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Patrick didn’t do expectations. He didn’t do hope, he didn’t do wishing, and he certainly didn’t presume that everyone could read his mind.
He did however believe that his best friend was an idiot with all of his heart and soul, and that kind of got in the way of everything else. He was also truly, madly, and deeply in love with the aforementioned idiot, and that was also a problem he was dealing with.
Patrick Timothy Kane (The Second) was under the impression that good things happened to good people. It wasn’t a scientific fact, but neither was love, and everyone seemed to be buying into that myth.
Patrick, or Kaner, or Peekaboo, or Doc depending on who you asked was a seventeen year old junior who wanted the simple things in life. He wanted his family to be happy and healthy, he wanted all boys to stay away from his sisters as long as there was breath in his body, he wanted to pay his mom and dad back for how much they sacrificed for him to go to hockey practice all over the tri-state area, but more than most things, he wanted to tell his best friend Jonny Toews, the idiot, that he was so in love with him that it was a little embarrassing.
Most of his wants were obtainable and by the sheer force of will he would accomplish his goals… almost all of them.
He could lock his sisters in the basement and castrate any boy that came near them, he could make it to the NHL and pay his parents back for everything they had done for him, he could provide for his family and love them for the rest of his life, and he would.
He could not, however, sack up and tell Jonny he loved him because that would be ridiculous and nobody liked ridiculous people.
No matter how many eye rolls Duncs and Seabs shared, no matter how silent and judgey Hoss was, no matter how much Russian Pan and Anisimov chittered at him while they thought they were being subtle glancing between him and Jonny in the locker room, and most of all no matter how often Sharpy and Crow sang Kaner and Tazer sitting in a tree; Patrick was not a ridiculous person.
“Hey, what’s up?” Patrick asked as he answered his phone. He had spent the majority of his day trying to teach Jackie how to win the rainbow level of Mario Kart. She hadn’t gotten it, but she was only seven, and rainbow road was the demon track sent from hell.
“Kaner!” Jonny yelled from the other end of the line. It never failed to amaze Patrick how bad Tazer was at grasping simple concepts like ‘inside voice’.
“Gah, what?” Kaner yelped pulling the phone away from his face. He glanced quickly at the stupid picture that Sharpy had taken of him and Jonny when they were celebrating scoring the winning goal at last year’s championships. Sharpy had shown Kaner the picture when they were all over at Seab’s for the after game party, and Patrick had spent the better part of the evening freaking out that Sharpy was going to show Tazer, and he didn’t know why that was a bad thing, but he was also sh-wasted and that probably didn’t help his thought process.
Sharpy thought it was funny at first, but after a few minutes of Kaner blubbering constantly about how much Tazer would hate him if Sharpy ever showed him that picture, he promised to delete it. Somehow the next morning while Kaner was ambling aimlessly around Seabs’ parent’s guest house, he found that someone, i.e. Sharpy, had changed the background of his phone to that stupid picture. It wasn’t anything too embarrassing, Kaner reasoned several months after the fact, when he assigned the picture as Jonny’s ID photo, but he wasn’t about to let Sharpy know that he was actually a help instead of a hindrance.
“Kaner!” Jonny yelled again, and his voice sounded tiny but stern coming through the phones speakers.
Kaner rolled his eyes, ignored his heart speeding up at Jonny just saying his name, and answered, “What Tazer?”
“Thank God you’re there, I need your help.” Jonny replied.
Kaner breathed out a sigh and fell back on his bed. “What do you need Cap?”
Patrick could hear a swishing sound that probably indicated that Jonny was pacing around his room or making a salad or something else stupid and healthy. Patrick didn’t even know why he loved this kid.
“I forgot to ask you at school what color I should wear to prom.” Jonny said and even though it was supposed to be a question, it was most definitely a statement. How did he always make them sound like a statement?
Also, ow.
Jonny might as well have come over and punched him square in the chest. ‘Gee Kaner, what should I wear to a formal dance where I’ll be all over a girl who’s not you, and I’ll probably fall in love with her, and get married, and have two point three kids, and adopt a moose, and blah blah blah.’
Kaner was not a ridiculous person so instead he swallowed down the lump in this throat, compartmentalized his pain, and asked, “What? I don’t know.”
“Helpful Kaner, as per usual.” Jonny snipped.
“Well excuse the fuck outta me,” Kaner snapped back, his anger at the situation easily changing directions from the question to Jonny, as was their way. “How should I know what color you should wear to prom? Maple leaf Yellow? Winterpeg White? Is syrup an option?”
Patrick could feel Tazer’s eyes rolling from half a mile away.
“Well we have to match, don’t we? So like, what color is your tux?” Jonny grumbled back.
And if Kaner had a dollar for every time Jonny grumbled at him like that- wait…
“What?” Kaner asked breathlessly the hand clenching his phone getting tighter and tighter as he listened to the breathing on the other end of the phone. Jonny didn’t sound nervous or like he was joking, but there was no way.
“Isn’t that how this is supposed to go? Sharpy told me… a geez, if Sharpy and Burish were pranking me again, I will make them skate suicides until they die.” Jonny groused over the line.
Patrick took a practice breath. Of course, it was just a joke. Sharpy and Bur were just pranking Tazer like they did all the freaking time.
Of course.
“But I feel like people do coordinate when they go to formal stuff, so even if they were pranking me, I think we should probably still do it.” Jonny continued, and Patrick’s throat seized up again, “My mom will freak if the pictures turn out bad.”
This was happening.
This was a thing that was happening in real life.
Kaner squinted at his ceiling and decided, ‘Why the hell not just go for it?’
“Yeah, I guess.” Patrick agreed. “So hey, yeah since when are we going to prom together?”
There was a pause as the line went completely silent. Kaner pulled the phone away from his face to look at it and make sure the call didn’t drop.
He got it back up to his ear just in time to hear a whispered, “Shit. I forgot to ask you.”
Kaner could have died right then and there. He huffed out a laugh and prepared to make fun of his best friend… his boyfriend… his Jonny, for the rest of their natural born lives, if he got his way.
So Kaner wasn’t a ridiculous person, he didn’t do hope, he didn’t do wishing, and he certainly didn’t presume that everyone could read his mind.
But he couldn’t say the same thing of his best friend.
Because Jonny was ridiculous as hell.
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