16: Let's Talk

this one is just a teensy bit shorter than the last one so leave some comments as we go through this one too because I'm tryna pull off good communication and I'm not real sure if it's working.

HÅKON

I bring my lips up to his head and kiss his hairline, trying to calm him down but it's useless, he's exhausted, shaking in my arms, curled up. His fingers are knotted in my shirt, holding onto me for dear life.

I hold onto him like it's the last time and the first time I'll ever be able to hold him. I hold him in a way that reminds me of all those stupid dug up skeletons of couples, left to be theorized about. I hold onto him like the world is crashing in on us. I hold onto him like someone dropped a bomb and this is the last thing I want to remember, holding him like this. I hold onto him in a way that, if they dug up our bodies in a thousand years, they wouldn't even have an excuse to say we weren't in love.

I look down at him, my fingers brushing across the skin on his neck, his head tucked up against my chest, ear pressed hard to my sternum, listening to my heartbeat. I drag my fingers across his skin, working my arm up to cradle his head, pushing my fingers into his thick mess of hair, my breath on the crown of his head.

"Shh," I mumble. "It's okay, it's alright."

His shoulders shiver again, the shake rattling down into his whole chest.

I touch across his back, pulling the tag out of his shirt and smoothing it down away from his skin. I watch him stretch out his legs, calming down a little more, no longer gripping to me like I'm going to just fade from existence, instead letting his hands hold my sides, his lithe fingers pressing in on my waist.

I slip my hands up around his jaw, gently pressuring him to lift his head. When he does, I bend and tap my forehead to his, those deep deep forest green eyes staring back at me, bloodshot and greener from the contrast. I let my lips settle softly on the tip of his nose, then drop my head back to his forehead, swiping at his wet face with my thumbs.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, he opens his mouth to respond but I press my thumb over his warm lips. "I'm sorry I blew up at you like that, I should've talked to you, weeks ago, fuck, months ago, but, it didn't happen like that, okay. I'm sorry if I scared you, I know I'm not friendly when I'm mad. I-"

"You can't scare me." he mumbles. "You can be scary, but you're not like that."

I nod. "I mean what I say when I say I love you," I brush another tear out from under his eye, cradling his face in my hands. "I do, like nothing else. It's okay if you're not there, I get it, but I just want you to know that I love you, even when I'm mad at you and you're mad at me. And it's okay if you're not there yet, I'll go with you at your speed, I just needed you to know."

He nods, eyelashes fluttering closed. "I love you too," he whispers. "Four taps. S'what four taps has meant, at least for me, for a while."

I give his chin a little tap, making him open his eyes. "Me too." I let him stay quietly huddled up against me for another few moments, drifting in and out of his thoughts, fidgeting with the hem of my shirt.

"Can we go through this? Is that okay?" I ask, pressing my cheek to the top of his head. I need to clarify, god, all of it. I need to know what's causing stuff and what's, I don't know. I need to know more of what's going on in his head.

"Yeah," he mumbles, tightening his grip around my waist.

"So, okay," I breathe in. "Sex."

Rocket gets a little stiff, shifting away from me.

"No, no, get back here," I slip my arm around his ribs and pull him back. "If we can't talk about this there's no way in hell we can actually do it."

He looks up at me.

"Hi," is all my stupid dumb brain can think of saying. "So, I, what I got from what you said is that you don't think that you're..." I pause. "You think that because nobody has ever wanted you like that, that you're not attractive like that and that and not worthy of that type of affection?"

He winces, closing his eyes, then, much more coherent than I expected him to respond with: "Yeah."

I shift, leaning back to put my head and shoulders against the headboard, supporting him against my stomach, my fingers running through his hair.

"So..."

He sighs. "It's not even that I am all that excited about the prospect of it, frankly, it scares the shit out of me. I just-"

He cuts out so I try to complete the thought. "Because everyone else around you has you feel like you're somewhat below all of them?"

He nods. "Yeah, that."

"Alright," I drop my head back to the headboard. "Explain why you're scared, that's next in that line of things.

He gets stiff, cringing. "Was it scary for you?"

"Mhmm, yeah, a little. I was sixteen, you know, Svea. I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing, hadn't even come to terms with even knowing I was gay in the first place. So we got really really drunk and just went for it. Yes, it was fucking awful."

He lets out a tiny laugh. "So, there you go, s'why I'm scared. I just, I wanna get it over with, so I'm not scared anymore."

I brush my hand down his back, letting out a little hum. "It's... is there anything I can do to make it less scary?"

"I don't think so," he sighs. "Just be you."

"Mkay." I brush my hand back through his hair. "Now, I, as we go through this, I just, there was one thing you said at the beginning, that I don't like it when you bring up Steph? Why?"

"Just, you get all weird when I talk about him." Rocket's eyelashes brush across my shirt and I can tell he's getting more exhausted by the second.

"At the beginning, I thought it was because you were into me on the side of a longstanding crush with him, but, now I know it's just that your friendship is different than I normally see with two guys. I'm not jealous of him, if that's what you're thinking, well, I am in a way. I envy how long he's known you, you know, how he's been able to watch you grow and get older. I want that but I'm not mad at him for being able to experience that, that will come if I treat you right and we're able to get older with each other. But Steph isn't anything I worry about."

He lets out a little snort. "I mean, the only reason I became friends with him is because he gave me funky little vibes and, ya know, you've seen the guy. But, it's long long long dead and we're more like brothers now. I'd rather peel back a toenail than kiss him, that feels like incest."

I gag. "Milo!"

"Yeah?" he picks up his head, looking up at me, a coy little smile on his face. "Was that too graphic?"

"A little," I mumble. "So, you, as you got into that, okay, you kept saying this stuff on the lines of always wanting to make people like you, is that, what's..." I pause and he shifts, sitting up and then setting his head back down on my shoulder, aligning his body with mine. "People do really really like you, you know that? You're sweet and kind and you stop and make time for everyone you talk to, you make people feel good about themselves, you know that, you need to know that."

He sighs. "I do, I do sorta know that. It's just, I'm anxious, after all, all of everything, I just feel like they're nice with me and then turn around and laugh about it."

I run my hand down his back, pulling at his hips to get him to settle better across my body. "I don't know what to say about that, sure, some people are bound to do that, but you're not some communal joke, okay? The team and everyone I've talked to about you really likes you."

He sighs, sniffling a little bit. "It still feels... I don't know."

I nod, wrapping both my arms around him, giving us a minute or two to process before going on. He breathes in against my chest, then out. I let him press his nose to my neck behind my ear, his hair tickling my cheek.

"I wanna talk about the manipulation thing next," I slip my hand up the back of his shirt, pressing my fingers into the small of his back, hoping to comfort him just a little bit. "I just want to make sure you know that what you do isn't manipulation. You learned psychology from your mom and from that you know what people like and you're good at figuring it out. With me, you figured out quickly that I don't like being in big groups of people and much prefer letting you talk, so we went from there. That's not manipulation at all, that's just social activity, you're tailoring your jokes and compliments to each person with hopes of them being friendly back with you. Manipulation is being mean and doing a similar thing, instead of making themselves feel good, like you do, you'd break little bits of them off and have them come to you for those bits. It's so very very different."

"But-"

"Milo," I mumble, softly, trying to be gentle about scolding him for that particular second thought. "You're kind, you're genuine, you're funny, all of it, people like being around you because you're positive and happy, not because you're manipulating them."

He puffs out a sigh. "It feels like I'm guilting them into it."

I push his hair back from his face, making him look at me. "You're not. Never have. Never will. Who ever told you being nice was bad?"

He frowns, then nuzzles back down into my neck. "Hpmph."

"Now," I run my fingertips across the back of his neck, back and forth. "Why did you say you don't like yourself?"

He cringes again. "I-I don't, I just don't."

"Describe it to me."

"It's not, it's, agh, I go through, like, waves," he mumbles. "Some days I can't bear being in my own damn skin, some days I just wanna shrivel up and crawl out because I can't physically do anything right, some days I think I'm pretty alright, some days I have too much of an ego. Sometimes that flips like a switch. It depends on what's going on. If I make a super cool save, suddenly I've got a God complex, if I miss something dumb and easy, I can spend the next couple hours nitpicking everything about myself." He sighs. "It's, most of the time, not feeling good. I don't like... a lot of things."

"Can you tell me just a few of them?"

"Easy," he mumbles. "I hate the way I sound, in my head, at least. I hate the scars on my cheekbones, I hate my overall build, I wish I could look more like you, actually look like the job I've got." he clears his throat. "I hate my teeth, they're all screwey, I hate my ribs, how they stick out no matter how hard I try, like my rib cage ends and then pokes out. I hate the extra skin on my stomach, I hate how I act around other people, I hate... I don't know, there's a lot of things."

I sigh, not really sure how to tell him that I love all those things. I can't think of a way where I could say that I love those things without him thinking I'm making it up or something. "Well," I mumble, brushing my lips across his ear. "I love your voice, and I've spent a lot of time admiring those little scars. I love the way you're built, long and lean like a runner, you're agile as hell, scares me sometimes how quick you're able to move. I like your ribs, to be frank I see you naked almost every day, showers or otherwise, and I've never even noticed those. I like your teeth, especially the ones that are a little pointy at the ends. I like your stomach, obviously, it's one of my favorite places to put my head and again, I didn't even notice that skin, I don't care, but it's just something you've picked out about yourself that nobody else is ever going to freak out about."

"But I notice them."

I wrap my arms around his ribs and give him a little squeeze. "I swear, Milo, they're just things that make me love you more, and I'll love those little things until it wears off on you." I pick one of my hands up and twirl a little lock of his hair around my finger, keeping myself somewhat occupied so my hands don't get awkward.

"HÃ¥kon?" he mumbles softly, his voice pulling on my name just perfect, just the way I like it.

I bring my other hand up to my first, starting a little braid on that chunk of hair, just like I did our first morning together. "Mhmm?" I respond.

He pushes his nose into my neck. "I can't even begin to explain how much you mean to me."

I stay quiet, shocked, but quiet. My fingers keep working on his hair, braiding the little bit, hoping that it stays braided once I put it down.

"I just," he breathes in and I watch his chest expand. "I love you. I really really do. I don't know what I'd do without you here. I adore everything there is about you and it's really really scary."

I finish the little braid. "I love you too," I mumble. "I promise."

He nods, eyelashes fluttering against my neck. I pick up another little lock of hair, starting the same process, happy that the first bit was small enough and long enough to hold the braid. His head tics to the side, alerting me that he's made it far past tired.

"Do you want to go over the rest of this in the morning?" I ask. "You're exhausted."

"Mhmm," he mumbles. "I love you."

"I love you too," I pat his back four times. "However, I need to pee, I'm so sorry because I know you're really comfortable right now." I finish off the second little braid.

"M'kay," he takes a breath and then rolls off my chest, arms and legs all stretched out and exhausted on his side. I brush his hair back, giving him a kiss on the head before making my way to the bathroom.

I take a minute to myself to think, forcing myself to process all of that as quickly as I can and mentally list all the things I need to go through tomorrow when he's more coherent. Like what happened in Norway, it's been bugging me for a while, and what his ADHD means emotionally because the more dumb google searches I do the less it seems like just a physical thing where he's a little too energetic, the more I look into it the more I feel like an asshole for thinking it's just that. I need to ask about what I can do to improve our communication because clearly we're doing a weird job with figuring things out but we're both so new to this I figured we'd make some mistakes along the way. It's not like either of us were going to perfect this on the first try. We just need to talk, way, way, way more. About all the uncomfortable stuff and all our personal boundaries that we've never had to share with anyone before now. It's uncomfortable territory but there's no way in hell I'm letting him stew in his own emotions like that ever again if I can help it.

On my way back into the room, I notice he's in a different position, on the other side of the bed, sheets all funny. He must've gotten up too. I don't figure it out until I notice the yellow and blue on his shirt, REX written across the shoulders. IIHF Sweden. It just looks so much fucking better on his lanky frame and pointy shoulders than mine. And fuck I could go on for years about my name on his back.

As quietly as I can, I pull my shirt up and over my head, picking up the one I folded while he was on his walk. I open up the bottom and slip it over my shoulders, his soft smell hitting my nose as it slides down over my face. Fuck, I hate the Bruins, but this shirt has a special little spot in my heart.

The floorboards creak under my feet as I ease my way quietly toward him. He doesn't need me to be quiet, he rolls over the second I put my knee down on the bed and blinks up at me real slow, beyond exhausted.

"Hey," I mumble, easing down next to him, wrapping an arm around his stomach.

He tugs the hem of my shirt and I look over at him. His mouth quirks a little and he gives me somewhat of an odd but happy look.

"I adore you," I whisper. "Now sleep, please."

He's already gone before I can finish the sentence, eyes shut, mouth parted, all relaxed on top of me. I set my head back on the pillow and I'm not slow to join him.

***

that was a doosey and we've got all of next chapter to get through as well. it's taking a little bit of research on my part to get through ADHD specifics for it but I know enough from personal experiences that I've been doing good so far. anyway.

also if you don't follow my instagram, (first off, go do that) I've made two little moodboard/playlist posts for the two of them recently out of boredom so go check those out @ rabideraser

that's all,

-rabid