#permawip

[hooked-on-trout]

third times the charm. if this already posted twice mb tumbglr is freakin out on me. anyways some wip thing from like a couple months ago i never posted here

[coricomile]

The rainy days were always the worst. Sidney tightened his hands on the stack of newspapers he'd bought at the break of dawn, trying to save the ink from the water. He already owed Bettman a dime. He wouldn't suffer to pay him a dollar. 

××

The boy, tall and skinny, fought tooth and nail against the three jackals that surrounded him. He was mostly holding his own, his fists landing heavy, hard punches that sent the other boys reeling, but he was outnumbered and clearly running out of steam. Sidney should have kept walking. He'd kept walking before. It was none of his business. But-

"Worse than a Mick," one of the attackers said, landing a hard blow to the boy's stomach. He doubled over, a groan of pain echoing in the alley. "Oughta cut off his balls. Keep him from breeding more bastards." The attacker's friends laughed, one of them grabbing the boy's arms and yanking them back. Wide brown eyes met Sidney's, pleading and terrified, and Sidney couldn't make himself walk away. 

Instead he rushed forward, his leftover papers falling to the soaked pavement, and barreled into the attacker holding the boy still. It freed the boy just enough that he could throw a wild headbutt forward, cracking the nose of the man in front of him. Together they fought, their backs pressed together. Sidney's knuckles stung from the impact avinst cheek and jaw, bone moving under skin in a way that he already knew meant something was broken. 

**

The tenement was crowded and loud, dozens of different voices speaking in different languages overlapping until everything just became noise. The acrid smell of sauerkraut sat on top of all the other smells of food being cooked throughout the building, spoiling the sweet spice of Mexican food and hiding the ever present reek of boiling cabbage. Sidney followed Geno through the halls, stopping each time Geno did, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. He felt like an intruder. 

"Privet, babushka," Geno said to a shriveled old woman sitting in a corner. He bowed his head to kiss her cheek and the woman giggled like a schoolgirl. Under Geno's attention, her craggy, sunken in face lit up, revealing the beautiful young woman she must have once been. Geno said something else to her before pressing a penny into her withered hand. She pulled him close into a hug, her frail arms circling Geno's shoulders as she pressed kisses to both of his cheeks.

Sidney waited until they were away from her to ask, "do you know her?"

"She old," Geno said, his eyes darting up to the cracked ceiling. "No one love her. I love her. Make-" he waved his hand, like he might pluck the words from the air. "I strong. Can make work. She get food, I'm happy."

[coricomile]

Over five billion dead. Sid stares at his phone, the brightness turned down so low he can barely read the text on the screen. His battery is probably going to die sooner rather than later, and then the phone will be gone too. He'd only bought it a few months ago because the screen of his old phone had cracked and Zhenya had made fun of him until he'd replaced it. It's going to just be a hunk of plastic and wires soon enough. 

The article is two weeks old, but Sid hasn't been able to get a connection to the internet in days. He hasn't had the heart to close the tab, even if he's read the article so many times he can almost recite it word for word. Over five billion dead as of two weeks ago. He needs to know how high that number has climbed, but there's no way to find out. No television. No internet. No newspapers. No news. 

Everything is dark. The house is too big to light with candles, and he wouldn't leave them out anyway just in case something caught fire where he wasn't paying attention. Instead, he and Zhenya have taken to carrying a flashlight shoved into the back of their pants like some TV cop's gun, pulling them out to use in the places the light from the windows doesn't reach.

He remembers playing games like this with Taylor when he was a kid. They'd turn out all the lights and she would hide, her giggles usually loud enough to give her away. Every time Sid found her, he'd give his best little kid roar and tickle her until she hit him. A hollow, gaping ache takes up space in his chest and refuses to be pushed aside. Taylor and his parents had been alive two weeks ago. He doesn't know if they still are, or if the VDX virus has caught up to them. 

He needs to know, but there's no way to find out. 

Sid closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. There's a lump in his throat that wants to come out as a scream. He's afraid that if he lets it out, if he gives in, he'll never be able to stop. He's felt helpless before- curled in a ball, crying on the floor helpless, each sob like a stab to his head, the cycle feeding itself until it burned him out- but this- There's nothing he can do. There's nothing anyone can do. 

Everything he's ever worked for- every last late night spent shooting pucks into the dryer, every single injury sustained, every trophy won, every loss that sank his spirits- it's all meaningless. He wasted his life playing a game. There are people dying every minute, the virus in their bodies attacking at random, and he'd spent his time worried about going back to the ice, to training, like it was important instead of frivolous and stupid. 

The front door opens and Sid's hand goes to the flashlight, his fingers wrapping around the handle. Footsteps carry through the hall and then into the living room, slow and heavy. Someone turns the corner into the den where Sid's sitting and Sid tenses up as they get closer, a shadow in the dark, barely touched by the weak remainders of sunlight coming through the window. 

"Sid?" Zhenya's voice calls out and Sid goes slack immediately. He turns his flashlight on and aims it just to the left of Zhenya's head, enough to light up his face without blinding him. The pale blue of his surgical mask looks eerie, glowing like one of the blacklight posters Jonny had at school. 

"Over here," Sid says, even though there's no reason to speak. 

He listens to the thump of something hitting the floor, the whisper of jacket over sweater as Zhenya makes himself comfortable. He'd hated how quiet everything was before, hated being alone in his big house because the lack of noise made him itchy, but he'd never realized how much sound there had been before; the buzz of the fridge, the hum of the TV, the far off rumble of cars and planes. Without all of it, his ears ring sometimes, like they're straining to make sure he hasn't gone deaf when he wasn't paying attention. 

"You shouldn't have left the house," Sid says, even as he makes room for Zhenya on the couch. He shuts the flashlight off and waits for his eyes to readjust. He'd cleared out the center of the den right after the power had gone out, pushed the coffee table and the wicker baskets with old magazines against the far wall to keep himself from tripping over them. Still, Zhenya swears as he stumbles over something, hitting the couch hard enough to jolt it. "Z?"

"Rations," Zhenya says. His voice is muffled through his mask, but something sounds off about it. Sid wraps his hand around Zhenya's wrist, feeling for the warmth of his skin, for the thud of his heart. Signs he's alive and well. Under his fingers, Zhenya's pulse is racing. 

Sid's stomach lurches. He wants a fucking light switch so he can see Zhenya's face. Zhenya can lie as good as anyone else if he's just talking, but his face always gives everything away, and Sid doesn't know what's wrong. And there is something wrong. Sid can feel it in the way Zhenya's trembling, fine shivers that are almost certainly not just the constant cold.

"Zhenya," Sid says. He sounds almost like himself, but he can't make himself loosen his grip on Zhenya's wrist. "Zhenya, what happened?"

Zhenya turns his arm in Sid's hand, grabbing him back and pulling him in. Sid climbs into his lap as well as he can, sheltering Zhenya's body with his own. Carefully, he stretches the two bands wrapped around Zhenya's head and pulls the mask away, throwing it into the corner to be burned later. He's sick of the taste of ash in his mouth, but there's protocols and procedures to follow, and Sid clings onto the routine as tightly as he can. It's something he can do. 

Sid doesn't need light to know that there are little red marks on Zhenya's temples and just under his jaw where the elastic had dug into his skin, to know that the raw spot rubbed on the bridge of his nose from the metal piece there has probably gotten irritated again. These new masks are stronger than the paper ones the team had been forced to wear on planes and busses when they were still travelling. Sid's been hoarding them, saving up for when they won't be handed out anymore. It's something else he can do. Prepare. Plan. 

Zhenya presses his face to Sid's chest and takes slow, deep breaths that sound shaky, his hands tight enough on Sid's hips that it almost hurts. Sid strokes Zhenya's hair and waits. He's been here before, an anchor to Zhenya's emotions, holding him down until he can pick himself back up. It hasn't gotten any easier, years and years later, but he holds himself together because Zhenya can't. 

Eventually Zhenya leans back against the couch. Sid slides off of him but doesn't go far. He doesn't think he could even if he tried. Panic is building inside him, shaken champagne in a corked bottle, and if Zhenya doesn't say something soon Sid's going to cry or scream or break down entirely. 

"Quarantine," Zhenya says, the word still not sitting quite right as he says it. The fact that he's had to learn how to say it at all makes it even harder. Zhenya shakes his head and opens his eyes. They're black and unreadable in the dark. "I'm get rations. Line not too long, get through fast, stop to see T-Rex statue. It's head is gone. Someone cut off. I'm stare at statue and hear people shout. Think is more riot. Is just two people. One man with hazmat one in hoodie. Look like me, maybe, but no mask. Probably already sick ."  

Zhenya twists his arm in Sid's grip, lining their hands up together. He squeezes tight enough that it hurts, his fingers pinching and knuckles straining as he holds on. Sid lets him, breath held for the ending of the story. The longer he looks, the more he can see how shaken Zhenya is, how lost. 

"Man in hazmat shoot other one," Zhenya eventually says. Sid's whole body goes cold. Zhenya's hand tightens around his. "No warning, no shout. He just shoot and drag body off to van." Zhenya drags in a deep breath and lets it out in a slow, hiccuppy exhale. "Not like in movies."