Rocket To The Moon.

“So, you guys are really together then, huh?” Rocket asked suspiciously, after Tom had slung his arm around my shoulder and nuzzled my ear with his nose. In my opinion, he was trying too hard with the appearance aspect, but I dare not say or do anything in case I ruined the entire plan.
“Of course we are!” Tom replied confidently. Maybe a bit too confidently.
“You just seem like an odd couple, that’s all.” Rocket pointed out.
“What are you talking about, man? We’re perfect for each other.” Tom insisted.
Just then, Tom’s cell phone rang. He excused himself from the room to take the call, leaving me alone once again with Rocket.
“Hero, I’m gonna be honest with you now…” he said as soon as Tom had disappeared from sight, “This feels weird.”
“Weird? How?”
“Well, he’s my best friend. And you’re…” he paused.
“What? I’m what?”
“Whatever you are…” he continued “This is very uncomfortable. Plus, you’ve only known the guy for like, one week!”
“We connected quickly.” I shrugged.
“I don’t like it.” he commented “He’s not right for you.”
“How would you know?” I asked.
“Because I know the guy better than I know myself.” he replied.
“Not likely anymore…” I muttered under my breath, hopefully not loud enough for him to hear.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Nothing.” I replied quickly.
“You whispered something. What was it?” he demanded.
“It was nothing!” I repeated stubbornly.
“Didn’t sound like nothing.” he stated.
“Well, you can do magic, can’t you? Cast some kind of truth spell on me or something.” I tried to hide my smirk, and waited for him to explode. Surprisingly, he didn’t shout, and he didn’t chase me like he did last time I made a Voldemort joke. This time, he just laughed.
“You love inside jokes, don’t you?” he said. It was less of a question than it was a statement.
“This is an inside joke?” I questioned.
“Of course it is. It comes up in like every one of our conversations now.” he replied.
I laughed, “Yeah, I do like inside jokes a lot.”
“I’m coming home tomorrow.” he said, for no apparent reason.
“Great!” I replied, a little too enthusiastically.
“It’s not that exciting.” he pointed out “And anyway, once I’m home, you won’t be able to share the room with your new boyfriend anymore.” he meant Tom. I pretended to be disappointed.
“Couldn’t you sleep on the couch for a couple of days?” I asked. I was hoping he’d say no. I’d much rather share my room with him than Tom, but he didn’t know that.
“No chance.” he replied. Inside, I was relieved. But I rolled my eyes so he wouldn’t know this.
“I’m injured, remember? You’re gonna have to let me have all the privileges…and basically be my personal slave until I fully recover.” he smirked.
“I don’t remember ever agreeing to that.” I folded my arms and pouted.
“There is no agreeing. I’m making you do it.” he said.
“What if I refuse?”
“You won’t refuse.”
“I am refusing.”
“Don’t refuse!”
“What are you gonna do about it?”
“Don’t make me chase you under the bed again!” he threatened.
“Ooh, scary!” I joked.
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that, slave!”
“I’m not your damn slave!”
“Why not?” he whined.
“In my opinion, you have to earn that kind of treatment.” I said.
“Have I not earned it?” he asked.
“Not quite, no.” I replied.
“How can I earn it?” he asked.
“Be nice to me.” I replied “Buy me chocolates. Ask me how my day was.”
“How was your day?”
“Nice try, dude. It has to be spontaneous.” I explained.
“You’re not making this easy for me, you know.” he muttered.
“Exactly.” I replied, smiling.
“You’re a bitch.” he stated.
“YOU’RE a bitch.” I retorted.
“I’m hurt.” he stuck out his bottom lip and wiped a fake tear from his eye.
“I’m Hero, pleased to meet you, Hurt.” I replied.
“You’re such a freak!” he exclaimed.
“Freak, bitch, nerd, what else Mr. Meanie?” I asked playfully.
“Slave?” he replied hopefully.
“Not in a million years.”
He looked up at the clock on the wall, then back at me, “Has it been a million years yet?”
“Yes.” I replied sarcastically.
“Good. So…how was your day?”
I laughed, “At least you don’t give up.”
Just then, Tom strode confidently back into the room wearing a stethoscope around his neck. Where he got that from was a mystery to me at that point, but I didn’t bother asking.
“Hi, everybody!” he sang.
“Hi, Dr. Nick!” I replied.
Rocket gave me a confused look.
“What? Don’t tell me you’ve never watched The Simpsons!?” I questioned disbelievingly.
“Everyone’s watched The Simpsons!” Tom joined in, equally as incredulously. Rocket simply shrugged.
The door flung open again, and a young, flustered Doctor ran into the room. He launched straight for Tom and snatched the stethoscope from around his neck.
“Give me that back, you jerk!” he ordered “What is wrong with kids these days!?”. The angered Doctor placed the stethoscope in it’s rightful position around his own neck and stormed out of the room. As he did so, Tom burst into hysterical laughter.
“That was classic!” he exclaimed “I bet no one’s ever stolen a stethoscope before!”
“Shit, dude, you haven’t changed at all.” Rocket said, sounding amused. Tom looked over at Rocket, and appeared to have some kind of freak-out.
“Is that a SMILE I see on your face?” he asked excitedly “Haha, I knew it! My best friend is BACK!”
Rocket rolled his eyes and sank further down into the hospital bed.
“Don’t give me that look now, mister! You smiled, I saw it. Hero is a witness!” he turned to me “Wanna back me up here?”
“He smiled.” I agreed.
“Just fuck off. You guys are complete retards.” Rocket sighed. But Tom wasn’t listening; he had already started singing the first verse of what was apparently his favorite song:
“F is for friends who do stuff together, U is for you and me…”
“Fucking hell, Tom, you’re worse than a toddler hyped up on E-numbers.” Rocket noted.
“You know it.” Tom replied with a wink, before continuing with his song, “N is for anywhere and anytime at all, down here in the deep blue sea!”
“You also watch way too many cartoons.” Rocket complained. Tom sang the rest of the song, and much to the aggravation of Rocket, started singing it a second time once he had finished. Rocket finally snapped during Tom’s third rendition of the first verse. He picked up the book that was on the bedside table, and launched it at Tom’s head. He managed to hit him square in the face.
“U is for you and…OWWW! What the hell was that for!?” he gently rubbed the spot on his forehead where the book had hit him.
“I had to find a way to shut you up before I did something a lot worse to you.” Rocket explained casually.
“Woah, you’re scary.” Tom said, holding up his hands defensively.
“That’s because he’s Voldemort,” I said “He’s supposed to be scary.”
“Oh, right, I see.” Tom nodded, as if I’d just said a perfectly normal, every day sentence.
“Will that ever get old?” Rocket questioned impatiently.
I paused for a moments thought before answering him; “Not for a while.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes.
Tom jumped up suddenly, scaring me ever so slightly with his sudden movement. He jumped around on the spot excitedly for a while, before finally managing to speak.
“There’s something I have to show you guys. Rocket, you’re gonna love this!”
And before we could respond, he shot out of the room faster than the speed of sound.
“What the hell have you been feeding him today!?” Rocket asked.
“He got hold of some gummy worms when we went to the convenience store…and then that was mixed with about five cans of Red Bull.” I said, recalling our brief stop on the way to the hospital.
“He’s going to be awake for three days.” Rocket pointed out. I giggled. After exactly seven minutes, Tom returned, with what looked like a very thick, square-shaped book in his hands. As he got closer I realised it was either a photo album or some kind of scrap book. On the front, printed in untidy blue crayon, was the single word; “Poop.” I could only put that down to the fact that it belonged to a boy. It also suggested that, if it was Tom’s, it must have been pretty old considering the fact that “Poop” stops being funny roundabout when a boy turns 14/15. (That is, in most cases. I would have made an exception for Tom though.)
“Remember this?” he asked, thrusting the book into Rocket’s lap. Rocket stared at it, and he looked as though he were afraid that it would blow up or melt if he so much as touched it. His face went sickeningly pale.
“Rocket? Are you alright?” Tom asked, after about a minute of silence.
“Dude…where’d you find this?” Rocket was finally able to squeeze some feeble words out of his mouth. His blue eyes were wider than I had ever seen them before.
“I was just sorting out my bedroom.” Tom muttered “And I came across it amongst all my crap. It’s the reason I came here in the first place.”
Rocket slowly moved his hand towards the book making out that he was going to open it, but then recoiled immediately. His hand, I noticed, was unsteady.
“Go on, dude.” Tom prompted “It won’t bite.”
Rocket tried again, and this time, he was able to grasp the front cover.
“But I’m warning you,” Tom continued “This is probably going to make me cry.”
Rocket brushed various patches of dust from the front cover. The word “Poop” was now much more vibrant. I couldn’t decide whether or not that was a good or bad thing.
“I’m getting old here!” Tom moaned, examining the invisible watch on his wrist.
“Tom, just shut up already, I’m getting there!” Rocket snapped. And with no further hesitation, he pulled back the front cover. Dust exploded from within the thick pages, and Rocket coughed some of it out of his throat. After brushing it off of the page with the back of his hand, he leaned in to pay close attention to the photo glued messily to the page.
“December 2003.” Tom said “Your parents took us to Canada, and we built snowmen twins.”
Sure enough, the photo contained two smiling, younger versions of Rocket and Tom, standing next to two snow versions of Rocket and Tom. The snowmen weren’t exactly identical to the two of them. In fact, Tom’s looked more like an updside-down manatee wearing a hat. But at least you could tell what they were supposed to be.
“I named mine Dom.” Tom remembered outloud.
“Dom and Tom.” Rocket agreed, with a smile playing at his lips.
“But then you kicked him over!” Tom pointed an accusing finger at Rocket “So I poured like a ton of snow down your back.”
“Ugh, I can still remember how that felt.” Rocket shuddered and flicked over to the next photo.
“Halloween, 2004.” Tom said “I dressed as Mario, you dressed as Luigi.”
This photo made both Rocket and I laugh out loud. The two of them were dressed in fairly accurate video game characters, Mario and Luigi costumes, eleven years old, and punching the air mid-jump.
The next photo, was a picture of Rocket and Tom, both quite young and with either arm around a pretty woman standing in between them. Rocket’s smile was wiped immediately from his face when he saw this.
Tom hesitated slightly, “June 2002.” he said cautiously, “Your Mom’s 33rd birthday party.”
The woman in the photo had dark blonde hair that was loose, wavy, and shoulder length. Her eyes were a stunning shade of blue - so stunning that I had only ever seen that color on one other person. And it was then that I realized.
“Rocket, is that your Mom?” I whispered. He nodded silently.
“She’s beautiful!” I exclaimed, and Rocket responded with a weak smile.
Her facial features were strong and well defined, a lot like Rocket’s, and her smile appeared to make her face glow with happiness. She seemed familiar, and I then realized that she had been one of the people in Rocket’s drawing. In the portrait of the man and the woman I had found under his bed, she had been the woman. So I concluded that the man must have been his Dad. I now understood why he refused to talk to me about that picture.
“Tom…can I keep this?” Rocket’s voice came out sounding faint and weak.
“Sure thing, man.” Tom replied, giving his best friend an encouraging pat on the shoulder. Rocket peeled the photograph off of the paper and slid it into his front pocket.
“I think that’s enough now for today.” Tom announced, taking the photo album from Rocket, “Or else I think I’m going to have an emotional breakdown.”
“I think I already have.” Rocket rolled his eyes.
“We’ll look at some more of those later.” Tom suggested. “There are some really funny ones. I think Hero will especially love the Halloween photos.”
“I can’t wait.” I smiled.

*Rocket’s POV*
When Tom pulled out our old photo album, I felt like I had suddenly teleported back five years in the past.
Just seeing the front cover made me wish so badly that I could turn back time, and go back to when everything was okay. Before all of this bullshit happened. I didn’t want to open it.
Ever since that night four years ago I’d been experiencing these unbearable feelings of loss that were just eating away at me every single night, and I knew that taking myself back to when things were this perfect would just increase the severity of said feelings a whole lot more. But I opened it anyway. The first couple of pictures actually made me pretty happy. The snowmen, the Halloween costumes…it made me realize that my entire life hadn’t been a whole mess. And that I had, in fact, had an awesome childhood.
But it was when I turned to the photo of my Mom that every ounce of happiness just came crashing down on me. Her face was haunting. It was so familiar…the way she smiled, it seemed like only a week ago that she had greeted me in the morning with that smile.
I could hear her voice clearly, so clearly, just calling my name and telling me that I had to get ready for school, or else I was going to miss the bus, like she said every morning. I heard it so plainly, that for one moment I thought she was actually in the room. But then, when I looked at the photo for a longer amount of time, I began to realize the actual amount of time it had been since she had woken me for school, since she had spoken to me at all, and a lump of emotion rose in my throat. It had been a really long time.
And in ten years, it will be even longer. Twenty years. Fifty years. No matter how long, I would never be able to hear it again. Hero asked me if the woman in the photo was my Mother, and all I could do in response was nod. I was afraid of how pathetic my voice would sound if I actually attempted to speak - probably all choked up and tearful. So I just kept quiet.
All three of us looked at the photo for a while, and all throughout that time I was attempting to pull myself together in order to speak without sounding like a little girl. Hero commented on how pretty Mom was, and I couldn’t help but agree silently.
And I noticed that, when Hero spoke of her, she was speaking in the present tense, and saying that “she IS beautiful” rather than “she WAS beautiful”. I don’t know whether this was because she was attempting to console me in some way, or whether she just didn’t realize that she was doing it, but either way I liked it. Eventually, the lump in my throat disappeared, and I just about managed to ask Tom if I could keep the photo. He agreed, and, as carefully as physically possible, I peeled it away from the dark blue card of the photo album, and slotted it carefully into the pocket of my jeans.