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"Rockit tonight boys?" Patrick calls out above the noise in the locker room. He's met with a rousing round of 'hell yeah's' from various guys in the room. They played a great game tonight against the Blues. Passes lined up like they were blessed from the hockey gods, goals were scored against impossible odds and Patrick had finally managed to break his scoring drought. He's high on life and hockey strutting around the room, mega watt grin and party boy swagger fully in place.
"We have an early flight tomorrow." Johnny says, tone and face both disapproving. He's angry. Angry at himself and maybe just a bit mad at Patrick. But then, lately that's been his stand-by setting. He'd gone into the game angry and frustrated. He'd been so angry that he'd thrown down gloves and gotten himself a stint in the box and a fighting minor. All over some stupid fucking comment made by Backes.
"Yeah, I know Johnny." Patrick spits, excitement dropping. Sharpy sees the on coming argument and trys to head it off.
"Capitan Serious, tonight is a night for celebration! Peeks here broke his drought with a fucking hat trick! We must celebrate!" He crows, wrapping an arm around Patrick's shoulders, shaking him.
"Whatever. I'm going home." He mutters slamming the rest of his gear off and into his locker. They were supposed to talk tonight. To figure out what's been going on between them. Now Patrick's making plans to go out and party, again. Fucking Patrick and his inability to keep on task.
Patrick is considerably quieter afterward, going back to his own stall to finish undressing and get ready to go out. He knows what Johnny's pissed about, well at least part of it. He just doesn’t want to deal with it. Doesn’t want to deal with it tonight, or tomorrow, or ever really. He doesn’t want things to change, he doesn’t want to face things at all.
"Don't worry about Cap'n Wet Blanket Peeks, tonight Is going to be awesome!" Sharpy says a while later after Johnny has slammed out of the locker room. The ecstatic mood had been brought down by Johnny's bad attitude and a disapproving stares.
"I always worry about him man." Patrick murmurs loud enough for only Sharpy to hear.
"I know Peeks." Sharpy says, sad smile on his face. "Now cheer the hell up tonight is a night for drunken happy Peeks, not sad mopey Peeks."
"Yeah, yeah." Patrick says, smiling. Throwing on his jacket, he tosses one last sad look at Johnny's empty stall then follows Sharpy out of the locker room.
"First rounds on me!" Sharpy calls out, and is met with a chorus of cheers.
***
"Fucking Backes." He yells to his TV as he watches the replay of his on ice fight with the Blue. He remembers the words that were said that led up to the fight and gets mad at himself all over again. The line up for the face off had started off normally, the normal round of chirping. And then he'd gone and said something about Patrick, and Johnny had lost it.
"Maybe I'll take my turn with Kane in Sochi." He'd said, a huge douche grin on his face and Johnny had thrown down his stick and gloves right then and punched him in the throat. That was the only good hit he'd gotten in. The rest of the fight was a jersey grabbing tumble that was pathetic and made even worse by the fact that Backes wasn't even really trying. Backes had grinned triumphantly at him the entire time they'd been in the box.
Thankfully his team had been able to pull it together and Patrick especially had played well. Scoring his first goal while Johnny had been sitting in the box. After Johnny had gotten back on the ice he'd played like a man possessed. While he didn't throw down with Backes again, he wanted to. Every time he saw Backes flick his eyes over at Patrick, he wanted to rip his eyes from his sockets.
Watching as they replay the fight yet again, he turns off his TV disgusted and throws his remote across the room. Going about his normal bed time routine his thoughts drift inevitably to Patrick. Wondering what he's doing right now, how many drinks he's already had. How many women or maybe even men he's thrown himself at. Wonders if right now he's on his way back to someone's place, or even worse they're headed to his place.
He crawls into bed starring out into the Chicago night, disgusted with himself at how much he already misses Patrick. Sighing heavily he rolls toward the other side of the bed, grabbing the other pillow and clutching it to his chest. He lays there thinking about how much he hates not knowing what Patrick's doing.
***
"Okay Peek's I think you've had enough." Sharpy says, snatching the mostly full glass from Patrick's hands.
"But Sharpy." Patrick whines, not even noticing when the stacked brunette he'd been talking to beelines it away from the drunk blonde.
"No but Sharpy anything. Johnny's ears must be on fire with as much as you've been crying about him." Sharpy says, guiding Patrick back to the table the team had claimed.
"I'm not crying! I haven't cried! See this face? This is not the face of a crier of Johnny stupidface Toews. Fuck." Patrick defends drunkenly, attempting to gesture at his own face, he jabs himself in the eye.
"No but it is the face of someone who has been waxing poetically on Johnny's everything for the last thirty minutes." Sharpy says, sitting Patrick down into a chair next to Duncs.
"Well he plays beautiful hockey, even if his face is stupid." Patrick grumbles. Duncs nods empathetically, lowering a hand commiserating hand onto his shoulder, and squeezing lightly.
"He does play beautiful hockey." Seabs says nodding gravely.
"Okay Peeks, it's time to talk." Sharpy says, reneging on his earlier decision to cut Patrick off. Sharpy hands him his drink back.
"Talk about what?" Patrick asks, coming out of a hockeyJohnny haze.
"You and Tazer, that's what." Sharpy says, taking a swig of his beer. Flagging down a waitress he orders another round.
"There's nothing to talk about." Patrick says, going stiff, and talk a large swallow from his own drink.
"Man what ever is between you and Tazer is the proverbial elephant in the room. What ever it is you can talk to us Peeks." Sharpy says, leveling his best fatherly 'I know all, see all' look at Patrick
"No see that's the problem. There is nothing, well there's something but its nothing, and that’s the problem." Patrick says sadly, shoulders slumping.
"So what I'm gathering from this is that you and Tazer have pulled your collective heads out of your asses and realized you want to bone each other but one or both of you think the other only wants boning?" Seabs asks, gesturing absently with his bottle.
"No! Yes. Maybe. Me and Johnny we. We've been kind of sleeping together occasionally. It's always when we're drunk and we've struck out, out on road trips, but sometimes here at home too." Patrick says quietly into his now empty drink.
"How long Peeks?" Sharpy asks, placing another beer in front of him.
"About a year now." There's a collective intake of breath from the guys at the table.
"Damn Peeks, that long?" Duncs asks, his tone belying his hurt.
"Yeah. It just kind of happened one night. We'd played the Blues and we went out. It was the night Johnny got so wasted he tripped into the table and fell on it. He was pissed off with embarrassment or some shit and was being bitchy. I guess I wasn’t opening the door fast enough or doing it right or something, he got all pushy and in my face. We started shoving each other and then one thing led to another." Patrick says, picking at the label of the sweaty beer.
"What happened the next morning?" Seabs asks, after a moment of silence.
"Nothing. We didn’t talk about it. Fuck man we didn’t even look at each other until the flight home the next day. I figured that was it you know. That it happened and he hated it or didn’t like it or me or fuck I dunno. I just figured that was the end of it." Patrick says taking a swig of his beer, then rocking it softly back and forth between his hands.
"Did you ever, uh, talk about it?" Duncs asks, his tone full of consternation.
"No. We still haven't talked about it. That's why Johnny was so pissed at me tonight. He wants to talk about it." Patrick admits, downing the rest of the beer, slamming the empty back onto the table.
"Oh." Both Duncs and Seabs say knowingly.
"You said it's been going on for a year now, how did it come up again?" Sharpy asks, handing Patrick another beer.
"Another night out, another bad game, another morning of avoiding it." Patrick says, starring dejectedly at his hands.
"So in all this time, you two have never, not even once talked about things? Spare me the dirty details but what happens, you know afterward?" Sharpy asks, almost hesitant. He may want to get down to the bottom of the problem but there are definitely things he does not want to know about his Capitan.
"If we're out on the road, one of us will go over to the other bed. At home it's a little more, complicated. If I'm over at his place I stick around as long as I can, and leave sometime before the sun rises. If we're at my place he usually sticks around for a bit then heads off to my guest room or goes home." Patrick says, his eyes never leaving his hands.
"Okay, so why does Johnny want to talk about it now?" Sharpy asks, brow furrowed.
"Because I maybe might have done something the last time we hooked up. I've been avoiding him since then. He cornered me before the game and said we were going to talk about it tonight." Patrick says meeting Sharpy's eyes, the first time he's looked up since the conversation began.
"What'd you do Pat?" Duncs asks quietly. Patrick drops his eyes back down to his beer.
"I stayed. I didn’t go home. I just stayed there all night. It was an accident, I was so tired. After, I just passed the fuck out. When we woke up he was all twisted around me. I just laid there for a while. I just wanted a little more you know. I mean he's the only person I've been with in the last year. I just wanted a little bit more." Patrick says, his voice breaking on the last word.
"What happened when he woke up?" Sharpy asks, his face going tight.
"Uh, right before he woke up, he uh, he kissed my neck. And, like kissing isn't something we do. So I kind of freaked out. I threw on my pants and a shirt and I bolted. I didn’t even put on my shoes man." Patrick says, hanging his head.
"You guys don’t kiss? Like at all?" Duncs asks, nudging Patrick in the side softly.
"No. Not once, no matter how drunk or into it or anything." Patrick says reaching for his beer, forgetting he'd already finished it off. Sharpy hands him the rest of his. They all sit there in silence for a few moments, until Seabs breaks the silence with another question.
"What did he do after? You know after you left."
"He tried calling me a few times, left a couple voicemails and a couple texts. I haven’t actually listened to them or read the texts." Patrick says looking up at Seabs, then dropping his eyes back down.
"When did all this go down?" Sharpy asks, after another long silence.
"A few days ago, I've been avoiding him." Patrick says, shoving the bottle away from him and attempting to stand.
"You two are really stupid you know that?" At Patrick's scoff he continues, with a tone of exasperation. "Seriously. In all this time has Johnny hooked up with anyone else?"
"I dunno, if he did he didn’t tell me about it." Patrick mumbles, standing awkwardly by the table.
"Well he didn’t tell me or Seabs about any either." Duncs says offering a smile.
"As far as I know we know he hasn’t hooked up with anybody either. Sit down Pat, we're not done. I swear I'm surrounded by a bunch of oblivious idiots." He mutters the last part casting a glance at Duncs and Seabs, who have throughout the conversation inched closer and closer together. "Did you ever think maybe he might feel the same way?"
"I doubt that, he'd have said something if he did." Patrick says glaring, tight lipped at Sharpy.
"What? You mean like you obviously have?" Sharpy bites back, the time for coddling over.
"Fuck you man." Patrick spits out standing once again.
"Sit down. Look, is it really such a far fetched idea that maybe he's just as scared."
Patrick cuts in "I'm not..." But drops off at Sharpy's hard glare.
"Scared. So fucking scared that you've been fucking the guy you're in love with for a year without strings, just so you could have some part of him. A year Patrick. A whole year. Put yourself in his shoes, you two have been together for a year, and the one time one of you stays he cuddles you, kisses you and you bolt like a bat outta hell. And he still wants to talk. Come on Patrick, think about it man. If it was just nothing between you do you really think he'd try and talk about it? No. He'd just let it go and move the fuck on."
"Sharpy's got a point man." Seabs say encouragingly. Duncs sighs, nudging Seabs for a moment they have a silent conversation, Seabs nods his head once then Duncs, turns to look at Patrick.
"When me and Seabs were rookies we started buddy fucking. We thought it was a great system, and for a while it was. Then it became more, we got to where we didn’t want to be with anybody else, and for a little while we were fuck wits about it. Then one night we had an argument and one thing led to another. I'd been gone over Seabs pretty much since I'd met him, it turns out it was the same for him. But man, you'll never know unless you fucking talk to him. Maybe things will work out for you, maybe they wont. But you will never know unless you try." Duncs finishes shrugging his shoulders, then turning to grin happily at Seabs. Sharpy is gaping at them, while Patrick looks lost in thought.
"How long?" Sharpy demands gob smacked.
"Rookie year man. Been six years now." Seabs says grinning. "Always thought you’d figured it out til one day Duncs was telling me how you were talking about Pat and Johnny and kept eyeing him. We figured then that you didn’t know."
"That's just not right man." Sharpy mutters. They all turn to look at Patrick as he starts moving away from the table. Sharpy goes after him, following him out into the night air.
"Look Peeks, go home and sleep on it. In the morning talk to Johnny. I don't think you'll be disappointed." Sharpy says pulling Patrick into a crushing hug.
"Yeah." Patrick says into his shirt. When Sharpy lets him go, Patrick hails a cab. He sits in the back of the cab watching as Chicago rolls by. When the cab stops, Patrick hands the driver some money and makes his way inside. On the elevator ride he thinks about what the guys said. Thinks about the look on Johnny's face as he bolted out of his room.
When the elevator doors ding open he walks out, thinking about how it felt waking up next to Johnny. How right it felt. When he gets to the door, he takes a breath and rings the doorbell.
He's about to give up and go home when the door opens, Johnny has creases on his face from the pillow, and his hair is messed up. His eyes widen as he takes in Patrick's presence at his door.
"Okay Johnny, let's talk."