44: And... Jan

HÅKON

There's a soft knock on my front door about four minutes after I finish up showering, so, in shorts and a shirt that's sticking to my wet chest, I wander over, brushing my hair out of my eyes, reading glasses pushed up over my forehead.

"Hello?" I pull it open. "Oh, hi Helen."

She smiles up at me. "There's my favorite Swede, anyway, I heard from Steph that you were back and I was looking for my delinquent son."

"Oh, did he not tell you?" I yawn. "He's in the Czech Republic."

Her eyes go wide. "That child-"

"Shoot, was I not supposed to tell you?" I stare blankly down at her like she's going to know the answer to that.

"How long has he been there?"

"Five days." I mumble. "...why?"

"That-" she runs her hands through her hair. "That boy, god he's like his father, too fucking headstrong, my god, it's gonna kill him, he should not be off- god and you let him go alone?"

I stare at her. "Yeah? I thought... I dunno, he's an adult."

"HÃ¥kon! You're the brains of that operation, no offense to my son, but-"

"So he's... not supposed to be in the Czech Republic?"

"No!" she smacks her head. "I was gonna- no he's gonna get his poor heart broken by all-"

"He's gonna what?" I mumble. "Because it seems like everything is going really well."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, I dunno, I've been in contact, b'cuz, you know, boyfriend, but... he's... I dunno everything seems to be going great. He looks like his dad."

"He does, a spitting im- wait."

"Huh?"

"Well? It's going well?"

I'm just starting to realize the amount of trouble I'm going to be in when he finds out I was the one that accidentally told his mom. "Has... has he seriously not told you this whole thing? Uh-"

"No he has not!"

"Helen-" I start. "I think he's fine, I really think he's alright, I wouldn't still be here if he wasn't-"

"HÃ¥kon, no, that's not the problem, the problem-" She rakes her hands through her hair. "The problem is that I was going to take him at the end of the summer when you got home from Sweden!"

I gape at her. "Oh I..."

"God that fucking boy." She grumbles. "Go get your stuff you're going to be my traveling companion."

"Your huh?"

"You heard me."

I stare down at her for a few more moments. "Ah, I mean, why not undo all the jet lag I guess."

Packing all my stuff back up again is easy, I just change out the things I haven't washed yet and then throw all of it back into the suitcase still sitting on my bedroom floor. I look up at the flag hanging from my ceiling, I finally found the right pins for it so it no longer falls on me in the middle of the night and I love how it looks up there, but unfortunately, I'm leaving it again.

In the next hour or so, I wait quietly for Helen to bounce around her little apartment and pack some things and move the date of the plane tickets around all while telling me funny little stories about Milo as a little kid.

She tells one on and off for a while about how he was super into this kids show over there and would spend hours drawing and redrawing alternate timelines for it. So basically he was a child prodigy at writing and drawing fanfiction. Which... makes sense; because from what I've gotten, fanfiction was the main way he explored his sexuality as a thirteen year old. It's also his favorite way of embarrassing me, all things considered there's quite a lot of Fenrir/me fanfiction on Ao3 for some damn reason. It makes me a little uncomfortable but it's kind of funny how off my personality is.

"That boy, he couldn't wait thirty seconds to come home again before bouncing off on that type of adventure just like usual and I was so excited to take him myself but I guess I should've known he's a little too headstrong for that and oh-" she pauses. "Okay the flight time went through, we leave tomorrow morning at ten."

"Oh fantastic, I can sleep a little." I yawn. "How long is it?"

"Regina to Toronto is about three hours and then the next bit is seven hours stopping in London, then two from London to Prague. Then we get a train and I can go give my husband the run through that I've been practicing for ten years."

"And I'm... along for the ride?"

"Yes dear." She pats my arm.

"Okay with me." I mumble.

"I'm not going to just leave you here alone when you can come along."

"I just, I dunno, this feels like a you and your family thing." I slip my hands into my pockets. "It's not like I don't want to go, of course I do, but I don't want to invade."

"HÃ¥kon," she looks up at me, way up, there's a ten inch height difference between me and her, but up. "You need to start letting people invite you places."

"I mean, yeah, out for drinks, but not to go fly halfway across the world to ground your son and scream at the husband you haven't talked to in a decade."

She shakes her finger at me. "Same thing."

"No, not really."

"You're coming along, I know you want to."

"I do, but-"

"Then you're coming."

"What should I be expecting for this? I don't really know much about anything over there. I was in Prague for a few weeks once but that was the IIHF and I was exhausted for most of it."

"I'm expecting a normal looking house with paint that hasn't been touched in a decade." She says, sorting through a cabinet. "Prague is nice and maybe I can take you two in to see it when we get there, oh-"

She goes a little pale. "Roman."

"About, about Roman," I start.

"No, I just, I feel so bad," she sighs. "He's my second son and I should remember him all the time but, you just saw, I forgot he existed there for a moment or two."

"Roman isn't-"

"I knew I should've gone back earlier. I should've left Miloš with a friend for a week and flown back over to fight for my other son and bring him here too, he would've loved Canada, you know? He's, what, he's twenty now."

"Listen, Helen, I gotta tell you something about-"

"Twenty! He's twenty!" She puts her head in her hands. "That's my son, he's twenty. Half his life without me and he probably doesn't remember much about the half that I was around for, what type of crappy mother does that make me?"

"Hel," I clear my throat. "It's okay, really, it's not like you could've controlled the circum-"

"I didn't go back, I could've gone back and tried to bring him to Canada or even worked it out with-" she stops for a moment. "God, he probably thinks I ditched him and played favorites. What does that make me?"

"Uh," I pause, opening my arms. "It's okay, I swear." She sniffs a little, trying to muster up something in her, but does lean forward and let me wrap my arms around her back. It's awkward, it's literally the most awkward hug I've ever given, but it seems to help.

"First, I have to tell you something," I mumble, rubbing my hand in circles on her back. "Roman's transgender, her name is Reyna, I hate to out people but I feel like that will take the shock factor off when we get there."

"Really?"

"Yes," I mumble. "Rocket posted on his instagram last night if you want to see a picture of them together."

She nods against my chest, stepping back and wiping off her eyes.

I slip my phone out of my pocket and pull up his account. I honestly still don't know how to handle this photo, he's not wearing a shirt and he's absolutely soaking wet, but it is a good photo of him and her, and also Jan, who seems to be tacked onto the side. Rocket's arms are around both of their shoulders, Jan is the shortest, and Rey is leaning up against Milo's side. He's the tallest, which is not something that we see a lot with the group of guys we skate with. Also I need to stop giving him shit for being skinny because against two normal people he's definitely a professional athlete.

I spaced out long enough for Helen to be crying again, hand over her mouth, just staring down at my little phone screen.

"Those are my kids," she mumbles. "And Jan."

"Yeah, and Jan." I let out a little bubble of laughter.

"To be fair we kept track of him a lot when he was little, he's basically a copy of Miloš."

"I can't imagine keeping track of two of them."

"I had to stop him from eating an entire hard boiled egg in one go once."

"Milo, or-"

"No, Jan, but he got the idea from Milo."

"Of course he did."

***

and jan

anyway

-rabid

edit: 1:50 am: i literally forgot to put the accents on milo's name and also the chapter number was wrong. this is what i get for working on an othello project all day