Title: Midnight on the Interstate
Rating: T/M
Warnings: Possible slash

The cool moonlight lit the inside of the dirty gray Chevy, and made the faces of the two inside paler than usual. A redhead slept on the backseat, head buffered by a rolled up sweater, and surrounded by books of various quality. His body was slightly curled against itself, and the mass of red hair almost created a blanket. There was something surreal about him, something fey and brief. Something that would disappear with any given moment. The driver was steady, hands peacefully driving the car towards the crescent moon.

They hit a bump, and the redhead on the back seat stirred. Slowly, blue-gray eyes opened and glanced tiredly at the back of the passenger’s side seat. A slow yawn and the slim figure lifted itself up into the sitting position.

“Where are we going?” he asked softly and leaned against the back of the driver’s seat, arm dangling forward slightly to brush his arm. Even to any random observer there was something intimate about their behavior. The look, perhaps, of people who’d been through a lot together, or, if the observer’s mind was geared that way, the look of lovers.

“Santa Fe for the evening,” the driver said quietly and glanced into the redhead’s eyes through the rear view mirror, “Then the job in Dallas.”

“Mmk,” he yawned and stretched his arm out. The back of the pick up truck was occupied by a long cooler filled with food and drinks, several duffle bags filled with clothes and supplies, and a toolbox. One graceful hand reached into the cooler and came back with a Pepsi.

“How’d you sleep?” the driver pulled ahead of another lonely car.

“Pretty well,” he shrugged and flipped his hair off the back of his neck. The heat was still oppressive, despite the night being half over, and his mass of hair only made things worse. His fingers combed through quickly and untangled some of the knots. “When’ll we be there?” he stretched his legs out across the backseat and leaned against one of the sides.

“Half an hour,” the driver said cheerfully and kept speeding into the darkness.

“Good,” the redhead grinned, “I’m absolutely disgusting…” He poked and arm and half expected an inch of grime to come off of his arm.

“Didn’t you shower at the last stop we were at?” the driver glanced back.

“God no, that was toxic waste, and you didn’t either,” he stuck out his tongue and grimaced.

“That was because it looked like there was a serial rapist sitting behind the stalls,” he grinned and reached back expectantly. The redhead rolled his eyes and reached in to bring out a cold soda. The chill aluminum was pressed into the other hand, and the driver took a long chug.

“Great lunk of-“ he growled and reached around the seat to get his drink back. “You drink too much of my soda.”

The driver laughed to himself and glanced back again at the redhead. The ghost of a tattoo was revealed by the messy hair, and he smiled slightly. That had been the second thing he’d noticed about the redhead, other than the shock of brilliantly crimson hair and the candy pink of the girl he traveled with.

The nights were young, and the dice rolled, making the sounds only a gambler could appreciate. It was beauty and grace. It was love and life.

Money, money, money. Dice rolled, cards slapped, people lived, loved, lost and died. All in search of the sometimes elusive mistress of green bills and laughing lovers.

The redhead was simply known as Red, or Ace, depending on the place. His taste was impeccable, his girls beautiful, and his face, recognizable. It was said that he danced on a blade with Lady Luck, pulling the best and the worst runs in the city. He was cocky, and that made him good. He was confident, and that made him hot as the summer days.

It was said, he was never too cocky, too confident, because a man like that could somehow charm a charmer out of their clothes. His most defining characteristic wasn’t even that crimson red hair that ran wild over the tables that draped across lover’s bodies. It was four small tattoos. On either side of the nape of his neck, he’d gotten a club on one side, and a spade on the other. At the base of his neck, the heart and the diamond made themselves at home. It made him impossible not to notice.

Then, one night, a solid faced young man with rough hands and a soft, humble voice managed to get that cocky boy off of his high horse. That night, Red took off, and left Vegas for calluses and soda cans.

“I’ve got a lady in Dallas,” the redhead laughed and took a drink of soda.

It broke the driver out of his memories and he grinned softly. “You’ve got a lady in every city of the USA.”

“Yessir, I do,” he laughed freely and opened a window on the backseat. His hair was tossed around but he didn’t care. He only cared for the warm breeze that caressed his face.

“How long has it been since you called this one?” the driver found an exit ramp and saw the neon lights of a Holiday Inn.

“Three years,” he murmured softly and looked forward.

“You sure she’s going to forgive you?” he pulled into the parking lot, glancing around for the number of truckers that would overload this place.

“She has to,” he grinned and pulled out of the car. “Blood says so…”

“She got your kid or something?” the driver stepped out and locked the truck up.

“Nope,” he grinned, “She’s my aunt Judy…”

“You’ve got family?” he blinked and stepped into the main lobby of the hotel so he could get them a room.

“In Texas,” he grinned and followed cheerfully. His hair followed behind him on the breeze, but his hand came up to grasp the strands in a makeshift ponytail.

They ended up with one room and two cot sized beds as the driver signed the credit card with neat, sensible writing of “Samuel Jasper.”

The clerk looked at them with a raised eyebrow, about the casual way that Red would touch Samuel, or the way that Samuel would randomly look at Red and smile softly.

Red took the keys airily from Samuel’s hand and bounced out of the main lobby and found his way to their room, hooking by the truck to pick up his duffle bag.

Samuel shook his head and grabbed another duffle bag, and began to carry the cooler to their room. They’d chosen a bottom floor room so that transportation would be that much easier.

Red paused and breezed by Samuel, grabbing the tool chest and hauling it inside. Now that they had the most important things within, and the door shut, he began to pull his clothes off in the middle of the room.

Samuel didn’t pay him any mind, simply went along, pulling out sandwiches and soda for them.

Red stuck out his tongue and stepped through the hotel room wearing only his skin and the tattoos. There was something so domestic about them, after he stepped out, barely dried off and skin still damp from the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist for the barest sense of modesty. Samuel came over and began to help him brush his hair. His hands were rough and pulled too hard sometimes. Red couldn’t sit still for long, and long before Samuel decided that he was done, he was twitching and dancing on the edge of the bed.

The way they touched, the way they acted, it was somewhere between friends and lovers, a flexible line that they weren’t afraid of crossing.