Banned - Part 2
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Pairing: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews
Rating: teen
Word Count: 10,674
A03 here!
“Temporarily banned by mod taz3r: misleading use of geography,” reads his third ban of the month.
Kaner stares at his phone's screen for a long moment before angrily muttering, “but it fucking is Winterpeg.” He's not sure if this is more or less embarrassing than the time Jonny banned him from the hockey forum for unsporting conduct for insulting Canada's Olympic candidates.
hockeygod88: hey jonny
hockeygod88: uh my names pat btw
taz3r: Stop fucking with me, it’s too late at night for this.
hockeygod88: no dude for real my names patrick i picked the screenname bc hes on my favorite team and has my name
hockeygod88: i promise im not fucking w you i wouldnt do that
taz3r: Pat.
hockeygod88: okay so i totally did abt winterpeg and canadian thanksgiving and stuff but i wouldnt abt anythng that mattered jonny
taz3r: Patrick, it’s fine. What’s wrong.
hockeygod88: wow ur not great at feelings are u
taz3r: If you don’t want to talk, I’m going to bed.
hockeygod88: no shit sorry jonny dont go
hockeygod88: its just like
hockeygod88: do u ever feel like your failing everyone
hockeygod88: i think ive really fucked up lately and i dunno, i think everyones so used to me fucking up that they dont think i can fix it anymore. i guess it just hit me tonight nobody believes i can do better, even my family is disappointed in me
taz3r: Patrick, you’re better than that.
hockeygod88: what the fuck jonny
hockeygod88: way to be an asshole
taz3r: That came out wrong.
taz3r: I mean, you’re better than being this hard on yourself. You’re always so confident when you’re posting on the forum. You know you’re smart and you shouldn’t let people, even if they’re your family, tell you otherwise.
hockeygod88: easy for u to say
hockeygod88: u seem like you have ur shit together. i doubt your parents are embarassed by you
taz3r: Look, Patrick…
taz3r: My parents had different ideas about my career than I did. I changed things, I went back to school for something different. I took a job somewhere I hate just to move out so I wouldn’t have to watch them judging me all the time. I love them, but they don’t get why I did this. Sometimes I don’t get it either.
taz3r: I’m sure whatever you did they still love you, even if you did totally fuck your life up, which I doubt you did.
hockeygod88: are u happier? not letting it get to u so much?
taz3r: I’m getting there.
taz3r: Go get some sleep, Pat.
Jonny hopes Patrick finds it easier to fall asleep than he does. His dreams are filled with the sound of metal crunching into a pole over and over, and the panic on his mother’s face in the hospital.
--
Pat keeps texting Jonny through Skype for weeks. Jonny already knows he’s loud and opinionated and he gave Pat his Skype name anyway, so he should have anticipated this. He mainly just sends Jonny little thoughts through the day while he’s on route to and from games or hanging out with teammates waiting for a turn at the xbox controller. Jonny texts him back in the middle of the day even though he has a boring adult job with normal hours, so that seems like a point in favor of him enjoying talking to Pat. He finds out that Jonny not only plays on a rec league but also teaches hockey for a kids team, which is kind of adorable. Also, he’s not sure where Jonny lives, but it can’t be off his own time zone by more than an hour or two since he’s at work and slower to reply during daytime.
hockeygod88: admit it blackhawk colors are totally the best. way nicer than green
taz3r: *colours
hockeygod88: oh my god
hockeygod88: that’s not even an error, youre dysfunctional
“Who the hell spells colors with a u?” Patrick asks the bus at large, throwing his hands up in the air. “Uh, we do,” says Duncs, rolling his eyes as he gestures at himself and Seabs. Patrick just shakes his head despairingly. Canadians.
hockeygod88: your quiet today
taz3r: I’ve had a shitty day.
hockeygod88: awwww come tell momma pat all about it
taz3r: That’s fucking creepy, Patrick.
taz3r: I forgot that my asshole neighbors always use chairs to stake out their parking spots when it’s going to snow, so I had to park my car blocks away and apparently my parking permit doesn’t cover that street because they’d towed it when I got up for work this morning.
taz3r: So I had to take the El to work and deal with the city on the phone to find out about my car, and I was so late that my coworker had to do the physical therapy session for my first client.
taz3r: Who the fuck builds the train platforms above ground in a city that gets this much snow? Ridiculous.
hockeygod88: oh my god
hockeygod88: jonny oh my god do you live in chicago too??
hockeygod88: what the fuck man and you never fucking said anything???? DUDE not cool jonny, seriously, we could have been hanging out this whole time you asshole
hockeygod88: jonny
hockeygod88: jonny say something
taz3r has logged out.
Jonny does the only logical thing: he panics, turns his phone off, and shoves it back under his bed as soon as he gets home. He’s tempted to banhammer Pat on the forum so he can have the rest of his social life back again but even he knows that’s a flagrant abuse of power, so he just… stays away and keeps his phone off and his accounts all logged out. By the time he caves and charges his dead brick of a cell phone a couple weeks later, his phone’s got so many message alerts it vibrates right back onto the floor and under his bed and he has to get down on his hands and knees and fish it out. There’s some calls from his mother, but mostly it’s just Skype messages from Pat and a reminder from Oshie that drinks are on him next time.
hockeygod88: jonny, seriously, dont be a jerk
hockeygod88: i’m willing to forgive you for saying you hate chicago, youre obviously wrong and flawed but youre already my friend so im stuck with you even when ur opinions are terrible
hockeygod88: come on jonny this isnt cool
hockeygod88: jonny there is a guy on the forum posting paparazzi photos of hockey players babies and i know how much you hate that shit, come banhammer him dude
hockeygod88: okay man you havent logged into the forum in a week, stop making me worry about you, i even miss you banning me, you jackass
hockeygod88: look. i dont know what the hell your problem is jonny but i thought we were friends and this is a shitty way to treat a friend, if you dont want to meet up then just tell me but at least let me know you arent bleeding out in a ditch off interstate 90 or smthng
He kind of feels like a jerk - but he’s also mad at Pat a little for having the power to make him feel like a jerk. Talking to Patrick’s the most fun he’s had since he moved to Chicago, but the idea of meeting him face to face is terrifying. Pat’s calling him a friend, but Jonny, well, a lot of the feelings he’s been having lately haven’t been the friendly sort. He’s not so sure their easy banter would hold up if he kisses Pat the first time he mouths off. He doesn’t even know what the dude looks like and he’s in too deep for that to really be a problem, and that itself is a huge problem since Patrick’s probably straight.
Jonny scrolls down to the bottom; there’s a couple messages time stamped from last night.
hockeygod88: you havent been on the forum in over two weeks
hockeygod88: i know you barely talk to people except for bothering me and im worried. if ur reading this i got u a ticket to the blackhawks game this friday, it’s waiting under the name jonny tazer since idk ur last name.
hockeygod88: go to the game and get the fuck out of ur apartment and stop doing whatever weird mopey thing youre doing, i know youre pissed at me and youre refusing to use your words so i’m trying to be the adult here and reach out. this is an olive branch. an expensive olive branch i am not above shaming you over if it makes you stop sulking
hockeygod88: dont even try to front about not liking the blackhawks because you already told me you went to a game with your coworker and im not buying it
hockeygod88: i hope you appreciate how fucking weird it is for me to be the mature one in this friendship you emotionally constipated asshole
It’s a pretty big olive branch, and between his guilt about Pat spending that kind of money on him and how much he’d actually like to meet him, Jonny just - gives in. He dials his mom and apologizes repeated for not answering his phone for so long.
“Maman… actually I also need a favor, I need you to pick something up and ship it to me.”
If Pat can do this, the least Jonny can do is to do something nice for Patrick in return. He thinks he’ll get a kick out of this.
--
Jonny lucks out that the package actually gets to him before the game. When he pulls the Evander Kane jersey out, a note in his mom’s handwriting falls out as well. It indicates that normal people might just make someone cookies or ask them to dinner, and she’s written her Nanaimo bar recipe on the back in cramped letters. Jonny rolls his eyes - it’s not like Pat is the kind of guy who you fucking woo, honestly; he’s more likely to appreciate the joke jersey for what it is. If the two of them went to a fancy dinner they’d just end up getting into an argument about whether French wine was superior to the rest of their wine list until Pat stabbed him to get him to shut up.
He heads out to the UC early in case he has trouble picking up his ticket - Tazer isn’t exactly written on his driver’s license and it’s not like Pat could have given them a physical description. He’s expecting Patrick’s gotten them two seats together so he watches to see if anyone reacts to his Jets jersey, but eventually he gives up and heads over to ticketing to ask. They ask him to confirm the name of the forum, because apparently Pat put that on the tickets too, but then when the lady working at the desk hands the envelope over there’s just one ticket inside. Pat’s already stopped by and gotten his and hasn’t waited for him, maybe? Though in all fairness, Pat has no way of knowing that he’d actually show up.
It’s probably a good thing that he’s stepped out of the way of the crowds before he checks the seat number, because he nearly trips himself and then slams his shoulder into the doorway. This is - this is not the kind of ticket you can just casually pick up for someone with a few day’s notice; this is right behind the Blackhawks bench up against the glass. To put something like this on hold you’d have to be holding some impressive season tickets or even more impressive connections.
Pat was right, though - this is one hell of an olive branch.
Jonny heads down to his seat, increasingly rattled. He feels like an asshole now too, to be that close to center ice and wearing another team’s jersey. It wouldn’t be a big deal if he was up in general seating but he’s probably going to spend the whole game getting weird looks from whoever’s on the bench. It’s not like he could have known, though, and he’s not going to strip down to the shirt he’s wearing underneath.
He’s even more uneasy when it turns out that the seat on one side of him is taken by a young woman holding her toddler and there’s an elderly couple on the other side. He’s not sure where Patrick is, but it’s definitely not here, and who the hell drops a ticket this expensive on a near stranger and then doesn’t even show up to the game themselves?
Jonny makes small talk with the couple, who tell him they’ve been to every home game in the last 6 years and most of the practices. They’re certainly more at home in these seats than he is, jersey aside.
When the Blackhawks skate out, Patrick fucking Kane does a double take and comes over to the glass in front of him. Jonny’s not sure what the guy’s problem is - does he not have a sense of humor about someone wearing a different Kane’s jersey to his game? - but Kane just throws his hands up with this long-suffering expression and skates back to the other end of the bench where he can continue to glare at Jonny. He’s not sure he wants to know what Kane’s whispering to Patrick Sharp that’s made him look like a cat surrounded by fat flightless birds, but now Sharp is staring at him too. Jonny just gives him the deadeye he used to use when he didn’t want to answer reporters’ questions, the one his mother says looks like he’s plotting the murder of everyone in the room, but Sharpy just laughs and bumps helmets with Kane like they’re in on the same joke.
The only real consolation is that Kane looks just as murderous as Jonny feels.
Midway through the game, every single Blackhawks player on the bench has turned around and deliberately made eye contact with him at least once and he’s getting a little freaked out by how intense they all are. He’d guess that someone recognized him from when he used to play, but no - it has to be about the Jets jersey, it’s too weird a coincidence for it not to be. They’re all playing hard tonight, but Kane seems almost possessed, throwing himself full-body into everything he does with the sort of intensity you’d expect at a playoff game, not when they’re already several points ahead. If this is Kaner’s reaction to someone showing up in an Evander Kane jersey, he’s surprised the Jets player made it out of their last game alive.
Kaner skates by him on the way back to the bench when they’re switching out lines and pauses, contorts his mouth into an awful grimace, points right at Jonny’s jersey through the glass and mouths “why?”
“Gotta represent the better Kane,” Jonny tells him.
Patrick Kane looks at Jonny as if it physically pains him that Jonny exists, and then goes back to alternating between sulking childishly and glaring straight at him for the remainder of the game - which they win by a wide margin, but Jonny’s too baffled by then to fully appreciate the last goal.
He does take a photo though, a terrible selfie of himself standing against a sea of red and black, and sends it to Pat.
taz3r: Thank you. Sorry for avoiding you. As you’ve pointed out, I’m not good at feelings.
taz3r: I wish you’d been here.
[ Part 3]
Pairing: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews
Rating: teen
Word Count: 10,674
A03 here!
“Temporarily banned by mod taz3r: misleading use of geography,” reads his third ban of the month.
Kaner stares at his phone's screen for a long moment before angrily muttering, “but it fucking is Winterpeg.” He's not sure if this is more or less embarrassing than the time Jonny banned him from the hockey forum for unsporting conduct for insulting Canada's Olympic candidates.
hockeygod88: hey jonny
hockeygod88: uh my names pat btw
taz3r: Stop fucking with me, it’s too late at night for this.
hockeygod88: no dude for real my names patrick i picked the screenname bc hes on my favorite team and has my name
hockeygod88: i promise im not fucking w you i wouldnt do that
taz3r: Pat.
hockeygod88: okay so i totally did abt winterpeg and canadian thanksgiving and stuff but i wouldnt abt anythng that mattered jonny
taz3r: Patrick, it’s fine. What’s wrong.
hockeygod88: wow ur not great at feelings are u
taz3r: If you don’t want to talk, I’m going to bed.
hockeygod88: no shit sorry jonny dont go
hockeygod88: its just like
hockeygod88: do u ever feel like your failing everyone
hockeygod88: i think ive really fucked up lately and i dunno, i think everyones so used to me fucking up that they dont think i can fix it anymore. i guess it just hit me tonight nobody believes i can do better, even my family is disappointed in me
taz3r: Patrick, you’re better than that.
hockeygod88: what the fuck jonny
hockeygod88: way to be an asshole
taz3r: That came out wrong.
taz3r: I mean, you’re better than being this hard on yourself. You’re always so confident when you’re posting on the forum. You know you’re smart and you shouldn’t let people, even if they’re your family, tell you otherwise.
hockeygod88: easy for u to say
hockeygod88: u seem like you have ur shit together. i doubt your parents are embarassed by you
taz3r: Look, Patrick…
taz3r: My parents had different ideas about my career than I did. I changed things, I went back to school for something different. I took a job somewhere I hate just to move out so I wouldn’t have to watch them judging me all the time. I love them, but they don’t get why I did this. Sometimes I don’t get it either.
taz3r: I’m sure whatever you did they still love you, even if you did totally fuck your life up, which I doubt you did.
hockeygod88: are u happier? not letting it get to u so much?
taz3r: I’m getting there.
taz3r: Go get some sleep, Pat.
Jonny hopes Patrick finds it easier to fall asleep than he does. His dreams are filled with the sound of metal crunching into a pole over and over, and the panic on his mother’s face in the hospital.
--
Pat keeps texting Jonny through Skype for weeks. Jonny already knows he’s loud and opinionated and he gave Pat his Skype name anyway, so he should have anticipated this. He mainly just sends Jonny little thoughts through the day while he’s on route to and from games or hanging out with teammates waiting for a turn at the xbox controller. Jonny texts him back in the middle of the day even though he has a boring adult job with normal hours, so that seems like a point in favor of him enjoying talking to Pat. He finds out that Jonny not only plays on a rec league but also teaches hockey for a kids team, which is kind of adorable. Also, he’s not sure where Jonny lives, but it can’t be off his own time zone by more than an hour or two since he’s at work and slower to reply during daytime.
hockeygod88: admit it blackhawk colors are totally the best. way nicer than green
taz3r: *colours
hockeygod88: oh my god
hockeygod88: that’s not even an error, youre dysfunctional
“Who the hell spells colors with a u?” Patrick asks the bus at large, throwing his hands up in the air. “Uh, we do,” says Duncs, rolling his eyes as he gestures at himself and Seabs. Patrick just shakes his head despairingly. Canadians.
hockeygod88: your quiet today
taz3r: I’ve had a shitty day.
hockeygod88: awwww come tell momma pat all about it
taz3r: That’s fucking creepy, Patrick.
taz3r: I forgot that my asshole neighbors always use chairs to stake out their parking spots when it’s going to snow, so I had to park my car blocks away and apparently my parking permit doesn’t cover that street because they’d towed it when I got up for work this morning.
taz3r: So I had to take the El to work and deal with the city on the phone to find out about my car, and I was so late that my coworker had to do the physical therapy session for my first client.
taz3r: Who the fuck builds the train platforms above ground in a city that gets this much snow? Ridiculous.
hockeygod88: oh my god
hockeygod88: jonny oh my god do you live in chicago too??
hockeygod88: what the fuck man and you never fucking said anything???? DUDE not cool jonny, seriously, we could have been hanging out this whole time you asshole
hockeygod88: jonny
hockeygod88: jonny say something
taz3r has logged out.
Jonny does the only logical thing: he panics, turns his phone off, and shoves it back under his bed as soon as he gets home. He’s tempted to banhammer Pat on the forum so he can have the rest of his social life back again but even he knows that’s a flagrant abuse of power, so he just… stays away and keeps his phone off and his accounts all logged out. By the time he caves and charges his dead brick of a cell phone a couple weeks later, his phone’s got so many message alerts it vibrates right back onto the floor and under his bed and he has to get down on his hands and knees and fish it out. There’s some calls from his mother, but mostly it’s just Skype messages from Pat and a reminder from Oshie that drinks are on him next time.
hockeygod88: jonny, seriously, dont be a jerk
hockeygod88: i’m willing to forgive you for saying you hate chicago, youre obviously wrong and flawed but youre already my friend so im stuck with you even when ur opinions are terrible
hockeygod88: come on jonny this isnt cool
hockeygod88: jonny there is a guy on the forum posting paparazzi photos of hockey players babies and i know how much you hate that shit, come banhammer him dude
hockeygod88: okay man you havent logged into the forum in a week, stop making me worry about you, i even miss you banning me, you jackass
hockeygod88: look. i dont know what the hell your problem is jonny but i thought we were friends and this is a shitty way to treat a friend, if you dont want to meet up then just tell me but at least let me know you arent bleeding out in a ditch off interstate 90 or smthng
He kind of feels like a jerk - but he’s also mad at Pat a little for having the power to make him feel like a jerk. Talking to Patrick’s the most fun he’s had since he moved to Chicago, but the idea of meeting him face to face is terrifying. Pat’s calling him a friend, but Jonny, well, a lot of the feelings he’s been having lately haven’t been the friendly sort. He’s not so sure their easy banter would hold up if he kisses Pat the first time he mouths off. He doesn’t even know what the dude looks like and he’s in too deep for that to really be a problem, and that itself is a huge problem since Patrick’s probably straight.
Jonny scrolls down to the bottom; there’s a couple messages time stamped from last night.
hockeygod88: you havent been on the forum in over two weeks
hockeygod88: i know you barely talk to people except for bothering me and im worried. if ur reading this i got u a ticket to the blackhawks game this friday, it’s waiting under the name jonny tazer since idk ur last name.
hockeygod88: go to the game and get the fuck out of ur apartment and stop doing whatever weird mopey thing youre doing, i know youre pissed at me and youre refusing to use your words so i’m trying to be the adult here and reach out. this is an olive branch. an expensive olive branch i am not above shaming you over if it makes you stop sulking
hockeygod88: dont even try to front about not liking the blackhawks because you already told me you went to a game with your coworker and im not buying it
hockeygod88: i hope you appreciate how fucking weird it is for me to be the mature one in this friendship you emotionally constipated asshole
It’s a pretty big olive branch, and between his guilt about Pat spending that kind of money on him and how much he’d actually like to meet him, Jonny just - gives in. He dials his mom and apologizes repeated for not answering his phone for so long.
“Maman… actually I also need a favor, I need you to pick something up and ship it to me.”
If Pat can do this, the least Jonny can do is to do something nice for Patrick in return. He thinks he’ll get a kick out of this.
--
Jonny lucks out that the package actually gets to him before the game. When he pulls the Evander Kane jersey out, a note in his mom’s handwriting falls out as well. It indicates that normal people might just make someone cookies or ask them to dinner, and she’s written her Nanaimo bar recipe on the back in cramped letters. Jonny rolls his eyes - it’s not like Pat is the kind of guy who you fucking woo, honestly; he’s more likely to appreciate the joke jersey for what it is. If the two of them went to a fancy dinner they’d just end up getting into an argument about whether French wine was superior to the rest of their wine list until Pat stabbed him to get him to shut up.
He heads out to the UC early in case he has trouble picking up his ticket - Tazer isn’t exactly written on his driver’s license and it’s not like Pat could have given them a physical description. He’s expecting Patrick’s gotten them two seats together so he watches to see if anyone reacts to his Jets jersey, but eventually he gives up and heads over to ticketing to ask. They ask him to confirm the name of the forum, because apparently Pat put that on the tickets too, but then when the lady working at the desk hands the envelope over there’s just one ticket inside. Pat’s already stopped by and gotten his and hasn’t waited for him, maybe? Though in all fairness, Pat has no way of knowing that he’d actually show up.
It’s probably a good thing that he’s stepped out of the way of the crowds before he checks the seat number, because he nearly trips himself and then slams his shoulder into the doorway. This is - this is not the kind of ticket you can just casually pick up for someone with a few day’s notice; this is right behind the Blackhawks bench up against the glass. To put something like this on hold you’d have to be holding some impressive season tickets or even more impressive connections.
Pat was right, though - this is one hell of an olive branch.
Jonny heads down to his seat, increasingly rattled. He feels like an asshole now too, to be that close to center ice and wearing another team’s jersey. It wouldn’t be a big deal if he was up in general seating but he’s probably going to spend the whole game getting weird looks from whoever’s on the bench. It’s not like he could have known, though, and he’s not going to strip down to the shirt he’s wearing underneath.
He’s even more uneasy when it turns out that the seat on one side of him is taken by a young woman holding her toddler and there’s an elderly couple on the other side. He’s not sure where Patrick is, but it’s definitely not here, and who the hell drops a ticket this expensive on a near stranger and then doesn’t even show up to the game themselves?
Jonny makes small talk with the couple, who tell him they’ve been to every home game in the last 6 years and most of the practices. They’re certainly more at home in these seats than he is, jersey aside.
When the Blackhawks skate out, Patrick fucking Kane does a double take and comes over to the glass in front of him. Jonny’s not sure what the guy’s problem is - does he not have a sense of humor about someone wearing a different Kane’s jersey to his game? - but Kane just throws his hands up with this long-suffering expression and skates back to the other end of the bench where he can continue to glare at Jonny. He’s not sure he wants to know what Kane’s whispering to Patrick Sharp that’s made him look like a cat surrounded by fat flightless birds, but now Sharp is staring at him too. Jonny just gives him the deadeye he used to use when he didn’t want to answer reporters’ questions, the one his mother says looks like he’s plotting the murder of everyone in the room, but Sharpy just laughs and bumps helmets with Kane like they’re in on the same joke.
The only real consolation is that Kane looks just as murderous as Jonny feels.
Midway through the game, every single Blackhawks player on the bench has turned around and deliberately made eye contact with him at least once and he’s getting a little freaked out by how intense they all are. He’d guess that someone recognized him from when he used to play, but no - it has to be about the Jets jersey, it’s too weird a coincidence for it not to be. They’re all playing hard tonight, but Kane seems almost possessed, throwing himself full-body into everything he does with the sort of intensity you’d expect at a playoff game, not when they’re already several points ahead. If this is Kaner’s reaction to someone showing up in an Evander Kane jersey, he’s surprised the Jets player made it out of their last game alive.
Kaner skates by him on the way back to the bench when they’re switching out lines and pauses, contorts his mouth into an awful grimace, points right at Jonny’s jersey through the glass and mouths “why?”
“Gotta represent the better Kane,” Jonny tells him.
Patrick Kane looks at Jonny as if it physically pains him that Jonny exists, and then goes back to alternating between sulking childishly and glaring straight at him for the remainder of the game - which they win by a wide margin, but Jonny’s too baffled by then to fully appreciate the last goal.
He does take a photo though, a terrible selfie of himself standing against a sea of red and black, and sends it to Pat.
taz3r: Thank you. Sorry for avoiding you. As you’ve pointed out, I’m not good at feelings.
taz3r: I wish you’d been here.
[ Part 3]