runphoebe

Established Relationship | Set after Patrick’s elbow to the face + early practice exit

—

When Jonny’s finally, thankfully free, he calls upon a decade of learned tendencies and finds Patrick in the first place he looks: Inside the quieter, more private trainer’s room, lying on the lone treatment table with his eyes closed. His gear is long gone, only skin-tight Under Armour left behind, and the lights are low.

He’s very mindful about his recovery time, likes to unwind in peace, at his own pace; and Patrick does look peaceful apart from his usual fidgeting fingers, picking at his already bitten-to-hell cuticles, tapping an indiscernible pattern against his ribcage. He’s waiting for the twelve o’clock massage he gets on any and every second consecutive practice day in Chicago. It’s a relief to see him following his normal routine, and Jonny can’t trust himself not to, so he shuts the door when he steps through it, throws the deadbolt securely in place with an audible clack of metal.

“Mmmm, Paulie never locks the door,” Patrick notes, a curious smile in his voice that tugs at the corner of his mouth. His eyes never open. Whether it’s the result of his usual commitment to mystery and nonchalance or a headache, Jonny doesn’t know.

Please. Don’t be a headache.

“S’not Paulie,” Jonny confirms, scanning Patrick’s face for evidence of an elbowing—a cut on his cheek, a bruise on his chin, a mark on his forehead. He didn’t see Patrick go down in practice, but once he learned what happened, it was all he could think about. Not seeing it himself almost made it worse, giving his mind room to wander around and think too hard about how bad their collective luck’s been lately. Jeremy couldn’t shut up fast enough; Jonny couldn’t get changed to get to him fast enough.

“If you’re here to check on me, just know you’re coming up third overall once again,” Patrick informs him, his smile turning smug at his own chirps, per usual. “And if you’re here to get worked on, me first.”

It’s certainly not the first time he’s heard a riff on that zinger, but Jonny huffs a genuine laugh anyway, perfectly content to play along if Patrick’s feeling well enough to dish it out. More relief floods him, mixing with everything else that comes with being alone with Patrick, drawing Jonny in, always closer. He sits on the edge of the table at Patrick’s hip, thigh pressed close to his side, and places one hand over Patrick’s where they rest on his stomach. His eyes slowly blink open to meet Jonny’s, heavy-lidded and beautiful and so blue.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jonny starts, “If I’d gone higher, just think how lost you’d’ve been without me all these years.”

“You should’ve gone higher,” Patrick answers, defensiveness instantly washing over his previously teasing tone. Then, with quiet sincerity as he tangles their fingers together, squeezing Jonny’s hand in both of his, “Obviously can’t say I’m not glad you didn’t.”

“Blue’s more your color, anyway,” Jonny smirks, winking at him, and before Patrick can hop on his usual soapbox about how the St. Louis and Team USA jersey blues are not created equal, as he likes to preach, Jonny asks, “Who else came to check on you?”

“Guess,” Patrick prompts, playing with Jonny’s fingers now instead wreaking havoc on his own.

“Well, your mom, obviously,” Jonny says automatically, as if that wasn’t a tap in, “And…uh—”

He doesn’t think he saw Sharpy around or anything, so Jonny can’t figure out why he’s making a thing out of it.

“My mom, obviously, aaand…?” Patrick coaxes, his smile growing too wide and too pleased, giving way for realization to hit.

“Oh, no,” Jonny groans. “Not my mom, eh?”

“Oh, yes,” Patrick says, delighted. “Because I’m her favorite.”

“Not a chance in hell, bud,” Jonny refutes with a laugh, unable to subdue the ridiculously indulgent smile he knows to be taking over his face. “That’s where I’m first overall, and you’re like, a second-rounder.”

“Bullshit,” Patrick argues, “I’m inside the top ten, at least! She calls me like, every day!”

“Yeah,” Jonny deadpans, “Because she’s looking for me and knows you’ll always answer her on the first fucking try.”

“Exactly, and she appreciates me for being reliable, Jonathan,” Patrick says, pointedly, “Since her quote, unquote ‘first overall son’ leaves her on read all the time.”

Jonny rolls his eyes. The subject’s... touchy, and Patrick knows it. “We can’t all be about the every night Skype sessions.”

“Every night? Come on,” Patrick says, emphasizing each word with a new level of pouty, faux outrage that Jonny would dare, as if it’s not basically true. “It hasn’t been that bad since rookies, and nobody even fucking uses Skype anymore. It’s called FaceTime, old man.”

“Jesus, whaateever,” Jonny grumbles, “Fuck, at least I know you’re not concussed if your head’s this far up my ass about calling my mom, who—by the way, in case you haven’t noticed—has been staying at my apartment for over a fucking week now.”

Jonny moves to stand, mildly irritated now, and Patrick sits up halfway, grasping at his arm to stop him— “Wait, wait, no, no, no. You came in here to be nice to me, remember?” He spreads his hand wide across Jonny’s thigh, grips the inside of it to hold him where he’s perched on the edge of the table. Patrick gives him what Jonny knows to be his best, most alluring smile. Unfair. “Let’s get back to where that part was going. You locked the door and everything.”

It’s Jonny’s turn to pout a little now, and he’s going to cash in. “Yeah, I sure did, and look where it got me.”

“It’s all about the next play, baby,” Patrick whispers, his other hand trailing up Jonny’s forearm to his bicep, then to the middle of his chest to grip his shirt. He pulls, just a little, to see if Jonny will give. Jonny does, just a little, to see if Patrick will pull harder. At the end of it, only a fraction of an inch remains between them. “Look where it’s got you now, eh?”

Jonny gives in with a barely-there brush of lips, then a real kiss, long and slow and filthy deep, little bite left over from before. It’s so easy, all the fucking time, to get distracted by how completely he wants him. Even when Patrick’s being a pushy little shit, it never outweighs that ache, that need to scratch the ceaseless itch that only Patrick can get to just right.

“You’re really okay?” Jonny asks between kisses and breaths that grow more intense with each one, too affected for the space and position they’re in. He cradles Patrick’s face in his hand, lets the other roam Patrick’s body, sliding over the stretchy fabric that hugs him perfectly, obscenely in all the right places. Jonny can count every superficial muscle in his abdomen, can see the outline of his dick where it stiffens between his legs. “Where’d he get you? I didn’t see.”

“Chin,” Patrick says on a muted gasp when Jonny touches him, a light, teasing trace of fingers along the length of him before sparing him and taking them elsewhere. Patrick swallows audibly, his voice shaky when he continues, “They checked me out. Everything’s good. I’m good—” as if Jonny eased up because he thought Patrick was too injured to fool around and not because they’re in the trainer’s room at Fifth fucking Third.

Maybe it’s already too late for easing up. It makes Jonny flush hot all over that Patrick’s wound up, too, to feel his arms wrap tightly around his neck and bring them even closer. Jonny rests their foreheads together, breathing him in, then letting it out, brushing his thumb gently over Patrick’s chin. He murmurs against his mouth, “I’m very glad to hear that.”

“Why are you doing this to me when Paulie’s coming any minute?” Patrick asks, with no real suggestion in his voice that he actually wants Jonny to stop. “I have a fucking boner, and Paulie doesn’t give happy-enders.”

“Maybe I do, though, huh?” Jonny shrugs, kissing the corner of his mouth, along his jaw and down his neck. “Tell Paulie to get lost.”

“Oh, yeah, maybe you do, though, huh?” Patrick repeats, slightly mocking, a challenge in his voice even as he clutches his fists in the shirt at Jonny’s back. “Think you can do my massage as good as Paulie?”

“How many times I gotta say it, Peeks?” Jonny asks, smiling into Patrick’s skin, warm and flushed against his lips. He lets his hand venture between Patrick’s legs again, circling his thumb over the head of Patrick’s dick through his pants. Patrick moans in his ear, and Jonny’s smile spreads wider, pleased to finish his thought before he sets about finishing off Patrick—

“I know what the fuck you like.”

“Yeahhh, you do, baby,” Patrick encourages, pulling Jonny’s mouth back to his. “Lemme see.”

so i wrote a ficlet ayyyyy. it may be 2 days late but it still counts.

***********

There are only so many places in this building.

Jonny pokes his head into the massage room, takes in a quick sweep of its emptiness and dips back out.

He’s half annoyed by now, sweating underneath his toque and ready to get the fuck out of here, but he knows if he doesn’t find Patrick he won’t see him until the game, and probably not after either.

When Jonny asks, none of the kids know where he went. He’s not down being a diva about his equipment, he’s not on the bikes, not seeing the trainers, he’s not getting food—though Shawzy is and that’s a minimum twenty minute holdup Jonny just barely manages to avoid.

The texts Jonny fired off after getting away from the cameras earlier remain unanswered when he checks his phone, and it’s possible, he thinks, with an unpleasant dip in his stomach, that Patrick just…left.

So, this is not 1) any of the fics i have started after asking for prompts, or 2) what i am supposed to be writing for halloween, but it is a tiny fic thing i half chatficced at @allthebros and finished just now. this brought to you by my viewing of jonathan toews being the stupidly rambunctious idiot he is at practice and by the fact that he leaves kaner alone…even though he does not Leave him. like ever.

***

I keep picturing this scene in my head—Jonny and Patrick going home from practice or something, Patrick driving, and even though it’s not new that they’re sleeping together, it’s a little bit of a new relationship, still lots of uncertainties and awkwardness, and he casually asks Jonny why he never tries to hold his hand or anything like that

And Jonny ofc looks over like 😐

But Patrick has said it so now he’s committed and he shrugs, nods, gestures at Jonny like well?

And Jonny’s like “What? You wanna stroll out of the rink with our fingers laced?”

And Patrick makes a sound like that’s a completely ridiculous assumption to make of his meaning, says, “Not—like that.” He’s a picture of collected calm with the inside of his wrist propped on top of the steering wheel, his left arm hanging half outside the open window, but his voice is a little flustered. “Like—even here. Somewhere like right now. Or not even that, doesn’t have to be that. Like, just touching.”

“Touching?”

“Yeah—like. Touching.”

“Do we not…touch?”

Patrick opens his mouth to answer, then doesn’t right away. Stares ahead at the road and feels, intensely, the way Jonny’s looking at him. “Yeah, we do. Just—“ His left turn is a little sharper than he wants it to be. “I don’t know. You touch everyone else a lot. I just thought, like—it’s surprising is all. That you don’t really with me. Even now.”

And Jonny finally looks away, stares out of the windshield too, lips curling in over his teeth until he gives a careful, “I touch you.”

Patrick is very quick with the, “I know,” and makes another left. “I know you touch me. I know we touch. I’m not saying—that.”

“Okay…”

“I’m saying it’s not as much as I imagined it would be.”

It is the *barest* confession, considering the nightly orgasms and going home together, but it still makes them both quiet a long moment, just listening to the cars outside Patrick’s window, until Jonny says, “You imagined it?” like Patrick knew he would.

He makes another sound, not quite a scoff but something along those lines, then briefly meets Jonny’s eyes, kind of soft, says, “I just know you, Jon,” like Jonny is stupid. “I thought in a relationship you’d be, like…come on.”

“Like what?”

"Like fucking—all over me, or—I don’t know. You were hanging off Seabsie today, you know what I mean.”

Jonny’s face goes very flat, completely turned in Patrick’s direction. “Are you telling me you’re jealous of Seabs, Patrick?”

Patrick actually laughs out loud, gives the car in front of them a look of amazed hilarity. “No, Jonny, I am not jealous of anyone. Believe me.”

He takes the silence he gets after that as his cue to continue.

“What i’m saying is that you just—you hang off the guys and shit. You’re always plowing into people, or even just—you’re always close. I thought if we ever got together you’d be like that. I’m surprised that you’re not, that’s all I’m saying.”

They fall into a moment of quiet again, Jonny reaching to mess with one of the air vents even though the A/C isn’t on. “You think I don’t know you, too?” he says eventually with this weird half smile.

Patrick only spares him another brief glance, eyes ahead. “And that’s supposed to mean…?”

“You hate that shit, Pat!” Jonny turns in his seat to fully face Patrick, seemingly for the long haul now. “You turn into the pissiest little baby if you’re nudged too hard.”

“Okay!” Patrick agrees when Jonny won’t even blink. “Yes. But that is not the same as—holding my hand or whatever the fuck you’d want to do.”

“It’s green,” Jonny says, and when Patrick accelerates, annoyed about it, he waits all the way until the next light before he goes on, quiet, “I didn’t…think you’d like that either.”

Patrick doesn’t know why that makes him feel any kind of way, but his stomach goes tight and weird and god, he hates this motherfucker. “Getting jumped on from behind by a guy with twenty pounds on me is not the same as like—sitting in my lap or something.”

“Patrick, you don’t even like hugs sometimes.”

Patrick sighs, sniffs, rubs thoroughly at his nose, and says, “One—I’m not that bad, and two…it’s different if it’s you.”

Jonny immediately goes back to playing with the air vent, squints like he’s trying to figure out what’s (not) wrong with it, and also suddenly looks like he’s trying real hard not to seem pleased. “You’ve gotten pissy with me before.”

“Yeah.” Patrick gives a low laugh. “This is not permission to fucking kamikaze me into the boards.”

Jonny turns his head like he’s about to argue that he’s not that bad either, but decides against it and instead says, “You could’ve done it if you wanted to too.”

“What?”

“You could’ve held my hand.”

Patrick does not know why hand holding was the example he started this with, he feels fourteen. Also, Jonny doesn’t need to know how long he’s been wondering at the lack of Jonny-like contact. “Wouldn’t want to steal your thing from you.”

And Jonny’s still really failing at not looking pleased. “Waiting on me to get it done,” he says. “Typical.”

Patrick snorts, makes their last turn before his building. “We don’t have time to list all the ways in which that’s wrong.”

“Why, you got somewhere to be?”

“Yeah, skate tomorrow.”

Jonny laughs and it’s so indulgent and happy Patrick’s stomach goes weird again, and he can’t look at him until they’re pulling in to park, until they’ve climbed out of the car and slung bags over their shoulders to go inside.

Jonny lets his arm swing close to Patrick’s while they walk, and Patrick knows what he’s doing before he does it, rolls his eyes and hides his grin when he feels Jonny’s pinky finger brush up against the side of his hand.

He only does it the once, then speeds his stride to cut in front of Patrick and turn around so he’s walking backwards. “Gotta make sure we take it slow and steady, Peeks,” he says. “I don’t wanna overwhelm your senses.”

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