fic: Things That Don't Exist (6/?)
Part 1 http://ice-hot-13.livejournal.com/12295.html
Part 2 http://ice-hot-13.livejournal.com/12098.html
Part 3 http://ice-hot-13.livejournal.com/12013.html
Part 4 http://ice-hot-13.livejournal.com/11654.html
Part 5 http://ice-hot-13.livejournal.com/12764.html
Hi everyone! Thanks for being so patient in waiting for this :)
Sidenote, I hadn’t realized Brent is only twenty-six. Like, seriously?! I’m actually really surprised.
(another sidenote, upon finding that out, I was all ‘well, it must be because I’m used to the guys I’m a fan of being like, thirty. So I glanced at the Canucks roster, and Kesler is only 27?! I have no idea why my idea of ages are so distorted)
(also, 27?! He has a kid! A lot of them have kids, and they’re not as old as I thought they were! Holy fuck am I going to have a family in only like six years!?!?!?)
Um, I feel old now. And terrified.
That being said, happy reading!
0o0o0o0o0o
Duncan isn’t a fan of his new apartment. He’d taken the first thing he could find near the rink, because staying hadn’t been an option. I’m sorry, he’d told Kelly, and she hadn’t believed him. She’d never been able to tell when he was lying, because she believed every I love you, and doesn’t believe that he hates himself for dragging her along with him, in the stupid, reckless plan he’d had to dare Brent into wanting him, this plan Brent probably wasn’t even remotely aware of.
He’s been trying to talk to Brent since March, and it’s May. Duncan hasn’t seen him, has barely even heard from him. Brent doesn’t answer his phone, and all of Duncan’s texts asking him if he’s okay are answered with yea im ok and nothing more. Duncan’s used to knowing everything, and this, having a wall thrown up between him and Brent, something Brent put there, feels wrong.
What’s going on? he texts Brent again, please tell me. An hour later, he receives nothing im fine dont worry, which doesn’t tell him anything at all. He can’t tell anything.
He used to know everything, he’d thought. Maybe this is just proof that there never was a time where he knew everything about Brent.
Practice is a welcome distraction, if not a particularly effective one. Duncan doesn’t know what to do, and having to be on the ice without Brent only makes it even more obvious, that something’s gone wrong. His passes falter and his timing’s a few seconds off, but the coach doesn’t reprimand him. Duncan catches the coach watching him once, but all he sees is something like sympathy.
The locker room’s atmosphere is slightly, almost imperceptibly, off. Hossa is intently trying to explain to Sharpie just why a Porsche SUV is morally wrong, Corey is gesturing wildly in an attempt to make Ray understand what he means by being inside-backwards-out by the goal, Jimmy is trying to tape Nick to his locker. At the same time, Patrick’s slowly dressing in silence, and Jonny’s alone, and Brent isn’t here at all. Duncan forces himself to look away from Brent’s locker, trying to ignore the thoughts of maybe I can’t fix this, and instead goes to corner Patrick.
“Hey,” he says casually, and Patrick looks at him suspiciously. Duncan tends to look at him as a kid, but every now and then, he gets a reminder that Patrick is smart. He’s calculated Duncan’s next move before Duncan himself has. I think he just pretends he’s not so that he can use people’s surprise to his advantage on the ice, Jonny once said, when Duncan had raised an eyebrow at Jonny’s admission that Patrick was close to brilliant, which just goes to prove…
“Hi,” Patrick sounds guarded, but that’s nothing new now. He’s not smiling much, either, which has also become normal.
“Pat… you’ve seen Seabs recently, right?” he hears the pleading in his own voice, but can’t do much to rein it in.
“A little while ago.” Patrick shrugs. “I dunno, a week or something?”
“Is he… okay?”
“I… I think so,” Patrick doesn’t look up at him, just stares down at the floor before the bench. “I’m not really sure. Probably, though,” he throws in, looking up. Duncan sighs.
“Anyhow. Wanna do me a favour?” This makes Patrick grin, and for a second, Duncan’s back to the first half of the season, back when everything was okay.
“No.”
“Too bad. I need help moving a couple chairs into my place tomorrow.”
“Hm.” Patrick leans back to look at him, thoughtful look on his face. “I have very strict working conditions. Ten minutes at a time, with an hour break. Plus four coffee breaks.” Duncan rolls his eyes.
“Lazyass.”
Patrick just grins, even though it fades as soon as Duncan’s walked away. Maybe this is it, Duncan thinks, this is all they’ll ever see of the way things used to be, just brief snatches that are more painful than anything else, because all they do is show how wrong things are now.
0o0o0o0o
Duncan’s at the top of a flight of stairs, waiting for Patrick to join him; more accurately, he’s sitting in the chair he dragged up the stairs, watching Patrick try to shove an armchair up the stairs.
“You couldn’t pick something lighter?!” Patrick pushes his shoulder against the back of the chair, and it moves up a step. “You don’t have an elevator!”
“It’s not that far.”
“Three floors, fucker!” Patrick huffs, managing another few stairs. “And your chair was lighter!”
“Maybe you’re just weaker than me.”
“As if!”
Duncan just laughs, and goes to help Patrick. He pulls the chair up the last stairs easily, Patrick glaring from below.
“You could have told me that pulling is easier than pushing!” he climbs the stairs, and makes a face at Duncan. “You’re lucky you only got two chairs.”
“So is that a no on helping me with the couch?”
“Hi-larious!” Patrick grabs the lighter chair, and drags it into Duncan’s apartment. Once they’ve added the chairs to the sparsely furnished living room, Patrick sets about finding Duncan’s Xbox controllers. “So what, did you decide that shelves were too prissy and that hiding shit is the way to go?” Patrick gripes from the floor, where he’s sprawled out so he can look under the couch, as Duncan looks behind it.
“So I’m not that organised.”
“No shit!” Patrick crawls away from the couch, going to dig through a box sitting abandoned on the floor. Duncan sits back on the couch, watches him for a second. Patrick’s muttering about the lack of organisation; spending so much time with Jonny must have re-aligned his idea of what is a normal level of organisation.
“Hey, Kaner,” Duncan tosses out, and Patrick glances up momentarily. “how come you’re still married to Jonny?” This makes Patrick freeze, although he looks more caught off guard by the timing, and less by the question itself, because his answer is obviously rehearsed.
“The paperwork is a hassle,” he replies, ducking his head to search through the box again.
“No, it’s not.”
“It is too!” Patrick snaps, glowering at him. “You have to… uh… fill out… stuff… and… and file things… and…”
“Patrick,” Duncan says softly, and Pat’s shoulders slump slightly. “Can you talk to Jon?”
“Why?” Patrick shoots back, too quickly.
“Tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“Tell him anything,” Duncan softens his tone even more, and the guarded look on Patrick’s face eases somewhat.
“I guess,” he says.
They head to practice together, Duncan insisting on driving because Patrick is terrible at it. Patrick’s quiet the whole way there, not even commenting on how early they are once they arrive. The rink is still fairly quiet, few players there yet. Duncan hears a few voices from the coach’s office, but when they get to the locker room, Jonny is the only one there, standing by his locker, taping his stick. Jonny glances up briefly, and back down again when he sees it’s them.
Then, in the most Patrick-like thing he’s done in a long time, Patrick all-but tackles Jonny against the locker, hugging him hard.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, so softly Duncan can barely hear him across the empty room, “please, Jonny, I’m sorry. We can - we can do all the paperwork and stuff if you want to -” his voice is muffled against Jonny’s shirt, and Jonny wraps his arms around him tightly, ducking his head. “Whatever you want, I just, I want you back, any way I can have you.”
“Patty,” Jonny says, that weirdly deep voice of his breaking it into jagged pieces, “I’m sorry.” Patrick draws back at this, and Jonny looks away. “I shouldn’t have ruined everything like this,” Jonny says, “I just… put off reversing it, because I hoped… it’s stupid, I know… that somehow it’d work out, and we could just stay…”
“Really?!” Patrick bursts out, and he sounds so much like himself now. Jonny wilts a little, misunderstanding, but Patrick surges forward and kisses him.
Duncan leaves the locker room, assured that everything is going to work out fine. It’s not a feeling he’s familiar with.
0o0o0o0o0o
Part 7 hopefully coming soon!
I turn twenty in 38 days! WHEN THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN?!
Part 1 http://ice-hot-13.livejournal.com/12295.html
Part 2 http://ice-hot-13.livejournal.com/12098.html
Part 3 http://ice-hot-13.livejournal.com/12013.html
Part 4 http://ice-hot-13.livejournal.com/11654.html
Part 5 http://ice-hot-13.livejournal.com/12764.html