Put a Sock in It! (HH)
#38 of Hockey Hunk Season 6
HH returns!
Put a Sock in it!
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Hello, and welcome to the Hockey Hunk! Going to be posting on Mondays only for the time being, to keep things running at the moment. Hopefully I can go back to normal twice a week soon enough once things clear out for me a little. I hope you'll be patient with me, and enjoy what I'm writing meanwhile! *smiles* Read on, y'all!
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The apartment smelled like frying meat once I got in there, which suited me fine. I'd only eaten a sandwich from a café in the supermall and I was really hungry by the time I was finally home. Sure came in handy to have a roomie around, I had to think, even if he wasn't the best chef in the world.
"Smells great!" I called out while hanging my coat.
It did!
"Thanks!"
_ _
I dropped my bag and went over to the main room, to find Marker by the stove doing some useful stirring on the frying pan. A pile of chopped onions and potatoes were off to the side by the sink.
"You been reading my mind or something?" I chuckled, watching him cook.
The wolf was wearing his black hoodie, but at least the hood was down. Could see his muzzle, set into the task. He didn't look over to me when I spoke to him. He knew it wasn't impolite between us. He generally didn't like looking furs in the eye. It made him feel too self conscious of his injury and he was terrified of seeing them look somewhere else, like to the scars cutting over his muzzle and to his neck.
"Felt like a stir fry and there wasn't much else in the fridge."
"As far as I'm concerned, that's more than enough for me," I replied before settling onto my chair. It felt good to be off my paws after such a long day. I was still worried that I might have irritated my stump, especially after the discomfort in the morning. I'd have to check it later, when I was going to take a shower and dry and brush and generally get myself back into shape for the night.
"No beer, though."
"I know we finished it," I said, "I'll be happy with just water. Anything to wash it down."
"Yeah."
I stretched my arms over my head before putting then down to the armrests on the Salvation Army chair.
"Nice day at school?" I asked.
"Yes, pops," Marker replied," learned all about...uh...what was it...yeah, I guess it wasn't that important."
"As long as you learned something," I chuckled tiredly. I thrummed my fingers against the armrests some more, wriggled my remaining toes and yawned some more. Then I scratched my belly, which had thankfully behaved well all day. I eyed the remote on the couch but didn't feel like moving now that I'd gotten my ass on the chair. Getting up seemed too much of a strain in comparison to the possibility that what was on the tube was going to just be utter crap. I'd soon have to do it anyway to get to the food once Marker had it done.
"I guess I did."
I yawned again.
Marker added the potatoes to the pan. The fat sizzled. I felt even hungrier.
"How was the job?"
"Mhuuuh," I snuffled. "The architecture is pretty primitive. Gonna have to do almost everything from scratch. It's gonna take some time."
"But it's good for school, yeah?"
"I'll get to try out a lot of stuff in real life, sure," I said, "and they want me to work on site, to do updates on the site while I'm working on it, and to teach them how to do stuff like...uh...like, you know, putting new stuff onto the site? New products, or special offers, and that sort of crap."
"So you'll have to be going to the mall?"
"Some days, yeah," I said, "other times I'll be at DAD working on the code and the design with the staff there so that they can help me out if I need them."
"Isn't that a cool deal?"
"I guess it is," I said, "lots of travelling over to the mall, though."
"Is it that bad?"
"It just feels long, I guess."
"Were the furs there nice?"
"Suppose so," I said, "there's that tiger there, who did the exam for your glasses."
"He was there?" the wolf asked.
"Yeah, he owns the joint," I said, "apparently, together with this big ass raccoon who was there too."
"Was he wearing that outfit again?"
"You mean the crocodile coat?" I asked.
"Yeah. It looked funny."
"Yeah, he did at some point," I smiled at the memory, "the raccoon has a paw puppet, though."
"You're kidding!"
"Some kind of a...a...I don't know, what's those...uh...the things with televisions on their bellies?" I thought.
"No way," he giggled. "You mean Teletubbies?"
"That what they're called?" I asked, "with...television on their belly and...antenna on their head?"
"Yeah, that's it" he said. "I remember them on TV when I was a kid, though I think I must've been a bit too old for that crap by that point."
Judging by the fact that he knew them, however, it was me who was too old for it. At least Marker smiled, he really did, the way you could see it in their eyes and ears and all that. He looked happy. I couldn't believe it.
"Well, yeah, he had one."
"Did he make a funny voice with it too?"
"I don't know, I only saw him take it to the eye exam room."
"Hahah," his tail was still swinging while he continued his cooking. That was a good sign. it was rare to see him in such a mood. Maybe I should borrow that strange paw puppet from the raccoon and surprise Marker with it. He could wear it on his prosthetic paw. Make it prettier. Guess going with that logic, I should be wearing some fucking big clown shoes or something to take eyes away from mine.
"So...uh...did it make you nervous or anything?"
"Which part?" I asked.
"You know..." he mused, "sounds like there were a lot of kids there..."
Marker had extra trouble with kids. He had hard time remembering they didn't really mean bad when they stared at him, or pointed, or whispered stuff to their mom or friends or something. I'd seen it happen, and it made Marker so damn nervous and unhappy. It usually made him want to leave whatever place we were at, and he'd be...quiet and not really himself for quite some time. The time he finally told me about it, he'd been drunk. I didn't blame him. I knew how I felt like everyone was watching, even if there wasn't anything about me that seemed immediately out of place. Just had hard time shaking off the feeling there was something off with my gait or something. Something someone could see and get a new reason to hate me.
Knew that feeling well. Had spent most of my life thinking there was something off with me that furs could see with a single glance and that'd make them want to show me what they thought about me because of that.
Fuck that.
"Well I spent most of the day in the back room, the staff only area," I said, "it was okay."
"That's cool."
"Just me and my laptop. Tapping away like a good boy."
"Yeah." The food's almost ready."
"Can't wait," I breathed. "Want me to get the plates out?"
"I'll manage, thanks, dude."
Dude?
_ _
"Okay, your call."
God, we were domestic. We were two guys who shot towelheads for a living before we were blown to smithereens and now instead of insurgent hideouts we talked about who would do the dishes. Gee, thanks, USA.
"We're out of bread."
"I'm not really hungry for bread at the moment."
"I should've gone to the supermarket. Sorry."
"Never mind. We can go together if you like, once we've eaten. It's not late yet."
"You think?"
"We'll go," I promised him. "I'll cover your back."
"Thanks."
*
Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed, and looking forward to your feedback!