SINGIN IN THE RAIN – FAN FIC 100 CHALLENGE – NO 8. WEEKS

Don and Cosmo had only been in the vaudeville business (if you could even call it that), yet they'd already been booted out of three troupes and outright rejected from five. It had been more difficult than Don had expected, but he never once regretted it. He didn't even regret that he'd picked the one guy who had the weakest immune system in America to run away with.

He was just glad that he'd been born as strong as an ox, and had enough talent to get some money from dancing on the streets. The last thing they needed was a night with no dinner. But the colder winter got, the sicker Cosmo got, and the icier the streets got, the fewer people were out walking. It also made the concrete incredibly difficult to dance on, but Don didn't mind. He had no choice, really.


"You doin' ok?" Don asked after shoving the frost coated door of their tiny shack open.

"What does it look like?" Cosmo grumbled, pulling the thin cotton sheets in closer.

Don looked over his red feverish friend. "You look wonderful," he said mockingly.

"Don't I always?" Cosmo responded, but he managed to lose his voice half way through.

Don frowned. He'd been like this for a couple of weeks now, yet there was no sign of him getting any better. At the same time, there was no sign of him getting worse, so there was always that. But ever since Cosmo got himself in this state, Don always had this sick feeling in his stomach that one day he'd come back to find Cosmo gone, or even worse – dead.

But that wouldn't happen, would it?

Don walked over to the corner Cosmo was huddled in, the frozen floorboards creaking underneath his worn out leather shoes. He crouched down beside him, and Cosmo shuffled over to give him room.

"You shouldn't really be this close, y'know," Cosmo looked up at him, voice raspy, "I could give you the plague."

"You don't have the plague, bonehead," Don said with a soft smile, putting his arm around Cosmo.

Despite his previous protest, Cosmo leaned into him. Don was surprisingly warm, and he was so cold… Cosmo shut his eyes, the feeling of sandpaper in his throat and the fire in all around him disappearing for the first time in what felt like ages. He liked Don. Maybe more than he realised.

"Cos, if you're still like this next week we're going home," Don looked down at him, knowing that threat would jolt him into full recovery mode.

But Cosmo didn't respond, and for a moment Don's heart stopped. But when he saw the younger man's chest slowly rise and fall, he relaxed. He was just sleeping. Don leaned back, the cold from outside filtering through the cracks in the wall and chilling him to the bone.

He was overreacting, Cosmo was stronger than he gave him credit for. But he still worried – he wasn't sure if he could live this life on his own. All Don needed to do was wait, then before he knew it Cosmo would be waking him up at the crack of dawn with tickets to the next train out of wherever they were.

A thought occurred to him. What if a change of location would help? There were opportunities everywhere, and one of those opportunities could be a steady paying performing job. Pay he could use to help Cosmo…

Silently, Don started packing what little things they had, praying to God that things would get better.

a/n. I know this has little to do with the prompt, but I could not contain my shipping no matter how hard I tried! Anywho, if you read my Disney AU as well as this, then you'll know from the last chapter that I want to start a new story. If you don't, then here's what's going to happen. I've got a list of stories I want to write on my profile, but I can't decide on which one! I only want to write three stories at once, and I'm already writing two (this one and the Disney AU), so I can only write one. So I've decided to let you decide! Instructions to get to the poll will be written below.

This site doesn't let me directly copy and paste links, so here are my crappy instructions. Type www. then strawwpoll. then me then /10661832. The poll should be there. Thank you for voting and I hope you enjoyed this update! (I certainly did, heh heh ;)