Chapter Text
Patrick gets it. Breaking up with your girlfriend sucks. However, Jonny’s been taking it to the next level for nearly a month now. He was in a horrible mood all throughout spring break, he barely left their hotel in Miami Beach. The guys walked on tiptoes around him the entire trip, and since then he’s been snappish and grouchy with all the poor pledges who just want to worship the ground he walks upon. Jonny has a right to be a little stressed. They’re closing in on end of the year finals, and he’s double majoring in econ and cog sci like the insane person he is. He’s been interviewing for all of these hardcore internships, unlike Patrick who’s already got a gig lined up with FiveThirtyEight. But historically, there have definitely been worse times for him stress-wise. With the Wildcats’ season over, it’s not like he’s juggling soccer practice and games on top of everything else. Basically he’s wearing out Patrick’s patience. He just wants his bro back, not this automaton who just works out and does school work and can’t even be convinced to go out for a beer or a little pickup game of basketball.
Jonny’s always been intense, but he’s also always been willing to let loose too. Sharpy passed on the presidency of Chi Beta to him for a reason. And well, pledges worship him. Watching Jonny mope around is a serious boner killer, he doesn’t even get what the big deal is. Carolyn was cool and all, beautiful, stacked, but it’s not like she and Jonny were going to get married or anything. It took them nearly three months of hooking up to even call it a relationship, which had been hilarious to Patrick at the time, because Jonny hadn’t been banging anybody else, but had clearly not wanted to commit. But whatever, he obviously misses her now. He’s being a giant pain the ass after all.
They’ve got to figure out what’s up with him though, because Patrick does not want the last semester of his junior year marred with Jonny being a pussy bitch.
“Do you think getting laid would help?” Patrick asks, sucking hard on lollypop, as he schools Seabs and Duncs on CoD.
Seabs doesn’t look away from the screen as he makes a considering noise. He better not look away at the rate that Patrick’s kill count is rising, he thinks gleefully.
“Wouldn’t hurt, right?” Seabs ventures. “He hasn’t brought anybody back here in a long time.”
Patrick is well aware. They share a wall. The same wall that Jonny’s headboard is against. And unless he’s been picking up in the library and going for it in the stacks (massively unlike Jonathan Toews), Jonny’s been a stone cold monk for two months. Which, now that Patrick thinks about it, does sound like the problem. If you let that shit get backed up, god only knows what could go wrong.
“What’re you thinking to do about it? Set up a fund for a classy escort?” Duncs asks.
Seabs dies on the screen and throws his controller aside. “Jesus. Why do I even bother?”
Patrick pulls the sucker out of his mouth. “Too thirsty for getting owned?” he says with a cackling laugh as Seabs flicks him off.
*
Patrick is obviously not setting up a fund for an escort, classy or otherwise. There are better uses for that money—beer, weed, pizza, fixing the broken door out to the backyard which Duncs claimed he was going to do forever ago. But he figures it doesn’t hurt to say something to Jonny, maybe subtly suggest he needs to get his dick wet before he explodes.
Only problem, Patrick realizes, with being subtle is that it sounds kind of weird and gay to be asking Jonny so offhand if he’s getting enough. He comes to this conclusion in Henry Crown doing a set of bench presses while Jonny is spotting him. Occupied as he is, he can’t quite come up with a way to say it that won’t be embarrassing for them both.
Jonny knows him too well though, because somewhere around the twelfth rep he snorts and Patrick and says, “Out with it.”
“What?” Patrick asks innocently.
“You’ve got something on your mind,” Jonny replies. “So, out with it.”
Patrick huffs. Jonny added two extra twenty pound weights to the bar today, because he’s being a dick right now and claims that Patrick is being lazy and isn’t living up to his full potential. Patrick fights through the first set of reps, gritting his teeth.
“I don’t know, man,” he says, wanting to pull his own teeth out more than he wants to have this conversation. “You’ve been in a really bad mood.”
Jonny just counts for him rather than answering. “Eight, nine, keep it up, Peeks.”
“I’m just wondering—” he pauses to get the bar to the top of the lift, “—like I’m just wondering if maybe you need to uh...blow off some steam.”
“How do you mean?” Jonny asks, voice neutral. Patrick can’t really see his face from this angle, so he’s got no idea what he’s thinking.
“Pick up, take somebody—” he has to cut himself off again, arms really starting to burn, “—back to the house. Relieve a little, ah, pressure.”
Jonny snorts, but he doesn’t seem to be actively annoyed.
“Don’t try to lie to me, man, I know it’s been a while,” Patrick replies. Fuck, each lift is coming slower and slower as Patrick struggles to maintain the proper form in his arms and also not to just drop the bar down over his chest.
“Seventeen, eighteen, just two more, Peeks, you can do it,” Jonny says. Patrick valiantly powers through the last two, huffing and puffing the entire time. When he gets to the top of the press Jonny takes the bar and lifts it back into the cradle. Jonny knocks his shoulder and says, “Good job.”
Patrick sits upright, arms like jello. Jonny removes the clips on the bar and pulls off some of the weights, substituting them for some heavier ones.
“Show off,” he mutters.
“Up,” Jonny says, kicking at his foot. Patrick gets up so that Jonny can take his place. When Patrick’s back behind him at the head of the bench, Jonny wraps his hands around the bar, flexing his fingers for a moment before lifting it out of the cradle. 275 pounds, Patrick thinks, he really is a show off. But then Jonny breathes out and starts lifting the bar at a much smoother, quicker rate than Patrick managed.
After about ten of them, he says, “It’s fine, Kaner, don’t worry about it.”
Patrick assumes he means letting off steam and not the bar, because as far as Patrick can tell he’s got it pretty well covered. He holds back a sigh.
When Jonny finishes, Patrick says, “Bet I can outlast you on the bikes.”
Jonny’s eyes flash. “You’re on.”
So. That went well.
*
Over lunch a couple days later, Patrick tries again. Jonny’s spent most of the meal just staring off into space over Patrick’s right shoulder, in between occasional mouthfuls of chicken soup. Patrick looked behind himself twice out of reflex before he realized there wasn’t anyone there. Trying to hold a conversation with him right now is a recipe in frustration. Patrick takes a whole ten minutes describing the injustice of losing a letter-grade on a problem set just because he forgot a minus-sign in the final answer, and Jonny, after a long pause, just says, “Yeah, that sucks.”
“I gotta level with you,” Patrick says, tossing down his grease-stained napkin. “You’re depressing the fuck out of me, here. Please, man. Do what you need to do. Find a nice young woman and do depraved things with her.” He says with a laugh. “Quit moping.”
That gets Jonny’s attention, but he just rolls his eyes. “Thanks for the life advice,” he says and spoons up the rest of his soup, which is the lunch of sadness as far as Patrick is concerned. Even if Jonny follows it up with the other two plates of food on his tray.
That’s the problem, really. Jonny’s irritability is kind of like the weather. If need be, Patrick can live with it. But Jonny seems persistently down, and that is harder to take.
“Let’s go out tonight,” Patrick says. It’s Friday night, and the house two doors down has been flyering all the hallways.
“I dunno,” Jonny says. “Maybe.”
“Dude, not maybe,” Patrick says. “Yes, absolutely.”
Jonny stands up and dumps his empty tray. “Maybe,” he says firmly.
Oh, so it’s going to be like that. Patrick cocks his eyebrow at Jonny and follows him.
*
Jonny’s in his room, listening to whiny folk music and folding laundry when Patrick goes to get him that night. He stares at him in horror. Oh god, Jonny has sunk so far.
“What?” Jonny says, holding up a pair of socks he’s rolled together. “Did you need something?”
Out of the blue and into the black/You pay for this/but they give you that/And once you're gone, you can't come back/When you're out of the blue/and into the black.
“No, no, no,” Patrick says. “It’s Friday night and you’re in here listening to sad warbling? No, man, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t be a good friend to you if I let this continue.”
“This is Neil Young, asshole,” Jonny says. “And there’s nothing wrong with taking a night off.”
“Dude, this isn't taking a night off, this is a cry for help,” Patrick says.
Jonny picks up a t-shirt and shakes it out with a brisk snap of his wrists, then starts aligning the seams. “Just not feeling it,” he says dismissively. “But have a good time.”
Patrick stands there for a moment trying not to lose his temper.
“So,” Patrick says slowly. “I didn’t want to do this, man, but you forced my hand. You must just want me to post those pictures from that one rush party on your Facebook timeline really badly. You remember, right? From back before you got lame.”
Jonny lowers the shirt and stares at Patrick, who raises his eyebrows. They're terrible photos, Jonny passed out and half-naked, and Patrick had drawn all over him—boobs over his pecs, 'Thirsty for PKane' across his forehead, a dick on his cheek. Patrick wasn't exactly Van Gogh here, but Jonny was mortified by them regardless. Oh well, he brought them to this place, he’d have to live with the consequences.
“Fucking hell,” Jonny says, disgusted. He tosses the shirt back on his pile of laundry and shoves Patrick in the stomach. “Get out of my room. Guess I have to get changed.”
Patrick laughs, triumphant. “Five minutes,” he says.
“Blackmailer,” Jonny yells back.
*
Jonny isn’t a total stick in the mud at the Rho Alpha Phi party at least. His cell stays firmly in his pocket and he’s socializing with a couple of guys from his team, both freshman. But he’s staying well away from where the dancing and the games of flip-cup and pong are, which of course, is where everybody female is hanging. Patrick doesn’t know what his damage is. Before Carolyn it was what he did—score fast and often just like Patrick. Now he’s hanging out with the kiddies and barely even nodding at the chicks who say hello to him as they pass. Maybe Jonny’s dick is broken.
Well if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad will have to go to the mountain.
He and Jonny have known each other since they were kids, back before Patrick got injured and Jonny gave up hockey for soccer, but they’ve been friends since they were grouped in the same suite as freshman. They rushed the same frat in the spring and they’ve been tight ever since. All of which is to say that Patrick has ample experience of what Jonny goes for in a girl: blonde and big tits with a good sense of humor. Patrick doesn’t have time to go around demanding the ladies around here tell him some warm up jokes, but he’s sure he can find someone who covers the other two categories.
He strikes gold in the front hall on the way to the kitchen. There’s a girl in a tiny blue dress, solo cup in hand, hanging with a group of friends. She’s a blonde so pale it’s almost platinum and she’s got an anime body spilling out of that dress. When she talks, he detects an accent. Even better, a hot euro chick.
When he gets back to Jonny he sees the sad sack get his phone out, fiddling on the screen rather than talking to anybody. Unless Jonny is texting some booty call right now, this cannot stand.
“You need another drink,” Patrick states and tugs on Jonny’s elbow.
“Kaner, it’s cool,” Jonny protests as Patrick bodily hauls him towards the kitchen. They have to pass through that same hallway as the girl in the blue dress and when they get close, Patrick deliberately stumbles, pushing Jonny into her.
“What the—” Jonny cries, hands snapping out to grab her shoulders so that he doesn’t knock her right over.
She looks up at him startled, cup clenched tight in her hand, the other one on his chest. “It’s good I’d finished my drink,” she says after a moment in that same sexy accent.
“Yeah, jesus,” Jonny says, he looks over at Patrick above her head with a glare, “Sorry, my buddy is a sloppy fucking drunk.”
Patrick shouts, “Sorryyyyy!” too loud, not having to pretend all that hard to be wasted. She huffs and turns back to Jonny who has to quickly school his face back into a calm expression. Patrick flashes him a cheeky thumbs up before high-tailing it to the kitchen.
He keeps an eye out in between getting drafted into a game of flip-cup, and things seem to be going pretty well. At least, Jonny hasn’t drifted back to the corner, and he’s still talking to that girl when Patrick squeezes past them in search of a bathroom. In typical fashion, someone’s taking up the downstairs toilet and yells “Fuck off!” when Patrick hammers on the door after a minutes of increasingly-urgent waiting.
“Fuck yourself!” Patrick hollers back, and heads upstairs. There has to be another bathroom in this joint. It involves opening a couple firmly closed doors, but he eventually finds one, an en suite in someone’s master bedroom. Whatever, though, those doors weren’t locked, and this is an emergency. It’s quiet in here, away from the noise of the party, and Patrick thinks there are possibly very few things that feel as good as pissing when you’re drunk. Like obviously getting laid when you’re drunk is better, and maybe bacon breakfast sandwiches. If it was the end all be all, he would’ve gotten Jonny drunk and made him drink a ton of water ages ago.
He wonders how it’s going though. Jonny had looked engrossed when he’d passed them, leaning in close to hear her over the noise of the music and smiling. If he plays his cards right, he’s pretty sure Jonny can get in there.
He’s just washing his hands when the door to the bedroom thuds open, letting in all the noise from downstairs. Either another person has an urgent need for the facilities like Patrick or they’re here to make use of the bed.
Patrick opens his mouth to call out to them that he’ll be out in just a minute, when he’s interrupted by a high-pitched feminine giggle followed by a groan.
Well somebody is definitely feeling an urgent need for something. He bumps at the door with his hip as he’s drying his hands, intending to mock whoever it is a little and then go on his way when he realizes that’s Jonny sitting on the edge of the bed with a topless girl in his lap.
Oh fuck. Patrick immediately backs away from the door. There’s only a slight gap. He doesn’t think they saw him. The last thing, the very last thing, he wants to do is interrupt Jonny when he’s getting his groove on, especially after all his hard work. Jonny needs this, and Patrick just knows busting out of the bathroom now will end it pretty quick.
But also he has no desire to hang out in the bathroom, an unsought audience to whatever is happening out there. His eyes dart around the bathroom, trapped, thinking hard. Maybe he can sneak out without them seeing. They might notice a sudden shaft of added light in the room though. He feels a little ridiculous even contemplating it, but if he switches it off he can probably slowly crawl out on his hands and knees without getting noticed. He hopes Jonny knows how much love Patrick has for him, because there is literally no one else that he would even consider this nonsense for.
He switches the light off and holds his breath, as far as he can tell nobody has jumped up in surprise, so he tries peeking back around the crack in the door to see if the coast is clear. Well, they’ve graduated to the clothes-off portion of the night anyway. But Patrick doesn’t think he’s going to be able to open the door without attracting a lot of attention. They’re a little busy and all right now, sucking face, but he’s directly to Jonny’s left. No way he doesn’t notice a door opening up only five feet away.
Patrick moves away from the door again with a sigh. Welp. He’s got his phone with him. He can play Ninja Pizza Girl for a little while. It’s not like the party is that hoppin’ anyway. Things are mostly quiet, so it’s not even that awkward knowing that Jonny is getting it on on the other side of the door. He’s a little used to this after all—Jonny and Carolyn used to have sex in the evening like clockwork while Patrick was in his room doing his calc homework. Jonny was at least a small modicum of considerate and put music on, but it was hard to cover up the sound of the loose headboard slamming into the wall.
There’s some whispered conversation in the bedroom that Patrick tunes out, but it sounds pretty tame. He hopes Jonny’s not out there just holding hands with this girl. He doesn’t think so—naked handholding is a weird thing to do, but there is a definite lack of sex noises.
Well, that doesn’t last long. It turns out euro girl is very loud, so loud she’s practically shouting. Is Jonny murdering her in there? What the hell! He peeks around the door before he can think better of it and freezes, stunned.
The girl’s on top of Jonny, but sprawled flat on his chest while they make out, she’s not so much riding Jonny as using him as a dildo, flexing her hips, back dipping and bowing, working his dick only the barest few inches back and forth inside her. It’s clearly working for her, if those loudass cries are anything to go by. And Jonny’s just laying there, arms around her, letting her do it. She’s so preoccupied that she’s more moaning against Jonny’s mouth than kissing him. But Jonny must not mind, because the corner of his lips have turned up in the beginning of a smile. Patrick’s never seen anything like it. It’s—well, it’s hot.
Patrick, remembering himself, jerks himself away from the door. His cheeks have gone hot and he feels an uncomfortable swooping sensation in his belly. Shit. He shouldn’t be perving on them while they’re doing their thing. That’s not buddies. And also, omg, how fucked up is it that he finds anything Jonny does hot. That’s just not right. But his brain keeps replaying it over and over, the way he had looked, cheeks flushed, hair sticking damply to his forehead, cock all shiny on the condom from her wet, holding himself so still for her.
Patrick swallows, mouth suddenly dry. He glances around the edge of the door again but everything’s the same, no chance of escape. Jonny’s still flat on the bed as she brings herself off, his only movement his hands sliding down her back, fingers stroking lightly against her skin. When Patrick turns away from the door to sit with his back against the wall, that’s the image he can’t shake, seeing it behind his eyes when he squeezes them shut and shoves his palm down against his hardening cock, trying to get relief. He can’t even bang his head against the wall like he wants when the sounds in the other room increase in frequency. Patrick’s going to take this experience to the grave, which is too bad, since Jonny’s never going to know how much of Patrick’s personal dignity he’s sacrificing for the sake of Jonny’s health and happiness.
When the room goes quiet, Patrick peeks again, only to find that they’ve switched it up, and the girl is bent over Jonny’s waist, giving him the filthiest blowjob he’s ever seen. She’s on her knees on the mattress near his left hip, still moaning occasionally as she works her lips over the head of his dick. Jonny has his arm crooked around the back of her thigh. His forearm is shifting rhythmically as he fingers her. It’s a display of coordination that Patrick can’t fathom considering how close he seems to coming, the desperate tension in his face, eyes tightly closed and mouth dropped open. Patrick bites his lip and pulls back, reaching out with his fingertips to push the door closed so not even a strip of the bedroom is visible.
It takes a long time before Patrick hears anything else from the other room, and then it’s just a murmur of voices. He hears Jonny say something about the sheets, and then low laughter on either side. Footsteps that almost give him a heart attack when he thinks they’re heading toward the bathroom before the door to the hallway opens and closes again. He blows out a long breath and pulls the door open, first a little bit and then the rest of the way when he sees the bedroom is empty.
At least, Patrick thinks, Jonny’ll have gotten out of his stupid funk. He presses his hand to his dick again. Jesus, no one with a night like that could possibly be feeling any pain.
*
Patrick wakes up with a beast of hangover and trudges down to breakfast swearing to himself that he’ll never drink tequila again. Seabs is in the kitchen frying up eggs and bacon and he takes pity on Patrick and makes him up a plate. There’s coffee already in the pot too.
“Thank god,” Patrick groans when he gets his first sip. “Marry me, man. I’ll consent to do the cleaning.”
Seabs snorts and waves the spatula at him. “I’m an independant lady, Kaner, I’ll do my own cleaning.”
Jonny, when he makes it down the stairs, unfairly looks healthy and glowing, like he got a full eight hours of rest. Images from last night swim through Patrick's brain and he pushes them away. No way is he up for dealing with them in harsh daylight with a hangover gnawing at him. Jonny's never great in the morning, so Patrick doesn’t try to talk to him until he’s had his disgusting yogurt and muesli and his own cup of coffee. He reads the paper in the morning, an actual print copy, and hates to be interrupted.
“Did you get that girl’s number?” Patrick asks when Jonny has cleaned his bowl and set the weekend edition aside.
Jonny grunts rather than answers, so Patrick takes that as a no. Well, that’s fine, he lightened the load so to speak, last night, that’s something. Patrick isn’t going to expect miracles.
He’s checking the sports highlights on his phone when Jonny says sharply, “Hey! Mind waiting until we clear out of the kitchen before you start that thing?” He looks up, and that quiet underclassman, Turbo, is guiltily pulling his finger away from the start button on the blender. What? Like Jonny wasn’t blending smoothies until 10 PM all last week? While Patrick watches, Turbo starts unplugging the blender, like he’s going to lug it away to another room to use it.
It’s such a blatant display of bad temper that it takes Patrick a second to snap out of his surprise before he says, “Yo, Turbo, don’t worry about it. We’re done already.” That blender isn’t going to do his hangover any favors, but it’s not like Turbo doesn’t have the right to make breakfast.
Jonny presses his lips together and dumps his cereal bowl in the sink before clearing the room. Turbo, poor kid, is still looking dismayed at the counter.
Patrick is also a little dismayed. Jonny so rarely takes his irritation out on others. It’s part of the reason everybody is so chill with him. If he gets mad it usually turns inward, but now it’s been a month of sharp comments and slamming doors. Patrick wonders if he’s depressed or something. How could he not be in a good mood after last night? Patrick had backstage passes to it, he’s pretty positive Jonny enjoyed himself.
This is too much. Patrick’s aching head cannot handle this shit.