That Your Sweet Love Hasn’t Died POST-CRASH
#61 of Hockey Hunk Season 5
That Your Sweet Love Hasn't Died
** THIS IS THE POST-CRASH RE-UPLOAD OF THE CHAPTER! PLEASE DO RE-COMMENT, VOTE AND FAVE SO AS TO KEEP GOING BUSINESS AS USUAL!**
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Hello, chocolate chip muffins,
and welcome to the Hockey Hunk! It's Monday with another chapter, the muse is back in the house, and I hope you enjoy this story as much as I do! We're into its fourth year after the anniversary last week, and I hope you keep reading, commenting and faving! Let's make this into a good year.
Without further nonsense, do enjoy the story, and do leave me feedback!
Special thanks to Hammerfist for his beer expertise. Cobb salutes you!
Cheers!
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Song: Always on my Mind by Pet Shop Boys http://youtu.be/n2aMaMkDwTA
"...tell me that your sweet love hasn't died..."
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Victor
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"HEEEEEEEEEEY BROTHER!"
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He wouldn't have needed to holler to announce his arrival, the trampling noise combined with the perverse squeak of his pants was more than enough to give me ample warning to his approach. I glanced into his direction and saw him staggering over, smiling excitedly, beer bottles in each paw. He was starting to look like...and sound like he'd already had a few.
"Heeeeey, here, here, you guys, no need to be dry-mawed here, yo!"
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He shoved beer bottles into my and Rory's paws and stayed there leering at the two of us, looking very pleased with himself.
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"HOWWRE you guys liking it?" my brother panted. "I think that Glumball Head stuff I brought to you is a great little beer...hope it's not too sweet for you guys!"
I wanted to tell him that I wasn't really too happy about him trying to make everyone drunk in the party, but I could hear Rory clear his throat awkwardly besides me, and let out a small rumble.
"I think it's quite alright," he said, "I already had one, too, don't you remember? You gave it to me."
Cobb gave both of us a suspicious look and then made a dismissive flick of his paw.
"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyelll you didn't have any beer on your paws when I came over!" he pointed at Rory accusingly.
I wanted to growl.
"That's because I already finished it off, Cobb" Rory replied sweetly, "I'm taking a small break here, want to pace myself."
"Yeah, maybe you should, too," I told my brother, pointedly.
Cobb flicked his ears back indignantly and puffed out his chest.
"I've got more stamina than you might think...though you should know the Holden stamina, Rory, eh?" he said while nudge-nudge-wink-winking my lion quite heavily.
I slapped his paw. I just...my paw went out real fast and snapped over his arm, to get his paw away from Rory. Cobb's cheeks flared, and his ears dropped, but I silenced him with a star.
"Lay off the paws, eh?" I prodded his arm again. "And maybe the beer for a bit, too!"
Cobb huffed and adjusted the angle of his faux leather cap over the top of his head.
"I can take carrre of myself," my brother sounded offended, "besides, it's you guys I'm worried about, God knows what would happen if you all got drunk! Hah!"
He turned around with an alarming squeak and headed over towards the pair swaying nearby.
"YOU GUYS WANT SOME MORE BEER?"
"...to keep you satisfied...satisfied..."
Peter
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Oh, dear.
It seemed that the Holden brothers were already ready to come onto blows over each other's behavior. Whatever the immediate effect, there was going to be a hangover, and a hung over Jacob Holden was a familiar phenomenon to see. This drunken one was probably best to be observed afar, or at least with a team of specialists with nightstick standing by. Hopefully Victor and Rory could handle him. I wasn't sure if the rest of us could wrestle him down if he tried to start doing something unfortunate such as remove even the last vestiges of clothing on him, for example, if he started feeling too hot, or maybe making some unpleasant questions about the nature of the homosexual experience. According to Rory, that was almost an inevitable occurrence when it came to Jacob Holden and his quest to understand the butt-buggery of his sibling.
With these lovely thoughts in mind, and a fresh smirk upon seeing the hungry looks of Nicholas Gaye and Demetrius the gay bar otter as Cobb wandered to embarrass himself even further, I turned my attention to the gloomy presence of the fox sitting in front of me.
"What are you drinking there?" I pointed at the black bottle by the fox's paw.
The fox's ears flicked with mild interest but without much glee or vulpine pleasure at being given some attention. He wasn't even looking at me. It seemed that he didn't seem to have any particular interest in trying to interact with me, not even if we had apparently been forced together by that delightful force of nature who was currently telling Rowreeh and Victor that since they were not dancing like Nicholas and Demetrius were, the two were party poopers.
Party pooper. Compound noun. Someone who acts boringly in a party or spoils it. Interesting scatological rhetoric from the Jacob Holden. It conjured up the image of a jewel-encrusted commode, really, possibly with a crown-wearing Jacob Holden sitting upon his throne, and with the Dead Sea Scrolls on a roll nearby for immediate use once the...earths moved.
Nice. I should tell that to Rory at some point, to make sure that he'd never look at toilets, or Cobb Holden again the same way. Now to the fox, though. He rolled the bottle around in his paw, quite mechanically, squinting at it in the red light district illumination of the gay party apartment.
"It says...'Clown Shoes Black corn unidragon Russian imperial stouts," he read out slowly, with the natural hesitation of someone who'd been told "AGAIN!" too many times by an elementary school teacher, who was possibly a nun.
"I couldn't have said it better myself," I murmured pleasantly.
He gave me a look, not a particularly pleased one, I suspected, but I gave him a small smile.
"It sounds so preposterous that I am truly tempted to try one, but I don't want to risk it," I said. "I am on so many drugs that even a little bit of alcohol would probably be pushing it. I don't want to bully my single working kidney, either. That would not be too kind on that nice lady who gave it to me."
Tate
The cougar just insisted on talking to me. He'd been trying to make small talk all the way while I was just trying to eat, chewing stuff slowly so that it'd go down easier, concentrate on staying calm and not let my mind go into even stranger directions. If this really was Cobb's way of trying to show me that I was welcome into his and his brother's home...I wasn't sure what the hell he was thinking. Put me into the corner with some cougar who talks about strange stuff and makes weird questions to me, and keeps commenting on Cobb's ass. Nice. Not better than those two queers dancing in front of the TV and looking like they might start smooching at any time.
Maybe they should. Maybe that'd show Cobb what he'd gotten himself into by inviting his house full of queers. Let him see what it was really like, and whether he was really sincere when he said that it was perfectly okay to be a tail-chaser and we'd still be friends forever.
We'd see.
And now there was this cougar, though, speaking stuff like this and looking for...what? Pity? Shock value? Or just making the kind of hysterical chit chat I'd learned to do in Walter Reed when we'd compare scars and stumps and tubes hanging out of our bodies, including some that seeped liquid shit out of them into a plastic bag wrapped onto your belly with an elastic cord. What'd he know about that?
No point in being mean to someone who'd obviously had to go through a lot, though, even if he was still being an asshole for most of the time.
"Sounds like you've had to give up a lot," I said, to be polite, at least.
"Not really," the cougar said, "Only bad habits I should give up anyway. Sugar, salt, alcohol...well, I had to do that before, anyway, when I was really sick. Nothing makes you more sick than kidney failure, not really."
How would I know, mister? My kidneys had managed to pull through, somehow, without stopping their lovely piss-making. This guy was making piss out of his mouth with his talking, though. Maybe they'd put that kidney into the wrong place.
"Sounds bad," I said.
"You're not sick either, are you?" he blurted.
I just stared at him. He looked right back at me, over his mostly empty plate where he had fussily managed to eat some chicken and salad and sauce. Mine'd been picked at, too, for most part, but at least I'd tasted most of the stuff Cobb had made, so that he couldn't really complain that I was being a terrible guest. And now there was this guy making questions like that, someone who knew nothing about me, and whom I didn't really want to know much, either. Who the hell did he think he was?
"I don't know what you mean," I said quietly.
The cougar shrugged.
"They chopped it off, I understand," he glanced downwards, "that's not being sick, that's just being disabled."
I wanted to bare my teeth to him. I wanted to tell him to shut it off. I wanted to tell Victor and Cobb that they were assholes for telling everyone about everything that had happened to me. It was a private thing...I mean...you didn't really...I wasn't like Marker, who just couldn't hide. I could wear long pants and go around like anyone else. In time, even without a cane.
"I..." I tried.
"We're lucky," he said.
"How?" I hissed, unable to keep my temper back anymore, my ears flattening, my teeth flashing.
"Because we're alive. Others are not. It's a very simple equation."
I was never very good with mathematics, though. I grabbed that ridiculous dragon beer to have some time to think about it. It tasted so strange.
And now the music was going, too, starting some sappy chimey ballad thing, and of course those two guys with feather boas were all over each other, practically giggling, that ludicrous lion and that otter and...and Victor and his boyfriend were trading looks, too...the kind that said "oh baby..."
Song: Eternal Flame by The Bangles. http://youtu.be/PSoOFn3wQV4
Fuck, shit.
"...gimme your hand, darling...do you feel my hear beating..."
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The cougar let out a purr.
"Oh I love this song," he said, sounding pleased, "it's one of the first ones I remember, from when I was little, I think!"
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"...do you understand...do you feel the same..."
He surveyed the makeshift dance floor currently occupied by the two furs and then looked at me.
"There's no reason we should just sit here," he said, "we could dance."
I snorted.
"Not likely," I huffed.
"Fine then," he started to get up. "I'll have to ask some of the other single men in the room, then."
He turned around, his thick tail swinging behind him, leaving a whiff of slightly strange body odor, as he headed towards the kitchen.
"JACOB!" he called.
He wouldn't.
COBB
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Hmmmm....ssluuuuurp...nothing like an Old Scratch to have a nice good solid drink between that lightweight funny stuff I'd been offering to Victor and Rory and everyone before. At least they'd taken their drinks...and everyone was having fun. Rory's friends were dancing and Tate and Peter were chatting all nicely. They probably had a lot of in common anyway since they were both gay and single and went to the hospital a lot. They were bound to have a lot to talk about. Maybe they could start dating...give Tate someone nice to be with, just a regular guy...do regular guy things...or did gay guys do any regular things...not sure...
"Sluuuuuurp..."
"JACOB!"
My ears bounced a bit. That was Peter guy, coming over to the kitchen counter I was leaning on to survey the stuff that was going on, to make sure that everyone was having a fun time. If only Victor wasn't insisting on telling me again and again that everything I was doing was somehow wrong...why did he keep doing that? Everyone was having fun.
"PeeeeTEEER!" I greeted him with a big happy smile. "Fancy a beer or something, heheheheheh!"
The cougar stood there, rumbling, tail moving behind him, and smiled.
"I was wondering if you'd care to dance."
I looked at him.
"What?"
"Come on," he reached out with a paw, "everyone else is doing it too..."
Hmmm...that was kinda gay...asking another guy to dance, even on a gay party...
"Hey, no offense," I stood up a bit more upright, even if my spine felt a bit sluggish for some reason, "but you know I'm a guy, right?"
"How could I ever mistake you for anything but the wonderful specimen of masculinity that you are, my dear friend?" the cougar rumbled.
"But - "
"...am I only dreaming..."
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"Even the song said so," Peter said, as he extended his paw, "gimme your paw, darling..."
"Well hey - "
"Come on, even Nicholas and Demetrius are dancing...cheek to cheek..."
"But - "
"Oh don't be a party pooper, Jacob..."
Rory
How I wished that victor would have a better time. The good was great, the beer was...novel, but alright, as long as you didn't drink too much of the stuff, because it was strong, and seeing how Cobb was turning more and more Cobb-like with each consumed bottle, I knew to be careful. He was currently in the kitchen, giving me and Victor a breather, while we watched Nicholas and Demetrius dance along to 'Eternal Flame'. They looked...happy, I suppose, smiling, in a kind of a...childish way, I suppose, just happy to be there, not lovey-dovey happy happy, I suspected, that'd looked different, at least in my experience...so that probably wasn't it. Considering how flippantly Nicholas had flipped his tail up for Peter, too, I suppose that wasn't a surprise. Those two were just friends, and didn't mind having fun together.
Oh hell, it still made me want to snuggle, and I would have, if it wasn't for the danger of Cobb attacks upon our person for any PDGAs...Public Displays of Gay Affection. I could still sneak my paw over to Victor's and give it a squeeze. That got me his eyes...dark and deep and looking down to me curiously, his breath smelling of...Skittles...that beer sure was weird.
I smiled, purred a little, and made a kissy face. Victor's ears perked...both of them, I was pleased to see, and he let out a deep rumble. I squeezed on his fingers a little more, quite sure that it was covert enough in the semi-darkness. It felt nice. Victor smiled a bit, looking at me with a gentle quirking of the corners of his eyes, when he was really smiling. Such a perfect moment to lean over and to kiss...would we dare? The others wouldn't mind but...but...
"...oh yes yes, come on now..."
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Peter
He was heavy, but with suitable tugging, even a big lug of a Doberman can be maneuvered quite efficiently when he is given the suitable impetus to move...the rest was...what, Newtonian physics? Perhaps indeed, but we'd just reached the patch of empty space in front of Victor's big ass TV that was acting as the dance floor.
How adorable he looked...so lost and confused and puppy-like and certainly would not have passed a breathalyzer test anymore...just fine for this, indeed.
"Now, how about you show me a good time?" I told the very suspicious-looking Doberman, as I put my paw onto the bare flare of his hip, above those wonderful pants of his. I felt warm fur, a muscled body indeed, and tension....a lot of it, as he reacted to the most alien of circumstances, for him. "You lead. You're the man, after all..."
I murmured ever so softly.
COBB
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"Aahhh...."
Rory
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What...
...this wasn't happening, was it? Or had Peter just really walked onto the living room with Cobb in tow and he was now arranging their paws around so that they could slow dance along to the lines of 'I believe it's meant to be darling, to watch you when you are sleeping, you belong with me."
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The fingers around mine seemed to become so firm that they were in the danger of bruising a knuckle of two.
"Victor..."I whispered.
Victor
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Brother of mine, what have you gotten yourself into?
Peter
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"...start with the left paw, Jacob," I told him, patting his side, "and I'll follow."
He did have lovely eyes....even I could see that much. Perhaps there was a girl somewhere who went weak in the knees at such a sight. And the smell...and leather...purr...
Rory
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Nicholas and Demetrius practically crashed onto Victor's TV when they saw what was going on there.
"...say my name...sun shines through the rain..:"
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Tate
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Cobb...
Nicholas
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Well it wasn't completely unheard of to have the dice roll a double six twice in the same family, was it?
Demetrius
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I need to invest in some new leather pants...and hold a leather night at the bar to show them off...a free top-up for everyone who comes in wearing leather...I wonder if this guy would come over...they'd be all over him.
Peter
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"See...not so bad, is it, Jacob?"
COBB
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I wonder if I drank too much beer or something...kinda feel giddy...is he touching my ass?
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Thank you for reading my story! I hope you enjoyed the read, and I look forward to your comments. Also remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well!
See you on Friday,
cheerio!