Work Text:
“It’s just a snake, Johnny,” Raylan said, with all the authority of a ten-year-old. “It won’t hurt you ‘less you hurt it first.”
Raylan and Johnny were friends from the Little League that Aunt Helen took him to over in Corbin. Raylan knew that his daddy and Johnny’s uncle knew each other too, so when they’d made that discovery, they’d become friends in the natural way of two people who have a connection and no good reason not to. Johnny only lived a a mile away anyway, close enough that they could leave their houses and meet in the middle. Johnny even had a bike now, so he could ride all the way to Raylan’s.
Slowly, Raylan crept closer to the rattlesnake, coiled up in the dead leaves, watching him with those slitted eyes. A wild grin spread over Raylan’s face, and he reached out slowly with his stick.
The snake rattled its tail, then lashed out, making Raylan drop the stick in surprise. He wasn’t sure if it had tried to bite the stick or just sort of smacked it, but it was enough to make him laugh with exhilaration anyway.
“I’m tellin’ your daddy,” Johnny said, then turned and ran.
“Wait! Johnny!”
Raylan gave the snake one last look, then bolted after Johnny. He was a pitcher, but Raylan was a runner, he knew he could overtake Johnny. At least on a baseball field, anyway. It wasn’t quite as easy jumping over sticks and barrelling through brush.
When they emerged from the woods, Arlo was already out on the back porch. Johnny stopped so abruptly that Raylan crashed right into him, tumbling them both to the ground. Even Johnny could see that Arlo was in a mood. Raylan could feel it in his bones.
He quickly scrambled to his feet, hands behind his back and wishing he could run right back into the woods, that it wouldn’t be worse if he did.
“You two makin’ all that racket woke me up from my nap.”
Raylan strongly suspected there had been no nap, but didn’t dare say so. “Sorry, sir.”
“Who’s sorry?”
“Johnny,” Frances cut across. She was in the kitchen window, watching, and called out through the screen. “You run along home, now.”
Raylan heard his footsteps pounding away, running as fast as he could to his bike, but he didn’t turn to see. His eyes were on the kitchen window. His momma looked back at him for a moment, then turned away. Her shadow disappeared from the window.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Raylan said.
“Get in here, you little shit.”
Raylan was going to stand up to him one of these days. He was, he was getting tall, he’d be taller than momma within a year, that was what Aunt Helen said, and he was going to be strong from baseball and from climbing trees. He’d show Arlo what was what. Maybe today would be that day.
Except Arlo scruffed him as he came up the steps of the porch, gripping the back of Raylan’s neck painfully tight, and his whole body felt cold.