27: Fen's a Nicophiliac

HÅKON

Rocket sits down on the plane next to me, and I know I'm in for a long ride of on-again off-again looking at him, watching him sleep, if he can, and not being able to sleep myself. He's cute in the hoodie and sweatpants, tuckered out on the early morning flight.

He pokes my side, looking up to me. His eyes are soft in the morning light coming in the window and he looks like all he wants to do is get cuddly with me right here. I wouldn't stop him.

"Got anything to listen to?"

"N-, not really." I shake my head.

He gives a little smile. "Good." He hands me an earbud and then dozes off, letting me listen to his music. I keep checking his phone for what the songs are, and from what I've gathered, the playlist starts like this:

Sunlight - Hozier

Francis St. - Kyd the Band

Jetstream - Griffin Stoler

Fresh - Artist Vs Poet

Adrenaline - Zero 9:36

Each one catches me more and more off guard, nothing really matches and I'm looking at him tapping a foot to the beat as he almost sleeps.

Then Nico is leaning over my seat and I'm scared. She pokes Rocket and he groans, looking up at her.

"The fuck do you want?" He was definitely sleeping. I know that voice.

"I want to talk to Yets." She shrugs. "Nothing much, just a chat."

"Great, sit on his lap or some shit. I'm not moving."

"I'm not sitting on his lap." I flush red at her response.

I hear a very groggy Fen from behind me. "No, no sitting on his lap, my girl."

"I wasn't going to, Fen," she ruffles his hair and he blinks a couple times. "Go back to sleep."

"Is Yeti stealing my girl?"

"No, I'm just trying to get Rocket to move."

Rocket groans and stands up, grabbing the seat, then crawling over Fen to where Nico was. The rest of the plane is sleeping or very quietly doing something on their phones. Nobody is talking, which means everyone has their earbuds in. Which makes me a little self conscious about what she might ask me.

I watch Rocket curl back up again in the seat behind me, nodding off instantly.

"Hey." She gives me a once over. "Just wanted to check in on you."

"Why?" I mumble.

"Dunno. Out of the group of us, I feel like I know the least about you." She shrugs. "And you've been here the longest."

"Yeah, I guess."

"So, Rocket managed to clingy his way into getting you to open up, huh."

"Yeah."

"Come on, man, you're giving me dead ends."

"Uh huh."

She rolls her eyes at me. "I'm gonna run some stuff past you really quick, just little drills and things."

"You don't have to."

"I know. I just want to know what you'd think if we had one game day a month where we just fucked around and scrimmaged for fun."

"Uh, I mean, I like the idea, but will it be useful?"

"Dunno. You've been on this team the longest."

"I have?"

"You, Paxy and Ukkovskky have."

"Right." I nod. "I'm fucking old. Forgot."

"You're not old, you've just never been traded."

"Twenty five is old." I snort. "My sister is twenty eight. We're both closer to thirty than to teenagers."

"You've got a sister?"

I furrow my eyebrows. "Yeah, I-" I shake my head. "I didn't know you didn't know."

"What's her name?"

"Isa. She's in Stockholm with her fiance."

"Oh? Are you going to the wedding?"

"Yeah, it's right after the season ends. I'm being badgered to find a date." I shrug. "I probably won't show up with one, but that's just me."

Nico bumps her shoulder into mine, a little reassuring seated check. "We'll find you someone to bring to Sweden with you." She stops talking for a moment. "August, Steph's girlfriend-"

"I'm not bringing someone else's girlfriend to appease my parents." I snort.

"I wasn't finished. Steph's girlfriend's best friend normally dates prison inmates? That's what I've gotten from him at least-"

"And I'm a prisoner?" I try to make it sound like I'm fake offended but it turns up as real offense. "Real flattering." Bad cover up.

"No, no," She laughs. "I'm just saying she's probably into the hulk thing."

"Hey."

"In the least offensive way possible." Nico holds out her hands. "God, I am not helping."

"Not really."

"What I'm saying is that you really don't warm up fast and you're really big and you scare most girls that meet you." She winces. "Oh god that was bad."

"No, I get what you mean." I mumble. "Also I just don't really date."

"Why?"

"It's never worked out. Plus, I'm fine on my own."

"No you're not. Look at you." She puts a hand on my knee. "Look at me, Sasquach."

I make really hesitant eye contact with her.

"You're sad, you need something to lighten you up. It worked like hell for me." She points behind her. "He pisses me off, but he's made me happier."

"I'm really fine, Nico." Plus, the person I want to date is sitting right behind me, passed out and probably drooling a little on his sleeve. "It's one wedding, and if the end of the season is super early, I can probably go back to Sweden and find someone to bring."

"Alright, I mean, you do you." She shrugs.

I take a long minute. "So I heard Rocket told you."

"Yeah, caught me as far off guard as possible. I thought he cornered me to tell me he was quitting or some shit."

"Nope." I nod. "He told me like a week ago. Guess he's going to open up a little about it if he told you with that little time between everything."

"Yeah, I," She shakes her head. "I'd be careful if I were him, there's going to be a lot of people out for his neck if he comes out to the whole league."

"I know." I nod. "He's a tough kid but it'll get really hard really fast, I'd hate to see his career get cut off because of it."

"Maybe he just wants it off his back. It must get annoying for him to be around all of us. I mean, you're the only one of our group, I mean, besides Finnican, that isn't dating someone. I feel like he's a little lonely."

"I guess." I shrug. "I think he just woke up one morning and said, fuck it, I won't let it control me."

"That makes a lot of sense for Rocket."

"You guys talking about me?" There's a very groggy Milo now hanging over the top of the seat. "Gee, am I really that popular around here?"

"Hey kid." I glance at him. His head is close enough to mine to kiss if he leaned in.

"HÃ¥kon you can't just 'hey kid' me. I'm only two years younger than you. You're not an old man." Nico's lip twitches at my real name like she's going to say something.

"Hey." I laugh. "Twenty five is old. Twenty five is marrying age."

"Yeah, and you're not getting married yet, so I don't see the problem." His hair is messy as hell and all I want to do is put my hands in it.

"I'm closer to thirty than I am to a teenager."

"Okay? And Bernie's closer to dead than to teenager. You don't see him bitching about it."

I furrow my eyebrows. "I'm not bitching."

"You are." He furrows his right back at me. "You're sulking. You're six foot six and two hundred and sixty-"

"Fifty."

"-pounds of sulk right now." He flashes me a smile. "Shape up, your knees still work, yeah?"

"Yeah, I mean-"

"Great. My benchmark for old is when my hips and knees give out."

"Okay yeah but I'm old."

"You're the oldest in our group. You're not old, you're just older." He waves around. "Fen is twenty four, Nico twenty two, Steph and I are twenty three. Hey, Paxton's your age."

"Paxton's my age, yeah."

"Did you know that Steph played against Paxy when they were peewees?"

"Really?" Nico finally says something. "No way."

"Yeah way." Rocket nods. "Steph said he was unnatural at that point as well."

"I guess he's always been." Nico snorts. "Weird."

"It's definitely a genetic thing too." Rocket nods. "His aunt and uncle met in college. Boston University, both of them starting varsity goalies. His parents were both baseball players. Went on to have eight kids."

"Fucking what." Nico's mouth is hanging open. "That thing has seven siblings?"

"Seven." He nods. "Nobody knows much about baseball around you guys, I mean, hockey, but his older brother is Hero Paxton, third base for the Astros."

"No way. Two kids in the pros?"

"His brother was semi-pro in soccer, but became an engineer instead. His sisters go to Harvard and run track for them and they're both going for PhD. The whole family is fucking insane."

"So he's... average?"

"Average." Rocket nods. "He also completely misses the fact that not every family is like that."

Nico just laughs. "That's just perfectly on-brand."

Rocket chuckles at this, then glances back at Fen. "Hate to ruin the mojo at the current moment, but did you ask?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, have you checked in with Fen?" he's chewing on a hangnail.

"Yeah, I ran it past him more than once, just casual stuff. He's not at all phased by any of it. I knew he was a raging liberal to begin with, but he's chill with it."

"What am I chill with?" Fen runs a hand through his hair and leans over the seat, looking at the three of us.

"People being gay." Nico shrugs.

"Specifically me." Rocket mumbles. Fen's eyebrows go up.

"You're into guys?"

"Yeah." I'm watching Fen's reaction closely, prepared like all hell to throw myself between the two of them.

He nods. "Cool." Thank fuck.

Rocket deflates, relieved.

Then Fen furrows his eyebrows. "How the fuck have you survived locker rooms for this long? I mean, I'm not all that, but have you seen Paxton's ass."

Nico gags and I have to stifle a laugh. Rocket lets out a burst of laughter that he covers with his hand almost immediately. The plane stays quiet, thank god.

Rocket gasps for a breath. "Let's put it like this, if you don't look, you don't know. And if they're your friend, they're off limits." He glances at me and the look in his eyes says most of the time.

"Hmm, I mean, if I were into guys, which I don't think I am... some of these jerks," he looks around the plane. "Dunnooo-" he's joking with us all but really catches us off guard with: "You'd catch me shooting blanks to Hadley's back rolls."

Nico makes a horrible gag-snort-laugh-sneeze-chainsaw noise and I'm trying not to make any more noise, doubled over on the seat. Rocket disappears, his hand on his stomach, laying down on the seat he's supposed to be in. Fen just looks bloody proud of himself.

"Who are we shooting blanks to?" Greenie looks over at the four of us from the other side of the aisle, groggy as all get-out and violently confused.

Rocket falls apart all over again. Fen can't keep it in. "Hadley's back rolls."

Greenbean looks mortified. "Jeez, that's an odd fetish, Fenrir. I knew you were into getting topped and tied up when you started dating that, but I didn't know you were into old man tortilla-back."

Nico is hyperventilating.

Greenbean keeps talking, much to our dismay. "I mean, like, I knew you were a little freaky, just a little, but I didn't pin you as a necrophiliac."

"You did not." Rocket gasps for air. "FEN'S A NECROPHILIAC!"

"I'm not a necrophiliac!" Fen defends himself. "I'm a Nico-philiac!"

"You just made that worse!" Nico is off her rocker laughing.

"Not my fault I'm into her."

"Yeah it fucking is." Rocket's giggling. "You were the one that woke up one day and was like, you know what I want in this world? Besides to fuck a corpse? I want to get fucked by an olympic athlete. That would be one hell of a good time. You know what I'm going to do in the process? I'm going to totally date her."

"How the hell did this become Roast Fen Hour?" He raises his hands. "I was just making-"

"You were just making a joke about shooting blanks to Hadley's back rolls. That sounds like reason enough for it to become Roast Fen Hour." I point at him. The rest of the plane is definitely listening.

"We're doing what because of me?" Bernie sticks his head through the curtains into the back of the plane. We all go silent.

Rocket picks his head up and grins at me through the crack between the seats. "Fen's rubbing wood to your tortilla skin back." We all try to stifle the laughs, but someone lets out a snort and Rocket's suddenly a good comedian.

"I-" Hadley raises his arms in surrender. "I swear to fucking god this was the worst career choice I've ever made."

Nico picks up her head and looks at all of us. "Does shooting blanks hurt? Like a dry-heave?"

"No," Rocket shrugs. "I mean, at least for me it doesn't, dunno about the rest of you."

"I hate that you know that." Fen snorts.

"Please tell me you guys know and that I'm not the only freak out here getting that bored."

"No, you're not the only one, I just, the information was so available-"

"Yes?" Rocket lets out a little laugh. "Nico, not like this information will ever affect me, but do girls ever shoot blanks, or is that-"

"No," she shrugs. "No product, no problem."

"Yeah, hold on," Rocket raises his eyebrows. "Again, I'll never use this, but can you just keep going? Like for guys there's definitely a limit, but, no product no problem, can you just-"

"Eventually there's a limit, I haven't managed to hit it yet, but there's definitely a limit somewhere, probably cardiac arrest or dehydration."

"Damn, experimentally endless." Rocket seems a little stunned. "You know, if only I was attracted to women. I feel like I'd exploit that."

"Probably not." I challenge him a little.

"Why not?"

I raise my eyebrows at him. "Nothing, nothing, but you should put your money where your mouth is while calling Fen a bottom."

"Ohhhh," Fen looks at Rocket, who's pink around the ears. Nico lets out a sharp laugh.

"Jerk," Rocket snorts. "I'm not a bottom, F.Y.I. We do either over here. And frankly, bottoming is uncomfortable and borderline painful."

"I feel like you just have to relax for that." I shrug. He raises his eyebrows.

"Yeti Rex, what have you been doing in your free time."

I flush and bring my thumb up to chew on my nail. "Nothing interesting."

"Researching, clearly." Rocket covers up.

Jorgen lifts his head up from the seat in front of us. "It's midnight after a game, on a Tuesday and we're on a plane. Do you guys ever stop thinking about sex?"

"Not really." Rocket snorts.

"Also, physically, yes, Rex is right, you just have to relax because you can stretch up to 9 inches and nobody's dick is that big, but if it hurts, technically it's just friction which can be solved very easily, however watch what types of products you use with latex because they can break, easily."

"I'm fucking loud, aren't I." Rocket mumbles. "I totally just outed myself to half this plane."

"Yes, yes you did." Jorgen laughs. "Not a problem, I'll beat someone's ass before they attack you for that."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It's a dick move to hurt someone for something they can't control. I've got experience."

Fen tips his head. "You're-"

"No, it wasn't that." He nods at us, then turns back around.

"Well, I mean, that saves the hassle of telling everyone individually." Rocket mutters. "If this gets leaked I'm fucked."

"It won't, and if it does you can deny it, plus we'll beat the shit out of the person who did it and it'll be over." I shrug. "Easy as that."

***

no, i just can't get myself over you.

get myself over you - dawson gamble

*note* i absolutely adore this man and his band the Chase. like, adore.

***

i think it's been around exactly a year since i launched post olympic so hell yeah i guess.

also just spent literally an HOUR sobbing over a single scene in another book I'm writing and... that was the most draining thing i've done in months

-rabid