this is wicked long I got carried away
HÅKON
Okay, yeah, so, maybe I did just re-realize that he's going to be gone from me for an undefined amount of time very very soon and I'm absolutely scared of that. He's been glued to my left side since the season started and now he's even closer than that because we've spent like every waking and sleeping hour with each other for the last month. We've been in each other's pockets for half of an entire year and I'm so very not ready for him not to be.
So maybe I have separation anxiety. Like a lot of separation anxiety. Like a worrying amount of separation anxiety. Like my world just kinda fades to black after he gets on the plane to the Czech Republic because I physically do not know what I'm gonna do when he's not around to keep me entertained or keep me company of any of that. What am I going to do? Have to set up all my pillows to cuddle me just right like he does so I can fall asleep? Actually work out instead of fuck around with him? He's gonna leave and I'm just going to exist again and I'll have to actually think about things instead of looking to him because I wanna goof off instead of do anything.
Anyway.
We're fifteen minutes late. I didn't really want to be that late but he's a wizard with convincing me to do things that directly conflict with my desire to be on time.
"There you two are." I look around at the rag tag group. Vera, Wilhelm and Hugo looking like they didn't sleep a wink, Astrid and Eva about the same, two groomsmen looking moderately rested.
Vera hands us a sheet. "This is what we need to do, you and the two over there are on chair and table duty."
I mentally groan, if I was sore when I woke up I'm worse now. My legs ache, my whole back is stiff, my neck hurts just a bit from one bad angle and to be completely front with you, he got a little rougher this morning. He's a little too excitable for my already-sore body.
Wilhelm and Hugo ease up, stretching and joining on us on our walk out back to the venue area.
"Long night?" Milo asks the two of them, a little glint in his eyes.
Wilhelm lets out a shallow noise of confirmation and I practically freeze in my spot.
"Hold on."
"Don't even start, Håkon." Wilhelm mutters.
I look over at Hugo who's very close to dead on his feet. "You and Hugo?"
"Straight as a rail with one singular bend." Wil grumbles. "He's the bend."
"Damn," I let out a tiny laugh. "Woulda never guessed."
"Your boyfriend did," Hugo yawns, gesturing at Milo. "He sparked the argument that sparked whatever this is."
I turn to look at Milo who's pleasantly trying to make it look like he's innocent. "Milo."
"Okay, so, I guessed just a little, but c'mon." He points at them. "Is that not proof? I swear I've got like top tier detection methods but only for people so far stuffed in the closet I'd find Narnia before them."
I sigh, patting a table and letting him get the other side, folding it up.
"So how did that even..." I look between them. "Because the last time I checked both of you were very straight."
Wil and Hugo shrug, Wil speaks first. "He was the bend point. He's been the bend point for ten years. Yeah, I've fallen in and out of love with a couple girls between now and then but under it has been Hugo."
"Sweet sentiment." I nod, then turn to Hugo.
"I honestly still don't know." He shrugs. "I genuinely thought I was straight until he was kissing me and I was into it and then I realized like a hundred things between last night and now and I'm still so fucking confused."
I raise my eyebrows. "Okay, yeah, sure, we've all been there."
Rocket is leaning on his forearms on the table, watching the interaction. "Four gay men in one spot," Rocket clears his throat. "Honestly this last month has been the most gay people I've ever been around ever."
Wilhelm and Hugo glance at each other for a moment, then both shrug. We work slowly for a few minutes before Wilhelm addresses Rocks: "You're quite peppy for a guy who's boyfriend looks like he needs more coffee." Wilhelm jokes, folding up a table.
"It's the ADHD, I'm exhausted." He laughs in return. "Who knew other professional athletes are hard to keep up with. What about you two? You look dead."
Hugo lets out a soft laugh, Wil stands a little stunned for a moment. "Well, staying up most of the night after a full day event around a wedding is kinda asking a lot of us two and our office job schedules." Hugo mumbles.
"Fair," Rocket yawns. "The longer we can take to fold up these tables the less other stuff we have to do."
"I second that," Wilhelm raises his hand. "All things considered my legs are sore."
"Agreed," I mumble back at him.
We spend an hour folding fifteen tables.
By the time we all work our way back up to the others, the two groomsmen have completed their chores and have disappeared again, and the other three are sitting out with takeout lunch on the porch.
I stare at the hard wooden chair for a moment or two then bite my tongue and sit down as gently as unsuspiciously as possible.
Milo ruins it by just flopping down next to me, hand immediately landing on my thigh to give me three taps.
I tap his hand back twice. I'm alright, sore, but alright.
He taps back twice, probably meaning 'good' or something close.
I sigh and set my head down on the table, preparing to take a tiny power nap right here.
Milo, curse that ADHD, seems fine, fidgety, but fine. Yeah, he's ticking, here and there I've seen him do the eye-scrunch and the little head shake which means that the six hours of sleep was not enough, but, he's awake.
His hand slips into the hair on the back of my head, running his fingers through it, twisting it gently around his pinky, just something to fidget with while he sits.
I knock out. I set my head down and he started playing with my hair and I was gone.
I wake up in the same exact spot, his hand now toying with the tag on my shirt.
"Nngh," I mumble, trying to get something across but unable to find the words in english. "Time?"
"You've been out for an hour," he responds. "Welcome back."
"Hm," I mumble, picking up my head.
"You've got pillow face from your shirt." He reaches up and rubs his hand across my cheek like it's going to help. "We got you a sandwich."
"Really?"
"Yeah, stupid, I wasn't going to eat lunch and not get you anything."
I shake my head, trying to wake myself up the rest of the way. Vera is gone, the two girls are walking back from the house, and then Wilhelm and Hugo seem to be on a walk of sorts, wandering on the edge of the woods way way way far away on the edge of the property.
"Thanks," I yawn.
"You wanna go home? We're done here for today."
"Yeah," I lean and set my head on his shoulder. "You've been ticking and I'm exhausted."
"The tics are anxiety now." He kisses the top of my head.
"They can be for anxiety too? But you don't get them before games and I know that-"
"That's not as bad," he mumbles. "I had everything leading up to the wedding and that was the big thing and now going home is absolutely looming in my view and it's freaking me out a little."
I sigh. "It'll be alright, you're a smart guy."
He looks sideways at me, one of his eyebrows a little messed up from something or other. "Wanna know the daydream that's been haunting me for a couple days?"
"Sure,"
"It's wedding related." He raises that eyebrow.
"Isa's?"
"No, ours, if we got married."
I tilt my head, interested as hell. "Yeah? Go on."
"It's just, like, we obviously can't do anything up a level like that until we get out of the league and I want to have a long career because who doesn't, so, I'm thinking, off spaced out, you know, when you have to say 'Håkon to ISS' to get me back paying attention, and I'm thinking-" he pauses. "Do our countries even send people to the ISS?"
"Rocket."
"Right, train of thought," he clears his throat, crossing his arms and leaning back. "And I'm off thinking and what if we retire in the same year at the end after playoffs or whatever and they ask us in some last interviews and things what we're looking forward to or planning on when we stop playing and we both, separately, drop that we're looking forward to getting married that summer, and of course everyone's thrown off a little because what? These two guys haven't mentioned a girl like ever and they've made no previous- ugh, there's a word for that, whatever, no previous... thing, sign? No previous signs? Whatever. Nothing beforehand about having a relationship at all, so we leave everyone confused for a while and then retire, you know, all peaceful transfer of power or whatever, just a goalie and his assistant captain retiring at the same time both mentioning getting married in the same month and people think that's a little weird and we confirm in in that month by posting something dumb on social media, just pictures of us from years prior with dumb sweet captions- I may or may not have daydreamed far enough into figuring mine out- and then one of our wedding and then we drop off the face of the Earth and move to rural Czechia and start a farm or something dumb."
I stare at him for a long moment, picturing that, running it through my head.
"It's just-" he clears his throat again, uncomfortable with my silence. "Like, the photo of me kissing your cheek at that castle thing and the one that Vera got last night of you and I dancing and then the one of me practically leaping at you and the group after winning that one game in Chicago and then there's probably going to be so many more between now and when we retire unless something shitty happens to one of us, which, god I hope not, and then obviously Steph will be my best man and maybe Fen or Wilhelm is yours and then there's-" He pauses, looking over at me. "This is too much, isn't it? I'm sorry I was just like on that train of thought and now it's kinda gotten really far and I keep going back to it 'cuz it's like this light at the end of the shitty tunnel thing because god I love hockey but Håkon I can't picture the rest of my life without you."
I slip my fingers around his chin and pull him in, lips on soft lips. "Yeah, I think that works for me," I mumble against his mouth. "You should probably also call your best man considering I think it's been 32 hours since he's heard from you and that's when he starts getting antsy and if I'm not wrong, that's the group chat buzzing in my pocket."
"It's been that long?" Rocket pulls back, thinking. "I talked to him- oh yeah yesterday morning. Oh fuck he doesn't know!"
I laugh softly, leaning back in my chair. "Thought so."
"My god he's going to be so mad."
"Why?"
"Well okay here's an embarrassing story, right, so when we were in Flint he lost his virginity and of course I knew about it no more than a half hour after it happened, poor girl was probably traumatized that her boyfriend was texting his best friend from the back seat of her car literally still undressed, whatever," the glow in his cheeks is telling me this is not going in a good direction. He's fucking adorable, a menace to society, but my menace to society. "So, being the absolute asshole I was at 16-"
"Sixteen?"
"Yeah, Steph was... young."
"God, wow, okay, he beat me."
Milo quirks an eyebrow. "Hoe."
"Shush," I laugh. He barely keeps in a giggle.
"Whatever, so, being the asshole I was, I got up out of bed at three in the morning and went to the store, bought him a cake, you know where this is going and I'm 99% sure I started this trend-"
"A happy losing your virginity cake? This is on-brand."
He holds up a finger. "No, it gets better."
"Oh boy."
"So I get the cake and I get the icing and keep in mind we were like 3 months into basically new parents with the billet family deal so he barely knows the people he's literally living with, and yeah, he's kinda close with them but in a new-friends-parents way, not the same way guys get close to their billet families after a couple years."
I'm frowning, not out of disapproval, mostly because I know where this is going. "...okay."
"So then I head to party city because hell yeah and I get him a happy 100th birthday balloon and assorted other party items and keep in mind I'm still like very rough at english and have an awful accent and all that and so when a violently foreign guy shows up to a Party City at 4 in the morning- it was 24 hour service for some violently American reason- you get some looks and then I'm talking to police because who let their 16 year old go unaccompanied to a Party City at 4am."
I let out a little laugh, he's a hazard to himself but god I love every inch of him.
"So in broken english I give these police guys the rundown of what's going on and they're in on it, like, they're for it, and they figure out that I'm in the OHL so that gives me more points and lo and behold these two get off their shift in an hour and so I've got party guests."
"No, God," I laugh, unable to hold in in anymore.
"Oh, yes, yes yes yes," he grins. "So I call Steph's billet parents who think he's staying over with me and that's even better because they're all for embarrassing him because you know that's what family does and of course he has no idea because he's staying over with this girl, her name was Anna, they dated for like 6 full months before he did something stupid, I don't even remember, anyway." He pulls in a deep breath. "So I have two Flint Michigan police officers, the sheriff because he thought it was funny too and wanted to know where these two guys were so excited to be off to on the end of their shift other than going home to sleep, so I've got like a chunk of the police department and I've got the Langs and their kids, both of which were under 7 and had no idea what sex even was, good for them, they didn't need to know what was going on."
I'm just staring at him, pure awe.
"So, okay, so then the Langs call up their neighbors and best friends and they come over too and I call some teammates that we liked but they're all asleep so that was unfortunate, but anyway I can't imagine what he must've gone through pulling into the driveway to three cop cars, one being the sheriff, my car, same S10 I still drive because it's got a stick shift and I refuse to do anything else-"
"Heathen." I mumble. "Should've known that was a red flag with you."
"Shush, I love my S10."
"I know you do, bud."
"Anyway, he pulls in the driveway, it's 7am, I've decked out the whole house in streamers and we've got balloons that say things completely off topic like get well soon and happy 100th and a baseball one even though I doubt he could throw a ball in a straight line, anyway and then there's the cake and everyone's got party hats and there's cops and the family that he hasn't known for more than three months and-" he dissolves into hysterics. "And oh my god the look on his face."
"I can imagine," I laugh. I've seen pictures of Steph when he was 16 and OHL aged and he already looked constantly anxious but that and the situation? I'd pay a hefty sum to stand as wallpaper to see that happen.
"And, yeah, mortifying, I know, but the cake was good and eventually I was able to explain why the cops were there, and he was able to have a good time despite it being probably trauma-inducing, so," he breathes in. "where I'm going with this is that, although I forgot that until now, not really, but it wasn't in the front of my mind until now, there's not a single doubt in my mind this guy was planning something even more spectacular for when I got around to it, though I think he expected it to be when I was in the OHL with him or Boston or something."
His eyes are practically watering with how hard we've been laughing over this.
I lift my hand, waving him down. "When did you come out to him? I feel like I know this but when did he find out it wasn't because you couldn't find a girl."
He tries to catch his breath. "Right before the draft, actually, and it's like, I could've pulled that off with a girl because I dunno what my sexuality is anymore other than men and sometimes other people, but I didn't wanna accept that about myself at that moment so like- whatever, whatever, I came out to him like the night before the draft because I was scared that he was gonna get drafted somewhere else and I didn't want him to go not knowing that."
"Awh," I laugh.
He wiggles his phone out of his pocket. "Hold on, hold on, let's call him."
There's a few rings before he picks up. "What?"
"Guess what."
"...this feels like a trap."
"It is."
"Damn."
"Guess, guess."
"Uh," he pauses, clearly unprepared. "You went to a wedding, posted on instagram, didn't answer any texts, by the way I sent you a really good meme go look at that, okay, then you did stuff all day today, I dunno, what? Wait, wait, is Yets there? Maybe I can wiggle something out of him."
"I'm here."
"Oh, good, good, what the hell is he on about?"
"Can't tell, it would ruin the surprise."
"Oh and now you're in on it too, damn, I dunno if I can handle two Rockets come next season."
"No, he's still Håkon, just about as boring as when we left."
"Hey!"
"Okay, Stephanie, here's your hint. The night of a wedding."
"What is this? A crossword?"
"Yes, that's exactly what this is."
Steph pauses. "How big is my space? Do I have any overlapping words? Anything to go off of?"
"Nope and it's three letters."
"...wait."
"Wait what?"
"FUCK!" Steph hollers. "YOU WE'RE SUPPOSED TO DO THAT IN CANADA SO I COULD GET YOU BACK YOU IRRITATING PIECE OF SHIT!"
***
anyway I'm back from hiatus I had to go tour a college halfway across the united states because it was either a hell-yes-this-fits-perfectly or a i'm-literally-going-to-be-miserable-here and I had to figure it out. Unfortunately it's probably a miserable deal but like maybe at the same time? I literally went, looked at it, and developed no further opinions than the ones I had when I hadn't been there. also the polar vortex sucks but i live on the east coast so it's not even that effective here.
anyway
-rabid