COVID-19 Chaos

Author's Note: No worries, everyone! This is a cute, fluffy little fic despite the topic of it. I promise. For those of you who may be reading this way in the future (I can hope at least) and don't remember/know what COVID-19 was, it's this not so lovely little virus that's highly contagious and by this point has swept through most of the world becoming a pandemic. States and even full countries started quarantining their populations to slow the spread and prevent the rapidly growing number of deaths. While I'm writing this, my state has been in basic lockdown for about 2 weeks and is expected to continue lockdown for another 4 at minimum (probably more). Everything is closed for the most part, you aren't supposed to leave your house for anything but groceries, and people lucky enough to still have jobs are working from home. That's where Ben and Olivia find themselves in this story, dealing with the "shelter in place" orders and restrictions on any type of travel or gatherings.

Ben watched in mild amusement as Olivia paced back and forth from the wall of their living room to the front door and back. Like him, Suvi's eyes were tracking Olivia's every move, ping ponging from door to wall in a continuous cycle. Eventually Suvi huffed out a deep sigh and flopped his head back down onto the ground, pointedly ignoring his mom and her tiresome repetition.

The sigh brought a huge smile to Ben's face. He appreciated the sentiment and only managed to keep from full on laughing because he knew how Olivia would react to that. COVID-19 and the quarantine they were currently facing weren't a laughing matter and he knew it, but he wasn't so much finding humor in the situation as Olivia's actions and intense efforts to find loopholes when there weren't any. The fact that he would put money down on her knowing there would be no way to do what she wanted made it all the more humorous for him. She was just trying so hard. And it was useless. Absolutely useless. Ben knew it. Suvi knew it. Even Olivia probably knew it and just wasn't ready to admit it yet. If there was one place nobody was going to find a loophole to get into right now, it was a hospital.

"Think about all the kids, Ben."

"Liv, they're staying no volunteers. No anybody really. Even if you want to go, you can't. It's that simple."

Olivia paused in her pacing, forehead wrinkled in intense concentration.

"Maybe I could. I've been there a while and I'm ex-NYPD. Both of those things have to count for something. If I suited up they might make an exception."

Ben tried not to roll his eyes, but it was so hard. He knew she didn't really believe that and was simply grasping onto any straw even if she knew full well it was too thin to hold. They were both well aware that personal protective equipment was already in short supply. The doctors and nurses on the front lines couldn't afford to share any with a volunteer and her therapy dog. Speaking of therapy dogs…

"Think about Suvi, Liv. There have been confirmed cases in house pets."

Again, he knew it didn't quite work that way, but he was hoping that in her worry Olivia wouldn't realize that. It was the fastest way he could think of to convince her to stop looking for a way in and just accept they were staying home for the foreseeable future.

Olivia's eyes slid to her furry heart. Suvi wasn't completely unaware of the situation and looked up at Olivia in his biggest doggie, floppy tongue grin that he knew she loved in his best effort to make her happy again. For once it did nothing. If anything he felt the mood in the room become worse. Tears gathered in Olivia's eyes as she looked at him. Whimpering and whining, Suvi danced forward and pressed his chin against her thigh, eyes never leaving hers.

Olivia couldn't compromise him. No matter what. Ben had known that which was the only reason he had brought it up in the first place. As scary as it was, he'd needed to shut down Olivia's hopeful delusions fast. It had been the least painful strategy he could come up with. Thankfully it did the trick.

Smiling softly, Olivia stroked her hand over Suvi's head, brushing back his ears and ruffling the crown of fur at the base of his neck. Seeing some form a peace and pleasure return to his mom's face, Suvi's tail began wagging and he leaned more heavy into her leg and the petting she was bestowing on him.

"You're right," Olivia whispered to Ben. "There's no way I could go."

"No, you couldn't," Ben confirmed as he stood and approached Olivia. "I'm sure we can come up with something to do, just like the kids at the hospital will."

Olivia sighed and dug the fingers of her free hand into her temples. The other hand was not going to be leaving Suvi's fur any time soon.

"I hate the thought of being trapped inside. It brings up too many bad memories."

Memories of when going outside had meant her possible death for a different reason. Memories of a time before Suvi when her world had been dark and terrifying.

Her eyes were still locked on Suvi when Ben reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. The touch was enough for her to lift her eyes to his, and she graced him with a smile, the shadow of times before evaporating from her face as quickly as it had appeared.

"It won't be that bad. You'll see."

"You're only saying that because you don't have to work," she teased.

Ben staggered backward in mock exaggeration with his hand over his heart.

"Ouch! Liv, that hurts! And I'm still working."

"Right. Working."

She'd seen his "working" recently. He did very little of it, and from the few conference calls she'd been close enough to hear it sounded more like an online social hour than real work. There was only so much he could do online from home in the real estate business, but that was why she had the privilege of teasing him about it all.

"More than you are."

"I'm disabled, what's your excuse?"

"Oh, I don't know. Could be a worldwide pandemic or could be I'm just seriously lazy."

"You're terrible, you know that?"

"Not as terrible as I could be," he replied, his eyebrows raised ridiculously.

A flicker of nervousness passed through Olivia. He looked like some kind of evil genius like that. One that was plotting her complete downfall and knew exactly how to succeed since she was trapped in an apartment with him. Knowing she was going to regret the decision, she asked anyway.

"Do I want to know what that's supposed to mean?"

"I could start singing coronavirus parodies all day instead of working. That would be fun."

"Don't you dare! Oh my god, Ben. I would kill you!"

Ben's only response was to start laughing hysterically, leaving Olivia to wonder if he was actually considering doing it. They wouldn't be surviving this quarantine if this was his solution to "something to do."

O . o . O . o . O

Thankfully Ben's plan was not to start singing a bunch of quarantine parodies, though he did watch his fair share of them. Instead they spent their days lounging on the couch and playing a whole variety of games. Usually they were something ridiculous that Ben had created himself. One day they'd played a game of grocery bowling where they'd taken turns rolling a can of soup down the hallway to knock over different boxed pastas and snacks. There'd been no point in keeping score as it had essentially amounted to Suvi racing after the can each time it was thrown and knocking over more boxes himself than the can ever would have alone.

That evening found them sitting on the floor engrossed in a game of checkers on their coffee table, or at least sort of checkers as they didn't have a real game. Ben had drawn out a grid on a piece of paper and they'd both claimed different snacks as pieces – Ben had claimed the popcorn and Olivia pretzels. They'd both known better than to choose cheeseballs for pieces. The game never would have even started that way. Regardless, there had been more than one instance while they'd played that a piece had mysteriously, or perhaps not so mysteriously, disappeared.

As Olivia slid another piece forward she caught a flicker of a pink tongue dart onto the board and another of Ben's pieces vanished into the void that was Suvi's stomach. She grinned. At this rate she was almost guaranteed a win. Suvi much preferred Ben's popcorn over her pretzels. Ben was either too engrossed in determining his next move to notice or purposefully ignored Suvi's theft. After he made his next move, Olivia slid her pretzel into the back row on his side and beamed up at him.

"King me."

Ben flashed her a look of pure aggravation.

"King you? King you with what?"

That was a good question. Every piece that was eliminated from the board was eliminated from existence almost as quickly. There were no previously lost pretzels to add on top of hers to turn it into a king.

"Good question…"

"Let me see what I can find. Guard the board." He stood up and stepped away, only to turn back and point at her a moment later. "And I know where each of my pieces are so you better not think you can let him eat some without my noticing."

"Would I do that?"

"Yes."

Her laughter floated after him as he headed toward the kitchen to find some other supplies they could use for kinging. Olivia had to keep shoving Suvi's nose out of the way to keep him from gobbling up their entire game while Ben was gone. Thankfully it didn't take him very long.

"Cheese?" Olivia asked is shock as she watched her husband unwrap the plastic and tear the American cheese slice into pieces.

"Yup. Should stay on top of both," he said as he placed the first strip onto her kinged pretzel.

Olivia shook her head. How long did he think that was going to last exactly?

Despite the addition of cheese, Suvi's attention remained focused on the popcorn. As Ben went to make his next move Suvi's nose edged closer again.

"Hey, stop that!" Ben growled as he brushed the sneaking snout away.

Suvi huffed but backed up obediently. His control only lasted so long though. Ben and Olivia got a few more turns in before Suvi became fed up. If there were snacks out, they were meant to be eaten! You shouldn't play with your food! He launched himself forward and halfway onto the table, snapping up whatever pieces he could get.

"Suvi!" Olivia laughed, unable to be truly upset with her dog.

There was going to be no stopping him, but Ben lobbed a pretzel at Suvi's head to try and divert his attention. As expected, it did nothing. Nothing to stop Suvi at least. It did become the starting point of the all-out food fight their checkers game quickly devolved into. Ben and Olivia snagged whatever snack they could get their hands on around Suvi's greedy mouth and chucked it at any part of the other's body that presented itself. There was no hiding from the edible projectiles.

When the weapons ran out thanks to Suvi's laser-like precision in spotting and scooping up any unsupervised pieces, Olivia simply launched herself at Ben. She was going to be victorious in this game even if it wasn't supposed to have a winner. After a combination of wrestling, floundering around on the ground, and hysterical laughter, Olivia lay sprawled across Ben in contented exhaustion.

Suvi wandered over, having mostly avoided the rough housing, and snuffled at her ear. Apparently he hadn't been trying to be affectionate; he'd simply found a piece of popcorn stuck in her hair and planned on making good use of it. He wouldn't want something so tasty to go to waste after all. Once he'd lapped up the final piece, leaving Olivia with a lovely damp section of hair pressing against her cheek, he flopped down beside them. After a little bit of wiggling around on his back to jam himself closer, effectively pinning Ben's arm in a way he was sure would make it go numb, he settled down with a happy sigh.

Olivia propped herself up slightly and traced her finger over the side of Ben's face. The warm glow in her eyes and the slight tug of her lips into a smile reached all the way down to Ben's soul.

"You were right," she whispered. "This can be fun."