Hockey RPF: I'm Your Handyman (Kaner/Tazer)
Title: I'm Your Handyman
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Pairing: Kaner/Tazer
Rating: Explicit
Word count: ~7,000
Summary: Patrick breaks things, Johnny fixes them, and then there are feelings; or a tale of home repair and boys being really, really dumb.
Notes: This story is for the vanilla square of my Kink Bingo card. Big thank you to
fanofall for the speedy beta. My apologies to home repair.
You can also read the story at AO3:
http://archiveofourown.org/works/910724
I'm Your Handy Man
By Lenore
Patrick likes to think that he's a laid-back kind of guy, but there are some things that are just not okay in his world. Bad reffing. People ruffling his hair-why is that even a thing anyone wants to do? Haters who hate on Buffalo. And any day that starts without caffeine, because that is just bullshit, and he will tell anyone who tries to withhold coffee from him to go fuck themselves.
He tells his apparently broken Keurig machine, but sadly that doesn't convince it to give up his Italian dark roast.
"What the fuck good are you?" Seriously this has to be, like, the third Keurig machine he's owned in the past two years. Probably he should stop buying them, since clearly they're defective pieces of crap that fill his life with disappointment and caffeine deprivation.
He's weighing the pros and cons of throwing the thing up against the wall and grinding its defective insides under his heel-it's all pros really-when Tazer comes shuffling into the kitchen, knuckling the sleep out of his eyes and looking like morning has personally offended him. He passed out in the guest room the night before after one game of Call of Duty turned into an all-out marathon because he's a hyper-competitive asshole who won't just admit that Patrick is the king of gunning down fictional enemies.
"Are you trying to stare down your coffeemaker?" Tazer asks with a yawn.
"Fuck you, I do what I want," Patrick says because, well, because.
Johnny raises an eyebrow, judging Patrick's life choices and probably also his taste in kitchen appliances. Possibly Patrick deserves that last part.
"Shit's broken again."
"Did you clean the, you know, the thing with the-" Tazer waves his hand in a way that's apparently supposed to tell Patrick something, and when it clearly doesn't, Tazer gets his stern, disapproving face on. "Have you ever done any kind of maintenance on that machine? Why am I even asking? It's you."
"I buy those little plastic cup things for it, what?"
Tazer sighs heavily. "Do you have a paper clip?'
"Um, no."
This brings on yet more disapproving frowns. Seriously, what does Johnny want from his life? The last time Patrick was at an Office Depot was, like, never.
Johnny rolls his eyes, disappears for a moment, and comes back holding up a paperclip in triumph. Patrick narrows his eyes and tries to mentally track down where it might have come from, because seriously the Office Depot and Patrick are not buds. The only thing he can think of is the article his sister ripped out of Elle and mailed to him. "You went through the papers on my desk! That shit could be, like, private and stuff."
"Ten Tips That Can Help You Tame Your Temper? Really?"
"Fuck you, I'm growing as a person."
Johnny makes a skeptical face and muscles past him to the coffeemaker. That probably calls for another fuck you-Patrick has a policy of never letting Tazer get away with any shit ever-but there's caffeine on the line here, so he keeps his mouth shut just like tip #4 taught him. Tazer is going to owe Elle magazine a big-ass apology when Patrick becomes a model of self-restraint.
He slumps against the counter, watching unimpressed, as Tazer unbends the paperclip. Clearly a Plan B is called for here, and he decides on guilting Tazer into going to get him coffee when he's finished breaking the Keurig piece of shit even worse. Tazer takes it apart and gives the pieces a serious, pinch-between-the-eyebrows scowl of concentration. Patrick absently notes that the coffeemaker's insides are plastic and would have made a really satisfying crunch under foot if he'd gone with the original throwing-against-the-wall-and-stomping plan.
Tazer does something vaguely obscene with the unbent end of the paperclip, sticking it into a hole and thrusting it in and out. He puts the coffeemaker back together, pops in a new little plastic cup, sticks Patrick's mug under the spout, hits the brew button and-suddenly there's the sweet smell of caffeine in the air.
"Wait. That worked. What?" Patrick can't stop staring at the stream of blessed dark roast pouring into his cup.
Tazer crosses his arms over his chest; if he were any smugger about it, he'd probably hurt himself. But, whatever, Patrick has coffee. All is right in his world.
"If this were porn I'd totally blow you in gratitude right now." It's the kind of thing that Patrick says, and yet Tazer's mouth drops open in a genuinely shocked sort of way, and huh, did shit suddenly get weird in here? "Uh."
"I'll settle for some orange juice," Tazer says dryly.
Patrick even lets him drink it out of the carton because, whatever, he's busy clutching his coffee mug to his chest.
Because Patrick is an awesome friend, he spreads the story of Tazer's Keurig machine glory himself, saving Johnny from an epic inner battle between his crazed need to prove he's the best at everything and his polite Canadian discomfort with boasting. None of the guys seems remotely surprised to hear that Patrick is hopelessly mechanically uninclined and only owns a paperclip because it came attached to a self-help article cut out of a women's magazine. They do, however, appear amazed that Tazer knows how to fix things, which makes Tazer scowl, which would make Patrick laugh except for how he's still really fucking grateful to have the caffeine flowing at his house again.
Whatever. There will always be a next time for laughing at Johnny.
They go on a three-game road trip and sweep, and that makes the long-ass flight back from Vancouver not nearly as tedious as it could be. Patrick's outlook on life is further brightened by the fact that they don't have another game for two days, and he can toss back a few drinks without the judge-y Tazer voice in his head expressing its disappointment.
"You want to hang out tomorrow?" actual Tazer asks before they go their separate ways back in Chicago.
"Mortal Kombat?"
Tazer presses his mouth into a thin, determined line as if he's plotting his strategy. Seriously, he's the best entertainment Patrick's ever had.
The next day Tazer shows up with snacks and swagger, and that is both awesome and bust-a-gut hilarious considering his lame-ass gaming skills. They settle on the couch, and Patrick fires up the Wii. He even lets Tazer go first because he's an awesome host that way.
He's kind of zoning while Johnny takes his turn, idly debating which of his many obnoxious ways of celebrating his upcoming victory will be the most likely to make Johnny turn completely red with rage. His gaze happens to land on the strip of molding along the wall that has been hanging by a thread since a sexy game of naked Nerf football with his last girlfriend ended in tears and property damage. He keeps meaning to call building maintenance about it and then keeps forgetting. Whatever. He's got a demanding job. He should totally have people to take care of that kind of thing for him.
That thought makes him pause. Tazer's people. Well, kind of. He's here right now anyway. Patrick angles a glance at Tazer and then at the molding and then back at Tazer. Johnny is always screaming at Patrick to use him more, and, okay, so he means it in a hockey sense. Patrick doesn't see why that same philosophy shouldn't extend to home repair.
Johnny stares at him when he explains the theory. "Did you seriously just ask me to fix your molding?"
Patrick shrugs. "I thought you might like to do something you're actually good at."
Tazer's expression does this complicated thing where it's smug over his manly fixit prowess and pissy at the slight to his lame-ass gaming skills; this is probably more of a workout than his face has gotten in years. Patrick kind of wants to laugh himself sick over that, but there's a semi-attached molding hanging in the balance here, so he keeps a straight face. This self-restraint stuff is totally a thing that's happening.
"Where are your tools?" Tazer asks at last with a put-upon sigh.
"Duh. In the tool drawer. Come on." He drags Johnny along with him to the kitchen and opens the drawer next to the refrigerator with a flourish. "Take whatever you need."
Tazer looks inside, pulls out a perfectly good screwdriver, and holds it up with disdain. "Seriously?"
"What?"
"You do get that tools is plural, right? As in more than one?"
"Fuck you, don't mock the tool drawer. You just didn't look in the right place."
Does Patrick have to do everything himself? Apparently yes. He pushes Tazer aside and rustles around in the drawer until he comes up with the keychain that has an itty-bitty level attached to it and a pink plastic ruler that his youngest sister left behind the last time she'd been visiting. "That's like a tool, right?"
Tazer just shakes his head as if Patrick is the saddest dipshit in the world and his tool drawer is a deep personal affront to him. "I'll make do."
It comes as no kind of surprise that Tazer's idea of "making do" involves ordering Patrick around as much as humanly possible, sending him off for a spare shoe to use as a hammer and when that fails canned goods from the kitchen and finally a beer-not a shitty American one either-although Patrick is pretty sure that's not actually necessary for the fixing of his molding.
Patrick doesn't even mind, and that's just weird considering that his usual response to Tazer being a tyrannical dickface is loud and borderline homicidal. But it's different somehow with Tazer crouched down on Patrick's floor, nose to nose with Patrick's molding, squinting at it in that meticulous, determined Tazer way of his. A too-warm feeling settles into the pit of Patrick's stomach and-yeah, he's just going to call that gratitude since anything else would be stupid. It's a fucking molding.
"Can you hold it in place for me?" When Patrick doesn't snap right to, Tazer turns to glare, and that's just so very him that Patrick has to roll his eyes. He rolls them extra hard when Tazer declares, "you're not doing it right, like this," and proceeds to demonstrate as if Patrick is too much of a dumb fuck to hold a board in place.
Tazer lines up the makeshift hammer precisely, because he's Tazer and he's going to be the best at home repair even if he is working with a can of French cut green beans. He lands one perfectly placed blow after another, a pinch of concentration between his eyes, biceps flexing with the effort. When he's finished, the nails are secure again, and he runs his thumb carefully along the molding, as if double-checking that the work is up to his perfectionist's standards.
Patrick gets that too-hot sensation again, only this time it's not just in his stomach. It's everywhere. That definitely doesn't feel like gratitude. He snaps to his feet and stumbles back a few steps.
Tazer stares at him like he's crazy. "What?"
"What?" Patrick shoots back. "I'm, like, surveying your work and shit."
This earns him an indignant glare. "Well?"
Patrick shrugs. "It'll do."
Tazer shakes his head. "You're an ungrateful asshole, you know that?"
"Thanks or whatever." When Tazer doesn't stop glaring, he says, "What? You want me to blow you or something?" It just comes out, although this isn't really the best time to ratchet up their years-long game of gay sex chicken, not when Patrick's got this weird wanting feeling or whatever in his stomach. Some backsliding on the self-restraint front is just to be expected, he supposes.
Tazer's mouth pulls into a tight line, and he quickly looks away. "You should stop saying that."
And, yeah, Patrick definitely should, but now that Tazer has told him to-well, it's like he doesn't know Patrick at all. "The hinge is loose on the vanity in my bathroom. You want to give me another reason to be grateful?"
It's tame compared to some of the gay sex chicken stuff Tazer has pulled-exercising in front of Patrick wearing nothing but his underwear, just to name one-only Patrick isn't even sure he's playing a game right now, which is a whole other level of what the fuck.
Tazer fastens a long, measuring look on him. "Do you know what you're doing?"
Patrick nods. "I'm getting the screwdriver."
He brings it to the bathroom and finds Tazer already crouched down, squinting at the hinge, running his thumb over it. Apparently he gets really touchy-feely when he's fixing things. If Patrick is resenting the hinge a little bit right now, he's not going to examine that. He's just going to stand back and let Johnny work-and okay, fine, he's also going to appreciate the view. Crouching is a really good look for Johnny.
"You know, you could have done this yourself," Tazer says, as he makes short work of tightening the screw.
"Mm," Patrick says noncommittally. Maybe he could have, but it's so much better watching Johnny get all manly and competent with the screwdriver. He wonders if he should buy Johnny power tools for his birthday and if he'd let Patrick watch him use them.
"There," Johnny declares and hands back the screwdriver. "And you're welcome."
"Yeah, so now I definitely owe you that blowjob," Patrick says because he's himself, and this game of gay sex chicken has been going on way too fucking long. There's only so much self-restraint a person can stand.
Tazer goes still and gives him a long, speculative look. "Maybe you do owe me."
Patrick swallows hard, because he hadn't entirely expected Tazer to go there, and, fuck, he's really turned on.
Johnny takes two steps closer, gets right up in Patrick's personal space, leans in and says roughly against his ear, "Is that what you want, Pat? To get down on your knees for me?"
A shiver goes all through Patrick. Shit. That's exactly what he wants. Tazer's hand falls heavily on his shoulder. Patrick could throw off his grip if he wanted to. Tazer may be bigger, but Patrick's still a fucking hockey player. But, whatever, this was Patrick's idea, and his ideas are the best. He lets Tazer push him down so he's kneeling on the tile.
Tazer sucks in a sharp breath when Patrick unzips his jeans and takes out his dick. That's pretty satisfying. It's even better when Patrick gets his mouth around Johnny's dick and Johnny starts groaning like he's about to die. Patrick hasn't done this a lot, and he suspects he's not very good at it, what with the drool running down his chin and all, but a guy isn't usually going to complain about technique when he's getting his dick wet. Johnny seems to be no exception to this rule.
"Fuck, yeah," he grates out, staring down at Patrick, sliding his hand along Patrick's shoulder to cup the back of his head. "Take it."
Johnny is bossy as all fuck about pretty much everything, and apparently he never got that memo about proper blowjob etiquette, because he pushes Patrick down onto his cock, practically fucking his face. He's just lucky that Patrick gets off on that shit. A lot, actually. He presses the heel of his hand against his dick and relaxes his throat as much as he can and lets Johnny use him however he wants. It really is like porn. Johnny is the muscle-y, monosyllabic handyman, and Patrick is-well, not the bored housewife. Whatever. It's hot.
"Kaner," Johnny slurs out and presses his thumb at the corner of Patrick's mouth. "Fuck, I'm going to-"
Patrick pulls back, but not fast enough to avoid taking a hit of jizz to the face. Maybe he's more into that than he would have thought, because Johnny's not the only one coming.
"Get up here." Tazer hauls him to his feet.
For a moment Patrick thinks Johnny might kiss him. Instead his hands go to Patrick's fly, and then he freezes, staring in disbelief at the wet spot on the front of his jeans.
"Uh," Patrick says, very intelligently.
Tazer glares, yanks Patrick closer, and practically growls in his ear, "Next time you show your fucking gratitude, don't come before I get to touch you."
He lets Patrick go and stalks out of the room. A moment later Patrick hears him call out from the living room, "Mortal Kombat. Rematch. Get your ass in gear."
Yeah, so Patrick really should put on some pants that aren't stained with jizz and go school Johnny on how video games are actually played, but he's kind of stuck on the whole next time thing.
Of course now that there's the possibility of a next time floating out there, Patrick's apartment goes through a really inconvenient period of everything working exactly as it should. Meanwhile nothing is working right out on the ice. Patrick would worry that maybe the home-repair-slash-blowjob incident was messing up the dynamic between him and Tazer, but the whole team is sluggish and out of sync. They lose to the Islanders at home in a shootout and then get shut out by the Sabres. Patrick now has many reasons to be in a shitty mood.
Thankfully the plumbing in his apartment comes through for him, getting on board with team buddy-sex, offering up a leaking pipe beneath the kitchen sink. Once again he could call building maintenance, and he half expects Tazer to tell him so in the flat, unimpressed voice he uses whenever he thinks Patrick is being a fuck-up.
There's a long pause, and Patrick is making his peace with disappointment when Tazer says, "You're getting me tacos."
"Extra guacamole," Patrick quickly promises.
"And no-"
"American beer," Patrick finishes the sentence for him. "Yeah, yeah. Bring your wrench or whatever and get over here."
He's not actually expecting Tazer to show up with an entire toolbox, but there he is, filling Patrick's doorway, looking more like porn than ever with his collection of wrenches and his tight-stretched T-shirt that leaves nothing about his nipples to the imagination.
Tazer raises an eyebrow at him. "Are you going to let me in?"
"Are you going to get in here already?"
Tazer heavy-sighs in his direction and brushes past him, heading for the kitchen. Patrick hangs back, watching him go, imagining a tool belt riding those hips. Tazer would rock the shit out of a tool belt.
By the time Patrick joins him in the kitchen, Tazer is already hunkered down taking a look under the sink. This means more crouching, and Patrick takes a moment to think fondly of his fucked up plumbing even though it really shouldn't be fucked up at all considering how much money he paid for this place.
"Okay, I turned off the water, and I'm going to need to change your s-curve," Tazer says in that challenging way of his, as if he expects Patrick to argue with him.
"You can change my s-curve any time, baby," Patrick says, as you do. Although come to think of it…"You know I don't have one of those, right?"
Tazer rolls his eyes. "Says the person who doesn't own paperclips. I figured the s-curve was the problem. I picked up one on the way over."
Patrick's not going to examine why Johnny buying plumbing parts for him really gets him going. He's just going to be really glad that he's wearing a shirt that's way too big for him and hides the evidence.
"You should come over here and watch what I'm doing, so you can do it yourself next time."
"Yeah?" Patrick says, not budging. "Why would I want to do that when I have you?" He's close enough to enjoy the sight of Tazer showing the plumbing who's boss. That's good enough for him.
Tazer makes a face, but he doesn't go into lecture mode and he does stretch out his legs as he ducks under the sink giving Patrick a very nice view of his thighs. It's all completely awesome. Changing the s-curve is either easy or Johnny really is a prodigy with a pipe wrench, because the whole operation takes about thirty seconds. Johnny opens the valve to turn the water back on, and he runs the tap to test that the new s-curve is doing its thing. Underneath the cabinet stays nice and dry.
"Awesome, dude," Patrick tells him. "So you want me to-"
"Take your shirt off," Johnny orders, undoing his own belt, unzipping and pushing his jeans down over his hips.
Patrick was already half hard just watching Johnny manhandle that wrench and now-fuck. He throws off his shirt as fast as humanly possible, but apparently that's not fast enough. Johnny glares impatiently, hauls Patrick in, and presses him down to his knees, pushing his dick into his mouth. Patrick barely manages to control his gag reflex, but then fuck yeah he's got this. Johnny's thick and hot on his tongue, so good. Patrick may not have skills exactly, but he goes at it with a fuckton of enthusiasm.
Tazer sinks his fingers into Patrick's hair and pulls too hard, which is probably the least surprising thing that has ever happened to Patrick during sex. The filthy shit Tazer says about Patrick's mouth is far more eyebrow-raising, in a totally awesome way. Patrick has to wonder if Tazer was thinking about doing this during those underwear-clad workouts of his. Fuck, that's hot.
Patrick doesn't jizz in his pants when Johnny grabs him by the ears and comes in his mouth, but it's a close thing. He sits back on his heels and wipes his face with his hand. He's pretty sure he snorted come out his nose. Clearly he has work to do on that whole swallowing thing.
Johnny looms over him, red-faced and panting, eyes dark and a little crazy. Suddenly Patrick's cock is very emphatically reminding him that it needs some action. "You said you wanted-" Tazer yanks him to his feet before he can finish, pressing him back against the cabinets.
"I want," Johnny confirms, as if it wasn't obvious from the way he's tugging off Patrick's belt, pushing his jeans and underwear down his legs.
He knees Patrick's legs apart, spreading him wide, stroking his hand along Patrick's side and staring, totally getting off on the fact that he has Patrick butt naked and pressed up against the cabinets in his own kitchen.
"Fuck you." If Tazer doesn't do something soon, Patrick's going to-Tazer better fucking do something soon. As in now. Tazer roots around in the toolbox and comes up with a tube, and yeah, no.
"Don't even think about putting that industrial shit on my dick," Patrick warns him.
Johnny holds up the tube which turns out to be KY and makes a you're a dumbass face at him. And oh! That means Johnny showed up totally expecting-maybe Patrick is a dumbass if he's only figuring that out now. Johnny slicks up his palm and gets his hand around Patrick's cock. His grip is tight and slick, too tight really, but Patrick likes that there's a little edge to every stroke. He wants to feel completely worked over by Johnny.
"You like that." It's not a question, because Johnny is just smug like that. "You're going to like this too." He slips his other hand between Patrick's thighs, stroking slick fingers behind Patrick's balls, pressing his thumb against Patrick's hole.
Patrick sucks in a sharp breath. "Fuck."
He hasn't done this a lot, and the fingers have always been his own. It feels a lot better with Johnny doing it to him. Patrick presses down against Johnny's hand, trying to get more, and Johnny works a second finger into him. He's been staring at Patrick's mouth pretty much nonstop since they started. Patrick darts out his tongue and runs it over his lips. Tazer's eyes go darker, hotter.
Patrick huffs out, "Just fucking kiss me already, you fuck."
"Turn your fucking head so I can, dickface."
The second Patrick does, he has Johnny's lips on his, urgent and biting. Johnny's a fucking bossy kisser, big surprise, and even bigger surprise, Patrick fucking loves it. Johnny's grip on his dick gets faster and tighter, and he's twisting his fingers inside, and fuck, it's so-fuck. If two fingers feel this good, Patrick can only imagine how amazing Johnny's dick would-
"Fuck," he shouts out, spilling over Johnny's fist.
All he can manage afterward is to slump heavily against the counter. Whatever, he's holding up his own weight. That's a pretty fucking awesome achievement considering that Johnny just rocked his world like it's never been rocked before. The water is running in the tap, and he realizes that Johnny must be washing Patrick's come off him. Patrick would chirp him about ruining the after glow with his clean-freakiness, but that would take energy and a couple of functioning brain cells and the ability to form words, none of which Patrick has at the moment.
"Here." Johnny runs a warm, wet cloth over Patrick's belly. He hisses through his teeth when the cloth brushes his too-sensitive cock. "Sorry," Johnny tells him with a wince of sympathy. He nudges Patrick's legs apart and swipes the cloth between his thighs. It's almost more weirdly intimate than when Johnny was fingering him.
Johnny tosses the cloth into the sink. "So. Uh."
Yeah. That's probably Patrick's cue to hitch his pants back up. Zipping his fly takes more coordination than his post-orgasmic fingers can manage, so he fishes his shirt off the floor and pulls it on, tugging it down to cover his dick.
"Do you want-"
Johnny jerks his thumb in the vague direction of the door. "Yeah, I should probably-"
Go, Patrick realizes after his sluggish brain has had a moment to process. He'd thought they were talking about tacos. "Oh, yeah. Sure thing."
He walks Johnny to the door. Fuck, he hates to see that toolbox go.
"So." Johnny lingers at the door, and Patrick thinks maybe Johnny is going to kiss him again, but he doesn't. "See you at practice."
"Practice, yeah," Patrick repeats stupidly.
He spends a good hour after Johnny leaves trying to figure out how he could have had the hottest fucking sex of his life and still feel this disappointed. He doesn't make much headway on an answer.
The last thing Patrick wants is for shit to get weird between Johnny and him. Johnny is his teammate, his captain and his best friend, not necessarily in that order of importance. Shit getting weird between them would suck, like, on multiple fronts. But Patrick is feeling pretty weird about stuff all on his own, so he doesn't have much hope of shit staying normal when he sees Johnny again.
The locker room is half full when Patrick arrives next practice. Johnny is already there naturally. The day Patrick beats him to the arena will be the day the apocalypse starts. They nod to each other, and Johnny looks away. There's a tightness at the corners of his eyes, a pretty sure sign that weirdness has already set in. Patrick can't fix it right now, so he's just gotta to do his thing and hope that hockey makes everything better.
The weirdness doesn't follow them out on the ice at least, and practice goes fine. Patrick even manages a pass that actually makes Johnny smile-no easy thing, since Johnny's good-play smiles are the equivalent of gold stars handed out by the stingiest grade school teacher alive. As they're leaving the ice, Johnny bumps Patrick's shoulder, gives him another smile, the one that's just a small tug at the corner of his mouth and a warm, conspiratorial spark in his eyes. That smile he saves just for Patrick.
Maybe shit is about to get unweird. Patrick can only hope.
It seems promising that once they're finished dressing Johnny asks, "You want to get a beer?"
"When do I not want beer?" Patrick flashes his biggest smile.
They settle into a booth at the sports bar where they always go when they want a quiet drink. Tazer orders non-shitty non-American beers for them both, and Patrick lets him, but only so he won't have to hear Tazer's mouth about what crappy taste he has in booze. They drink and talk about the matchups for the upcoming Redwings game, and there's nothing weird about it at all. Patrick only has one wobbly moment when Johnny takes a sip of his beer and suddenly he's way too aware of Johnny's mouth, memories rushing back of how it felt, the wet heat of kissing him. Fucking stop it, he tells his brain, and for once it actually listens. Self-restraint: still a go.
They wander off of hockey and onto other topics, taking up their ongoing discussion-slash-chirping over what they might have done with their lives if they hadn't made it in the NHL. Patrick still insists he would have made a hell of a cowboy, and Johnny is an asshole for laughing at him.
"Well, we know you have fix-it skills you could have fallen back on," Patrick says. Or a career starring in handyman-banging-bored-housewife porn, but he keeps that part to himself. He is totally a paragon.
Tazer gives Patrick that little smile, the one that's only for him. "You think I fix things for just anybody?"
Patrick stares, with what he can only imagine is the stupidest expression in the whole long history of faces. Suddenly that too-warm feeling is back, rushing all through him. He may be working on his self-restraint, but he's still human.
When they leave, Johnny walks with him out to the parking lot and gives his shoulder a squeeze before they go their separate ways to their cars. He does that all the time, but the way he strokes his thumb along the edge of Patrick's T-shirt, just a brief touch that makes Patrick shiver all over, is new. It's another of those moments when he really thinks that Johnny might kiss him, and then Johnny doesn't. That is getting to be a thing. A thing that totally sucks.
Patrick goes home, feeling restless and out of sorts. He flops onto the sofa and watches a show about a guy who catches really terrifying fish. He thinks maybe it will be a kind of Tazer aversion therapy, but all it does is make him afraid to ever go swimming in a lake again.
When in doubt, try porn has always been his motto-and, okay, the motto of every twenty-something guy on the planet. He grabs his laptop and trolls the Internet, and the good news is that he is the lowest common denominator that porn is made for. It takes all of five seconds to find three movies with a handyman theme.
He starts up the first movie, a new tube of KY at hand, and he knows before anyone even flashes a dick that he's not into it. The guys are too twinky, and Patrick's more into-yeah, definitely not twinks. The next one has a bigger, dark-haired guy who is more Patrick's type and a curly-haired blonde with exuberantly bouncing tits. Patrick palms his dick, and it's feeling promising until the guy snakes the woman's drain, euphemism not intended, not at this point in the video anyway. His clumsy attempts at home repair look so feeble it totally spoils the mood. The third movie-yeah, just no.
Fine, so he's on his own. He shunts the computer onto the coffee table, stretches out and idly runs a hand along the length of his dick. He's not even going to try not to think about Johnny, because there's self-restraint, and then there's just setting yourself up for failure.
Pictures stream into his head, of Johnny being handy and Johnny being good at hockey, Johnny telling stories that are supposed to be about how annoying Patrick is but are actually stories about what a huge asshole Johnny can be. There's the way Johnny smiles, and how he hugs Patrick when they win the Cup, and yells at him to be better when they lose a game. There's Johnny fixing his coffeemaker, and Johnny making Patrick watch the shittiest movies in the world because he has the worst taste ever. There's Johnny just being Johnny and-Patrick comes with his eyes tightly closed, knowing that he is totally screwed.
He flops back against the cushions and stares up at the ceiling. So, yeah, that's less of a handyman kink then and more of a head-over-heels for Johnny thing. What the fuck is he supposed to do with that?
When he's gone three days and still hasn't figured out the answer and nothing else in his apartment has stopped working, he spends an hour on Google researching how to break the Keurig machine without looking completely obvious about it. He has to draw diagrams and practically do math, since the Internet is biased in favor of fixing stuff, and he has to reverse engineer the problem from the solution. Johnny had better fucking appreciate how hard he's worked on this.
"What do you mean it's broken again?" is the not-at-all-appreciative reaction he gets when he calls for help.
"Seriously? What part of 'broken again' do you not understand?"
There's a long, tired-sounding sigh in Patrick's ear. "I really don't want to do this anymore."
"Come on!" Patrick whines at him. "You're good at this shit. It's not going to take long or anything."
"That's not-" Johnny sighs again.
Patrick is totally not above fighting dirty. "Please."
"Fine," Johnny says, clipped. "But this is the last time."
He arrives with a shopping bag instead of the toolbox, silent and pissed looking, greeting Patrick with a curt nod before heading to the kitchen.
Patrick scrambles after him. "Um-" Usually he knows why Johnny's mad at him-generally because Johnny is screaming his reasons very loudly in Patrick's face-but he has no clue here. Weren't they just having a friendly beer a few days ago? Is fixing his damned Keurig machine really that big of an imposition?
Johnny sets the shopping bag down on the counter and pins a furious, betrayed look on Patrick. What the fuck ever? If he really didn't want to come, he could have said so.
But, whatever, he's here, so Patrick carries on. "Um, yeah, so the problem is-"
Johnny lifts a box out of the bag and thumps it down onto the counter. It's a new Keurig machine. "I don't give a shit what the problem is."
Patrick doesn't have a clue what to make of this plot twist, but he does know that Johnny is glaring at him as if daring him to argue.
"Okay," Patrick tells him.
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Johnny breaks his death glare and nods. "Good." He sounds sufficiently mollified, so when he strides over to Patrick and gets right up in his face, Patrick doesn't think a fist is going to follow. If Johnny wanted to hit him, he's pretty sure he'd wait until the off-season.
"You can be a real dumb ass, you know that?"
"Hey!" That's bullshit, and Patrick plans to tell him so, but before he can get a word out, Johnny is taking Patrick's face in his hands and kissing him. Wait. What?
Patrick kisses back distractedly. Johnny is really fucking confusing. Why was he so pissed? And how is he now over it? Also, what was that whole deal with the new Keurig? He could have just fixed the one Patrick had and then they could have-oh. Oh! Patrick feels the proverbial light bulb going off in his head. Johnny doesn't want to be Patrick's handyman-porn-cliché. He wants to be his-they can fill in that blank later. Right now Patrick needs to push up onto his toes and grab onto Johnny's shoulders and kiss the fuck out of him.
"You don't ever have to fix my Keurig machine again, and I really, really want you to fuck me."
Johnny groans and bites Patrick hard on the neck. "Get in the bedroom now."
Patrick throws off his clothes as soon as they make it to his room and leaves them in a heap on the floor like a normal guy who is about to have sex. Meanwhile Johnny has managed to take off all of one sock. For a dude who doesn't even know the definition of the word "neat," he is surprisingly prissy about his clothes.
"Oh my God, it's a T-shirt and jeans! You are seriously not going to fold that shit."
Johnny smirks at him. "If you want to this to go faster, get on the bed and spread your legs."
Fuck. If Johnny doesn't want Patrick thinking of him as porn then he's really going to have to stop talking like it. Still, that was a pretty good suggestion. Patrick scrambles onto the bed, sprawls out on his back, and opens his legs as wide as they'll go, giving Johnny a good look at what he's about to tap.
The rest of Johnny's clothes hit the floor in a hurry, about damned time, and he yanks open the nightstand drawer so hard the lamp nearly goes pitching onto the floor. "You better have stuff in here."
"It's as well stocked as the tool drawer," Patrick assures him.
This brings on a ferocious scowl that disappears as soon as Johnny lays hands on the condoms and lube. He kneels on the bed and stretches out over Patrick, making him take his weight. That's hot as shit, but Patrick wouldn't be himself if he didn't complain, "Do you know how fucking heavy you are?"
Johnny wouldn't be Johnny if he didn't snap back, "Just fucking take it,"
Yeah, Patrick is in love with an asshole. But he's an asshole who touches Patrick's cheek sweetly and lays these kisses on him like he's trying to woo him or whatever. As if Patrick isn't naked and hard and under him, ready to take it whenever Johnny decides to give it to him. Patrick tangles his legs with Johnny's and rubs against him and melts into the kisses. He could maybe get used to Johnny wooing him.
"Have you-" Johnny runs his hand up the inside of Patrick's thigh.
Patrick shakes his head. "Just fingers, yours and mine."
A strangled sound comes spilling out of Johnny, and his grip tightens on Patrick's thigh. Clearly he is not unmoved at the prospect of taking Patrick's ass cherry.
Patrick waggles his eyebrows. "So we gonna do this thing?"
Johnny answers by snatching up the lube, slicking his fingers, and pushing two of them into Patrick.
"Fuck," Patrick hisses.
"You can take it," Johnny tells him like the bossy asshole he is.
"Fucking-a I can." Patrick grinds down onto his hand to show him who he's dealing with.
There's a third finger, and some twisting, and a lot of rubbing at his prostate that drives Patrick half insane. "Just fucking fuck me already!"
Johnny suits up and slicks up and pushes in, and then he goes still, hissing out, "Fuck, you're so fucking tight."
Patrick digs a heel into his back. "Less talking about my virgin ass and more-" Johnny fucks up into him. "Shit! Yeah. More of that."
Johnny doesn't take it easy on him, because he never does. He does, though, crane his neck at an uncomfortable-looking angle to kiss Patrick and keeps stroking his hands over Patrick's hips, telling him, "Yeah, yeah, so good. You're so good."
It's the perfect blend of filthy and sweet, and Patrick isn't even going to have to wait for something to break before he gets to do it again. He squinches up his eyes, jerks his dick, babbles out profanity, and comes. It takes Johnny just a few more thrusts before he comes too and flops on top of Patrick. He seriously is heavy, but Patrick is too fucked out to make him move.
Eventually Johnny gets off him, pads into the bathroom and comes back with a washcloth. He's careful not to touch Patrick's dick this time. Johnny is going to make an awesome boyfriend.
Johnny slips into bed and slides his arm beneath Patrick's shoulder, tugging. Patrick goes easily, curling against him.
"Mm," he murmurs, eyes already falling closed. "If you stay, I'll show you my gratitude for the new Keurig machine in the morning."
It's a joke, totally a joke, but he can feel Johnny go weird and tense. There's a long pause. "How about you never say the word 'gratitude' to me again, I stay because we both want me to, you stop breaking your stuff, and tomorrow night I take you out to dinner and when we get home you fuck me?" Johnny sounds completely exasperated that Patrick is such a dumb shit that he has to say these things out loud in actual words.
He's kind of adorable.
Patrick leans in to kiss him. "Okay."
He settles down with his head on Johnny's shoulder, and it occurs to him that he has been a dumb shit about some stuff. Like he's pretty sure now that they were never actually playing gay sex chicken. That was Johnny coming on to him in his completely roundabout way, waiting for Patrick to get the message and do something about it. That friendly beer and shoulder squeeze-well, apparently that had been Johnny's way of declaring himself.
Whatever, Patrick may have been slow at figuring things out, but he's totally on board now. He can already picture it: Johnny taking him on hilariously earnest dates and waking up with him in the mornings and fixing the coffeemaker when it breaks because Patrick knows he totally will.
"I win," he declares.
"Yeah?" Johnny says skeptically. "At what exactly?"
Patrick smiles. "Life."
NOTE: I feel like I need to add in defense of Keurig machines that I love mine and it has never given me any problems. :)
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Pairing: Kaner/Tazer
Rating: Explicit
Word count: ~7,000
Summary: Patrick breaks things, Johnny fixes them, and then there are feelings; or a tale of home repair and boys being really, really dumb.
Notes: This story is for the vanilla square of my Kink Bingo card. Big thank you to
fanofall for the speedy beta. My apologies to home repair.
You can also read the story at AO3:
http://archiveofourown.org/works/910724
I'm Your Handy Man
By Lenore
Patrick likes to think that he's a laid-back kind of guy, but there are some things that are just not okay in his world. Bad reffing. People ruffling his hair-why is that even a thing anyone wants to do? Haters who hate on Buffalo. And any day that starts without caffeine, because that is just bullshit, and he will tell anyone who tries to withhold coffee from him to go fuck themselves.
He tells his apparently broken Keurig machine, but sadly that doesn't convince it to give up his Italian dark roast.
"What the fuck good are you?" Seriously this has to be, like, the third Keurig machine he's owned in the past two years. Probably he should stop buying them, since clearly they're defective pieces of crap that fill his life with disappointment and caffeine deprivation.
He's weighing the pros and cons of throwing the thing up against the wall and grinding its defective insides under his heel-it's all pros really-when Tazer comes shuffling into the kitchen, knuckling the sleep out of his eyes and looking like morning has personally offended him. He passed out in the guest room the night before after one game of Call of Duty turned into an all-out marathon because he's a hyper-competitive asshole who won't just admit that Patrick is the king of gunning down fictional enemies.
"Are you trying to stare down your coffeemaker?" Tazer asks with a yawn.
"Fuck you, I do what I want," Patrick says because, well, because.
Johnny raises an eyebrow, judging Patrick's life choices and probably also his taste in kitchen appliances. Possibly Patrick deserves that last part.
"Shit's broken again."
"Did you clean the, you know, the thing with the-" Tazer waves his hand in a way that's apparently supposed to tell Patrick something, and when it clearly doesn't, Tazer gets his stern, disapproving face on. "Have you ever done any kind of maintenance on that machine? Why am I even asking? It's you."
"I buy those little plastic cup things for it, what?"
Tazer sighs heavily. "Do you have a paper clip?'
"Um, no."
This brings on yet more disapproving frowns. Seriously, what does Johnny want from his life? The last time Patrick was at an Office Depot was, like, never.
Johnny rolls his eyes, disappears for a moment, and comes back holding up a paperclip in triumph. Patrick narrows his eyes and tries to mentally track down where it might have come from, because seriously the Office Depot and Patrick are not buds. The only thing he can think of is the article his sister ripped out of Elle and mailed to him. "You went through the papers on my desk! That shit could be, like, private and stuff."
"Ten Tips That Can Help You Tame Your Temper? Really?"
"Fuck you, I'm growing as a person."
Johnny makes a skeptical face and muscles past him to the coffeemaker. That probably calls for another fuck you-Patrick has a policy of never letting Tazer get away with any shit ever-but there's caffeine on the line here, so he keeps his mouth shut just like tip #4 taught him. Tazer is going to owe Elle magazine a big-ass apology when Patrick becomes a model of self-restraint.
He slumps against the counter, watching unimpressed, as Tazer unbends the paperclip. Clearly a Plan B is called for here, and he decides on guilting Tazer into going to get him coffee when he's finished breaking the Keurig piece of shit even worse. Tazer takes it apart and gives the pieces a serious, pinch-between-the-eyebrows scowl of concentration. Patrick absently notes that the coffeemaker's insides are plastic and would have made a really satisfying crunch under foot if he'd gone with the original throwing-against-the-wall-and-stomping plan.
Tazer does something vaguely obscene with the unbent end of the paperclip, sticking it into a hole and thrusting it in and out. He puts the coffeemaker back together, pops in a new little plastic cup, sticks Patrick's mug under the spout, hits the brew button and-suddenly there's the sweet smell of caffeine in the air.
"Wait. That worked. What?" Patrick can't stop staring at the stream of blessed dark roast pouring into his cup.
Tazer crosses his arms over his chest; if he were any smugger about it, he'd probably hurt himself. But, whatever, Patrick has coffee. All is right in his world.
"If this were porn I'd totally blow you in gratitude right now." It's the kind of thing that Patrick says, and yet Tazer's mouth drops open in a genuinely shocked sort of way, and huh, did shit suddenly get weird in here? "Uh."
"I'll settle for some orange juice," Tazer says dryly.
Patrick even lets him drink it out of the carton because, whatever, he's busy clutching his coffee mug to his chest.
Because Patrick is an awesome friend, he spreads the story of Tazer's Keurig machine glory himself, saving Johnny from an epic inner battle between his crazed need to prove he's the best at everything and his polite Canadian discomfort with boasting. None of the guys seems remotely surprised to hear that Patrick is hopelessly mechanically uninclined and only owns a paperclip because it came attached to a self-help article cut out of a women's magazine. They do, however, appear amazed that Tazer knows how to fix things, which makes Tazer scowl, which would make Patrick laugh except for how he's still really fucking grateful to have the caffeine flowing at his house again.
Whatever. There will always be a next time for laughing at Johnny.
They go on a three-game road trip and sweep, and that makes the long-ass flight back from Vancouver not nearly as tedious as it could be. Patrick's outlook on life is further brightened by the fact that they don't have another game for two days, and he can toss back a few drinks without the judge-y Tazer voice in his head expressing its disappointment.
"You want to hang out tomorrow?" actual Tazer asks before they go their separate ways back in Chicago.
"Mortal Kombat?"
Tazer presses his mouth into a thin, determined line as if he's plotting his strategy. Seriously, he's the best entertainment Patrick's ever had.
The next day Tazer shows up with snacks and swagger, and that is both awesome and bust-a-gut hilarious considering his lame-ass gaming skills. They settle on the couch, and Patrick fires up the Wii. He even lets Tazer go first because he's an awesome host that way.
He's kind of zoning while Johnny takes his turn, idly debating which of his many obnoxious ways of celebrating his upcoming victory will be the most likely to make Johnny turn completely red with rage. His gaze happens to land on the strip of molding along the wall that has been hanging by a thread since a sexy game of naked Nerf football with his last girlfriend ended in tears and property damage. He keeps meaning to call building maintenance about it and then keeps forgetting. Whatever. He's got a demanding job. He should totally have people to take care of that kind of thing for him.
That thought makes him pause. Tazer's people. Well, kind of. He's here right now anyway. Patrick angles a glance at Tazer and then at the molding and then back at Tazer. Johnny is always screaming at Patrick to use him more, and, okay, so he means it in a hockey sense. Patrick doesn't see why that same philosophy shouldn't extend to home repair.
Johnny stares at him when he explains the theory. "Did you seriously just ask me to fix your molding?"
Patrick shrugs. "I thought you might like to do something you're actually good at."
Tazer's expression does this complicated thing where it's smug over his manly fixit prowess and pissy at the slight to his lame-ass gaming skills; this is probably more of a workout than his face has gotten in years. Patrick kind of wants to laugh himself sick over that, but there's a semi-attached molding hanging in the balance here, so he keeps a straight face. This self-restraint stuff is totally a thing that's happening.
"Where are your tools?" Tazer asks at last with a put-upon sigh.
"Duh. In the tool drawer. Come on." He drags Johnny along with him to the kitchen and opens the drawer next to the refrigerator with a flourish. "Take whatever you need."
Tazer looks inside, pulls out a perfectly good screwdriver, and holds it up with disdain. "Seriously?"
"What?"
"You do get that tools is plural, right? As in more than one?"
"Fuck you, don't mock the tool drawer. You just didn't look in the right place."
Does Patrick have to do everything himself? Apparently yes. He pushes Tazer aside and rustles around in the drawer until he comes up with the keychain that has an itty-bitty level attached to it and a pink plastic ruler that his youngest sister left behind the last time she'd been visiting. "That's like a tool, right?"
Tazer just shakes his head as if Patrick is the saddest dipshit in the world and his tool drawer is a deep personal affront to him. "I'll make do."
It comes as no kind of surprise that Tazer's idea of "making do" involves ordering Patrick around as much as humanly possible, sending him off for a spare shoe to use as a hammer and when that fails canned goods from the kitchen and finally a beer-not a shitty American one either-although Patrick is pretty sure that's not actually necessary for the fixing of his molding.
Patrick doesn't even mind, and that's just weird considering that his usual response to Tazer being a tyrannical dickface is loud and borderline homicidal. But it's different somehow with Tazer crouched down on Patrick's floor, nose to nose with Patrick's molding, squinting at it in that meticulous, determined Tazer way of his. A too-warm feeling settles into the pit of Patrick's stomach and-yeah, he's just going to call that gratitude since anything else would be stupid. It's a fucking molding.
"Can you hold it in place for me?" When Patrick doesn't snap right to, Tazer turns to glare, and that's just so very him that Patrick has to roll his eyes. He rolls them extra hard when Tazer declares, "you're not doing it right, like this," and proceeds to demonstrate as if Patrick is too much of a dumb fuck to hold a board in place.
Tazer lines up the makeshift hammer precisely, because he's Tazer and he's going to be the best at home repair even if he is working with a can of French cut green beans. He lands one perfectly placed blow after another, a pinch of concentration between his eyes, biceps flexing with the effort. When he's finished, the nails are secure again, and he runs his thumb carefully along the molding, as if double-checking that the work is up to his perfectionist's standards.
Patrick gets that too-hot sensation again, only this time it's not just in his stomach. It's everywhere. That definitely doesn't feel like gratitude. He snaps to his feet and stumbles back a few steps.
Tazer stares at him like he's crazy. "What?"
"What?" Patrick shoots back. "I'm, like, surveying your work and shit."
This earns him an indignant glare. "Well?"
Patrick shrugs. "It'll do."
Tazer shakes his head. "You're an ungrateful asshole, you know that?"
"Thanks or whatever." When Tazer doesn't stop glaring, he says, "What? You want me to blow you or something?" It just comes out, although this isn't really the best time to ratchet up their years-long game of gay sex chicken, not when Patrick's got this weird wanting feeling or whatever in his stomach. Some backsliding on the self-restraint front is just to be expected, he supposes.
Tazer's mouth pulls into a tight line, and he quickly looks away. "You should stop saying that."
And, yeah, Patrick definitely should, but now that Tazer has told him to-well, it's like he doesn't know Patrick at all. "The hinge is loose on the vanity in my bathroom. You want to give me another reason to be grateful?"
It's tame compared to some of the gay sex chicken stuff Tazer has pulled-exercising in front of Patrick wearing nothing but his underwear, just to name one-only Patrick isn't even sure he's playing a game right now, which is a whole other level of what the fuck.
Tazer fastens a long, measuring look on him. "Do you know what you're doing?"
Patrick nods. "I'm getting the screwdriver."
He brings it to the bathroom and finds Tazer already crouched down, squinting at the hinge, running his thumb over it. Apparently he gets really touchy-feely when he's fixing things. If Patrick is resenting the hinge a little bit right now, he's not going to examine that. He's just going to stand back and let Johnny work-and okay, fine, he's also going to appreciate the view. Crouching is a really good look for Johnny.
"You know, you could have done this yourself," Tazer says, as he makes short work of tightening the screw.
"Mm," Patrick says noncommittally. Maybe he could have, but it's so much better watching Johnny get all manly and competent with the screwdriver. He wonders if he should buy Johnny power tools for his birthday and if he'd let Patrick watch him use them.
"There," Johnny declares and hands back the screwdriver. "And you're welcome."
"Yeah, so now I definitely owe you that blowjob," Patrick says because he's himself, and this game of gay sex chicken has been going on way too fucking long. There's only so much self-restraint a person can stand.
Tazer goes still and gives him a long, speculative look. "Maybe you do owe me."
Patrick swallows hard, because he hadn't entirely expected Tazer to go there, and, fuck, he's really turned on.
Johnny takes two steps closer, gets right up in Patrick's personal space, leans in and says roughly against his ear, "Is that what you want, Pat? To get down on your knees for me?"
A shiver goes all through Patrick. Shit. That's exactly what he wants. Tazer's hand falls heavily on his shoulder. Patrick could throw off his grip if he wanted to. Tazer may be bigger, but Patrick's still a fucking hockey player. But, whatever, this was Patrick's idea, and his ideas are the best. He lets Tazer push him down so he's kneeling on the tile.
Tazer sucks in a sharp breath when Patrick unzips his jeans and takes out his dick. That's pretty satisfying. It's even better when Patrick gets his mouth around Johnny's dick and Johnny starts groaning like he's about to die. Patrick hasn't done this a lot, and he suspects he's not very good at it, what with the drool running down his chin and all, but a guy isn't usually going to complain about technique when he's getting his dick wet. Johnny seems to be no exception to this rule.
"Fuck, yeah," he grates out, staring down at Patrick, sliding his hand along Patrick's shoulder to cup the back of his head. "Take it."
Johnny is bossy as all fuck about pretty much everything, and apparently he never got that memo about proper blowjob etiquette, because he pushes Patrick down onto his cock, practically fucking his face. He's just lucky that Patrick gets off on that shit. A lot, actually. He presses the heel of his hand against his dick and relaxes his throat as much as he can and lets Johnny use him however he wants. It really is like porn. Johnny is the muscle-y, monosyllabic handyman, and Patrick is-well, not the bored housewife. Whatever. It's hot.
"Kaner," Johnny slurs out and presses his thumb at the corner of Patrick's mouth. "Fuck, I'm going to-"
Patrick pulls back, but not fast enough to avoid taking a hit of jizz to the face. Maybe he's more into that than he would have thought, because Johnny's not the only one coming.
"Get up here." Tazer hauls him to his feet.
For a moment Patrick thinks Johnny might kiss him. Instead his hands go to Patrick's fly, and then he freezes, staring in disbelief at the wet spot on the front of his jeans.
"Uh," Patrick says, very intelligently.
Tazer glares, yanks Patrick closer, and practically growls in his ear, "Next time you show your fucking gratitude, don't come before I get to touch you."
He lets Patrick go and stalks out of the room. A moment later Patrick hears him call out from the living room, "Mortal Kombat. Rematch. Get your ass in gear."
Yeah, so Patrick really should put on some pants that aren't stained with jizz and go school Johnny on how video games are actually played, but he's kind of stuck on the whole next time thing.
Of course now that there's the possibility of a next time floating out there, Patrick's apartment goes through a really inconvenient period of everything working exactly as it should. Meanwhile nothing is working right out on the ice. Patrick would worry that maybe the home-repair-slash-blowjob incident was messing up the dynamic between him and Tazer, but the whole team is sluggish and out of sync. They lose to the Islanders at home in a shootout and then get shut out by the Sabres. Patrick now has many reasons to be in a shitty mood.
Thankfully the plumbing in his apartment comes through for him, getting on board with team buddy-sex, offering up a leaking pipe beneath the kitchen sink. Once again he could call building maintenance, and he half expects Tazer to tell him so in the flat, unimpressed voice he uses whenever he thinks Patrick is being a fuck-up.
There's a long pause, and Patrick is making his peace with disappointment when Tazer says, "You're getting me tacos."
"Extra guacamole," Patrick quickly promises.
"And no-"
"American beer," Patrick finishes the sentence for him. "Yeah, yeah. Bring your wrench or whatever and get over here."
He's not actually expecting Tazer to show up with an entire toolbox, but there he is, filling Patrick's doorway, looking more like porn than ever with his collection of wrenches and his tight-stretched T-shirt that leaves nothing about his nipples to the imagination.
Tazer raises an eyebrow at him. "Are you going to let me in?"
"Are you going to get in here already?"
Tazer heavy-sighs in his direction and brushes past him, heading for the kitchen. Patrick hangs back, watching him go, imagining a tool belt riding those hips. Tazer would rock the shit out of a tool belt.
By the time Patrick joins him in the kitchen, Tazer is already hunkered down taking a look under the sink. This means more crouching, and Patrick takes a moment to think fondly of his fucked up plumbing even though it really shouldn't be fucked up at all considering how much money he paid for this place.
"Okay, I turned off the water, and I'm going to need to change your s-curve," Tazer says in that challenging way of his, as if he expects Patrick to argue with him.
"You can change my s-curve any time, baby," Patrick says, as you do. Although come to think of it…"You know I don't have one of those, right?"
Tazer rolls his eyes. "Says the person who doesn't own paperclips. I figured the s-curve was the problem. I picked up one on the way over."
Patrick's not going to examine why Johnny buying plumbing parts for him really gets him going. He's just going to be really glad that he's wearing a shirt that's way too big for him and hides the evidence.
"You should come over here and watch what I'm doing, so you can do it yourself next time."
"Yeah?" Patrick says, not budging. "Why would I want to do that when I have you?" He's close enough to enjoy the sight of Tazer showing the plumbing who's boss. That's good enough for him.
Tazer makes a face, but he doesn't go into lecture mode and he does stretch out his legs as he ducks under the sink giving Patrick a very nice view of his thighs. It's all completely awesome. Changing the s-curve is either easy or Johnny really is a prodigy with a pipe wrench, because the whole operation takes about thirty seconds. Johnny opens the valve to turn the water back on, and he runs the tap to test that the new s-curve is doing its thing. Underneath the cabinet stays nice and dry.
"Awesome, dude," Patrick tells him. "So you want me to-"
"Take your shirt off," Johnny orders, undoing his own belt, unzipping and pushing his jeans down over his hips.
Patrick was already half hard just watching Johnny manhandle that wrench and now-fuck. He throws off his shirt as fast as humanly possible, but apparently that's not fast enough. Johnny glares impatiently, hauls Patrick in, and presses him down to his knees, pushing his dick into his mouth. Patrick barely manages to control his gag reflex, but then fuck yeah he's got this. Johnny's thick and hot on his tongue, so good. Patrick may not have skills exactly, but he goes at it with a fuckton of enthusiasm.
Tazer sinks his fingers into Patrick's hair and pulls too hard, which is probably the least surprising thing that has ever happened to Patrick during sex. The filthy shit Tazer says about Patrick's mouth is far more eyebrow-raising, in a totally awesome way. Patrick has to wonder if Tazer was thinking about doing this during those underwear-clad workouts of his. Fuck, that's hot.
Patrick doesn't jizz in his pants when Johnny grabs him by the ears and comes in his mouth, but it's a close thing. He sits back on his heels and wipes his face with his hand. He's pretty sure he snorted come out his nose. Clearly he has work to do on that whole swallowing thing.
Johnny looms over him, red-faced and panting, eyes dark and a little crazy. Suddenly Patrick's cock is very emphatically reminding him that it needs some action. "You said you wanted-" Tazer yanks him to his feet before he can finish, pressing him back against the cabinets.
"I want," Johnny confirms, as if it wasn't obvious from the way he's tugging off Patrick's belt, pushing his jeans and underwear down his legs.
He knees Patrick's legs apart, spreading him wide, stroking his hand along Patrick's side and staring, totally getting off on the fact that he has Patrick butt naked and pressed up against the cabinets in his own kitchen.
"Fuck you." If Tazer doesn't do something soon, Patrick's going to-Tazer better fucking do something soon. As in now. Tazer roots around in the toolbox and comes up with a tube, and yeah, no.
"Don't even think about putting that industrial shit on my dick," Patrick warns him.
Johnny holds up the tube which turns out to be KY and makes a you're a dumbass face at him. And oh! That means Johnny showed up totally expecting-maybe Patrick is a dumbass if he's only figuring that out now. Johnny slicks up his palm and gets his hand around Patrick's cock. His grip is tight and slick, too tight really, but Patrick likes that there's a little edge to every stroke. He wants to feel completely worked over by Johnny.
"You like that." It's not a question, because Johnny is just smug like that. "You're going to like this too." He slips his other hand between Patrick's thighs, stroking slick fingers behind Patrick's balls, pressing his thumb against Patrick's hole.
Patrick sucks in a sharp breath. "Fuck."
He hasn't done this a lot, and the fingers have always been his own. It feels a lot better with Johnny doing it to him. Patrick presses down against Johnny's hand, trying to get more, and Johnny works a second finger into him. He's been staring at Patrick's mouth pretty much nonstop since they started. Patrick darts out his tongue and runs it over his lips. Tazer's eyes go darker, hotter.
Patrick huffs out, "Just fucking kiss me already, you fuck."
"Turn your fucking head so I can, dickface."
The second Patrick does, he has Johnny's lips on his, urgent and biting. Johnny's a fucking bossy kisser, big surprise, and even bigger surprise, Patrick fucking loves it. Johnny's grip on his dick gets faster and tighter, and he's twisting his fingers inside, and fuck, it's so-fuck. If two fingers feel this good, Patrick can only imagine how amazing Johnny's dick would-
"Fuck," he shouts out, spilling over Johnny's fist.
All he can manage afterward is to slump heavily against the counter. Whatever, he's holding up his own weight. That's a pretty fucking awesome achievement considering that Johnny just rocked his world like it's never been rocked before. The water is running in the tap, and he realizes that Johnny must be washing Patrick's come off him. Patrick would chirp him about ruining the after glow with his clean-freakiness, but that would take energy and a couple of functioning brain cells and the ability to form words, none of which Patrick has at the moment.
"Here." Johnny runs a warm, wet cloth over Patrick's belly. He hisses through his teeth when the cloth brushes his too-sensitive cock. "Sorry," Johnny tells him with a wince of sympathy. He nudges Patrick's legs apart and swipes the cloth between his thighs. It's almost more weirdly intimate than when Johnny was fingering him.
Johnny tosses the cloth into the sink. "So. Uh."
Yeah. That's probably Patrick's cue to hitch his pants back up. Zipping his fly takes more coordination than his post-orgasmic fingers can manage, so he fishes his shirt off the floor and pulls it on, tugging it down to cover his dick.
"Do you want-"
Johnny jerks his thumb in the vague direction of the door. "Yeah, I should probably-"
Go, Patrick realizes after his sluggish brain has had a moment to process. He'd thought they were talking about tacos. "Oh, yeah. Sure thing."
He walks Johnny to the door. Fuck, he hates to see that toolbox go.
"So." Johnny lingers at the door, and Patrick thinks maybe Johnny is going to kiss him again, but he doesn't. "See you at practice."
"Practice, yeah," Patrick repeats stupidly.
He spends a good hour after Johnny leaves trying to figure out how he could have had the hottest fucking sex of his life and still feel this disappointed. He doesn't make much headway on an answer.
The last thing Patrick wants is for shit to get weird between Johnny and him. Johnny is his teammate, his captain and his best friend, not necessarily in that order of importance. Shit getting weird between them would suck, like, on multiple fronts. But Patrick is feeling pretty weird about stuff all on his own, so he doesn't have much hope of shit staying normal when he sees Johnny again.
The locker room is half full when Patrick arrives next practice. Johnny is already there naturally. The day Patrick beats him to the arena will be the day the apocalypse starts. They nod to each other, and Johnny looks away. There's a tightness at the corners of his eyes, a pretty sure sign that weirdness has already set in. Patrick can't fix it right now, so he's just gotta to do his thing and hope that hockey makes everything better.
The weirdness doesn't follow them out on the ice at least, and practice goes fine. Patrick even manages a pass that actually makes Johnny smile-no easy thing, since Johnny's good-play smiles are the equivalent of gold stars handed out by the stingiest grade school teacher alive. As they're leaving the ice, Johnny bumps Patrick's shoulder, gives him another smile, the one that's just a small tug at the corner of his mouth and a warm, conspiratorial spark in his eyes. That smile he saves just for Patrick.
Maybe shit is about to get unweird. Patrick can only hope.
It seems promising that once they're finished dressing Johnny asks, "You want to get a beer?"
"When do I not want beer?" Patrick flashes his biggest smile.
They settle into a booth at the sports bar where they always go when they want a quiet drink. Tazer orders non-shitty non-American beers for them both, and Patrick lets him, but only so he won't have to hear Tazer's mouth about what crappy taste he has in booze. They drink and talk about the matchups for the upcoming Redwings game, and there's nothing weird about it at all. Patrick only has one wobbly moment when Johnny takes a sip of his beer and suddenly he's way too aware of Johnny's mouth, memories rushing back of how it felt, the wet heat of kissing him. Fucking stop it, he tells his brain, and for once it actually listens. Self-restraint: still a go.
They wander off of hockey and onto other topics, taking up their ongoing discussion-slash-chirping over what they might have done with their lives if they hadn't made it in the NHL. Patrick still insists he would have made a hell of a cowboy, and Johnny is an asshole for laughing at him.
"Well, we know you have fix-it skills you could have fallen back on," Patrick says. Or a career starring in handyman-banging-bored-housewife porn, but he keeps that part to himself. He is totally a paragon.
Tazer gives Patrick that little smile, the one that's only for him. "You think I fix things for just anybody?"
Patrick stares, with what he can only imagine is the stupidest expression in the whole long history of faces. Suddenly that too-warm feeling is back, rushing all through him. He may be working on his self-restraint, but he's still human.
When they leave, Johnny walks with him out to the parking lot and gives his shoulder a squeeze before they go their separate ways to their cars. He does that all the time, but the way he strokes his thumb along the edge of Patrick's T-shirt, just a brief touch that makes Patrick shiver all over, is new. It's another of those moments when he really thinks that Johnny might kiss him, and then Johnny doesn't. That is getting to be a thing. A thing that totally sucks.
Patrick goes home, feeling restless and out of sorts. He flops onto the sofa and watches a show about a guy who catches really terrifying fish. He thinks maybe it will be a kind of Tazer aversion therapy, but all it does is make him afraid to ever go swimming in a lake again.
When in doubt, try porn has always been his motto-and, okay, the motto of every twenty-something guy on the planet. He grabs his laptop and trolls the Internet, and the good news is that he is the lowest common denominator that porn is made for. It takes all of five seconds to find three movies with a handyman theme.
He starts up the first movie, a new tube of KY at hand, and he knows before anyone even flashes a dick that he's not into it. The guys are too twinky, and Patrick's more into-yeah, definitely not twinks. The next one has a bigger, dark-haired guy who is more Patrick's type and a curly-haired blonde with exuberantly bouncing tits. Patrick palms his dick, and it's feeling promising until the guy snakes the woman's drain, euphemism not intended, not at this point in the video anyway. His clumsy attempts at home repair look so feeble it totally spoils the mood. The third movie-yeah, just no.
Fine, so he's on his own. He shunts the computer onto the coffee table, stretches out and idly runs a hand along the length of his dick. He's not even going to try not to think about Johnny, because there's self-restraint, and then there's just setting yourself up for failure.
Pictures stream into his head, of Johnny being handy and Johnny being good at hockey, Johnny telling stories that are supposed to be about how annoying Patrick is but are actually stories about what a huge asshole Johnny can be. There's the way Johnny smiles, and how he hugs Patrick when they win the Cup, and yells at him to be better when they lose a game. There's Johnny fixing his coffeemaker, and Johnny making Patrick watch the shittiest movies in the world because he has the worst taste ever. There's Johnny just being Johnny and-Patrick comes with his eyes tightly closed, knowing that he is totally screwed.
He flops back against the cushions and stares up at the ceiling. So, yeah, that's less of a handyman kink then and more of a head-over-heels for Johnny thing. What the fuck is he supposed to do with that?
When he's gone three days and still hasn't figured out the answer and nothing else in his apartment has stopped working, he spends an hour on Google researching how to break the Keurig machine without looking completely obvious about it. He has to draw diagrams and practically do math, since the Internet is biased in favor of fixing stuff, and he has to reverse engineer the problem from the solution. Johnny had better fucking appreciate how hard he's worked on this.
"What do you mean it's broken again?" is the not-at-all-appreciative reaction he gets when he calls for help.
"Seriously? What part of 'broken again' do you not understand?"
There's a long, tired-sounding sigh in Patrick's ear. "I really don't want to do this anymore."
"Come on!" Patrick whines at him. "You're good at this shit. It's not going to take long or anything."
"That's not-" Johnny sighs again.
Patrick is totally not above fighting dirty. "Please."
"Fine," Johnny says, clipped. "But this is the last time."
He arrives with a shopping bag instead of the toolbox, silent and pissed looking, greeting Patrick with a curt nod before heading to the kitchen.
Patrick scrambles after him. "Um-" Usually he knows why Johnny's mad at him-generally because Johnny is screaming his reasons very loudly in Patrick's face-but he has no clue here. Weren't they just having a friendly beer a few days ago? Is fixing his damned Keurig machine really that big of an imposition?
Johnny sets the shopping bag down on the counter and pins a furious, betrayed look on Patrick. What the fuck ever? If he really didn't want to come, he could have said so.
But, whatever, he's here, so Patrick carries on. "Um, yeah, so the problem is-"
Johnny lifts a box out of the bag and thumps it down onto the counter. It's a new Keurig machine. "I don't give a shit what the problem is."
Patrick doesn't have a clue what to make of this plot twist, but he does know that Johnny is glaring at him as if daring him to argue.
"Okay," Patrick tells him.
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Johnny breaks his death glare and nods. "Good." He sounds sufficiently mollified, so when he strides over to Patrick and gets right up in his face, Patrick doesn't think a fist is going to follow. If Johnny wanted to hit him, he's pretty sure he'd wait until the off-season.
"You can be a real dumb ass, you know that?"
"Hey!" That's bullshit, and Patrick plans to tell him so, but before he can get a word out, Johnny is taking Patrick's face in his hands and kissing him. Wait. What?
Patrick kisses back distractedly. Johnny is really fucking confusing. Why was he so pissed? And how is he now over it? Also, what was that whole deal with the new Keurig? He could have just fixed the one Patrick had and then they could have-oh. Oh! Patrick feels the proverbial light bulb going off in his head. Johnny doesn't want to be Patrick's handyman-porn-cliché. He wants to be his-they can fill in that blank later. Right now Patrick needs to push up onto his toes and grab onto Johnny's shoulders and kiss the fuck out of him.
"You don't ever have to fix my Keurig machine again, and I really, really want you to fuck me."
Johnny groans and bites Patrick hard on the neck. "Get in the bedroom now."
Patrick throws off his clothes as soon as they make it to his room and leaves them in a heap on the floor like a normal guy who is about to have sex. Meanwhile Johnny has managed to take off all of one sock. For a dude who doesn't even know the definition of the word "neat," he is surprisingly prissy about his clothes.
"Oh my God, it's a T-shirt and jeans! You are seriously not going to fold that shit."
Johnny smirks at him. "If you want to this to go faster, get on the bed and spread your legs."
Fuck. If Johnny doesn't want Patrick thinking of him as porn then he's really going to have to stop talking like it. Still, that was a pretty good suggestion. Patrick scrambles onto the bed, sprawls out on his back, and opens his legs as wide as they'll go, giving Johnny a good look at what he's about to tap.
The rest of Johnny's clothes hit the floor in a hurry, about damned time, and he yanks open the nightstand drawer so hard the lamp nearly goes pitching onto the floor. "You better have stuff in here."
"It's as well stocked as the tool drawer," Patrick assures him.
This brings on a ferocious scowl that disappears as soon as Johnny lays hands on the condoms and lube. He kneels on the bed and stretches out over Patrick, making him take his weight. That's hot as shit, but Patrick wouldn't be himself if he didn't complain, "Do you know how fucking heavy you are?"
Johnny wouldn't be Johnny if he didn't snap back, "Just fucking take it,"
Yeah, Patrick is in love with an asshole. But he's an asshole who touches Patrick's cheek sweetly and lays these kisses on him like he's trying to woo him or whatever. As if Patrick isn't naked and hard and under him, ready to take it whenever Johnny decides to give it to him. Patrick tangles his legs with Johnny's and rubs against him and melts into the kisses. He could maybe get used to Johnny wooing him.
"Have you-" Johnny runs his hand up the inside of Patrick's thigh.
Patrick shakes his head. "Just fingers, yours and mine."
A strangled sound comes spilling out of Johnny, and his grip tightens on Patrick's thigh. Clearly he is not unmoved at the prospect of taking Patrick's ass cherry.
Patrick waggles his eyebrows. "So we gonna do this thing?"
Johnny answers by snatching up the lube, slicking his fingers, and pushing two of them into Patrick.
"Fuck," Patrick hisses.
"You can take it," Johnny tells him like the bossy asshole he is.
"Fucking-a I can." Patrick grinds down onto his hand to show him who he's dealing with.
There's a third finger, and some twisting, and a lot of rubbing at his prostate that drives Patrick half insane. "Just fucking fuck me already!"
Johnny suits up and slicks up and pushes in, and then he goes still, hissing out, "Fuck, you're so fucking tight."
Patrick digs a heel into his back. "Less talking about my virgin ass and more-" Johnny fucks up into him. "Shit! Yeah. More of that."
Johnny doesn't take it easy on him, because he never does. He does, though, crane his neck at an uncomfortable-looking angle to kiss Patrick and keeps stroking his hands over Patrick's hips, telling him, "Yeah, yeah, so good. You're so good."
It's the perfect blend of filthy and sweet, and Patrick isn't even going to have to wait for something to break before he gets to do it again. He squinches up his eyes, jerks his dick, babbles out profanity, and comes. It takes Johnny just a few more thrusts before he comes too and flops on top of Patrick. He seriously is heavy, but Patrick is too fucked out to make him move.
Eventually Johnny gets off him, pads into the bathroom and comes back with a washcloth. He's careful not to touch Patrick's dick this time. Johnny is going to make an awesome boyfriend.
Johnny slips into bed and slides his arm beneath Patrick's shoulder, tugging. Patrick goes easily, curling against him.
"Mm," he murmurs, eyes already falling closed. "If you stay, I'll show you my gratitude for the new Keurig machine in the morning."
It's a joke, totally a joke, but he can feel Johnny go weird and tense. There's a long pause. "How about you never say the word 'gratitude' to me again, I stay because we both want me to, you stop breaking your stuff, and tomorrow night I take you out to dinner and when we get home you fuck me?" Johnny sounds completely exasperated that Patrick is such a dumb shit that he has to say these things out loud in actual words.
He's kind of adorable.
Patrick leans in to kiss him. "Okay."
He settles down with his head on Johnny's shoulder, and it occurs to him that he has been a dumb shit about some stuff. Like he's pretty sure now that they were never actually playing gay sex chicken. That was Johnny coming on to him in his completely roundabout way, waiting for Patrick to get the message and do something about it. That friendly beer and shoulder squeeze-well, apparently that had been Johnny's way of declaring himself.
Whatever, Patrick may have been slow at figuring things out, but he's totally on board now. He can already picture it: Johnny taking him on hilariously earnest dates and waking up with him in the mornings and fixing the coffeemaker when it breaks because Patrick knows he totally will.
"I win," he declares.
"Yeah?" Johnny says skeptically. "At what exactly?"
Patrick smiles. "Life."
NOTE: I feel like I need to add in defense of Keurig machines that I love mine and it has never given me any problems. :)