“Six days till event horizon,” Brock tells him. It’s barely a whisper, with his head pressed against the top of his, the man behind him, much like everyone else, is so, so tired.

Where up until now, they’ve managed some semblance of faux stability, the wake of the end of the world makes Burke’s head spin.

They have a game in Kan–Oxford, now, apparently. He still can barely stomach the change. Death upon death upon death upon death, the feeds and the ticker and the announcements play off in every stadium like a pained rattle.

The universe, every bit of their existence is feeling this world ending tug, and the closer they make it to the black hole, the more he thinks of the darkness, the more he wishes it would just envelop him already.

The day passes.

The feed rattles.

“The Seattle Garages have reached the Hall of Flame…the Seattle Garages appear to be…

The word is muffled by screams all across the field. The Garages are beloved, in some parts of the world, the band plays on often beyond the city of Seattle. Burke has never been able to stomach the noise.

Especially not now.

He’s falling. He feels the Earth fall from under him.

There’s pairs of arms, two to be exact, they are cold and comforting but they aren’t enough, they aren’t enough, they couldn’t be enough.

Burke’s vision is full of static and feathers and blinding liquid salt. He’s scrubbing at his face, his glasses crumbling to the concrete dugout floor. His heart is screaming in every sense of the word, he should be gone in his partners arms right now, but he is here, fighting the bile and the erratic beat in his chest.

There are people crying far beyond where the Wings are huddled, mourning this team so beloved by the ignorance of the fans.

Burke could care less about them, about their musicians and their players. The death toll being as long as it is, the name is meaningless to everyone in these stands.

There will be no song.

He just lost his son.

The next four days, they don’t expect him to play, there’s some naive thought that the end of the world means the contract is broken.

He plays anyway.

When they’re edging the horizon on day 79, Joshua and Brock are by his side. They have stayed by him through all of this. The static and the gold and the feathers have faded now, the one fucked up gift the universe could grant him before it all ends.

The play their last game.

His partners squeeze his hand.

The darkness takes.