Chapter Text
23 February 2019
Kip slept the whole night.
It felt like a betrayal. He should have been awake. He should have been riddled with grief and sadness and not be closing his eyes, even for a second. But he was exhausted. Mentally, physically and emotionally. After Scott brought him to his room and used a wet rag to clean both of their bodies, they lied on Kip's bed. He didn't stop crying for a minute, thinking that he would probably be dehydrated by midnight.
But he just cried for 3 hours. After this he was a goner. He didn't dream as well. Not even a nightmare to redeem a little of his guilt. Maybe it was because Scott was here. He got so used to sleeping with the feeling of his body heat that Kip's mind probably already had that sensation as "safe" and he could fall asleep without a problem.
When he opened his eyes again, it was clear and bright outside. For a brief moment, everything that happened yesterday was just a very bad nightmare. But the hollow feeling in his chest was still there.
When Scott woke up, only minutes after him, Kip could see... The same unfounded hope that he briefly had, that everything else was not real. But that hope was squashed when Scott brushes his thumb on Kip's cheek, trying to get something dry out of his face, when he did it, there was dried blood on his thumb. Kip let out a shuddering sigh, like a warning that he may cry again. But he didn't.
They kept themselves like this. Lying in the bed, looking at their haunted eyes, trying not to think. Trying to forget for a little bit about the reality outside of that bedroom.
They were engaged. Kip was in grad school. Scott was finally retired after two consecutive cup wins. They were planning a wedding after the pandemic. They had a list of countries they would visit in Kip's vacations from grad school. They were thinking about adoption maybe in five years. Kip wanted to host a get together in their future house with his friends and Scott's team. There were so many paintings he wanted to see and buy... Pay the mortgage for his father's home. A sob comes back to Kip's chest. Scott didn't try to stop his crying, but gave soft little kisses on his cheek, comforting all the same, but still let him grief.
They may have spent 10 minutes like this, or half an hour or even half of the day. Time looked like ment shit to them right now. But after this undisclosed amount of time had passed, they got up. Scott took some of his clothes that Kip had stolen to himself and put back on some of his paddings. After that he helped Kip put on some new clothes while he was still not moving much, lost in his grief.
There was a dark-blonde guy sleeping on his sofa in the living room, and sitting on the ground next to the wall was a beautiful asian man that was looking at the door, which was heavily barricaded. The pretty asian man had on his hand what looked like a handcrafted battle axe, made of Hockey sticks, knives and probably blades of skates.
"Where is Elena?" Scott asked, whispering. His hands was still on Kip's shoulders
"We decided that she could use the spare room for herself. We would keep guard" the pretty asian said flatly, monotone. There was no emotion in his face.
Maybe Kip knew him, it was not a face easy to forget. He was using the same equipment as Scott so he was obviously a hockey player as well. Kip never saw a hokey player with a nose that straight, even Scott, who was good at evading had broken his nose several times and replaced some teeth, all part of the charm that was so captivating to Kip. Shane Hollander! He was the one that dated Rose Landry right? Kip's — still slow — brain helped him with that. He was not an avid hockey fan, he started with Scott after all, so it was very difficult to remember players only for their hockey career. Only his father was...
Only my father. God! How it hurts...
"I'm sorry for your loss." Said the beautiful man. His eyes were not really looking at Kip. They were detached. Cold. Other. "I've got the liberty to throw the bodies of the other two at the end of the street. They're probably eaten by now, I hope." Clinal, just stating facts, but with polite-ish words.
Kip had always compared Scott with a painting of Johannes Vermeer: something light, cozy and intimate like the Milkmaid. This man, still sitting on the ground next to the wall, had a very different comparison to his fiance.
Lonesome. Austere. Cold and luminous like the moon in the distance. Hammershøi. Master of light and void. "Interior, strandgate." A great collection where the silence of the composition talks louder than anything else.
"Kip, this is Shane Hollander. The one sleeping on the couch is his friend and Alt-capitain Hayden Pike." Scott said, putting his head next Kip's cheek, making him melt immediately. "Shane, this is Kip Grady. My fiance."
Shane finally looked at them. Kip could see, very quickly, a feeling in the distant state of that man. Longing. He was missing someone right now. Maybe even grieving like Kip was.
"Pleasure to meet you." He said, politely, almost warming, but the distance was too much to overcome at the moment. "I used some sheets to envelope your father. We need to dispatch him properly then get out of here. Your place is way too close to the ground for our safety."
"I–ok?" Kip blinked and looked at his fiance looking for some answers. Scott's eyes told him to trust Shane's judgement.
"To bury him is out of the question and I believe you wouldn't want to leave him out here.“ Kip could see that Shane was trying to be considerate, but the whole distance thing was off-putting. "So I was arranging a funeral pyre on your roof. Do you have anything against it? It's the best funeral rite we can get right now."
"We were not religious. My mother was also cremated." Her urn was probably smashed after the invasion. He tried not to think about it.
"I will make something for all of us to eat." Scott said, giving Kip a kiss and going in the direction of the kitchen.
After Shane woke up Hayden they went up in the direction of the roof with some of the wooden furniture that was already broken. Kip decided that they needed more than that and took some more of the furniture. A little time after that Elena was helping with the pyre looking for flammable things. It was her idea of putting the center table of the living room as a "bed" to put George's body on. It was closer to nine o'clock when they finished — according to his new watch that he took from his father's wrist the night before — Scott had already prepared breakfast for them with everything he could find on the refrigerator, it would spoil anyway.
He didn't want to eat. Not with his father's corpse at his side, but Shane had ordered that they eat well before they could go out. Hayden looked spooked at that, even more when the pretty and distant man started eating anything mechanically in the kitchen. The others didn't have the stomach for that and decided to bring everything to the now very bare living room.
After half an hour of eating Hayden and Scott brought George's corpse to the pyre and put him gently on the pyre's bed. This terrace roof was the motive they moved to the middle of the Bronx. His dad was so happy for finally having a home in his name. He would barbecue almost every Sunday here. Elena hugged him tight and gave him a lighter and a roll of paper.
After dropping the burning roll and watching his dad completely disappear in flames, everything else becomes a blur. He knows they went back inside. He knows a discussion happened at some point. He knows Scott didn't let Kip go back to the roof. He knows that at some point Elena almost shoots Hayden for some reason. He knows that everyone started to ransack his house. But he just sits on the couch. Sometimes Scott kisses him on the temple, sometimes a gentle and parental hand touches his shoulder, sometimes Elena sits with him giving her comforting presences, sometimes someone gives him a piece of fruit and doesn't say anything.
"Hey..." It was Scott. "We have to go, baby." Kip looked up. He was wearing all of his paddings, one of his hands was occupied with a modified hockey stick, on his back a backpack that Kip remembered was a gift from his father to Scott. And casually he was holding another backpack and a shotgun. Kip looked at the gun then at his fiance. "It's way too loud, but we need everything we can. Elena says that it was you who taught her how to shoot?"
"Yeah ... I— yeah. I wasn't very good at having just one hobby and my mother was from Montana. My Papaw taught me how to shoot and hunt."
"Right now is what will probably be needed." Scott says.
Before Kip could respond or ask any questions, Shane was already taking out the barricade from the front door. He also has a new bag in his back, one that Kip didn't remember ever having. He probably looted the invaders corpses.
"Diamond formation again." He says. "Scott spearhead, me and Hayden on wings, Elena on the back, Kip on the center. Do not..." He looked at Kip "do not shoot your gun unless it is completely necessary." He looked at the peephole. "It looks like there are less Things out there right now. Let's go."
Scott took a deep breath, Hayden rolled out his shoulders and did a little jumps, Elena scrutinized her gun with familiarity. Kip had the presence of spirit to examine his shotgun and counted every bullet that he had in his little pouch.
"Here." Elena said, giving him a little vial. When Kip's brain catches up to him he realizes that inside there was ashes. "You shouldn't see how it is up there, so I got it for you."
He knew that that little pyre was not enough to burn his father to the bones, but he was so happy to have at least that to remember him. She had tied a knot around the vial, so he could wear it. He could not put into words how grateful he is for his best friend without crying again, so he just hugged her.
Now, maybe it is his biased heart and mind, maybe it is because Kip was already used to seeing his fiance as the captain of his team, but he didn't have thought that Scott was not the default leader of the little group. Until he heard Shane whisper orders and everyone, even Elena, was following. Kip also noticed that he was just following as well.
The streets were filled with corpses in various states of mangleness, the stench was more and more potent and disorienting. Kip tried very hard not to look at anything besides Scott's wide frame at his front. The whispered orders were more frequent now they are in the open, constant check ins about what Hayden and Elena was seeing, Scott also saying without Shane deliberately asking, but it was clear that every input the older man was giving was being heavily considered.
They changed course constantly. Kip understood that, so he tried to give some of the shortcuts that he knew about that didn't show well in the maps. At least two times his suggestions were used to get them out of places that were clearly full of "Things" as Shane says.
Kip was trembling. He wanted to barf it out everything that he had eaten this morning every time he looked at one of those "Things".
They looked so human. They were human, at some point. Now they looked wrong, moved wrong, sounded wrong, with froff and blood on their mouths, some without parts of their bodies.
Kip tried to keep his head low, only moving when the whole group moved. Until now he and Maria didn't have to shoot anyone and he knew that a shotgun was the last thing they needed right now. He wished he had his Papaw hunting rifle, less noise then a fucking shotgun and a better accuracy by a mile, even a crossbow would do beautifully — that was his cousin Martha's favorite, she hated the recoil of any weapon, darts and arrows was always the “more elegant choices” was what she always used to says while holding a dead duck for Kip to clean.
"What do we do?" Kip heard the blond guy, Hayden, ask, getting attention. Holding his shotgun closer to his chest he saw Scott's building ahead. They weren't going to the front entrance, they were clearly going in the alley for the fire escape stairs. But the alley had four Things stumbling around. Stomach bloated with the flesh of the corpses on the ground. "They eat the ones that are not moving as well?"
"Can we wait for something to get their attention? It's been working very well for us." Elena says.
"We can try going around to see how things are in the front entrance?" Scott suggested.
"And going up how? Through the infested stairs? Through the elevator that doesn't work during a grid failure?" Hayden countered. The three of them started to have a whispered heated discussion.
A puck. Kip heard, almost like a hallucination because it was so low and detached that it didn't feel real.
But Shane started to walk towards the alley.
"Shane, buddy? Come back here!" Hayden tried to hold his arm, but was way too slow.
Shane's presence was quickly noticed by the Things, who started to run in his direction. Shane lowered himself and put his stick down like he was in the beginning of a face-off. The fastest Thing got close in less than five seconds, Elena cursed and pointed her handgun, but she didn't need to shoot. Shane tapped one time his modified hockey stick in the ground and with a fluid motion he cut the Thing legs off and then its head. The second and the third were close in two seconds, receiving just one attack from Shane, getting their heads chopped at the same time. The last was cut in half spilling the guts on the ground and then he stomps its head with the blunt part of his stick.
That was a different painting altogether in Kip’s mind. Forget the solitude and coldness of Hammershøi. That was divine ire, that was retribution, that was a deep level of emotions that was not and could not be fully expressed. That was Artemisia Gentileschi. It was gore, fury and beauty. Kip closed his eyes and turned his face.
"Don't." Shane commanded. "You should look. It's not pleasant, but it's reality now." It was not a firm command, but somehow was worse that way.
"Shane?!" Scott tried.
"He has to see." Shane said. "All of us had to. He must too."
The silence was brief. Then Elena said. "You have to look, babe." And Kip did.
Shane was sitting in his heels, the stick in hands that was almost looking like a grim reaper's scythe. On the ground close to him was the decapitated head of the first Thing. It was...
"Still moving." Shane said, clinical. "We realized this by accident. They still move if the head is attached and whole." Shane looked back, where the other things were laid. The last one exploded, the two heads in the middle cut in half. "Don't aim for the body. Go for the head. Freak out in a safe place after" he got up from his stance and then exploded the last head that was still moving with his stick. "We can freak out in Scott's penthouse. Just don't vomit. Dehydration is as threatening as anything else right now."
Kip tried not to gag, but he also tried to take all in. He remembered the first time his Papaw took him to hunt. It was the same time that he was crying because the kids where calling him a fag and fairy. His mother and father tried to stop him, but it was no use. Kip cried the whole time, and when his Papaw killed a deer and skinned the animal for them to eat, the old man was only talking about the horns, how a deer could crush a man very easily even though they were the most suave and fragile looking beast they found in the whole day. Fragility is not an excuse to not adapt, he used to say, being different is not an excuse to give up and not try something else. After that day he started to bring him and his cousins to hunt, never really asking or making Kip feel like he had to be macho, but making him capable. He used to hate all his New York boyfriends though, they were too weak and too futile to his grandson.
So right now it is the same. Adaptation is required again. Shane was right, that place was not the right place to freak out yet. They have to go up to the penthouse first. So he stared at the things and various states of wrongness in the ground until his stomach stopped doing flips. He understood why the four of them looked the way they looked when he got up this morning. Even Scott, who had tried to comfort him, looked hardened. But until now they were killing things. Kip's haunting was different. But still, in some part of his brain he was glad that he didn't have to kill anything after last night. In some fuck up way he was glad for what Shane was doing.
"C'mon." Shane said, going in the direction of the stairs. "We are all at our limits right now."
At the moment that they got inside the penthouse, Hayden was already barricading the door, Elena went to the kitchen and took out a cigarette from her purse, Scott and Shane went to the table and put out the things from both of their backpacks. After a little while, everyone emptied their backpacks to make an inventory of what they had.
There were some meds from his father's bathroom, enough painkillers for one hockey player only, two antipyretics like ibuprofen and three little boxes of antibiotics. Scott quickly took his own meds and put them on the table, getting their stock to four bottles of painkillers, three antipyretics and five antibiotics. They had no idea if that was good or not.
There were two camping bags with thermal blankets, sleeping bags, lanterns and a firestarter — Elena and Kip were the ones with those.
They also took a lot of non-perishable foods that he had in his house even though it was not much.
It was a good haul... If they had less people in that group. Hayden sighed loudly and scrubbed his face, almost scratching it. He just went in the direction of the rooms probably looking for privacy. Scott had that intense look on his face that normally means he is on the edge, before Kip attempted to sooth his worries he was already going to the kitchen, taking out everything that would spoil fast and started to prepare lunch for everyone. Elena goes in the direction of the door for the balcony to smoke another cigarette.
Shane looked at him, their eyes meeting for a second before he started to organize their inventory on their five bags.
"I'm sorry for what I made you feel back there." He said. "I'm not good with people in normal circumstances, but I know when someone is creating a complex. I saw way too many times in my life, could see every time a teammate's hesitation becomes a habit." He separated the pain killers and the other meds as evenly as he could. "It's a fucking shit show back there. But we don't have the luxury to hesitate anymore. I almost did that before I got to your house... I don't know if Hayden or even I would be here right now..."
There was a beat of silence.
"...they were not Things." Kip said, looking without blinking at the firestarter. "They were just people and I shot them."
"And you earn your right to feel bad. To be traumatized. You just can't hesitate anymore." He closed the second backpack. "They were humans too, the Things. I killed one that was using my jersey. Probably she watched my game." He closed the third backpack. "My goalie became a Thing according to Hayden. You killed the people who invaded your house and killed your dad." He closed that fourth backpack. "You can feel bad about it. Lose your sleep or cry yourself to unconsciousness. Just don't hesitate." His hands stopped at the last backpack. Only now Kip could see that his hands were trembling the whole time. "I couldn't sleep. I can't close my eyes without seeing horrific visions now." He closed the last backpack and went in the direction of the luggage at the door, piking his eye lid while moving. "But I can't hesitate anymore. I have to stay alive. I know my parents will do everything in their power to stay alive until I get back to them and... I need to know if someone else is alive as well."
Shane stopped to pay attention to Kip as he was taking out things from the luggage. Grady looked around, seeing the spare room with a closed door — probably Hayden was in there —, saw Scott cutting things and putting in a sauce pan in the kitchen, and Elena smoking on the balcony looking at him.
"How are you holding up, babe?" She asked when he stepped on the balcony putting his back on the rail like her.
"Like everyone else?"
"So no good at all." They both laughed a little. Kip looked at the city over his shoulder, Manhattan just on the other side of the river eerily silent with occasional fires and smoke. Well, silent enough, he could see a car zooming in the street in the margin of the river running over various Things, gun shots here and there, sometimes screams. He decided to not think too much about it and sigh heavily. Then he looked at the man methodically taking everything from the luggage, folding or organizing the things he was putting on the floor.
"Can I ask..."
"About our fearsome and pretty leader?"
"Yeah. Is he always so..."
"Focused? Like a machine? Cold?" She said, taking another drag. "No... I don't know him personally. When I got here he looked as much out of depth as us. Nervous, hesitant, conflicted. But his plans were working and both of the boys thrust his judgment so I was just going along."
"But?"
"But something broke in him. Like a switch was flicked and he just got more ... Efficient." She dragged one last that and put out the bud in the rail. "I asked Hayden. He said that Shane thrives in efficiency. He likes plans and things following through. I think he is coping the way he can. Being the most efficient being as possible." They decided to go back to the living room. Hayden was back as well, sitting on his heels close to Shane. His eyes were very red and puffy.
"What are you after buddy?" He asked.
"My phone."
Hayden looked in the direction of the kitchen.
"Your phone is on the counter with mine. Completely dead, though."
"Not that phone. This one!" He said, with the first real emotion that Kip could hear it in his voice. He was showing something.
"That looks like a walkie-talkie." Kip said, getting closer to the two of them.
"This thing is a satellite phone." Shane said, making Hayden raise an eyebrow.
"And why, if you pardon my curiosity, do you have this thing?" Elena asked from the sofa. Shane got flustered, avoiding eye contact and blushing so much that Kip could see the contrast with his freckles.
"Oh, er... It's, hmm, one of my father's hobbies. He is a survivalist. And a very big fan of hiking. He got in a rabbit hole one day about being stranded without cellphone service and then he bought this phone for us. My mom always left hers at home, but it was a gift from my dad so I always carry it. It's— uhm, not a big deal."
"David is still getting strange hobbies? What was the last one? Wood carving?" Hayden said, teasingly. Kip could sense a desperate hope in there, like Hayden was careful to not spook Shane back to his cocoon of coldness.
"What? No! It's— it's not strange! And it was plane models!"
"Sure, buddy."
"They are cool!"
Kip looked at Elena, who just raised a brow at Kip inquiring eyes. It was strange, like he was slowly defrosting and showing a more vulnerable personality, so much that Kip could think of another comparison. Rockwell's painting: mundane, awkward poses, a breath of life.
"Oh my god, I'm so fucking dirty!" Shane whisper-cried like he just only noticed now, holding his arms away from his own body, and quickly took out his jersey and paddings, followed by taking a handful of unscented baby wipes that were in the neat pile he made in the ground. "So gross, so gross, so gross!" He murmured.
That was his real personality then? The killing machine, the efficient god leader was really not who he was? How many paintings and styles he would show yet?
"Your phone brick has only 2% of charge." Kip noticed, getting close to Shane. Scott warned everyone that lunch was about five minutes to be ready.
"Oh fuck! Dad would be so mad if knew!" He fumbled with his handful of baby wipes — now very dirty — trying to keep in another separated neat pile. "This monster can stay charged for a month but it is so easy to forget to charge after that!"
He quickly opened the message app — there were only four apps on that thing — and saw only one message on display. Shane let it out a long shuddering sigh of relief.
Dad: We are alive (23:45)
Dad: We are at your Cottage. I'm building a second fence for precautions and my nerves. Your mother rolled her ankle and she is "disgusted with the poor optimization and ankle support of her Reebok shoes" so she regrets the endorsement now. (23:45)
Dad: Shane (01:32)
Dad: Please respond? (01:32)
"Fuck" Shane murmured, almost like a hiccup.
"They are ok buddy." Hayden said, but his voice sounds unbelievably sad. Kip was holding the little vial of his father's ashes.
Shane: I'm ok. Stranded in New York with four more people.
Shane: Hayden is here with me.
Shane: Dad, please, If you have any news of R or Jackie, please tell us!
Shane: We're going to make it through this!
But all these messages didn't go through. There was a little clock symbol on the side. "There is no satellite I can use right now." Shane said, looking at the balcony. He went back to tinkering with the brick phone. "If this thing is correct there is one that passes on the horizon for 30 minutes at 1pm. But the last update was yesterday at 8pm..."
"Satellites very rarely change time and route, Rook." Scott appeared behind Kip, giving him a very sweet kiss. "Let's go eat. We have to plan our next stage."
In the kitchen there was a bucket with water and a little cup so they could clean their hands. Without energy, even this building that had a reservoir of water on top, didn't have enough pressure for the tap to do much, even less the shower, so buckets are life savers. Hayden said that they could get enough water from the tap to take most of the grimes from our bodies, but not a "Shane shower" as he coined, which earned him a very sassy eye roll. After everyone was hygienic enough to eat, they all gathered around the table where a very good amount of food was served, even if most were grilled or boiled in a soup. That was the food that would not last long without the fridge.
Scott was a miracle worker with food. Though he met Kip when he was working in food service — and very recently, working on Kingfisher — most of the most delicious food made in this house was the responsibility of the captain, even more after his retirement. Thinking about normalcy the day before yesterday hurt him a bit.
Of course, because of his wonderful neurotic mind, Scott had already prepared most of the things so this lunch didn't take much time to be ready. At glance, Kip saw Shane putting only a scoop of rice and a grilled fish. Hayden was glaring at him.
"Try again, buddy." He sounded almost like a dad. Shane looked like he wanted to complain, but Hayden didn't stop to glare. Defeated, he took a piece of grilled chicken breast and another scoop of rice. That was a very different scene from the breakfast, Kip noticed.
"I can't eat more than this." He murmured, looking at his plate.
"We will talk later."
There was a history there, Kip could see, Elena was watching as well and Scott looked uncomfortable. The only woman of the house cleared her throat, getting the attention. "Can someone pass the soup thing?"
"It's stew. I just didn't have the time to make it look like one." Scott said, doing what was asked
"That's what a soup is, handsome."
"It 's clearly not!"
"Then your meat stew is drowning!" Hayden said, clearly going with the flow as Shane clearly was uncomfortable with the last topic at the table.
"Go fuck you self Pike! Give me back my food!"
Kip was full of giggles while Scott and Hayden were chirping each other, with some very cutting remarks from Elena and few surprisingly witty — with a deadpan splash of dry humor — comments from Shane himself. That whole lunch was a breath of normalcy that he didn't know he was dying for. His free hand was always holding Scott's over the table and from time to time, while not getting "how was your 50th anniversary?" jokes from Shane or calling Hayden a rabbit hybrid freak or being humbled by Elena, he was kissing that back of Kip's hand and stealing glances at his face with adoration.
"—No you fucking doesn't!" Shane was mid his rant about something hockey related that Kip already mentally checked out of the conversation minutes ago, but seeing him lively like that was... Good. Unexpected from the guy he met hours ago, or the model of hundreds of commercials. Everyone was already full, Hayden had taken 3 servings of food, Elena had two bowls of the stew-soup and Kip could not resist a good grilled fish. Only Shane had eaten only one serving and he was one of the last to finish. "I know all the statistics! Don't fucking lie to my face, you Geria—" the monstrosity that Shane called phone vibrated a little bit, making the man stop. He took the phone to look. Everyone got up and got around the table to look at the screen of the phone. "My father responded." He said more to be polite than anything as everyone was already so they could see. The charge was in the dangerous stage of 1%.
Dad: Shane! Your mother and I are very relieved to see that you are ok! I'm very glad I gifted you this satellite phone! I believe your cottage can keep us safe and comfortable for a long time. If you think it is safe enough to make this journey, please, come to us. We don't believe New York would be a good choice to survive in the long run, we don't know how much time, if ever, things would need to get back to normal. I'm sorry to inform Hayden and you that you are the first person we could get in touch since the lines fell down. Please give us updates when you can! We need to know you are ok! (13:00)
"We could think about the logistics of getting the hell out of here." Hayden commented after a few seconds of silence.
Before Shane could say something Elena was already talking.
"You have another message, but the it's not a saved number"
Shane looked intrigued and quickly opened the new message. When the screen changed, Shane's reaction was instant.
Unknown number: Jane. 19:30, pick up and answer it. (13:00)
Shane started hyperventilating, Kip heard Hayden cursing saying " unbe-fucking-lievable", leaving the other three confused. With shaking hands Shane started to type:
Shane: Lily?
But before he could send it, the phone went black.