LOGINPOV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerLost in thoughts of his own, Khyle noticed it more. The space was usually full of hustle and bustle, young would-be stars striving to make it to the next level, to get noticed, pushed by their will and their parents. But this year's crop were long gone. The morning's practice had already cleared out, leaving Gunner and Khyle free to do their own thing in the home team's dressing room, the very room in which Khyle had spent the last four years of his life suiting up and listening to speeches under his old coach's close supervision before he was called up to the Reapers.Khyle slowed as he entered the dressing room, ghosts of conversations past lighting up like pale silhouettes in motion as his eyes traced a path around the room, along wood benches, across the floor.Gunner caught the shift in him, subtle as it was, the way Khyle's usual sharp edges had gone soft and unguarded for just a moment, the way his eyes moved across the room like he was reading somet
POV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerThey thought the arena seemed a bit quiet when they finally arrived, the car, and in it, the latest incarnation of their ongoing argument, coasting in a lazy slide around the corner before finding purchase again and winding into the parking lot under the cold and distant eye of the mid-afternoon sun.But when they rolled to a stop right in front of the main entrance, the two men inside the vehicle came to a lurch in their argument and finally took in their surroundings.All of about five cars littered the space around the doors. The building was almost a husk.Gunner's grumbling tenor hacked into their momentary peace first, breaching the lull in their jaded back and forth, the enforcer making zero effort to hide the considerable contempt in his voice."You sure he said to meet him here?" he frowned.Khyle studied the building for a moment."Yesss," he ground out, though he seemed hardly convinced of it himself."It's a ghost town," Gunner complained loudly
POV: KhyleThankfully, Khyle's music was quickly retired, and something less irritating was slid into the CD player.Apparently, Gunner had seen fit to change out the offending CD before Khyle blew a circuit and threw him out of the car. He had sense when he needed to. But it didn't escape Khyle's attention that mixed-X was popped into the passenger door's side panel. For later. The bastard was keeping good on his word, and taking his CD. And that was just weird, because Khyle couldn't figure out why in hell Gunner would actually want to listen to anything that Khyle found erotic.They pulled out of the parking lot and headed to their next destination. The food bank. It was a quick and uneventful stop. Gunner tagged beside him as Khyle carried a box full of dried and canned food, the enforcer lugging the heavier one. They stopped just long enough to give a few autographs once they were recognized, which was pretty much after Khyle had one foot in the door. Then they headed over to the
POV: GunnerGunner swallowed back a real grunt of pain.Somewhere in between shifting gears and checking his mirror and changing lanes, Khyle's bony little elbow had whipped out and drilled into Gunner's shoulder like he was breaking cement. He didn't pull his punches. The pain was bright and sharp, but it was funny. With Khyle on his side now, Gunner found he respected that about him even more.Gunner feigned injury as he was driven off of his prey with a very effective push. Hell, Khyle had practically drilled a hole in his shoulder. He knew the little prick had power, but sometimes he forgot just how much sting he could pack into a hit. He could ignore the fact that the pain he felt in his shoulder gave him a strange sense of excitement. But he couldn't help but chuckle at the twist of discomfort on Khyle's face and those reddened cheeks. And the eyes he gave Gunner, they were almost enough to rip a person to shreds. It gave him a pleasant shiver, but still. It was just a bit of fu
POV: KhyleAfter wading through twenty very technical minutes of mandatory new car talk, Gunner firing question upon question at Khyle until he directed him to the manual that was in the glove compartment, the atmosphere mellowed and thoughts turned to idle conversation.About the cold. And the car."Heated seats are the best, eh?""Yeah, pretty sweet.""My old car, she didn't have that. And you fucking miss it on a day like today. Get in your car, and the seat's like a park bench."Khyle chuckled. He'd never thought of it like that, but that was true. Khyle looked over when Gunner didn't say anything else for a full ten seconds, worried that he might be into or up to something Khyle wouldn't want to know about.He was casually flipping through Khyle's pack of CDs, ones he'd had for years but hadn't had the luxury of listening to for a few months in his old beater with its broken CD player.Khyle let the enforcer occupy himself for a few moments, enjoying just being. He found himself
POV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerHe lifted the key fob and hit the button, and his car chirped back at them, the sound echoing off the cement walls of the structure around them, confusing the senses. Gunner, though, turned his head toward the sound. But his expression quickly became annoyed, like he was thoroughly stuck on a crossword puzzle."Where's your jalopy?" he frowned. Khyle felt his eye twitch, but the typical slight against his car was forgotten in the next instant, and he nodded toward the space ahead, feeling a small upward pull on the side of his sore lip."You're standing in front of it."Gunner seemed to take a moment to process where he was supposed to be looking. Khyle pressed another button, and an engine fired up. Blue eyes widened, first in surprise, then amazement. Not that the car in front of him was the most expensive thing on the road. But it was admittedly as nice as his own. Better maybe. Except that this one apparently belonged to Santos."Get outta here!" he bar
POV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerThe hit had been a thing of specific and terrible physics.Nolan Girard had been lining it up since the second period. That was what Khyle understood later, watching the replay from the bench while everything was still happening in real time in front of him. Nolan had be
POV: KhyleThe penalty box had a particular quality of isolation.Not physical isolation. The box was right there at ice level, surrounded by glass and the ambient noise of the game and the crowd and the specific auditory experience of being in an arena at full capacity with something happening on
POV: GunnerHe entered the locker room looking for orange hair and found Shane Harlow instead.The intermission had been preceded by the coach holding him back at the bench to tell him he was doing a great job and to keep up the energetic attitude, which was the coaching equivalent of a participati
POV: Gunner"How the hell could you miss that?! I cleared you a goddamn yellow brick road!"The words were out before Gunner had made any formal decisions about the intermission, arriving with the momentum of everything that had been building since the first drop of the puck and finding Khyle as th







