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It hadn’t poured like this in California in decades. Before the radio signal had cut out completely to intermittent static, there had been reports of flooding in the canals and lower areas, and now apparently, entire sections of the city had gone dark, and the sun had abandoned them for the horizon with it. Chris had been amused and in good spirits early on, whistling Ride of the Valkyries and scoffing at people white-knuckling their steering wheels like it was the End of Days. But now, what was normally a thirty to forty minute drive home had turned into two and a half hours of stop-and-go, navigating LA intersections with no lights, clueless drivers, and six inch deep streets.
The rain sheeted his windshield as soon as the wiper blade cleared it as Chris sat in a line of traffic and tried his phone again. Still no signal. He’d tried to shoot Zach a couple of texts ages ago, no idea if they got through, and now his battery was nearly gone with trying. Realistically, he ought to just pull in at a shop somewhere and wait this out, but at this point all he wanted was to get home and make sure Zach was okay.
Lightning flashed the barest skeleton of visibility as he finally managed to cut through a gas station and onto their own street. And of course, he had to drive around and around looking for a place to park, ending up easily two blocks away in what was hopefully an overnight zone—he’d barely been able to read the sign and was soaked three seconds after he got out, the street ankle deep and filling his boots. He tried to shelter his bag under his arm and run home, but the rain quickly weighted his clothes like lead and he felt like he could barely move, trudging down the sidewalk feeling like a yeti in a snowstorm. Just about as cold as one too.
By the time he finally, finally made it to the apartment door, he was shivering so violently he couldn’t find the right key on his keyring in the dark, much less see the keyhole and get it in there. He felt around for the doorbell, pressing it. He heard no sound before remembering, no power, no electricity, no doorbell. He raised a hand to try to knock but his frozen knuckles could barely make a sound loud enough to be heard in the pounding rain. And what if Zach had gone out before the storm, what if he was stuck somewhere? Oh god, what if he was out in this? The jolt of fear fired adrenaline through him.
“Zach?” he shouted, kicking at the door and feeling the water squelch through his boots and the pain of his frozen toes zing, but he kicked and called again, desperately, “Zach!”
Abruptly, the door swung open and he nearly fell inside.
“Chris! Are you okay?” Zach exclaimed, “Jesus, you're soaked to the bone, get in here.”
He stumbled through, Zach pulling him in and shutting the door on the storm raging outside. “Zach…’s r-r-rai-n-in-n-ng,” he stuttered through chattering teeth. His mouth wasn’t working right. His brain wasn’t working right either, he was so cold. So cold.
“Ya think?” Zach laughed, “Hang on, stay here. Right here, okay? Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
Then he was gone, and Chris stood there bereft, shivering and feeling the sleeves of his sweater pulling towards his knees. He tried to gather them up to find his hands, and failing that, tried to slap on the light in the living room, only to realize, there would be no light, the city was in a complete blackout, or at least their entire neighborhood was.
Suddenly Zach returned, his voice at Chris’ side making him jerk in surprise, “Here, you need to get out of those wet clothes.”
“M-m-m d-d-d-dri-pp-in-g all o-v-vvv-er.”
“Yes, you are. Let me help, silly.” Zach’s hands lifted the leaden hem of his sweater, Chris standing there dumbly until Zach had pulled it up and got him to bend enough to peel it off over his head and arms. It fell to their feet with a splat, and then there was something gloriously soft and dry draped over his head, scrubbing at his hair. He clumsily kept its warmth clutched around his shoulders as Zach got to work prying the wet, swollen leather of his belt from its buckle and got his fly undone, peeling the freezing wet jeans off inches at a time. He nearly toppled over with them stuck around his ankles as Zach belatedly worked his boots off. His sodden briefs followed, and then Zach produced another towel, efficiently drying the rest of him before he took the towels away and replaced them with a big, fluffy cloud of warm, wrapping him up in it and then his arms around that.
“There, that’s better, right?” Zach murmured, kissing his face and then his mouth, which he couldn’t make kiss back for more than a second, “Come in here, sit down and warm up, baby.”
Zach pulled him stumbling to the sofa, gathering the whole Chris burrito up against him on its cushions. “Better?”
“Mmm,” Chris hummed, Zach’s blissful heat starting to defrost him. “I was w-wor-r-ried.”
“About what?” Zach murmured into his damp hair.
“Y-you,” Chris took a deep breath and sighed as the shivers started to let go of his muscles. “I didn’t kn-now if you were okay in this st-storm.”
“I’m fine,” Zach laughed gently, “I’ve been home. Noah’s a wreck though, I think he and Harold have been under the bed for hours now.”
Chris hummed again, snuggling in deeper, “Roads were a disaster. Took forever.”
“I bet,” Zach said, “Are you hungry?”
“Starved,” he sighed.
Zach wriggled out from under him, “I’ll make you something. Won’t be anything warm though. I wish I could heat up that stew you made last night.”
In the strobe of another lightning strike, he barely caught the movement of Zach in the kitchen, though he could hear him rummaging in the fridge, the sliding shush of drawers, the rustle of plastic and clink of glass.
“Do we have any candles or something?” he asked.
He heard Zach’s rumbled laugh float back to him, “Since when do we keep candles?”
Chris had no answer, sitting up and feeling a little weird, nude on the couch in the pitch black with a down comforter draped around him, his body tingling as the blood came back to his limbs. Thunder growled outside the walls, the clink and shuffle of Zach in the kitchen, the sound of his feet on the carpet coming back nearby, something hard set down in front of him. He waited blindly, feeling the couch cushion depress beside him again, and Zach’s amused laugh, his hand touching his arm.
“Sandwich at your twelve o’clock, Pine. On the coffee table.”
He flailed a bit, Zach catching his hand and bringing it to the plate so he could find the food. Gingerly, he felt a sandwich, spongy bread, cool, moist layers in between. A second half, cut into triangles. He picked it up with both hands, gathering the layers and trying to turn a corner of it into his mouth, missing and getting a glop of mustard on his face. Turkey, cheese, spinach, maybe, something crunchy and green tasting.
Zach got up and moved around as he ate, and he could hear him shuffling behind him, then deeper in the apartment, the bathroom or bedroom, he wasn’t sure. He barely caught glimpses of the world around him, and only when the lightning brightened the sky for milliseconds at a time. He belatedly thought about the flashlight he kept in the toolkit in his car, but there was no way he was going back out there now to get it.
Sandwich finished, he reached for the plate and got up, meaning to take it to the kitchen, but he tripped over the blanket, barely catching himself before whacking his knee on the corner of the coffee table. “Ow.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” he grumbled through his teeth, rubbing at his knee. “I dropped the plate. I don’t think it broke though.”
He got down to feel around for it and thunked his head hard. “Ow, fuck!”
“Hey, just sit, sit still,” Zach told him, “I got it.”
He sat back on his ass with a huff, the blanket falling around him, rubbing at the stinging bump on his eyebrow that made tears come to his eyes. He could feel Zach moving again, hear him searching the floor before he must have discovered the plate and calmly took it to the kitchen. He tried to get up again, the bulky blanket hindering his ability to move very far and getting completely disoriented as he tried to figure out which direction was what. His toe caught the edge of something hard and throbbed. “Ow! God fucking dammit!”
“Chris,” Zach’s voice said, heavy with fond exasperation.
“Fuck this!” Chris spat, leaning on whatever he’d hit and rubbing his toe, feeling ridiculous and stupid, standing here in complete darkness, buck naked and helpless.
He felt Zach’s hand brush his side and then easily catch his wrist, wrapping him back in the blanket before guiding him to sit down and hold him close again.
Chris took a deep breath and let it out, head, knee, toe and ego sorely bruised, his chest full of frustration and anger and a distinct, horrible complete loss of control. He had no idea how to deal with this utter darkness, pressing close and claustrophobic against his eyes, though he held them as wide as he could make them. “I hate this.”
Zach pressed his face into Chris' neck and breathed warm and dry there. “When I went home after my accident, and I was trying to learn where I was and how to move, how to be a human again, this is what it felt like. This is still what it feels like sometimes.”
“I dunno how you do this every day,” Chris blurted, and then heart squeezed and ached, because Zach did do this everyday, every minute and second, and there would be no end to it ever, the lights would never come back on for him. He almost felt like crying at the bitch of it, the total irony, pushing farther into the familiarity of Zach all around him. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, ashamed to have had such a tantrum about it when Zach was all patience and kindness.
“It’s okay, I know,” Zach sighed heavily. “I get mad. I get frustrated. I hurt myself and I fucking hate everything. Every day.” He brought his hand up to Chris’ face, his fingerprints there a comfort, “But then I have to take a deep breath and accept it, so I can keep on living. And find wonderful things out there in the world that make it better.”
“Like what?” Chris muttered listlessly. What could he possibly find to help this go away?
“This,” Zach’s fingers tipped and guided his face to bring their lips together, Zach’s mouth warm and sweet, a singular point Chris knew intimately, and he understood, without the need or benefit of his eyesight. He could feel Zach’s head tilt, the flutter of his eyelashes against his cheek, the silky brush of his hair. The darkness around them didn’t exist here, between them, and he melted against it, into its warmth.
The thunder rumbled dully, the sound of the pounding water growing quieter against the walls as Zach stretched out across the couch with Chris and the comforter making a warm tent of just them against the raging storm, Zach’s broad hands drifting up and down along his naked skin, making out like teenagers until Chris giggled and grinned again, the frustration drifting away for something better. Except for one annoying yet persistent problem.
Chris pulled his mouth back, his forehead resting against Zach’s prickly chin. “I have to pee.”
Zach snorted a laugh, “Now?”
“I had to pee like most of the way home, Zach,” he squirmed uncomfortably, “I’ve been holding it forever.”
Laughing, Zach let him struggle up, the blanket falling away. And his dilemma was once again blindingly apparent. “Uh, a little help here?”
“Would you like my cane?” Zach giggled, standing and taking Chris’ arm in a reversal of roles. “You’ll probably have to pee sitting down, like some of us invalids.”
“Shut up, Zach.”