Hope you like it!

Oh, and review!

Drowned Rodents

Another hailstone hit the window, making Ennis jump three inches; shattering his previously held two inch record of one minute.

"It's just the storm," Jack said grumpily from his position on the bed, eyeing the man at the window with a look of utter disgruntlement. "Ain't no one or no thing gonna come tryin ta kill us in the middle of the goddamned night in this goddamned piss-hole Ennis." After several minutes of no answer other than the continued nervous surveillance of the parking lot surrounding the piss-hole Jack scowled at the other man before resigning himself to preparations for bed. He grabbed his toothbrush and toothpaste and trudged to the bathroom, fuming at this whole situation.

Warm water rushed freely out of the old faucet, quickly trying to overflow the rusty sink. Any other time Jack would have been surprised at the idea of hot water in such a run-down hotel, but he was slightly busy trying to garner a suitable amount of minty freshness on his toothbrush through his ever-mounting rage. As if blaming the other cowboy for his toothpaste problems, he turned and glared at Ennis through the open door, a glare that went unnoticed, as the man was still worriedly scanning the outside. Finally managing to slave the worn bristles in the white goop, Jack began to furiously attack his teeth, turning his dirty looks to the suds that were slowly swirling down the drain and to the hitchhikers in his mustache.

'Bastard thinks that just because of an incident that happened thirty years ago some faceless guys are gonna walk all this way through god-be-damned hail and mud ta this sorry-excuse-for-a-hotel in this town of fucking five people ta this very godforsaken cheap-assed room ta kill a couple cowboys that they've never seen before when they could be in a warm bed gettin pussy,' Jack thought furiously. 'Assholes probably are gettin some, but what am I gettin? Fuckin nothin.'

Having finished brushing his teeth Jack threw his utensils back in his bag, completely ignoring Ennis, even when the other man made a wild grab for his gun after a particularly vicious barrage of hail assaulted the window. He threw his shirt to some unknown corner of the room and buried himself under the covers, blocking out the world.

Half an hour later Jack was still awake, and still in a foul mood; the alarm clock getting the full experience of his anger. Why was Ennis freaking out like this? They'd stayed in a hotel room together before and there hadn't been any issues like this that time. Though, at the time, they were so excited (in more ways than one) to see each other after being separated for so long that this specific fear had more than likely been pushed to a back burner.

With this rationalization in mind Jack calmed himself down significantly and went to go shut the curtains, paying no heed to the indignant sputtering he received. He gently removed the gun from Ennis' hands and led the man by the arm back to their bed. Without any preamble and in case the blond decided to make a jump for his weapon again Jack hastily climbed on top of the other man and began kissing him passionately.

Ennis wrapped his arms around the bare torso above him and pulled the warm and willing body closer to his, all thoughts of ice-demons and homophobes forgotten. He instead occupied his thoughts and energy towards a very promising goal; getting Jack out of his pants and onto him. 'Tastes like toothpaste,' he thought absentmindedly.

'Hope I remembered ta put the chain on the door,' Jack mused silently as he tried to drag Ennis' boxers off the man with his teeth while his hands played with the tightly corded muscles of sweaty thighs. 'What am I-shit-thin-shit-king? Of course he did, before starin out the infernal-SHIT that hurt-window.'

More hail hit the glass, but by now neither man was paying attention, too holed up with their own activities.

Jack grunted and swore under his breath; they'd forgotten the lube. Ennis merely stared upwards at the man riding him, was it his imagination or did that dead rat Jack insisted upon keeping on his face have toothpaste in it? How could a man so obsessed with personal hygiene/appearance have missed that? Ennis had never liked the thing to begin with, his personal reasons (that he'd never voice out loud) being mainly things along the lines of 'it scratches' and 'covering up flawless skin'.

Was Ennis seriously staring at his mustache? At a time like this that man was-Jack wiggled his upper lip to test his hypothesis-really staring at his mustache.

The small drop of toothpaste passed daringly close to Jack's lower lip, causing Ennis to catch his breath, and let it go again as the dot made it undetected.

Thoroughly annoyed at the unusual fetish Jack leaned his head down next to his partner's, effectively hiding the object of fascination from view.

Not liking the prospect of having toothpaste in his hair, Ennis jerked the other man's head back up. The taunting blob of goo was still firmly in place, much to his immediate relief.

Now completely pissed and ready to let his mood be known, Jack opened up his mouth to bite the other man's ear off (figuratively speaking) but all that came out was a jumble jargon of babble as the last waves of a storm completely unrelated to the one still raging outside washed over them.

As soon as his body came down from the familiar high Jack pulled himself off of the blond cowboy and rummaged through his bag, inwardly smirking. 'He'd put an end ta that weird obsession once and for all' he declared to himself. And it had to be an obsession; more than a few times he'd caught Ennis staring at the whiskers with an indescribable look on the man's face.

Ennis managed to control his breathing at last and decided that having his lower legs hanging off the end of the bed was not such a comfortable position after all, and crawled up to the pillows, letting his head sink gratefully into the cushion.

A few minutes later Jack emerged from the bathroom, sans black mustache. He stood there with hands on hips and smirk on lips, a look that slowly turned to one of confusion as Ennis grinned happily up at him.

"Bout time you got rid of that critter on your lips darlin'. Now c'mere."