NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Whelp, it's time for my annual holiday offering. I've been trying to write Wybrose in a more conventional manner, although Bray and Dean have a very twisted chemistry that's oddly appealing. In this one, Bray and Dean are married long-haul truckers, who get stranded on Christmas Eve day in a small town when the interstate closes. Holiday hijinks ensue when they meet up with a pair of old friends and encounter a family in need of some Christmas spirit.

DISCLAIMER: Not my characters, except for Anna, Rocky and Ruby Sue. Rocky and Ruby Sue appear courtesy of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Tempest and Chase appear courtesy of Wrestlefan4 and Dark Kanenite.

Stranded For Christmas
By Debwood-1999

Chapter One

"I'm afraid I-70's closed from here to Colby, Kansas," the Colorado state trooper advised. We've got blowing and drifting snow. Nothing and nobody can go in or out."

"Road looks perfectly clear to me!" Dean complained from his place behind the wheel of the 18-wheeler. "Why would you guys close it?"

"It's not clear near the state line. Snow's blowing and drifting, and there's concerns about the storm moving west. If you look towards the east, the sky looks pretty nasty. CDOT's erring on the side of caution. Your best bet is to stop in Burlington and wait it out. I wouldn't wanna get caught up in that stuff."

With a mumbled Thanks, Dean Wyatt-Ambrose rolled up the window and jockeyed the big rig onto the exit ramp leading into the small high plains town of Burlington. He hated the idea of camping out at a truck stop, but he knew deep down that it was the right thing to do, given the circumstances.

Driving a big rig in a blizzard was like trying to hold a greased pig. Darn near impossible. Dean was aware of the two major rules when driving in such adverse conditions (his husband, Bray, had drilled them into his head when he first started out); mind your speed, and when it got really bad, it was just best to stop. Better to spend a few hours sucking down coffee at a truck stop than to wrestle a big rig through dangerous ice and blowing snow.

Yeah, it looked clear and calm now, but that could change in an instant if the front that was parked further east decided to cross state lines. Typical Colorado weather, Dean thought with sour amusement. Don't like it? Wait five minutes.

"I'd rather blast right through whatever storm's out there," Dean complained, as he expertly swung the rig into the parking lot of a truck stop called the Travel Shoppe. It was a mid-sized place, with plenty of room for trucks and their trailers, and a Denny's, where one could grab a bite to eat or a cup of coffee. Several motels and fast-food restaurants were close by, either next door or across the road. Plenty of options in case he and Bray needed to bunk for a longer time.

"Not a good idea. Remember the last time we drove through a snowstorm?" Bray asked his driving (and life) partner. "The last couple hours on the road were a nightmare. We spent more time shoveling the truck than we did driving it." He saw the look of frustration in Dean's eyes and continued. "Hey, I know the last place you wanna spend Christmas is at a Denny's, but we could have been stranded in worse places than this. Okay. We're stuck here. But we've already dropped our load off, and we're just heading home. The truck stop's open 24 hours, and we can get a good meal here. The place is well-lit, there's electrical hookups, and if we absolutely have to, we can check into a motel. We're gonna be fine."

"You're right," sighed Dean, as he found a space to park the rig. "I should be thankful we aren't stranded in the middle of Hell's Half Acre, right?"

"Yeah." Bray grinned. "Now let's get something to eat and drink so much coffee that we float out of Denny's."

Dean couldn't help but laugh. Bray had that effect on him.

From the moment Bray Wyatt was introduced to Dean Ambrose, they'd been inseparable. They'd gone from driver and apprentice to friends, to lovers, and finally a married couple. Dean was the kind of person who, with no effort, infuriated anyone who didn't have the patience of a saint. Luckily, Bray had that kind of patience; six years and a wedding ring was proof of it.

The two of them entered the restaurant, a clean, busy establishment that had a typical restaurant smell-coffee brewing and food cooking. The kind of smell that made you feel comfortable and made you want to order something to eat, whether you were hungry or not. A hostess greeted them warmly and seated them at a booth.

Once they were seated, a young woman with curly blonde hair in a ponytail who was dressed in a typical server's uniform-a black Denny's polo shirt and khakis-bounded over to Bray and Dean's table. "Hi," she cheerfully greeted as she set two glasses of ice water in front of her customers. "I'm Anna, and I'll be your server today. Can I start you off with some coffee?"

"Hi, Anna." Bray answered. "Two cups, with cream."

"And would you like to see a menu?"

"Yes, please. I think we're gonna be here a while." Bray paused. "If you don't mind me saying so, you look remarkably chipper. I'd think that a day like this would run you ragged."

Anna couldn't keep the grin from tugging across her face. "Oh, I live for days like this. Means plenty of business! We're busy anyhow because we're right next to the interstate, but when truckers and other motorists get stuck here, we make even more money. I'll be back with your coffee and two menus," she added before dashing off.

~~~XMAS~~~

While Bray and Dean perused the menu, another truck and trailer pulled into the Travel Shoppe lot. Its occupants, a burly, bearded man in red flannel and blue jeans and his blonde spitfire spouse (who happened to be his driving partner as well), climbed out and headed into the Denny's for a much needed breakfast.

In front of the restaurant, two blonde adults and three kids got out of a gray SUV, tired and frustrated because their plans to drive right through to North Carolina had been shot due to the incoming storm. Oh well. Things could be worse. At least they could take shelter, grab some food, and find a motel if push came to shove.

Neither of them had any idea that their lives were about to converge in a most unexpected (and delightful) way.

~~~XMAS~~~

The spitfire spouse of the big, burly man wearing red flannel held back as the red flanneled man snuck up behind Bray and smacked the table with both hands.

"I thought I told you to get your ass out of town, Wyatt!"

Bray flinched, and Dean nearly spewed his mouthful of coffee across the table, before Bray recognized the voice. Grinning like a lunatic, he got up and hugged his longtime friend. "Harper, you SOB! How ya' doing?"

Luke Harper eagerly returned the hug. "Pretty good. We just heard on the radio that I-70 is now closed eastbound. It's just bad they said. You can't hold the truck in the road, it's just ice everywhere now. I heard on the radio about a couple of flip-overs outside of Goodland and we thought, okay, that's it," said Luke. "Whodathunk we'd meet up again like this?"

"I know." Jay Reso-Harper joined his spouse and plopped down in the chair next to Dean. "Small world, huh?"

"Jay, you look good," Dean smiled. "Growing your hair out, I see?"

"Thanks." Jay ran his fingers through his lengthening blonde locks. A sly look appeared in his eyes. "Gives Luke something to hold onto, if you know what I'm saying."

Dean covered his ears. "Oh TMI, Jay!" he laughed; years of being with Bray had made him a bit more modest. "We didn't need to hear that!"

Rather than look for their own table, Jay and Luke invited themselves to sit with Bray and Dean. Not that Bray and Dean minded-the four of them went way back and were almost like brothers, so Jay and Luke could get away with it. Soon, they all ordered food and settled into comfortable conversation.

Their attention was soon distracted by the two blondes (one tall with long wavy hair, one shorter, with spiky short hair) who entered the restaurant with their kids. They were promptly seated in a large corner booth in back of the restaurant; since it was still early, and the road had just closed, there were still plenty of seats.

The tall blonde gave two of the kids (a husky-looking boy with short, slicked back hair and a hoodie over jeans and a white t-shirt, and a cute moppet of a girl with mousy hair and a gap-toothed grin) coloring books and some crayons, and they soon got to work coloring pictures to pass the time.

The shorter blonde gave the second little girl (a curly-haired, blue-eyed little scrap) an iPad to play games on, and before long, the first little girl joined in on the fun. The little boy continued to color for a while until he glanced up and saw Bray and his friends eating their breakfasts.

"Hey! Look, Mod! There's two guys covered in hair!"

The tall blonde threw the boy a disapproving look. "Rocky, don't point like that!"

Before Rocky's...Mod?... could say anything else, Rocky abandoned his crayons and got up from the table. "Rocky, sit down!" hissed the tall blonde. "Those guys are probably trying to eat."

Fearlessly, Rocky approached the truckers' booth and studied Bray and his friends like they were a collection of insects he'd never seen before.

"Hey, Mister," he said, pointing to Luke. "Why do you have so much hair?"

Luke was taken completely off guard. "Uh, it keeps our faces warm?" he sputtered. Jay and Dean snickered at Luke's discomfort.

The tall blonde swooped in to save Luke from further embarrassment. "Rocky! That's not polite. I'm sorry about that, Sirs. My son's a bit impulsive."

"It's alright," chuckled Bray. "We get that all the time. As long as we're here, I might as well introduce myself. I'm Bray Wyatt, this is my husband, Dean. The big guy across from me, in the red flannel is Luke, and that's Jay with the blonde hair."

The blonde looked grateful for Bray's understanding. "Maybe the circumstances aren't all that great, but… I'm Adam Hardy-Copeland, and this is my little boy, Ethan Claude Gilbert Hardy-Copeland. It's a mouthful, so everyone calls him Rocky."

"Hi! You got a lot of hair." Rocky stuck out his tongue.

"Rocky, don't go sticking your tongue out. Your face'll freeze like that."

Just then, the mousy-haired moppet sidled up to Adam; she was obviously Rocky's sister, from the looks of things. Adam put a protective hand on her shoulder. "And this is my daughter Ruby Sue. Kids, this is Mr. Bray and Mr. Luke, and this is Jay, and this is Dean."

"Oh, my gosh!" grinned Jay. "Aren't you the cutest thing?"

Ruby Sue grinned back. "Hi, Mr. Jay. Don't mind my brother. He's a big jackass."

"Language, Ruby Sue!" Adam warned his daughter.

Bray noticed that Ruby Sue was sporting a Band Aid. "What happened to your hand?"

"Rocky bit my thumb. He's nervous 'cause Christmas is almost here."

"Nervous or excited?"

"Shitting bricks!" she grinned.

"You shouldn't use that word!" gasped Adam, a blush rising on his cheeks.

"Sorry, Mod. Shitting rocks."

Dean and Jay snorted in laughter, Luke chuckled, and Bray's smile slipped a notch. Adam looked like he wanted to fall through the floor and disappear. "As soon as we get home," he said to his daughter under his breath, "I am gonna have a talk with your dad about using bad words around you and Rocky."

~~~XMAS~~~

Gradually, the group of adults and kids gravitated towards the big booth in the back of the restaurant. "What does Mod mean, if you don't mind me asking?" Bray wondered, as he sipped at his coffee.

"It means My Other Dad," Adam explained. "Anyway, Ruby Sue's my miracle baby. Her eyes used to be crossed. She fell into a well at the Imag-I-Nation-"

"Imag-I-Nation?"

"It's the name of the property we live on in North Carolina," Adam explained. "We, meaning my husband Jeff and me. Getting back to the story, Ruby Sue was eighteen months old. She fell into an empty well, and she got crossed eyes and a concussion. Put her in the hospital for almost a week. Then the next year, we were visiting a petting zoo at the State Fair in Raleigh, and a calf kicked her in the head. We took her to the hospital as a precaution. The docs examined her, and they were stunned. No serious injury, and her eyes went all back to normal!"

"Wow, a blessing in disguise, I take it?"

"Wouldn't you know it?"

~~~XMAS~~~

"So what are you guys doing, stranded in the middle of nowhere?" Jay asked the shorter blonde later, who introduced himself as Chris Irvine-Hardy. He was the… Mod… of the curly haired little girl, whose name was Tempest Rose.

"Addy and I took the girls on a ski trip as a Christmas gift," Chris said, stirring his coffee. "We always wanted to go to Colorado, and we wanted to take a road trip, so we took the car and drove out. There was supposed to be more people, actually, but Chase had to have an emergency appendectomy, and his doctor forbid him to travel."

"Chase?"

"My twelve year-old. Looks just like me." Chris whipped out an iPhone and showed Jay a picture of a young man who was a dead ringer for his Mod, right down to the spiky hair. "Anyway, he's laid up, and Matt-he's my husband-stayed at home to look after him. So, the two of them, and Jeff-he's Addy's husband-are having Christmas back home with the grandparents. Jeff would have accompanied us, but he's laid up too. He fell off a snowmobile and broke his leg."

"Ruby Sue and Rocky, Chase and Tempest, they're all related then, I assume?"

"Yeah. Cousins. Chase is the oldest. He's twelve, so he's kinda moving out of kid stuff, but he loves to tease his sister and stick up for his cousins. Ruby Sue, Tempest and Rocky are thick as thieves. Funny thing is, Rocky's the oldest out of the three, but Ruby Sue's kinda the leader of the pack. The instigator, if you will."

"She's a little pistol," Jay laughed, as he watched the kids play on Chris's iPad.

"She is. Sweetest little girl. We all adore her. Well, anyway, the trip here was awesome, but the trip back's been a headache. We'd planned on driving straight through on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to avoid all the traffic and get home quicker, but I guess Mother Nature had other plans. So we're stuck here like everyone else."

"Hey, maybe there's a reason why you're here," Jay smiled. "You can probably grab a bite to eat and check into a motel and get some rest until the storm passes. You could probably even check some of the town out. Weather's not that bad here. The road's closed further east as a precaution."

"Maybe. But we really don't want to lose our booth. It's the only that's big enough for all of us. And our server seems to have taken it on herself to make sure we're taken care of."

"I think she's taken a liking to all of us. We'll be just fine."

~~~XMAS~~~

Eventually, the conversations turned to Christmas. The kids had loved the ski trip as their present, but it just wasn't the same. What could possibly be more Christmassy than a tree, some candy and cookies, and a few gifts to unwrap? Bray and Luke turned into impromptu Santa Clauses as the kids wound up on their laps. The kids (Ruby Sue in particular) discovered under all that hair and bluster were a couple of big softies who loved children.

"What do you want Santa to bring you?" Bray asked Ruby Sue, who was comfortably seated in his lap. A curly green Christmas bow was nestled in her hair.

"I want a princess doll for Christmas."

"A Disney Princess?"

"No!" Ruby Sue grinned. "All the kids in school have Disney Princesses. I want a princess that nobody else has!"

~~~XMAS~~~

"They shouldn't have to miss Christmas just because they're stuck here like us," Bray said later on to Dean, away from earshot of the kids. Let's do something for them. You know, get a tree, some gifts to unwrap, candy-"

You could almost hear the light bulb turn on in Dean's head. "Oh, throw them a Christmas party here. Yeah, we could do that. Then we can have a Christmas here at the same time. You think Jay and Luke would be on board for it?"

"They're in the same boat as we are. I'm sure they'd be cool with it. It'll give us all something to do."

Anna, who was setting a plate full of Grand Slam Breakfast in front of a customer, couldn't help overhearing Dean and Bray's conversation and approached the couple.

"Guys… I couldn't help hearing you. If you need some help with that, there's a Safeway just up the road, and across from there is a Family Dollar. The Safeway looks tiny, but it really isn't. You can find cookies or candy for the kids there. And you can probably get your gifts there or at the Family Dollar. And here…" Anna handed Bray a set of keys. "You can take my truck. It's the magenta colored one at the end of the lot. Just don't wreck it."

Bray was taken off guard. "We can't take your truck, Anna-"

"Don't worry about it. Besides, it would be kinda tough tooling around town in a big rig looking for last-minute Christmas presents. You probably wouldn't wanna drop your trailer and go bobtailing, either."

"But what about our tables? They're in a good spot and we don't wanna lose 'em."

"We might lose them anyway," Dean pointed out. "The place is filling up pretty quick."

Anna smirked, and her eyes twinkled merrily. "Never underestimate the power of the RESERVED sign."

Dean couldn't help but ask the obvious question. "Why would you wanna help us? We hardly even know you."

Anna's expression grew somber. "I've worked here six years, and I've seen countless people get stuck here on Christmas. It's a frustrating thing to see, and you can't do anything about it." A pause "I made a promise to myself that this year, I was gonna help someone out."

"Hey, that's cool!" Dean smiled, as Bray looked on in admiration.

"Do what you guys gotta do, I'll look after the kids and their… Mods? Never heard that before, but somehow that sounds appropriate."

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: A bit choppy, I know, but this is supposed to be a rather fast-paced story, in spite of the fact that the boys are all stuck at a truck stop.

I've tweaked the ages a bit. I know that Jay's considerably older than the others in real life, but here he's the same age as Dean. Addy and Chris are their younger versions (Addy with the long hair is the muse who takes up space in my head, as does the Chris with the short spiky hair from five years ago).

Ruby Sue's remark about Rocky biting her thumb and the rest is from Christmas Vacation as well.

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