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Minute might have the worst luck on earth, Mane thinks.
Worse: It seems Mane has been infected.
It starts with the ground trebling. Or, presumably it does. In any case, Mane is too focused to see.
The game stands 3 to 2, but Minute is threatening to bring it up to a tie again. A tie that will inevitably lead to overtime, as the clock ticks down the last minute.
The puck is safely on Minure's stick as Mane intercepts him.
So perhaps the ground trembled or perhaps it didn't, Mane wouldn't know either way.
It's not like he can ask anyone, on one hand, but on the other, it's also not like he can do anything else but think about it. Better that than the tons upon tons of concrete burrying him—
After he ground trembled or didn't, the ice cracked, the walls cracked, the building groaned and stumbled. Mane looked up as the steel beams bend and shook and tore apart; frozen to the ground as the world fell apart around him.
All breath is knocked out of his lungs as Minute throws them both onto the ice, covering Mane's body with his own.
As the roof impacts, Mane feels the ground shake.
The ice splinters. It sounds, Mane thought, as if he had just dropped a glass.
With his face borrowed in Minute's joursey, he can almost imagine that's all it is.
Almost.
Somehow, Mane still breathes as the noise comes to a stop.
Nothing hurts, except for the very first hard landing.
Opening eyes he had closed without meaning to, Mane peeks over Minute's shoulder.
He wishes he hadn't.
In the low light, Mane sees the hand's breath of space between the fallen steel beam and Minute's back. The hand's breath of empty space on seemingly all sides, the miniscule room for air. For them.
As if to make it worse, Mnae feels his breath pick up.
He's going to die here, he knows with sudden and terryfying certainty: He's going to die here. He will suffocate or the beam feel crush him alive, he sees it bend under the strain, the walls closing in around him, he needs to get away—
"Mane", Minute interrupts his struggling, gripling Mane's shoulders tighter. "You hear me?"
"I can't breathe", Mane gasps out. He can't see Minute's face, he wants to see Minute's face, he tries to push himself up and—
"Mane", Minute says again, with emphasis, "You're okay. You can speak, so you can breathe. We're safe here."
Not they aren't, Mane wants to shout and can't, can't say anything at all, because he can't breathe—
He fights again, pushes against Minute's chest. Kicks his legs, not finding any purchase, the blades of his skates only slide of on whatever debris they catch.
"Stay still, Mane", Minute commands, a certain note of panic in his voice, "Just listen, okay, focus on my voice. I'm here for you. You're safe. I'll protect you, okay? Close your eyes."
Mane does as Minute says.
"Good", Minute praises, as if he knows what Mane did. But he can't. Maybe he just knows Mane so well.
"I assume you don't know the difference between Star Wars Canon and Star Wars Legends? And what the Extended Universe is?"
Mane has absolutely no clue. Minute talks, on and on.
The ice melts beneath Mane's back and soaks through his joursey.
It's cold. Cold and wet, creeping into his bones. He shivers, as Minute talks heatedly over the stupidity of so-called Grey Jedi. Minute doens't seem to like them, certainly.
Mane forces out a hum as Minute pauses again, though he isn't sure if it is a questioning pause or one to create tension.
The panic sits to close to have any logical thoughts at all. Minute's words wash over Mane, he doesn't take anything in, truthfully.
Stones crunch overhead and Mane's eyes snap open again. He gasps as thr beam holding the tons and tons and tons of fucking roof over their heads threatening to let the entire building fall and bury them alive if they don't die during the burrying and brainmatter leaking and crushed skulls and borken backs and snapping bones and Mane can't breathe—
"I've got you, Mane", Minute emphasizes, repeats himself, "Mane, Mane, Mane, I've got you, we're gonna be alright."
Mane sobs.
It ribs out of his chest, another one follows. Tears leak from his eyes like from a fountain, pool in them, he can't see—
"Close your eyes, Mane, okay?"
Mane obliges.
At the end of the day, he trusts Minute.
"Okay then. Imagine. Or, like, try to. The— the pillow is cold", Minute starts talking. Mane tries. The ice isn't soft, but some hotel pillows are hard. Really hard. And it is cold, even through his helmet.
"That's a good thing. I like cold pillows. Most people do, apparently. Do you? You probably do, hm?"
Mane's voice can't form an answer, and Minute apaprently doens't neeed one.
He continues, "The blanket is cold, too, but I'm cuddling my good friend Mane. I'm lying on top of him, you see, and on top of us is... his light summer blanket. It's good that the pillow is cold, you, see because it's summer, but his AC has been running for so long that it's getting pretty cold."
It is cold. Mane is so cold, but Minute is warm.
"But Mane is warm beneath me, I'm warm too, right?"
Yes, Minute is. Through jersey and paddinga nd all the guards, Minute is warm and comforatbly heavy on Mane, where they lie on the hard hotel mattress, the blanket to thin.
Mane imagines.
"So we hold each other warm. He's done that for me a lot of times, you see, my friend Mane — he's really cool, d'alright? He's strong. He's done so many things for me. Is admire him, you hear?"
Warmth bubbles on Mane's isnides, too, hearing Minute talk about him like that. Such honesty in his voice, such vulnerability.
"I like lying around with him, I wish we got to do it in better circumstnaces, really, when I'm not crying or like — in the hospital and stuff—“, Minute is cut of abruptly by shouts ringing through the dark.
"Anyone there?!"
"Yes!", Minute screams back, "We're here! Help!"
Then, he whispers right into Mane's ear, all certain and soft and loving and safe, "You here that, Mane, we're saved."
"Ye...yeah...", Mane agrees. More tears squeeze out as he blinks.
Tears of relief.