Archive of Our Own

By the time Jonny drags himself through the front door of his place, he's fucking exhausted. It's not exactly late, but he's been traveling for the better part of four days, counting layovers. The flight from Winnipeg to Chicago may have been just two and a half hours in the air, but he'd had only one day with his family after getting in from Italy, and he's nowhere near rid of the jetlag yet. In fact, as he drags his bag through the front door, he feels more like he's been hit by a truck than been on a leisurely trip through parts of Europe for the last couple of weeks.

He probably should have listened to his mother's advice about staying a few more days, but he...just couldn't. There's no concrete reason for him to be back in Chicago quite yet; training camp doesn't even open for almost two weeks, and he doesn't have any other commitments penciled in for specific dates on the calendar. He's evaded his mother's questions as best he could, because the fact of the matter is, he isn't exactly sure himself why he's felt so strongly that he needed to get back to Chicago. All that time at the beginning of the offseason, fishing at home and otherwise spending time on the lake, allowed to just be with his thoughts and enjoy the quiet, calm atmosphere had given him time to think—too much time, quite possibly. Seeing friends provided some distraction, though not enough for Jonny to ever get rid of the nagging feelings he kept trying to push back into his subconscious, where he didn't have to confront them directly.

He's pretty sure the night he got high as fuck didn't help, either. It's kind of a fun way to relax, yeah, but it leaves his mind free to dwell on shit. And while that's cool by him when it's stuff about connecting with the universe and the land, or centering himself so he can be more aware or in the zone when he needs to be, it's significantly less cool when it basically buoys shit up he's been trying to ignore, or has somehow missed while it hides deep in the dark recesses of his brain.

Like all this shit about Patrick.

They've always had kind of a weird relationship, Jonny knows that. He's fought more with Patrick than he has with anyone else he actually, actively likes, and he doesn't think it's a bad thing, either—it's more a sign they're both passionate about things, and they're also not likely to let the other get away with anything. Patrick needs someone to call him on his shit sometimes, someone he won't just blow off, and Jonny likes having Patrick keep him accountable in the same sort of way (well, likes it most of the time, when Patrick's not keeping him accountable in a way that makes Jonny want to punch him in the throat). Time with Kaner is sometimes a sort of reality check, or perspective shift, in a different kind of way than time with his family or time alone back home on the lake is, and he can't really say why or how. It just is.

Running off to Europe for a month didn't really let him escape, either. If anything, it made it worse. He passed through Biel at one point, looking for some stuff to bring his mother, really good chocolate, maybe, and perhaps a nice watch for his dad or David, and had this weird sort of...thing. It wasn't a panic attack, and Jonny refuses to call it an epiphany. But there was this moment where he was thinking about how Patrick had lived here for a short while back during the lockout, had walked these same streets, seen these same places, and he just...really, seriously missed him. Suddenly, and on a visceral level he couldn't shake for hours. And it was that night, tucked into a hotel bed, that he decided that maybe his trip didn't need to be as long as originally planned.

Which is why he feels like a fucking zombie right about now, stumbling over his own carpet like he's drunk as fuck, trying to figure out whether it's smarter to go to sleep as soon as he can make his way to his bedroom, or try to stay up a few more hours until it's his typical bedtime in this time zone.

The question's half-answered for him when his phone starts to ring and all he's managed to do so far is toss half the contents of his suitcase onto the laundry room floor. He fumbles his phone out of his pocket, sees Patrick's info on the caller ID, and picks up the call. "Hey."

"Hey, man, I know it's kinda weird, but—shit, did I wake you? What time is it where you are right now?"

Jonny clears his throat. He sounds almost as rough as he feels. God, he hates jetlag. "I'm awake." He pauses, then looks at the nearest visible electronic device to see the time, forgetting he could just look at his phone for the same purpose. "And it's only seven-thirty."

There's a weird beat, and then Patrick asks, "You're back in Winnipeg already?"

"No." Jonny clears his throat again, kicks at the dirty laundry trying to tangle around his right foot, and finally extracts himself enough to walk down the hall without any added hazards. "Chicago. I kinda cut things short." He lets himself flop onto his sofa.

"Everything all right?" Patrick asks, and Jonny can picture him clearly, the caution on his face that matches his suddenly-concerned tone of voice.

"Yeah," he says, and he can actually hear Patrick relax over the line. "I just. I dunno. I felt like it was time to come back." He can't really say more about it, because the more he hears Patrick's voice, the more he thinks he knows what the problem was.

"Ah, okay."

"Hey, you're in town, too, right?" Jonny asks, like he's not already ninety-five percent sure that's the case. He's seen photos of Patrick and a couple of the other guys with some kids at the hospital on his Instagram feed, from just two days ago.

"Yeah. Why?"

"We should do lunch soon. Maybe play some video games. Just chill or something, before we have to report."

"I—yeah, sure, man. I don't have much planned this week. We can figure something out. Hey, I almost forgot—Erica wanted me to ask you if you'd made it to Belgium and if it was nice, if you did."

Jonny only has the vaguest recollection of Patrick telling him one of his sisters was trying to plan a trip to Europe for next spring, but at least he can answer this question. "Yeah. Tell her it was really nice. She should like it, especially the Grand Place in Brussels." And somehow, that devolves into Jonny rambling about his trip, half to keep himself awake and half to keep Patrick on the phone.

He carefully doesn't mention his brief stop in Biel.

"Hey," he says after several minutes, interrupting himself. "What did you want, after all?"

"Huh?"

Patrick sounds confused, and it's not like Jonny's brain is firing on all cylinders here, but he knows there was something he should have picked up on before. "Earlier. When I answered. You sounded like you were calling for a reason, like you had a question or had info for me. What was it?"

"Oh. That." Patrick sounds suddenly cagey, and it pulls Jonny out of his state of general exhaustion, just a little. "It's nothing."

"No, you called me without even checking the time where you thought I was. Did you need something from me?"

"No, nothing like that."

"Then what?"

"I just..." Patrick half-grunts, half-sighs. "I was going to ask you—tell you—something, I guess. But seriously, man, it's nothing. Don't worry about it. I don't even remember the details anymore."

Okay, that’s a lie, and even Jonny's jetlagged brain knows it. "Kaner."

"Dude, your Captain Voice is for shit. You've gotta get that back up to snuff in the next couple weeks here, or the rookies'll never listen to you."

"Fuck you, they will too," he huffs, and knows he's taken the bait, for whatever reason Patrick's offered it. He knows he was just intentionally redirected; he's exhausted, but that doesn't mean he can't address it directly and demand Patrick give him a satisfactory answer. "And don't try to change the subject."

Patrick makes that noise again, and it's more irritated, more frustrated than before. "Jonny, it's cool, okay? Just drop it. It's nothing. Just, you know when you get inside your own head too much? It's something kinda like that. It's nothing you need to worry about. I'll deal with it."

"Kaner..." Jonny says, unable to find anything else to say in response. It's the tone of voice that makes him stop pushing. Something within him says he should push harder, but he knows that'll only get Patrick to dig his heels in deeper and shove Jonny away. He's got years of experience on that. Patrick sounds so fucking defensive that Jonny knows it's smarter in the long run to back off. But he also sounds...defeated, or maybe just resigned, and that makes Jonny want to reach out and squeeze his shoulder to let him know he's got support, and Jonny's here, if Kaner needs him.

"Look, I promise, when the time is right, I'll bring it up again, okay?" Patrick says, and yeah, that's resignation. "Just. Trust me on this?"

"Yeah, sure, Pat," Jonny says after a moment. Patrick doesn't normally plead with him, but it sounds like he's dangerously close to doing just that, and it's weird, considering how relaxed and casual they were with each other until just a minute ago. "Whenever you're ready." He wonders if it's just preseason jitters or something along those lines. Maybe Patrick's wondering if he can really beat all his numbers from last season and attain new personal bests this year. Kaner comes off as cocky a lot of the time, especially to the media, but he's the only one Jonny really knows who's ever come close to the level of mental self-flagellation over his performance that Jonny engages in. For every critic Kaner's ever had in print or on-air or on the bench, he's got a louder one in his own head. And Jonny thinks he's one of the few people who really knows that, outside of the coaches Patrick's had coming up through the ranks.

"Thanks, man." He sounds so relieved that Jonny closes his eyes, tries to visualize that hand on Kaner's shoulder again, like he can project the silent support across the phone lines. Maybe it works, because Patrick sounds almost normal again when he asks, "So, lunch sometime this week?"

"Yeah. I'll get a hold of you after I shake off some of this fucking jetlag."

Patrick laughs and, okay, that's not one of his forced ones. It's softer, more affectionate, gently amused. It should relax Jonny, but it doesn't quite. "Get some sleep, Tazer. Seriously. You're fuckin' useless when you're this exhausted, and you don't have a road roommate to shove coffee in your face in the morning these days. I'll talk to you when you're less of a mess. 'Night, man."

Jonny mumbles a good night back at him and hangs up, trying not to pout at being called useless. Kaner used to be good for that, for getting him down to breakfast during road trips and getting enough caffeine in him so that he was an actual, functioning human being within a fairly respectable amount of time. He's made Jonny's life difficult in a lot of goddamn ways, but he's made it easier, too.

He's still thinking about that as he drags himself into the shower to rinse off the feeling of recycled airplane air and, by the time he's more or less falling face-first into bed, he's back to thinking of all the ways he and Patrick have fitted together since they've known each other. It worries him that what he wants is more of that—more fitting together, in ways that aren't related to their on-ice movements. He wants Kaner closer more often, wants to be allowed to be just as close. Because, yes, they're already close, in a way. But he wants closer. More. Better.

He spends more than an hour tossing and turning, and it's pissing him off that he's so exhausted he should be able to sleep for a week the second he hit the bed, but his brain won't shut off. The thing is—okay, so, the thing is, he's pretty sure what brought him back to Chicago was the drive to see Patrick. He's also pretty sure all those weird feelings he's been able to shove into his subconscious over the last however many years are finally done lying dormant, and want to be acknowledged. Jonny's a little terrified about that—but more for the fact that Kaner might not receive it well than for what it means for Jonny himself. There was all this weird tension between them, physical stuff, at the end of the season—hugs that went too long or too tight, more nudges, more touches, more looks that were held longer than they used to be—and that's what's been plaguing him all summer. It's all the what ifs. What if he's not imagining it? What if Kaner's been picking up on it? What if Kaner would be open to it (whatever "it" is, exactly)?

Jonny makes a frustrated noise and grabs for his phone. Fuck jetlag. He needs to see Kaner, face-to-face. He's somehow sure he'll know what to do, if he can just fucking see him. Even if that means he's wrong, or he's just projecting, and he's going to have to accept that some things go unrequited. He just has to know, goddamn it.

He gets Patrick's voicemail and makes himself wait through the recording instead of just hanging up. "Hey, it's me," he says once the tone beeps at him. "Look. I think we need to sit down and have a talk. Soon." And without knowing what else to say, he just hangs up after a long, awkward silence, shoves his phone out of his sight, smashes his face into the pillow, and tries to force himself to sleep.

When Jonny finally wakes, he's far from refreshed. Most of his early sleep was fitful at best, until he finally just crashed out of pure exhaustion. And instead of waking to gentle sunlight through his curtains or even the soft music he'd set to play via his phone's alarm app, what rouses him is loud pounding noises outside his front door. Given the hour—just a little after four in the morning—Jonny's not sure if he should be pissed off or worried at the intrusion.

As he flails around for pants of some sort to go confront whoever is responsible for the noise—which is probably not earning him any points at all with any of his neighbors for the disturbance at this hour—he decides he's going with pissed, and he'll make apologies later, if necessary.

His phone rings as he's tugging his jeans up over his thighs and Jonny curses, gets the jeans on and the button done, and grabs the damn thing as he storms out of his bedroom. He swipes his thumb over the screen as he fumbles it close enough to read the display, meaning to just silence it and send the call to voicemail, but the call connects instead.

Miraculously, the pounding at his front door stops just then, too, though that's not going to save whoever's on the other side of it from getting a piece of Jonny's mind.

"Jon?" Jonny blinks at the voice, stumbling mid-stride down his hallway, and he curses as he stubs his little toe on the floorboard outside of the guest bathroom. He's about to ask Patrick what the fuck he wants, forgetting he's the one who called him last in the first place, but he doesn't get a chance to get a word in before a bunch of babbling spills through the phone, rapid and desperate. "Jonny, thank God, open up and let me in, I really need to tell you—"

The stream of words stops abruptly, cut off by a fumbling sort of clunking sound, and that gets under Jonny's skin even more. "Kaner? What's going on?" He finally reaches his door and gets it unlocked, yanking it open. "I swear, if this is some sort of joke—" he starts, already giving a death glare that's only half-intentional, before he cuts himself off.

There's no one at the door. There's no one in the hall at all, in either direction, in fact, and Jonny's now even more irritated. Even Kaner's not immature enough to ding-dong-ditch him at this hour, and he's definitely not stupid enough to do so knowing how little sleep Jonny's had. He's been on the other side of Jonny's sleep-deprived wrath a few times.

"The hell?" he mutters, leaning out his door to get a better look down the hall, and then he stops when his bare feet hit something. Looking down, he can see the white Adidas he's stepped on. But even weirder is the pile of clothes—jeans and a grey polo—on top of it. Something stirs inside the pile of clothes; a second later, a small fuzzy head peeks out, and Jonny blinks hard at the sight of the very small young cat sitting there, staring at him imploringly. "What?" he asks, confused, and his voice isn't as loud this time. He's hoping he's about to get an answer, maybe a laugh or "gotcha!" from the other end of the line. Instead, the kitten just mews at him, sounding distressed.

Jonny hears it, clear as day—because he also hears it echoed through the call that's still connected, the phone still up against his ear.

What. The. Fuck.

It takes Jonny a good minute of standing in his own doorway, staring down at this pile of stuff on his doorstep, before his brain kicks on enough to actually think to do something. "It's too early for this shit, Kaner," he finally snaps into his phone, and the way his voice echoes out at him, high and tinny from someplace within the pile of clothes at his feet, is like a cold bucket of water over his head. He steps back mentally, realizes his neighbors have potentially heard all the pounding on his door and maybe his own shouting, and he's standing here, half-naked, with a pile of guy's clothes—and a cat—just at his feet. And clearly, he's not getting any sort of immediate answers. So, rather than look like even more of a crazy person than he already probably does, Jonny hangs up his phone, reaches down, scoops up the cat with one hand as it meows a startled protest, and kicks the pile of stuff into his condo, so he can at least deal with this shit in the privacy of his own home.

How the hell he's supposed to deal with it, however, is kind of the mystery here.

"Stay," he finally says, holding the cat up to his face while he instructs it before setting it down inside the door. Whether it's too scared to wander off in some strange place or it has some basic understanding of simple commands, it does, in fact, stay where Jonny sets it. Which is good, because that leaves Jonny's hands free to go through the pile still at his feet. He picks up the polo; it doesn't take a lot of looking to figure it's Patrick's. It's the same size, for one, and a style he usually wears. And if it's a joke, it's fairly elaborate—not only does Jonny catch a whiff of Kaner's cologne, but there's the slightest hint of dampness at the collar and around the armpits, like someone's been sweating just a little. And the weirder thing about it is, it's still warm. Like, body-heat warm.

There's a pair of underwear next, and Jonny knows that style, too—he's seen them hundreds of times over the years, in locker rooms and shared hotel rooms, mostly, and he knows they're the kind Patrick always wears. But fuck him if he's going to see if those are warm. He grabs for the jeans next, reaching down with one hand when a phone clatters to the ground as Jonny lifts them up. The jeans are nondescript, really, other than being Patrick's size, but Jonny knows that phone, that case. The screen's dark now, but a quick press of the home button lights it up with a background Jonny also recognizes. He knows the gold chain that slithers to the floor, too.

There's a low wave of nausea rising in the pit of his stomach as his brain tries to come up with explanations, and Jonny swallows against it, sticking his hand in each of the pockets in turn, trying to see if there are any clues there. What he finds is some spare change, a tube of vanilla-mint Chapstick, a set of keys Jonny also recognizes—complete with security-chip-enabled key fob from Patrick's building and the electronic one for his vehicle—and then a wallet. All it takes is a quick peek to confirm that yeah, that's Kaner's license right there in the front, and then Jonny snaps it shut, sets it and the keys and the gold chain on the small table inside his door, and sits abruptly on the nearest surface so he can put his head between his knees for a moment and breathe.

This can't be happening. This has got to be just some fucked up dream, brought on by his own weird thoughts about Patrick before bed and the exhaustion he's got going on due to all the travel across time zones and all of that. There's no other logical explanation, is there? One minute he's got Patrick on the phone, telling him to open his front door and let him inside...and the next—literally two seconds later—Patrick's clothes are in a heap on his doorstep. Jonny could almost keep believing the elaborate prank theory, except for the fact that there's no way Patrick would leave his wallet and keys and phone just out there, where Jonny (or someone else, for that matter) could scoop them up and fuck with them.

Something soft bats at his ankle, and Jonny opens his eyes to see the cat at his feet, looking up at him and looking even more distressed. "If you have any sort of explanation to give," he croaks, looking at it staring back at him, "I'm all fucking ears."

The cat meows and bats at his ankle again.

Jonny groans. "Not helpful." He reaches for the cat, very cautiously, and it lets him pick it up easily. Jonny holds the thing up in front of him, inspecting it, looking for some sort of clue—maybe some magic words somewhere—but there's nothing. No collar, no anything helpful. It looks like just any ordinary cat, It's kind of a light orange or maybe blond color overall with some white in its fur, and its eyes are bright blue—the same exact blue, Jonny realizes with something like dismay, that Patrick's eyes are. As he looks a little closer, he notices that the pattern of color on its head and around its face actually makes him think of Patrick's receding hairline, paired with his old signature playoff mullet. He bites back a hysterical laugh and sets the cat—kitten, really; it looks like it's definitely under a year old, though Jonny's not really a great judge at this sort of thing—carefully back onto the floor. "So," he says after a moment in which he and the kitten just sort of stare at each other. "You're...you're Patrick, aren't you?"

The kitten meows again.

Jonny hates his life.

"Okay, then if you are Patrick, prove it," he says, wondering how in the fuck some kitten is supposed to prove it's not just a cat even as he says it. The kitten just sort of gives him a disgusted look, then wanders over to where Patrick's shoes and socks are still lying on Jonny's floor, and nudges at them like he's trying to move them. After a moment, he seems to get distracted, batting at the shoelaces for a bit before gnawing on the ends and then smacking them around again. If Jonny didn't know any better, he'd think this was just your typical kitten. He almost lets himself believe it, too. But as he mutters aloud to himself, trying to find any other fucking explanation for what's going on here, the cat pauses what it's doing and meows every time Jonny says Patrick's name or some variation of it. And when it finally seems to get bored with the shoes, returning to sit in front of Jonny's feet, Jonny realizes what it was doing along with that playing, and he kind of wants to throw up.

Despite the fact that Patrick's shoes probably weigh as much as or more than the cat does, he's managed to move them both against the wall, to the exact spot Patrick normally toes them off and leaves them when he comes over.

"Fuck," Jonny murmurs, and the kitten meows in what seems like agreement. "So, like...if you can change back into yourself, I'd really appreciate that," Jonny says after another moment. Nothing happens—because of course it doesn't; one of the few things Jonny can piece together out of this weirdness is that even if this is some fucked-up party trick or something of Kaner's, he'd probably have picked a better place to do it than Jonny's front door, before Jonny even got the door open. This is the sort of thing you should maybe warn someone about, before you do it, and Jonny's pretty sure Patrick's smart enough to know that.

"Okay, so, if you can't just...turn back into you, what the hell am I supposed to do? Is this gonna wear off in a few minutes? Or are we talking about some incredibly unforeseen situation where the Hawks are suddenly going to have a lot more room under the salary cap, because no one is going to pay a cat your kind of money if he's not also scoring goals out there someh—ow!" he cries, yanking his feet up off the floor and out of the kitten's immediate reach. "You didn't have to bite me, fucker! It was a perfectly justified question. Look, if this is temporary, we can deal, I guess. I just want to know if I have to start making the most awkward phone calls of my life." He can't reasonably expect the cat to give complex answers, so Jonny sighs and holds out both fists in front of the thing. "Okay. I'm assuming you can understand me at least a little, here, given what you did with the shoes, so humor me, okay?" He moves his left fist a little. "Hit this one if this is just my new reality, and you're a cat forever. And hit this one," he says, moving the right one, "if you're gonna change back at some point."

The cat just stares at Jonny like he's stupid—and he really feels that way, actually, so he can't blame it—and doesn't move for a moment. And then it steps forward, and Jonny holds his breath so long he feels dizzy before the cat lightly head-butts his right fist.

"Oh thank God," Jonny breathes, collapsing back onto the couch. Okay. Temporary change, then. That, he can work with. If he's lucky, all he has to do is sit here and make sure the kitten doesn't get into anything dangerous, and whatever it is that's happened to Patrick will wear off in a few minutes. Jonny nods to himself and settles in for a little bit of kitten-watching.

Two hours later, Jonny wakes from his unintentional doze with a jolt, only recognizing the sound of insistent meowing after it happens a few more times. He looks around the living room and doesn't see anything there, nor in the dining room. He's about to walk down the hall towards the bedrooms, hoping that most of the doors are shut tightly like he thinks they are, when the kitten meows again and Jonny places the sound as coming from the kitchen. He gets up in a hurry, then, thinking of all the random dangerous things the cat could be getting into—stuff under the sink, weird spots under the dishwasher, the magnet strip full of knives mounted on the wall over one of the counters—and books it for the kitchen.

He skids to a stop just as he hits the linoleum, glad to see the cat is nowhere near anything imminently hazardous. It's just sitting in front of the refrigerator, staring up at it. When Jonny steps closer to try to coax it—him—back into the other room, which is probably at least a little safer, the kitten looks at Jonny, meows pitifully, and paws at the door of the fridge.

"Aw, fuck," Jonny mutters, getting the hint. He doesn't have anything for cats here. And not just to eat, he realizes—he doesn't have anything at all for a pet. And as it's now not quite seven in the morning, he's sort of losing hope that Kaner's just going to go back to being human any second.

And holy fuck, that's kind of terrifying.

"Okay," Jonny says, half to himself and half to the kitten, who's still staring at him pitifully. "Um. I don't have anything for you right now. Hell, I don't even have food for me here right now, really. I've been home for less than twelve hours, dude. Let me, uh, just..." He moves past the cat, ignoring the fridge, because he knows all that's in there is a bottle of maple syrup, another of gluten-free tamari, a couple of other half-used condiments, and maybe three or four bottles of water. He yanks open a few cupboards and the pantry and sighs. Yeah, pretty much nothing in those, either. It's not like he expected some cat food to magically appear to go along with this magical transformation, but he'd hoped there might be a can of salmon or tuna or something in there, at least. "Well, fuck."

The kitten meows again, this time sounding more judgmental than pitiful, and Jonny doesn't know if that's a comment on his profanity (which, c'mon, Kaner really has no leg to stand on with that) or his lack of anything to offer his unexpected houseguest.

"Okay, well," Jonny says, frustrated with the whole situation, and even more so because he can't hold an actual conversation about it in order to get things resolved. For the moment, all discussions are monologues instead. "Here." He walks back over to the other side of the kitchen, pulls down a cereal bowl, and fills it with filtered tap water, putting it down on the floor along one of the baseboards where he's least likely to trip over it. "It's all I've got right now. At least you won't dehydrate." When the cat makes a noise that's more grumbling than meowing, Jonny throws his hands up in the air. "I know, I know! Look, I'm working on it, okay?" He pulls his phone out of his pocket and opens up his browser app. "I'll find a place that sells stuff for you. Okay? I'm on it."

There aren't any pet stores in the area that are open this early—most open at ten or even eleven, it seems—but there's a grocery store open now that should have at least a few basics in a pet aisle. And if worse comes to worse, there's both a PetCo and a natural pet products place pretty close to each other that open at eight. Jonny can dash in there for anything he can't find at the grocery store and be out within just a couple of minutes.

"Okay," he tells the kitten a few minutes later. "I'm going to go take a quick shower—" he ignores the judging sort of look the cat gives him, "—and then I'll get you something you can have, I promise. I'll be quick. On both counts. Just. Behave while I'm in the shower, okay?" The kitten just sort of stares at him, like it's resigned to dealing with Jonny's...whatever, then turns and walks out into the living room. Jonny watches it find a very small patch of sunlight from one of the east-facing windows and curl up there, tail swishing minutely.

"Not that I wouldn't feed you anyway," Jonny mutters to himself as he heads back towards his bathroom, "but you had better be Patrick, if you've got me going through this much trouble this early." Actually, maybe that means it's not Patrick. Patrick knows how "useless" Jonny is on so little sleep. He wouldn't expect much in the way of favors. Or even basic functioning.

Still. Jonny's not seeing a lot of alternative explanations, here.

By the time he gets out of the shower and is ready to walk out the door, he gives the kitten another stern reminder to behave—it gives him the world's laziest bored look before stretching and rolling over to relocate where the spot of sun has moved a few inches to the left and goes back to ignoring him again—and gets into his car, headed towards the two pet-specific places. Given the time and rush-hour traffic—which is not a thing he normally has to deal with—he'll end up getting to either of the pet stores right when they open. Then it's just a quick in and out and he can get back with his purchases.

Of course, what Jonny's really hoping is that he'll get back to find a human Kaner waiting for him instead of some little fuzzball.

Even though Jonny would really rather support the pet place that advertises itself as being "natural," he gives in to the more rational part of his brain and heads for the bigger chain. It's not that he's worried about cost or anything—that is the absolute least of his worries at the moment, really—but he does recognize that the giant pet supply store likely has any and all basics he might need, in one easy-to-access area. He's hoping not to need any of this stuff anyway—but if he does, it's hopefully just for a couple of hours, and he can donate everything to some humane society tomorrow. If he had his own cat, okay, yeah, he'd go to the other place. But this is...sort of an unusual circumstance, and what Jonny needs to do is be able to snatch some things in one go, pay, and get the hell home.

He realizes ten minutes later that he's drastically unprepared for this whole experience.

He's finally—finally—moved on from the cat food area and into one of the three aisles dedicated to all manner of other cat-related supplies, when he realizes he's got to worry about more than just feeding Kaner. And nothing makes that more apparent than the large section of shelving that stores kitty litter and all related containers and implements.

"Is there anything I can help you find?" a voice asks cheerfully behind him, and Jonny jumps, completely surprised by the presence of the young woman wearing a nametag who's standing just behind him.

"No, thank you," he starts to say automatically, and then realizes he's being an idiot. "Actually, uh, maybe?" He clears his throat. "This is sort of weird, but I guess it's sort of an emergency. I mean, not a real emergency. But, uh, I've sort of found myself having to take care of...a friend's cat, really last minute. And the thing is, I didn't have any notice, and I don't have anything in the way of supplies. At all." It's the simplest thing that leads to the fewest questions he can come up with on the fly.

The girl looks at him, then kind of shrugs. "We can get you set up. I mean, if it's temporary—"

"It's definitely temporary!"

"...Right. If it's temporary, we can make sure you've got food and litter and a couple of toys and that sort of thing." She looks at him again. "I mean, there's also a place a couple miles down the way that does pet daycare and boarding and stuff, if you think that's—"

"No!" Jonny interjects, kind of horrified at the thought of leaving Kaner someplace like that. Also, holy fuck would that lead to a whole lot of questions for Jonny to answer once the cat's no longer a cat. The very idea leaves him feeling kind of sick. "It's just...it's not an option, sorry. I have no problem, uh, cat-sitting for my friend. I just didn't have any notice, and don't have access to any of their stuff." He starts thinking about plausible stories—his friend lost everything in a fire last night is the only one that doesn't sound insane—but the girl doesn't ask anything else about that. She simply gives him an "okay," and starts ticking off the basics, along with pointing out suggestions for certain items. Jonny takes her at her word, loads some stuff into the cart she grabs for him, thanks her, and gets the fuck out of there with his purchases.

He does double back into the lobby sort of area near where the shopping carts are stored, on a whim, for one last purchase. It's stupid, and he's going to blame the stress and sleep deprivation and jet lag, but it's also practical.

He's wrestling everything though his front door, determined to get everything from his vehicle inside in a solitary trip to minimize the chance of running into any of his neighbors, when his phone starts to ring. He swears, gets through the damned door, sets everything down, and shoves his hand into his pocket to shut the thing up. And then he blinks for a second, because his phone is dark and silent, and he can still hear ringing. Also, that's not his ringtone.

Jonny looks around to see Kaner's phone on the floor underneath the table where he left it. It's still going off, and the kitten is crouched near it, making really weird sounds. The phone goes silent before Jonny can reach it or the kitten, and the cat gives him a dirty look, as if to ask why the hell he didn't get to it sooner. Jonny mutters a 'sorry' and picks up both the cat and the phone, carrying them over to the sofa. It's password protected, and Jonny can't get into it, but it does light up with a few alerts.

There are three missed calls and one voicemail, all from Sharpy. The first call is timestamped less than five minutes after Jonny had left the house. Figures.

The phone rings again as Jonny's still holding it, Sharpy's info and ridiculous face up on the screen as it rings, and Jonny groans and lets the hand holding it drop to the cushions of the sofa. He doesn't want to deal with this. He can just ignore it and let it go to voicemail again.

That's totally his plan, anyway, until the kitten fucking bites him again, right on the hand holding the phone, and Jonny gets the fucking hint. "Fine!" he snaps, swiping to accept the damn call as he glares at the cat. "What do you need, Sharpy?"

There's a beat of silence on the other end—or, well, relative silence; Sharpy doesn't say anything, but there's some god-awful noise in the background—for a moment, and then Sharpy clears his throat and asks, "Tazer?"

"Yeah."

"Hey, did Peeks leave his phone at your place or something?"

"No. Uh. Not quite."

"Then could you do me a favor and put him the fuck on the phone? I don't care what he's doing. Interrupt him."

Jonny cringes. Sharpy sounds irritated as hell, and Jonny can't think through his exhaustion to come up with a quick way to calm him down and get him off the phone.

"I can't."

"You can't? Or won't? Because listen to me, Tazer, this is kind of something I need from him right now."

"I can't, man."

"Why the hell not?" When Jonny hesitates, Sharpy sighs in frustration. "Look, unless he's lying in some hospital bed or something, or in a confessional at church, I need him on this phone, right the hell now. He can't just leave half-incoherent voicemails at ridiculous hours of the night like he did, and not pick up or even text back, and he especially can't do it when I've got Maddie here all inconsolable over some dream she had about him, because I don't think she's gonna calm down at all until she actually talks to him. She is not having any of my excuses, here, Tazer."

Okay, now the god-awful noise in the background makes sense, at least, because Jonny can identify it as a young kid bawling their head off. Still, he can't exactly do what Sharpy's demanding.

"Sharpy, man, I'm sorry, but I can't put him on right now."

"Why the hell not? I don't care if he's in the can or in the shower or whatever. Go get him."

"No, it's not like that—"

"Is he hurt or in the hospital or something? Because that's the sort of shit someone should let me know, man, even if I am in Dallas."

"No, it's not that, either—"

"Then what the hell, man, just put the phone up to his face and make him take the call. You’re his captain, threaten him with bag skates or something."

Jonny really can't take this level of harassment right now. "Seriously, you want to know why I can't do it?" He clicks the little icon on the screen of the connected call for the camera, snaps a quick one of Kaner in his current fuzzy state, and sends it to Sharpy's number. "Check your damn inbox. That's why I can't do it."

He regrets it instantly. So much for all his Zen relaxation and anti-confrontation techniques.

There's a pause—probably as Sharpy opens the image—and then a confused noise from Sharpy's end. "What, he's too busy playing with your cat? When the fuck did you get a cat? I thought you were a dog person."

"No," Jonny groans, regretting things even more now. "That's. That's fucking Kaner."

Sharpy's silent for several seconds, and then Jonny hears him moving around on the other end. It sounds like he's shielded the phone a little, because the crying noises get more muffled. "Not funny, Tazer. I've told you before, your pranks are for shit."

"Do I sound like I'm joking?" Jonny snaps. "I'd love for this to be a prank at your expense. But if it is one, I'm pretty sure it's at mine, and the universe is the one pulling it. I don't know how or why, but Jesus, Sharpy. That. Cat. Is. Kaner. So, no, I can't put him on the phone. What the hell do you want me to do?"

"Lie to my kid," Sharpy says quietly. "And then we can talk about this."

What? "What?"

"Lie to my kid. Tell her Kaner's fine," Sharpy says, his voice still low. "And be convincing." And before Jonny can protest—because this conversation very suddenly took a turn he wasn't expecting—there's a bunch of noise and Sharpy tells him he's now on speakerphone before giving another go at calming his eldest daughter. "Maddie, honey, hey. Look who I've got on the phone."

"Kaner?" It's so eager and earnest that it hurts Jonny's chest. For whatever reason, this kid is really freaked out about Patrick.

"No, honey, Kaner can't come to the phone right now. He's doing something very important. But this is Jonny. You remember Jonny, right?" The kid gives this hiccupping little squeak and manages an "uh-huh" and Jonny swallows hard. "Of course you do. He's the captain, honey. He takes care of his team. He'd never let anything bad happen to Kaner, and he'd definitely never lie to you, would you, Tazer?"

Fuck Sharpy.

"Uh, hey, Maddie," Jonny says in what he hopes is a pleasant voice and doesn’t give away that he wants to strangle the kid's father. "Patrick—Kaner's a little busy right now, but he's okay, really. He's just fine. There's nothing to be upset about."

There's a very long silence, and then Maddie's small voice pipes up. "Promise?"

"I promise. Kaner's okay."

Jonny's going to hell. But he's dragging Sharpy with him for this. He comforts himself with the reasoning that Kaner is, very technically, safe and not in any immediate danger. He's counting that as truth.

"See, I told you, Maddie. Now Jonny's very busy, too, so we should probably let him go. We can call Kaner back another time. Why don't you go with your mom now and get some breakfast." Jonny hears more shuffling, a "that's my girl," and Abby's voice somewhere in the background, and then the call quality gets a hell of a lot better in a way that tells Jonny he's no longer on speakerphone. "Okay," Sharpy says a moment later. "Explain to me what the actual fuck happened."

"You're going to think I'm crazy," Jonny says, and then has a moment of clarity where he realizes Sharpy's not already telling him he's insane. Almost like he believes him about the whole cat thing.

"Tazer, I've known you were crazy for years. Now stop stalling and start explaining."

"Okay, so, the thing is, I don't actually know what the fuck happened," he says, glancing at the cat who's curled up close to his knee sometime in the last minute or two. "I woke up to someone—Patrick—pounding on my front door, and then he called and said to let him inside, and when I got to the damned door, there was a pile of his clothes and this cat. And his phone was still connected to the call. So, seriously, as best as I can reason given that and a few other things that've happened within the last few hours, this cat is Kaner." He takes a deep breath and lets it out loudly through his nose. "So. Anything you have to contribute? Because if you knew anything at all about Kaner being half-cat or something, now would be the time to share." When Sharpy doesn't say anything in a way that comes off very much like hesitation, Jonny sits upright so suddenly the cat startles and hisses before leaping off the sofa. "You do fucking know something, don't you?"

"...Not...as such, really," Sharpy says, drawing the words out. "I may have overheard a story or rumor or whatever once since I've been down here. I didn't hear details or anything, but the gist of it was that one of the guys on the Stars knew someone—or maybe it's one of the guys on the team—who randomly turned into something."

"A cat?"

"A badger, I think it was?" Sharpy snorts. "I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to hear anything, and I sure as hell didn't think it was true or that I'd heard correctly in the first place at the time. But you heard how upset Maddie was earlier, right?"

"I heard. Bad dream or something, you said."

"Yeah, well, that bad dream, which brought her sobbing into mine and Abby's bed before dawn, was that Patrick got lost. Lost, and then hurt, because he had no one to look after him or take care of him. Distressing enough, right? Like, we know she misses Kaner and all, so we tried to soothe her thinking that was the problem. But apparently the problem was that Kaner wasn't Kaner, but some little orange and white cat. And she was fucking convinced he was alone and scared and someone was going to hurt him. So, unless you and my daughter have staged the most elaborate prank ever, given that and the cryptic fucking voicemail Peeks left last night around midnight, I'm sort of reluctantly willing to believe your story."

"What sort of voicemail?" Jonny asks, trying not to think too much about how Sharpy's fucking kid knew something was up with Kaner on some level.

"Dude, I couldn't even describe it. Like I said, cryptic as fuck. Said something about needing advice, or being chicken, I don't even know." He sighs. "So, what are you going to do?"

"Fuck if I know," Jonny huffs, slumping back onto the sofa. "I guess just...wait it out? From what I've been able to gather—and what I'm sure as hell hoping—this whole thing is temporary. But outside of that, I'm out of ideas. I can't think of anyone to talk to who won't think I've lost my damned mind, and I don't want to freak out his family if this isn't something they know about. I don't even have their numbers, and I can't think of a way to ask anyone who does without making them suspicious."

Sharpy just hums. "Well, I can't help you with the family thing, unfortunately. But as far as everything else goes, is there anyone else in the league you think you might trust about this sort of thing? Because like I said, if there were rumors down here about it happening to someone, maybe someone else who's been around a while would know something, especially with the way players and coaches move around. Other than that, I've got nothing, man. Sorry."

"No, it's okay." Sharpy's got a point about someone else who's been around might know more, or might know where else to point him. He almost hopes someone else did turn into a damned badger or whatever, just so Jonny will know that someone else probably went through a similar situation of what the actual fuck happened to my teammate? and the universe hasn't picked him alone to do this to. "Thanks. And, uh, I'll have Patrick call Maddie after everything's back to normal."

"Yeah, do that. And tell him he owes me a call, too. Good luck, Tazer."

"Thanks, Sharpy."

Jonny hangs up the phone and looks up to find where the kitten's gone off to. He spots it by the front door, sniffing delicately at the plastic shopping bags from the pet store that Jonny dropped to get to the phone when he came in. "Still hungry, bud?" he asks, and the kitten looks at him and meows so pitifully that Jonny rolls his eyes. He's pretty sure that's about five-hundred-percent exaggerated; he equates it to Patrick's "I'm dying of starvation over here, why don't you have any real food in this place?" bitching he's heard so many times before. "Drama queen," he mutters, but he grabs all the stuff he bought and carries it towards the kitchen, trusting the kitten will follow along the same way Patrick does when Jonny signs for delivery food and takes it to the kitchen to dole out their portions.

He's right about being followed, and he tries not to think too much about it.

"I have no idea what the hell you like to eat when you're...like this...so I got a couple of options," he tells the cat as he quickly washes and dries the two ceramic bowls he got talked into buying—one says "water" and the other says "food" in large block letters, like he needs labels or the cat can read and needs instructions as if it can't figure out which is which for itself—and reaches for the small bag of dried cat food and one of the tiny tins of wet food. "You'd better like at least one of these things."

He sets down the bowl of fresh water and the food bowl with a small portion of each food in it on the floor in that same out-of-the-way spot and waits. The kitten sniffs at it for so long that Jonny's ready to hear meowed complaining or perhaps have to dodge another ankle bite, but it finally takes a tiny bite of the wet food, then settles in to eat in earnest.

Jonny breathes a sigh of relief. Score one for him on adequate kitten care.

He takes the opportunity while the cat is eating to set up some other things, including the litter box. He places that in the main bathroom, figuring it's easier to get to from the living room and kitchen, and it also means he won't have to worry about stepping on loose litter when he's half asleep and on his way into the bathroom or after a shower—and the fact that he's thought about having a cat in his condo long enough for that to be a factor makes him stumble on his way into the bathroom. When he emerges, the kitten is sitting in another patch of sunlight in the living room, lazily grooming itself.

"Hey," he says, and the kitten looks up at him but doesn't stop its grooming. "I have something for you. Maybe it's stupid, but I think we're better safe than sorry." He gets down onto his knees next to the cat and holds up one of his purchases. It's just a basic collar, some lightweight, durable material that's easy to adjust to the right size. He'd seen ones in a bunch of bright colors, and even ones with the Cubs or Bears logos all around them; he'd opted with one that's red with thin black stripes, internally grumbling about the lack of a Blackhawks-specific option.

The cat sits up, moves closer to Jonny to sniff at the collar, lingering over the small gold medallion hanging from it. It's the thing Jonny had doubled back for, seeing one of those machines that instantly makes them sitting near where the carts were kept. All it says on the front is KANER in bold capital letters. On the back, the pre-engraved text has I belong to in light script, followed by Jonathan and Jonny's phone number underneath his name. He'd thought about adding the Superman-style "S" logo that the machine actually had as an option on the front of the tag underneath the name, thinking Kaner would get a kick out of it—and then thought of all the shit Patrick was going to give him for this whole thing later, anyway, and decided to head off all the additional chirping for that he'd likely have to hear, deciding against it, figuring simpler was better.

"Meet your approval?" Jonny asks drily as the cat sits back like he's trying to get a better look at the words on the tag. He's pretty sure it's Patrick in there, but he still doubts the cat can read. "Sorry it's not your usual gold chain, but you'll just have to deal with it. Now hold still and let me get this thing on you."

To his surprise, the cat stretches out its neck, making securing and adjusting the collar a much easier task than it could have been. Jonny had totally been anticipating having to wrestle the kitten and manhandle the thing on while trying to avoid being scratched to death as Kaner tried to escape. "There we go," Jonny says, making sure the ID tag is centered. It looks a little bigger against the small size of the kitten than he'd envisioned, but it'll work. "Thanks, bud." And without really thinking, he scratches underneath the cat's chin, belatedly realizing that might be weird as fuck.

The kitten purrs, though, and that's weird enough that Jonny raises his eyebrows, but doesn't say anything. He removes his hand a little hastily, getting to his feet just as fast. "Right. Hopefully, this'd comfort Maddie in some way, but damned if I'm ever mentioning this to the kid. Or, really, anyone I don't have to."

The thought brings him back to wondering who else he actually can talk to about this sort of thing. He knows guys who've been in the league longer than he has, obviously, but there aren't many of them he's really close to, or thinks won't just hang up on him as soon as he mentions what the hell's gone on here. He briefly wonders if management would have any sort of knowledge of this sort of thing, especially if Kaner's not the only one it's happened to, and then puts that thought aside. There's no way he can bring this up to Stan Bowman unless it's unavoidably necessary—or Q, either, for that matter. After another few minutes spent intensely hating this little twist the universe has thrown him, Jonny sighs and pulls up his contacts, opening one up not far from the top of the list.

Couldn't really hurt at this point.

It takes four rings, but eventually the call connects, and Sidney Crosby's polite and slightly surprised voice comes on the line. "Hello?"

"Hey, Sid."

"What's up, Jon?"

Jonny hesitates, suddenly completely unsure how the hell he's supposed to bring something like this up. "Hey," he manages after a moment of totally awkward silence. "I, uh, have something really weird to ask you about. If that's okay."

He can practically hear the wariness from Sid's end, even before he speaks. "Is this about something hockey-related? Or more personal?"

"It's more...the second one. Or maybe it's actually the first. I'm not actually sure, here."

This time Sid's even more hesitant, but he doesn't shut Jonny down right away, so that's a plus. Maybe he just figures he's obligated to be extra polite, since he's captained Team Canada and all, and worries not being so would let his country down on some level. "All right. Go for it, I guess."

"Okay. I'm going to sound totally insane here, probably, but...in all your time in the league, have you ever heard of someone turning into something else?"

"Something else?"

"Yeah, I mean, hypothetically, have you ever...?" And then Jonny looks up to see the kitten batting at one of his drapes, and he sighs, giving up. "I think Patrick Kane's turned into a cat, and I wanted to know if you know of this, like, being a thing with anyone else in the NHL."

There's no answer for a really long time, and Jonny's sure Sid's trying to figure out the best way to suggest he get tested for a concussion when Sid says, "Huh, I'd have figured him for something smaller than a cat, personally. Hedgehog, maybe? Guess I'd have lost that bet."

Jonny sits down so abruptly he misses his sofa, letting out an "oof" as his ass hits the floor. The kitten's immediately at his side, nosing at him and meowing something that sounds like a question, and Jonny tries to wave him away without much success. "I'm fine," he mutters, and that at least gets the kitten to quiet down, even if he doesn't move away. And then his brain goes back to Sid's words just a moment ago, and the tone in which they were delivered, and he just blurts his question out. "So this is a thing?"

Jonny can practically hear Sid's shrug. "I mean, it's happened? I don't know if it's specific to the NHL or anything, but if you're serious—and I'm pretty sure you are—then yeah, I guess it's a thing." There's noise like he's shielding the phone a little, and then he elaborates as Jonny picks himself up off the floor. "There's someone I used to play with, that it happened to, all right? Only he was a rabbit. I've heard rumors about a wolverine or a badger or something, in Dallas. And I know there's someone on the west coast who's turned into a ferret, and there's someone in the KHL who's apparently a bear. Haven't heard of any cats, though."

"What. The. Fuck," Jonny bites out, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. At his side, he can feel the kitten head-butt his arm, having jumped up onto the sofa as soon as Jonny sat down on the edge of it. If this is a thing—which it now seems certain it is, because Sid may be a bit weird and all sometimes, but he is even less likely to be the one pulling ridiculous pranks and stupid jokes than Jonny himself is—then why the hell wasn't he given a heads-up at some point in his career? Shouldn't someone at least make team captains aware their teammates might at some point be something other than strictly human?

"Look, I can't give you all the details, because I don't have them," Sid says, sounding a little apologetic under the seriously defensive tone. "I only knew the one guy. And it's not like most guys seem to be all that willing to share stories about what happens when they're...not themselves, or even tell anyone else that it happens. But from what I've heard, it's never been a permanent sort of change, if that's what you're worried about."

That is, in fact, a good portion of what Jonny's been worried about, apparent answers from the kitten aside. "Okay. Anything else you can tell me?"

Jonny hears a noise in the background then, a voice he doesn't quite recognize. It's muffled a little, but Jonny thinks he hears something like "has someone turned into an animal?" Sid's replying sigh is rough and a little aggressive, and he almost—but not quite—sarcastically snaps back with, "What, do you know about this thing, too?" Jonny is with him on that feeling, one-hundred-percent. There's the weirdest sort of beat after the question, but then Jonny thinks the next words are "Uh, kinda? In that it's happened to me?"

Both Jonny and Sid are silent at the response, until Sid has a brief meltdown when the words actually hit him. "You what?" Sid practically shouts, and then everything gets a lot more muffled, like Sid's either straight-up covering his phone or has dropped it somewhere. There's a whole lot of quick talking, none of which Jonny can catch, and he's just resigned himself to hanging up and maybe calling Sid back at a later time, when Sid comes back on the phone. "Jon? If you've got questions about this thing, now's the fucking time to ask them." And then there's more scrambling, and another voice comes on the line, sounding kind of hesitant.

"Uh," Jonny says, at the same time the other voice says "Um. Hi?" And then neither of them says anything else until the person on the other end of the line says, "So, you—I mean, if you have questions about...this...I can try to answer them for you? If you want?"

What Jonny wants is to wake up and find this is all a product of his stressed out, jetlagged brain, but he has the sneaking suspicion that's not going to happen. "Thanks," he says, because that's polite when someone offers help, and that's basically the only thing he can fall back on as far as behavioral guidelines go, at this point. "Okay. So, I'm gathering that the—that Kaner should go back to normal, at some point. That's right, right?"

"Yeah, he totally should," the other person says, and Jonny can practically hear the enthusiastic nodding happening, and he's really, ridiculously relieved to hear it. "I just...I can't tell you exactly when." Jonny tenses right back up, but the other person seems to catch his thought. "I mean, a lot of this is different for everyone. The reason it happens isn't always the same, the length of time isn't the same. But I've never heard of it lasting very long at all. If you're worried about him still being a—what, cat?—when the season starts, you probably don't have to worry. I don't know if the length has anything to do with what triggered it, as opposed to what sort of animal the person is, but that's my guess."

Jonny tries to breathe through processing that information. "Can I ask how long you—and why you, uh—?"

There's a laugh, and for whatever reason, it puts Jonny a little more at ease, like it's assurance this whole thing isn't nearly so monumentally traumatizing as Jonny's subconsciously afraid it is. "Okay, so what I do know is that it's a stress thing. Like, it's not always the same sort of stress, but it's got to be a pretty fantastic level. Mine happened the day before I was drafted, and that's the only time for me. I was lucky enough to have my parents with me, so I had someone to watch out for me."

"Okay." Jonny tries to think. He has approximately a million questions, but he doesn't know how to ask any of them. It suddenly hits him who he's talking to, putting the pieces together. Sid's back home right now, and he's not the only Cole Harbour boy in the NHL, and Jonny's seen photos and promos from Tim Horton's, knows Sid's got a friendship thing going with one of the younger guys—Nathan MacKinnon, from the Avalanche. "What did you change into, if that's okay to ask?"

"A dog," MacKinnon says, sounding almost pleased. And before Jonny can ask what kind, out of sheer morbid curiosity—because if the kid says a Saint Bernard, given the Avs' mascot, Jonny's going to lose his shit just a little and end up slightly hysterical—he gets that info. "A Labrador retriever."

Okay. So, something else like a domesticated animal. Probably easier to handle than a badger or whatever. "Do you remember any of what it was like, when you were different?"

"Oh, yeah, totally," MacKinnon says. "I don't remember all of it, but some of it's still there. I remember some of the—I guess you'd consider them the 'human' thoughts and feelings, from when I was changed, and I remember some of the animal-specific stuff."

"Like?"

"Like bacon," MacKinnon says, sounding wistful. "Bacon was awesome. So was playing fetch, and getting scratched behind my right ear. But a lot of the memories faded pretty quickly after changing back—which happened in my sleep. I was alone when I woke up on top of my hotel bed. And it might help to know or remember that the cat is definitely Kane in there, but he's also still got cat instincts. They're definitely going to make themselves known, and you really shouldn't hold that against him, after, if you're playing fair."

"What do you mean?"

"There, um, might have been a territorial peeing incident that made total sense at the time, I swear," MacKinnon says sheepishly. In the background, Jonny hears Sid's groaned Oh my GOD and sort of feels for him.

"I'll try to remember that," Jonny says, warring with himself not to laugh or snort or anything else, because he is getting a lot of helpful information here. He supposes that explains the thing with the shoelaces early on, and also with the drapes just a few minutes ago. "Anything else? Like maybe how I can get Kaner back to normal, sooner rather than later?"

MacKinnon hesitates. "That's one of those personal, different for everyone things. Like I said, mine was right before the draft, and my stress over that's what brought it on. I know what helped me, but I'm pretty positive that's not going to help in Kane's case. I guess I'd suggest removing the stressor that caused the whole thing, if that's possible."

"I don't know what caused this to happen," Jonny grunts, feeling intense frustration set back in. He'd been starting to hope he could get enough answers to put a plan of action in place.

"I wish I could help more, man. I think it's weirder for those around us to deal with, than those it actually happens to. At least, it was for me. Probably different for everyone. All I can really tell you is my experience. And I don't know if it's the same in the case you're dealing with, but with me, there was definitely a lead-up. It wasn't some completely spontaneous change, if you look at it a certain way. I mean, I didn't know I was going to change into a freaking dog, but I felt something starting to happen, you know? It was like a weird sort of panic attack. Or, okay, like...like when you put a pot of water on to boil, or when a sealed container explodes; you can see the steps leading up to the point where it'll just happen, but if you remove the cause or stimulus or whatever you want to call it—or actively work against it—you can halt it. So I've felt that same feeling a couple of times since that first one, but I know what it is, and I've been able to fix the problem before it gets too close."

There's an uneasy feeling in Jonny's gut now, fueled by memories of Patrick yelling outside his front door that he has to tell Jonny something, the last words out of his mouth before everything went entirely to shit; the weird sort of avoidance on the phone several hours before that, Patrick saying he was in his own head too much about something and he'd deal with it and maybe say something when the time was right; Sharpy saying something about Patrick leaving a voicemail about needing advice. If MacKinnon's stress had been related to the impending draft, maybe Patrick really had been incredibly stressed about the upcoming season, like Jonny had theorized. He wishes he knew if the other guys who'd gone through this were looking at hoping to have contracts offered or extended, or were looking at playoffs coming up, or were trying to come back from an injury, or something that showed some sort of pattern he could get his head around. There are sports psychologists; Jonny's met a few over the years—maybe Patrick could use some time with one of them.

He shakes himself out of it, realizing that MacKinnon's talking to him, asking him a question. "Sorry, I missed that. What?"

"I just asked if you wanted my number or anything, in case you have any other questions I might be able to answer and I'm not with Sid. I'll keep Kane's secret, of course, in exchange for you keeping mine. It's not exactly something I'm eager to advertise around. Not that anyone would really believe it, I guess, but you know."

"Yeah," Jonny says, knowing there's no way in hell he'd have believed this shit was real not even twenty-four hours ago. Talk about world perspective shift and an eye-opening event. "Secret's safe, man. You won't even hear anything from me next time we're on your ice or you're on ours. And tell Sid to go ahead and give you my number, and you can send me yours that way."

"Thanks. Good luck, Toews."

"Thanks, man," Jonny says, legitimately grateful. "Tell Sid thanks, too. I'll talk to him later." He hangs up the call, absolutely certain that Sid's about to pump MacKinnon for more details than Jonny got. Probably like Sharpy's going to prod at Kaner at some point in the near future.

"Well, that was helpful, in a really general sense, I suppose," Jonny says, looking at the cat. It looks back at him seriously, and Jonny doesn't know what he expected, some sort of answer or agreement or something. "Has this even happened to you before? Are there other people who could tell me how to actually fix you?" Kaner just looks at him a moment more, tail swishing, before jumping down off the sofa and wandering towards the bathroom. Jonny hopes like hell that if Kaner's heading there with the intent his human version would, he's at least used to litterboxes. He feels stupid for considering actually asking the kitten that sort of question and keeps his mouth shut and brain on the bigger problem.

"Couldn't really hurt to try your family," Jonny mutters to himself. He doesn't have the number, but he has Patrick's phone. And yeah, it's password protected, but he can probably crack that shit. He crosses over to the table where he left it last and picks it up, bringing up the passcode screen. Four digits. Shouldn't be that hard.

Jonny's just slightly relieved at Patrick's self-preservation instinct when 0088 doesn't unlock the phone—because let's face it, the loser has his number embroidered on the goddamn headrests of his damned vehicle—but he's slightly more annoyed when 8800, 0880, and even 8888 don't work, either.

Okay, then. Maybe Kaner's better at this than Jonny had assumed. Still, Jonny knows him pretty well, and he's almost positive the numbers used represent something related to hockey, and something meaningful to Kaner, himself. He tries Kaner's birthday, to be safe, but that doesn't grant him access, either. So Jonny purses his lips and thinks.

Ten minutes later, Jonny's mostly just glad Patrick hasn't set up the feature that completely locks his phone when too many failed password attempts have been logged. Because he's tried all variations of June 22, 2007 (the date Patrick was drafted), October 4, 2007 (his NHL debut), Oct 19, 2007 (his first NHL regulation goal), May 11, 2009 (first NHL hat trick), and June 9, 2010—the day they won their first Stanley Cup, which they'd won off Kaner's overtime goal, come on, that definitely should have worked—that he can think of, and he still can't get into the damned thing.

Apparently Patrick picks better passwords than Jonny's given him credit for. Or fuck, maybe they're just some random digits after all.

Jonny slumps back onto the sofa with a sigh, watching Kaner wander through the living room and back to the kitchen, probably for more breakfast. As soon as he thinks the word "breakfast," his stomach gives a loud growl, and Jonny realizes the last time he really ate was yesterday afternoon, and that is not doing him any favors, in either the mental or physical performance department.

And he has no damned food in the house.

Jonny hesitates, watching Kaner eat from his new food dish, and makes a decision. He should definitely get groceries, but there's no way he really wants to leave Kaner alone, especially since he has no timeline he can rely upon as to when Kaner might change back. He remembers what MacKinnon said earlier, about being alone when he transformed back into himself, as the cat trots towards him, golden ID tag glinting as it catches a bit of light from one of the windows, and Jonny has a brief flash of horror when he thinks about the possibility of Kaner changing back while still wearing the collar, all alone with no one around, and strangling on the damned thing. It makes his blood run cold.

"Hey, c'mere," Jonny says as the cat saunters by again, kneeling down on the floor and gesturing it closer. "Let me see something." When Kaner approaches Jonny's beckoning hands, Jonny gives him a quick scratch under the chin, then hooks one finger between the collar and its neck, sliding his hands around to undo the plastic clasp that releases the two ends. To his surprise, the cat makes a low yowling sound, obviously displeased. Maybe Kaner equates it to whatever level of comfort that gold chain brings him, since he's always wearing that, too. "Shhh," Jonny soothes, scratching the back of the kitten's neck. "I know I said it was better safe than sorry, giving you a tag in case you got out or something, but I'd really rather not explain how it choked you to death when you changed back, instead, okay?" The cat gives another long, low meow and glares at him, but relents a bit when Jonny snakes his fingers up to scratch briefly between his ears. "There we go," Jonny says softly, giving the cat a final pat and standing up to put the collar somewhere out of sight, sticking it atop his dresser in the bedroom while he grabs his laptop.

He can't really bring himself to go out again and leave Kaner alone, but he does need food and other groceries. Hooray for the wonders of the internet, online orders, and delivery services. He places a fairly large order, his standard meal staples and non-perishables to get his cupboards back up to snuff, plus almost a week's worth of produce and meats so he's set until he can get a legitimate meal plan in place and shop according to that.

He's only moderately surprised when, as he's paying for his order, Kaner climbs up next to him on the sofa and curls up, pressed against Jonny's thigh. He's absolutely tiny like this and absurdly fuzzy, and Jonny reasons it's sort of instinct to want to touch something this soft. Jonny stretches out on the sofa a little, puts his feet up, and lets his fingers stroke gently over the kitten's back for just a moment, remembering MacKinnon saying how much the dog part of him had enjoyed getting scratched behind the ear. The kitten doesn't protest in the slightest, so Jonny gives him another few cautious pats, the fur underneath his fingers silky and warm, and then slips swiftly into a doze.

It's knocking at his front door that wakes him again, and Jonny sits up with a jolt, briefly confused as to why he's not in his bed and why everything's so damn bright. And then it all comes crashing back—Kaner, the cat, the grocery order—as the kitten leaps down from the sofa and trots over to the front door, looking back at Jonny with a look that conveys get your ass over here already pretty clearly.

"I'm coming," he mutters, rubbing at his face and shuffling over to open the door for the delivery guy. It's not one of the three people Jonny got used to seeing last season—Lee, Kyle, or Marnie—but some new kid whose nametag proclaims him to be Irving. "Morning," he says, trying to smile even as he sticks his foot out to keep Kaner from getting too close to the doorway. So help him if the cat bolts. Kaner seems to give no fucks at all about the dangers of the outside world, because he steps right over Jonny's foot and sticks his head out the door. "Kaner!" he barks. "Get the fuck back in here, or I swear to God, I will microchip you." He looks at the guy holding his delivery items. "Uh. Sorry. He's not trained or anything yet. Just got him."

He gets a polite smile back without comment at all on his cat's behavior. "Good morning, Mister Toews," the kid replies, completely butchering the last name. For once, it's actually a pretty big relief, because it means he has no idea who Jonny is, and he's not likely to give two shits about anything Jonny does or says during their interaction. "Would you like assistance in bringing your items into the kitchen?"

"No, thanks, you can just set them down right here inside—Kaner, leave the guy alone," Jonny snaps, watching the kitten sneak even closer to sniff at the plastic bags, basically wedging himself between the guy's feet. "You'll get your cream after I put everything else away, all right?"

"Cats really shouldn't have dairy, you know," the kid says, taking a cautious step back so he doesn't tread on the tail lying just underneath the very tips of the toes of his shoes.

Jonny huffs a little, finally just giving up and bending down to scoop Kaner up by the middle to keep him out of the way. "Really?"

"Yeah. Well, at least adult cats. Kittens start out able to digest it, when they're nursing, but they stop being able to after they're weaned. So your little guy there...I dunno, maybe, but I'd guess he can't. But hell, I'm not a vet. I just know what my girlfriend lectured me about when she got her cat last month."

Well, that figures. Jonny doesn't even really keep dairy in the house when he is living here full time; the small carton of cream had been a completely kitten-inspired purchase. "Huh. Good to know. Thanks." Maybe he'll keep it around in case Kaner wants it for coffee later or something. He signs for the groceries, leaves the kid a really good-sized tip—because if he's saved both Jonny and Kaner from dealing with future kitten digestion problems, it's more than worth it—and shuts the door with all the groceries still at his feet, kitten still in-hand. "So, no cream for you after all," Jonny tells him before crouching down to let him go on the floor. "Guess you're stuck with the stuff from the pet store."

The kitten gives him the pissiest glare, and wow, okay, that's totally all Kaner, right there.

"Whatever," Jonny mutters, rolling his eyes. He drags the bags of groceries to the kitchen, puts everything away, and grabs the deli container of cold roast squash and three-grain salad and a fork as he heads back to his laptop.

Which Kaner is sprawled on top of.

He's not even on top of the thing while it's closed, either. He's stretched across the keyboard, covering as much of it as he can at his current size, and he just raises his head and gives Jonny a what are you gonna do about it? look as Jonny stands there and sighs Kaner's name.

"See, the thing is," Jonny says, lifting the cat from underneath its legs again, balancing it easily in the palm of his hand while its paws dangle—God, he weighs practically nothing—"is that I'm bigger than you are even when you're not a cat. So this? This is pretty easy to handle, actually." He plops down on the sofa, sets his food next to him, places his laptop atop his thighs, and lets the kitten go, smirking just a little.

The kitten, though, isn't content to let that slide. As soon as Jonny's got one forkful of food in his mouth and is trying to figure out exactly which terms to put into his web browser, Kaner purposefully steps into Jonny's lap and sits, as if Jonny's lap is his rightful spot and the computer doesn't even exist. And then he stares straight at Jonny as if challenging him, and Jonny just doesn't have the energy to have this stupid fight.

Which is a thought he's had many times over the years, when it comes to Kaner.

"All right, fine," he sighs, shifting the computer closer to his knees and making room for the cat, who seems quite intent on not giving up his spot on Jonny's lap. It's going to make for awkward typing, but all he's doing is looking up a few things and mostly (hopefully) reading the answers and advice that pop up, and he can do that with one hand if he needs to, pecking out letters with just a finger or two. "You can stay there. Just let me eat something without you getting fur in it, okay?" Instead of any sort of verbal answer—obviously—the kitten just settles in a little more firmly and rubs its small face against Jonny's shirt, right over his stomach, and Jonny figures that'll work.

It turns out that the guy delivering his groceries was right about cats actually being lactose intolerant, and Jonny blames years of cartoon references and idioms for his almost inflicting digestive distress upon the version of Kaner now in his care. And while Kaner seems content enough to eat the cat food Jonny bought him after spending what felt like forever reading the labels on both dry and wet food packaging alike—a thing Jonny is one-hundred-percent certain Kaner would never do while human, especially not just to humor him—his research does turn up a fairly extensive list of people-food that cats can safely eat, in addition to listing all the stuff he should definitely not be ingesting. Surprisingly, raw meats and raw fish are out—and Jonny thinks that's stupid, because yeah, housecats are domesticated and all, but it's not like there are any cats at all in the wild (or even feral ones in the country or cities) that are stopping to put their fresh-caught pigeons or sparrows or whatever over a fire, but he's going to listen to the people with actual degrees in veterinary medicine when it comes to these things—but other things, like oats, polenta, quinoa, rice, and a handful of other grains and a reasonable selection of vegetables are fine in moderation. Jonny plans to experiment with this new information, come dinner tonight. Assuming Kaner isn't back to normal before then.

The articles on feline nutrition lead him to searching for a good "what to know about your new kitten" resource, because yeah, he knows it's Patrick in there, but even MacKinnon told him he'd probably have to deal with actual cat instincts and behaviors. Jonny's familiar enough with dogs and how they act, but cats...just haven't ever really been a part of his life. He'd like to at least be a little prepared about something when it comes to this whole clusterfuck of a scenario the universe has chucked him into. It's sort of like watching game tape—know what the fuck you're walking in to, know what to look for, so you can either prevent the problems before they appear or you can at least recognize them when they do show up and have a plan in place for how to fix them.

Jonny's deep into his fifth article on the basics of cat behavior—which was written by someone who really could have used a proofreader—when he hits a section of "corrective behavior for your kitten." He snorts at the header, wondering if any of the advice would even remotely work on Kaner. Jonny can't get him to listen without an argument half the time he's wearing the goddamned C; why should anything like that happen now?

Kaner chooses right then to stretch his legs—digging a couple of back claws into the skin of Jonny's torso in the process and eliciting a small, startled grunt out of Jonny—and sprawl out, half-draping himself over the keyboard and trackpad of Jonny's laptop. "It's almost as if you don't want me to know how to deal with you when you're being an asshat," Jonny mutters, trying to nudge the kitten aside without much luck. For something so small and lightweight, Kaner's definitely got the hang of taking up space and being in the way.

The cat flicks his tail in Jonny's face, giving him a mouthful of fur, and doesn't respond.

"I know that was on purpose, you fucker," Jonny grumbles, wiping his mouth against his shoulder. The movement knocks the cat off-balance, and the low noise it makes in response is quite obviously annoyed. Jonny takes the opportunity to wrest control back of his laptop and gives a triumphant huff in the cat's general direction, settling in to read again. Kaner eyeballs him steadily, then steps up his chest to nestle into a spot over Jonny's sternum.

Maybe this should teach him not to slouch so much, but it's his home, his sofa, and he's still really feeling the jetlag and serious lack of sleep from last night, and Jonny can sprawl wherever the fuck he wants. "Fucking fine, whatever," Jonny says with a yawn. The kitten rises and falls atop Jonny's chest, moved by the deep breath. "At least I can use the computer again." Kaner flicks his tail once more, this time brushing underneath Jonny's left eye. Jonny reaches up to forcibly nudge it away, amused a little in spite of himself when Kaner wraps the end of his tail around Jonny's wrist. He frees his hand and Kaner does it again, like he's grabbing Jonny's hand intentionally. After the third time he does it, Jonny rolls his eyes, shifts just a little, and strokes the kitten's side a couple of times, hoping that'll distract it.

Kaner purrs softly, and Jonny smiles before he can catch himself. He continues the petting, using slow, rhythmic strokes, and the purring grows a little louder—a continuous noise that he can feel in his chest, a soft rumbling where the kitten's lying on him. "You good with this?" Jonny murmurs after a moment, not wanting to break the spell. The kitten gives him absolutely nothing in the way of objection, so Jonny keeps it up, enjoying the feel of the smooth, soft fur under his hand and the little ball of warmth on his chest that seems to exude some sort of calm, like a cuddly physical form of Zen meditation. Jonny probably shouldn't feel quite so pleased and proud of his abilities to make Kaner happy, but he does. It’s like the cat version of a goal horn, Jonny reasons—objective, auditory verification that he's awesome and doing a good job. He maintains the petting while he reads a few more pages of the article he's got up, lulled into a state of relaxation that borders on contentment with the steady noise and vibration, and when he shuts his laptop and slides it next to him on the couch, he doesn't even think of stopping the lazy movements of his hand as he closes his eyes and lets himself doze off in the hopes of waking from a short nap with everything back to normal.

The only thing really normal when he wakes is the sense that his body has at least mostly adjusted to the correct time zone again. There's still a kitten in his condo, playing with an old shoelace it's dragged from somewhere, and Jonny watches without interrupting him for a bit, rolling out some of the tension in his neck and shoulders as he wakes fully. He's wasted the better part of the day either getting cat supplies, researching cat facts, or being some level of asleep, and that vaguely annoys him in the way wasted time often does, but he figures this is sort of a special circumstance—a combination of jetlag and magical animal transformation—and he'll just have to accept it and move on.

"I'm going to make dinner," Jonny tells the kitten when it finally pays him attention, having rolled near Jonny's feet with the now-hopelessly-tangled shoelace caught between its paws. "For both of us. Play or whatever, but you know where I'll be if you need me." He gets up and heads for the kitchen, then pulls out the things he needs for the meal he's got planned. He swears briefly as he nearly treads on the small furry body suddenly in his way as he pulls the rice cooker out of the cabinet, muttering to Kaner that he should know better and feeling a little pleased when the cat backs off a little, showing that he might actually listen better than human Kaner does.

The act of cooking dinner with a cat in his home makes Jonny realize he probably should have listened to the suggestion of purchasing a cat-carrier after all. For as small as he is, Kaner is seriously in the way, and not even halfway into making the meal, Jonny is more than a little done. "I swear to God, Kaner, if you don't watch it, you're going to get stepped on," Jonny mutters, the fourth such warning he's given in the last ten minutes. He's nearly tripped twice between sink and stove and refrigerator, and almost spilled (thankfully cold) water another time, having stopped short to avoid stepping on one of Kaner's tiny paws. "Underfoot is not a good place for you, you know," Jonny sighs, stepping around the cat again to put his chef's knife and cutting board in the sink. He'd just pick Kaner up and put him someplace else, except he's got olive oil on one hand and dill on the fingers of the other, and he doesn't want to stop to wash his hands twice in a row, before and after handling something with fur. "What is your deal, anyway?"

The kitten meows at him, eyes wide and innocent, and Jonny rolls his eyes. "I'm not going to let you starve." The kitten meows again, like Jonny's completely missed the point. "You know, words would be awesome, if you could change back and all," he says, admittedly grumpily. There's no answer this time, meowed or otherwise, and Jonny goes back to just trying to get dinner ready without injuring himself or the kitten in the process of moving around.

"If you're trying to trip me and make it look like an accident," Jonny mutters a few minutes later, fighting the urge to reach down and scratch at his ankle, "you're going to have to be the one to explain to Stan and Q and everyone else why I've got a broken leg and won't be on the ice for most of the season." He looks away from the pan on the stove and down at the kitten, which is twining itself around Jonny's legs, making tight figure eights. "Also, I'm honestly not sure which is worse, you doing this, or when you sit your ass on my countertop while I'm making lunch."

The kitten stops winding in circles and makes a noise Jonny can only describe as hurt or offended, and it makes something low in his gut twist. "Don't take it like that," Jonny says, alarmed at just how expressively sad the kitten's face is. "I just mean. I don't know. The counter thing is annoying, you know it is. I'm pretty sure that's why you do it. But it's a good sort of annoying, if that's a thing, because we're still hanging out. And this. This is—for lack of a better word—cute, but kind of annoying. It would be a lot less annoying if I weren't worried about either falling and breaking a leg, or stepping on you or dropping shit on you." He sighs. The kitten still looks sad and pitiful. It's such a far cry from how content he'd looked, curled up on Jonny's chest not that long ago. "Don't look at me like that, man. I've never had a cat. But I'm trying, here." He puts down the spatula in his hand, turns the burner off, and crouches down as low as he can so that he's not towering over the kitten. "I even made something special for dinner for you, okay? So if you let me finish, we can sit down and enjoy it and relax, then go to bed, and hopefully wake up with this whole thing fixed and back to normal." He wipes the hand that smells like dill on his thigh, then gives the cat a quick scratch behind the ear and behind the jaw, grateful it lets him. "Deal?"

The kitten head-butts his knee, and Jonny figures that means they've got a deal. When he stands up to wash his hands and grab a couple of plates from the cupboard, the kitten sticks close by, but not immediately underfoot. So, yeah, message apparently received. And thank God, he doesn't have that sad, pathetically wide-eyed expression anymore, either. It's a ridiculously effective emotional weapon, and Jonny feels weird as hell having Kaner use it on him, and weirder still for responding to it.

Against his better judgement, Jonny eats standing over the peninsula counter of his kitchen, a small salad plate next to his own and ready for Kaner. The second he digs in, Kaner's back at his feet, winding around his ankles again. "Just a minute, bud," Jonny tells him, wondering if all cats are like this. Being rubbed up against isn't nearly so frustrating now that Jonny's able to stand still. He reaches down and pats him with his left hand. "You'll have your own dinner here in just a minute, as soon as I'm finished." And true to his word, as soon as Jonny's done, he sets his plate in the sink and gets ready to see if the extra steps in dinner prep were worth it.

The look on the kitten's face when Jonny refills the food dish with a small handful of dry kibble is pure Patrick Kane bitchface, and Jonny can't help but laugh. "This is just the backup, man. In case you don't like the other stuff. C'mere." He hauls the kitten up and sets him gently atop the counter, near the small plate. "Just don't do something stupid like jump off, if it's too high for you. I know cats are supposed to land on their feet most of the time, but I don't really want to test that theory." Cartoons have already led him astray regarding cats and dishes of cream; he doesn't want to add another shattered stereotype to the list tonight.

"You don't have to eat this if you don't want to," Jonny says, fixing the cat with his Captain Look. Kaner's not even paying attention, though. His eyes are firmly fixed on the plate in front of Jonny. "Just an experiment," Jonny says anyway, pulling the dish a little closer to himself. He picks up a pinch of couscous and holds it out towards Kaner.

The kitten gives another glance at the rest of the plate, but steps towards Jonny anyway, sniffing cautiously at the cooked grains. He takes the smallest of bites and Jonny waits, eyebrows raised. But apparently that at least passes muster, because the kitten swallows and leans in to take the rest of the food from Jonny's fingertips. When it's gone, Jonny pulls a small bit of the baked salmon steak—this one unseasoned, apart from the lightest brush of olive oil—off and holds that out, too. Kaner eats that eagerly, and Jonny laughs and pulls him off another bite. "You can just eat from the plate, you know," he says as Kaner finishes that one off, licking at Jonny's fingers. The kitten pulls back and gives him a look Jonny takes to mean he'd really rather prefer this method, thanks, and Jonny shakes his head, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, even as he sighs. "Yeah, all right, we can do it this way, too."

He can't help the smile. This is fucking cute.

The smile turns into a smirk a moment later. Because Kaner—giant pain in the ass that he usually is—is willingly and eagerly eating the sort of food he usually gives Jonny shit over making all the time, all the "hippy crap" and "bird food" and whatever other horseshit he's called things that aren't rice and pasta. He snaps a quick couple of photos with his phone, for evidence. Quinoa and couscous and other alternative grains are now verifiably tasty alternatives to all that gluten; he's bringing this up the next time he hears a complaint about his food options, and Patrick can suck it.

Kaner eats most of the small serving Jonny's put on the plate—grains and fish and a bite or two of steamed broccoli, and Jonny's pretty pleased about it. Not only because it means this version of Kaner will happily eat the sort of things Jonny prefers, but also because while he may be a cat now, Patrick's a pro athlete who will, at some point soon, turn back to normal—and he should almost certainly be getting protein and good fats. Jonny likes thinking that he can at least help out with that. Especially because, in all honesty, the last time Jonny had seen Patrick (or a photo of him, anyway), he'd looked a little wan and exhausted. They're going to start the season soon; Kaner can't start off looking like he needs a bit more weight and a lot more sleep. It's not good for him. Or for Jonny's peace of mind.

...That quite possibly says some other things about where Jonny's head is at, regarding Patrick. He tries not to think about it much, opting instead to flip through whatever's on TV and settling on a show about fishing in Alaska. He'd thought about picking up a book, maybe one of the ones he owns on Zen meditation—because if ever there's a time some enlightenment or calm in his life would be useful, this is probably it—but he doesn't think he could get his brain to focus on anything that deep right now. He's operating on a weird sort of underlying current of stress that's completely different from the kind he's used to—the kind of stress that's related to his numbers, how the season's going for himself and for the team as a whole, and the deeper, tenser version of that whenever they're in the playoffs—but it's still there, subtle but present; Jonny can feel it in his nerves, in the bottom of his gut, in the middle of his chest, in the back of his head.

He gives himself another couple of hours of mindless television viewing before he turns everything off. "I'm going to bed," he announces, half to himself and half to Kaner, who's batting around a pen he's found somewhere. It's a bit earlier than he normally crashes, but he's exhausted, the last bits of the jetlag and the stress over his teammate turning into a fucking cat doing him in for the evening. He supposes he should at least be grateful his body isn't still running on anything remotely like the European clock, like it was during his brief time in Winnipeg. He stands and stretches, feeling the tension in his back and shoulders, and turns towards the kitten. "You can keep yourself safe, right? You know where the litter box and food and water are." He points to the small plush cat bed he'd picked up, hoping like hell he wouldn't need it but figuring he could just donate it to the humane society or one of the other shelters tomorrow, in any case. "That's for you, to sleep." Kaner's sniffed it once and utterly ignored it since then, but Jonny reasons he'll use it when he's tired, if he doesn't just opt for the more familiar sofa instead. He puts on his sternest Captain Face. "Keep out of shit you know you're not supposed to get into, all right?"

Jonny's not sure if cats can shrug, but he's pretty sure this one just did, regardless.

"Okay, whatever," he mutters to himself. The kitten's back to playing with something or other—completely ignoring the handful of small toys Jonny bought for it, that are also sitting inside the cat bed—and Jonny figures he's done what he can. He remembers Kaner's voice telling him to get some sleep, that he's fucking useless when he's exhausted—Christ, was that really only twenty-four hours ago? It seems like years—and heads for his room, already out of his shirt by the time he walks through the door and shuts it behind him, letting autopilot guide him through brushing his teeth and everything else required before he can faceplant onto his bed.

He's almost—almost—asleep when a noise outside the bedroom door pulls Jonny back into consciousness. After a second, his brain processes the noise: a series of soft, quiet meows. Jonny grunts and pulls the blanket over his head, annoyed that Kaner would decide to make noise now, when Jonny told him to stay out of trouble. He tries to drift back off, telling himself Kaner will get bored in a minute and go find something else to occupy his time.

He doesn't. Of course he doesn't. Instead of quitting with the meows, Kaner decides to add pawing at the door to the list of annoying late-night behaviors. It's even quieter than the meowing, but the soft drag and rasp of paw over carpet and slightly sharper noise of nails on the wood has Jonny gritting his teeth, thinking about the damage to the door he'll probably have to sand down and repaint whenever he decides to sell this place. The meowing doesn't stop, either. In fact, the longer it goes on, the more pitiful it sounds, and Jonny just gives up on trying to get back to sleep right away. He throws the blanket off, trudges to the door, and opens it wide, snapping a gravelly "What the hell do you want at this time of night?" down at the floor to the fuzzy cause of the sleep disruption.

The kitten looks up at him with the saddest eyes ever, and Jonny promptly feels like a dick. He refuses to let his guilt show, however, because if there's one thing Patrick Kane does not need, it's the knowledge that Jonny apparently has a weakness for large, sad blue eyes. "Fine," he grumbles, stooping down and picking the kitten up, tucking him against his chest while he walks across the room. He plops the kitten at the foot of the bed and collapses back onto the mattress himself, pulling the covers up a little past his waist and smashing his face mostly into the pillow while he positions himself on his side. "Better?"

There's no affirmative sort of reply, but there's also no pitiful meowing, so Jonny figures that's a yes, or close enough to count, and gets busy trying to get back to sleep. He's almost there when he feels movement at his side, light and quiet, and then feels something settle up near his shoulder. He cracks one eye open to find Kaner staring at him in a way that makes Jonny feel like he's failing at something, some bit of cat-care, maybe, or just understanding whatever the hell Kaner wants. Jonny sighs, then reaches a hand up and gives Kaner a few tired scratches behind the ears and over his back, thinking of the way he pats Kaner's helmet when they're on the ice or the bench together. That seems to do the trick in placating him, at least; Kaner curls up next to him, purring softly, and they're both asleep in no time at all.

Jonny's rise to consciousness the next morning isn't the gradual, natural thing he was hoping for. One minute he's blissfully asleep and unaware of anything at all, and then next there's a cat stepping on his fucking face. "What the fuck, Kaner?" Jonny sputters, flailing in an attempt to get the kitten off his face and away from him in general. He glares daggers at the cat, who does not look shamed in the least.

If anything, he looks pleased with himself.

"What the fuck?" Jonny asks again, letting his annoyance over being woken this way override his worry that Kaner hasn't transformed back sometime during the night. He really doesn't want to think about that right now. The kitten meows at him from the head of the bed, his tail tucked neatly around his paws, and it's weird that Jonny actually thinks he recognizes that tone. He's heard it before on nights Patrick's stayed over, a sort of cheeky, "so what are you going to feed me?" when Jonny's finally made his way out of bed the next morning

"You're not getting any damned bacon today, either," Jonny mutters, heaving himself off the bed and heading for the kitchen. "Or pancakes." He could swear the noise the kitten makes is almost a laugh. He washes out both of the kitten's bowls, then fills them with fresh water and food. After a bit of consideration, he flakes a tiny bit of the leftover plain salmon from the night before and mixes it with the dry food. "Don't just pick that out of there," he scolds the kitten, who's wrapping around one of Jonny's ankles again. He's seen Kaner do it with cereal and things like the handful of M&Ms he sneaks every now and then—especially in the week or so around Halloween, when the fun-size packs are more readily available—picking his favorite bits out of the overall supply. "Or I won't share the chicken I'm making later today, and that'll be the last you see of the fish, too." He grabs something light for himself, eating it while leaning back against his counter and watching Kaner eat his breakfast. He does indeed pick out all the bits of fish, but he also eats some of the plain food, so Jonny doesn't lecture him at all.

"I'm going for a run," Jonny says when the kitten's stepped back, licking at his whiskers in a way that's way too cute for Kaner to be doing. It's definitely cuter than when Patrick licks or sucks on his fingers after they've eaten something a little messy, which is both gross and alarmingly interesting as of late. Twice between the end of the season and when Jonny fucked off to Canada and then Europe, he caught himself staring in those moments, his eyes lingering too long on the pursed O of Patrick's mouth as his lips wrapped around a long, nimble finger or thumb, or watching the movement of his tongue. He had to shake himself out of it both times, a light flush rising up his neck and spreading over his cheeks in a way he could feel. He clears his throat at the memory, and the kitten looks up at him questioningly. "I'll be back," Jonny says a little roughly, but he makes sure to bend down and give Kaner a couple of quick pats and a scratch under his chin before he heads back to his room to change, and another before he walks out the front door, once again giving instructions to stay out of shit he shouldn't be getting into.

He hoped the run would give him some time to push all of this cat nonsense out of his head and just focus on the way his body's working—the flow of air in and out of his lungs, the burn of his muscles as he jogs up a steeper hill, the thud of his heart that speeds and slows with his pace and exertion levels. And for a while, it works. There's little in Jonny's world besides the cues from his body and just the small bit of peripheral input about his environment—when to stop and wait for a signal before he hits the running path, when to slow or speed up for other joggers or walkers around him, when to expand the fingers of one loose fist out and flex his wrist in an abbreviated wave when others give him the same courtesy. He's foregone his iPod for the morning, something he does more often when he's running a trail instead of just running in place in some workout facility. But then he passes a couple of guys who look like they're not even old enough to drink in the States yet, stepped just off the path in the park and stretching under a large tree where he and Patrick have done the same thing. They're young and fit and sweaty, and the shorter one's giving the taller one shit over something Jonny doesn't quite catch, a smirk not at all unlike Patrick's on his face. The taller one rolls his eyes, mutters something in a way Jonny is intimately familiar with—and then leans in and kisses the other one. It's quick, casual; just a peck as they catch their breath, and it makes the shorter one squeal something about 'gross, you got your sweat on my face,' even as he laughs and slaps the taller guy's ass and tells him to get moving again, or they'll miss their brunch reservation.

It immediately makes Jonny picture himself and Patrick in their places. There's a brief ache that comes with it, like a stitch in his side, only it's split between his stomach and sternum, and it makes Jonny pause for a moment in his own running to catch his breath. It's just too easy to see himself as one of those guys, see Patrick in place of the other one. Patrick, chirping him for whatever the hell hits him in the moment, just to get a rise out of Jonny. Jonny rolling his eyes like he does so often in response, because Patrick's ridiculous. And that kiss—such an easy thing, something natural and unquestioned and allowed, the only protest a laughing one that has nothing to do with the kiss itself.

It makes him think that he may have been right about thinking he just needed to see Patrick face-to-face the other night and he'd suddenly have everything become clear, but that the truth is still there, even without that opportunity. He wants what he's just seen—wants it with Patrick. And not just the kiss, or anything else physical it may lead to, but everything else that was implied—the shared intimacy and level of comfort in their interactions. Regardless of whether or not Patrick feels the same way, that's what Jonny wants, and he's going to have to acknowledge it straight-up and figure out how that fact works its way into the rest of his life, even if he and Patrick never become anything more than friends and teammates. He can't change others—only himself and his responses to the world around him.

And it'd be a hell of a lot easier to start the whole process and explore it a bit further, if only Patrick wasn't a fucking cat right now.

Jonny sighs, runs a hand through his sweaty hair, and cuts his run a little short. He's got Kaner at home waiting for him; he should get back, just in case he's needed.

Kaner's napping in Jonny's discarded T-shirt from yesterday, curled up in it like a nest of sorts near the corner of the bedroom that—in Jonny's defense—is at least close to the laundry hamper. It's one of his softer, more comfortable shirts, the red Hawks one with STRENGTH emblazoned across the front, and Jonny smiles just a little at the sight as he downs the last of one of the protein shakes he grabbed after walking in the door, amused that Kaner found something so familiar to get comfortable in. "I'm gonna shower," he murmurs when the kitten raises his head and looks at Jonny sleepily. "Go back to your nap." He ruffles the fur on the top of Kaner's head and around his jowls, hearing the ghostly echo of gross, you got your sweat on my face in his head as he heads into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind him.

When he emerges from the shower, his head a little clearer than when he went in, he's amused to see Kaner engaged in his own bathing and grooming routine. Jonny watches Kaner finish up as he combs out his own hair, then scoops up the cat. "C'mon," he says, like Kaner's got much of a choice when Jonny can just manhandle him around like this. "Let's see if we can't entertain ourselves for a while in the living room before I make lunch."

Though Kaner hadn't given a single fuck about any of the toys Jonny had set in his cat bed the day before, Jonny's pleased to learn he's not averse to some general cat-like playtime. He's spent some time looking a bunch of shit up; it's nice to know some of it was useful. While Kaner may not care at all about little stuffed mice, or the plush snake filled with some crinkly material, or the small plastic whiffle ball-like thing with the bell inside, he is immediately captivated by the thing Jonny brings out as an experiment. He remembers MacKinnon talking about how awesome fetch was during his canine period; apparently, Kaner feels the same way about the laser pointer Jonny's dug out of the desk in his office upstairs.

It's hilarious as fuck to watch the kitten tear ass around Jonny's living room, going after the bead of red light as he moves it along the floor and up walls, and Jonny can't help but be entertained when Kaner stalks his prey and pounces. He nearly laughs his ass off when he moves the light slowly across the carpet and onto Kaner's paw, causing Kaner to go completely ape-shit trying to get it and trap it under his paw instead.

Kaner's winding down, apparently growing bored with the light that refuses to stay caught, when Jonny's phone chimes with a text alert. He picks it up to see a message from Artemi Panarin, short and simple like all of his messages usually are: Hi Captain! Have you seen Kaner? Jonny makes a face and looks over at Kaner, who's once again grooming himself, and sighs. He could ignore the message, but given how close Patrick and Panarin are, it's likely this won't go without some sort of follow up. Especially if he's already tried Patrick's phone over the last day or two, and there's been no answer. He finally just sends Why? What's up? back, figuring he can feel out the situation and maybe put the kid off for a little while. Hell, for all Jonny knows, he's in Russia or something.

No such luck.

He left message. Says has my credit card I left at his home. I need it back for tonight. Do you know where he is?

"Fuck," Jonny groans softly, throwing his head back against the sofa. "You would make this difficult," he says to Kaner, who is too engrossed in licking his flank to pay Jonny any attention. He gets up and crosses the room, hoping against hope at least one thing is going to go his—and Panarin's—way. He picks up Patrick's wallet and opens it for the first time since he set it down after confirming it was, in fact, Patrick's wallet. There's a very creased and well-handled piece of paper that turns out to be some memento from Patrick's grandfather's memorial service that Jonny puts back incredibly carefully, lest he damage it, the usual customer loyalty cards for a handful of places around Chicago, a couple of Patrick's credit cards, two fortune cookie messages—one's about overcoming obstacles, and one's about romance, because Patrick's a sap—and finally, tucked back behind the small amount of cash in the billfold, a debit card with Panarin's name on it. "Talk about lucky break," he murmurs, slipping it back into place and putting the wallet back on the table. At least that's one thing that doesn't have to be overcomplicated by this whole mess.

He's been kind of sick, Jonny texts back, trying to choose his words so that he's not really lying, but also is easy enough for Panarin or whatever translation app he uses to understand. His English is definitely better than it was to begin with, but it's not like he's totally fluent or anything just yet, and Jonny doesn't want to complicate matters any more than they already are. Kaner doesn't want visitors until he's better. But I can give your card back if you come to my house.

Not in Canada? is the reply, capped off by a little winking emoji, and Jonny breathes a sigh of relief that Panarin's just taken everything as fact. He's a good kid.

Not in Canada :) Do you need my address?

I can find your house! See you soon, yes?

Sure. I'll be here. Jonny sits down and sighs. One bullet dodged.

The doorbell rings forty-five minutes later and Jonny scoops up an interested-looking Kaner and sets him in the hallway, out of sight. "Stay," he orders. "I'm not having you get underfoot or out that front door, got it?" Satisfied he's been clear enough, Jonny snags the card out of Patrick's wallet and hastily shoves the rest of it into one of the table's drawers, along with Patrick's keys and phone. He can't have Panarin seeing those. "Hey, Breadman," Jonny says, hoping like hell he sounds casual and not like he's keeping a pint-sized furry secret.

"Hi, Captain!" Panarin says cheerfully, and Jonny steps back and lets him in. He sort of wants to just shove the card at him and close the door right behind, but that would be rude, and he doesn't want to give the kid the wrong impression at all. Jonny likes him well enough, and it doesn't even have anything to do with all the points he put up last season. "Who is that?"

Jonny whirls around to where the kid's pointing, his jaw clenching as he sees Kaner trotting into the living room from the hallway. So much for Kaner listening to him. "Uh. He belongs to a friend. I'm just watching him for a few days."

"What his name?"

Jonny freezes for half a second, trying to come up with some typical cat name—Tiger, maybe?—and then blurts out an answer: "Puck."

Panarin laughs. Kaner looks at Jonny, distinctly unimpressed, before resuming his path towards his frequent linemate. "Very friendly," Panarin says, reaching down to pet the kitten at his feet. He scratches around the side of the kitten's face, back behind his cheek and jaw, and Kaner purrs happily. Panarin looks charmed as hell and Jonny tries not to scowl. He's not jealous that Panarin's gotten Kaner purring within mere seconds while it took Jonny hours to do the same thing. He's not.

"Yeah, he can be," Jonny mutters.

"'Puck' is good name. Good for hockey cat." Panarin laughs again and scratches between Kaner's ears. "But here, he almost look like Kaner." The cat meows. "Same hair, almost. Like mullet! Very Kaner, yes?" The cat meows again. "He likes name Kaner better, I think," he says with a grin, and the cat meows again, louder this time, and bats at Panarin's leg before wandering over a few feet and sitting next to Patrick's pair of shoes, which are right where he'd left them the morning before.

Panarin slowly stands up and looks at Jonny, who is utterly failing to control what his face is doing. He's sure he looks guilty as hell, and maybe just a little terrified. "Um," Panarin says, blinking. When Jonny doesn't respond, unable to even laugh it off, Panarin crouches down close to the kitten's level. He murmurs something in Russian that sounds like a question, and the kitten responds, a very long, soft meow with a little waver at the end, and Panarin looks up at Jonny with his eyebrows raised high. "Captain?" he asks, clearly looking for some sort of help with whatever he's processing, and Jonny can only spread his hands in front of him. Words deserted him entirely right about the second time Kaner meowed at his name. He says something else in Russian, and the kitten nudges Panarin's hand in response. Panarin clears his throat and stands. "Um. Why Kaner a cat?"

"What do you mean?" Jonny finally asks, his voice kind of raspy. Panarin looks at him like he's worried he's been concussed.

"Cat," Panarin says slowly, like he's trying to make sure he gets the right English words out, like maybe that's the problem. He points to the kitten at his feet. "Is Kaner. Da?"

And that's all it takes for Jonny to cave, letting out a huge sigh. "Yeah."

"Hear of bear in KHL," Panarin says, still slow. "But not cat. This is...uh...new thing, for him? For you?"

"Yeah, you could say that." And then the rest of that processes. "There's a guy who's sometimes a bear in the KHL?" Sid had mentioned it, but this seems like definite confirmation.

Panarin grins a little crookedly. "Hear of bear. Never meet." He looks back at Kaner, who's now chewing on his shoelaces. "Need help taking care?"

That makes Jonny's gut twist a little, for some reason he can't understand. "I don't think so. I think I've got it covered." He's not sure why, but he really feels like whatever's going on, whatever caused this to happen in the first place, Jonny should be the one to be there for Kaner till it's over with. It's a hunch or instinct, and he can't explain it, but he's also pretty goddamned sure about it. "I'll, uh, I'll call you if I need someone to watch him for a little bit, while I have to go out or something, okay?"

Panarin nods. "Okay. I keep his secret." He grins. "Maybe buy him kotovnik koshachiy for birthday." He must figure—correctly—that Jonny has no damned idea what that means, because he sort of waves his hand around before snapping his fingers in something like triumph. "Catmint!"

Jonny laughs weakly at the thought of Panarin gifting Patrick with catnip, but that does make him feel a little better. "You'll need your card, then," he says, handing it over.

Panarin thanks him and steps towards the door, saying something about running late for lunch and a movie. He gives Kaner another scratch behind the jaw and says something else in Russian, then wishes Jonny luck before Jonny sees him out.

"Since when the hell do you speak Russian?" Jonny mutters, turning back to Kaner, who's still looking at the front door. "Don't tell me cats understand every language or something." He sighs, then figures he may as well give it a shot, in case he's been doing this whole thing wrong. "Tu es ridicule et je ne sais pas pourquoi je t'aime tellement."

The kitten just stares at him blankly, and Jonny gives up on that theory. It's true, though—Kaner really is ridiculous, and Jonny doesn't know why the hell he likes—or loves—him so much. "Fine, no French. So, what, have you two really just been spending that much time together?"

Kaner meows, just a quick, truncated thing that almost sounds like "meh," and Jonny rolls his eyes. "Yeah, okay, whatever."

Jonny tries to get his day back on track to something resembling normal as soon as Panarin's gone. The run has helped with that in a very small way, but he's got to do more. Going through the place and airing it out a little, making it feel like home again after the only people in here have been from the service he hired to water his plants and dust, is another positive step. He even gets his laundry going and manages to get the rest of the souvenirs and gifts from Europe put away, contenting himself with that bit of productivity before sitting down at his computer again and trying to find more answers.

He realizes some time later that it's awfully quiet, and he hasn't seen Kaner in at least half an hour. Logically, he could be napping or something—God knows he seems to enjoy that even more as a kitten than he does as a human, somehow—but the silence feels weird, worrisome. Jonny wonders if this is how parents of small children feel when they suddenly realize their kids are too quiet. "Kaner?" Jonny calls, looking up from his laptop. He isn't getting anywhere with his attempts at research, anyway. All he's really found, instead of anything legitimately informative regarding real-life animal transformation, is a ton of stuff related to werewolves and a fairly large selection of Harry Potter Animagus fanfiction.

There's no response at all, and Jonny sits up a little straighter, setting his laptop to the side. "Kaner?" he tries again, keeping his ears open and hoping to see a little fuzzy blond head poke around a corner. Again, there's silence, and Jonny squirms. That's definitely not regular silence. It's suspicious silence. He knows it is.

It suddenly dawns on him that the doors to most of the rooms in his house are open, part of the attempt to air the place out and freshen it up a bit. Which means Kaner could be practically anywhere, getting into anything.

"Aw, fuck me," Jonny mutters to himself, getting to his feet. Kaner's got both sharp teeth and a full set of claws. Who knows what kind of damage he could be doing? Or shit, what sort of trouble he could have got himself into? The thought speeds Jonny's steps, and he tries to remain calm, popping into every room and calling Kaner's name as he looks around.

He finds him in the game room, which is what Jonny calls the room with the ping-pong table and dart board and a bunch of his old jerseys and mementos from Worlds and the Olympics and his time with the Hawks. Patrick calls it a bunch of things instead of 'the game room,' all of which make it sound like he doesn't have his own room in each of his residences that has old hockey stuff in it. The least annoying of those nicknames is the "Canadian Embassy," a nod to all the stuff from Team Canada on one of the walls, and even that's pretty stupid. Jonny almost doesn't see Kaner at first, because he's scanning the floors. But when he does, he comes to a halt, locking eyes with him. "No," he says, flatly.

The kitten looks back at him, peering over his shoulder. He's sitting atop a table in the corner where people usually sit when they're watching someone play ping pong or waiting for their turn at darts. Kaner is the only thing on top of it, save for the Olympic gold medal that Jonny keeps meaning to find a replacement shadowbox for, since someone had knocked over the last one and cracked the glass.

And he's got his paw perched right at the edge of the medal, six inches or so from the edge of the table.

"Get down from there," Jonny huffs, waiting for Kaner to hop down so he can shut the door and close off this room again. It's been aired out enough. Instead of listening, Kaner looks down and batts at the medal with a light, deliberate swat, sliding it closer to the ledge. "Seriously, Kaner, come on, leave that alone." There's another nudge, and now the medal's overhanging just a fraction of an inch off the table's side. Jonny can see the look on the cat's face, and he instantly sees the version he's used to, the look Patrick gives him when he's being a little shit and disobeying him just because he can, because he thinks he's either making a point or just wants to piss Jonny off for whatever reason.

"Oh, don't you fucking do it, you asshole," Jonny breathes, just as Kaner locks eyes with him and gives one final, incredibly intentional shove at the medal, sending it falling to the floor.

Jonny lunges forward to catch it, swearing, even though it'll be fine landing on the rug below. The kitten jumps from the table and sprints out the door before Jonny can set the medal back down and chase the rapidly escaping fuzzy body out of the room.

He knows cats can be jerks, but now he's one-thousand-percent positive that's Patrick in there.

Kaner has to know he was a little shit, too, because he stays hidden for a good hour or so, no matter where Jonny looks for him. Just to be safe, Jonny checks every last door and window in the place, making absolutely certain Kaner couldn't have gotten out if he'd gotten it into his tiny little brain that he was a free-range cat. Before Jonny gets to the point of panic, he finds Kaner curled up between Jonny's pillow and his rumpled bedspread, looking perfectly at peace dozing in Jonny's spot. Jonny leaves him to it, knowing it's fucking stupid to hold a grudge against a cat—at a kitten, really—for something so trivial as giving Jonny's Team Canada gold a little 'fuck you' while Jonny watches, but he can't quite help it. He eventually sits down on his sofa and channel surfs for a bit, trying to talk himself into doing something else productive, and finally gives up the attempt and settles in for some Xbox. Of course that's when Kaner either forgets he's avoiding Jonny, or just happens to wander back in for the hell of it anyway, figuring he's innocent-looking enough in this form to get off scot-free.

Jonny's got some news for him on that front.

He's also not adorable enough for Jonny to just let him step all over him and the controls while he's playing. Kaner's kind of obnoxious when they play together most of the time, but Jonny's usually just as obnoxious right back, and they've probably fucked up each other's games an equal amount of times. This time, though, Jonny has no means of just and fair retaliation.

"What is your deal?" Jonny finally asks, giving up and exiting out of his game. The kitten's been all up in his shit for the last forty minutes, and Jonny can't figure out why. He's got food and water, the litter box is clean (and Jonny is never fucking speaking of anything at all regarding the fact that he has to clean said litterbox, when this is all said and done)—all of his basic needs are met. But that hasn't stopped him from walking across Jonny's lap over a dozen times, or smacking at the game controller, or batting at his hands and even his face, or trying to sit on him only to get annoyed when Jonny moves or shifts. He tosses the controller onto the sofa beside him and fixes Kaner with a look. "What? What do you want, huh?"

In response, the kitten climbs up onto Jonny's lap and head-butts him in the solar plexus. Jonny still doesn't get it, just makes a confused noise and raises his eyebrows, waiting for some sort of better answer. Kaner head-butts him again, and then apparently gets tired of Jonny being stupid enough to not be able to read his mind, because he shoves his head under Jonny's right hand and rubs himself against the palm.

"What, you want to be pet?" Kaner meows, and Jonny sighs. "Really?" Kaner meows again, removes his head and looks at Jonny, then shoves his hand right back where it was, because he's clearly figured Jonny's an idiot who hasn't worked this whole thing out yet. Jonny just rolls his eyes, but complies, scratching at the spot sort of behind Kaner's jaw and up around to his ears that he seems to like best. Kaner closes his eyes and makes a face that looks kind of like a blissed-out relaxed grin, the sort of thing Jonny equates with when you're finally able to scratch a really bad itch, or maybe like when a massage therapist hits just the right spot. "God, cats are needy fuckers," Jonny mutters, but he makes with the pettings anyway. MacKinnon had said it was one of the prevailing memories of his time as a dog, and Jonny figures it can't hurt for Kaner to feel a little positively towards him later for complying and satisfying at least a few of his more feline instincts.

It's a thought he almost regrets when he tries to pull his hand away a few times, only to have Kaner physically grab at it and attempt to put it back and make it resume what he wants it to do. Even when the kitten has apparently had his fill of being actively petted, he follows Jonny around the house, even going so far as to camp out outside the bathroom door when Jonny goes to take a piss. He nearly trips over the fuzzball at his feet as Kaner immediately starts to wind around his ankles, and Jonny just sighs deeply, picks him up and earns himself a startled meow, and carries him back to the living room so he doesn't have to do that awkward shuffle down the hall to avoid injuring one or both of them.

"If I pet you anymore, you're gonna have a bald spot," Jonny finally huffs around one o'clock, setting Kaner firmly on the ground as he stands up from the sofa. "And let's face it, you're already losing your hair enough that that should worry you." The kitten gives him a pissy look and an even pissier quick meow, and Jonny just knows Kaner would come back at him with a comment about his own hair being a little less full than it was when they started playing together, but it's too bad for him that he can't make smartass comments in this form. "I'm going to go up to the roof and do some gardening. You entertain yourself somehow. I'll be back in a while to make us lunch." He walks swiftly to the bedroom to change into better clothes for working in the dirt, then heads up to the roof without letting Kaner distract him again.

He's having a really hard time wrapping his head around how much the kitten seems to want to be around him, and he sort of needs some space to breathe away from all the insistent demands for attention the cat's got going on. Not that Patrick's never hassled him for attention before, but it's somehow different like this, more intense. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's not just attention he's demanding, but blatant affection. Especially since Jonny knows that once Patrick's back to being himself, he won't want that sort of thing.

Jonny spends over an hour in his rooftop garden, enjoying the feel of the sun on his shoulders and the smell of clean soil and lush greens all around him. There's something calming and fulfilling about working in his garden, being hands-on with things he's going to eat later, being able to watch each plant grow and flourish and thrive because of the attention he gives it. It's not quite the same way he feels out on the lake back home, but it's still good. It's hard to connect with nature in the city; this is as close as he can really get, short of giving up hockey and working on park preservation or doing something at the botanic gardens. Maybe he should look into local charities that might let him share this feeling and get others to love it as much as he does. He could probably get a couple of the other guys on board, too. Hell, the Hawks PR office would probably love it.

He's considerably more at peace when he makes his way back inside, feeling as close to centered as he can really get, under the current circumstances. It lasts about 45 seconds, until Jonny passes through the living room and sees movement out of the corner of his eye, and then processes exactly what he's seeing. It's Kaner causing the movement in Jonny's field of vision—Kaner, who's managed to scale his way about four feet up the grey-blue full-length drapes around his large picture windows, hanging on with his claws extended and looking like he's fully intent on making it all the way up to the ceiling.

"Kaner! No!" he shouts, the bottle of water he uses to mist the leaves of his plants still in one hand. Jonny's reaction is about ninety-nine percent instinct. His hand is raised and he's sprayed the cat with the water before he's really even thought about it, only realizing in the moment his fingers squeeze around the trigger that he's seen a friend's mother do the same thing to their old cat once when he was a kid and over for dinner one night. Kaner's about as pleased with the admonition as that cat had been; he yowls his displeasure and slides down the drapes, creating runs in the thin cotton with his claws as he drops, and Jonny gives one more spray his direction as Kaner hits the floor, hissing and careening his way out of the living room like a bat out of hell.

"You wouldn't have gotten sprayed if you hadn't been climbing the drapes!" Jonny yells after him, unable to ignore the actual damage to the gauzy material hanging in front of him. He's going to have to replace those, now. "Goddamnit, Kaner!" He storms out of the room himself, drops his gardening shit in the little closet where he keeps it, and goes to wash up so he can make lunch. It takes an awful lot of reminding himself of MacKinnon's words about cutting Kaner some slack regarding animal instincts and behaviors to not want to hunt the kitten down to lecture him some more, but he finally puts his frustration aside and goes to find the cat so they can get on with the afternoon.

It takes him a good twenty minutes to find where Kaner's hiding; Jonny only finds him after a brief kick of adrenaline hits him when a set of eyes flash at him from underneath the low couch Jonny's crouched on his hands and knees in front of with his ass in the air to get a better look along the floor. It's like something from one of those demonic-possession horror movies, and Jonny grunts in surprise and almost slams his face into the floor as he has a minor heart attack.

"I see you, Kaner," Jonny says, once his heart's started beating again. "Come on out." The cat just sits where he is, the very tip of his tail flicking just once, and stares at Jonny with those weird glowing eyes. "Seriously, come on. It's lunch time." He reaches one hand out towards the cat and then snags it back quickly when a set of claws swipe at it when he gets close enough to reach. "Fucking fine!" he huffs, sitting back on his heels and glaring at the bottom of the couch, since he can no longer see the cat in its hiding spot. "Be that way. I'm gonna go make my own lunch." There's the lowest of half-growled meows from the back of the couch, along the wall, and Jonny clenches his jaw. "I'm not even going to share the chicken, if you're going to be like that, then!" he snaps, giving up and heading for the kitchen, sucking on the tip of his middle finger where Kaner had managed to graze him with a claw. Fucking cat.

Jonny manages to get through an entire meal's prep without having to deal with a cat underfoot in the kitchen, which is definitely an improvement as far as he's concerned. In fact, he even gets through eating and taking care of the dishes without seeing so much as the tip of a tail or ear or whisker anywhere nearby. When he drops to the floor in the living room and peers under the couch again to tell Kaner that there really is chicken for him, if he wants it, there's no kitten hiding under there anymore. He's on his way to check in his own room, maybe under the bed or in the clothes by the hamper, when his bare foot lands in something wet and thick that makes a disgusting squelching noise as it squishes up between his toes.

He looks down at the horror he's stepped in, the pink-orange-brown mess of fur and half-digested cat food, and bellows Kaner's name just before his gut rolls and he gags out of utter disgust. It's still fucking warm. He catches sight of the kitten lurking just around the corner before it sees him look and takes off, sprinting down the hallway and out of sight. Jonny turns to chase after him, but the movement makes some more of the hairball squish between his toes so he can see it on the top of his foot and he slides just a little in the mess on the carpet. He retches once and manages to keep his lunch down, hobbling as quickly as he can into his own bathroom to clean the mess off his foot before going back to clean up what's left of the mess outside his bedroom door and then locking himself inside the bathroom to shower until he feels clean again.

He doesn't have any proof, but he's pretty damn sure the hairball is retaliation for the spray bottle.

When Jonny settles down on the sofa one very long, very hot shower later, Kaner jumps up onto the cushions after only a minute or two, reappearing from wherever the hell he's chosen as his most recent hiding spot, and curls up next to Jonny's thigh—but with a clear bit of distance between them. Jonny gets the distinct feeling that Kaner's ignoring him and he rolls his eyes, reaching out to pet him like he's been demanding all day—and promptly gets bitten for his troubles after only two strokes. Jonny can feel his blood pressure spike and he almost snaps at the cat again, wanting to know what the fuck he's done now, like he's should just know or something, and then he remembers: it's Kaner. He does know.

"Hey," Jonny says quietly, keeping his cool when the cat still doesn't deign to look his direction. He didn't really expect much different, because, well, this is Kaner, and Jonny's been in this position before. He hates it every time. "I'm sorry," he says, making his voice as sincere as possible. He's trying to look at it from a cat's point of view: one moment he's having an adventure, climbing up a wall and getting a new vantage point—like rock climbing, maybe—and then next, someone huge is yelling and then soaking him with water and completely ruining all the fun and making him miserable. "I overreacted, and I shouldn't have yelled. And I shouldn't have sprayed you. Twice. You were just doing what cats do, right?" The cat just stares at him, which is an improvement over ignoring him. "I'm sorry," Jonny says again, hoping it doesn't sound too forced. These days—as motherfucking adults—he and Patrick take turns being the first to apologize, depending upon the infraction—but that doesn't mean either of them always does it exceptionally graciously. Still, okay, he did kind of fuck up here. Kaner's depending on him a pretty good amount for safety, and he's not entirely helpless, but Jonny's got to step up and be better for him. He thinks Patrick would do the same for him, if the tables were turned. He pats at his lap, an invitation for Kaner to come closer and get petted again, if he wants, and he's a little surprised and just a tinge hurt when Kaner doesn't move at all. "Okay," Jonny sighs, pursing his lips. He's done his part. Hopefully, the apology was good enough to at least keep Kaner from further retaliation or revenge. Sometimes they each need their space after an argument. Jonny gets up and leaves Kaner to his spot on the couch, figuring he may as well go put away the portion of people-food he left out for Kaner until later tonight.

Jonny's just finished dicing up the plain baked chicken breast into tiny, kitten-bite-sized bits when he feels something warm and fuzzy slide between his ankles and rub at a spot on the back of his left calf. He looks down to see Kaner wedged firmly between his legs, nuzzling his cheek against Jonny's bare skin. It feels like an apology, a clear message that Kaner's cooled off, and Jonny lets a long, silent sigh out through his nose. "Hey there," he murmurs at the cat at his feet. Kaner meows faintly and twines his way around Jonny's ankles in another figure-eight, his tail wrapping around after him, and Jonny smiles a little. "Done being mad at me? Or did you just smell the food and finally get hungry?" The kitten head-butts his shin in response, and Jonny laughs softly. "C'mere." He reaches down, meaning to set the cat on the counter next to the food, and surprises himself by cradling the kitten to his chest instead. The kitten immediately shoves his head under Jonny's chin and rubs their faces together, purring as Jonny softly scratches underneath his chin and along his bib. "Yeah, I'm sorry, too," Jonny murmurs into his fur, not wanting to admit how much better he feels now that everything really does feel forgiven. "C'mon, let's get you fed." He sets the kitten down on the counter, resolutely ignoring the fact that he kisses the top of the cat's head first out of some sort of instinct, and picks up a bite of chicken to hold out. "Sound good?"

Given Kaner's enthusiasm for the offering, Jonny figures it sounds just fine. And that's good enough for him, too, for now.

Jonny's dozing on the couch a few hours later—and seriously, he's going to get his sleep schedule the fuck back on track as soon as everything's back to goddamn normal—when he wakes to hear a new sound and looks around for the source. He finds it pretty damn quickly, and almost wishes he hasn't. Because that sound—which is a little like the near-silent rasp of a kitten grooming himself, but different in some unidentifiable way—is apparently the sound of Kaner licking his own butt.

Jonny looks away so fast he almost gives himself whiplash—his neck actually pops with the sudden, forceful movement. He's going to pretend he didn't see that. For the rest of his life.

It's while he's trying desperately to think of something—anything at all—other than what he's just seen that he has the sudden realization that he's a fucking moron, because he's never even listened to the voicemails Patrick left him before everything went down. He's pretty bad at checking voicemails anyway, unless he's expecting them or they're from someone like Bowman or the coaching staff, and most of his friends and family know that. But the ones from Patrick could actually hold some important information, like hey, I'm about to turn into a cat, I thought you should know, and also if you call this person at this phone number, they can get me fixed up in no time.

Yeah, okay, slim chance, but Jonny can hope.

He retrieves his phone from the kitchen peninsula counter, ignoring for the moment the text messages from a friend back home, Sid, Sharpy, and an unknown number Jonny would bet is Nate MacKinnon, and settles back onto the couch as he pulls up his voicemail.

There are nine unplayed messages listed before the ones he's after—and one is probably an appointment confirmation from a dentist's appointment he went to over a month ago; he's really got to get better about clearing this shit out more frequently—and he scrolls past each one with increasing irritation till he gets to the bottom four. When he hears Patrick's voice the first time, it's a little nervous, even if the message is short: "Hey, Tazer, it's me. I need to—I need to talk to you sooner rather than later. Can you give me a call back when you get this? Thanks." The timestamp listed with the message indicates it was left not all that long after Jonny had left his own message on Patrick's voicemail, and that fucking figures. He finally gets to sleep after all that tossing and turning, and misses the call back. The next message is from two hours later, and is even shorter, really just boiling down to a still nervous-sounding, "Hey, can you come over?" and Jonny's stomach cramps with something like guilt. The third message is from a little over an hour after the second, and Patrick's voice is less nervous and more agitated, and Jonny swallows hard against the nausea he feels at the way Patrick's voice shakes a little when he asks if he can come over to Jonny's place instead.

The fourth message, though—the fourth message is hard to listen to, but Jonny makes himself play it more than once, because his ears start to ring a little as the words hit home. There's no hey or hi as a method of greeting, unlike all three of the others. It's just straight to a ramble of words, the clearest of which make Jonny's gut twist: "I'm on my way, please, Jonny, pick up the phone, call me back, I'll be there soon, I really fucking hope you're home." The words are indicative enough of Patrick's mental state, the sentences all running together so that they're really just one long run-on, but it's his voice—his fucking voice that makes Jonny flush hot before going cold, because he sounds utterly fucking panicked. He listens to it for a third time, sets his phone down carefully on the couch cushion next to him, stands up, and bolts for the guest bathroom, where he hits his knees hard enough to bruise before losing what little is still in his stomach into the porcelain bowl of the toilet.

There's a distressed meow at his side as he fumbles the lever on the tank to flush everything away, and Jonny lifts his head to see Kaner watching him, eyes wide and worried and expressive in his little face. Patrick's seen him puke before, once after too much celebrating, a bunch of times when they were first starting out on the Hawks before Jonny figured his diet shit out and kept getting sick in the locker room before games, and maybe twice during playoffs due to sheer stress. He's always just left Jonny alone, maybe given him raised eyebrows to ask if he was all right after, but that's it, unless you count the time he wordlessly tossed Jonny a travel-sized bottle of Scope (which Jonny never could figure out the attitude behind—smartass or considerate). "It's okay, bud," he rasps, though it's not. Kaner meows at him again, still sounding distressed, and Jonny spits into the toilet and gives Kaner a quick couple of pats. "I'm fine."

He's really not, though. He feels guilty as fuck, for one thing. He'd been tired, yeah, fucking exhausted and worn out with the traveling across time zones, but he should have known something was up and woken up when his phone rang. It's bullshit, guilt-ridden reasoning, but Jonny can't shake it. What if he could have stopped this, and his failure to pick up the phone meant that he'd let this all happen? What if Patrick was trying to tell him how to prevent what was happening, or that he needed help in doing it? He could at least have tried to help him through some sort of meditations or something to get him to calm down a little—and for all the crap Patrick's given him over his "Zen enlightenment Buddha bullshit" over the years, that could very well have been what he was hoping to get from Jonny. So, yeah, he's guilty. And also, for the first time, just a little afraid.

He stands and washes his mouth out in the sink, snagging the spare bottle of mouthwash he keeps under the sink in here, stored along with the extra toilet paper and the few still-packaged travel toothbrushes and mini-tubes of toothpaste he keeps in case he has people unexpectedly crash overnight, because he's considerate like that. When he's done, he stoops and picks up the kitten, raising it to his chest so he can nuzzle it. "See? All good," he says, hoping the cat will accept it and stop giving him that worried look. It's not doing anything at all positive for his guilt.

Kaner mews softly and practically burrows as close as he can get without being physically absorbed into Jonny's chest and neck, and Jonny takes a deep breath. He smells like clean kitten or whatever; there's something comforting about that in an indescribable way, and Jonny smushes his face into Kaner's soft fur. "I'm so sorry I didn't help when you needed me to," he whispers, voice muffled against the tiny body in his arms. "I'll be better next time, okay?" He doesn't get any sort of answer other than a soft, barely-there vibration of purr, but Jonny will take it, glad the cat can't say anything about his eyes maybe being just a little wet right now. He's reminded of some of the talks he and Patrick have had before, the few serious ones where promises were made and reassurances were given, and it feels almost like this is one of those important moments and not just some baseless bullshit whispered to a cat. That's probably crazy, but Jonny would argue that this entire scenario is fucking crazy, and he can't really be blamed for a few warped perceptions that are probably more wishful thinking than anything else.

He's carrying the kitten back into the living room, wondering if it's selfish to hope the cat part of Kaner is willing to indulge Jonny in some animal-therapy-style cuddles, when a tune Jonny half-recognizes plays from somewhere near his front door. He places it after just a second, because God knows he's heard it enough before—it's one of Patrick's ringtones, this one set for his family back in Buffalo.

As soon as it clicks, Jonny practically sprints for the drawer where Patrick's phone is still stashed, hoping he can get to it to answer it before it stops ringing and the phone's locked to him again. He doesn't even care which family member it is right now—he'd happily pick up for Patrick's dad just as soon as any of Patrick's sisters (whose names he can never quite keep straight, even though he's fucking met them more than a handful of times over the years). Fuck, at this point, he'd settle for an aunt or uncle or random cousin.

The caller ID says "Mom" when Jonny fumbles the phone out of the drawer, cat still clutched against his chest, and Jonny swipes to accept the call as quickly as he can to avoid it going to voicemail. "Hello?" he says breathlessly, belatedly realizing he probably should have led with some sort of apology or statement about not being Patrick.

"Hello?" Donna Kane's voice says from the other end of the line, sounding just a little hesitant. "I'm sorry, I meant to call—"

"No, you're fine, Mrs. Kane," Jonny interrupts, because he's kind of screwed if she hangs up thinking she's misdialed and then doesn't call back for some reason. "This is Patrick's phone."

"Oh!" There's only the slightest of pauses before she continues, her voice cheerful as she says, "Well then, hello, Jonathan!"

"Um. Hi, Mrs. Kane," Jonny says, caught a little off-guard by the fact that she's identified him on her own. He can't remember when he's last spoken to her for more than a sentence or two. But then again, if she watches the games on television, she probably recognizes his voice from the intermission or post-game interviews he always gets stuck doing when he'd really rather be trying to catch his breath or sucking down a protein shake to level his blood sugar.

"It's so good to hear your voice, dear—I don't think I've seen you in at least six months, even if I have been hearing about you non-stop! You know, I told Patrick he was being silly. I'm so happy you've worked everything out!"

"Uh..." Jonny says, unsure how he's supposed to respond when he's not even entirely sure what the hell she's talking about. Clearly, she thinks something has happened that doesn't have anything to do with Patrick's current state. "Yeah." He doesn't think this could be more awkward, so he figures he may as well just suck it up and go for it instead of waiting for her to ask him to put Patrick on the phone. "While I've got you on the line, there's something I'd like to ask you, if you don't mind?"

"Of course, dear. What is it?"

"Does...I mean, has Patrick ever...?" There's no good way to ease into this at all, fuck it all. "Is there anything you could tell me about, uh, Patrick, and...cats?"

"Cats? He's not allergic, if that's what you're asking."

"No, not like that." Jonny has a brief thought about how much that would suck if Patrick were allergic to himself or some shit, or if that's even possible, and shakes his head. In his arms, the kitten squirms, and Jonny sets him down on the floor. "I mean, something kind of...important? Like, about how he, um, relates to cats? Like, really relates? A lot?" God, it was easier saying this shit to Sharpy and Sid. Jonny has no idea how he's supposed to break the news to Donna Kane that her only son is currently smaller than of one of his ice skates.

Donna's voice is just a little less cheerful this time and slightly hesitant, and that's almost a relief, because maybe it means this isn't uncharted territory for her. "Jonathan, are you trying to tell me something's happened?"

"Um. What would you say if I mentioned that I'm doing a bit of really unexpected cat-sitting? Sort of on Patrick's behalf?"

There's absolute silence on the other end of the phone. After what seems like forever, Donna speaks. "So your conversation didn't go well, did it?"

Jonny blinks. "Huh?"

"Did you two really argue about it, before this happened?"

"No!" Like hell he's taking the blame for doing this to Patrick. "No, there was no argument!"

"Then tell me what happened."

"I don't know!" Jonny exclaims, rubbing his hand over his face in frustration. "We talked a little on the phone when I got in to town, made plans to hang out the next day." He sighs and walks over to the couch to sit. This conversation is surprisingly draining already. "We haven't even seen each other in a couple of months, and I've been out of the country for most of that time. I was hoping we could catch up or something, but then...I dunno. This happened before we could. He was kind of weird on the phone, but wouldn't tell me what was up when I asked."

There's another long silence, and Jonny just waits it out, because he needs some goddamn answers, and it sounds like he might actually have a shot at getting them. Finally, Donna lets out a long sigh. "Oh, Jonathan," she says, and there's such a disappointed-mother tone to the words that Jonny actually winces and has to bite back the automatic "désolé, maman" that his brain instinctively kicks back.

"Is there anything at all you can tell me that might help me out over here?" Jonny finally asks, when she doesn't just launch into telling him how to fix things. "Because I'm really seriously just winging it." And Patrick's the winger and I'm just the center he thinks a little hysterically, but he doesn't say it. He's allowed a bit of internal hysterics here. Completely justified.

"How long has it been?" Donna asks, and okay, there we go. Finally. Problem-solving mode unlocked.

"Um." Jonny does some quick math. "A little more than thirty-six hours. Forty, maybe, give or take."

"Forty hours?"

Jonny does not like that tone of shock and surprise. It tips a bunch of adrenaline into his bloodstream and sends his heartrate up. "Yeah. Is that really bad?" Shit, what if this is supposed to wear off in one day, and it taking this long means it's permanent this time? "He'll go back to normal, still, right? I—"

"Calm down, Jonathan, I can hear your panic from over here. Look. Patrick's fine, isn't he? Other than...being a cat, of course?"

Jonny feels a bit of weight lift off his shoulders, hearing her state it out loud like that, confirming for certain she knows what's happened, is aware it's happened before. "Yeah. I mean, I think so."

"He's healthy? Not sick or anything else that would worry a vet?"

"Yeah, no, he's good!" Jonny's quick to assure her. "He looks healthy, he's alert, he eats just fine, he plays and stuff. He's just like any other kitten." Well, if other kittens had coloring patterns that mimicked mullets and receding hairlines. And were usually human pro hockey players.

Donna actually laughs. "Kitten? I'd have figured he'd have been a bit older this time."

Jonny looks over at Kaner, who's currently kneading at what looks to be one of Jonny's T-shirts he's managed to drag from somewhere. "Definitely a kitten. Okay, so...what do I do? How do I fix him?"

"I don't think I can answer that for you, Jonathan," Donna says after a moment. "I have a suspicion as to what triggered this episode, but that's all it is. And whether it's right or wrong, it's nothing I can fix for you, and nothing I can tell you how to go about doing."

That's no more help than MacKinnon had given him. "Then what can you tell me? How many times has this happened?"

"Three times before this," Donna says, and Jonny doesn't even have to ask his next question. "He was two, the first time. He got lost in a department store and couldn't find me or his father. I didn't see it happen, but his father did. He was...we'll go with rattled. Thankfully, there wasn't anyone else around and Tiki was able to scoop him and Patrick's clothes up and get him out to the car before he changed back. He said it lasted less than five minutes, and Patrick was just fine by the time they came back inside and met me in the women's department."

"I...see," Jonny says, unable to figure out exactly how to respond to that. So much for the theory about it only happening to pro hockey players who are worried about contracts and their stats and that sort of thing. "What about the other times?"

"The second time was when it finally hit home for him what it meant to be billeted. That didn't last long, either—an hour at most. The third time, he'd been worrying about how to tell us some news we were already mostly aware of in the first place, though he didn't know that. He was...fifteen, I believe. On the verge of sixteen. And that one lasted most of a morning and afternoon. He was good and worked up that time."

"What sort of news?"

"That's his story to tell, Jonathan. Not mine or anyone else's. You know, honestly, I'd thought this was something he'd simply grown out of." She pauses and Jonny bides his time again, because he can tell she's thinking hard about what else to hell him. There's a low 'boop' sound, an alert from the phone or something that Jonny probably can't access. "I can't tell you how to get him back to normal. But I can tell you that you're probably doing everything as right as can be done. There's no one in Chicago I'd trust more to take care of him while he's like this. Keep him healthy, keep him safe, and don't forget he's still Patrick."

"Yeah, I get some pretty good reminders of that now and then," Jonny says with a small snort, thinking about Kaner shoving his Team Canada gold onto the floor and the way he'd sulked earlier after their altercation, even after Jonny had apologized.

Donna laughs. "Knowing you two, I'm sure that's true. In all honesty, Jonathan, don't worry about what you're doing wrong. If he seems healthy and happy enough, you should be just fine. I'm not saying nothing you do won't have any impact. But in your case especially, just...just be you, I suppose. Be who you are with Patrick. The specialist we saw—"

"There are specialists?" Jonny can't help but exclaim before he catches himself and apologizes for interrupting. Specialists?? How the fuck do you even become one of those? Is there a specific training program? And how widespread is this phenomenon? Christ.

His head hurts.

"Well, there was at least one. We found him by chance—or rather, he found us. Patrick said something about what he liked when he was a cat when we were out at the park one day, and instead of dismissing it as typical childish story-telling, this gentleman who overheard us took him at his word."

"You don't happen to have a way I could get in touch with this guy?"

"He passed away when Patrick was thirteen, I'm afraid. I don't know of anyone else who knows anything in any sort of professional capacity. But as I was saying, the specialist—Doctor Levi—let us know that it's an extreme reaction to a fairly focused stress. He said that on the most basic level, the way to help Patrick out when this sort of thing happened was to make sure he was comfortable with us and his surroundings. And if we knew what triggered it, we should make an effort to reassure Patrick about the situation, or see about finding a resolution or alternate option of some sort, if it's a situation that can't be reversed or actually fixed. It really should wear off on its own, Jonathan. That's one thing Doctor Levi made clear to us—it's never been permanent. The longest case he'd ever heard of had been ten days."

Jonny's not entirely sure how he feels about that news. It's nice to know somebody who reportedly knew a lot about this stuff said it wasn't permanent—which may be how Kaner had come up with his answer about it being temporary when Jonny had first asked him early yesterday morning, when he was still half in shock—but on the other hand, he's not sure how he's supposed to handle ten days of this, wondering what was wrong in the first place, and why Patrick had specifically sought him out as if he might be able to help. He tries not to think about how it would be just like Patrick to add this to one of the records he's broken in his lifetime, going over ten days just because it's him.

He can't fucking do that. They've got hockey to play, goddamn it. Surely Patrick knows better.

"Okay. Um. Thanks, then, for telling me what you can. I appreciate it."

"Of course. That's my boy you've got there, Jonathan. I know you'll look out for him as best you can. That's always been true." She laughs a little again. "Could I ask you for a favor?"

"Of course." She may not have given him all the answers he was hoping for, but Donna Kane's at least managed to reassure Jonny on a number of fronts—mainly, that he isn't fucking this up entirely. "What can I do?"

"Send me photos?"

Jonny laughs at that, the noise halfway surprised out of him, because he can't help it. He wonders if she's got a photo album of them, maybe from the two times she was around when it happened, or if she doesn't believe Kaner's still a kitten instead of a grown cat. Or maybe she just wants to see for herself that her son's as fine as Jonny insists he is. "Yeah. I can do that. You can tell Patrick to lay off me when he yells at me for it, later."

"Don't worry, Jonathan. I'll back you up. Why don't you text them to me? I'll give you my number." She hums, as if considering something. "And promise me you'll keep it, for after all of this is resolved. Okay?"

Jonny furrows his brow, but figures it can't hurt to keep it. At the very least, it'd be good to have it as backup to any threat to call Patrick's mom when he's being particularly stupid or just being an ass, even if he never has to call her to tell her Patrick's gone kitten again. "Sure." He enters her number into his own phone, repeating it back to verify he has it entered correctly after the phone boops again and mutes one of the numbers she dictates to him, and then gives her his number in return when she asks. "I'll take those and send them over tonight or tomorrow," he assures her. "And really, thank you, Mrs. Kane."

"Jonathan, you're on litterbox duty—I'd say you've earned the right to call me Donna. And feel free to call if you have any other concerns about Patrick, okay?"

"I will, thanks." They exchange goodbyes and Jonny sets Patrick's phone down on the sofa, scanning around for Kaner. He doesn't see him right away, which Jonny thinks is a little odd—he'd been almost sure that, with as often as Patrick actually talks to his family and as close as he is to all of them, he'd have been all up on the phone, meowing or at least listening to his mother's voice. But maybe his cat side decided phone calls hold no interest—it's not like he'd been all that interested when Sharpy had been on the line, either, once Jonny had actually picked up the damned call Kaner seemed so insistent on him taking.

The phone lights up next to his hand with a "Critical Battery Alert", showing five percent battery level left, and Jonny realizes that was probably what that insistent periodic "boop" in the background of the phone call was. Shit. He's got Donna Kane's number now, yeah, but he feels like it would really be a good idea to keep Patrick's phone around, in case there are any other potentially important or helpful calls coming through.

"Kaner!" Jonny calls, scanning the room and hoping to see movement. "Kaner, buddy, come here!" It's silent and still for a moment, but then Kaner comes trotting around the corner from the kitchen. Jonny crouches down to give him a quick scratching behind his jaw and under his chin when he approaches. "Hey, buddy. How d'you feel about taking a little bit of a trip with me?" When Kaner meows inquisitively, Jonny feels his face twitch into a small grin. "We're going to go visit your place, okay? Both of us." He gets a short meow back that might be something like a "sure," for all he can tell, and Jonny grins a little wider. "Awesome. You hang out here. I'll be right back. I've gotta find something to transport you in." He gives Kaner another pat on the head and stands up, heading for his bedroom. There's got to be something in there he can use.

Jonny goes through his closet and finally pulls out his spare gym bag, reasoning that he's seen girls carry small dogs around in purses before, and this isn't that different. He even gives it a sniff test first, to make sure it doesn't smell like dirty sweat socks or anything. When he sets it down in front of Kaner, though, he gets the most judgmental look ever thrown by a kitten, just before Kaner walks away. Jonny has half a mind to just pick him up and plop him in there, but he guesses Kaner's right—he can do better than that. So after a bit more thinking, he goes and grabs one of the canvas tote bags he uses for groceries—one of the ones that usually holds dry goods, so there's no weird random dried-up leaves from produce or any raw meat residue in there—detouring to the linen closet for a second before coming back to the living room.

When he tucks the towel he's grabbed into the bottom of the bag, he sets it down and shows it to Kaner. "Does this meet your highness's approval?" he asks, eyebrows raised, awaiting more judgment. Kaner steps closer and sniffs at it and doesn't run off, so Jonny figures Kaner's deemed it good enough. He goes to get Patrick's keys from the drawer they're stashed in so he can access his floor and get into his condo without having to plead with any of the doormen or other security in Patrick's building, grateful he knows where the hell he's going. He's just tugging on his hoodie when he sees movement out of the corner of his eye, and he turns just in time to see Kaner tipping the bag over and climbing inside to explore it.

Jonny rolls his eyes, because it's either that or admit how cute that looks, with the bag twitching and just the tip of Kaner's tail sticking out. "All right, come on," he says after a minute of watching the bag move around, snapping a quick photo for Patrick's mom when Kaner sticks his butt up in the air and waves his tail around, the only bits of him visible from outside the tote. "Here we go." He scoops the bag up carefully by the handles, making sure not to jostle Kaner too much, and tosses the unused pet blanket he'd bought for him yesterday on top of him. "Get comfy, buddy. I'll try to make this quick."

He's got three main reasons for this excursion to Patrick's place—first and foremost, he needs to see if he can find Patrick's phone charger. But he's also curious if Patrick has any cat supplies stashed anywhere, since this is something he's definitely aware can happen—something Jonny wishes he'd thought of before he went out and bought everything. And lastly, Donna had said something about trying to make Kaner comfortable with his environment, and Jonny figures there's nowhere Kaner could be more comfortable than his own place.

Besides, then it's his own damn drapes in danger of being mauled by kitten claws.

It takes a bit of problem-solving to figure out what to do with Kaner in Jonny's car, since he can't buckle Kaner in anywhere and there's no place to put the bag that won't have it sliding around or just dumping Kaner right out of it when he brakes or takes any sort of turn. Finally he sighs and peers into the bag. "All right," he tells the kitten, who looks up at him from his curled up position amongst the towel and blanket. "Unless you've got some sort of better solution, you're riding with me. In my hoodie. So, y'know, meow now, or forever hold your peace." Kaner just looks at him but doesn't say anything, and Jonny takes the silence for permission and reaches carefully into the bag to lift him out.

"Stay still while I drive, bud. And be nice with the claws, eh?" Jonny says, holding him up so they're face-to-face for a moment before gently tucking Kaner against him, nestled between Jonny's T-shirt and hoodie. He pulls the zipper up to the middle of his breastbone to keep Kaner as secure as possible without smothering him and buckles himself in, minding the tiny body that's squirming around a little in the space between the lap belt and the strap crossing his chest, trying to find a place to settle that's workable for them both. He's good during the drive over, nice and still, and Jonny carefully pulls him out once he parks and gives him another couple of skritches as a reward for good behavior.

"We're outside your building. I'm just gonna waltz in like I belong there and take the elevator up to your place. I'll let you know once we're safe inside, but for now, I need you back in this bag and covered up. Most importantly, I need you to keep super quiet and super still, okay? Please don't poke your fuzzy little head out of there, or make any noise, or move around. I have no idea what the policy is for bringing in animals that aren't already on your lease, especially since I'm not a resident. So two minutes, that's all I'm asking. Got it?" Kaner meows seriously at him, looking him in the eye, and Jonny grins. "Good." He places Kaner back inside the tote atop the folded towel, then drapes the small blue pet blanket over him, just so he's hidden from a casual glance from above while Jonny carries the tote at his side. "Okay," he says to himself, taking a deep breath. "Here we go."

If he's lucky, the next time Kaner leaves his condo, it'll be as a human.

The doorman who lets Jonny in isn't anyone he knows, but the guy at the front desk greets him warmly by name and Jonny's glad he can respond with a "hey, Marshall, good to see you," just as casual as anything. When Marshall starts to ask if he should ring Mr. Kane, Jonny shakes his head and holds up Patrick's key fob, still heading towards the elevator. "Nah, he sent me over to retrieve a few things. I've got it, thanks." Marshall nods and moves on to helping the woman who's stepped up to the desk, and Jonny tries not to look relieved at having cleared that hurdle. That was easy.

Apparently the universe feels it was too easy, because a man slips inside the elevator just before the doors close and stands next to Jonny, giving him a little smile of acknowledgement as he slides his key card in to access his own floor. It wouldn't be of any concern to Jonny in the slightest, except for the fact that the man's other hand is holding a leash, and on the other end of that leash is a dog. A very large dog. It looks something like a Rottweiler mix, though Jonny's not sure of the breed. What he is sure of is that the dog definitely scents something interesting, because it hones in on the bag in Jonny's hand, stepping closer while its owner messes with his phone. The dog's sniffs are loud in the elevator, and Jonny tries not to panic when it noses at the bag, snuffling determinedly at it, even when Jonny switches the bag to his other hand. The dog whines softly, straining to get at it again, and Jonny just prays that the dog doesn't actually go for the bag and that Kaner's okay in there. He looks at the elevator panel, dismayed to see that the guy and his dog are going up three floors higher than he is.

The dog lets out a soft sort of huffing bark at the bag, and the jumping movement from inside the tote bag is disguised only by Jonny's own very real flinch. The other guy finally looks over and notices something's going on, giving a quick tug to the dog's leash with an admonishing "Trigger, no! That's not for you!" before giving Jonny a mildly embarrassed apology while Jonny fights the urge to clutch the bag against his chest to guarantee its safety.

Jonny waves it off and steps off the elevator and into the hall the second the doors open, practically dashing for Patrick's door. "He's gone," he mutters down at the tote bag, hoping Kaner can hear him, and then gets them both the hell inside the front door of Patrick's place, door locked behind them. "Hey," he says, opening up the bag wide and moving the blanket so Kaner can see him. "Hey. It's okay. We're in your place, okay?"

The kitten's curled up in a tight ball at the bottom of the bag, and Jonny can see the way he's shaking. He can't imagine he'd be anything other than terrified, either, in Kaner's situation. "Heyheyheyhey," he murmurs, running the words together as he reaches in carefully to pick Kaner up in order to hold him up against his chest, and hoping he doesn't get clawed in the process, a byproduct of Kaner's distress. "Shh, it's okay." He curls his upper body in a little, using his large frame to more or less envelop Kaner and keep him shielded from everything else. "See? It's fine. You're safe. I'm not letting anything else happen to you, I promise." He holds the kitten a little closer, thankful when the shaking starts to let up. "He was just curious what I had in the bag because he smelled another animal," Jonny says, trying to be reasonable about the situation. He's ninety percent sure the dog wouldn't have actually tried to eat Kaner or anything, but it had still been way more terrifying than Jonny's comfortable with. "And he'd have had to go through me to get to you, even if it meant stitches on my part." He means that, too. Some part of him recognizes that a worst-case scenario might have had him with jaws locked around or even sunk into his arm in something that could have seriously fucked with his ability to play for a couple months of the upcoming season—if not longer or more permanently. Still, if the alternative was letting harm come to Kaner, Jonny would absolutely have made that sacrifice without thinking twice.

He lifts Kaner a little higher, just so he can get him sort of tucked under his chin, and hums softly to him, little nonsense notes with no melody; just quiet, gentle tones meant to soothe him while Jonny pets him and holds him close. There's a rising swell of affection and protectiveness swirling within him, and mixed in with that is just a shade of anger—if this whole thing is due to stress and the key is getting Kaner comfortable and relaxed, then Jonny's likely lost any progress at all on that front in the ninety seconds spent in that elevator. He hopes like hell this isn't a setback that'll cost Kaner days. All Jonny can really do now, though, is move forward.

"You okay to be let down now, buddy?" Jonny asks after another minute or two, after the cat seems to have lost the stiffness and tension held in its body. Kaner stretches his neck up and rubs his face under Jonny's chin and along his jawbone, and Jonny feels a measure of relief. "Okay. I know it's your place and all, but watch out for anything you shouldn't get into when you're like this, would you? I've got a couple of things to find." He sets Kaner down and watches as the kitten immediately trots off towards the sofa with its pile of pillows, figuring that means Kaner's just going to leave him to it.

He's been here tons of times over the years, but it feels weird to be wandering around Patrick's place without him here, even if he is technically here. He pokes around, trying not to be too invasive in his hunt for some sort of cat-supply stash—even just a small bag of litter or one can of cat food or a single felt mouse or feather on a string—and comes up with absolutely nothing. A little frustrated, he finally trudges back to Patrick's bedroom, taking a quick, fruitless peek in his closet and under his bed before pausing to try to figure out where he's seen Patrick's phone plugged in before. He knows he's seen it on the kitchen counter in the past, but he'd looked there right after putting Kaner down to have some time to himself in his own place, and it definitely hadn't been there. So the next logical place is wherever he probably charges it at night—like his nightstand or dresser.

The cord of Patrick's phone charger is laying on the carpet between the bed and nightstand, hidden in the shadows, and Jonny kneels down to fish it out and pull the plug out from its place in the socket, noticing that Patrick's also got his iPod plugged in, too. After a second of debate, he shrugs and unplugs that, figuring that hearing stuff from his own music collection might also work to get Kaner comfortable, even back at Jonny's place. He hits the home button and takes a look at Patrick's playlists. None of them have any sort of name other than 'Playlist 01' and 'Playlist 02' and so forth through 'Playlist 12', so Jonny opens a few, scrolling through to see if the mixes are at least fairly obvious. The first one is definitely one Patrick uses while he works out, and Jonny thinks the second and third are for before games. The fourth one is full of stuff that's a lot more relaxing, the fifth is almost all rap and hip-hop, and the sixth makes Jonny's thumb hover over the iPod as he blinks at the display, because he's half-convinced he's seeing shit.

This playlist isn't at all Kaner's usual music. It's Jonny's. And that might be presumptuous to say, except that there are eight songs by Our Lady Peace within the first twenty tracks, and Patrick has never done anything more than grudgingly put up with Jonny telling him he should just give them a chance, because they're really good.

He's rubbing this in Patrick's face later, about how right he was that Patrick would like their music.

He scrolls through the rest of the list, wondering if this can join the fourth playlist as "shit that might help Kaner relax", shaking his head at the random sappy-ass love songs thrown in there amongst some pretty decent music, all told. He's not really paying too much attention to most of the titles until he gets to the last song on the list. Jonny recognizes it, yeah, but he still can't believe—no, wait, maybe he can—that Patrick's got this in his music library. It's one of the tracks from the South Park movie, and all Jonny can do is roll his eyes at the words Blame Canada sitting at the bottom of the list. "You fucking dork, Pat," he snorts, shaking his head and tossing the iPod into the tote bag along with the chargers for both it and Patrick's phone.

After a moment of contemplation—because he has technically accomplished what he intended in coming over here tonight and doesn't really have much of a reason to stay here any longer—Jonny figures it can't hurt to snag a set of Patrick's clothes and that sort of thing for whenever he decides he's done being a cat. Yeah, there's the outfit that Jonny found in a pile at his doorstep, which he's considerately washed along with his own laundry, but it couldn't hurt to have another option. There are jeans and a polo at Jonny's place, but he could always be extra thoughtful and have shorts and a T-shirt or something, in case it's really warm out.

He pulls open a few of the drawers in Patrick's dresser, not really digging so much as just pulling out the first folded item in each one to make up an outfit, and comes up with a pair of socks, underwear (ignoring the fact that Patrick has a pair of red and white striped boxer briefs with a large blue star over the crotch; Jesus Christ, why does Jonny even like him in the first place?), a pair of tan shorts, and a white T-shirt with the Bauer logo in black lettering across the front. He shoves everything into an empty plastic grocery bag he finds just inside Patrick's closet before stuffing that into the tote, figuring that'll keep any cat hair in the bag off the clothes.

See? Considerate.

He's giving the room a final look around to see if there's anything in it Patrick might want right away, or that might help him feel more comfortable at Jonny's, when he spots something sticking out from underneath the pillow on the bed. Jonny goes for it, thinking it might be a note or something else important—maybe a piece of mail or whatever that could explain what Patrick might have been stressing over and freaking out about—and comes away with a small rectangle of thick glossy paper in his hand.

It's a photo, and Jonny doesn't recognize it upon first glance, even though his face is one of the ones captured. It's not something taken from any photo shoot, that much is immediately apparent. It's one of those off-brand Polaroids from some novelty camera, the kind with the brightly-colored border, and it takes Jonny a minute of staring at the background behind his and Patrick's faces in the picture to recall when it might have been taken in the first place. It hits him after several moments—there was a barbecue at one of the coaches' houses a year or so back, and this was taken at some point that afternoon, while everyone was outside, enjoying the weather.

The photo's just a little bit out of focus, but it's clearly him and Patrick in it, leaning against the railing of the deck. They're looking at each other, kind of turned to face one another, and Jonny has no idea what they were talking about at the time, but Patrick's grinning—really grinning, bright and genuine in a way that's so different from the way he smiles for fans and the press—and Jonny's mouth is open wide in a laugh, his eyes crinkled, so apparently it was something Jonny found especially amusing. He has a vague recollection of someone's kid running around with a bright, neon-colored plastic camera, telling everyone that they were going to be a sports reporter when they grew up while snapping pictures and asking a couple of the guys for 'interviews', really cute stuff. That has to be where this photo came from. But that doesn't really explain why Patrick has the photo. Jonny wonders if the kid gave it to him later on in the evening—he's always so damned good with kids, and they all seem to adore him. Patrick being presented with a gift from some kid he'd interacted with wouldn't really surprise Jonny. Or did he ask for it, maybe to make the kid feel good? And if so, why would he bother to keep it all this time?

Jonny's still staring at the picture, puzzled and trying to work out not only why Patrick has this in his possession, but why it was shoved here, at the head of his bed, when something slams into his shin, making him shout in surprise and jump up. He looks down to find Kaner at his ankles, looking like he's about to give Jonny a bite or good swipe, yowling in a way that Jonny hasn't heard before that almost seems like he's being bitched out about something or yelled at. "Hey, what the fuck, man, stop that and come h—" he says before Kaner does take a nip at his ankle, not really doing any damage through Jonny's socks but still making a point of some sort before taking off at full speed for the door just as Jonny's hands reach down for him.

"Get back here, fucker!" Jonny cries, lunging after him and completely missing as Kaner slips through the half-opened door. He's grinning in spite of himself as he runs down the hall after the kitten and laughing when he finally catches him in the living room, where Kaner's attempting to hide himself within the sofa cushions. "Got you, you little shit," Jonny laughs, pulling Kaner to him and nuzzling his neck. Despite running away from him just a minute ago, Kaner just nuzzles Jonny right back, purring as he rubs his face along Jonny's jaw.

He suddenly really misses Patrick.

"Let's go home," he says, voice a little rougher than expected. "Bag's full of your crap, but you can ride in my hoodie if you don't fucking bite me again, okay?" Kaner purrs louder, and Jonny ruffles him behind the ears. "Okay."

He gets Kaner situated, tucking the end of his hoodie into his jeans so the kitten can't fall out the bottom. He looks a little stupid, maybe, but Kaner's small enough that it doesn't look like Jonny's attempting to smuggle something valuable out of the building as long as he's got his free hand in one of the hoodie's pockets to kind of hold the material a little ways away from his body. Hell, Kaner's actually small enough that he could probably fit in the actual hood, resting against Jonny's upper back, but at least this way guarantees Jonny knows he's safe and well-hidden—and neither in danger of falling out or being spotted if he decides to pop his head up for a look around.

There are no dogs in the elevator this time, and they have the space alone the entire way down to the lobby. Jonny nods at Marshall again on the way out and says thanks to the doorman, and it really doesn't take much time for him to walk to where he's parked his own car and get them back home. Patrick's phone is at one percent battery by the time Jonny gets it plugged in on the counter of the kitchen peninsula and he tucks it back a little to somewhere he hopes Kaner won't decide to explore in order to fuck with it and risk it falling to the floor and breaking. He microwaves a container of leftovers and eats it while standing, occasionally feeding Kaner little bits of cold salmon steak before realizing he's pretty fucking tired and all he wants to do is climb into bed.

"It probably shouldn't be, but it's kind of an ego boost that you like my cooking so much," Jonny says, feeding Kaner the last shred of the fish he'd cooked for him and going to wash his hands. "Or at least don't turn your nose up at it and bitch like you do most of the time." He lifts the kitten off the counter and kisses him on the forehead before he can catch himself and second-guess the instinct, but once he does, he falters a little. Kaner just stares at him quizzically, and Jonny clears his throat. "I, uh, I'm going to bed," he says, finally, setting the cat down on the ground next to his water dish. He clearly remembers what happened last night, with the meowing and pawing outside his door, and he huffs a little. "I'll leave my door open this time. You can come and join later, if you want." He steps quickly towards the bedroom, leaving the kitten sitting in the kitchen, still staring at him curiously.

He half-expects Kaner to be in the bedroom once Jonny emerges from the bathroom, but he's nowhere to be seen, so Jonny keeps his word and leaves the door cracked open before sliding into bed. He's not sure how long he's been sleeping when he comes to enough to make out the sound and sensation of something light landing atop his mattress by his feet. "Done prowling around in the dark?" Jonny mumbles halfway into his pillow, expecting Kaner to sit up at the very head of the bed again, like he did last night. Instead, the kitten silently walks up over his calf and then thigh, as if Jonny's no more than a bit of lumpy carpet, stepping on his ass before hitting the point at Jonny's waist where he's got the blankets pushed down. "Well, come on, get comfortable," Jonny sighs, already almost asleep again. As long as he doesn't end up with a mouthful of fur, he doesn't really care where Kaner wants to settle right now.

Apparently Kaner senses that lenience, because all he does is take another couple of steps higher before kneading lightly at the exposed skin of Jonny's back—thankfully mindful of any claws—and settle down to curl up in a ball between Jonny's shoulder blades. "Tickles," Jonny mumbles, but then he's asleep with a warm, reassuring weight on his back, and has no more reason to say anything at all.

By four o'clock the next afternoon, Jonny is about ninety percent certain he's never owning a cat as a pet. If anyone asks why, Jonny will tell them flat-out—Kaner fucking ruined it for him.

He's not even doing anything all that awful, really. He's just being a little shit in a way that Jonny believes is about ninety percent kitten and ten percent Patrick Kane.

(He's going with at least that much being Patrick, because Jonny doesn't think most cats would be such pains in the ass about trying to sit on his face and smother him when he's watching shows about fishing, only to mellow out when he finally flips the channel to some movie with a whole lot of teenage angst and supposed romance that Jonny can't force himself to sit through more than ten minutes of.)

He's already had to lock Kaner out of the room while working out this morning to minimize the chances of simultaneous injury, only to watch a paw and attached arm keep popping in underneath the door, reaching for something. He's had to clean up one small potted plant that mysteriously leapt off the windowsill in his kitchen while Kaner lurked guiltily around the corner. He's lost almost ten minutes to cleaning up a full roll of toilet paper that had been shredded so thoroughly it looked like a confetti factory had exploded in Jonny's bathroom. He's physically stopped Kaner twice from attempting to scale the drapes again—without use of the spray bottle, because Jonny does not want a repeat of the hairball incident, thank you very much. He's had his shoelaces chewed on at least three times—twice before his run out in the park and once immediately after, when he was trying to grab a bottle of water from the fridge in his kitchen—and one leg of his sofa now bears the unmistakable signs of kitten-scratching. And, despite Jonny's best attempts at keeping it contained and swept up, fucking cat litter keeps getting tracked out of the box, around the main guest bathroom, and into the hall.

Hell, he even woke up to the weirdest fucking feeling at the top of his head that ended up being Kaner trying to groom him or whatever, licking at his hair in a way that did Jonny no stylistic favors.

The last straw, however, is the blood-drawing.

Jonny's walking from living room to kitchen after his post-run shower, planning what to make himself for dinner that's also acceptable to cats, when Kaner leaps from on top of a fucking bookshelf—and Jonny isn't even sure how he got there; that thing is just over six feet high—directly onto Jonny's bare side. Jonny isn't expecting it at all, and reacts how one would normally react to such an ambush—with a fair amount of flailing and a whole lot of swearing. Kaner loses his grip amidst Jonny's ow what the fuck get off attempts to dislodge him and slides down the length of Jonny's body, claws extended, until he awkwardly catches the material of Jonny's shorts and falls off entirely around Jonny's thighs, landing neatly on the floor.

"What the actual shit, Kaner?" Jonny yells, the stinging and burning from his side and back only half-distracting him from the adrenaline rush of the ambush. He cranes his neck to look at his side and sees two sets of angry red lines trailing down his flank (and what feels like his back, though he can't see that too well without a mirror), small dots of blood starting to well up along the tracks. He looks down at the floor to see Kaner sitting there, wide-eyed either at Jonny's volume or at the evidence of his mauling, Jonny's not sure which. He touches the tip of a finger to one of the marks that are already welting up and hisses at the way it burns. His finger comes away with just a trace of blood. "You're lucky you're so fucking cute!" he snaps.

And then he freezes. So, it happens, does Kaner, who was just starting to move as if to slink away. The kitten's staring at him in a way that seems much more human than feline, and Jonny thinks it's all too possible that he's remembering the same thing Jonny is—an incident from years ago on the circus trip, back in the days of shared hotel rooms.

Jonny doesn't remember exactly what the behavior was that led up to the incident—only that Patrick was being a little shit for the sole reason that he could, and always seemed to like getting a rise out of him—but he very clearly recalls the way he'd just blurted out, "you're lucky you're so fucking pretty!" which'd had the effect of shutting Patrick up immediately.

Patrick had blinked, wide-eyed, for just a moment. And then he'd smirked, the grin slowly growing wider and cockier over the span of several seconds before he spoke. "You think I'm pretty?"

Jonny hadn't answered the question. What he'd done instead was followed the urging of his fight-or-flight instinct and basically fled, storming off to the bathroom to take his turn in the shower, vaguely thinking that maybe he could manage to drown himself in there. Because yeah, he did kind of think that, and he was horrified he'd let it slip out.

He'd never said anything about how Patrick was suddenly not a little shit anymore for the entire rest of the trip, and how he'd thought Patrick had been a lot more smiley than usual around him for a couple of weeks afterwards. Patrick had never brought it up, either.

Jonny, being the adult he is, takes much the same approach as he did the last time: he leaves the room abruptly, more to escape the memory floating around the both of them than anything else. He locks himself in his bathroom and drags out some antiseptic and other first-aid supplies, busying himself with the task of disinfecting the scratches on his skin and putting an antibacterial salve over them once the bleeding seems to have stopped. A bit of gauze and tape later, and he's good to go. "At least he can't smirk at me so fucking much when he's a cat," he mutters to himself as he changes into a loose-fitting shirt. "So that's a positive—I don't have to see his stupid face."

His own words bounce back and hit him unexpectedly, and Jonny sits down hard on the side of his tub. Because as cute as the kitten may actually be, Jonny would do just about anything to see Patrick's actual face, no matter which dumb expression it may be making. And while some of that is certainly just wanting Patrick to be all fixed and back to normal, some of that is just simply missing him. Fuck, the whole reason he'd come back to Chicago early was because he'd wanted to see Patrick—wanted to see his face and hear his voice and read his body language, to see if there was any indication the feelings he'd been having might in any way be welcome or reciprocated. But somehow the universe had taken that from him, snatching that very thing away right when it was finally within reach.

It makes something in his chest ache a little and, when he reaches up to put his face in his hands, he's surprised to find his cheeks are damp.

"Get your shit together," he mutters to himself, scrubbing at his face with his palms. He's got a kitten to look after, possibly for another full week. He can't be having random little breakdowns—those definitely aren't going to make Kaner any more comfortable and relaxed. He takes a few more minutes to get himself composed, like he hasn't been maybe-sort-of crying over how much he wished Patrick were here and himself, just so they could talk and hang out and Jonny could enjoy his company. When he thinks he's good again he washes his face and heads for the kitchen to get dinner figured out for real this time.

He doesn't see Kaner anywhere on his way, and Jonny wonders if he's hiding somewhere, just as embarrassed as he is over what Jonny said, or maybe even remorseful over scratching Jonny all to hell. He's about to call out for him, just to make sure Kaner knows he's not actually, legitimately angry at him and holding a grudge, when he hears a strange sound from upstairs. It sounds something like a yowl, but it's not quite like any of the noises Kaner's made before, and Jonny wonders if that's bad, like he's hurt or something.

He takes the stairs two at a time.

He finds Kaner at the end of a darkened hallway, still making that noise as he faces a closed door—the one to what serves as Jonny's office. It's a plaintive, almost woeful meow, and part of the reason it sounds so weird is that Kaner is making it around something he's got clutched in his mouth—something that's almost as large as he is. "You okay, buddy?" Jonny asks as he gets closer, and Kaner spins around awkwardly at Jonny's voice and gives a clipped cry that sounds so much like relief that Jonny feels a sharp tug behind his ribs.

He kneels on the carpet as Kaner runs up to him, still dragging that object in his mouth, and it isn't until Kaner's out of the shadows that Jonny recognizes it as a stuffed animal of some kind. Kaner lays it at Jonny's knees and nudges it at him, and Jonny gets a better look at it. It's a little stuffed moose with a Mountie's hat stitched atop its head between the antlers, wearing a Chicago Blackhawks sweater —a gag gift from a friend a few years back. Jonny hasn't seen it in months, and he has no idea where Kaner might have found it. He laughs a little, and it's surprisingly watery. "Thanks, buddy."

Kaner meows at him, long and low and melancholy, while he holds Jonny's gaze. "What, did you miss me?" Kaner meows again, softer and sadder, and Jonny tucks the moose under his arm and picks Kaner up to cradle him against his chest. "Yeah, well, I miss you too, fucker. The real you." He nuzzles the kitten, cheek to cheek, and feels just a little choked up when Kaner begins to purr.

He needs Patrick back to normal, because having him stuck like this is going to crack Jonny and leave him a total emotional mess.

Kaner sticks with him throughout dinner prep and their shared meal, and he's uncharacteristically quiet and subdued throughout the rest of the night. He still plays with the laser pointer when Jonny brings it out, but he seems happier to drape himself over Jonny's lap or his crossed legs or his shoulders whenever Jonny's not standing, and Jonny can't quite bring himself to bitch about it, even when he can't see the TV. He doesn't fail to notice that Kaner is exceptionally cautious around Jonny's right side, always curling up along his left as if he's actively avoiding aggravating the scratches he's made, even though they don't really hurt that much right now.

Kaner disappears at some point while Jonny's turning off the TV and all the lights in the living room and doesn't appear again the rest of the night. Jonny opens his eyes around three AM to find Kaner curled up on the floor at the side of the bed, the stuffed moose wrapped in his furry arms. Jonny thinks at first that the kitten's asleep until Kaner's head moves just a little and his eyes flash gold, wide glowing circles that make Jonny think Kaner's been watching him sleep, like the fucking vampire from that stupid book and movie series Patrick loves for some unfathomable reason. "Why're you down there?" Jonny mumbles at him, reaching a hand down in an attempt to pat Kaner on the head. "You can come up here, y'know." Kaner gives a soft meow that sounds to Jonny like the cat version of "really?"—sort of sad and hopeful—and Jonny sighs and pats the spot on the bed next to his pillow. "C'mere, Kaner. Come on."

It takes a couple of leaps and in the end Jonny just kind of hauls him up from the ledge of the bed frame onto the mattress because apparently Kaner's managed to forget how he climbed up onto the foot of the bed last night all on his own. "There we go," he murmurs, before thinking about it and carefully leaning over to reach for the stuffed moose left behind on the floor. He sets it next to Kaner as the kitten burrows close, nuzzling at Jonny's neck. "Just no licking my hair in the morning, got it?" he says on a yawn, rolling over a little so he can tuck Kaner in the crook of his arm. Kaner's tail strokes over Jonny's forearm in slow, soothing drags, and it takes Jonny no time at all to fall asleep again.

It's not a routine or anything, but Jonny's (sort of) adjusted to having a cat. It's kind of nice in a handful of ways, but goddamn it, he misses Patrick. He's almost used to having cat litter stuck to the bottoms of his feet—even though he doesn't think that'll ever not be annoying as fuck—and the routine of refilling Kaner's food and water dishes, because Kaner has the habit of acting like Jonny's starving him to death if his food dish is less than half-full, even if he's just shared Jonny's home-cooked meal. He's used to Kaner flopping onto Jonny's lap or chest just when he's about to get up and splaying all over whatever Jonny's trying to do, be it use his laptop or read or anything else that requires him to hold something in his lap. Kaner hasn't pounced on him from above since the incident the day before yesterday, but he has scaled Jonny's jean-clad legs and clung on for dear life as Jonny just shrugged and continued moving about the kitchen or living room with him attached, ignoring the few pin-pricks of claws through the thick denim. He's gotten used to the weird, scratchy feeling of a cat-tongue licking at his thumb or finger when he hangs his hand off the sofa or side of the bed, and he's even amused by the way Kaner "talks" to the TV when Jonny has the NHL Network on and someone says something he doesn't appear to agree with.

But it's not the same as having Patrick around. And Jonny would give a hell of a lot to fix it.

He's stalling at getting going for his morning run, listlessly getting changed and gathering things he needs, and it's while he's half-heartedly hunting for wherever he left his iPod that he catches Kaner rolling around on the floor, batting at what Jonny can only assume are dust motes or something. He snags his phone and gets a few pictures for Donna before Kaner takes notice of him and runs up, meowing insistently.

"You're objecting to pictures?" There's another annoyed meow, and Jonny shrugs, flopping onto the sofa. "Dude, your mom asked for them. You expect me to tell her no?" Kaner bitches as him some more in a way that indicates Jonny is just not getting it, so he goes for the opposite in reasoning. "What, then, you want more pictures?" The answering meow is considerably less irritated, and Jonny's eyebrows go up, because he'd more or less said it to be annoying. "Seriously?" The next response is pretty obviously the cat version of "duh" and Jonny rolls his eyes so hard it almost hurts. "All right, fine. Stay still and I'll take some more." He gets about one good shot in of Kaner sitting back and staring up at him before Kaner leaps neatly onto the sofa beside him and then climbs on top of his lap and up to his shoulder, and Jonny sighs. "Fucking figures. You want selfies. Fine." He switches to his phone's front-facing camera, taking a few pictures of Kaner from semi-awkward angles before giving up and just taking photos of the two of them, together, which is really about all he can do with Kaner all up in his face and nuzzling against his cheek, purring in a way Jonny can feel vibrating in his shoulder and neck.

A couple of texts come through in quick succession as Jonny's taking the photos, a little awkward in the way he's handling the phone while trying to frame images and be in focus and still click the shutter, and the little swoop sound he hears between automated shutter-clicks lets him know he's managed to send one of the images as a response. "Shit," he mutters, fumbling his phone so he can turn off the camera, managing to get a picture of his nostrils and underside of his chin as he does so. He opens his messages and is moderately relieved to find the person receiving the errant photo is only his mother. He sends off a group of the photos to Donna Kane, then reads his mother's messages.

Have you finally recovered from your travels? is the first one, followed by I haven't heard from you since you landed in Chicago. Are you keeping yourself busy getting ready for the season? As he's preparing to answer in the affirmative, grateful for the easy out already provided, another one comes through: Who's that you've got there? Is that a new friend from another charity calendar?

Just watching him for a week or two, Jonny responds, trying to figure out how much he should actually tell his mother about the whole situation. She'll probably think he's lost his mind if he tells her the truth.

Oh? she sends back before he can decide. I'd thought for sure you were keeping him.

Jonny's a bit puzzled by that one. He's never been a cat person. No one in his family is a cat person. They've never really even had pets of any kind, period, but if they ever had, Jonny's pretty positive it would have been a large dog of some sort. Why?

There's enough of a pause after his question that Jonny figures she isn't going to respond at all and resigns himself to actually going out for his run. He's just not feeling it today, but he doesn't have a good enough excuse to put it off, even to himself. He's got everything ready to walk out the door with the exception of his missing fucking iPod (and he's debating using his phone to stream something, since he's got fuck-all loaded for music on it at the moment, having left the storage space available for photos from his trip) when his mother finally answers his text. Jonny glances at it absently and then pulls the message back up, because she couldn't have said what he thought he'd read.

But no, there it is, clear as day: Jonathan, the only other living thing you've ever looked at as fondly as you're looking at that cat is Patrick Kane.

"Horseshit," he mutters, exiting his text messages and pulling up his camera roll instead. The looks he's given Patrick most often are incredulousness, annoyance, and disbelief, probably, no matter their friendship or whatever the fuck it is that Jonny's feeling for him these days. He starts from the first one of Kaner on his shoulder, and it's nothing of note—just the side of his face as he'd tried to lean out of the way and just get a shot of the kitten. The next few are more of the same. And then he scrolls through the rest, and Jonny's face changes somehow from mildly annoyed to amused within just two photos, and two after that—and for the remaining five—he can see what his mother might have been getting at.

Fuck. That is definitely a fond look on his face. And not just "aww, look, it's a cute kitten" fondness, either. This is some next-level shit, as far as fondness and affection go.

And Jonny loves his mother, he really does, but when she follows that text up with a photo she had to have googled from somewhere, some professional photo taken from on the ice in the immediate aftermath of their last Cup win where Patrick's looking fired up as fuck, beaming at the trophy itself, while Jonny's just—God, it looks like he's mooning over Patrick, what the fuck?—staring at Patrick as if he's more important and deserving than the Stanley Cup of his attention, well, he almost hates her like a kid hates their parent when they're forced to acknowledge they were a little shit about something and apologize for it.

"Oh my God, I do look at you like that," Jonny says despairingly as Kaner walks up to him and starts twining around his ankles. The kitten looks up at him and meows in curiosity, but Jonny simply can't explain it all to him, so he pulls up the pictures he took again and stares at the one he sent his mother by accident.

It doesn't fucking help at all that even Kaner's got this eyes-half-closed, smug-pleased sort of expression as he rubs his face against Jonny's, like he's as content as he could possibly be. Like he fucking adores Jonny right back.

Jonny suddenly really wants to go for that run.

"I'll be back soon," he says to the kitten at his feet. "I just need to clear my head, okay?" He picks Kaner up from between his feet so he doesn't step on him, snags Patrick's iPod from where he'd set it on the entryway table so he'll have something to listen to instead of his own thoughts, and gives the top of Kaner's head a kiss without even thinking about it until it's already done. "Oh Christ, I am so fucked," he moans, setting Kaner down and nearly sprinting out his own front door.

He listens to one of Patrick's workout playlists for the first part of his run, thankful the heavy beats and general intensity of the music don't really let him think much and allow him to slip into something like his usual warmup headspace. But when the playlist ends almost an hour later and he can still feel himself thrumming with energy that wants to be burned, he switches it up for a playlist that's a little mellower so he doesn't do something stupid and push too hard or too long just to outrun his own thoughts.

Because at some point—some goddamn point in the semi-near future and not, say, after he's retired—he's going to have to address this all head-on. He'd come back to Chicago early for just this sort of thing, for fuck's sake; why should seeing it so concretely displayed from the outside send him into a panic?

"Fear of exposure and the unknown," Jonny mutters to himself, ignoring the way the girl running past him on the path in the opposite direction looks over at him. That's all it is. Fuck it. He's better than that. He may have no idea how Patrick will respond when Jonny finally says something about what's been going through his head all summer, and it may be that Patrick doesn't respond particularly well at all. But they're friends first and foremost, and even if Jonny's completely imagining it that there's been some charged, new sort of chemistry between them lately, he's still pretty sure it won't fuck them up forever. Patrick doesn't seem like the type to take it that far, and Jonny won't let it happen, either. Face the fear and tackle it, beat it down and show you're better and stronger. Don't cower, don't run away.

He's finally feeling more centered about the whole thing, winding up his run in the park and ready to head home, when Mumford & Sons gives way to something Jonny at first thinks is Green Day and then quickly realizes is something else. The first line of Weird Al's Canadian Idiot makes him nearly choke on a laugh. Patrick's such a fucking dork.

And Jonny loves him anyway.

He's in a considerably better headspace when he arrives home, even if he is starting to feel the slightest hints of exhaustion around the edges now that the panic-related adrenaline has faded away and left only the usual workout endorphins from a run like today's, and all he's thinking about is chugging a quick smoothie and showering before figuring out some sort of actual lunch for him and Kaner by the time he arrives on his own doorstep. Kaner's already at the door when Jonny swings it open, lying flat as if he's sunk into the floor and meowing pitifully as if to say Jonny's been gone forever and he's been lonely and miserable. It's guilt-inducing as fuck, but Jonny can't help but grin a little anyway, because there's no fucking denying or misreading his feelings anymore.

"I didn't abandon you, you don't have to give me the sad eyes, man, like you're all heartbroken," he says, reaching down to scoop Kaner up as soon as he's close enough. Kaner doesn't seem to have expected that, and he gives a startled 'mrow' as Jonny lifts him off the floor, squirming for a second until Jonny holds him up with both hands directly in front of him, so they're face-to-face. "When the fuck have I ever abandoned you, huh? Even when you're a total asshole, I stick around." He rolls his eyes, and he can feel the half-smirk on his own face, because he is fond of this dumbass, no matter what form he's in. "I'll have to be better about making sure you know that after you change back." He brings Kaner closer so he can basically boop his tiny head with his own, hearing the laugh of the guy from the park the other day in his head again: gross, you got your sweat on my face. "So relax, okay?"

He sets down the kitten, who just sort of sits there for a moment, starting off dazedly into space, and Jonny's face twitches into a small grin again as he heads to the kitchen to snag a quick protein shake before he hits the shower. He chugs it pretty fast and calls out to Kaner as he heads back towards his room: "I'm gonna shower, bud! Out soon, and then you can let me know if you'd rather have chicken or fish with lunch." There's steak in the fridge, too, but Jonny's thinking that might be dinner tonight or tomorrow, something he can toss on the grill along with some fresh vegetables. Patrick really likes steak; maybe that preference carries over even when he's a kitten.

Kaner's curled up on Jonny's pillow when Jonny steps out of the shower, but he doesn't really move much at all as Jonny throws on clean clothes and brushes his hair or tosses his stuff actually into the hamper for once. In fact, he doesn't even track Jonny's movements around the room at all, and that's just unusual enough that Jonny crouches down in front of him to get a better look. Kaner still looks a little out of it in some way, and Jonny feels a twinge of worry. "Hey, you okay, buddy?" Jonny asks softly, kneeling so that his face is close to Kaner's, his chin resting on the mattress near the pillow. Kaner doesn't meow at him or anything, but when Jonny reaches up to pet him, he turns his head into Jonny's hand and presses his nose against Jonny's palm before giving a tiny lick to the skin there. It screams both blatant affection and some combination of giving reassurance and wanting comfort so loudly that Jonny has to swallow hard against the sudden lump in his throat.

"All right. Well, come on with me, where I can keep an eye on you while I make us some lunch, eh?" He picks Kaner up carefully and cradles him against his chest, giving him gentle skritches with his index finger, and Jonny feels a sharp, sweet stab of relief when Kaner begins to purr in response. "Yeah, there we go. It's nice to think you like me just as much as I like you." He hates to put him down a few moments later so he can actually do stuff in the kitchen, but Jonny at least sets him on the sofa where he can keep an eye on him, and he rubs his nose against Kaner's face before he does so, murmuring softly to him before he gives a final head-pat and heads to the sink to wash his hands.

Kaner lies in the same spot as Jonny gets lunch ready, his tail twitching back and forth every now and then, and Jonny hopes he's feeling all right, that something isn't off or wrong in some way that won't pass quickly. If Kaner's not acting normal by bedtime, Jonny will give Patrick's mom a call, just to be safe. Jonny's got a dish of chicken ready to go into the oven, there's a quick sauce made from some diced tomatoes, olive oil, and fresh herbs simmering in a small pot on the corner of the stove, and the water's just boiling for the rice pasta when Jonny catches movement out of the corner of his eye to see Kaner leap neatly down from the couch and head out of the room. He's moving just fine, just like normal, and Jonny tosses a few handfuls of penne into the pot of water and relaxes a little more.

There's noise from the bathroom a minute later, a crashing, thudding sort of sound that's so loud Jonny jumps and sloshes boiling water on the hand holding the pot's handle as he stirs the pasta around in the pot. He bolts for the bathroom in order to make sure Kaner's okay, that he hasn't brought the towel rack or curtain rod down on himself because he's decided it looked like fun to scale the hanging towels or the shower curtain, and he's halfway across the living room when he hears a clear "oh, fuck" from the bathroom that startles him so much that he almost slams into the corner where the hallway wall meets the open living room.

That had definitely been a human voice—a really familiar human voice.

Jonny moves faster than he has anywhere but on the ice in a really long time.

He bursts into the bathroom to find a very human, very surprised-looking Patrick half-collapsed against the vanity and Jonny's brain just takes an abrupt goddamn leave on him as his stomach does a weird swooping thing and he's got his hands on Patrick, supporting him while he fires questions at him, wanting to know if he's okay, before he even really realizes it because there's no way to describe how fucking relieved he feels at seeing Patrick standing right there in front of him.

Patrick looks a little disoriented, but he shakes Jonny off, muttering "I'm fine, just give me a minute," and Jonny does as Patrick demands instantly—which is new—and steps back to give him some space.

He suddenly picks up on the fact that Patrick's completely fucking naked. Not that he's never seen that before or anything, given the number of times they've shared hotel rooms and the several hundred instances they've been in the same locker room, but it's a little different when it's just the two of them, here in Jonny's guest bathroom. Patrick seems to notice the same detail just a moment after Jonny does, because he sort of hunches in on himself and presses himself a little closer to the sink so that the only thing really exposed is his ass.

"I'll just...uh. You've got a set of clothes here, I'll set them in my room, you can... I'm gonna go turn stuff off in the kitchen so I don't burn the place down," Jonny stammers, noting the way Patrick avoids his gaze even in the mirror in front of them, and then flees to toss both sets of Patrick's clothes onto the unmade bed and hightail it for the kitchen to save the lunch he'd been in the process of making just a few moments ago.

He hears the sink running in the bathroom, followed by the sound of Patrick brushing his teeth—a noise he can identify from outside the room, even when he's not really paying attention, thanks to so many years of rooming on the road; there's always this annoying little throat-clearing noise at the very end that used to drive Jonny fucking nuts that he suddenly doesn't mind at all—and a couple of moments later, Jonny hears a door clicking gently into its frame. He takes his time in the kitchen, giving Patrick some space and time to himself as he turns the heat off under the pasta, covering the pot with a lid and letting it cook the rest of the way through that way. He checks the dish of chicken in the oven, then realizes that he doesn't actually have to leave any of the chicken plain now, since there's no cat to feed. After a moment to contemplate that, he shrugs and dumps most of the sauce over the chicken breasts, re-covers the dish loosely with foil, and pops it back into the oven, setting the function that turns the oven to hold it on "warm" when the timer reaches zero so that Jonny doesn't have to pay it any more attention until he pulls it out to serve it or get it ready to put away at some point in the next few hours.

Jonny gives Patrick another few minutes before heading for his bedroom, suddenly worried Patrick might do something like take off and head home without really saying anything at all about the last four days and Jonny wants to head that off. He doesn't necessarily want to ambush Patrick and demand to know every detail about everything right this very minute, but he wants—no, he needs, they need—to at least talk about a few things before Jonny can wuss out. He taps lightly on the door, feeling weird for essentially asking permission to enter his own bedroom, but there's no response. So Jonny waits a beat, then opens the door slowly before stepping inside. He doesn't know what he expects, really, but it's just Patrick sitting there on his bed, fully dressed and fiddling with that stuffed moose in the Blackhawks sweater. He doesn't look up at Jonny at all, though Jonny's pretty positive he's not oblivious to his presence. So he moves slowly closer and sinks down onto the mattress next to Patrick. Patrick still doesn't look at him, focused on the stuffed animal instead, but he doesn't flinch and he doesn't move away at all, and Jonny finds that reassuring enough to figure he might as well say something. "Hey."

Patrick does sort of look at him then, the smallest of crooked smiles flitting across his face as he huffs softly and gives a quiet "hey" back. He doesn't say anything else, though, and Jonny can't figure out where the fuck to begin with everything he wants to say and ask. So instead he just looks at Patrick—really fucking looks, takes him all in now that he's finally back to being himself, finally sitting here, close by in a way Jonny's been wishing for a lot longer than just four days.

He hasn't seen Patrick in person for a solid three months, and one of the first things Jonny notices in his mental inventory is that he's fucking jacked, totally ripped after the off-season, especially across his arms and shoulders. He's always given Patrick shit about being small, in a good-natured, general ribbing way, same as a lot of the others guys. And while that sort of teasing had a fair amount of backing when they were younger, now it's mostly just silly and in fun, a throwback of sorts, especially when he's standing next to guys who have a half-foot or more of height on him. And he may not have grown any taller, but he certainly has filled out, broadened, and Jonny's not going to lie—it's a really good look on him. Patrick's got on the Bauer shirt that Jonny picked up from his place, and it probably didn't fit this nicely when he'd got it originally, but his arms and chest really stand out in it now, especially with the way he's tan after the summer, sort of golden but not quite bronze. It strikes Jonny a little to notice that it's not just Patrick's physique that's changed from what he'd been expecting—his face is different, too. When Jonny pictures Patrick in his head sometimes (especially lately), it's not exactly as he's last seen him—it's this weird combination of what he looks like on a daily basis and a version of him that's a few years younger—shorter hair and curls that flatter his face, dimples when he smiles, that sort of thing. But now that Jonny's really looking, he can see how that's changed, too—the angles of his face are sharper, more refined.

He also looks tired—way more tired than he should—in a way that Jonny usually equates with the end of the season, when all of them are halfway to dead. But he's seen versions of this exhaustion on Patrick's face outside of the post season before, too; it always corresponds to strain and stress. And Jonny has liked it approximately never, because it means something is wrong and eating at him and is going to start fucking him up really thoroughly if he's not careful.

Patrick must feel the way Jonny's staring at him and cataloguing everything about him, because he finally looks at Jonny full-on, widens his eyes and raises his eyebrows in question, and huffs an exasperated "What?" while Jonny tries to tone down the intensity of his scrutiny.

"Nothing," he says, and it comes out a little more defensively than he means it to, a little more embarrassed than he'd like to show.

"Bullshit, nothing. You're fucking staring at me like you're going to eat me or consume my soul or something. What's the deal?"

Jonny just sort of shrugs, because he can't really put it all into words, how good it is to drink up the sensation of Patrick sitting next to him, feel his presence, all that sappy horseshit. Also, he'd kind of wanted to ease into discussing some things, and being called out so directly isn't exactly 'easing.' "I just.... Are you okay? Like, physically and stuff?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Stop worrying."

Stop—seriously? "You turned into a literal kitten, Pat, what the fuck do you mean, stop worrying?"

That, at least, makes Patrick look a little sheepish. "I'm fine. You don't need to keep worrying, then. All back to normal."

"You fucking collapsed or some shit in my bathroom not twenty minutes ago—" Jonny starts to say, because he doesn't want to deal with some situation where Patrick tries to tough it out due to pride and passes out or something else before he gets home, and Jonny has to figure out how to tell the paramedics or emergency room doctors something stupid like "he was a cat this morning, and that might still be affecting him" and find himself admitted to the psych floor before they even take a second look at Patrick.

"Yeah, I know, but I'm fine now. It was just...disorienting, okay? I've never been changed for more than a few hours. This was, what, a couple days?"

"Four. Four days," Jonny says flatly, because he doesn't want Patrick to discount how major of a thing this was. Patrick sort of winces and then colors a little pink as if embarrassed he didn't snap out of it as quickly as MacKinnon made Jonny think he might, and Jonny sighs. Fuck it, he might as well cut right to the heart of it, especially since Patrick had been on his way here to apparently head off what he knew was coming. "So. What the fuck went so wrong for you that you...turned into a cat?" God, that still sounds so crazy to say.

Patrick sighs, irritated with the question specifically or with not being able to ignore it all and pretend it didn't happen and keep Jonny in the dark about shit, Jonny isn't sure. "Nothing 'went wrong', okay?" he says, emphasizing the phrase Jonny used. "It's not like that."

"Then what's it like? Because I talked to both your mom and someone else who's been through this random fucking animal transformation thing themselves, and all I really got from them was that it's got a fairly specific stress-related trigger that I'm clueless about. So I'd love it if you'd fill me in." He can tell Patrick's ready to brush him right the hell off again, and Jonny doesn't think he can handle that, especially after all Patrick's put him through in the last few days. "Seriously," he says, making sure to inject sincerity and concern into his tone. It's not hard, since he actually feels that way. It's a little harder to make himself sound totally calm in addition to that, though. "I want to know what happened to do that to you. We're friends, yeah? I care."

Patrick looks at him weirdly for a really long time before he sighs again, but it sounds less irritated than before. It sounds downright weary, in fact. "I just...I'd been thinking about something kind of intensely. And I guess it had me more worked up than I realized. I've been dealing with it just fine for a really long time, and I thought I had a handle on it. I was getting around to doing something about it—I was—but then I guess it hit sort of a head and...this happened, first," he says, shrugging in a way that's both defensive and dismissive.

"Well, is it something that's in danger of happening again?" Jonny asks, because that's the logical fucking question. Amongst other things, that'll let him know if he should keep all the cat-related supplies he's purchased instead of donating them to a shelter—because if this happens again, Jonny may be more than a little exasperated, but he's still going to step up and take care of Kaner again, no fucking doubt about it. "Or is it something you're able to actually resolve?"

"I'm still working on it," Patrick mutters, squeezing the stuffed moose still held in one hand before he seems to realize he's got a hold on it, setting it down beside him on the bed instead. "It's harder than you think to just...show all your cards and make yourself so vulnerable."

Jonny snorts. Patrick's worried about making himself vulnerable? What the fuck does he think he was as a tiny cat? A tiger'd be one thing, but Kaner basically fit into Jonny's hands. "It can't be that hard," he says, realizing after the words pass his lips that one, that's pretty damned judgmental considering he took a while to come to terms with some of his own shit recently and probably should have just come out with it the last time he and Patrick spoke on the phone, and two, it's not exactly the way to get Patrick to open up to him about whatever's obviously big enough to get him so stressed out or worried.

"Yeah?" Patrick scoffs, a little fire back in his eyes as he glares at Jonny. "You do it sometime, then!"

"Fine, I will," Jonny shoots back, rising to the challenge in a way Patrick's always been good at getting him to do. Patrick doesn't think he can expose himself and put himself in a vulnerable position? He's about to learn that's not true at all. Fuck it, Jonny's got this one. Do or die. Show 'em how it's done.

Patrick rolls his eyes. "Yeah, sure, whatever," he says dismissively, but any other remarks are cut off when Jonny leans in and kisses him, just once. It's little more than a light brushing of their mouths together, not exactly the sure and deliberate thing he'd meant to do, but it's definitely a kiss.

Patrick just sits there when Jonny pulls back, his face a mask of confusion, and he eventually whispers "What the fuck was that?" though it seems it's only half-directed at Jonny.

"There," Jonny says, feeling both nervous and defensive all of the sudden, maybe a seventy-thirty mix. "You told me to make myself vulnerable, and I did." Patrick's just sort of staring at him like Jonny's put him in some sort of shock, but he hasn't pulled away in the slightest, or made any move at all to push Jonny away. He looks wide-eyed and dazed, but not, like, in a bad way, and Jonny looks at him and thinks to hell with it, he'll give it one more shot to really let Patrick know he means it and hasn't done it for shock value or because it was the quickest way to respond to the goading. He leans back in—slower this time, so Patrick knows what's coming, has time to stop it if he wants—and kisses Patrick again, another light brush of lips that Patrick can't mistake this time.

"Remember when I left that voicemail and said I wanted to see you and talk about something?" he murmurs after he's pulled back. Patrick's eyebrows go up, but he doesn't say anything and doesn't shimmy away at all, either, giving Jonny virtually nothing to go on other than to just use the rare moment of Patrick being silent to get everything out so it's all clear. "This is kind of what I was getting at. I thought that if I could just talk to you, see you in person, that I could figure my shit out, that I'd just sort of know if what I'd been thinking about the whole damned summer had any basis in reality. I figured we'd do lunch and I'd know by the time we paid the tab. But then you kind of threw a wrench into that plan, and it took me a little longer to be absolutely sure. But I am sure. You wanted vulnerable? There you go. So. If I can do that, you can deal with your thing, whatever the hell it is." He sighs, feeling relieved in a way now that it's all out. He's about ninety-nine percent certain Patrick is at least tolerant of what's just happened, if not actually on board with it, given that he hasn't made a move to put any distance at all between them, but he needs to check. "And even if what I just did was all risk and nothing comes of it, I'll still be here to help you with your thing, if you need support or anything else. Because we're friends, if I didn't just fuck that up."

Instead of saying anything at all reassuring about how Jonny's just laid himself bare, or giving an off-handed thanks for the offer to be there for him, or even an awkward 'sorry, I don't feel that way, we're better off as friends and teammates and I don't want this to get weird,' Patrick blinks for a second before laughing. And it's not a quiet, gentle huff of laughter, either. It's loud in the quiet room, almost jarring, and there's the slightest tinge of hysteria to it that makes Jonny feel defensive again as he asks "What?" and scoots backward on the mattress, away from Patrick. Rejection is one thing, and he'd been aware it could be a possibility, but being flat-out laughed at isn't actually something Jonny had foreseen, and it stings a little.

"Dude, no," Patrick says, shaking his head and choking back another laugh before getting himself under control. "Don't. Don't close off on me like that. I'm not laughing at your feelings or whatever the fuck you think I'm doing." Another giggle escapes before Patrick's able to smother it entirely, and he shakes his head again, reaching one hand out like he's going to grab for Jonny to keep him from moving farther away. "I just. My thing isn't going to be a problem anymore." Jonny's face asks the question for him, his eyebrows scrunching together and his eyes sort of squinting at Patrick, wanting to know what the fuck he's talking about, especially since that's not what he implied something like ninety seconds ago. "You really don't have any idea what the thing I've been stressing over is, do you?" he says after a moment, and now he looks just a little incredulous, but that smile that appeared with the laughter hasn't left entirely.

"No, I really don't. I didn't have a lot of information to go on, and anyone I talked to who knew anything about this whole randomly-turning-into-an-animal phenomenon or whom I trusted with the information either didn't know you or refused to give me any of their guesses as to what triggered your—your episode or whatever the hell you call it. I'd theorized something about it being related to you worrying about your numbers this coming season not being able to stack up to last season's, but that's kind of all I'd come up with." Jonny shrugs one shoulder. "Hot or cold?"

"Ice cold."

"Well, are you gonna tell me, or do we have to play twenty questions?" Jonny asks when Patrick doesn't elaborate, and he hears his own voice and knows he's going about it wrong. He tries to see it from Patrick's point of view, how hard it might be to share that information if it's something he really has been keeping locked up for a really long time. He'd sounded like he'd been dancing around the subject the last time Jonny had talked to him, a little weird and preoccupied and even sort of avoidant during that phone conversation the night Jonny had been so jetlagged he'd probably missed all sorts of cues. "Sorry," he says, making a face. "I just want you to—"

"You were in my condo, Jonny," Patrick interrupts him. "You were in my room. I only remember bits and pieces of what's gone on the last few days, kind of like when you wake from a dream, you know? But I do remember that trip, and not just because of that fucking dog in the elevator that wanted to eat me. Man, you're lucky you're such a good captain, because you're shit at detective work."

Jonny's torn between arguing about the lousy detective work and being sort of flattered and maybe a little prideful over the 'good captain' comment that was offered up. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, if I'd known you were going to end up in my room, going through my shit at all—not that I'm saying you invaded my privacy or snooped too much or anything, relax, just that you obviously looked around at least a little if you brought clothes and other things back for me to have here—I'd have put some stuff away before leaving my place. Maybe even stuffed some crap in a locked drawer, just in case. Because there were clues, man. Shit was on my mind, you know? Which is sort of why it all hit a tipping point when you left that voicemail saying we needed to talk, and then I couldn't get a hold of you again after. I'd started to freak out that you knew and were avoiding dealing with me until you could do it all gentle and in person. And I wanted to tell you myself, before you just...I dunno, assumed too much, got shit wrong, felt awkward having to bring it up, whatever."

"What the fuck are you talking about, Pat? What did I figure out?"

"You didn't, that's the thing!" Patrick says a little hysterically, and Jonny would be kind of worried about his stress levels, except he's still kind of smiling, and it's not at all deranged. "Apparently even after you found the thing on my bed before I tried to get you away from it, or any of the other things you had to have come across. Seriously, shit detective work, Jonny."

Jonny remembers that moment, remembers Kaner ramming into his shin before taking a bite at his ankle and then running out of the room with Jonny chasing after him. He'd been sitting on the bed, looking at that photograph that had been sitting halfway tucked under the pillow—the one of him and Patrick at the barbecue, where they're talking and laughing about something Jonny still can't recall. He hadn't realized at the time that Kaner's behavior had been a deliberate bid to get his attention away from the photo. And since there's nothing embarrassing in the photo itself—no pants unzipped, no stains or other wardrobe malfunctions or mortifying choices in attire, not even any particularly stupid faces, and neither of them had been drinking that night—then Kaner had, what, wanted to keep him from knowing Patrick had the photograph at all, and kept it around to look at it? Why would he...? Unless...?

Nah.

Well, okay, actually...

"Playlist Six on your iPod is shit that makes you think of me," Jonny blurts out as all the pieces very suddenly slot into place—the photograph; the songs Jonny likes sorted in with all the half-emo ones, more than a few sappy ones, and the couple specifically making fun of Canadians; all the touching the last few months of the season that hadn't been identifiably different than the usual contact, but had somehow been More; the times Jonny'd caught Patrick looking at him with an expression he couldn't read and the way he'd sometimes held it and sometimes looked away too quickly, flushing pink—and shit, Patrick is right, he is slow on the uptake.

"You saw that?" Patrick says, sounding just a little strangled. Apparently he hadn't been aware Jonny had looked through his iPod or brought it back with them.

"Canadian Idiot and Blame Canada and Our Lady Peace and all that shit? Yeah, I saw it. I listened to half of it."

Patrick groans, burying his face in his hands, like this is somehow a million times more embarrassing than letting the world know he's read and enjoyed the Twilight books. "Oh my God."

Jonny's not letting him back out now. Because Patrick hasn't actually confirmed or confessed anything here, but if Jonny's right, then this is on the way to being a really important moment. A really good important moment, quite possibly. "So I'm right? About the playlist?"

"You're right about the playlist," Patrick mumbles into his hands, completely missing the way Jonny starts grinning at him, unable to keep it off his face.

"You're the biggest dork I know, Kaner," Jonny says with a small snort. He reaches out and wraps his fingers loosely around Patrick's wrist, tugging gently to get him to stop hiding his face.

Patrick lifts his head, still looking kind of mortified, until he actually registers the expression on Jonny's face, blinking as if he's really surprised by it. "Yeah?" It comes out breathy, like he's finally daring to hope, like he's somehow missed that Jonny's fucking kissed him twice.

Jonny lets go of his wrist and raises his hand up a few more inches, gently tracing the angle of Patrick's cheekbone with his thumb before sliding his hand down a little to cup Patrick's jaw in his hand. "Yeah."

Patrick drags in a shuddering breath. "But you're into it?" Patrick whispers, turning his face into Jonny's palm just a little, the movement vaguely reminiscent of the way he'd nuzzle at Jonny when he was a kitten.

Jonny nods, leaning in slowly and kissing Patrick again, tender and unhurried, savoring the experience. This time, Patrick kisses back after the shortest of beats and, yeah, that's more like it. Jonny feels Patrick's hand rest on his thigh for support as he turns his body further into Jonny's, and it's warm and solid and not at all timid, like Patrick's hand belongs there and he finally knows it. When Jonny pulls back again, he still keeps Patrick close enough so that when he speaks it doesn't need to be any louder than a whisper. "Definitely into it."

Patrick's eyes are really fucking blue when he opens them, his cheeks are pink, and he looks better, healthier, calmer, than Jonny's seen him in a while. And then he smiles, grin widening slowly, and it's so broad and bright that it makes him look younger, more him. Jonny feels a pang of affection and want go through him, and he wonders how he hasn't consciously seen before just how beautiful Patrick is.

He's an idiot, is how.

"I love you," Jonny tells him, so Patrick knows that's where he is on this, this isn't some weird random attraction or maybe-crush or sudden infatuation. He's done being an idiot. Let Patrick do with that what he wants.

The smile on Patrick's face goes from bright to dazzling and he's basically in Jonny's lap instantly, breathing a ragged "I love you, too," before he presses himself close and kisses Jonny, showing far less restraint than Jonny's made himself practice so far this afternoon.

They kiss for a long time; hard, desperate kisses intermingled with softer lingering ones, and Jonny loves the way Patrick's hands stay on him constantly, moving around but always touching, exploring, claiming. He lets his roam too, just not as much, happy to mostly keep at least one at Patrick's waist or on his lower back, keeping him close as reassurance he's here, he's not going anywhere Jonny can't follow. He swallows down the tiny noises Patrick makes when he's really into it, drinks in the quiet moans and sighs when Jonny takes Patrick's lower lip gently between his teeth and sucks on it or runs his fingers through the curls at the back of his head. "Stay," Jonny murmurs against Patrick's mouth, half request and half command, and Patrick nods and sighs something that sounds like "just try getting rid of me now," before he moves in again, pressing Jonny down until he's flat on the mattress so he can mouth hot, damp kisses up Jonny's stomach and chest, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

Jonny loves everything about what they're doing, the way they both seem to be focused on taking what's theirs now that they've figured their collective shit out on this whole thing, and he's somehow not surprised when Patrick's the one to slow down as they lie on their sides facing each other on Jonny's bed, still wrapped around each other. Patrick's shirt is rucked up around his armpits, Jonny's is in a small heap on the floor somewhere near the foot of the bed, and though Jonny wouldn't exactly be upset if this kept escalating, it feels right for them to ease off for whatever reason. They trade lazy kisses back and forth, and Jonny runs his free hand up and down Patrick's side in a slow, regular rhythm, enjoying the feel of his skin, soft and warm, under his fingers and palm. He's about halfway to a relaxed place where he could probably nap when Patrick makes a weird sound against his chest—not quite a moan, but something sort of like it—and Jonny's hand stills.

"Did you just fucking purr at me?" he asks incredulously.

In his arms, Patrick laughs. "Hey, you didn't have a problem with it before," he points out, looking up at Jonny and smirking.

Jonny can't come up with anything good to reply with, so he just shakes his head. "Fucking dork," he says into the crown of Patrick's head, nuzzling his nose into his curls and placing a kiss there after, sort of like he'd been doing with Kaner the last couple of days. It's both weird and not, to do it. He can't quite explain it.

"Yeah," Patrick agrees, snuggling closer against Jonny's chest and yawning. "But I'm your dork now, you know."

Jonny hums agreement and gives Patrick a little squeeze, shifting him just enough so that Jonny's arm won't be completely dead after they get up from a nap. He's still got stuff he wants to know from Patrick about the events of the last few days and the whole phenomenon in general, and Patrick's got people to call and reassure he's all right, but Jonny figures that can wait an hour or two. Patrick's not going anywhere anytime soon. Not if Jonny can help it.

It's nearly two-thirty on a morning eight weeks later when Jonny pads quietly out of his bathroom and slips back into bed as carefully as he can. He's a little sore after the game against Detroit that wrapped up only five hours ago, and his bed is nice and warm and inviting in a way that Jonny never would have left if he hadn't really had to take a piss after too many Gatorades and bottles of water and recovery shakes between stepping off the ice and walking through his front door. He slides between the covers, his eyes already closed again before his head even hits the pillow, and feels Patrick come awake just a little despite Jonny's attempts to keep from interrupting him. Patrick makes a sleepy noise of inquiry, pressing his back against Jonny's front, and Jonny hums a soothing noise in response, nuzzling at a spot behind Patrick's ear that he's discovered he really likes as he slides one arm underneath the pillows underneath Patrick's head and drapes the other over Patrick's side, resting his palm lightly against Patrick's sternum. Patrick makes a soft, pleased sound in the back of his throat and drifts back off almost instantly, going lax in Jonny's arms.

Jonny's almost asleep himself when he feels Patrick jolt, a whole-body sort of reaction that startles Jonny into to being almost entirely awake. He's about to try to soothe Patrick back to sleep again when Patrick rolls over instead, quick and deliberate in the movement. Jonny can feel Patrick staring at him intensely without even opening his eyes to verify it. He sighs and opens his eyes anyway. Sure enough, Patrick's staring at him. Glaring, actually. "What?"

"Did you threaten to fucking microchip me?" he demands, indignant, poking Jonny in the chest.

It's so out of nowhere that Jonny can't even respond for a second, and when he does, all he can do is laugh, earning himself another sharp poke, this time to his shoulder. He only laughs again, pulling Patrick close and nuzzling at the spot between his neck and shoulder until Patrick sighs and mumbles something that sounds only slightly mutinous before allowing himself to burrow closer to Jonny's body heat again, nipping gently at Jonny's chest to get him to stop shaking with the occasional muffled giggle. "I assume that means yes," he says into the dark another moment later, and Jonny can't help but snort, pulling Patrick up easily and giving him a kiss that's immediately returned, for all his grumbling.

Jonny has no idea if it's intentional or not, but he could swear Kaner purrs at him, just before he slips into sleep.