Sasquatch to the Moon

5: Isa and Leo

HÅKON

The flight out to Sweden is absolute fucking hell. If Rocket and I played football or baseball, we would have money to spare to pay upwards of 40,000$ for it to be private, but unfortunately, it's hockey and a majority of people don't care too much about it in the US unless their team is really really good.

On our Regina to Toronto flight we were separate, which was fine, both of us know how to do a plane flight and we can do it well. Then Toronto to Gothenburg we were together in first class which is literally just so that 6'6 and 6'3 can have leg room without jamming the person in front of us. So, here we are, both sorta awake on the tail end of an 11 hour flight, trying not to lean into each other for some form of skin on skin comfort.

"Probably a bad time to tell you it's been 6 years since I've flown internationally." He yawns.

"What."

"Yeah, IIHF when I was seventeen and then nothing else."

"Oh," I scratch the back of my head. "I mean I do this like two to five times a year so..."

He nods. "So what's the plan?"

"Huh?"

"Like what are we doing when we get there, what's the rundown. I wanna know what I should expect after customs."

I frown at him. "Did I not give you travel details?"

He shakes his head. "Nope, 'been following you blindly all day like a lost puppy."

"Oh," I raise my eyebrows. "Uh, yeah, so we're done flying after this."

"Thank fuck." He groans, stretching his arms up.

"Uh," I rub the side of my face, running my fingers through my leftover playoff beard. "We're getting on a train from Stockholm to Karlstad, so airport onto a bus to the train station, onto a train, two more hours and then back there."

Rocket looks like he wants to strangle me. "You're fucking kidding."

I purse my lips. "Sorry, bud."

"I thought we were done after this." He groans. "I'm exhausted."

"I know, but, we've got, like, days to recover."

He hits me upside the head softly, if it wasn't a small physical aggression I'd say it was affectionate. "Dick."

"Sorry," I chuckle.

Customs, as usual, is easy for me. Not so sure about him, but they notice my kinda normal-sounding accent, clothes absolutely covered in Wolves emblems, body that screams pro athlete and they put the pieces together pretty quick and let me off easy. I got the unfortunate handling of 'picked randomly' which just means 'his bag is huge and so is he so there's definitely a chance he's smuggling something' which, if a couple thousand dollars worth of hockey equipment and sticks is smuggling, then so be it.

Rocket doesn't get picked for random inspection, mostly because you can see his blockers are buckled to the outside of his bag and the whole apparatus just screams 'goaltender' with a side of fog horn.

"Alright," I sling my backpack back over my shoulders and look over at him, leaned up against a wall on his phone.

He looks up and for a moment there, his green eyes on mine in the busy airport, I'm just a guy in love. Nothing else. Nothing to uphold, nothing to protect, just a guy in love.

"Ready to go?" he asks with a gentle smile.

"Yeah." I respond, falling in line with him on our way out to the transit busses that will hopefully get us to the train station so we can head off.