Accommodate
#33 of Hockey Hunk Season 4
For every message, there is a sender and a recipient...
S04E21
Hehhey, and welcome to The Hockey Hunk! I know it's been a while since the last chapter, and I apologize - logistic difficulties have been hampering me down lately, and I feel really awkward about the sudden gap in updates, but I hope to keep the story going steadily now - things are fun, fun, fun! *Chuckle* Thank you for your patience. I hope that the stuff I wrote in between chapters was at least something of a reparation for the absence of Rory and friends. Really unnecessary, I think.
But here we are now, rearing to go, and I hope that you'll enjoy the read! Please remember to comment, and don't forget that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well!
Cheers!
*
A quick clatter of the keys what all that was needed before the musky smell of the badly lit corridor turned into the even darker and not much better-scented room that was my home. The TV was on with one of those programs where furs tried to sell off some old junk they thought was valuable but turned out to be worthless, and the pair of ears I could see silhouetted against the TV screen was an indication that my roomie indeed was in.
"Yo!" I called out, still halfway in, halfway out into the apartment, loaded with shopping bags on both my paw and one hanging from the handle of my crutch. "Come on and gimme a paw!"
There wasn't any movement from the old leather couch at first, and I stepped in, circling around a bit so that I could, in turn, switch on the lights and then close the door behind me. I blinked a couple of times when the harsh singular unprotected bulb flashed on, and got my tail swishing about plenty when I made another circle in place, remembering to keep all three of my balance points while I hurtled myself around, white bags dangling from me.
"Come on!"
Marker was still wearing his hoodie, I noticed, when the wolf got up from the couch and shuffled over. He was wearing some urban camo pants today, I noticed, the tone almost matching his tail that hung between his legs. I gave him a smile, and he returned with a slightly mournful one, the one I'd seen him do many times. It always looked like he was shy to even try.
"Sorry."
"It's fine," I rumbled as I offered him the bag from my more mobile paw, which he received into his own still fleshy paw. "Anything good on the tube?"
"Same old crap," the wolf muttered as he stomped towards the kitchen side of things with the groceries. "They buy the old shit cheap and sell it at triple the price for their own profit."
"Good times!" I muttered in reply and trailed the wolf into the kitchen after swapping my other bag to my paw instead of the crutch, which made walking much easier all told. I breathed out happily when the bag was finally placed onto the counter and I could stretch my arm a little. Hauling this stuff was still more difficult than it looked like, I thought.
Marker used his hooks to pull the fridge open, anticipating that there were perishable goodies in the bag, and he wasn't wrong, since the first thing he picked out from the bag was the six-pack of Heineken. I rounded the small dining counter and began to help by taking out bread, eggs and some canned tuna Marker liked, and placed them onto the counter so that it'd be easier to put all of them into the cupboards once everything was sorted out.
"How much do I owe you?" the wolf asked once we got into it, the two of us working like some funny furry robots doing their business.
"Well, I spent 29.05, so about fifteen bucks?"
"I'll get my wallet when we're done," the wolf rumbled, muzzle hidden behind the fridge door.
"Well I got it from my EBT, so how about you pay from yours the next time we go shopping?" I proposed, leaning against the counter.
I could tell by the sharp flap of his tail that he didn't much like the idea, but I also knew that he wouldn't be turning me down immediately at least. It always depended on the mood. Some days he managed just fine. Others, not so well. You could never tell right away with Marker Jones.
He didn't say anything, either, and I decided not to flog it. I had to get these cans of tomato soup sorted out first.
"How was school?" I asked.
Marker turned about to scout the counter for any further things to put into the fridge, noticed the jug of milk and then quickly slammed that onto the shelve inside the door, and feeling content now, closed the fridge with a thud. His paws immediately went into his pockets, and he stood there, hunched and leaning against the fridge. I put the bags of macaroni onto their dedicated shelf.
"Okay, I guess" he said. "I have to...uh...do a book essay."
I let out a little chuckle.
"Really?"
"Yeah," the offish-looking wolf huffed. "Part of the critical reading learning or whatever for the SAT prep."
"Have you chosen your topic yet?"
The wolf shrugged.
"I've got a list, so I guess I'll just go to the library and pick whatever's the shortest."
"Heheh," I smiled, ears and tail and everything that was foxy about me doing the foxy things. "That's the right thinking."
"Whatever," Marker yawned, which always looked a bit more gruesome on him than the average fur, I had to admit, since it made the scars on each side of his muzzle show more prominently. "It's gonna take me ages anyway."
I didn't have to comment to him that typing for him was like running a half-marathon for me, so that much remained unspoken for the simple fact that it didn't need to be said. We had gone long way past moaning about our problems to each other, and by now, we could actually be somewhat useful, when it came to exchanges of the sort like now.
"I can try to help," I proposed. "Though you know I'm much better with math."
"Thanks a bunch for that, too, I don't know what I would've done on that math test without you, dude."
"Glad to help," I smiled.
The groceries done, I could finally relief myself of the backpack I had slung on, and placed that onto the counter. It felt nice to have it off me after a long day at school and shuttling myself to the shops that accepted food stamps. That weekly ritual was done now, and a weekend of relaxation might await, after tomorrow's lessons, of course. I hoped that they wouldn't be putting in too much programming homework...but you could always hope.
"Yeah, thanks again."
"How about a beer to kick off the evening, huh?" I proposed with a grin. "I think I'm feeling it now."
Marker shook his head quietly, that ever-present hoodie making a shuffling noise as he did.
"I had to take a pill earlier today," he said. "Don't think I should mix alcohol with that."
I shuffled over to the fridge and he moved away, instinctually, to make some room for me to grab the beer I was craving for and to open it with the pleasant click and pop that was soon followed by the sound of me slurping down the first mawful. I could hear Marker sniffling at the scent of the beer. I smacked my lips and licked them to get the foam off, and enjoyed the after-taste for a moment, standing there as relaxed as I could.
"I prefer a beer or two to Vicodin, myself," I said. "Sure as hell works better than Elavil."
"You shouldn't drink beer with Elavil," Marker noted, flicking an ear at me.
I took another sip of my beer, belched, and rumbled.
"Can't be without them either," I replied.
The wolf glanced at me, and specifically, around the juncture where Tate Michaels became a man of steel and plastic, and I guess he was feeling my pain, somehow, in such a simple gesture. He wouldn't say anything else, and I wouldn't offer anything more, either. The beer tasted nice, though, and I didn't spend much time gulping it down, while Marker watched me uneasily. I crumpled the can and tossed it into the bin. I was still licking my lips by then.
"Well, that was that," I said. "Anything you fancy to eat today?"
"Did you bring the burgers?" the wolf sounded hopeful for once.
"I sure did," I hobbled across the small kitchen installment and opened the door on the top cupboard to reveal the plastic-wrapped buns I had stashed on top of the canned peaches. "I presume we've got some patties in the freezer from the last time."
"Yeah," the wolf nodded.
"Then we're all set!" I exclaimed. "We should have enough stuff to make them good. We've got relish and stuff, I think."
"I guess we do", he rumbled.
"We better get to it, then," I said. "Because I sure am fucking hungry, because I only had a sandwich at school."
"Me too," the wolf muttered. "Subways."
I chuckled and clapped his shoulder.
"You might've as well eaten your book report, then!" I said. "Come on, man, let's get this party started!"
*
Well, well, self-made burgers are nice, and we managed them alright, I think, even though the kitchen was a bit of a mess once we were done eating, and neither of us felt like doing the dishes, so we decided to just screw it and leave it for tomorrow, which left time for...
...well, I wish I could've said that we could've spent the time doing glorious all nothing, but we were a couple of busy furs alright, which meant at as the clock ticked towards seven PM, both of us were busy at work in the small living room. I sat on a small TV meal tray table with my laptop on it, and Marker had his book simply on his lap, with a scrap of paper on the armrest of the couch on top of another book, a pen or alternatively an eraser, as he went through the process of doing his math homework. My own computer screen looked a bit like this:
a:link {
color : #00CC00;
text-decoration : underline;
font-weight : bold;
}
li :link {
color : #00CC00;
text-decoration : none;
font-weight : bold;
}
a:visited {
color : #00CC00;
text-decoration : underline;
font-weight : bold;
}
I blinked, rubbed my brow, and reminded myself once again that I had done this same thing a thousand times already, and that I had nothing to worry about. CSS no longer held too many secrets for me, at least not in the way that it'd make me go "Whut?" the first moment I'd have to face the intricacies of web site code. I was starting to get the hang of it, reading it more or less fluently, and more importantly, too, I was starting to get the ability to imagine what each cryptic line of symbols and words would look like in the finished product without actually trying to display the code to see what I had managed to do. It was alright. I was learning stuff.
The sound of the eraser scraping on paper brought my ears to a flicker, and I looked up so that I could glance over to where Marker was doing his stuff, holding down the notebook with his hook while he scrubbed it.
"Wassup?"
Marker gave me a glance and I could see a lopsided grimace on his muzzle.
"I miswrote one minus sign in the equation and now I have to do it all again because my values are fucked up," he said. "My bad."
"Oops," I commented.
"Goddamn Mrs Adams, she gave us 10 problems to solve."
"Which one's that?" I asked.
"Humph...fifth," he said.
"Are you sure you don't want that beer?" I chuckled.
The wolf's look turned a bit more sour as he went back to rewriting his equation from the scratch, which left me to try and become interested again in the href attributes that were to follow, but I was finding it a bit difficult. Maybe it was the full belly, or the beer I had before breaking havoc in my system in combination with Elavil, or whatever, it was really starting to become a big bore for tonight. I knew that this coding assignment had to be ready by Monday, and if I did some good progress now, there'd be much less to do during the weekend, but I guess my boredom was starting to get the best of me.
Oh well. I could at least take a small break...I promised myself, as I ALT-tabbed myself from the code to Firefox (that's me!) and then spent a minute to try to decide the best timewasting method to employ during my break. A quick log-in to Facebook proved somewhat fruitless, but I soldiered on...
...gee, I was getting tired...
...and logged into Gmail to see whatever might've come there over the day...
...and hoo boy.
There it was...victor.holden.usc.com... a neat address if you ever saw one, with a "RE: Hello", and information that it had been sent only a couple of hours ago.
My ears leaped a little, and so did my tail, tucked against the floor. It'd been almost three weeks since I sent that message to him, after spending so much time writing that damn thing, and my fingers had been shaking even moments before I had dared to click "Send", and then so much time had passed that I had thought that he probably didn't remember me or just didn't want to be in contact with me...which would've been understandable, of course. But all that thinking aside, now, there it was, the message I had been quietly stopped hoping for, sitting in my inbox on top of some Levitra ads and Amazon special discount offers JUST FOR YOU, TATE MICHAELS!
Wow...I felt a sudden urge to grab the computer and withdraw into my alcove to read it, computer tucked to my lap and the lights held out, because it felt somehow private - even if I had no idea what was in the message - I mean, it could've been just a quick "Hello, thanks for the message" and that would be all, and I really shouldn't have expected all that much either, but you never knew what it would be. My heart began to beat more rapidly now, and my ears were flicking a little as I looked at the header on the inbox, and contemplated...my fingerpad hovering over the mouse pointer.
I knew that it was silly...I knew that it shouldn't have meant this much, but I couldn't shake the feeling away. I had been wondering about this for such a long time, waited for a long time, given up hope, and now that same nervous tingle appeared in my stomach as I stared at the computer screen again. Being giddy like a schoolgirl would probably not make too good of a role model for Marker to follow, not that I really wanted to be one - even if it was kind of inevitable, with him being 22 and I was an old fart at the age of 31 in comparison, of course. I probably didn't make such a good big bro, encouraging mixing beer with pills, for example.
Oh, what the hell. It was going to sting only once if it was a rude rejection...or even fit was a gentle "Okay, thanks but no thanks!" coming from my old high school...something.
Well, there we go...I thought...as I moved my padded fingertip over to the left mouse button and clicked, and waited for another damn second for the message to pop onto the screen.
Re: Hello
_ _
Hi, Tate!
_ _
I had no idea that you've been thinking about me, let alone this much. That really was not something I had expected. Funny that my brother Jacob was talking about you the other day, telling about something that you had exchanged some comments on Facebook. I'm sorry that this has taken so long, but in May, I was in a car accident and I had to take such a long leave that I only came back to work yesterday, and while I read your message, I was so swamped with work that I didn't have the time to write you a proper reply. I hope this one day delay didn't matter too much, since I'm already so very late. You could have sent me a message on Facebook too, I really wouldn't have minded.
_ _
You really have been a thinking a lot, haven't you? I had no idea where life has taken you, Tate, so reading this was a big revelation to me. It sounds like you've been through some hard times over the past couple of years. Really makes their mark in a man, physical and mental and whatever they call them. I really hope you're getting along fine with whatever you're doing.
_ _
As for what you spoke about school...well...I think I've forgotten most of that stuff. I kind of took it as it was, and thinking back now, it's just something I think as being something that happened such a long time ago, it doesn't really matter so much anymore, does it now? It's been so long that I'm a different person now, and can think about it all in a different light. I don't know what else to say about it, really, except that I appreciate you wanting to apologize. I knew that there were a lot of furs back then who had it a bit rough because of whatever rivalry or whatever was going on at the school at the time. Not to mention anyone who was different, of course, but that's the school life It's harsh, and we've come through it, and maybe we know a bit better now eh?
_ _
This is starting to look like a ramble to me, and I'm writing this at work, hahah, so I think I better stop this here before I end up making a mess of my words, but if you really would like to meet at some time, why don't you suggest me some time and I'll see what I can do, huh? I can't say I have a particularly busy social schedule at the moment, though having my brother staying with me at the moment sure keeps me busier than I thought! So, I guess if you want to meet in the near future, you might get to meet the other Holden too. Just saying.
_ _
Thank you for your message.
_ _
Victor
_ _
_ _
Well....
*
Thank you for reading my story! Hope you enjoyed the read, and hopefully you'll leave plenty of comments!
See you on Monday!
Cheerio!