do that." With those words, Catherine flounced over to the sofa, sat down upon it, spread both arms on the back, purred softly just like a contented cat who had just finished a bowl of cream laced with catnip, cocked her head and gazed at me with a smile that exactly matched the attitude of a cuddly kitten with a whip.
Turning from her, I glanced at Sara to see her still staring at Warrick and tried to imagine what sort of thoughts were going through her mind. I knew they were new thoughts from the changes flitting across her solemn brown gaze. With Warrick being mostly naked as he was and looking like an orgasm come to life, I could guess what she was thinking and doubted if she'd ever thought of Warrick as a sexual creature. Nor, until this very instant of seeing him mounted on our dining room table had she ever truly considered the connection between him and me beyond as anything beyond an emotional bonding. But she obviously was now, for she glanced sharply at me with a transparent grimace of displeasure revealing her assured aversion to the notion of any kind of sexual interaction between myself and Warrick. However, she said nothing about this, just asked, "How many snakes are we looking for, Grissom?"
I said simply, "Four."
Pointing to the area of the living room where we had installed Warrick's sound system, she told me, "Snakes like warm, dark, closed in spaces. I'll start looking over there," before striding away to bend down and begin carefully peering around and under various pieces of furniture.
Nick had strolled up to Warrick with his hands locked behind his back, was grinning and asking him as if he had no knowledge whatsoever of the circumstances, "Whatcha doin', Warrick? Why're you standing up on the table like that, man? Whatcha doin' that for, huh? You're gonna ruin the finish on that pretty table, standing up there like that."
"Nick," Warrick growled, "Don't fuck with me, man. I am not in the mood."
"You're in a bad mood?" Nick inquired in an increasingly entertained and singsong voice which must have been driving Warrick's blood pressure to its limit. "Why're you in a bad mood, Warrick? Why on earth is that? What COULD have put you in a bad mood like this?"
"You know damned well what. You wouldn't be here if you didn't. So, make yourself useful and go find the stupid snakes. You're the country boy around here. Call 'em or whistle for 'em, go blow your horn or ring your bell, just do whatever it is you do to get tame animals to come to you out in the sticks, so you can bag and tag these bastards and I can get back on the floor." Warrick glared death at me as I approached him, snarling, "It's about fuckin' time you got here. It took you forever. These snakes ARE tame, aren't they, Gris? That IS what you said, right?"
I walked up the table to calmly crook a finger up at him a few times and tell him, "Come down here to me, Warrick." After a moment's resentful hesitation, he knelt on one knee near enough to me for me to grip his chin so I could kiss him gently and whisper, "I love you, Ricky, and I'd never bring anything into our home that could hurt you. You know me well enough to realize that."
He sighed, very softly, put the gun on the table and laid his head on my shoulder as he said, "But man, I've TOLD you how much I hate snakes and told you why. Even if they couldn't hurt me, how could you bring 'em in here without telling me first, when you already knew that?"
I could feel him trembling and that, more than anything, finally made me fully aware of the desperation he must've felt when he had been alone with the snakes and how much he must've really wanted me to come home. Massaging his neck, I said to him, "Sometimes, Warrick, I'm an old fuddy-duddy who walks around with blinders on. You and your grandmother were always laughing when you told the story of how a snake went down the back of your shirt that time, so I assumed the incident hadn't left any negative aftereffects and that you had a similar distaste for snakes and other creatures that crawl on their belly as most people do. I honestly didn't think it was such a pathological distaste, that it would end up with you walking up and down on our dining room table. You were a sight up there, Ricky. Catherine said you looked like a Masai warrior. As for me, I thought you looked more than a Greek god."
Somehow, I didn't think Warrick was in the type of a frame of mind to appreciate being compared to a goddess, so I left him with the grandeur of godhood instead. In consideration of the fact fear, not hatred, had put him up on that table, I dared not say anything that might further bruise his ego. He laughed at my remark, working his head close to the joint of my shoulder and neck while turning it to mouth my throat, which sent all kinds of sweet thrills through me.
"You're both nuts," he was telling me as he finally laid his gun down after being sure the safety was on and was about to say something else when we heard Nick yell, "Hey!! I got one!!" A moment later, he came strolling up with one of his patented huge grins on his face and a huger snake in both hands.
Warrick shot to his feet, holding the broom out like a weapon with one hand as he shot the forefinger of the other out at Nick while he came toward us, and snapped with green fire in his eyes again, "I told you before, Nicky, don't fuck with me!! I'm not in the mood!! Don't come over here with that thing!!! Don't do it, man!! I mean it!! I really mean it!! You do, I'm gonna hurt you!!"
Despite his dire warning of bodily harm to Nick, Warrick was already headed in the opposite direction, stepping over our centerpiece to head for the other end of the table as rapidly as he possibly could while glaring back over his shoulder to keep a close eye on Nick and the snake.
Nick had stopped next to me, brown eyes sparkling as he watched Warrick's hasty retreat. But the sparkle lessened as he said quietly, "I shouldn't be joking around with him with something he's afraid of. I've got a nerve making fun of him, considering how it seems like I've developed a few phobias of my own since the thing with Gordon."
Nick had briefly talked to me about getting the shakes from catching sight of certain insects unexpectedly or pausing at the prospect of having to enter cramped or dark places unfamiliar to him. This was not the time for a discussion of these fears, but I squeezed his shoulder sympathetically as I looked into his eyes to let him know I was aware of his fears and found them acceptable, that they were, as I had previously told him, something he would get over and nothing for him to worry about. I made a mental note to put Nick in charge of a crime scene as soon as one was available to help the process of his regaining his confidence come along faster. He was a very capable person and professional and I needed to reinforce that as much I possible could. But that wasn't anything we should be talking about at this time. Nick also knew this was not the forum for such a dialogue so plastered his grin back on and asked, comfortably holding the wriggling snake out toward me, "Where'd you want me to put 'em, Grissom?"
"There's a cage in that room over there, presumably an open one. All of them go back in there."
As I was pointing the bug room out to Nick, Sara exited from it to remark, "I've already put one back in the cage and there was one who hadn't come out of it. So, there's only one left for us to..."
Before Sara could finish her sentence, there came a hair-raising, absolutely blood curdling shriek from the area of the sofa. Immediately afterward, well before the echoes of her scream ceased reverberating, Catherine tore from the living room where she had been sitting at ease into the dining room and, taking one mammoth, high-stepping leap into one of the chair, sailed mightily onto the table to bound down it, duck behind Warrick and gaze wildly from there back into the living room with her chest heaving and blue eyes wide, frightened and angry all that the same time. After a second or two of that, she frowned about like she had just realized she was standing on the table alongside Warrick. Upon obtaining that insight, she clenched both fists, went rigid and stomped a foot as she drew in a deep breath then flung her head back and shouted at the ceiling in great frustration, "Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!!!"
Sara shook her head and smiled a little as she headed for living room, saying as she went, "Well, guess we know where the fourth snake is now...."
Catherine leaned to again peer from around Warrick and shuddered as I walked down the side of the table toward them. She shuddered once more, whipped her head about as if trying to force some unpleasantness away from her mind. Shaking her fist but not moving from where she was, she met my eyes a moment before turning to look sharply at Nick who was chuckling. Then, eyes shifting between us, she pointed a wobbly finger at the pair of us and hissed, "I am NOT afraid of snakes!!! Just that one came from nowhere, stood up on its tail like some sonafabitchin' lizard man to stare at me without blinking for what felt like a whole hour!!! Then, with me still too shocked to move, it flopped down and slithered away over my goddamn foot!! It... just... STARTLED me!!! So, don't either ONE of you," she commanded in an evil husk, whisking her hand back and forth between myself and Nick, "ever DARE give me grief about this!!!" She curled both hands into wicked, witchy claws, her red polished, manicured fingernails glittering. "You do and I promise you two, you'll lose at least one eyeball and maybe both!!"
Sara had caught the last snake and said drolly as she bypassed us, headed for the bug room, "You can calm down now, Catherine. Your big bad has been captured. We're all safe now."
"You don't haveta be such a smart mouth," Catherine snapped at her. "It was an entirely natural fight or flight reaction. I pick my battles and wrestling with some stupid, slimy snake simply doesn't rank high on my list as a worthy one."
"Ah-ha," Warrick announced, quite pleased. "See there, Gil? Catherine thinks they're slimy, too."
"That obviously would be because neither of you have ever touched one. Snakes aren't slimy."
"Don't care. Still want those things outa here," Warrick said firmly. "If they stay, then I don't." With the final snake on its way to confinement, he finally sat down on the edge of the table, although he still kept a cautious eye on the entrance to the bug room. "They gotta go, Gil, and they've gotta go tonight."
Catherine walked the whole length of my dining room table as if it was the floor itself and she was a queen to grandly hold out a hand to Nick with a flourish. Grinning, looking at me as I eyed Catherine with a sigh, he took her hand and helped her step into a chair then back down to the real floor. She turned to look askance at me with narrowed eyes and state, "This episode is now permanently closed. If anyone ever mentions it to me in any shape, form or fashion, let them be forewarned, I will accept no responsibility for my actions in the aftermath of such a mention. Just know, the person making such mention will be taking their lives into their hands. I now wash my hands of this entire matter."
After a sharp, clapping motion with her hands appropriate to her words, she tilted her chin approximately upward to align it with the joint of the wall and ceiling and informed us, "There's nothing more to say. I am going home now. Goodnight to all." Then, promptly following up on her last declaration, she walked out the front door and left us without another word.
Sara came from the bug room and said, "Okay, Grissom, everything's put to rights in there. I locked the snakes up tight. They won't be getting out any time soon." She cut a look at Warrick as she added, "You can get off the table, Warrick. You should be safe from 'em now."
He just gave her a tired look and said, "Thanks for the input, Sara, even if does sound bitchy and sarcastic. And thanks for putting up the snakes. As for you, Nicky," he said, lightly bopping Nick over the head with his broom, "I got nuthin' to say to you, you insensitive bastard."
"Yeah, you're right," Nick said pensively, hands on hips, nodding his head while frowning at the floor. "I was insensitive." He looked into Warrick's eyes and gave him a brittle smile as he said, "I apologize. It looks like we've both got demons to work through."
Warrick had only been mock angry but even that faded as he gazed into Nick's face, totally understanding what his reference to mutual demons was about. He had yet to get over his guilt that he had been Nick and not him trapped underground due solely to the haphazard flip of a coin. He hit Nick again, but with a fist against his temple and very gently, the move ending up with him cupping Nick's jaw and smiling back at him as he said, "Yeah, man, I guess we do. Maybe we should do that together, huh? Cause I'm getting real damn sick and tired of people telling my being so scared of snakes is irrational. Both of us have got good reasons for what we fear, so don't ever let anybody tell you any different. If they do, just let me know and I'll kill the muthafuckers for ya."
The upshot of this Halloween night and following morning was Sara helpfully volunteered to take the snakes with her and take care of them until Steve's return. I helped her load them and their accompanying paraphernalia into my SUV, since it was too much for her to carry in her smaller car. We agreed that she'd return and pick up her car later in the day after she had gotten some sleep. Nick and Warrick talked while we did that and I was glad for that. Nick managed to relax him enough for him to end up slumped on the sofa by the time Sara and I were done, more asleep than not, his night and dawn of protecting himself from snakes that wouldn't have hurt him under most circumstances, in addition to the remnants of the flu he was still recovering from, having worn him out.
After bidding Nick and Sara good morning and watching them leave, I locked the door and went over to Warrick. As I eased to sit down close to him, I whispered, kissing his ear, "I'm sorry about all of this, Ricky. I should've been more aware how deep your fear went. From now on, I'll always tell you when I bring anything new into our home. Nothing like this will ever happen again and I'll make this up to you."
He opened bleary eyes to growl, "You're damned straight you'll make it up to me. You owe me and you're gonna pacify me my way. Move down to the end of the couch."
Thinking he was still angry about me not informing him of the snakes' presence, so didn't want me anywhere near him, I slid away to the further end of the sofa. As soon as I had, Warrick stretched out on it on his belly and put his head in my lap, sliding his arms about me and burrowing down between my legs with his face in a manner that caused such an obvious sexual reaction in me that he laughed and declared in a muffled voice, "I'm too sleepy, too sick and too outa sorts to help you do anything with this and serves you right. Consider it payback, man. Suffer some like I did while you were so damn unavailable."
I smiled. This threat didn't worry me. I know Warrick and it's not what I need, but what he needs and what he needs now is to relax. So I began tenderly massaging his shoulders, planning on moving further south to the rounded buttocks rising so appealing from that, long, lean back as soon as I had him calmed down a lot, loosened up a bit and charged up much more. While he might be saying he isn't currently interested, thankfully, my man's too highly sexed to hold out for long against certain techniques of foreplay I've learned unfailingly excite him no matter how sleepy, how sick or out of sorts he may claim to be. But all I said was, "Whatever pleases you."
"Uh-huh, yep, sure is gonna be whatever pleases me. I've had a helluva rough night, with having to avoid your snakes all by myself. I require some serious comforting." Warrick yawned and turned over onto his side, getting comfortable on me. "I expect you to deliver that until we haveta to go back to work, man, and you're gonna deliver it exactly like I want it."
My smile widened. I certainly had no problem with that. I bent down to once more kiss him on an ear, listening to his breathing, such as it was with his nose stuffed up as it was, beginning to even out as the tension finally started to leave his body.
I murmured, "Your wish is my command." In all things important, that is how it is. He might not believe it, but that is truly how it is and how it always will be.
I doubt he heard me as he was fading from consciousness and did not respond. I continued to caress him, my hands drifting down over his back and I could feel his relaxation turning into sleepiness. But his going to sleep was the last thing I wanted him to do. So I slipped a hand into his boxers to strongly massage those round mounds of dark, warm flesh, sliding a finger up and down deep between them which finally elicited the response I wanted from him.
Growling, "Goddamn you, Gil," he flipped onto his back, hooked a hand around my neck and yanked my head down to his to kiss me for as long as he could before flopping back with a moan of, "Jesus, Gil, I can't fuckin' breathe. There's not enough air gettin' through my nose for me to even kiss you right. We shouldn't be doing anything anyway. I don't wanna make you sick, too."
I smiled down on him. "You can't make me sick. You're past the point of being contagious. As for your nose..." I kissed the point of the aforementioned facial feature. "We'll just have to be creative and find things to do that won't involve your having to breathe through it all the time. We don't have to engage your mouth to otherwise enjoy ourselves." Very softly and lingeringly, I kissed him without putting too much pressure on the full lips, not wanting to make it difficult for him to breathe. "In fact, lay back and let me do all the work for a change. This can be the start of the payback you said I owe you."
Warrick grinned. "Works for me," he said.
This time, I slid a hand down the front of his boxer to grab hold of what I found there, which made him groan as his body rose against my tightening grip upon him and hardened within it. I said conversationally while beginning a rhythmic motion, "Warrick, one thing I believe we'd both like see happen is a reduction is your fear of snakes. To accomplish that, I think you need to acquire to a sense of familiarity with them and we shall start a lesson forthwith. As an example, let me state, while what I now hold is somewhat shorter and not as wide, although not by much in your genetically elongated and weighty case, it has a very similar, flesh covered muscularity to that of a healthy snake."
Warrick laughed shakily and breathily as I kept up my administrations on him. "Gil, I'd appreciate you not comparing my cock to a snake."
"Hmm, but it's an apt analogy. For instance, when I do thus, fluid issues, as I can see and you can feel, which has the potency if not the toxicity of venom. It certainly has me dangerously addicted to its taste. Furthermore, this very non-slimy appendage of yours creates cravings in me for those quivery, slippery, snakish and sexual movements you do so well when you're up to it. I insist we recommence them in the coming days, as soon as it's feasible. I've missed that, as well as the taste of you, during your illness." Lightly but thoroughly, I kissed him again, whispering while I did so. "I hunger for you, Warrick Brown. I need the taste of you on my tongue, the feel of you in my mouth. I hope you're, at least, up for that."
Humming and luxuriously stretching, submitting to my kisses as I placed them on his lips and face then returning them, he said, "Oh, I'm up for that, all right. Didn't think I would or could be, but you've gotten me there. Only you can do this to me, Gil. No matter how mad I get at you, all you gotta do is touch me or look at me the right way and I can't maintain. That's wrong, man. That ain't right."
I slid from under his head and stood up, offering a hand down toward him to help him sit up. "Let's get you medicated and into bed. That way, after we've used various portions of breathable, sweaty sex to knock you out, you'll already be in the proper place to get some rest."
With a sigh, he took my hand and sat up, running his other hand over his head as he cocked it to look up at me with a smile, saying softly, his eyes impossibly shining with love, "The things you do to me, man..."
I stood there smiling back, knowing the same look was in my eyes as I continued pulling on him to get him onto his feet.
"It's all mutual, Warrick," I told him. "It's all very, very mutual."
