toews/kane, "miscommunication"
Title: Miscommunication
Fandom: Hawks RPS
Pairing: Toews/Kane
Rating: PG
Words: 2,830. I really don't know how that happened....
Summary: Patrick worms his way into the kitchen for a beer. "So I need a place to stay," he throws out casually, no preamble.
Jon's first move is to reach out and brush a hand over the top of Patrick's head, a careful disruption of the curls growing in, short and a little bit wild. His reward is a slap on the wrist and a scowl. "It itches."
"The buzzcut's douchey," Jon says, instead of "don't cut it again, please".
Patrick worms his way into the kitchen for a beer. "So I need a place to stay," he throws out casually, no preamble.
Jon says warily, "Why?"
"Mold."
"Seriously?"
Patrick's head is buried deep in his fridge, ass sticking out in such a way that Jon's lips tug up at the corners. His voice is muffled as he replies, "Yeah. Some infestation of some shit. Was thinking of finding a new place anyway."
"A better place," Jon agrees.
"My place was fine," Patrick argues, turning around, brows furrowed, beer in hand.
"Except for the mold."
Patrick shrugs. "It happens." He tilts his head. "So?"
"So what?"
"You're gonna let me stay here, right?"
As if Jon didn't see that coming a mile away. "You think so, huh?"
Patrick makes a face very closely resembling a pout. "Why wouldn't you?"
Jon rolls his eyes. "I don't want to fight with you for the next however many weeks it takes before you can move back out."
"We don't have to fight."
"It's not that easy," Jon sighs. "You remember what it was like."
"Yeah. Fine, 'cept when you were being an anti-social, anti-fun, bore."
"Thanks," Jon says dryly. "Really."
Patrick rolls his eyes right back. "Obviously you weren't so awful you drove me away forever."
"I don't think anything could drive you away forever."
"Ha fucking ha."
Jon smirks, and Pat adds, "You wouldn't want to, anyway. You love my face."
"What would I do without your face," Jon says, deadpan, and Patrick halfheartedly throws an apple at him, which he easily catches.
"Waste away and die, probably," Pat nods, solemn, and Jon bites hard at his lip, because Pat's eyes are laughing at him and it's spreading to the rest of Pat's face and the little fucker is right.
"Fine, but I have ground rules."
"Spoilsport."
To his credit, Patrick does actually put his clothes in the laundry basket and does his dishes.
For the first five days.
Then they get drunk on Saturday night, because Jon didn't want to go out and one of the ground rules was for Pat to not pester him into doing so when he didn't want to, and Jon wakes up on Saturday morning at 8am (normal), with a brutal hangover (semi-normal, for a Saturday, at least), and Patrick wrapped around him like a leech, snoring softly (very not fucking normal).
Jon breathes in very quietly, and tries not to have a panic attack.
He's lying on his back. One of Patrick's arms is slung around his waist and his face is pillowed on Jon's shoulder, hair tickling Jon's arm.
Also, Jon is naked.
A panic attack is imminent, now.
He should probably check to see if Patrick is also naked. Probably. He can't bring himself to do that, though. He risks a) waking Patrick, b) seeing Patrick naked, and c) waking up a possibly naked Patrick.
So Jon closes his eyes, trying to quell the nauseating feeling in his stomach, and carefully does not panic.
This lasts about five seconds.
Patrick stops snoring, and groans. "Ow," he says, lifting his head, and then "Oh. Fuck." He has the courage to do what Jon did not, and peers under the blankets.
Jon yelps and rolls over with a protesting noise. "Hey!"
"You're naked," Pat tells him, eyes comically wide.
"Are you naked?" Jon shoots back, awkwardly since he is now facing the other way. "Wait. I don't want to know."
Pat's voice is very, very quiet when he says, "Yes."
Jon swallows. "Did we -"
"I don't know."
There's a rustling noise, and when Jon tries to twist his head around, Patrick has faceplanted into the pillow and is muttering, "Oh god, oh god."
Jon says, "This is why I don't drink with you," before thinking it through, and belatedly realizes that sounds insulting.
Patrick lifts his head, eyes half-lidded and positively mournful, and says, "My ass is sore."
Oh, fuck.
They take showers (separate, separate showers, damn it) without a word. Jon sees the discarded condom in the trash when he pads back to the bedroom to get dressed, and feels sick all over again. The pills he took are finally kicking in, and the pounding in his head has subsided enough that he feels marginally human again.
Patrick is in the kitchen, sipping gingerly at a glass of orange juice. His hair is still wet.
Jon wants to push his fingers through it, a little bit. He isn’t sure why.
- Patrick’s eyes are dark and intent, focused like he’s playing hockey, but no, his mouth is on Jon’s cock, swallowing him down, hot and wet and fucking incredible, and without moving too far away, he nudges his head against Jon’s palm, the one resting on top of his head, as if to say “go for it”, and Jon immediately tightens his fingers in Pat’s hair -
“Jesus,” Jon chokes.
Pat looks up sharply, the words “Are you okay?” tumbling out before he yanks his eyes away. Like he can’t stand to look at Jon, and that makes Jon feel so much worse, except he looks back a second later as if he can’t help it, color flooding his cheeks.
It all comes back in a rush, then, fuzzy details, but the sensations are all too clear.
They fucked, that is certain. And Jon - Jon loved it.
Jon stands there, shocked, eyes locked with Patrick’s equally stunned ones, their breathing harsh and staccato in the eerily quiet room.
“Oh -” Patrick starts, then swallows, tries again. “Okay. So that happened.”
Jon nods, because he doesn’t trust his own voice.
Patrick nods back. “I, um. I got nothing.”
“Me neither.”
There’s a long pause before Pat speaks again. “Do you - uh. I don’t - Have you felt, before -”
“No,” Jon says quickly. “Well. Not before yesterday.”
Something in his voice makes Patrick’s shoulders tense, his eyes sharpen. “What about now?” He asks, quiet.
“I don’t know.”
“I know…”
Jon feels pulled forward, taking two steps. “You do?”
Patrick keeps looking at him. “I know you weren’t supposed to know,” he says, and the honesty is like a punch to the gut.
“Why not?”
“Lots of reasons. I didn’t know if you….”
“Knew?” Jon says, because it’s the first word that comes to mind, and Patrick looks away, but Jon sees his mouth twitch, like he’s trying not to smile.
Patrick’s eyes are laughing. It settles the anxious feeling in Jon’s stomach better than any hangover remedy.
Jon still doesn’t know what to say. But he feels less horrible than he did a second ago, which is probably a good thing. And that’s good enough for him right now.
“Do you want me to go?” Patrick asks, serious and soft, when they’ve finished some breakfast.
No, Jon thinks immediately. Never. “Do you want to go?” When Patrick doesn’t answer after a second or two, he adds, “I don’t mind you staying here.”
“Even after-”
“Yes.”
Jon winces; neither of them can even say the word. Fucked. He fucked his best friend, oh god. It makes him nauseous all over again. It’s been years since he’s been that drunk, drunk enough not to remember, drunk enough to do something this monumentally stupid.
“Stop.” Patrick’s voice cuts through his thoughts, soft, but insistent. “Stop beating yourself up about it. It won’t help anything.”
“Nothing will help this,” Jon tells him flatly. It’s only the truth. He’s just putting it out there.
A flicker of pain slashes across Patrick’s face, and he turns away. “For a serious Captain, you sure are a drama queen sometimes,” he says.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Patrick shoves his chair back with a loud scraping sound. “It means maybe it’s not the end of the world. But you can’t see that, can you?” He fails to keep back another wince, but this one he tries to cover with a wry little twist of his lips. “Aside from the, you know. Lack of uh, ade - adequate prep, but. I think we get a pass on that one. First time and all.”
Jon didn’t think it was possible to feel worse. “It’s not,” he says miserably, into his hands, hiding his face. “It’s not my first time. I am so, god, so fucking sorry.” He can’t even look his best friend in the eye.
“Get up,” Patrick says, closer, fiercely, and Jon’s fingers are pried away from his eyes, Patrick’s blue ones blinking back at him and then he’s on his feet and Patrick - shit. Patrick just clings to him, arms wrapped snug and warm around Jon’s waist, head buried in the crook of Jon’s neck, feet tangled between Jon’s and Jon can feel the puffs of air against his chest when Patrick exhales.
Jon’s never been a physically affectionate person, but somehow over the years he’s known Patrick, Patrick’s been the one most able to elicit and manipulate it out of him. Affection, that is. Patrick doesn’t show any intention of moving at all, doesn’t even say anything, just keeps hugging him tightly. At one point, he raises himself up higher on his toes, nosing into Jonny’s neck, and just breathes.
Then he lets go, but not really. He moves back, but keeps his arms wrapped around Jon’s waist. “I love you, you know that?” It’s serious, yet light, expression expectant and calm and Jon can feel himself relaxing, matching Patrick’s breathing.
“I know that.” He didn’t. Or maybe he did. He doesn’t know. It depends on the context.
“You’re my best friend,” Patrick says. “And I admire the shit out of you. So please. Believe me when I tell you it’s okay. Yeah? Jon. Jonny.”
Jon manages to nod, heart thumping erratically in his chest. “I hear you.”
To his credit, Patrick just nods back at him, watching him carefully. “Good.”
Jon’s afraid to move. Afraid to ask if Patrick’s going to let go, afraid to break this. This moment, whatever it is. “You’re okay. We’re okay. Comprende?” Patrick quirks the tiniest of grins at him, then adds, “It’s not like it was awful. I’ve had way worse sex than that. So, not an issue.”
“Not an issue.”
“Yeah. You know. Was it good for you?” Patrick waggles his eyebrows. “That’s not rhetorical, by the way.”
Talk about the most awkward question ever. Jon has no idea how to answer. Because, shit. Yeah. Yeah, it was. From what he can remember. Unbelievable. It’s a terrifying thought. “Yeah,” he says finally. “It was.”
“Okay. So. We had awesome sex, and the world didn’t implode.”
“No.”
Patrick smiles, tips his head forward so it’s resting against Jon’s chest.
Eventually, things get back to normal. Whatever resembling “normal” that their relationship is already. They play some video games, Patrick fucks around with the tv, Jon goes for a run once he feels less like his head is going to explode and his stomach is going to rebel at the slightest movement.
Patrick chirps at him and sits too close to him on the couch and makes fun of his food and his cooking and steals Jon’s clothes even though he miraculously has kept up with his own laundry this week.
It’s almost like it never happened.
The next week somehow seems to fly by, with little chance to think about what happened or talk to Patrick for more than ten minutes at a time. Jon still thinks about it every chance he gets, because… it feels off. Him and Patrick.
Patrick’s still living with him, and Jon hasn’t asked about his apartment. He’s not sure why. He doesn’t know if he wants to. That part is actually okay. Patrick seems to know when he’s going to cross a line; he keeps his shit out of the way and doesn’t bug Jon to go out every night.
Jon’s surprised at how much Patrick’s mellowed out over the summer, how much more at ease he is with himself, how much more confident without being cocky. He’s still Patrick, still playful and quirky and chirps at Jon every chance he gets, but something is different.
Patrick’s acting pretty normal for the most part. But something feels wrong, somehow.
Jon has no idea how to bring it up without looking like an asshole, because Patrick hugged him and said it was okay, and Jon… Jon believed him. So to say anything now would make him a huge douche. Which he doesn’t want to be.
Which leaves him… absolutely nowhere.
Three weeks. Jon gets a little used to it. Having Patrick around.
They’re on the couch, arm to arm, watching tv and munching on nachos when Patrick says, “My landlord called me today.”
“Oh yeah?” Jon says, casual in a way he doesn’t feel. At all.
“Yeah.” Patrick doesn’t look at him, chomps down on a nacho. “Should be good to go in the next few days. I’ll be out of your hair.”
Jon elbows him. “You weren’t ever in it. You know that.”
“No?”
Jon looks at him.
Patrick sighs. “You’re kind of an oblivious dumbass, Tazer.” He moves to get up, but Jon catches his arm.
“Wait. You lost me. What’s going on?”
Patrick settles down, farther away than he was before. Jon immediately misses the warmth, and thinks, okay, maybe that’s a little weird. And not, at the same time, because they did have sex, which was way gayer than sitting close on the couch. Come to think of it, they’ve done a lot of that since Patrick temporarily moved in. But Jon has been resolutely not thinking of Patrick that way, and it’s worked out okay so far.
Except not.
“You never really,” Patrick breathes, then laughs a little bit, grimacing. “You never really said how you felt. Yeah, okay. I’m bringing up feelings. Fuck me,” he groans. “I don’t really get how you can’t get it. I couldn’t really have been more obvious without whacking you with a two by four.”
“That sounds painful. I feel like I should be apologizing.”
“No, damn it. You’ve done enough apologizing.” Patrick sighs. “I like being here. With you. This, whatever this is.”
“I don’t,” Jon starts. “I don’t know what this is.”
“No, because you weren’t honest with yourself. You haven’t been honest with yourself since that fuzzy Saturday night where we had fucking awesome sex and you freaked out and I didn’t and fuck, I was the most honest with you I’ve ever been and you didn’t get it.” Patrick’s flushed, cheeks red and hair messy from tugging his hand through it and now he’s upset, and Jon feels awful.
“I thought you meant it-”
“Platonically?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, no. I mean, yeah, but also no.” Patrick looks at him, really looks, and smiles, leans in and kisses him once, soft, quick. “I’ve wanted to do that for the last twenty one days.”
Jon’s lips tingle from the unexpected pressure, and he’s speechless, wondering how the hell he could have missed this. “Oh,” he says, because he needs to say something, and he has no idea what.
“So. You know no - ” The end of Patrick’s sentence is cut off with an “oomph”, as Jon pushes him into the couch cushions and kisses him until they both can’t breathe, until his mouth aches and his jeans grow just a little too tight, until Patrick’s hands are fisting in his hair and Patrick’s legs are tucking around his waist and Jon’s hands are pushing underneath Patrick’s shirt to find warm, smooth skin waiting for him, and Patrick is making urgent, encouraging noises into his mouth and Jon thinks, yeah, he really is kind of a moron.
“Need air, fuck,” Patrick gasps out, and Jon is momentarily distracted by the state of his mouth and ignores him, bites at his lips. “Fuck, fuck, Jonny. Jonny.”
“Mm,” Jon grumbles, but lets him go. “What.”
“Insatiable fucker,” Patrick teases him in a voice that’s raspy from over an hour of making out on the couch. “What is it?”
“I like having you around.”
“Oh for fuck’s, Jon. Oh my god.” Patrick dissolves into laughter, pulls him down close so Jon’s nearly crushing him, presses his forehead into Jon’s neck. “I get it. We can talk later, just, fuck, don’t stop kissing me now.”
Jon happily obliges him, and sets to work sucking a very prominent bruise on the side of Patrick’s neck, and only stops when he hears Patrick mutter, “We could have been doing this for weeks already,” and as punishment, Jon moves his mouth higher to a place where he knows everyone’s going to see the hickey at practice.
He doesn’t give a shit.
Fandom: Hawks RPS
Pairing: Toews/Kane
Rating: PG
Words: 2,830. I really don't know how that happened....
Summary: Patrick worms his way into the kitchen for a beer. "So I need a place to stay," he throws out casually, no preamble.
Jon's first move is to reach out and brush a hand over the top of Patrick's head, a careful disruption of the curls growing in, short and a little bit wild. His reward is a slap on the wrist and a scowl. "It itches."
"The buzzcut's douchey," Jon says, instead of "don't cut it again, please".
Patrick worms his way into the kitchen for a beer. "So I need a place to stay," he throws out casually, no preamble.
Jon says warily, "Why?"
"Mold."
"Seriously?"
Patrick's head is buried deep in his fridge, ass sticking out in such a way that Jon's lips tug up at the corners. His voice is muffled as he replies, "Yeah. Some infestation of some shit. Was thinking of finding a new place anyway."
"A better place," Jon agrees.
"My place was fine," Patrick argues, turning around, brows furrowed, beer in hand.
"Except for the mold."
Patrick shrugs. "It happens." He tilts his head. "So?"
"So what?"
"You're gonna let me stay here, right?"
As if Jon didn't see that coming a mile away. "You think so, huh?"
Patrick makes a face very closely resembling a pout. "Why wouldn't you?"
Jon rolls his eyes. "I don't want to fight with you for the next however many weeks it takes before you can move back out."
"We don't have to fight."
"It's not that easy," Jon sighs. "You remember what it was like."
"Yeah. Fine, 'cept when you were being an anti-social, anti-fun, bore."
"Thanks," Jon says dryly. "Really."
Patrick rolls his eyes right back. "Obviously you weren't so awful you drove me away forever."
"I don't think anything could drive you away forever."
"Ha fucking ha."
Jon smirks, and Pat adds, "You wouldn't want to, anyway. You love my face."
"What would I do without your face," Jon says, deadpan, and Patrick halfheartedly throws an apple at him, which he easily catches.
"Waste away and die, probably," Pat nods, solemn, and Jon bites hard at his lip, because Pat's eyes are laughing at him and it's spreading to the rest of Pat's face and the little fucker is right.
"Fine, but I have ground rules."
"Spoilsport."
To his credit, Patrick does actually put his clothes in the laundry basket and does his dishes.
For the first five days.
Then they get drunk on Saturday night, because Jon didn't want to go out and one of the ground rules was for Pat to not pester him into doing so when he didn't want to, and Jon wakes up on Saturday morning at 8am (normal), with a brutal hangover (semi-normal, for a Saturday, at least), and Patrick wrapped around him like a leech, snoring softly (very not fucking normal).
Jon breathes in very quietly, and tries not to have a panic attack.
He's lying on his back. One of Patrick's arms is slung around his waist and his face is pillowed on Jon's shoulder, hair tickling Jon's arm.
Also, Jon is naked.
A panic attack is imminent, now.
He should probably check to see if Patrick is also naked. Probably. He can't bring himself to do that, though. He risks a) waking Patrick, b) seeing Patrick naked, and c) waking up a possibly naked Patrick.
So Jon closes his eyes, trying to quell the nauseating feeling in his stomach, and carefully does not panic.
This lasts about five seconds.
Patrick stops snoring, and groans. "Ow," he says, lifting his head, and then "Oh. Fuck." He has the courage to do what Jon did not, and peers under the blankets.
Jon yelps and rolls over with a protesting noise. "Hey!"
"You're naked," Pat tells him, eyes comically wide.
"Are you naked?" Jon shoots back, awkwardly since he is now facing the other way. "Wait. I don't want to know."
Pat's voice is very, very quiet when he says, "Yes."
Jon swallows. "Did we -"
"I don't know."
There's a rustling noise, and when Jon tries to twist his head around, Patrick has faceplanted into the pillow and is muttering, "Oh god, oh god."
Jon says, "This is why I don't drink with you," before thinking it through, and belatedly realizes that sounds insulting.
Patrick lifts his head, eyes half-lidded and positively mournful, and says, "My ass is sore."
Oh, fuck.
They take showers (separate, separate showers, damn it) without a word. Jon sees the discarded condom in the trash when he pads back to the bedroom to get dressed, and feels sick all over again. The pills he took are finally kicking in, and the pounding in his head has subsided enough that he feels marginally human again.
Patrick is in the kitchen, sipping gingerly at a glass of orange juice. His hair is still wet.
Jon wants to push his fingers through it, a little bit. He isn’t sure why.
- Patrick’s eyes are dark and intent, focused like he’s playing hockey, but no, his mouth is on Jon’s cock, swallowing him down, hot and wet and fucking incredible, and without moving too far away, he nudges his head against Jon’s palm, the one resting on top of his head, as if to say “go for it”, and Jon immediately tightens his fingers in Pat’s hair -
“Jesus,” Jon chokes.
Pat looks up sharply, the words “Are you okay?” tumbling out before he yanks his eyes away. Like he can’t stand to look at Jon, and that makes Jon feel so much worse, except he looks back a second later as if he can’t help it, color flooding his cheeks.
It all comes back in a rush, then, fuzzy details, but the sensations are all too clear.
They fucked, that is certain. And Jon - Jon loved it.
Jon stands there, shocked, eyes locked with Patrick’s equally stunned ones, their breathing harsh and staccato in the eerily quiet room.
“Oh -” Patrick starts, then swallows, tries again. “Okay. So that happened.”
Jon nods, because he doesn’t trust his own voice.
Patrick nods back. “I, um. I got nothing.”
“Me neither.”
There’s a long pause before Pat speaks again. “Do you - uh. I don’t - Have you felt, before -”
“No,” Jon says quickly. “Well. Not before yesterday.”
Something in his voice makes Patrick’s shoulders tense, his eyes sharpen. “What about now?” He asks, quiet.
“I don’t know.”
“I know…”
Jon feels pulled forward, taking two steps. “You do?”
Patrick keeps looking at him. “I know you weren’t supposed to know,” he says, and the honesty is like a punch to the gut.
“Why not?”
“Lots of reasons. I didn’t know if you….”
“Knew?” Jon says, because it’s the first word that comes to mind, and Patrick looks away, but Jon sees his mouth twitch, like he’s trying not to smile.
Patrick’s eyes are laughing. It settles the anxious feeling in Jon’s stomach better than any hangover remedy.
Jon still doesn’t know what to say. But he feels less horrible than he did a second ago, which is probably a good thing. And that’s good enough for him right now.
“Do you want me to go?” Patrick asks, serious and soft, when they’ve finished some breakfast.
No, Jon thinks immediately. Never. “Do you want to go?” When Patrick doesn’t answer after a second or two, he adds, “I don’t mind you staying here.”
“Even after-”
“Yes.”
Jon winces; neither of them can even say the word. Fucked. He fucked his best friend, oh god. It makes him nauseous all over again. It’s been years since he’s been that drunk, drunk enough not to remember, drunk enough to do something this monumentally stupid.
“Stop.” Patrick’s voice cuts through his thoughts, soft, but insistent. “Stop beating yourself up about it. It won’t help anything.”
“Nothing will help this,” Jon tells him flatly. It’s only the truth. He’s just putting it out there.
A flicker of pain slashes across Patrick’s face, and he turns away. “For a serious Captain, you sure are a drama queen sometimes,” he says.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Patrick shoves his chair back with a loud scraping sound. “It means maybe it’s not the end of the world. But you can’t see that, can you?” He fails to keep back another wince, but this one he tries to cover with a wry little twist of his lips. “Aside from the, you know. Lack of uh, ade - adequate prep, but. I think we get a pass on that one. First time and all.”
Jon didn’t think it was possible to feel worse. “It’s not,” he says miserably, into his hands, hiding his face. “It’s not my first time. I am so, god, so fucking sorry.” He can’t even look his best friend in the eye.
“Get up,” Patrick says, closer, fiercely, and Jon’s fingers are pried away from his eyes, Patrick’s blue ones blinking back at him and then he’s on his feet and Patrick - shit. Patrick just clings to him, arms wrapped snug and warm around Jon’s waist, head buried in the crook of Jon’s neck, feet tangled between Jon’s and Jon can feel the puffs of air against his chest when Patrick exhales.
Jon’s never been a physically affectionate person, but somehow over the years he’s known Patrick, Patrick’s been the one most able to elicit and manipulate it out of him. Affection, that is. Patrick doesn’t show any intention of moving at all, doesn’t even say anything, just keeps hugging him tightly. At one point, he raises himself up higher on his toes, nosing into Jonny’s neck, and just breathes.
Then he lets go, but not really. He moves back, but keeps his arms wrapped around Jon’s waist. “I love you, you know that?” It’s serious, yet light, expression expectant and calm and Jon can feel himself relaxing, matching Patrick’s breathing.
“I know that.” He didn’t. Or maybe he did. He doesn’t know. It depends on the context.
“You’re my best friend,” Patrick says. “And I admire the shit out of you. So please. Believe me when I tell you it’s okay. Yeah? Jon. Jonny.”
Jon manages to nod, heart thumping erratically in his chest. “I hear you.”
To his credit, Patrick just nods back at him, watching him carefully. “Good.”
Jon’s afraid to move. Afraid to ask if Patrick’s going to let go, afraid to break this. This moment, whatever it is. “You’re okay. We’re okay. Comprende?” Patrick quirks the tiniest of grins at him, then adds, “It’s not like it was awful. I’ve had way worse sex than that. So, not an issue.”
“Not an issue.”
“Yeah. You know. Was it good for you?” Patrick waggles his eyebrows. “That’s not rhetorical, by the way.”
Talk about the most awkward question ever. Jon has no idea how to answer. Because, shit. Yeah. Yeah, it was. From what he can remember. Unbelievable. It’s a terrifying thought. “Yeah,” he says finally. “It was.”
“Okay. So. We had awesome sex, and the world didn’t implode.”
“No.”
Patrick smiles, tips his head forward so it’s resting against Jon’s chest.
Eventually, things get back to normal. Whatever resembling “normal” that their relationship is already. They play some video games, Patrick fucks around with the tv, Jon goes for a run once he feels less like his head is going to explode and his stomach is going to rebel at the slightest movement.
Patrick chirps at him and sits too close to him on the couch and makes fun of his food and his cooking and steals Jon’s clothes even though he miraculously has kept up with his own laundry this week.
It’s almost like it never happened.
The next week somehow seems to fly by, with little chance to think about what happened or talk to Patrick for more than ten minutes at a time. Jon still thinks about it every chance he gets, because… it feels off. Him and Patrick.
Patrick’s still living with him, and Jon hasn’t asked about his apartment. He’s not sure why. He doesn’t know if he wants to. That part is actually okay. Patrick seems to know when he’s going to cross a line; he keeps his shit out of the way and doesn’t bug Jon to go out every night.
Jon’s surprised at how much Patrick’s mellowed out over the summer, how much more at ease he is with himself, how much more confident without being cocky. He’s still Patrick, still playful and quirky and chirps at Jon every chance he gets, but something is different.
Patrick’s acting pretty normal for the most part. But something feels wrong, somehow.
Jon has no idea how to bring it up without looking like an asshole, because Patrick hugged him and said it was okay, and Jon… Jon believed him. So to say anything now would make him a huge douche. Which he doesn’t want to be.
Which leaves him… absolutely nowhere.
Three weeks. Jon gets a little used to it. Having Patrick around.
They’re on the couch, arm to arm, watching tv and munching on nachos when Patrick says, “My landlord called me today.”
“Oh yeah?” Jon says, casual in a way he doesn’t feel. At all.
“Yeah.” Patrick doesn’t look at him, chomps down on a nacho. “Should be good to go in the next few days. I’ll be out of your hair.”
Jon elbows him. “You weren’t ever in it. You know that.”
“No?”
Jon looks at him.
Patrick sighs. “You’re kind of an oblivious dumbass, Tazer.” He moves to get up, but Jon catches his arm.
“Wait. You lost me. What’s going on?”
Patrick settles down, farther away than he was before. Jon immediately misses the warmth, and thinks, okay, maybe that’s a little weird. And not, at the same time, because they did have sex, which was way gayer than sitting close on the couch. Come to think of it, they’ve done a lot of that since Patrick temporarily moved in. But Jon has been resolutely not thinking of Patrick that way, and it’s worked out okay so far.
Except not.
“You never really,” Patrick breathes, then laughs a little bit, grimacing. “You never really said how you felt. Yeah, okay. I’m bringing up feelings. Fuck me,” he groans. “I don’t really get how you can’t get it. I couldn’t really have been more obvious without whacking you with a two by four.”
“That sounds painful. I feel like I should be apologizing.”
“No, damn it. You’ve done enough apologizing.” Patrick sighs. “I like being here. With you. This, whatever this is.”
“I don’t,” Jon starts. “I don’t know what this is.”
“No, because you weren’t honest with yourself. You haven’t been honest with yourself since that fuzzy Saturday night where we had fucking awesome sex and you freaked out and I didn’t and fuck, I was the most honest with you I’ve ever been and you didn’t get it.” Patrick’s flushed, cheeks red and hair messy from tugging his hand through it and now he’s upset, and Jon feels awful.
“I thought you meant it-”
“Platonically?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, no. I mean, yeah, but also no.” Patrick looks at him, really looks, and smiles, leans in and kisses him once, soft, quick. “I’ve wanted to do that for the last twenty one days.”
Jon’s lips tingle from the unexpected pressure, and he’s speechless, wondering how the hell he could have missed this. “Oh,” he says, because he needs to say something, and he has no idea what.
“So. You know no - ” The end of Patrick’s sentence is cut off with an “oomph”, as Jon pushes him into the couch cushions and kisses him until they both can’t breathe, until his mouth aches and his jeans grow just a little too tight, until Patrick’s hands are fisting in his hair and Patrick’s legs are tucking around his waist and Jon’s hands are pushing underneath Patrick’s shirt to find warm, smooth skin waiting for him, and Patrick is making urgent, encouraging noises into his mouth and Jon thinks, yeah, he really is kind of a moron.
“Need air, fuck,” Patrick gasps out, and Jon is momentarily distracted by the state of his mouth and ignores him, bites at his lips. “Fuck, fuck, Jonny. Jonny.”
“Mm,” Jon grumbles, but lets him go. “What.”
“Insatiable fucker,” Patrick teases him in a voice that’s raspy from over an hour of making out on the couch. “What is it?”
“I like having you around.”
“Oh for fuck’s, Jon. Oh my god.” Patrick dissolves into laughter, pulls him down close so Jon’s nearly crushing him, presses his forehead into Jon’s neck. “I get it. We can talk later, just, fuck, don’t stop kissing me now.”
Jon happily obliges him, and sets to work sucking a very prominent bruise on the side of Patrick’s neck, and only stops when he hears Patrick mutter, “We could have been doing this for weeks already,” and as punishment, Jon moves his mouth higher to a place where he knows everyone’s going to see the hickey at practice.
He doesn’t give a shit.