HÅKON

"Do you ever just... look at a stick of butter and think: man, this looks like it would feel amazing to eat?"

Rocket is standing in my kitchen, holding a stick of butter, trying to make a scrambled egg for himself. His ADHD is showing.

I'm sitting on the counter, watching him. "No, I can't say I've ever had the urge to take a bite out of a stick of butter."

He frowns, looking at the label on it, then back at me. "But you have to admit, it looks like it would just feel good to sink your teeth into."

"No, well, maybe, but again it would be gross."

"But it looks good."

"Sure." I say, watching him rearrange his hair. That's something he does a lot, now that I'm noticing. He fixes his hair once every five or so minutes if it's not under a hat.

"You know, but I just want to bite it." He holds it up to his mouth, wrapper still on.

"I'm going to tell you right now that it's going to be gross." Sometimes I'm a little bit in awe that this guy is the one trying to teach me how to grow up a little more.

"But it would feel good. People do gross stuff all the time because it feels good." He glances back at me, a devilish little glint in his eyes.

"Rocket-"

"I'm just saying! I'm just saying!" He puts his hands up in surrender. "Nobody in their right mind would put their mouth on a dick but here we are, doing it for fun. There's hundreds of examples of people doing gross stuff because it feels good."

I'm just staring at him, mouth wide open, re-realizing how incredibly vulgar he is. It's not like I didn't know that before, but every time he says something like that I can't help but be surprised again.

"Take kissing for example." He points the stick of butter at me, leaning back onto the counter. "That's, conceptually, disgusting. I mean, it's sloppy in the first place, it's basically all about sharing saliva with another person and who was the first person to initiate a french kiss? I mean, what psychopath was like, 'you know what would make this better? Feeling their teeth.' seriously, think about it."

"Rock-"

He interrupts me with another thought. "Plus, they invented kissing long before they invented the toothbrush, they invented that in 1930. Actually no, hold on." He thinks about it for a couple seconds and I just get to sit there, watching the gears turn in his head. "Prehistoric people used sticks and stuff, chewed on them and stuff, and then it was actually invented in China using hog hair but of course people don't like admitting that China did something first so the given answer is 1930."

"Why do you know this?"

"Don't ask me hard questions." He turns back around to the skillet and lops a chunk off the butter, tossing it in. "But seriously who, before toothbrushes were commonplace, decided that the one thing they wanted to do most was shove their tongue into their partner's mouth."

"Instinct." I respond. "I mean, they probably weren't thinking too hard about it before they got there, considering kissing someone does a really good job of shutting your brain off all the way. They probably didn't realize they were kissing with tongue until after they were done with that kiss."

"Point made," he mumbles, cracking an egg into the skillet. He adds a splash of milk and then gets to work. "But their teeth were gross as hell, you know? Ever seen old skulls? How worn away those teeth were? It's because they used to grind all the flour by hand and little bits of the grindstone and the flour would still be hard and it would basically mean bread was tooth sandpaper."

"Now why do you know that too?"

"No idea," he's carefully whisking with the fork, being sure not to scrape it against the bottom of the pan. "And then other sex shit that's quite frankly disgusting."

I raise my eyebrows, watching him work. "And what does that include?"

"I know Steph and August are kinda on the rocks right now but seriously the amount of times he's mentioned going down on her but like- just, eugh." He sticks out his tongue in a 'bleh' kind of motion. "Like who wants to put their mouth down there."

I laugh, leaning against the cabinets from my perch on the counter. "A: that's because you're gay and b: it tastes like licking a penny."

His eyes go wide. "And why does your gay ass know that?"

I scratch the side of my head, turning pink in the ears. "Svea."

"God damn, Hakon." He reaches over to smack the side of my head lightly. "Hoe." 

"It's not that bad, trust me. And when you're, ah, closeted, and don't have the energy to force a boner that day, you do the best you can with what you have."

"Boy-" he has to stop to get the eggs out of the pan. "She must've thought you had an erectile disorder."

I let out a burst of laughter. "She asked once."

"She what? No way." He sets the plate on the counter next to him, then hops up on the counter across from me, pulling it onto his lap.

"Svea..." I pause. "Being my closest friend, it wasn't weird for her to ask."

"But, what the hell did you say in response?"

I shrug. "Same old excuse, I used the nationals team. I mean, it was easy for me to say that they were knocking every ounce of energy out of me, including that."

He squints his eyes at me. "You know that's not how that works, right? I can be exhausted to a point of near-death and still get a boner."

"I know it's not how it works, but it seemed believable for her." I raise my eyebrows at him. "Plus, it's not a mystery that you're the single horniest person I've ever met."

"I-" he turns pink around the ears. "Shush."

It's quiet as he eats his eggs for a couple of minutes, a peaceful change from the constant chatter from the past three hours. Don't get me wrong, I like it when he talks, but my ears need a break sometimes.

"You know, sex and sexual relationships are just right out disgusting once you get thinking about it." He waves his fork a little. "I mean, heterosexual sex isn't... awful, I mean, yeah it kinda is, but have you ever thought about two guys having sex? Yes you have, nevermind, but where I'm going with this is: who in fucking hell decided to make that pleasurable."

I shrug, watching him. "In an evolutionary sense, giving us a conscience means we understand what's gross and what's not, biblically that's Adam and Eve's fault, you know, original sin. As you get into thinking about it, if people knew the outcome of sex, sex being a gross act to start with, was nine uncomfortable months followed by a potentially lethal and incredibly lengthy childbirth, they wouldn't do it. If there's no self-indulgence involved, no pleasure, nothing of that sort, people wouldn't do it, and we'd die off."

He opens his mouth to respond, then stops and thinks for a second. "Wow, you were really raised catholic."

"Huh?"

"Your Adam and Eve and original sin reference rolled right off your tongue as if you didn't even think about putting it there."

I take a deep breath. "Yeah."

He gives me a solemn nod. "Same here until I came to Canada. Mom kinda stopped making me go to church after my dad did his thing."

I let out a tiny laugh. "I was taken out of nationals team normal schooling to go to a catholic school my parents chose."

He cringes at this. "Funny how they preach and preach about loving everyone."

I let out a long sigh, tipping my head back to rest it on the cabinets. "What do you believe now? What do you think happens after you die? What's your idea of it all?"

"Relaxed catholicism, I mean, I never bothered to think about doing anything else, learning anything else, I guess I believe in some of it, but not all anymore. You know, when I was thirteen, when I first realized who I was, I really thought I was going straight to hell. My dad had drilled it into my head that being gay was the worst thing ever. Bitch of a man he was. What about you? What do you think it all is now?"

"Being honest, up until moving out here I was super crazy about it. I was raised on church every Sunday and praying before every meal. Hell, the only books I was allowed to read when I was a kid were books from school and the fucking bible. I moved out here and became skeptical of most of the shit I was raised on, met people who weren't raised like that, met Finnican who's from a large irish catholic family and he told me how different they treated all of it. It seemed kinda like they were using it just as a family tradition. Yes, they all went to church together, but it was more about the holidays and the 'love everyone' elements for them. I've gathered that what my family did, the exclusionary tactics, the preaching shit was just heavy brainwashing. I've leaned further and further away from it now and I guess I'd put myself in an agnostic viewpoint."

He nods at this but I'm not really done talking. "I kinda, once I got out here and met some more people, started adopting a kind of general thought about reincarnation if that doesn't sound too stupid."

"It's not stupid." He reassures me.

"I guess the part of it that I kinda like is the souls part, it gives me a basic explanation for who I am and why."

"Keep going?"

"Think about it like this, gender is a construct, completely." I slouch a little further into the cabinets. "Yes, it exists and people align by it and live with it, but when it boils all the way down, our internal whatever, souls, if you will, don't have it. Maybe a personal concept of it, a more feminine or masculine set of very very core values, the ones that stick with us body to body, but generally they don't have it."

"Alright?"

"And I don't believe in romantic soulmates. At all. It makes no sense, there's almost eight billion people out here and the chances of me finding 'the one' in eight billion is stupid, no offense if you believe in that, of course, I just don't think it's probable."

"Yeah, me neither. But what about who and why you're attracted to who you are attracted to?"

"I guess in the very depths of it, have you ever heard the phrase or the concept that everyone is a little bit gay?"

"Yep."

"Right. Deep down, I think we're evolutionarily moving closer to everyone everywhere being pansexual or bisexual. It makes no sense to be attracted or not attracted to someone based off presenting or identifying gender."

He chews for a couple seconds, processing that. "Yeah, no, that makes sense. People claim to love by the soul or whatever and people love believing in soulmates so it makes sense that they should be blind to gender and appearance. The whole 'I want a soulmate' but then they don't want any male or any female or anyone that looks like this or has that. It makes sense."

"Right." I hop off the counter and take his dirty plate to the sink. "So in the theory I kind of assumed that we're attracted to who we're attracted to based off who loved us most in a past life."

He processes this. "So I had a super hot boyfriend in a past life too?"

I just have to laugh, leaning against the counter next to him. "No, just someone who loved you in that full and complete, irrational and unconditional way."

"So you're telling me I had an amazing husband?" He seems excited by that concept.

"No, I'm telling you that the person that loved you most was male presenting."

"A super fucking amazing boyfriend."

"Or a grandfather or a father that loved you more than anything." I shrug. "I assume, based off what you've told me about Steph and his grandfather, that Steph's next time around out here, he'll be into guys, doesn't matter if he's female presenting or male or anything else, he'll be into guys because the person that loved him most was his grandfather. Maybe even his grandfather too, Steph loves him beyond all else so there's a chance his grandfather, in his next time around, will also be into males."

Rocket frowns, setting his elbows on his knees. "So, with that development, why do you think we're moving toward total pansexuality?"
"Well, because gender division is so aggressive in society, hell, it was a survival tactic prehistorically, it's always been incredibly important. As we move away from that divide and further into a more self-realized way of life, with advances into a more spiritually connected society, people who don't live to survive but rather to come across deeper connections, our souls will start presenting in fuller force, thus switching a gendered love into a uniform one. The people who loved us most will no longer be bound more by gender-based love and sexuality and move to whatever might show up after that."

He's having a harder time going through that concept in his head. "So you're saying that our souls and inner whatever will eventually become more important than our presenting bodies, thus switching love gradually from sex-based to soul-based?"

I want to hug him. "Yeah."

"So people will still want to match their gender identity to who they are that time around, but it will become way less important to people around them?"

"Yeah."

"And race and ethnicity problems will mostly cease?"

"Hopefully."

"And disabilities won't be seen like they are now? People won't be judged off their outward appearing personality but rather their very core values? Sounds idealistic, how does this account for human flaw?"

"I have no idea yet, maybe people will still be 'bad' and mean and all that shit, people will definitely still dislike others and all that, but it will be core-value based not personality and appearance based. I think there might still be corruption and hate, but it'll just be different."

He chews on his thumbnail, staring off into space. "And where do you put the concepts of heaven and hell?"

"Heaven is a pitstop between earthly bodies, you know, get some gatorade and a snack, stretch out, catch your breath before another shift, and hell is just soul jail. You go there if you fuck up too badly on Earth."

"Is there ever a stop or are we coming back over and over and over again until the end of time?"

"I'm not sure."

"What about population growth? Are there more souls being fabricated somewhere?"

"No, think about it. Every species has a carrying limit, how many of them there can be before it's too much for the ecosystem. I think that's also true for souls. Think about it like this. We kill off species' and animals beyond repair at the same rate that we create population growth. Some of us are dodo birds."

"That sounds like my dumbass."

I smile at his comment. "So, you could reincarnate as anything."

"All votes for you being a tree in every past life except this one." He raises his hand and looks around the room for other votes.

I chuckle. "Remember what I said at the campout?"

"Right, ghosts are just a fart in an empty room."

That gets a good laugh out of me. "I told you a little about this then. You didn't realize it, I barely grazed the topic, but it was there."

"Mhmm, how the soul lives on but the rotten heart stays."

"I remember that night being the first time I really got to know you for you." I sigh. "I realized after that how messy the crush I have on you was."

"And how messy is that?" He grins at me.

"Really really messy."

"Keep going?"

"Oh, you egotistical prick." I ruffle his hair to divert his attention but his gaze stays on me. "Fine, fine, I had to pull back from that hug early because my brain said emotional support and my body said pin him down and fuck him like the rest of the team and coaching staff isn't there."

His eyebrows are up and his face has the same shit eating wide eyes that you see on a little kid that just got away with something a little too risky. "Humor me with what you were thinking when playing basketball back in Tampa?"

I feel my expression drop, a blush roaring up my throat to my cheeks. "Goddamnit! I knew your pesky ass realized!"

"Hmm?" He waves his hand to get me to continue.

"Okay, okay fine, yes, I wanted to take you to the bathroom and-" my voice gets tiny. "Fuckyouagainstthestalldoor-"

"And you didn't for what reason?" cheeky ass.

"Oh, I dunno," I set my hands palm down on the countertop on either side of his legs, looking up at him. "You didn't know I was gay and I didn't know you were and the entire team was present so it would've been weird if I dragged you into the bathroom and we both came back rustled up? Would rub the team weird, right?"

"Right." He carefully licks his bottom lip, pulling it between his teeth. "Doesn't mean I didn't want that to happen."

"Why? What were you thinking at that moment?"

He shrugs. "Something slightly more PG, all-considering, I turned around like that with my hands on your chest and man I wanted to kiss you, but that was about it. I wasn't all that confident with it."

"What, you weren't having sexually explicit thoughts in the middle of a basketball game? How politically correct of you." I slide my hands in, setting my thumbs on the sides of his thighs, watching what I'm doing for any reaction. If he's alright with this, good, if he's not, I'm going to back off. His expression doesn't change from amused.

"No, I mean, at least not as politically incorrect as yours, there's been thoughts like that all over the place with you, but mostly in private."

"Mm?" I put my hands flat on the sides of his legs slowly, fingertips to fingers to my palm.

"You know, the general." He mumbles, getting flustered as much as I am right now. "The break room, any assortment of time alone together in locker rooms, hell the thoughts I've had about the team showers-"

I chuckle at this, embarrassed. "The showers? Why the hell would you go over the showers in your head after they happen? I thought that was bro code with the guys, what happens in the showers is never to be thought of or mentioned again." I slide my hands a little further up, tightening my grip just a little, there's a slight stutter in his breathing pattern as a result and it causes a rush of pride to roar through me.

"Oh, no, not with the team and the stuff that's happened there, just as in places I could take you that nobody would interrupt in." My body involuntarily shivers. "But that was mostly a fantasy, considering the fact that nobody in their right mind would go to the showers to hook up. I'd much rather lay you across the couch in the break room, or put my hand in your pants on the plane or the bus, maybe even the locker room if we were feeling like Fen and Nico for a day." My lips are hovering over the sweet spot on his neck, in the time he took to say all that, I pulled his body closer to mine, leaning in to brush my nose against the corner of his jaw. I need some sort of recognition or something he does to tell me this is okay because I don't want to push a boundary, but god there's nothing more I want right now than to sink my teeth into the soft skin below his jaw.

He takes a breath, chest expanding against mine. "But, unfortunately, we can't quite yet. You still have things to work on and things to do and I still have to figure out what next to help you get to where you can like me like that." He puts his hand gently on my