Patrick tries to find Jonny a new boyfriend so he can stop paying alimony.

Sort of.

“Okay,” Patrick says slowly. “Okay. We can figure this out.” And it comes to him in a bolt of insanity, like all his best and worst ideas do, and he’s not sure if he should be impressed or horrified by his own brain, but he says, a little recklessly, “We can get married.”

It's been eight years since Patrick made the hardest decision he's ever had to and left the love of his life; eight years in which he's made sure not to see, hear, or talk about Jonathan Toews, heir to multinational conglomerate, the Toews-Gilbert Group. And even though he's never really gotten over Jonny and the way they broke up, he's settled in his life now; he's an award-winning pastry chef with his own successful bakery, and he's slowly inching his way towards forgetting completely about Jonny.

Then when he least expects it, Jonny walks back into his life - with a fiancé - and asks him to design their wedding cake.

Despite his misgivings and the reopening of old wounds, Patrick can't help thinking that maybe Jonny's reappearance, after all this time, is a chance for him to finally get closure and be friends with Jonny once more.

(But you know what they say about best-laid plans.)

He’s breathing Jonny’s air, chest tight with panicked anticipation, so stupidly nervy he’s nearly shaking. He can count Jonny’s individual eyelashes from this close, see so clearly the way Jonny’s irises shade maroon closer to the pupil. He feels like he’s drowning. He is straight, he is straight, he is straight. Patrick likes girls, he’s never had to convince himself of that. He doesn’t know what the fuck is going on right now. Or why the hell he isn’t shoving and laughing at Jonny. Telling him to keep his stupid mitts to himself.

“I’m gonna do this,” Jonny says, hands coming up to cup Patrick’s jaw and Patrick doesn’t stop him.

Johnny’s taking care of things back home, Patrick’s keeping himself sharp while he’s here, and every time they talk, Patrick’s reminded that--unbelievably--he has a real, adult relationship that’s lasting distance and time and their screwups alike.

A real, adult relationship where he’s allowed a free pass for his birthday, apparently.

Patrick’s pretty damn lucky.

Here’s how it goes: Pat was out at a club, got bitten by a wolf—wtf?—got yelled at by Abby Sharp, woke up naked on her kitchen table, spent the day hiding in an IHOP, played the most aggressive game of hockey in his career and got mob-bossed off the ice by Sidney Crosby who, for the record, was surprisingly terrifying.

That was Tuesday.

Beneath the ice, dread things lie dreaming. Or listening to One Direction, whatever.

Patrick gets five words into his vows (“You’re my best friend, I -”) before his throat closes up too tight to speak and even if he could it’s too blurry to read through his tears.

Very short, but perfectly contained. Happy story.

Jonny’s place is in one of the older parts of town–a kind of shabby old red brick building made fashionable by gentrification. Patrick checks to make sure he’s got the right number, because there’s no name on the buzzer. The door buzzes open obligingly only moments after he presses the button. No 'hello' or 'who is it?', just the electronic whirr letting him no he can go inside. Patrick swallows. Fuck, what is he getting into?

Jonny’s on the fourth floor of the walk up. By the time Patrick gets to the top, Jonny’s there, leaning against his doorframe, barefoot and a little rumpled. His eyes crinkle up in a smile when he sees Patrick. “Wasn’t sure you’d show,” he says simply.

“I uh–don’t do this…” Patrick says.

“Hookup?” Jonny asks.

Hockey players don’t say “I love you.” They fumble about for months alternately fucking and trying to figure out how to be sweet out of bed as well as in it, and I think that’s very beautiful.

(Sometimes, if they’re very lucky, they grow up a little, too.)

Jonathan’s jaw is set. Patrick knew him before he met him— he’s read about him, knows what he had to go through as one of the first omegas on the NHL— and he knows, with a sudden and terrible clarity, what Jonathan’s going to say before he does.

“To stop the bonding,” Jonathan says. “What if I repudiate him? Will that work?”

Jonny doesn’t plan on becoming nap buddies with Patrick.

[This starts off oddly, but once it's finds it's groove it's great.]

It took Patrick about half an hour to lose the wig, and maybe an hour after that he was begging Stalsy to lend him a pair of sweats.

“I didn’t think this through,” he whined, tugging at his skirt, which barely made it halfway down his thighs. “Everyone can see my ass.”

“Everyone at this party’s probably already seen your ass, buddy,” Jonny said, and Patrick frowned at him.

His lipgloss was rubbing off again.

They’re thirteen years old when Jonathan Toews decides he’s going to marry Patrick Kane someday.

Maybe being a carrier is nothing to be ashamed of, like they learned in school. But maybe this is the real world, and life doesn't work that way. Either way, Patrick can't be pregnant right now. But it's gonna be okay, because he has Jonny at his side. That'll help. It always helps.

...Maybe that's not such a good thing?

Finally, he typed, How do I help my - he paused again, before swallowing and continuing - partner who has a concussion?

Unsurprisingly, the internet had an answer.

Actually, the internet had a lot of answers.

Jonny's never been to Patrick's hometown, and Patrick's never been to Jonny's, for anything other than hockey. They don't step into each other's spaces like that—Chicago is their home, it's the place they share, and that's enough. Until Jonny calls Patrick in the middle of summer and tells him to come to Winnipeg.

22k of D/s!AU. Exploration of past trauma (a little) and how they make their unusual situation work for them. I liked it :D.

It’s the kind of thing Pat has only seen in niche kink porn, two subs sceneing together. It can’t possibly be something that works, can it?

"Hey," Patrick says over Thai one night, nudging Jonny's thigh with his sock-covered toes. Jonny makes a non-committal hmn? sound back at him, partly because his mouth is full of noodles, and partly because he's gotten emotionally invested in Daenerys Targaryen at this point and Patrick seems to be incapable of making it through an episode without talking.

He's pretty sure it can't be anything important, anyway, which is why he's not at all prepared for Patrick to follow up with, "Do you wanna fuck me?"

Patrick loses a bet and is dared to plant an anonymous love letter into a random locker. It just so happens that the locker belongs to one Jonathan Toews, captain of the school hockey team.