Morning has Broken

Rating: PG
Category: AU
Pairing(s): Toki/Skwisgaar, Murderface/Pickles (implied).
Warnings: Dubious food items, bugs.
Summary: Pickles watches a sunrise.
Notes: A cheer-up ficlet for ftw302, who was recently denied cheeseburgers.

It was beautiful. Pickles had never seen anything like it. He had come onto the deck of the large boat that was slowly ferrying them down the mighty Amazon to grab another bottle of vodka, but now he found that booze was the last thing he wanted. Pickles was seated on a crate, looking around with the sort of wide-eyed wonder he had not felt since he was small. The sky was slowly changing from silver-speckled black to deep violet, save for where the sun was slowly encroaching on this jungle-world. There the sky showed streaks of gold and rose, and all around him was the sound of life. Birds and frogs and insects all filled the air with a thousand amazing sounds and melodies and rhythms, and there was a fantastic smell of green living plants, and rare flowers opening their blooms to offer their nectar to strange creatures. Pickles watched as a blue butterfly with a wingspan of nearly two feet across fluttered past, moving in the erratic drunken way of its kind. It was all so damned incredible. He felt tears sliding down his face as he stared in utter amazement at beauty he had never dreamed exist.

He felt someone sit beside him, and he glanced down at the mug of coffee he was being offered. He hastily dried his eyes with one hand, then accepted the coffee from Murderface.

“Wussy,” Murderface teased quietly.

“Douchebag,” said Pickles, sipping the coffee.

“Hey now that’sh not nishe. Shay you’re shorry or I won’t give you your tape recorder.”

Pickles took the tape recorder he was offered, then gave his companion a quick nuzzle. “Sahry.” He set it beside himself on the crate and turned it on, capturing the jungle sounds. “It’s incredible out here, isn’t it?”

Murderface didn’t say anything, but Pickles knew he agreed with him. He smiled as he felt the bassist’s powerful hand rest on his upper back to gently work his neck muscles. Then Pickles noticed something on the deck a few feet away, and pointed it out to Murderface. It seemed the heat of the Amazon had been more than their resident Scandinavians could bear. They had dragged a couple of mattress onto the deck, rigged up some mosquito netting, and gone to bed. But not, it seemed, to sleep. Or at least not right away. The pair were definitely unclad; there was more than enough back, thigh, and hip on display beneath the damp and tangled sheet that semi-covered their lean hard bodies to confirm that. They were pressed close together, Toki’s face against Skwisgaar’s throat, Skwisgaar’s arms around Toki’s neck. They were heavily asleep, blissfully unaware of the enormous unnameable brown insect that perched on their netting, slowly cleaning its face.

“Who do you shupposhe got on top?” asked Murderface.

“Tough call,” said Pickles. “It can’t be Toki ‘cause I don’t think Toki would know how, but it can’t be Skwisgaar because I’m naht real sure he’s male.”

Murderface laughed. He rarely laughed. It seemed he only allowed himself to do so when it was just Pickles to hear. Pickles leaned forward to touch noses.

“D’you like me?”

“Nope.”

“I don’t like you either.”

“Good.”

They nuzzled a little, then drew back to sip their coffee as Nathan staggered onto the deck to ruin the mood by vomiting overboard.

“Good morning,” said Pickles.

“Kill me,” said Nathan as he hung over the railing like a large lumpy rug.

“No way, it’s your fault we’re down here,” said Pickles.

Nathan groaned. “Ohhhh… man. I feel like crap. I shouldn’t have eaten that thing I shot.”

“Dood that thing you shot was a bug not a bird. We tried to tell you.”

Nathan grumbled, then sat down heavily on the ship’s deck, his skin a strange shade of green. He noticed the mattresses, and crawled over to the one not occupied by a pair of snuggling Scandinavians. The big brown bug stopped cleaning to consider this development, then resumed its morning routine. Within moments Nathan was asleep, and Pickles and Murderface were left alone to watch the sunrise once more.

“If I had two dead bugsh I’d give you one,” said Murderface.

Pickles lifted some sort of large annoyed crawling thing out of his cup. “Here. You can have mine.”

Murderface accepted the damp coffee-scented creepy-crawlie. “Aww… our firsht child. Let’s name him Duncan.”

Pickles grinned. Together they sat and watched the sun come up.