what history will bring [patrick kane/jonathan toews]
Apparently my brain wanted my first real foray into hockey fandom to be a more mainstream pairing than the 20k+ rarepair thing I've been writing for the past month.
This, like most everything I write, is for Ceej. Happy almost birthday, gigantic! Thanks, as usual, for your continued existence.
what history will bring
patrick kane/jonathan toews; patrick sharp/abby sharp
6233 words, pg-13
Johnny says, "Let's just not talk about it, okay?" College AU.
Major, major thanks go to figletofvenice for the advice, the beta and the kick in the pants. Also, as usual, to 1001cranes for throwing back the speediest beta and also for being the best. The title is a lyric in the song "Try" by Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore.
Johnny says, “Let’s just not talk about it, okay?” and that’s pretty much that. Patrick doesn’t have a lot of stuff over at his place, he doesn’t think, but the resulting crawl leaves him with two ball caps, more than ten DVDs and a book on Postmodernism that belongs to his sister. It even has an EK inked into a tiny space on the front cover.
“So this is all my stuff,” he mumbles, standing awkwardly at the foot of the couch. Johnny’s not looking over at him, which would be-whatever, it’d be fine, but ending a thing like this without even saying goodbye right is pretty cold, if Patrick does say so himself.
Johnny’s staring straight ahead, eyes locked on the fishing competition on the TV (the fishing competition and listen, Patrick’s even gone out with him a couple times, fishing is fine, it’s okay if the day is nice enough and the water is peaceful enough and the beer is cold enough, but watching other dudes do it on TV? What the fuck) and he says, “Alright,” after what feels like an hour instead of maybe a minute, tops.
“Alright?” Patrick asks. He’s incredulous. Stunned. Annoyed as shit. “Alright,” he repeats, and Johnny’s not even looking at him, is the really shitty thing, still just staring straight ahead, the leg with the cast over it plunked on the coffee table prohibiting any overt movement.
Johnny nods once and says, “Yeah, so. See you,” and that’s that.
;;
Except, uh. Reality check, that’s not that. That can’t be that. They still have mostly all the same friends, and they still take classes in the same collection of buildings, and despite what his attendance record might have you believe, they still have Ornithology together at 9am on Wednesday mornings.
That’s right. Ornithology. Patrick wants to be a bird scientist. Yeah.
Okay, so that’s not entirely true, but it counts as a science, which Patrick needs to complete his course requirements and Sharpy’s the TA for the class, so studying for the exam isn’t bad as it could be come midterms.
Patrick drops the random assortment of stuff in the backseat of the Jeep and breathes deep before he turns the key in the ignition. He should probably call Jackie and tell her she won the bet, but he’s too tired after dealing with Johnny-the-brick-wall all night. She can wait, it’s not like he’s going to avoid giving her her money.
His dad calls while he’s driving, Patrick recognizes the ringtone, but he ignores it, mostly because his bluetooth still doesn’t work right. Johnny was supposed to look at it after class yesterday, but. Clearly that hadn’t happened.
When he’s home, finally, he checks his messages. There’s the voicemail from his dad and two texts from Erica. He reads, over/under on the breakup. can you hang on for another two days? I really want to buy a new pair of shoes with your money. and no, but seriously. you were really drunk last night. do you even remember leaving that message on m & d’s answering machine?
Oh, shit.
He calls her instead of texting back. “Tell me I didn’t,” he says, palm pressing against his temple. He hasn’t been back to his building in a couple of days, but his security code is still the same, and he punches in the numbers as he drags his stuff in behind him, hanging onto his phone with his free hand.
“Can’t do that, big brother,” she says, sounding apologetic. “There was a lot of,” she drops her voice, speaking slowly in a weirdly accurate imitation. “‘I might be coming back soon, for sure. Things don’t always-they just don’t work the way you want.’ You might’ve cried. I don’t know. I had to stop listening because it got too sad.”
Patrick dumps his stuff on the floor when he gets into his place, not even bothering to flick on the lights. “Fuck you,” he mumbles, dropping down to the couch and pressing his face into the throw pillows his mom had shipped last Christmas.
Erica, god bless her, doesn’t ask what happened. She says, “I told you it couldn’t work,” in a quiet voice, and then, “I mean, everybody thought the last time was the last time and you guys still managed another three months without committing first degree murder.”
“I was tempted,” Patrick mutters. “You don’t even know what it’s like with that guy,” he adds vehemently, in case she missed the fact that he’s totally single now, yep. The Johnny-bashing can commence, like, anytime.
There’s rustling on her side, whispered voices and Patrick knows it’s Jess and Jackie, but that doesn’t mean he wants to talk to them. “I kind of do know,” Erica says eventually, speaking louder, like she has to talk over people. “It’s not like you guys haven’t broken up and gotten back together at least four times.”
“And that’s just this year,” a voice chirps behind her. Jackie. It’s like that kid has a deathwish or something.
Patrick lets himself sink down against the cushions, trying to keep his breathing even. The girls argue over the line, but he doesn't say anything, not really listening. It’s not like they’re actually talking to him, anyway.
“I just don’t get why he bothers,” Jess says. It sounds like she’s chewing gum, but it’s probably her mouthguard. It’s kind of late, he guesses. Or early. Some people might’ve been sleeping, but not anyone Patrick knows.
“Why he keeps bothering,” Jackie adds. Patrick closes his eyes, letting their voices wash over him as he lets himself check out.
There’s nothing in the fridge, he thinks, eventually. Nothing in the pantry either, such as it is. He and Johnny had gone grocery shopping at the beginning of the week, but all of that stuff was the healthy shit Johnny eats or half-gone by now anyway.
“Pat?” Erica asks eventually.
The phone is still pressed to his ear, so he says, “Present,” and pushes himself to a sitting position with his free hand. There’s a stain on the wall that wasn’t as prominent last week. He’s pretty sure it’s from the tub in his neighbor’s apartment and the way the water manages to seep through the plaster. The walls are thin here, but the rent is cheap and he’s rarely ever home for long enough to write up a list of complaints.
“You okay?”
What is there to say? They’re broken up. For good this time. Johnny’s an asshole and Patrick would list all his reasons for hating that guy if he didn’t think he’d completely bust apart over it.
“Yeah,” Patrick answers eventually, because what else is he going to say? “Fine.”
It’s quieter on her end now. He must be off speaker. “You don’t have to be,” she reasons. Sometimes, she’s so nice to him he doesn’t really know how to process it. He lets out a breath, makes sure it doesn’t sound like he’s shaking and tries to smile even though she can’t hear him over the telephone.
“Yeah,” he says, “but I am.”
;;
The thing is-the thing is. They’ve known each other since they were kids. They weren’t friends when they were kids, there’s a difference, but Patrick can’t remember a time when he wasn’t hearing somebody old and important extolling the virtues of Jonathan Toews.
It drove Patrick nuts until he actually got to know the guy, and then it drove him even crazier, because Johnny was Canadian, and boring as shit to boot, and he was so smug all the time, so smug about everything from the proper way to cut a sandwich to how high he could climb on the rock wall at summer camp. To be fair, it was pretty high. He was only eleven when he almost got to the top.
Patrick was only ten when he did it, made it all the way to the top and screamed his head off over it, but still. Eleven and climbing all those feet in the air, that was impressive. Patrick could admit that, even though it just made Johnny even more smug when he heard about it.
It was never the plan for them to end up at the same school, especially considering how Patrick quit going to camp at 16, and if you’d asked him two years ago who he’d’ve been more surprised to see at Freshman Orientation for the University of Chicago class of 2010, Johnny Toews or the Pope, he’d have probably said Johnny Toews. Even the Pope has to come to the US sometimes, right?
At first, he’d been sure, so super sure that his eyes were just playing tricks on him. Sometimes that happened. He could have been going senile. Senility could have run early in the Kane family, or something, who knows? It was him, though, confirmed when Patrick overheard, “Actually, it’s, uh. It’s pronounced Tayves. Like-yeah, like there’s a y in it, yeah.” He couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but he did catch Johnny’s forced chuckle and the way he said, “French Canada. What can you do about it?”
His orientation group was doing trust falls or trust circles or comparing the scores on their SATs, but Patrick wasn’t paying attention to them. He said, “Woah, shit, was that a joke?” and didn’t even realize he’d said it out loud until his group, Johnny’s group and the woman taking the picture for his school ID all turned to look at him.
Johnny blinked. Patrick blinked back and when Johnny smiled, everything was different.
;;
Patrick skips a week’s worth of classes because he can and because his GPA is pretty good, but also because he knows enough people in his classes that he can probably cobble together some comprehensive notes, once he manages to get his shit together and call them.
Sharpy drops by on Thursday. Patrick only knows what day of the week it is because there’s a news ticker running under this rerun of Montel and it keeps flashing the date and time at him while looking as judgemental as his ex-boyfriend, if not worse.
Patrick knows it’s Sharpy because he doesn’t just press on the buzzer, he leans on it, like he’s pressing his whole body against that one little button. Patrick hates him, too, just for the record. He’s persistent, though, won’t go away if he sets his mind to staying.
“I want you to know how much I hate you,” Patrick says when he buzzes him up, flipping the latch to unlock the door and going back to the couch to climb under the covers again. It’s not exactly a blanket fort, nowhere near as awesome as the ones he’d make with the girls when they were younger kids, but it’s warm and comfy and he’s never leaving again if he can help it.
Sharpy makes a lot of noise as he comes in, dropping one of the take out bags he’s holding onto the floor. Nothing spills, but it’s probably just a really close call. “You could help,” he says, but he’s laughing as he ducks to grab it. “No one is making you sit on that couch.”
“You could not be an asshole,” Patrick replies, “no one made you come over here to harass me.”
Sharpy rolls his eyes when he comes close enough for Patrick to see it. “You missed my class,” he says, dropping a packet of notes onto Patrick’s lap. He doesn’t try to save them or anything, so when the bundle glances off his knee, the papers flutter to the floor. “That’s the thanks I get?” he asks. He sounds more annoyed now. Good.
“No one asked you to come over here,” Patrick repeats. He burrows deeper into his blankets, keeping his eyes trained to Montel and the woman he’s trying to help today. Today, fifteen years ago. Whatever.
Sharpy steamrolls over him like usual. “I also brought you lunch,” he says, like Patrick couldn’t tell from the bags of takeout. “And some groceries.”
The groceries are the interesting part. Patrick sits up straighter on the couch, turning away from the TV to stare Sharpy down. They’ve known each other a long time, too, lived through breakups and deaths in the family and broken arms. Never once has Sharpy ever bought him groceries before. It’s suspicious. Too suspicious. “Did my parents send you over here, Sharp?” he asks. “I’m an adult, okay? You can tell my dad I’m not eating my weight in Twizzlers.”
“He said to watch out for Rolos, actually,” Sharpy says, and then shoves Patrick’s legs over, making room for himself on the couch. “What are we doing?” he asks.
“You’re going home,” Patrick says. “I’m staying here and watching Montel. This is a really good one.”
Sharpy’s brows rise. “We have got to get you out of this apartment,” he says. “You’re ranking episodes of the Montel Williams show now? This is what passes for entertainment in the Lil' Peekaboo household?”
He’s not the only one who can be snarky. “Yeah,” Patrick says, “and it’s better than talking to you, so. Leave.” Sharpy doesn’t get up off the couch, but then, Patrick wasn’t actually expecting him to.
“I’m getting married,” Sharpy says, after about forty-five minutes of quiet.
Patrick ignores the fact that his eyes are getting wet to say, “Abby said yes? She has worse taste than I even thought.”
“Fuck you,” Sharpy says, but that doesn’t stop him from tugging Patrick close by the scruff of his t-shirt and pulling him in for a hug. “Make sure you’re free in two months,” he adds, ignoring the fact that even if Patrick were busy, he’d drop everything for this.
;;
“So it’s me, Hoss, Bur, Seabs-Keith?” It’s been a few weeks. Patrick has left his house, showered more than once and gone to a full of week of classes. It’s like he’s a whole new man, sort of. They’re having lunch at Center Dining, because Patrick still has a ton of meal points left over from first semester and Sharpy’s cheap.
Sharpy wipes his mouth with his napkin, doesn’t even get all of the mustard off his face and still manages to look better than everybody in the room. “Not Keith,” he says, casual like he’s not dropping a fucking atom of a bomb.
“Why not?” Sharpy looks a little shifty, suddenly, uncomfortable, and Patrick knows before he even opens his mouth. “Fuck you,” he says, pushing away from the bench. He’s glad he had the foresight to grab his tray because at least he has something to do by the trash now instead of just thinking about puking.
“Kaner,” Sharpy says, catching up with him. “I can’t just not have Johnny at my wedding.”
Patrick leans back on his heels, meeting Sharpy’s eyes head-on. “Who told you not to have him at your wedding?” he asks. “You two will be very happy together. Make sure Abby keeps her receipts.”
Sharpy grabs his arm, but he’s probably not expecting for Patrick to be as ready for this as he is. He’s spoiling for a fight, ready to go, but Sharpy just grips hard onto his wrist and says, “Will you please stop acting like a kid?”
They’re standing right in the middle of Center Dining and people around them aren’t staring, though not because they aren’t a spectacle, because they just don’t care. “We just broke up,” Patrick hisses under his breath. “It just happened, like, five minutes ago.”
Sharpy makes a face. “It was almost a month ago, Peeks.” He says it sad, like he’s worried, like he knows something Patrick doesn’t. Like. Fuck.
“Oh, fuck you,” Patrick says, and then gets out of there at double time, because if Johnny’s dating someone new, the last thing Patrick wants to do is know about it. It’s probably a girl. Some cute, perfect girl that’s short enough for him to feel manly and in charge and smart all the time. Some cute, perfect, short, blonde with highlights and great tits.
He imagines her face in his head and runs faster, almost off campus by the time Sharpy catches up to him. “Jesus, where did you learn to do that?” he asks. He’s breathing a little hard, but he still looks perfect. He hasn’t even broken a sweat. He’s such an asshole.
“I don’t want to know about it,” Patrick says, pressing his palms to his knees and breathing hard. It’s freezing outside, like Chicago in winter always is, but Patrick can’t even feel it right now with his lungs on fire and his legs burning.
Sharpy holds up his hands like he’s angling for a truce. “I didn’t tell you anything about anything, guy. You jumped to conclusions all on your own.”
Patrick feels his stomach drop, a rollercoaster that ricochets across his insides. “Fuck,” he says. “It’s a dude?”
Sharpy’s face does a bunch of different things, but Patrick doesn’t even wait for him to find a diplomatic answer for it. He already knows he's right.
;;
So the thing is. The thing is. It’s not like Patrick had to convince Johnny to be gay. For one, it’s not something that you choose, it’s something you lean towards because you have a predisposition. For another, Johnny definitely made out with TJ Oshie at camp for, like, three summers straight, so fuck him with his repressions, anyway.
Maybe it was that he didn’t want to be kissing Patrick at that first party. Or maybe it was because they brought out the worst in each other all the time, but they’d made out after a fight on Halloween, fucked on Patrick’s birthday and by Christmas break, freshman year, he wasn’t expecting hearts or flowers or a fucking parade, but he’d’ve liked it if maybe they could talk about it or eat dinner outside once in a while or maybe-not to be crazy, or anything-hold hands. In public.
Patrick wouldn’t have thought he’d want that either, but he did. He thought about it almost constantly, walking back and forth from class with Johnny, their shoulders and wrists bumping, but not their hands. Patrick wondered all the time what it would be like just to grab Johnny’s fingers and tangle them with his own, how long Johnny would let him keep it up and if, maybe, Johnny would squeeze back.
He was young and stupid, and the first time they broke up it was at a pre-holiday non-denominational floor party, when he walked into the lounge and saw Johnny with his head in between some girl’s legs. Her skirt was up around her hips, her fingers were tangled in Johnny’s hair, and Patrick didn’t know her, couldn’t place her, but he sure as hell recognized the broad back between her thighs, because he’d given Johnny that t-shirt as an early Christmas present that morning. Lame, sure, but he'd paid for it entirely on his own.
Patrick’s pretty sure that his sisters hate Johnny because of the phone call after that night, even though they weren’t exactly exclusive or official or communicating. They’d never heard him cry that hard before, not even when Johnny had knocked three of his teeth out their last summer at camp together, not even when he’d left for school at the end of that first summer.
;;
Abby’s pregnant, which might have something to do with why she and Sharpy are getting married so soon. In a month. It’s still hard to reconcile, although they’ve been together for as long as Patrick can remember. She tells Patrick about it while they’re out getting breakfast pastries on a Saturday a few weeks later. She’s not showing at all, but she’s glowing like the moon managed to climb under her skin and light her from the inside out.
Patrick’s always had kind of a low-grade crush on Abby, on Sharpy, on both of them, really, but she takes one look at his face when they sit down and leans in close like she’s going to share state secrets, or maybe impart some of her grandmother’s dying wisdom or something.
“I really don’t like the new guy, Patty Cake,” she says, and Patrick winces when she does it, because he’ll never get away from the nicknames with these people. It’s almost like being back home again, but his hair isn’t short enough for anyone to call him Buzz.
Patrick takes a long sip from his coffee, wipes his mouth and says, “Sorry, Abs. You had to know he couldn’t do better than me.” He’s known both Abby and Sharpy since he was eight and they were junior counselors at the camp he and Johnny had both gone to. Abby had hugged him after the first time he’d scraped his knee, pulled ‘kick me’ signs off his back for practically the whole of that first summer and wouldn’t let him go back home after the first three days, even though he swore up and down that’s what he wanted to do.
“He’s nice,” she says, but the way she says it, inflection high in her throat, makes Patrick wince.
“You can tell me,” he says, even though it feels like the contents of his stomach are getting ready to the samba or the macarena, or the one Carmen Miranda made popular with all of those cha cha chas. The thought of Johnny with someone else makes him a little sick, even though he knows he doesn’t have the right to be territorial.
Abby is a wise woman, though. She squeezes his hand on the table and says, “He’s just not as fun.”
“Wait, wait,” Patrick says, “when was Tazer ever fun?”
She takes a sip of her tea and makes a face, even though she’s totally been working this whole laidback earth-mother vibe thing. “I hate tea,” she grumbles, completely sidestepping his question. “I can’t believe I have to deal with another seven months of this.” Patrick takes a sip of his own coffee, making sure to savor it as it goes down. “I changed my mind,” she says sweetly. “Maybe Sully should be in the wedding after all. He looks so handsome in blue.”
“Who the fuck is-” Patrick isn’t stupid. He knows Abby isn’t playing him, the same way he knows that Johnny could never be serious about someone named Sully, Jesus. “Sully?” he asks. “Really? Tazer’s into bears now?”
It takes Abby a second to get it, but when she does, she laughs so loud the woman seated behind them decides to move. Well, good, then, Patrick thinks. Fuck her and her Dumbledore spectacles, anyway.
“You’d be surprised how little Sullivan looks like John Goodman,” she says, but she kicks his foot under the table and then rests her own on top of it, comforting. “Last time I checked he wasn’t tall, fuzzy, and blue, either.”
The last thing he wants to do is talk about Tazer’s new boyfriend, but he hears himself ask, “Sullivan? Really?” He takes a breath and adds, “That’s a really stupid name.”
Abby takes another sip of her tea and makes such a horrified face that Patrick can’t help laughing. She moves like she’s going to kick him again, but deflates after a few seconds, losing all the energy for it. “He’s fine,” she says eventually, nibbling on her scone, “you know. Not too tall, not too short, brown hair, glasses.”
“So he’s the unabomber,” Patrick says, because it makes him feel a bit better, imagining that Johnny’s current boyfriend is at least a little worse than his last one.
“He’s just so,” Abby starts, and then lets out another sigh. “Will you please put me out of my misery and be in my wedding so I don’t have to think about him for a while?”
Patrick sips from his own drink, considering. “He’s that bad looking in the face?”
Abby shrugs. “He won’t be around in five years,” she says eventually. “Hell, he probably won’t be around in five months. I don’t want him fucking up my wedding pictures.”
;;
The wedding is on April first, which is early enough in the spring that the chances of it being cold are fairly high, but somehow, through sheer force of will, maybe, the Saturday Abby and Sharpy get married is beautiful. There are just enough clouds in the sky to make it look believable, but they’re the fluffy kind, white and welcoming.
Patrick loses his breath a little when he sees her for the first time, adjusting the bust of her dress in the back of the church and taking deep, even, measured breaths. “Patrick,” she hisses, still quiet, but loud enough for several Sharps in the back row to hear. Sharpy’s grandma turns to face him quickly, covering his hand with her own and squeezing once. “What are you doing back here?”
“There’s no law saying I can’t see the bride before the big day,” he says, and then comes close enough that he can hug her, squeezing her close.
He can feel it when she swallows, when she asks, “Is everything-? Please tell me everything is alright.”
“Everything’s great, almost-Mrs.-Sharp,” he says. “I just wanted to check you were doing okay too.”
Abby shrugs, but when he pulls back, she’s looking a little wobbly. “I just can’t believe we’re finally here.” She starts to cry, but manages to stave it off fairly quickly. “I just love him so much,” she says.
The lump in Patrick’s throat gets heavier, tighter, and he squeezes her arm once and when he whispers, “He loves you too,” his voice sounds like broken glass.
“Get back up there,” she says, and then she’s shoving him away and turning to face her dad, eyes still shining but smiling all the way.
Patrick makes it all the way back to the front of the church without further incident, sliding into place between Hoss and Seabs. Someone taps him on the shoulder, but since they’re supposed to be watching their friend get married, Patrick ignores it. It’s not like he doesn’t know what kind of asshole would try and ruin a wedding.
The tapping persists, even as the bridal march starts, and Seabs says, quietly, “I think he really wants your attention, bud.”
“Shove it, Biscuit,” Patrick says under his breath, smiling as blandly as he can when the wedding photographer turns the lens on them.
“Patrick,” someone says behind him, except it’s not someone, it’s Johnny, and it takes everything Patrick has in him not to completely lose it right there. For the record, Johnny is the more responsible out of the two of them. For the record, Johnny’s the one with the four-oh who always goes to bed on time and hasn’t cheated on his significant other since they decided to make it official. “Patrick,” he hisses again, and Patrick closes his eyes, because it’s easier than looking at Abby and Sharpy or turning around and dealing with the mess he left behind.
;;
So that’s it. That’s the big secret. That’s what Patrick never told his sisters and Johnny doesn’t seem to have told any of their friends, even if maybe he should have. Patrick cheated, alright? It wasn’t payback for freshman year and he wasn’t in love. He wasn’t even wasted.
It just happened. Sometimes shit happens. Sometimes you just have to own up to your mistakes and face them head on, and he’s always liked Seguin, but not enough to use him as an excuse or throw him under the bus. He’s just a kid and Patrick is, well. Patrick’s not much of an adult, but at least he’s not away from home for the first time and wet behind the ears. At least he’s not eighteen anymore.
Patrick’s a Sports Medicine major, for the most part, although he’s dabbled in a little bit of everything. Seguin is the newest recruit in an increasingly large number of students migrating into that program.
They’d gotten to know each other in the medical center at school, because Patrick interns there and Seguin was always hanging around. Seguin’s a good kid with a decent head on his shoulders and Patrick’s the idiot with the steady boyfriend who let shit go too far. Boo fucking hoo.
;;
“There are fifty people here,” Johnny says on the trellis, later. Patrick’s on his third glass of bubbly, but it doesn’t feel like it. He can still feel his feet, and that definitely wasn’t part of the original plan. “How long did you think you could avoid me for?”
Patrick downs the rest of his glass, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand and says, “Who says I’m avoiding you?”
Johnny doesn’t bother rolling his eyes; it’s implied by the sneer of his mouth and the way his shoulders rise, like maybe he’d even be laughing if he could put the energy into it. “You wouldn’t talk to me at the wedding.”
“We’re still technically at the wedding,” Patrick says, “and here I am, talking to you.” He takes a step back, reaching for his champagne flute, even though it’s empty. There’s never a good cater-waiter around when you really need one. “See? You were wrong, I was right, the world is as it should be.”
Johnny clears his throat. “I had to talk to you,” he says. Patrick peeks over at him. He looks as good as Abby said he would, hair getting longer and curling slightly at his temples. Patrick’s pretty used to wanting to kiss him and punch him in the same breath, but he never expected to miss Johnny this much. They’ve never been broken up for quite so long before. It’s only been two months, really, but even summers apart never felt like the time just wouldn’t stop dragging.
“So talk,” he says, crossing his arms and leaning back against the railing. “You’re the one who wanted to get my attention so bad.”
Johnny makes a scoffing noise, complete disbelief, like Patrick was the one who was tugging on his coattails for nearly the entire ceremony. “You look good,” Johnny says, apropos of nothing, and while goosebumps wash all over his skin, Patrick’s stomach also drops down to his shoes.
“Abby took care of most of the styling,” he manages, and then holds his leg out, tugging up his pants to reveal his striped socks. “I, uh, couldn’t let her get away with all the fun.”
Johnny hums in agreement and then says, “Can you believe they’re pregnant?”
Patrick can’t even think about it for too long without getting dizzy, so he says, “Not really. I remember when Abby was patching up my knees and I was trying to look down her tank top.” He takes a breath and says, “and now she’s going to be a mom.”
“I think that’s definitely the first story you should tell the baby,” Johnny says.
Their gazes meet and catch and it takes so long for Patrick to realize Johnny was making a joke that he’s already started to frown again. “Another joke?” Patrick asks. His voice sounds too high, too thin, not like him at all. “I’m impressed.”
“I want you to tell me why you did it.” Johnny takes a few steps closer. They’re still not touching, but he’s close enough now that they could be. It’s all about keeping his breaths regulated, Patrick thinks. If he just keeps breathing, he’ll make it through.
“Why, uh,” he says. “Why does anybody do anything, man?”
The sound Johnny makes under his breath is more like a growl than anything else. “That’s not what I asked you,” he says quietly. “We had something good going, I thought,” he adds, like an afterthought, like that’s not everything Patrick’s ever wanted to hear. Fuck. “I thought it was for good, this time.”
Patrick closes his eyes. His heart is beating so hard and fast in his chest that he’s sure Johnny can hear it. “You have a boyfriend,” he says slowly, easing the words out of his mouth like they’re timebombs. Johnny makes an abortive noise, but Patrick keeps at it. “Why the fuck are you saying shit like this to me, Tazer? I heard your big blue giant was a nice guy.”
“We broke up,” Johnny says. “He wasn’t. It wasn’t right.”
“C’mon,” Patrick says. “I thought you knew better than to keep backing the wrong horse, Mr. Serious.” He takes a breath and then another. “How many breakups did you think we had left in us before graduation? Better that we got it out of the way now, right? Better that I don’t actually have to say goodbye to you next year.”
“Patrick,” Johnny says, and then they’re touching, Johnny’s hands gripping Patrick’s wrists, just this shade of too tight. He opens his eyes, can’t stop looking at the way the Johnny’s lashes look even longer than usual. “Why did you do it?”
It’s starting to rain, a little. There’s not that much moisture dropping down, but the clouds are circling like wagons, waiting to explode.
“I just did, okay,” Patrick says, licking his lips. “I just did. I did it. Fuck off.”
Johnny presses even closer. “I don’t buy it,” he says quietly. The words only carry so much weight because they’re true, but Patrick’s not admitting that, not if he can help it.
“Well,” he says. “I can’t stop you from believing what you want to believe, but-it happened. We hooked up. Segs and me. It was good.” It hadn’t been all that great, to be honest. Patrick’s never going to mind a hand on his dick, but the whole time, he couldn’t stop thinking that it wasn’t the right hand. It wasn’t the right person. He was already fucked over Johnny before, but that-acknowledging it just made it worse. Necessary, but worse. Saying goodbye in a year if things were still as good between them, it would’ve gutted him; straight up cut out his heart and fed it to the wolves.
Johnny doesn’t let go of his wrists, doesn’t drop his gaze, and the two of them stand like that for a while, holding on while the sky decides to open up. “I, uh,” Johnny says, but he doesn’t get moving.
“We should head back in,” Patrick says, but it’s not like he’s yanking himself away or trying to move inside either.
“Maybe we should,” Johnny says, and his grip loosens on Patrick’s wrists. There. That’s better. Patrick can move away and not have to share space with this dude again for a while. “I still love you.” Johnny’s voice cracks and Patrick feels every one of the words inside of himself, sliding all the way from his throat to his gut and out to his fingers and toes.
“What?” he croaks, because this must be the senility setting in. Maybe it’s dementia. Maybe he’s just cracked entirely, destined for the loony bin at almost 21 years old.
Johnny’s blushing. Even in the face of the oncoming storm, Johnny’s blushing, his cheeks a fiery, flaming pink, and Patrick wants to cling onto him more than he’s ever wanted to do anything in his life.
“I still love you,” Johnny says, and instead of repetition dulling the sensation, it just makes it worse. Patrick’s shaking, can’t stop, and it has nothing to do with the rain.
“You can’t,” he says, breaths rough and heavy. This is the worst fucking time for this conversation. “Tazer, this is like, the worst fucking time for your pity party, okay? Fuck off.”
Johnny’s grip tightens on his wrists again and Patrick closes his eyes. “It’s okay,” he says, quietly, even though it’s not. “I forgive you.” Inside, Abby and Sharpy’s friends and family are going nuts. The DJ announces that it’s time to cut the cake. “Patrick,” Johnny says, “fucking look at me, okay?”
“No.” Patrick says. He squeezes his eyes shut again like a kid, but he can’t help it. “Tazer, quit. Why are you doing this to yourself? I’m bad news.”
Johnny’s fingers touch his chin, fleetingly, his palm cups Patrick’s cheek. “You’re not,” he says simply. “I don’t. I don’t know where you got that idea, but you’re not, okay?” He stops speaking for long enough that Patrick thinks he’s run out of words. “Look at me, Patrick.”
Patrick doesn’t, can’t open his eyes. He could. He should, probably, because this is Johnny on steroids, this is crazy talk. This is an alternate universe. He’s fallen somewhere and cracked his head open.
“I love you,” Johnny says, thumbnail cresting the curve of Patrick’s cheekbone. “Please believe me.” He takes another breath, and then says, “Hey,” almost silently. Patrick opens his eyes.
The way he figures it, you only have so many chances, right? The door is only going to open so many times. The cookies can’t come out perfect every batch. He surges up on his toes, fitting their mouths together nice and easy and doesn’t even care about the dampness of their clothes or the rumble in the sky.
This, like most everything I write, is for Ceej. Happy almost birthday, gigantic! Thanks, as usual, for your continued existence.
what history will bring
patrick kane/jonathan toews; patrick sharp/abby sharp
6233 words, pg-13
Johnny says, "Let's just not talk about it, okay?" College AU.
Major, major thanks go to figletofvenice for the advice, the beta and the kick in the pants. Also, as usual, to 1001cranes for throwing back the speediest beta and also for being the best. The title is a lyric in the song "Try" by Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore.
Johnny says, “Let’s just not talk about it, okay?” and that’s pretty much that. Patrick doesn’t have a lot of stuff over at his place, he doesn’t think, but the resulting crawl leaves him with two ball caps, more than ten DVDs and a book on Postmodernism that belongs to his sister. It even has an EK inked into a tiny space on the front cover.
“So this is all my stuff,” he mumbles, standing awkwardly at the foot of the couch. Johnny’s not looking over at him, which would be-whatever, it’d be fine, but ending a thing like this without even saying goodbye right is pretty cold, if Patrick does say so himself.
Johnny’s staring straight ahead, eyes locked on the fishing competition on the TV (the fishing competition and listen, Patrick’s even gone out with him a couple times, fishing is fine, it’s okay if the day is nice enough and the water is peaceful enough and the beer is cold enough, but watching other dudes do it on TV? What the fuck) and he says, “Alright,” after what feels like an hour instead of maybe a minute, tops.
“Alright?” Patrick asks. He’s incredulous. Stunned. Annoyed as shit. “Alright,” he repeats, and Johnny’s not even looking at him, is the really shitty thing, still just staring straight ahead, the leg with the cast over it plunked on the coffee table prohibiting any overt movement.
Johnny nods once and says, “Yeah, so. See you,” and that’s that.
;;
Except, uh. Reality check, that’s not that. That can’t be that. They still have mostly all the same friends, and they still take classes in the same collection of buildings, and despite what his attendance record might have you believe, they still have Ornithology together at 9am on Wednesday mornings.
That’s right. Ornithology. Patrick wants to be a bird scientist. Yeah.
Okay, so that’s not entirely true, but it counts as a science, which Patrick needs to complete his course requirements and Sharpy’s the TA for the class, so studying for the exam isn’t bad as it could be come midterms.
Patrick drops the random assortment of stuff in the backseat of the Jeep and breathes deep before he turns the key in the ignition. He should probably call Jackie and tell her she won the bet, but he’s too tired after dealing with Johnny-the-brick-wall all night. She can wait, it’s not like he’s going to avoid giving her her money.
His dad calls while he’s driving, Patrick recognizes the ringtone, but he ignores it, mostly because his bluetooth still doesn’t work right. Johnny was supposed to look at it after class yesterday, but. Clearly that hadn’t happened.
When he’s home, finally, he checks his messages. There’s the voicemail from his dad and two texts from Erica. He reads, over/under on the breakup. can you hang on for another two days? I really want to buy a new pair of shoes with your money. and no, but seriously. you were really drunk last night. do you even remember leaving that message on m & d’s answering machine?
Oh, shit.
He calls her instead of texting back. “Tell me I didn’t,” he says, palm pressing against his temple. He hasn’t been back to his building in a couple of days, but his security code is still the same, and he punches in the numbers as he drags his stuff in behind him, hanging onto his phone with his free hand.
“Can’t do that, big brother,” she says, sounding apologetic. “There was a lot of,” she drops her voice, speaking slowly in a weirdly accurate imitation. “‘I might be coming back soon, for sure. Things don’t always-they just don’t work the way you want.’ You might’ve cried. I don’t know. I had to stop listening because it got too sad.”
Patrick dumps his stuff on the floor when he gets into his place, not even bothering to flick on the lights. “Fuck you,” he mumbles, dropping down to the couch and pressing his face into the throw pillows his mom had shipped last Christmas.
Erica, god bless her, doesn’t ask what happened. She says, “I told you it couldn’t work,” in a quiet voice, and then, “I mean, everybody thought the last time was the last time and you guys still managed another three months without committing first degree murder.”
“I was tempted,” Patrick mutters. “You don’t even know what it’s like with that guy,” he adds vehemently, in case she missed the fact that he’s totally single now, yep. The Johnny-bashing can commence, like, anytime.
There’s rustling on her side, whispered voices and Patrick knows it’s Jess and Jackie, but that doesn’t mean he wants to talk to them. “I kind of do know,” Erica says eventually, speaking louder, like she has to talk over people. “It’s not like you guys haven’t broken up and gotten back together at least four times.”
“And that’s just this year,” a voice chirps behind her. Jackie. It’s like that kid has a deathwish or something.
Patrick lets himself sink down against the cushions, trying to keep his breathing even. The girls argue over the line, but he doesn't say anything, not really listening. It’s not like they’re actually talking to him, anyway.
“I just don’t get why he bothers,” Jess says. It sounds like she’s chewing gum, but it’s probably her mouthguard. It’s kind of late, he guesses. Or early. Some people might’ve been sleeping, but not anyone Patrick knows.
“Why he keeps bothering,” Jackie adds. Patrick closes his eyes, letting their voices wash over him as he lets himself check out.
There’s nothing in the fridge, he thinks, eventually. Nothing in the pantry either, such as it is. He and Johnny had gone grocery shopping at the beginning of the week, but all of that stuff was the healthy shit Johnny eats or half-gone by now anyway.
“Pat?” Erica asks eventually.
The phone is still pressed to his ear, so he says, “Present,” and pushes himself to a sitting position with his free hand. There’s a stain on the wall that wasn’t as prominent last week. He’s pretty sure it’s from the tub in his neighbor’s apartment and the way the water manages to seep through the plaster. The walls are thin here, but the rent is cheap and he’s rarely ever home for long enough to write up a list of complaints.
“You okay?”
What is there to say? They’re broken up. For good this time. Johnny’s an asshole and Patrick would list all his reasons for hating that guy if he didn’t think he’d completely bust apart over it.
“Yeah,” Patrick answers eventually, because what else is he going to say? “Fine.”
It’s quieter on her end now. He must be off speaker. “You don’t have to be,” she reasons. Sometimes, she’s so nice to him he doesn’t really know how to process it. He lets out a breath, makes sure it doesn’t sound like he’s shaking and tries to smile even though she can’t hear him over the telephone.
“Yeah,” he says, “but I am.”
;;
The thing is-the thing is. They’ve known each other since they were kids. They weren’t friends when they were kids, there’s a difference, but Patrick can’t remember a time when he wasn’t hearing somebody old and important extolling the virtues of Jonathan Toews.
It drove Patrick nuts until he actually got to know the guy, and then it drove him even crazier, because Johnny was Canadian, and boring as shit to boot, and he was so smug all the time, so smug about everything from the proper way to cut a sandwich to how high he could climb on the rock wall at summer camp. To be fair, it was pretty high. He was only eleven when he almost got to the top.
Patrick was only ten when he did it, made it all the way to the top and screamed his head off over it, but still. Eleven and climbing all those feet in the air, that was impressive. Patrick could admit that, even though it just made Johnny even more smug when he heard about it.
It was never the plan for them to end up at the same school, especially considering how Patrick quit going to camp at 16, and if you’d asked him two years ago who he’d’ve been more surprised to see at Freshman Orientation for the University of Chicago class of 2010, Johnny Toews or the Pope, he’d have probably said Johnny Toews. Even the Pope has to come to the US sometimes, right?
At first, he’d been sure, so super sure that his eyes were just playing tricks on him. Sometimes that happened. He could have been going senile. Senility could have run early in the Kane family, or something, who knows? It was him, though, confirmed when Patrick overheard, “Actually, it’s, uh. It’s pronounced Tayves. Like-yeah, like there’s a y in it, yeah.” He couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but he did catch Johnny’s forced chuckle and the way he said, “French Canada. What can you do about it?”
His orientation group was doing trust falls or trust circles or comparing the scores on their SATs, but Patrick wasn’t paying attention to them. He said, “Woah, shit, was that a joke?” and didn’t even realize he’d said it out loud until his group, Johnny’s group and the woman taking the picture for his school ID all turned to look at him.
Johnny blinked. Patrick blinked back and when Johnny smiled, everything was different.
;;
Patrick skips a week’s worth of classes because he can and because his GPA is pretty good, but also because he knows enough people in his classes that he can probably cobble together some comprehensive notes, once he manages to get his shit together and call them.
Sharpy drops by on Thursday. Patrick only knows what day of the week it is because there’s a news ticker running under this rerun of Montel and it keeps flashing the date and time at him while looking as judgemental as his ex-boyfriend, if not worse.
Patrick knows it’s Sharpy because he doesn’t just press on the buzzer, he leans on it, like he’s pressing his whole body against that one little button. Patrick hates him, too, just for the record. He’s persistent, though, won’t go away if he sets his mind to staying.
“I want you to know how much I hate you,” Patrick says when he buzzes him up, flipping the latch to unlock the door and going back to the couch to climb under the covers again. It’s not exactly a blanket fort, nowhere near as awesome as the ones he’d make with the girls when they were younger kids, but it’s warm and comfy and he’s never leaving again if he can help it.
Sharpy makes a lot of noise as he comes in, dropping one of the take out bags he’s holding onto the floor. Nothing spills, but it’s probably just a really close call. “You could help,” he says, but he’s laughing as he ducks to grab it. “No one is making you sit on that couch.”
“You could not be an asshole,” Patrick replies, “no one made you come over here to harass me.”
Sharpy rolls his eyes when he comes close enough for Patrick to see it. “You missed my class,” he says, dropping a packet of notes onto Patrick’s lap. He doesn’t try to save them or anything, so when the bundle glances off his knee, the papers flutter to the floor. “That’s the thanks I get?” he asks. He sounds more annoyed now. Good.
“No one asked you to come over here,” Patrick repeats. He burrows deeper into his blankets, keeping his eyes trained to Montel and the woman he’s trying to help today. Today, fifteen years ago. Whatever.
Sharpy steamrolls over him like usual. “I also brought you lunch,” he says, like Patrick couldn’t tell from the bags of takeout. “And some groceries.”
The groceries are the interesting part. Patrick sits up straighter on the couch, turning away from the TV to stare Sharpy down. They’ve known each other a long time, too, lived through breakups and deaths in the family and broken arms. Never once has Sharpy ever bought him groceries before. It’s suspicious. Too suspicious. “Did my parents send you over here, Sharp?” he asks. “I’m an adult, okay? You can tell my dad I’m not eating my weight in Twizzlers.”
“He said to watch out for Rolos, actually,” Sharpy says, and then shoves Patrick’s legs over, making room for himself on the couch. “What are we doing?” he asks.
“You’re going home,” Patrick says. “I’m staying here and watching Montel. This is a really good one.”
Sharpy’s brows rise. “We have got to get you out of this apartment,” he says. “You’re ranking episodes of the Montel Williams show now? This is what passes for entertainment in the Lil' Peekaboo household?”
He’s not the only one who can be snarky. “Yeah,” Patrick says, “and it’s better than talking to you, so. Leave.” Sharpy doesn’t get up off the couch, but then, Patrick wasn’t actually expecting him to.
“I’m getting married,” Sharpy says, after about forty-five minutes of quiet.
Patrick ignores the fact that his eyes are getting wet to say, “Abby said yes? She has worse taste than I even thought.”
“Fuck you,” Sharpy says, but that doesn’t stop him from tugging Patrick close by the scruff of his t-shirt and pulling him in for a hug. “Make sure you’re free in two months,” he adds, ignoring the fact that even if Patrick were busy, he’d drop everything for this.
;;
“So it’s me, Hoss, Bur, Seabs-Keith?” It’s been a few weeks. Patrick has left his house, showered more than once and gone to a full of week of classes. It’s like he’s a whole new man, sort of. They’re having lunch at Center Dining, because Patrick still has a ton of meal points left over from first semester and Sharpy’s cheap.
Sharpy wipes his mouth with his napkin, doesn’t even get all of the mustard off his face and still manages to look better than everybody in the room. “Not Keith,” he says, casual like he’s not dropping a fucking atom of a bomb.
“Why not?” Sharpy looks a little shifty, suddenly, uncomfortable, and Patrick knows before he even opens his mouth. “Fuck you,” he says, pushing away from the bench. He’s glad he had the foresight to grab his tray because at least he has something to do by the trash now instead of just thinking about puking.
“Kaner,” Sharpy says, catching up with him. “I can’t just not have Johnny at my wedding.”
Patrick leans back on his heels, meeting Sharpy’s eyes head-on. “Who told you not to have him at your wedding?” he asks. “You two will be very happy together. Make sure Abby keeps her receipts.”
Sharpy grabs his arm, but he’s probably not expecting for Patrick to be as ready for this as he is. He’s spoiling for a fight, ready to go, but Sharpy just grips hard onto his wrist and says, “Will you please stop acting like a kid?”
They’re standing right in the middle of Center Dining and people around them aren’t staring, though not because they aren’t a spectacle, because they just don’t care. “We just broke up,” Patrick hisses under his breath. “It just happened, like, five minutes ago.”
Sharpy makes a face. “It was almost a month ago, Peeks.” He says it sad, like he’s worried, like he knows something Patrick doesn’t. Like. Fuck.
“Oh, fuck you,” Patrick says, and then gets out of there at double time, because if Johnny’s dating someone new, the last thing Patrick wants to do is know about it. It’s probably a girl. Some cute, perfect girl that’s short enough for him to feel manly and in charge and smart all the time. Some cute, perfect, short, blonde with highlights and great tits.
He imagines her face in his head and runs faster, almost off campus by the time Sharpy catches up to him. “Jesus, where did you learn to do that?” he asks. He’s breathing a little hard, but he still looks perfect. He hasn’t even broken a sweat. He’s such an asshole.
“I don’t want to know about it,” Patrick says, pressing his palms to his knees and breathing hard. It’s freezing outside, like Chicago in winter always is, but Patrick can’t even feel it right now with his lungs on fire and his legs burning.
Sharpy holds up his hands like he’s angling for a truce. “I didn’t tell you anything about anything, guy. You jumped to conclusions all on your own.”
Patrick feels his stomach drop, a rollercoaster that ricochets across his insides. “Fuck,” he says. “It’s a dude?”
Sharpy’s face does a bunch of different things, but Patrick doesn’t even wait for him to find a diplomatic answer for it. He already knows he's right.
;;
So the thing is. The thing is. It’s not like Patrick had to convince Johnny to be gay. For one, it’s not something that you choose, it’s something you lean towards because you have a predisposition. For another, Johnny definitely made out with TJ Oshie at camp for, like, three summers straight, so fuck him with his repressions, anyway.
Maybe it was that he didn’t want to be kissing Patrick at that first party. Or maybe it was because they brought out the worst in each other all the time, but they’d made out after a fight on Halloween, fucked on Patrick’s birthday and by Christmas break, freshman year, he wasn’t expecting hearts or flowers or a fucking parade, but he’d’ve liked it if maybe they could talk about it or eat dinner outside once in a while or maybe-not to be crazy, or anything-hold hands. In public.
Patrick wouldn’t have thought he’d want that either, but he did. He thought about it almost constantly, walking back and forth from class with Johnny, their shoulders and wrists bumping, but not their hands. Patrick wondered all the time what it would be like just to grab Johnny’s fingers and tangle them with his own, how long Johnny would let him keep it up and if, maybe, Johnny would squeeze back.
He was young and stupid, and the first time they broke up it was at a pre-holiday non-denominational floor party, when he walked into the lounge and saw Johnny with his head in between some girl’s legs. Her skirt was up around her hips, her fingers were tangled in Johnny’s hair, and Patrick didn’t know her, couldn’t place her, but he sure as hell recognized the broad back between her thighs, because he’d given Johnny that t-shirt as an early Christmas present that morning. Lame, sure, but he'd paid for it entirely on his own.
Patrick’s pretty sure that his sisters hate Johnny because of the phone call after that night, even though they weren’t exactly exclusive or official or communicating. They’d never heard him cry that hard before, not even when Johnny had knocked three of his teeth out their last summer at camp together, not even when he’d left for school at the end of that first summer.
;;
Abby’s pregnant, which might have something to do with why she and Sharpy are getting married so soon. In a month. It’s still hard to reconcile, although they’ve been together for as long as Patrick can remember. She tells Patrick about it while they’re out getting breakfast pastries on a Saturday a few weeks later. She’s not showing at all, but she’s glowing like the moon managed to climb under her skin and light her from the inside out.
Patrick’s always had kind of a low-grade crush on Abby, on Sharpy, on both of them, really, but she takes one look at his face when they sit down and leans in close like she’s going to share state secrets, or maybe impart some of her grandmother’s dying wisdom or something.
“I really don’t like the new guy, Patty Cake,” she says, and Patrick winces when she does it, because he’ll never get away from the nicknames with these people. It’s almost like being back home again, but his hair isn’t short enough for anyone to call him Buzz.
Patrick takes a long sip from his coffee, wipes his mouth and says, “Sorry, Abs. You had to know he couldn’t do better than me.” He’s known both Abby and Sharpy since he was eight and they were junior counselors at the camp he and Johnny had both gone to. Abby had hugged him after the first time he’d scraped his knee, pulled ‘kick me’ signs off his back for practically the whole of that first summer and wouldn’t let him go back home after the first three days, even though he swore up and down that’s what he wanted to do.
“He’s nice,” she says, but the way she says it, inflection high in her throat, makes Patrick wince.
“You can tell me,” he says, even though it feels like the contents of his stomach are getting ready to the samba or the macarena, or the one Carmen Miranda made popular with all of those cha cha chas. The thought of Johnny with someone else makes him a little sick, even though he knows he doesn’t have the right to be territorial.
Abby is a wise woman, though. She squeezes his hand on the table and says, “He’s just not as fun.”
“Wait, wait,” Patrick says, “when was Tazer ever fun?”
She takes a sip of her tea and makes a face, even though she’s totally been working this whole laidback earth-mother vibe thing. “I hate tea,” she grumbles, completely sidestepping his question. “I can’t believe I have to deal with another seven months of this.” Patrick takes a sip of his own coffee, making sure to savor it as it goes down. “I changed my mind,” she says sweetly. “Maybe Sully should be in the wedding after all. He looks so handsome in blue.”
“Who the fuck is-” Patrick isn’t stupid. He knows Abby isn’t playing him, the same way he knows that Johnny could never be serious about someone named Sully, Jesus. “Sully?” he asks. “Really? Tazer’s into bears now?”
It takes Abby a second to get it, but when she does, she laughs so loud the woman seated behind them decides to move. Well, good, then, Patrick thinks. Fuck her and her Dumbledore spectacles, anyway.
“You’d be surprised how little Sullivan looks like John Goodman,” she says, but she kicks his foot under the table and then rests her own on top of it, comforting. “Last time I checked he wasn’t tall, fuzzy, and blue, either.”
The last thing he wants to do is talk about Tazer’s new boyfriend, but he hears himself ask, “Sullivan? Really?” He takes a breath and adds, “That’s a really stupid name.”
Abby takes another sip of her tea and makes such a horrified face that Patrick can’t help laughing. She moves like she’s going to kick him again, but deflates after a few seconds, losing all the energy for it. “He’s fine,” she says eventually, nibbling on her scone, “you know. Not too tall, not too short, brown hair, glasses.”
“So he’s the unabomber,” Patrick says, because it makes him feel a bit better, imagining that Johnny’s current boyfriend is at least a little worse than his last one.
“He’s just so,” Abby starts, and then lets out another sigh. “Will you please put me out of my misery and be in my wedding so I don’t have to think about him for a while?”
Patrick sips from his own drink, considering. “He’s that bad looking in the face?”
Abby shrugs. “He won’t be around in five years,” she says eventually. “Hell, he probably won’t be around in five months. I don’t want him fucking up my wedding pictures.”
;;
The wedding is on April first, which is early enough in the spring that the chances of it being cold are fairly high, but somehow, through sheer force of will, maybe, the Saturday Abby and Sharpy get married is beautiful. There are just enough clouds in the sky to make it look believable, but they’re the fluffy kind, white and welcoming.
Patrick loses his breath a little when he sees her for the first time, adjusting the bust of her dress in the back of the church and taking deep, even, measured breaths. “Patrick,” she hisses, still quiet, but loud enough for several Sharps in the back row to hear. Sharpy’s grandma turns to face him quickly, covering his hand with her own and squeezing once. “What are you doing back here?”
“There’s no law saying I can’t see the bride before the big day,” he says, and then comes close enough that he can hug her, squeezing her close.
He can feel it when she swallows, when she asks, “Is everything-? Please tell me everything is alright.”
“Everything’s great, almost-Mrs.-Sharp,” he says. “I just wanted to check you were doing okay too.”
Abby shrugs, but when he pulls back, she’s looking a little wobbly. “I just can’t believe we’re finally here.” She starts to cry, but manages to stave it off fairly quickly. “I just love him so much,” she says.
The lump in Patrick’s throat gets heavier, tighter, and he squeezes her arm once and when he whispers, “He loves you too,” his voice sounds like broken glass.
“Get back up there,” she says, and then she’s shoving him away and turning to face her dad, eyes still shining but smiling all the way.
Patrick makes it all the way back to the front of the church without further incident, sliding into place between Hoss and Seabs. Someone taps him on the shoulder, but since they’re supposed to be watching their friend get married, Patrick ignores it. It’s not like he doesn’t know what kind of asshole would try and ruin a wedding.
The tapping persists, even as the bridal march starts, and Seabs says, quietly, “I think he really wants your attention, bud.”
“Shove it, Biscuit,” Patrick says under his breath, smiling as blandly as he can when the wedding photographer turns the lens on them.
“Patrick,” someone says behind him, except it’s not someone, it’s Johnny, and it takes everything Patrick has in him not to completely lose it right there. For the record, Johnny is the more responsible out of the two of them. For the record, Johnny’s the one with the four-oh who always goes to bed on time and hasn’t cheated on his significant other since they decided to make it official. “Patrick,” he hisses again, and Patrick closes his eyes, because it’s easier than looking at Abby and Sharpy or turning around and dealing with the mess he left behind.
;;
So that’s it. That’s the big secret. That’s what Patrick never told his sisters and Johnny doesn’t seem to have told any of their friends, even if maybe he should have. Patrick cheated, alright? It wasn’t payback for freshman year and he wasn’t in love. He wasn’t even wasted.
It just happened. Sometimes shit happens. Sometimes you just have to own up to your mistakes and face them head on, and he’s always liked Seguin, but not enough to use him as an excuse or throw him under the bus. He’s just a kid and Patrick is, well. Patrick’s not much of an adult, but at least he’s not away from home for the first time and wet behind the ears. At least he’s not eighteen anymore.
Patrick’s a Sports Medicine major, for the most part, although he’s dabbled in a little bit of everything. Seguin is the newest recruit in an increasingly large number of students migrating into that program.
They’d gotten to know each other in the medical center at school, because Patrick interns there and Seguin was always hanging around. Seguin’s a good kid with a decent head on his shoulders and Patrick’s the idiot with the steady boyfriend who let shit go too far. Boo fucking hoo.
;;
“There are fifty people here,” Johnny says on the trellis, later. Patrick’s on his third glass of bubbly, but it doesn’t feel like it. He can still feel his feet, and that definitely wasn’t part of the original plan. “How long did you think you could avoid me for?”
Patrick downs the rest of his glass, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand and says, “Who says I’m avoiding you?”
Johnny doesn’t bother rolling his eyes; it’s implied by the sneer of his mouth and the way his shoulders rise, like maybe he’d even be laughing if he could put the energy into it. “You wouldn’t talk to me at the wedding.”
“We’re still technically at the wedding,” Patrick says, “and here I am, talking to you.” He takes a step back, reaching for his champagne flute, even though it’s empty. There’s never a good cater-waiter around when you really need one. “See? You were wrong, I was right, the world is as it should be.”
Johnny clears his throat. “I had to talk to you,” he says. Patrick peeks over at him. He looks as good as Abby said he would, hair getting longer and curling slightly at his temples. Patrick’s pretty used to wanting to kiss him and punch him in the same breath, but he never expected to miss Johnny this much. They’ve never been broken up for quite so long before. It’s only been two months, really, but even summers apart never felt like the time just wouldn’t stop dragging.
“So talk,” he says, crossing his arms and leaning back against the railing. “You’re the one who wanted to get my attention so bad.”
Johnny makes a scoffing noise, complete disbelief, like Patrick was the one who was tugging on his coattails for nearly the entire ceremony. “You look good,” Johnny says, apropos of nothing, and while goosebumps wash all over his skin, Patrick’s stomach also drops down to his shoes.
“Abby took care of most of the styling,” he manages, and then holds his leg out, tugging up his pants to reveal his striped socks. “I, uh, couldn’t let her get away with all the fun.”
Johnny hums in agreement and then says, “Can you believe they’re pregnant?”
Patrick can’t even think about it for too long without getting dizzy, so he says, “Not really. I remember when Abby was patching up my knees and I was trying to look down her tank top.” He takes a breath and says, “and now she’s going to be a mom.”
“I think that’s definitely the first story you should tell the baby,” Johnny says.
Their gazes meet and catch and it takes so long for Patrick to realize Johnny was making a joke that he’s already started to frown again. “Another joke?” Patrick asks. His voice sounds too high, too thin, not like him at all. “I’m impressed.”
“I want you to tell me why you did it.” Johnny takes a few steps closer. They’re still not touching, but he’s close enough now that they could be. It’s all about keeping his breaths regulated, Patrick thinks. If he just keeps breathing, he’ll make it through.
“Why, uh,” he says. “Why does anybody do anything, man?”
The sound Johnny makes under his breath is more like a growl than anything else. “That’s not what I asked you,” he says quietly. “We had something good going, I thought,” he adds, like an afterthought, like that’s not everything Patrick’s ever wanted to hear. Fuck. “I thought it was for good, this time.”
Patrick closes his eyes. His heart is beating so hard and fast in his chest that he’s sure Johnny can hear it. “You have a boyfriend,” he says slowly, easing the words out of his mouth like they’re timebombs. Johnny makes an abortive noise, but Patrick keeps at it. “Why the fuck are you saying shit like this to me, Tazer? I heard your big blue giant was a nice guy.”
“We broke up,” Johnny says. “He wasn’t. It wasn’t right.”
“C’mon,” Patrick says. “I thought you knew better than to keep backing the wrong horse, Mr. Serious.” He takes a breath and then another. “How many breakups did you think we had left in us before graduation? Better that we got it out of the way now, right? Better that I don’t actually have to say goodbye to you next year.”
“Patrick,” Johnny says, and then they’re touching, Johnny’s hands gripping Patrick’s wrists, just this shade of too tight. He opens his eyes, can’t stop looking at the way the Johnny’s lashes look even longer than usual. “Why did you do it?”
It’s starting to rain, a little. There’s not that much moisture dropping down, but the clouds are circling like wagons, waiting to explode.
“I just did, okay,” Patrick says, licking his lips. “I just did. I did it. Fuck off.”
Johnny presses even closer. “I don’t buy it,” he says quietly. The words only carry so much weight because they’re true, but Patrick’s not admitting that, not if he can help it.
“Well,” he says. “I can’t stop you from believing what you want to believe, but-it happened. We hooked up. Segs and me. It was good.” It hadn’t been all that great, to be honest. Patrick’s never going to mind a hand on his dick, but the whole time, he couldn’t stop thinking that it wasn’t the right hand. It wasn’t the right person. He was already fucked over Johnny before, but that-acknowledging it just made it worse. Necessary, but worse. Saying goodbye in a year if things were still as good between them, it would’ve gutted him; straight up cut out his heart and fed it to the wolves.
Johnny doesn’t let go of his wrists, doesn’t drop his gaze, and the two of them stand like that for a while, holding on while the sky decides to open up. “I, uh,” Johnny says, but he doesn’t get moving.
“We should head back in,” Patrick says, but it’s not like he’s yanking himself away or trying to move inside either.
“Maybe we should,” Johnny says, and his grip loosens on Patrick’s wrists. There. That’s better. Patrick can move away and not have to share space with this dude again for a while. “I still love you.” Johnny’s voice cracks and Patrick feels every one of the words inside of himself, sliding all the way from his throat to his gut and out to his fingers and toes.
“What?” he croaks, because this must be the senility setting in. Maybe it’s dementia. Maybe he’s just cracked entirely, destined for the loony bin at almost 21 years old.
Johnny’s blushing. Even in the face of the oncoming storm, Johnny’s blushing, his cheeks a fiery, flaming pink, and Patrick wants to cling onto him more than he’s ever wanted to do anything in his life.
“I still love you,” Johnny says, and instead of repetition dulling the sensation, it just makes it worse. Patrick’s shaking, can’t stop, and it has nothing to do with the rain.
“You can’t,” he says, breaths rough and heavy. This is the worst fucking time for this conversation. “Tazer, this is like, the worst fucking time for your pity party, okay? Fuck off.”
Johnny’s grip tightens on his wrists again and Patrick closes his eyes. “It’s okay,” he says, quietly, even though it’s not. “I forgive you.” Inside, Abby and Sharpy’s friends and family are going nuts. The DJ announces that it’s time to cut the cake. “Patrick,” Johnny says, “fucking look at me, okay?”
“No.” Patrick says. He squeezes his eyes shut again like a kid, but he can’t help it. “Tazer, quit. Why are you doing this to yourself? I’m bad news.”
Johnny’s fingers touch his chin, fleetingly, his palm cups Patrick’s cheek. “You’re not,” he says simply. “I don’t. I don’t know where you got that idea, but you’re not, okay?” He stops speaking for long enough that Patrick thinks he’s run out of words. “Look at me, Patrick.”
Patrick doesn’t, can’t open his eyes. He could. He should, probably, because this is Johnny on steroids, this is crazy talk. This is an alternate universe. He’s fallen somewhere and cracked his head open.
“I love you,” Johnny says, thumbnail cresting the curve of Patrick’s cheekbone. “Please believe me.” He takes another breath, and then says, “Hey,” almost silently. Patrick opens his eyes.
The way he figures it, you only have so many chances, right? The door is only going to open so many times. The cookies can’t come out perfect every batch. He surges up on his toes, fitting their mouths together nice and easy and doesn’t even care about the dampness of their clothes or the rumble in the sky.