Chapter Text
Mortivacation
a Bundeslihaha: Loose Canon story
Chapter 1: This is a No-Pollyanna Zone
Freiburg im Breisgau, Summer 2018
If you asked Sport-Club Freiburg if he had a connection to the city-state of Hamburg, he would say: “yes! FC St Pauli is a good friend of mine.”
They were not so close that he would hate St Pauli's city-archrival, but it's not like Freiburg had any love lost for the other man, either. Last he checked, the Dinosaur had only what could be described as a professional working relationship with him. So why was he helping HSV's drunk ass to his house again?
Your conscience, Freiburg.
Of course, of course. He didn't have the heart to leave him. St Pauli had called Freiburg in panic. Said that HSV was yelling blue streaks and rambling about clocks on the phone before saying he had a 6 am ticket to go to Freiburg im Breisgau. What else could he do except pick the inebriated club up at the train station at noon?
Hamburg wasn't heavy, thankfully—he was almost as light as Sechzig—but he was much taller than Freiburg himself and smelled like beer. But it wasn't so bad. He was at least still conscious.
“Hey,” Freiburg said as they arrived at where his bike was parked. “You still there?”
Hamburg looked… mortal. He didn't wear his ostentatious pearl necklace. He carried a messenger bag with no club pins or patches. His hair was a graying mess and he didn’t even bother covering his bald spot, which, Freiburg was surprised he even had. He wasn't wearing his jersey, either—that shirt is as plain as it goes, simply a light blue long-sleeved shirt. Except for his signature red trousers, nothing could mark him as the personification of the great Hamburger Sport-Verein.
Maybe that's the point.
“Who… are you?”
“You know me,” Freiburg said. In his civilian attire, he lacked the brown curls of his wig or the curves of his public persona—Hamburg wasn't close enough to him, or sober enough, to recognize him out of it. “I brought another helmet. Go sit in the back.”
“Of… of the bicycle?” Hamburg was blinking behind his glasses. Those were different too. Instead of his usual square blue frames with the pearl chain, they were black-chained, silver-framed aviators.
“Yes,” Freiburg replied, “Unless you're not well enough to sit upright? We can take the bus.”
“I… I'm fine.” Hamburg massaged the space between his eyebrows, fingers moving towards the bridge of his nose, under his glasses. “Where are we going?”
Freiburg offered the northern club a bottle of water from his bag. “Polly told me you wanted to visit me…”
“Polly?” Hamburg asked. He took the bottle, squinted at it, shook it… before shrugging and taking a swig.
“Pollyanna Weißbraun. Your neighbor.”
He choked on his drink. And crashed into a coughing fit. Freiburg waited until his throat and chest settled down before patting him on the shoulder. “Better?”
“Mmmh… right…” He took a few more sips of the water. Freiburg watched for any possible accidents, but thankfully, there was none. “I remember now. Freaking Pollyanna Weißbraun… Of course they'd tell you I went here.”
“We're friends,” Freiburg nodded. “Anyway, what should I call you? We can’t use the usual names.”
“Mmm… call me… Hilmar.”
Freiburg couldn't quite hear it over the zipping of his own bag. When he took out his second helmet from the bag and gave it to Hamburg, he asked, “...like the mascot?”
“That's Hermann,” he scoffed, chin haughtily rising as he put the helmet on. “My name is Hilmar. H-I-L-M-A-R. And… do you think it's so bad when- when you know a Pollyanna Weißbraun?”
You really had to get a dig at St Pauli again, huh? You're not making it easy for me.
“It's not the worst name. It's cute, actually.” Freiburg took the bottle, put it in his own bag, and zipped it back up. “Now, come on board, Hilmar, we're going to my house.”
“Your… house?”
He's even more annoying when out of his faculties, isn't he.
“Yep, my house. I don't know what you call it up north, but it's the place I live in when I'm not stuck in that godforsaken mansion.”
Freiburg unlocked the safety chains of his bicycle, pulled it out of the parking space, and sat himself on the front saddle.
“Gods-for… forsaken is right,” Hamburg slurred, his voice shuddering. “It’s… puh… punish… punishment from the gods. For… something. They're punishing me…”
The bike shook a little with Hamburg's weight. He put his arm around Freiburg and leaned onto his back, clinging like a barnacle to the base of a ship, or whatever ocean metaphor he would say in the circumstances.
“Polytheism, huh?” Freiburg asked, steering themselves away from the train station, “I didn't know you worship many gods.”
His metamour, Köln, was a Catholic, ceremonially… not exactly theologically. Freiburg himself wasn't religious, and neither was Dortmund. And, okay, his Bienchen used to joke about worshipping Dionysus because it was his human name, but, heh, he could barely name the Greco-Roman pantheon! (That was Augsburg’s speciality.) Non-joking polytheism, though? His curiosity was piqued.
“I don't worship a lot… just- just the football ones. And the deities of death, ‘course, it's healthy to respect death…”
It made sense that Hamburg revered those who presided over death. He was a mortician, after all.
Freiburg switched to another, more comfortable gear of his bike. They were out of the station now. His home was always warm, especially in a June like this, but the waters of the Bächle brought some nice coolness into the air. HSV might’ve enjoyed looking at the traditional buildings of his city, maybe taking the S-Bahn. He might’ve tried to trip the older club so he could fall into the Bächle and tell him about the myth that he’d marry a Freiburger. But no, he had to be fucking drunk.
“Football gods?” Freiburg wondered aloud, “There's more than one football god? What does each of them do?”
“Ugh… mmm… believe so,” Hamburg answered. “There’s the holy ghost—Abstiegsgespenst—and its red lantern… have to appease it or we’ll face its light… there’s the god of fan culture… and the one who punishes me constantly… the many-faced god of clubs!”
“You feel punished,” Freiburg repeated. He took a left turn on his bicycle. “Do you think they have any reason to punish you?”
Hamburg grumbled something.
“What? I can’t hear you.”
“I need to puke.”
Dammit.
Freiburg spotted a trash can. He pulled up to the side of the road and hoisted the older club's body so he stood upright. “How much did you drink?”
“I don't know…” His voice had taken a weak lamenting tone as he crashed himself to the edge of the trash can. “I don't know!”
“I'm going to take off your glasses, alright?” Freiburg said.
Hamburg made a noise of agreement.
Standing on her toes, Freiburg carefully lifted the glasses off of his head. And then he threw up all the contents of his stomach. Which… didn’t seem to be a lot. It might just be liquid, actually. Did he seriously ingest alcohol on an empty stomach?
“Done? I'll get you some food and water.”
Head still bowed inside the bin—must smell awful, Freiburg thought, moving backwards to breathe fresher air—he started sobbing. He didn't get why Hamburg came over here, 600 km away, when he had two partners much closer to his home… came so far, not to gloat, not to watch an away match, but to bare his most vulnerable self to a practical stranger.
“We're taking the bus after this,” Freiburg announced as gently as he could, “Is that okay with you?”
The sobbing grows louder. Freiburg sighed and walked closer to him, stroking circles on his upper back. “Hey, I'm here. I'm not leaving you alone, Hilmar. I know how it feels.”
Hamburg lifted his head from the trash can and spun around. He immediately swayed, so Freiburg held him up by the arms.
He hiccuped. “You would know…”
Freiburg resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he took a deep breath. Imagined his feelings being released into the air, the waters, the trees, the trash can. He put Hamburg’s glasses back on. “I'm sorry that you have to experience it too.”
“I don't deserve it,” Hamburg moaned, his words cloying, heavy syllables sticking to Freiburg like tar, “M'fans don't deserve it either!”
“Your fans have been so loyal, despite it all, and I know they'll stay by your side,” Freiburg said, an arm around his side. He'd loved his fans for this security; Hamburg would appreciate his own too. “They want you to get back up next year. I know it. Mine did too.”
Hamburg looked at him. Not with the usual looking down on him, but… a strange thing in his gaze. What was it? Respect? Freiburg didn't know how much he cared for the respect of a club like him, but he gave him a reassuring smile.
And that smile was the last thing SC Freiburg could give Hamburger SV before the latter blacked out.
Bonus: Mortivacation poster with human names
