Archive of Our Own

He can’t be certain, but he’s 97.68% sure he’s dead. Maybe an even 98%. He aced his statistics course, but he’s not even confident he could handle third-grade multiplication at the moment. He’s definitely 98.34% sure he’s dead, because that’s the only way to account for the absolutely monstrous pounding happening within the confines of his skull.

He hasn’t felt like this since Ben convinced him jagerbombs were a great idea at the first house party they ever went to together. The evening ended up with him in his underwear on someone’s lawn, vomiting into a rose bush. The pain of embarrassment only got worse when he sheepishly tried to crawl back into his bed only to find his father already occupying it, waiting for him to get home. 

He has a feeling he made poor choices last night, too. The wicked hangover suggests as much, but there are other feelings there too, knocking against his ribcage for acknowledgement beneath the headache and the nausea and general sense of oh God what did you do?

Regret is one of them. Guilt is another. 

He told David that a joint bachelor party two days before the wedding was a bad idea, but even he underestimated Ted and Ray’s affinity for karaoke. It rivals David’s. 

David. 

Why does the thought of him make his heart squeeze? And not in a good way? 

“You’re not up yet?” a voice ask, and he freezes, body tensing with an old defensive mechanism he hasn’t had to employ in far too long. He slowly blinks his eyes open, but the light coming in through the window momentarily blinds him.

“Rachel?” 

She was invited to the wedding, but she arrives tomorrow. Or, is that today? Time is a thing he doesn’t have a firm grasp on at the moment, and he doesn’t know where his phone is to double check her text. He doesn't recall her being at the party, but even if she did arrive early, why the hell is she in his room?

Oh dear God. 

No. He would never. He could never. 

“Last I checked,” she says with amusement, coming around the bed and putting herself in his field of vision as she clasps an earring. She’s thankfully blocking the sun now, and he can open his eyes for a sustained period of time without the urge to scoop out his brain and give it to someone more responsible for safekeeping. “Are you okay? You look awful.” 

His heart is about to beat out of his chest, he’s convinced of it, yet he can’t actually raise his head from the pillow. He is leaden. Dead weight. Panic is pressing him into a mattress that he shares with David Rose, his fiance, the man he’s marrying in two days’ time. 

But it’s not their mattress. Now that his eyes can actually see, he registers the pale green striped sheets his cheek is mashed against - the pair he shared with Rachel back when they lived together. 

What the fuck?

“Patrick?” She crouches down and it’s enough to startle him into rolling over onto his back, a move he immediately regrets as starbursts explode behind his eyelids. “Have a little too much fun with Ben last night?” she asks wryly. 

Ben? He hasn’t seen Ben in almost four years, since he dropped everything and everyone and moved away to a town with a funny name and an even funnier sign. They only just started talking again a few months ago, when David encouraged Patrick to invite him to the wedding. He had RSVP’d in the affirmative, but said he’d miss the bachelor party festivities due to a work trip. 

The bachelor party festivities which were last night. Which are supposed to account for why Patrick would like to lop off his skull, hand it to someone, and make it their problem for a while. 

“Okay, Patrick, now you’re worrying me,” Rachel murmurs, frowning at him. 

Get in line. 

He groans and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, which doesn’t help the situation in the slightest. 

“How did you get home?” she asks, and he licks his dry lips and tries to keep the tremor from his voice. 

“I don’t know.” He finally forces his gaze to meet hers and - 

Something’s different. Off. 

If he had cheated on David - which he wouldn’t - with a woman - which he couldn’t - she wouldn’t be looking at him like that: exasperated, but charmed all the same. 

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear as she tilts her head and presses a cool hand on his forehead. He can’t help the way his eyes close and he groans, leaning into her touch. He blinks them open again. She still has an amused look on her face, and he still feels like he woke up in an alternate universe. Possibly with a massive head injury. 

“Okay. What’s the last thing you remember?”

Words he doesn’t mean. A tone he never uses. A stupid fight two days before their wedding that they both knew they’d regret in the morning. 

And, boy, does he ever. 

He ignores her question in favor of asking the more pressing one. The most pertinent one:

“Um… where’s David?”

And then she says two words that suck the air from his lungs:

“Who’s David?”

He might throw up. 

She’s known David since she walked into a barbecue expecting maybe an overcooked slider and instead getting the biggest shock of her life. Christ, they talk on the phone all the time. It was her suggestion that the store stock the wooden cooking utensils and olive oil from the farm she stopped at on her way out of town. She was the one who shipped them matching Mr. and Mr. t-shirts for the bachelor party which they wore last night, Patrick with delight and David only with mild protest. 

And that’s when he pinpoints what’s so different about her. She looks - younger. Her hair is a little shorter, her face a little fuller. She looks exactly like she did when they took that trip to Montreal in a blizzard a few years ago. The panic bubbling in his chest makes him sit up despite the hangover, and Rachel steps back to give him room. He's wearing a t-shirt and pajama bottoms he hasn’t owned since David declared them incorrect and threw them out along with the empty party shot cups he downed before the housewarming. He presses his hand over his thundering heart and dares to look around the room. 

He hasn’t lived here in almost four years. 

Jesus Christ. 

“Patrick, why are you being weird?” The amusement is gone from her voice. In fact, she looks concerned. It’s a look he hasn’t seen on her face since he followed her into room 9, knowing full well that David, the best thing to ever happen to him, was eating alone in room 7. And before that, he hadn’t seen it since he last walked out the door of this very apartment, the weight of the engagement ring she had returned to him heavy in his pocket. “I’ll get you some advil,” she says. “I’m meeting Emma for brunch. I know I told you yesterday but who knows what else has slipped your mind,” she teases as she disappears into the bathroom. 

He swings his legs over the side of the bed and firmly plants his feet on the floor, bare toes digging into the carpet. Grounding him. He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them. The room remains. 

“Here,” Rachel murmurs, holding out one hand with a pair of pills as she pushes a glass of water into his loose grip with the other. He clumsily takes it and allows her to tilt the pain killers into his palm. Everything seems to be moving in slow motion, like he’s underwater. 

He’s dreaming. This has to be a dream. 

“You’re worrying me a bit. You want me to stay?” she asks as he tilts his head back to swallow the pills. Her nails scratch the hair at the nape of his neck, and it’s such a David move that he gasps and promptly chokes on the water. “Whoa, hey!” she says, thumping him on the back and taking the glass from his hand before he can drop it. “Jesus, P. You okay?” 

He manages a nod and wipes his mouth with the back of a shaky hand as his breath returns to normal. 

“Okay, I’m going to meet Emma. If you’re sure.” 

“Yeah,” he whispers, and she frowns at him for a moment, before leaning in and kissing his forehead, the way she used to back when everything was comfortable, but wrong; when it made sense for everyone but him. Before it all fell apart only to come back together again. 

“Don’t forget you promised your parents you’d help get the boxes from the basement today. But maybe take it a little easy.” 

He nods numbly, because he does remember that. He remembers helping his parents clear out their cellar after a pipe burst, but in Patrick’s mind, that was five years ago. Not now. Not today. His eyes cut to Rachel’s left hand, and he hates the relieved way he exhales at finding her ring finger bare. 

“Rach?” The nickname falls from his lips like the habit it is, one carefully formed over years of friendship and then dating and then something deeper, when they finally got to know each other as their true selves. He misses that Rachel. The one who gangs up on him with Stevie to call him on his bullshit. “Do you - do you know David Rose?” He winces, hating himself for even asking, but he doesn’t expect the reaction he gets in return: she snorts. 

“I think everybody knows David Rose now,” she drawls, and he narrows his eyes. There’s something in her tone. 

“What does that mean?” He stands from the bed and tries not to sway as the blood rushes from his brain. 

“Seriously?” She raises an eyebrow at him. “It’s been all over the news.” She pulls her phone out of her back pocket and types something in before turning it and showing it to him. 

His fiance’s face stares back. 

But it’s not his fiance’s face. Not really. 

It’s a black and white photo of David at least thirty pounds lighter, cocaine smeared beneath his nose, vacant gaze staring straight into the camera. He’s wearing his signature smirk, but there’s something off about it. It’s not sarcastic or fond or sweetly judgy. This one is hard and mean and challenging but still completely fucked up by whatever substances are coursing through his veins. Luckily the article cropped the lower part of the photo. 

“His boyfriend opened an exhibit of the photos in New York,” she says, and he startles because he honestly forgot she was in the room, despite the fact that it’s her phone he’s holding. “He apparently didn’t tell him ahead of time.” 

Patrick’s ears are ringing, and he has to sit on the bed once more. He hands her phone back with clammy palms and trembling fingers, anger coursing through his veins. 

“Some boyfriend, huh?” she says. 

"Some boyfriend," he murmurs. Sebastien fucking Raine. He should have decked him when he had the chance. 

“Patrick? Are you sure you’re okay?” 

No, he’s not okay. Nothing is okay. 

He knew of the pictures, sure, but he’d never seen them. David had asked him once if he’d googled him, and Patrick told him the truth. He had, but the only sites he clicked on were his defunct gallery’s and a New York Times article about their business manager. 

“Drink water, eat carbs. I’m going to be late for Emma.” She kisses his forehead again and his breath hitches, her small, soft lips feeling so wrong against his flushed skin. 

He sits there, rooted to the comforter he had no choice in picking out, until he hears the click of the front door in their one bedroom apartment. The sound seems to stir something in him and he reaches for his phone on the bedside table, an iPhone at least a generation older than the one he knows he currently owns. The home screen is a photo of him on a patch of grass, Rachel between his legs, leaning back against his chest; not the black-and-white picture of David, head thrown back in laughter, ice cream on his face, gold rings glinting in the afternoon sun. 

He pulls up the article Rachel showed him. It’s dated May 14, 2015. He minimizes Safari, and his phone tells him that was two days ago. 

“Oh my God,” he breathes, dropping the device on the bed and running into the living room to turn on the tv. The news is talking about a speech Barack Obama gave the night before in Toronto, and the chyron at the bottom of the screen announces an update on the new princess born to Prince William and Kate Middleton. Avengers: Age of Ultron is the number one movie and Taylor Swift just started her 1989 world tour. 

He claps a hand over his mouth and barely makes it to the bathroom in time to vomit into the toilet, bile burning the back of his throat, stomach clenching and body heaving as it tries to comprehend the incomprehensible. He groans and rests his sweaty forehead on the cool porcelain, squeezing his eyes shut tight and trying to breathe in through his stuffy nose and out through his mouth the way he regularly reminds David to when he’s having a panic attack. 

David. 

His heart twists like a rag being rung out to dry. How did this happen? He’s seen enough movies about time travel. He’s read enough articles about multiverse theory, sometimes just for fun, but mainly to freak David out. But none of it prepared him for waking up in the bed of the woman whose heart he broke when he realized he couldn’t love her the way she deserved. 

Oh God, he’s going to have to do it again. He can’t - he can’t live this life, with its pale green sheets and sensible but bland carpeting and its fast lane to a wife and a house and 1.61 children. He needs to course correct or - or something. 

He stands on less-than-sturdy legs and makes it back to the bedroom, grabbing his phone where he’d left it on the bed. He pulls the article up again, attempting to regulate his breathing and marshall his thoughts into something resembling cohesion. Logic. Sanity. 

David had insisted that he didn’t care if Patrick saw the pictures Sebastien took, but they both knew that wasn’t quite true. 

“That’s not me. Not anymore,” he had said. 

And Patrick replied, “I want to know all of you, but if you don’t want me to see them, then I don’t need to see them. But know that nothing - and I mean nothing, will ever drive me away from you.” 

But here he is: away. 

And he has no idea how to get back. 

xxxxxx

[Mom]
Are we still expecting you today? 

The text comes in as he’s scrolling through his phone, ticking off the noticeably missing contacts, every name a strike against his heart: 

Budd, Stevie
Butani, Ray
Currie, Bob
Currie, Gwen
Lee, Ronnie
Mullens, Ted
Rose, Alexis
Rose, David ❤️
Rose, Johnny
Rose, Moira

He knows Jocelyn, Roland, and Twyla are probably missing as well, but he hasn’t gotten to the S’s yet. He’s too busy staring at the gaping hole left in the middle of the R’s. 

Their vendors are gone, too, as is the inbox for the work email he’d set up to take inquiries through their website. Because it’s 2015. Rose Apothecary doesn’t exist. The thought buckles his knees, sending him slumping back down to the bed once again, devastation taking hold as acutely as if someone had just told him a loved one died. But it did, in a way.  

Rose Apothecary is their baby. 

He thumbs out a message to his mom in the affirmative and somehow drags himself into the bathroom for a shower. He sincerely doubts she can shed any light on the situation, but at least he doesn’t have to worry about her having him institutionalized. If anything, she’ll hug him and suggest he not go out drinking with Ben anymore. Because that’s apparently where he was. Not fighting with Evan, his cousin, who said something stupid, because he’s an idiot, which upset David, who overreacted, which pissed off Patrick, who couldn’t think rational thoughts because David wanted him to love polar bear shots as much as he and Stevie did.

It was a stupid fight. 

About stupid things. 

Yet it’s enough to cause tears to get lost in the hot water pouring down Patrick’s face as he turns into the spray and cries in the quiet of a tiled bathroom that David would hate. 

His head isn’t pounding as much anymore, but he still stops and stares as he wipes the condensation from the mirror. Like Rachel, he’s younger. His face is fuller and his eyes are not only bloodshot and puffy, but they have that haunted look that he hasn’t seen since David came in and helped lift the weight from his shoulders he didn’t even know he was carrying. The weight that’s now back there, pressing him down into the navy blue bath mat. He never used to notice it, really - the burden of being someone he wasn’t - but now, it’s as stark as looking at a before and after side-by-side comparison. 

He pulls a shirt from his closet and pauses when he realizes it’s the one he was wearing when David walked into Ray’s. He can count his relationship’s milestones through his wardrobe. And David’s, for that matter: leopard print for their first hug, lightning bolts for their first kiss, licks of flames when Patrick knew he was in love with him, phoenix wings when he actually said it out loud. He slides his arms through the sleeves of the shirt (nondescript to anyone who isn’t him) and pulls it tight across his chest, buttoning it up with shaking hands, clinging to anything familiar. Grounding himself in any reminder of David, now that David isn’t here to do it himself. 

He manages to drink the rest of the water but can’t stomach the thought of food yet. He grabs his keys from the dish next to the door where they always lived and makes his way to his car, an old friend. Yet it lacks the stain on the passenger side carpet from where David spilled his macchiato during a vendor run in the early days. It also features a fully working adjustment lever, which Patrick definitely broke one evening while trying to enthusiastically recline David’s seat and climb into his lap. 

He closes his eyes and rests his forehead on the leather of the steering wheel. 

He could measure his life by David. 

It’s never been more evident than it is now. 

Putting the car in gear, he pulls out of the building’s lot and waves with a grimace at a neighbor he hasn’t seen since he put the last box in his car three and a half years ago and drove away without even a glance in the rearview mirror. She gave him a dirty look then, word having spread fast in the small town that Patrick Brewer had broken Rachel Turner’s heart. Again.  

He’s good with numbers, so it doesn’t take him long to figure out that he’d been set to propose in just two weeks, on the anniversary of when they kissed for the first time at the sophomore semi-formal. The realization causes him to slam on the brakes in the middle of the (thankfully) empty road, right hand fumbling for the glove compartment so badly, it takes him three tries to get it open. And there it is - the maroon velvet ring box actual 2015 Patrick picked up at the local jewelers a few days ago, if his estimations (and memory) are correct. He pops it open and a simple but elegant diamond winks back at him, embedded in a piece of gold that was a surrender, an anchor to a life he wasn’t sure he wanted. 

Jesus. He scrubs his hands up and down his face and wills himself not to cry again. His mother will know the second she lays eyes on him. His ability to pretend everything’s fine when inside he’s dying a little has gotten rusty, ever since David and Schitt’s Creek gave him permission to let go. Ever since they provided that safe space to be emotional, to be vulnerable. To be him. 

He puts the car back in gear and continues on to his parents’ house just on the other side of town. The journey is muscle memory, and he’s pulling into their driveway far before he’s ready to, putting the car in park and leaving Rachel’s ring box in the cupholder of the center console. His mother is already coming through the front door with a wave and a cup of coffee. He so badly wants to just run into her arms and never leave. 

He gets out of the car and shuts the door, wincing as the noise makes his weakened headache flare again. 

“Rachel texted,” his mother says with a laugh as she comes down the porch stairs and hands him the mug. “Said you were feeling a little rough this morning.” 

What a fucking understatement. 

But he manages a choked chuckle and bashful nod, gratefully taking a sip of coffee regardless and allowing his mom to pull him down so she can kiss his cheek. He closes his eyes and sinks into it, letting his forehead hit her shoulder and just rest there with a sigh. 

“Patrick, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” She runs her fingers through his hair and his throat goes tight. Never could get anything by her. Well. In person, perhaps. Patrick became an expert at lying by omission via phone. 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he mutters into her sweater. 

“Try me, sweet boy.”

But he pulls away and shakes his head, burying his face in the lip of the mug as he takes far too large a gulp, hissing through his teeth as the hot coffee burns down his throat. He smells woodsmoke and the memories of this day come screaming back to him. He had helped clear out the basement, and they burned the old newspapers and cardboard in the fire pit in the backyard. His mom surprised them with s’mores as the afternoon wound down. It was wonderful, actually. Serene, almost. Until he told them he was planning to propose to Rachel. 

He’ll never forget the look on his mom’s face: happy and excited, but... something else. Worried? Stricken? It had been hard to pin down at the time, but given the way things ended up, maybe his mother had been more in tune with his feelings on the matter than he ever gave her credit for. Her closeness with Rachel made him assume a lot of things. 

He had ended that evening with melted chocolate all over his hands and a heavy feeling in his gut. The weight of responsibility and the pressure to do right by the woman who’d been by his side for half of his life was pressing on his lungs and making the marshmallows he’d consumed not sit well. 

“Dad out back?” he asks, clearing his throat, and she hums. 

“I’m sure you could hear the cursing from the road.” 

That draws a genuine smile from him, and he takes another sip of coffee, handing the mug back to his mom with a grateful smile before making his way around the house to the backyard. 

“Pops?” 

“Motherfu - Patrick!” His dad turns from wrestling a particularly stubborn piece of cardboard, wiping his hands on his jeans. “How are ya, bud?” 

He opens his arms and Patrick steps into them, hugging him more tightly than he might have. Than he did. At this time, at least. 

He’s missed his parents, despite the fact that he’d seen them yesterday afternoon when they arrived in town for the wedding. His mom looks the same, save maybe for some more smile lines, but his dad is a little less grey here (and a little more round. Patrick has to remind himself that this is before Clint had a blood pressure scare and David got him a personalized program from a celebrity trainer that owed him a favor). 

“How’s the hangover?” his dad asks as he pulls away and Patrick snorts. Word travels fast. 

“Not as brutal as it was this morning,” he ruefully replies, his heart still hammering in his chest. He’s accepted that his high anxiety levels are just his baseline at the moment. Until he fixes whatever is happening and gets back to his time. His town. His David. He clears his throat and backs away towards the house. “I’ll grab some boxes from the basement.” 

“Do you need me to show you where to start?” 

“No, I got it!” he calls back, remembering where the water damage was the worst from the first time. He vaguely wonders if this is what Jimmy Stewart felt like in It’s a Wonderful Life. If so, he’d like to fast-forward to the end, please. 

He changes into one of his dad's old t-shirts, and the work feels good, giving his energy and anxiety an outlet so he’s not vibrating out of his skin. He relishes the burn of his muscles as he hauls up damaged shelving units and boxes. The moves are familiar, the banter with his father a comfort, and before he knows it, the basement is empty, his arms are sore, and sweat is darkening his hairline. 

With nothing to do except watch his mother pull out the marshmallows and graham crackers, though, panic starts to bubble again, creeping up his throat, pressing on his diaphragm. He sits at the tiny table in the breakfast nook of the kitchen, studying the grooves in the wood that countless meals have worn smooth. 

“Do you know David Rose?” It’s out of his mouth before he can swallow it back, and he holds his breath as his mom frowns, pausing as she lines up blocks of Hershey’s.

“Rose, why do I know that name?”

His dad looks up from where he’s washing his hands at the sink. “Wasn’t he the son of the Rose Video people?” 

Patrick can’t breathe again, thinking of the fact that his mother talks to David more than she talks to him; that his father spent two weeks rehabilitating his grandmother’s hutch because David commented on how beautiful it was last time they were here. His dad completely restored it and rented a truck to drive it to Schitt’s Creek himself so they could have it for the store. David cried when he pulled up outside. 

“Yeah. Yeah, he was,” he whispers. 

He’s almost your son-in-law. You love him so much.

“I think I saw something on the news about him,” his mom begins, still frowning as she tries to recall. He’d really rather she not.  

Suddenly, it’s too much. He stands from the table abruptly, the chair pushing out with a screech, and his mother lets out a little yelp at the sound.

"Be right back," he mutters and runs out to his car, ignoring his mom as she calls his name. He opens the door and grabs the ring box from the cupholder, staring at it for a moment, attempting to shore up all of the courage David somehow helped him find on his birthday so long ago. A gift he didn't deserve, but one David bestowed all the same. 

It can barely be twenty seconds or so that passes - he all but sprinted outside - so when he returns to the kitchen, his mother is still frowning at him over an open bag of marshmallows, and his father is still elbow deep in suds at the sink. 

“All right, bud?” Clint asks warily when Patrick practically skids to a stop on the hardwood floor. 

He’s panting far more harshly than should be warranted for a quick jaunt - but when he tosses the velvet ring box onto the table, everyone stops breathing. 

“Oh,” his mother murmurs. She has the same look on her face as before, but Patrick is better at identifying it now. 

It’s apprehension. 

“I can’t do it,” he says.

His father wipes his hands on his jeans, suds and all. “Okay, son. That’s all right.” It's the same tone he used whenever Patrick had a nightmare as a child. Soft and steady, a buoy to cling to in a storm.

But Patrick still feels like he’s drowning, like water is lapping at his lips and each ragged breath he draws could be his last.

His mother reaches out for him carefully, barely grazing his sleeve. “Sweetheart, this is one of the biggest decisions you’ll ever make in your life - ” 

“Easiest decision of my life.” 

“ - and you shouldn’t marry Rachel if it’s not absolutely what you want. Now what’s going on, sweet boy?” she asks and this time, he knows she’s not letting him hide behind his usual defenses and platitudes. She’ll let him get away with a lot, but when it’s eating at him, as it so obviously is, she’ll lovingly force it out of him. 

It won’t take much. 

He thinks of David’s face and the way his hands held him when he said, “What you're dealing with is very personal and it’s something you should only do on your terms.” He thinks of the way he cupped the side of his head and brought him into his chest, pressing a kiss to his temple and resting his cheek in his hair, making Patrick brave when he actually felt nothing of the sort.  

Be brave.

“I’m in love with somebody else,” he says. 

“Oh?” His mom’s voice is high, like she’s trying to temper her concern while exuding a sense of calm. It always made him laugh when he was younger because she never quite managed the right balance, but he appreciates it now more than he can describe. 

He licks his lips and imagines David’s face again. Be brave. 

“A man.” 

“Oh,” she breathes. It seems to be the only thing she can say; such a short, two-lettered word that somehow contains multitudes. It’s compassionate and revelatory and heartbroken, but most of all, understanding. 

The tears that Patrick has tried desperately to hold back ever since he stepped out of the shower that morning spill over and before he knows it, his mother’s arms are around him and he can feel his father pressing into his side, his large hand cupping the back of his head like he’s eight-years-old all over again.

“I’m so in love with him and I can’t marry Rachel,” he says into her shoulder. “I haven’t been happy. We haven’t been happy and this is why,” he inhales deeply, a rattling breath that shakes his body. It took him - a really long time to figure that out. He didn’t know it when he left the last time. Not really. He just knew something wasn’t right.

“You make me feel right, David.”

Hindsight is a beautiful, painful thing. 

“Okay, bud,” his father whispers into his hair. “It’s okay.”

“We love you so much, sweet boy,” his mom says, holding him tighter. “We just want you to be happy and if Rachel doesn’t make you happy, then perhaps it’s time to move on. To this man who does.”

She doesn’t trip over the noun or infuse it with any sort of meaning. She just says it. It just is. And, for the briefest of moments, he feels utterly weightless. 

He knew how they would react. He wasn’t lying when he said to David that his birthday was one of the best nights of his life. But there’s always that fear that whatever blip in the universe, whatever speed bump time hit to make him wake up here changed other things too. Altered the DNA, the core of those he knows and loves most. So to feel that kind of acceptance twice is -

Revelatory, maybe. Something, definitely. 

He pulls away and wipes his eyes, blinking against the burn as he stares at his parents looking back at him with nothing but love and empathy emanating from each feature they passed on to him. 

“I’ll talk to Rachel tonight,” he says. He needs to. He can’t share a bed with her and make a convincing show of it. Granted, the last time she came to visit Schitt’s Creek, they ended up cuddling together on the couch after eating Stevie’s edibles, but David was Rachel's little spoon, so no one was all that upset about it. 

“You can stay here if you need to,” his mother says, reading his mind once again. Rachel probably isn’t going to want him around after he breaks her heart anyway. Last time, he had done it in the morning, spent the afternoon packing, and got in his car that evening. 

How sensible of him. 

“Yeah. Yeah, that would be good,” he croaks. His dad cups the back of his head again and Patrick leans into it like a cat until his phone vibrates in his back pocket. 

The knee-jerk reaction that he can’t convince his mind and heart to adapt from yet tells him it’s David. Because most of his texts are. 

But not here. Not now. 

His stomach drops as he sees Rachel’s name on the screen and then positively plummets when he unlocks his phone and reads the message. 

[Rachel]
Are you staying at your parents’ for dinner or do you want to order in?

“Do you need to go?” 

He doesn’t look up as he answers his mom. “Yeah. I think so.” 

“We’ll be right here, sweetheart.” She tugs him into another hug, and he lets himself be manhandled into her warm embrace, inhaling her perfume and the same detergent she’s been using since she was washing his Star Wars sheets. 

“Proud of you, bud,” his dad says gruffly, which seems like an odd thing to say to your son right before he shatters the woman he’s been with since he was fifteen. But it goes both ways. He’ll take no pleasure from it. 

He tries to cling to what he and Rachel are now - good friends, best friends, really - and holds tight to the knowledge that that’s where they end up. Even after the ignored texts and the barbecue disaster and three more months of radio silence, what they end up having is infinitely better than what they would have been had they kept on down the road they’d been going. At least, it was. He has no idea how this works here. 

If he did it once, he can do it again. 

He leaves the ring box that’s far smaller than the one that should be sitting on the table. Four gold rings would never fit in that. 

And therein lies the problem. 

xxxxxx

It’s more awful than he remembers. 

At least last time, he was so caught up in how adrift he was feeling that he was almost detached from the proceedings. He couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong, only that it was. Now, though. Now he knows exactly what he wants, and he knows exactly how much he’ll have to hurt Rachel to get it. 

Her expression slices through him, the confusion and pain and helplessness eating away at his layers until it cores the most sensitive bits of his soul. It’s a burden, having the clarity he does. He wouldn't wish it on anyone. Well, maybe David. Because at least then they'd be in it together. 

“I’m so sorry, Rach.” 

“Sorry,” she repeats, like she’s forgotten the meaning of the word. She stands across from him, the coffee table they argued over for hours like no man's land between them. But then she asks something that never even crossed his mind. Then or now. “Did - did something happen with Ben last night?” 

He can’t help it - he winces. Nothing happened with Ben last night. Nothing happened with Ben ever, but that’s what he and David fought about at the bachelor party. Evan made a stupid insinuation about how inseparable he and Ben had been and David, with a strong assist from Tito's, spiraled. Patrick, with some healthy backup from Jose Cuervo, reacted accordingly. 

“Patrick, did it?” Her voice is sharp, but her expression broken, a tear falling on her cheek as her lower lips wobbles. God, he hates himself.

“No, Rachel. Nothing happened.” He takes a step towards her, and she backs up. He tries not to outwardly show how much that stings. 

“Have you - have you always known?” she asks, the steadiness in her voice hinging on how badly he's about to shatter her.

“No,” he says firmly, trying to remember how he felt before the surety of B13 and morning hikes and soft openings and corporate frames and defrosted mozzarella sticks. “I was really confused for a long time," he tries to explain. "I’ve only just now realized what I’ve been feeling.” 

She nods, her red hair falling into her face, hiding it from him. Which is why he’s so unprepared when the next words leave her mouth. 

“Was any of this real?” Such a quiet question to bowl him over the way that it does. 

“Yes.” He moves around the table and takes hold of her shoulders and, this time, he doesn’t let her pull away. “Rachel, I love you. I’ve loved you since I was fifteen, and I will for the rest of my life. It’s just - not the way you deserve to be loved.” 

He said something similar to her in Room 9, but she was too angry at the time. Now, though, she leans forward and crashes her face into his chest. His arms come around her, rubbing up and down her heaving back as he forces himself to feel every tear that soaks through his shirt. She cries and he cries, and he holds her the way he should have in that motel room. He comforts her the way she deserves to be comforted; the way he would have had his own world not been imploding at the same time.

His world still is imploding, though. Hell, his world doesn’t exist. But at least he knows where he and David stand. 

Or, he did. Before fucking Evan. 

Nope, no. He’s not even entertaining the thought. There is a wedding in two days’ time and he will meet David at the altar, come hell or high water. 

“I’ll grab my stuff,” he whispers, and she nods, wiping her eyes and not meeting his. 

He hates this. 

She tells him she’s going to her parents’ because she can’t watch him pack up a life they were supposed to share together. 

“I do love you, Rach,” he says, stopping her hand on the door.  

“Please don’t,” she replies, voice cracking, though whether she wants him to not love her or not say it, he’s not sure. One is infinitely easier to do than the other. 

With a promise to continue to pay his half of the rent, he watches her go and begins to load up his car, ignoring the dirty look his neighbor is giving him again. He may deserve it, but he regrets waving at her that morning. Jesus, was it just that morning? 

He tries to focus on Rachel now, the Rachel that texts him memes and asks David for skincare advice and sends them both Pinterest’s more outlandish wedding ideas. He misses her. 

He misses everyone. He’s never felt so alone in his life. 

His guitar is the last thing he slides into the back, carefully wedged in between some boxes and the seat so it doesn't move. The car isn’t so packed that he can’t see out the rearview mirror - after all, he doesn’t own many things that are just his - but he doesn't look in it as he drives away anyway. What he and Rachel got together for the apartment, he left behind. He packed his clothes and his beloved instrument and his baseball glove, everything he probably would have taken with him had he run away at age ten.

After over fifteen years, driving is almost thoughtless, an extension of himself. But behind the wheel of the car now, he doesn’t let muscle memory take him back to his childhood home. Instead, he heads for the nearest airport, because if he’s here, then maybe his David is, too. 

It’s a risky hope, a far-fetched and unlikely wish. But he’s becoming acquainted with far-fetched and unlikely recently. And for David Rose, he’d attempt the impossible. 

He thumbs out a text to his mom after he checks in to long-term parking:

I need to get away. Please don’t worry.

He bites his lip, debating. He knows that telling his parents not to worry is like using an umbrella in a hurricane. A little more information wouldn’t hurt. It’s not like they’ll come after him anyway. 

I’ll call when I get to New York.

With that, he packs a smaller bag from the suitcase in the backseat and uses his phone to buy a one-way ticket to JFK. 

xxxxxx

Stumbling upon Schitt’s Creek because the town sign made him laugh and deliberately flying to another country without a return trip booked are two very different things. 

He stares out of the window at the lit-up skyline below, a glowing grid of hustle, and wonders how it’s possible to not get completely lost in the fray. He’s never been to New York. Hell, he’s never been to a city larger than Toronto, and the population of Manhattan alone rivals that of Montreal. He and David were going to go after the wedding, just for a long weekend to decompress from the planning. Their longer honeymoon won’t happen until the following year, once they can stop arguing over which tropical destination they want to go to and whether or not spf stops working after 30. 

It’s nearly 7pm by the time he lands, and he follows signs to the AirTrain, studying a subway map on his phone as he waits for it to arrive and studiously avoiding the string of texts from his mother that came in once he turned his phone off airplane mode. He types back a Landed safe. but doesn’t answer the multitude of other questions she's asked. Instead, he finds a BBC Earth podcast just to have some background noise and takes the E train all the way into Manhattan and down to the Spring Street station. David once said he had a ‘2500 square foot live/work space in Soho,’ which doesn’t exactly narrow down the options, but it’s a good place to start. 

David was going to show him when they came: both the high- and lowlights of his life here. 

Patrick may not know his address, but he knows the name of his gallery. Putting it into his phone, Google tells him he’s only a couple of blocks away from it on Broome Street. He should probably find a hotel, a place to drop his bag and get cleaned up, like a normal person, but the fact that David could be just blocks away overrides every other basic need and desire. 

Shifting his bag on his shoulder, he heads in the direction of Broome Street, dodging pedestrians doing last minute shopping before the stores close. He hopes that the gallery is still open. According to Google, they’re open until 8pm, but if David conducts business here the way he does at Rose Apothecary, Patrick knows that those hours of operation are negotiable.

He can pick out the gallery as soon as he hits the street without needing to actually look at the signage. There are no outward markers, no black and white facade or sand and stone aesthetic. Most of the buildings around here are pretty austere. He just knows.

The lights are on and his breath catches in his chest. He looks down at his clothes, jeans and the button down he met David in so long ago, and he’s suddenly grateful his mother made him shower and change back into his nicer clothes before he went to talk to Rachel. He still feels woefully inadequate for a Saturday night in Soho, though. Especially considering two young women in very short dresses just walked into the gallery. When they opened the door, a heavy bass beat spilled into the street. Patrick can still feel it rattling his bones as he walks closer, a gut-churning fear beginning to slowly eat away at him. If his David is here, would he be hosting what appears to be a very popular (and hopefully non-exclusive) party?

He knows the answer. No, probably not. He doesn’t have to wait long to know for sure, though. 

He opens the door and immediately realizes this is a mistake. The lights are dim, the music is loud, and the clothes are hundreds of dollars out of his price range. His bag is heavy on his shoulder, despite the fact that he’s only packed for a few days and the bare essentials at most. 

“You’ll have to check your bag,” a voice says and he turns, a little dazed, to find a young woman leaning on a coat check counter. 

“Sorry?” 

“No overly large bags allowed in the gallery. Prevents you from knocking something over. Or stealing. You’ll have to check it,” she says again, nodding at the duffle on his shoulder. "Though good luck making off with one of these pieces." 

He should have found a hotel. “Right.” He makes his way over to her and hands over the bag. She gives him a ticket with a number on it in return. “Grand opening or…?” 

“Just a Saturday,” she replies with a shrug. “Take a picture of that in case you lose it.” She nods at his ticket, and he fumbles to get his phone from his pocket. It is good advice, and honestly, giving his hands anything to do at the moment is a win, so he snaps a photo and gives the girl a nod as he makes his way further into the room. 

It’s an impressive space with white walls and high ceilings and exposed bricks and beams. Patrick can see David in the details, from the art on the walls to the font on the placards. 

Considering all the bodies milling about the room, he’s surprised he can pick him out so quickly. Then again, Patrick would know David at the end of the world. Would feel drawn to him irrevocably, like every molecule in his being is calling out just to him. 

But one look is all it takes to tell Patrick that this is not his David. The walls that David spent his life building, that he slowly took down brick by brick in Schitt’s Creek are still up. Still brutally fortified. Perhaps even more so given the recent news.

He’s beautiful in a head-to-toe black-patterned Dolce and Gabbana. And Patrick knows this because David showed him the suit once, when he finally revealed the true secret of The Love Room, after they finally discussed moving in together and Patrick was clearly underestimating their need for closet space. 

Their eyes catch across the room, and Patrick can’t help the whimper that escapes his lips. Can’t help the way David's expression winds him. 

His David wouldn’t look at him like he’s a stranger. 

He should pretend to focus on the art or snag a glass of free champagne, do something - anything but gape like a fucking fish, but he can’t help it. David is beautiful and David is his love and the last time he saw him, they were yelling at each other because they’re idiots and idiocy compounded by alcohol and Stevie Budd is never a good thing.

He must look like a lunatic, standing in the middle of this very hip gallery in his very unhip jeans and button-down, staring at him like - well, like he promised to spend his life with him.

“Easiest decision of my life.” 

“Can I help you?”

Patrick startles and attempts to refocus. Luckily he’s given new incentive, now that David is standing right in front of him. 

“Um...” Great start. 

David shifts and glances at him warily. “Look, if you’re a reporter - ”

“No, no,” he blurts, swallowing. Why is his mouth so dry? “Not-not a reporter.” 

David finally seems to look at him then, sizing him up and stripping him down. “Good, because you’re about three days too late for the scoop,” he says flippantly, and Patrick knows that tone. That my world’s falling apart but I’m going to act like nothing can touch me tone. He’s witnessed that defense mechanism firsthand more times than he cares to remember. He clings to the memories now, though. If memories are all he has of his David.  

Fuck.

“No, sorry,” he croaks, clearing his throat and trying again. “Not here for a scoop.” He attempts a smile, but when David raises his eyebrows, he assumes he’s failed. Schooling his face into something that doesn’t look like he wants to launch himself at him proves to be his next task. Another failure, no doubt, if the step back David takes is any indication. 

“Then what are you here for?” He doesn’t sound annoyed, per se. Intrigued, maybe. Bored, possibly. Over it all, definitely. 

Patrick wonders why then, in a room full of people, David is still stuck talking to the guy who looks like he wandered off a bus from - well, from Schitt’s Creek. He could easily claim to have business to attend to or a client to schmooze or stubble to groom. Hell, he could just walk away without explanation - so why is he still talking to him?

“It’s a really nice space you have here,” Patrick manages once he gets his tongue to work. He shoves his hands into his pockets solely so he doesn’t inadvertently reach out for David’s maroon lapels, feeling the velvet between his thumb and forefinger as he pulls him into his chest to press a kiss to the spot on his neck he’s claimed as his. 

“Oh.” David blinks and looks around, as if just now registering that there are people in his place of business. That there’s an event he’s supposedly hosting. “Thanks. Do you know much about art?” 

And Patrick can’t help it, he snorts. It’s a conversation they’ve had before. 

“What do you mean you don’t get Rothko?” 

“No. Not much at all, really.” 

“Huh.” David gives him another once over, and Patrick couldn’t hide his shiver even if he tried. “I could… show you around?” 

Patrick is nodding before he’s even finished the offer. “I’d like that.” 

What happens over the next twenty minutes is a study in art history - both a lecture on modernism in regards to the pieces on the wall and a glimpse into the work of art standing at his side delivering it. David used to say that had they met before David’s family lost their money, Patrick wouldn’t have liked him. Well, Patrick will take great delight in firmly apprising David how incandescently wrong he is.

Yes, this David is a shadow of the man who once stood in the middle of a store he created and reliably informed Patrick how incorrect his hiking boots were; who cracked open his own heart to give Ted the best relationship advice he could offer and then bravely walked off a cliff made of I and love and you. Who knocked on a motel room door, unsure of what reception he was going to get, solely to save Patrick from a grenade whose pin Johnny Rose had accidentally pulled.

But he’s still there. 

The four silver rings are still on his fingers. His hands still flail when he talks about a piece he’s particularly passionate about. His eyes still occasionally dart over, as if checking in to make sure he’s not being too much. It’s a habit Patrick has been attempting to break David of for the better part of three years. He could never be too much. If anything, he’s not enough. Particularly now. Particularly here. At the end of Patrick’s world. 

A vocal ripple moves through the crowd, originating at the door. There are too many heads in the way for Patrick to see what’s caused the rumblings, but he can feel David go completely still beside him.  

“Excuse me,” he murmurs tightly, touching Patrick’s elbow as he passes by him to head for the front. Patrick is following a step behind before his better angels remind him that it’s not his place. Not anymore. Or, not yet. 

Whatever. He follows anyway. 

He hears his name before he sees him - Sebastien Raine being whispered like the epithet it is. Patrick’s steps slow as his hands curl into fists at his side, and it doesn’t take long before the crowd parts enough for him to see Sebastien’s tall head leaning down to whisper into David’s ear. He’s dangerously close to the part of David’s neck where Patrick fits so perfectly. It makes his face flush with a primitive desire to stake his claim. 

Patrick had only ever spoken to him briefly, when he came into the store before leaving town, whining about reimbursement for a memory card. David was quick to run him out and that was the last either of them saw him.

But here he is, in the flesh, looking just as smug and arrogant as he did the day Patrick and David watched him walk into the cafe to meet Mrs. Rose from their hiding spot behind the store’s window display. At least when he came back for the memory card, he looked a little more chagrined. 

Patrick’s breath is coming entirely too quickly, panting as his chest heaves with the effort to draw in enough. His ears are starting to ring and is this a side effect of time travel? Because Doc Brown never mentioned this.

David says something to Sebastien, but his gaze still darts around, still hyper aware of the audience they have and the cell phones with wifi access they carry. 

Sebastien crowds into his space and David backs up, hissing something sharply, but not loud enough for Patrick to hear. He turns towards a door most likely leading to a back room and gestures with his head to get Sebastien to follow him, but that can’t happen. Patrick needs them to stay; he needs - 

He takes a step, but blood rushes in his ears, a white noise that reminds him all too well of the night he sat on his bed in Ray’s room, staring at his phone, knowing exactly what David was doing in a motel room across town to save his mother’s dignity, even if it meant losing his own.

He takes another step, but then the ground is coming up to meet him, which is weird. Someone asks have you eaten? but it sounds like his mom and that can’t be right because she’s not here -

It’s the last thing he remembers thinking before it all goes dark. 

xxxxxx

“Is he dead?” 

“How the fuck should I know?” 

“He’s breathing, idiot.” 

“Then why did you ask? I don’t pay you for your sass.” 

“Nope, just an added perk.” 

“You’re fired.” 

“You’d implode.” 

"Should we call an ambulance?" 

“Don’t call an ambulance,” Patrick manages to groan, blinking his eyes open and wincing at the overhead fluorescent light. He hates hospitals, and he can still wiggle his fingers and toes. He doesn’t need one. 

A head appears in his field of vision, mercifully blocking the light and raising an eyebrow at him. It’s the girl from the coat check. “You sure know how to clear a party.” 

His eyes widen and he shoots up, swaying slightly on the sofa in what appears to be a well organized office.

“Whoa, whoa, easy,” David blurts, hands hovering like he doesn’t know where to touch him. He settles for a perfunctory pat on the back, and Patrick rolls his eyes at the exact same time as the coat check girl. 

“Here, I brought you a granola bar and a ginger ale," she says. "Your face is still white as a sheet, and though that does seem to be your default, I’d suggest upping those blood sugar levels regardless.” 

“Thanks,” he manages, taking the proffered supplies with shaky hands. “I cleared the party?” 

“Nearly. It’s fine,” David shrugs. “It wasn’t a very good party anyway.”

“Definitely took a downturn,” Coat-Check Girl says and David glares. 

“Fired.” 

“You wish," she snaps, and Patrick smiles at their odd but charming Abbott and Costello act. She turns to Patrick then, “I brought your bag, in case there were any meds you needed to take.” 

“No,” he says, shaking his head as he pops the end of the granola bar into his mouth. “No meds.” Though maybe there should be, his mind unhelpfully supplies. “Where’s Sebastien?” 

Both David and the girl freeze, defense mechanisms sliding swiftly and firmly into place, like an alarm signaled battle stations.

“How do you know him?” David asks slowly. Measuredly. 

Patrick licks his lips, feeling pinned to the couch like a frog marked for dissection. “Oh, I don’t really. I mean - that's...” Words, Brewer. 

Coat-Check Girl hums. “I’m going to check and make sure no one’s making off with the extra bottles of champers.” 

“Thanks, Blake,” David mutters, eyes narrowing at Patrick even as he admonishes, “And don’t call it ‘champers.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” she replies as she leaves, and Patrick wonders why he’s never heard of her before, if she was one of the few people from David's old life whom he seemed to like. Well, tolerate. 

David must see the contemplative look on Patrick’s face as he watches her go. “Technically my intern. In grad school at Parsons. Has a mouth on her that would get her fired from any other gallery in the city.” 

“But not yours?” 

He sighs, put-upon in a way that only David Rose can be. “Sadly, no. Here, it’s practically a requirement.” 

Old David likely wouldn’t have thought of an intern as a friend. She was probably only in his life for a semester or so and then out of a job when the Roses lost their money and the gallery closed. A blip, not worth a mention. 

Patrick smiles as, through the open door, he watches Blake down a glass of champagne and stick her tongue out at David for good measure. It’s a shame, really, her insignificance.

“So. Sebastien,” David prompts, ignoring her. “Friend of yours?”

“Absolutely not, ” he says so vehemently that David leans back. “I mean, I - I know who he is. I know… know what he did.” 

“Ah.” David bites his lips into a thin line. “Yeah, there might be someone on Staten Island who hasn’t heard, but I’m sure word will get around there eventually.” He looks down, twisting a silver band around his right ring finger. 

It should be gold. On the left. 

“Is that why you’re here?” David asks. His voice sounds like someone is sitting on his vocal cords. “If you don’t like art? Want to get a look at the tabloids' latest sacrificial offering?”

“I knew who you were before,” he assures, though that’s hardly reassuring. I’d know you anywhere. But he can’t admit that, so instead he says: “I used to work at a Rose Video.”

David scrunches his nose, a silent ew if there ever was one. Patrick laughs. 

“Store 785.” 

“It’s so sad that you know that,” he mutters. “So you don’t like art. You’re not here to gawk. Why are you here?” 

I’m looking for my husband.

The thought makes him sway again and, this time, David gets a hand on his back and one on his shoulder, before urging the ginger ale to his lips. 

“Okay, none of that. I really can’t handle someone dying on work premises on top of everything else.” 

“Can you imagine this in prison?” 

“I’m not dying,” he says around a smile. Unless he’s already dead. An existence without David certainly seems like some sort of purgatory, though he doubts he drank that much at the bachelor party.

“Okay, well, is there someone we can call? You probably shouldn’t be wandering the streets of New York at night like this. You’ll pass out in a gutter and hit your head and wander into my gallery again, knowing my luck.” 

Patrick swallows, fighting against the prick of sudden tears at his eyes. If he gave David his emergency contact’s number, his own phone would ring. Assuming it’s the same number, of course. 

“No. No one.” 

A look of understanding almost passes over David’s face then. Patrick hates that they’re bound by their loneliness here. 

“Look, should I keep waiting or no?” a voice asks, and Patrick looks up to find Sebastien lazily leaning against the frame. He doesn’t look like he cares particularly about David’s answer. 

“I don’t even know what you’re still doing here,” David snaps. “Don’t you have an open mouth waiting for you at home?”

Sebastien raises an eyebrow, like a challenge, and Patrick just knows he isn’t going to like whatever’s coming next. 

“Thought I had one right here.” 

Patrick has never been more grateful for a Cliff bar and a can of Schweppes in his life as he shoots to his feet (managing not to fall down again) and takes a step towards Sebastien who rightfully backs up, an alarmed look on his face. Patrick pulls himself up short, despite the fact that every muscle in his body is braced to hit something, itching to punch the smug son of a bitch in front of him, because this isn’t his fight - it wasn’t even his fight the first time Sebastien came to town. But when he glances at David, his brave, beautiful David, he looks like he’s been slapped. Gone is the righteous indignation he wore so frequently (and so wonderfully) in Schitt’s Creek. In its place is just hurt resignation.

Patrick has to remind himself that this David isn’t the David Rose of five years from now. The David Rose who’d been broken and built himself back up. This one is just… broken. 

Patrick aches to hold him.

“Who the fuck is this?” Sebastien asks when it becomes clear that he’s not about to be hit in the face. 

“A friend,” Patrick replies, holding his breath to see if David contradicts him. He doesn’t. 

Sebastien looks like he wants to say something snarky like Oh you have friends? but Patrick is still vibrating with anger a mere arm’s length away and so he smartly keeps his mouth shut. 

“Get out, Sebastien,” David says. He sounds exhausted.  

“Whatever,” Sebastien replies. “The exhibition already sold out. That’s all I wanted anyway.” 

Patrick takes another step forward before he can help himself, and Sebastien all but runs out the door, past Blake who gives him the finger as she downs another glass of champagne. He slowly blows out a breath and forces his hands to unclench, rolling his neck as he drops his shoulders, willing the tension that’s been thrumming in his body ever since that asshole walked into the gallery to leave. 

“The comment was worth it just to see him run out of here like Lindsay Lohan on a hotel bill,” David murmurs, and oh God, Patrick is mortified. What the hell kind of posturing was that? 

“I’m sorry, David - ”

But David waves his hand like it’s no big deal. Like a man that purported to care about him didn’t just degrade him privately in front of a stranger and publicly, both in front of half of New York City and the greater world wide web.

“Anyway, thanks...?” he trails off and raises his eyebrows expectantly. 

And Patrick realizes in that moment that David doesn't know his name. Right. “Patrick. Brewer."  

“Patrick,” David repeats, lips quirking to the side in one of Patrick’s favorite expressions. Then he points at the airport tag reading JFK still around the handle of his bag. “Did you… just get in?” 

“Something like that,” he murmurs, taking another sip of ginger ale as he throws the granola bar wrapper in the trash. “Anyway, sorry I ruined your party.” 

“You didn’t. Where are you staying? I’ll have Blake get you a cab.” 

“Oh - I… hadn’t gotten that far yet.” Patrick scratches the back of his neck, well aware that he sounds like a lunatic. David stares at him.

“So you - landed in New York from…?” Those eyebrows again. 

“Toronto.” 

“Toronto,” David nods, “and just… decided to come visit an art gallery.” 

“Something like that,” he says again.

“Even though you don’t like art.” 

“I don’t not like art. I just don’t know anything about it.” 

“Clearly,” David snaps back, but there’s a smile on his face. Are they - 

Flirting? Is this flirting? He swears bickering is one of David's love languages so he leans into it.

“Got any hotel recommendations?” 

“On your budget, given your sartorial choices? Not in this neighborhood.” 

“Oh burn, David,” slips out before he can swallow it back. The years of being around Alexis have clearly seeped into his soul. David’s eyes widen and his jaw drops, so Patrick does what any rational person who wakes up five years in the past does: 

He panics. 

“Um…Well, I’m sure Yelp has something. Thanks for the ginger ale.” He bends down to pick up his bag, even though every fiber of his being is screaming at him to drop it and stay. 

“I have a spare bedroom,” he hears before he can even make it to the door of the office. 

“Sorry?” He turns slowly, not wanting to spook whatever instinct made David make this insane offer. He already looks like he can’t believe the words actually left his mouth. 

“I have a spare bedroom,” he repeats. “If you need a place to crash tonight. As a business owner, it seems irresponsible to send you off into the wilds of New York City when you look like you haven’t seen a town larger than the one in Fargo.”

Okay. Harsh, but fair. 

“You just met me,” he whispers. The words are choked, like even they know they’re a lie. 

“True,” David replies. “You’re not a serial killer, are you?” he asks, eyes comically wide. 

Patrick smiles. “Only on weekdays.”

“Well you’ve seen what I’ve dated.” He gestures to the door. “A serial killer would be a step up.” 

Oh, David Rose. You deserve so much better than that.

“So?” David prompts, twisting his ring around his finger once more. It wouldn’t be obvious if Patrick didn’t already know every nervous tick David thinks he needs to employ. 

He swallows, wondering if it really is this easy. He’s seen David’s appreciative looks throughout the evening, even if they have been hindered by his clear disdain for his clothing. Patrick honestly forgot what it was like to wear jeans with room in them.

But David's just been crushed in the most brutal and public way, humiliated by someone who was supposed to care for him. These are dangerous waters to wade into even if someone named Sebastien Raine hadn’t just dropped a depth charge into them. 

This David may not be his David, but he knows him in the very marrow of his bones. He can see the vulnerability in his eyes and the way he’s holding tension in his shoulders so he doesn’t hunch in on himself. Maybe this David is looking for a quick rebound and has set his sights on Patrick. City mouse showing the country mouse the ropes or something. 

So much for mall pretzels and Bridget Jones. 

“Okay,” he whispers even though he knows- he knows this is a terrible idea. He should get a hotel and regroup. After all, David isn’t the only one who’s been put through the emotional wringer recently. 

And that’s when it hits him what David is looking at him like: 

A random. 

And a piece of Patrick breaks off, tumbling down a path he never thought he’d find himself on. 

xxxxxx

David had described his New York life in phases. At first, it was casual but incremental, occasionally dropping nuggets of information that Patrick picked up and hoarded away like some kind of woodland creature. Then David began to reveal more, sometimes jokingly, like in a back-and-forth with Alexis, and sometimes not, like what he whispered to Patrick under the covers in the dark. 

Patrick pretends he doesn’t see the saucy look Blake throws David as she watches them walk out into the night together with a promise to lock up. The walk from the gallery takes no time at all, the May night clear but cool, and before he knows it, Patrick is stopping dead outside a white cast-iron building that looks like something out of a movie (and probably is). 

“This is me,” David says casually, putting in his key as Patrick gapes at the large windows overlooking the quiet, cobblestone street. 

“All of it?” he asks, strangled. He knew the Roses were rich, but Jesus. 

David huffs out a laugh. “No. Just the top floor,” he says, as if that’s any better. 

Patrick adjusts his bag on his shoulder, feeling self-conscious for a moment yet also kind of proud. Bland Patrick Brewer somehow tricked the unicorn ushering him into this swanky building into marrying him. What sorcery was that?

Love, the sentimental side of him whispers. It sounds annoyingly like Stevie. 

He inhales sharply at the thought of her, and David pauses as he hits the button for the elevator. 

“You okay?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Patrick replies, though he can’t tell him why he’s rubbing at a phantom pain in his chest, just over his sternum. 

David looks like he doesn’t quite believe him but he leads the way into the elevator anyway. Patrick notices that there are no other buttons on the panel other than the one for PH. The building is only five stories though, so it doesn’t take them long to get to the top. When the doors open once more, Patrick pauses in the foyer. 

“Okay, so you were lying a bit when you said ‘top floor.” 

“Floors,” David amends, looking only marginally sheepish. 

He can see why David was hesitant to leave. The space is stunning. The first floor is open concept, with a kitchen and a large chef’s island at the far end, a living room area towards the front taking advantage of the natural light from the windows, and a work space in the middle where a couple of wooden slats line the wall to store artwork. A metal spiral staircase is next to the kitchen, disappearing to the floor above. 

“David, this is amazing.” 

He probably shouldn’t sound so awed; so aw shucks country boy, but being in this space, getting a glimpse of David’s life, really puts into perspective how much he lost when Schitt’s Creek became his home. 

But look at how much he gained, the voice says again. It’s definitely Stevie. And she’s definitely trolling him. 

“Drink?” David asks, and Patrick realizes that in his philosophizing, David has moved back to the kitchen.

“Uh, sure.” He places his bag down on the hardwood floor next to the sofa and shoves his hands into his pockets. 

“Wine? Vodka? Gin? Whiskey? Basically, I have everything but beer, including Benzos.” David grimaces, but his eyes dance, and Patrick knows he definitely made assumptions about his drink of choice based on his clothing alone. And he's not wrong: Patrick would almost certainly feel more comfortable with a bottle or a can in his hand instead of glassware whose fragile stem he'll probably break before evening's end. 

“Uh, wine is fine.” 

“Red? White? Rose? Sparkling?” 

Patrick smiles, knowing that David’s preference and his own line up. “Red, please.” 

David grins and turns to the (really impressive) wine rack in the corner of the kitchen, pulling out a bottle and placing it on the counter to search for an opener. When Patrick gets a look at the label, he has to clear his throat through the sudden surge of emotion. 

David just inadvertently chose the wine they shared on their second anniversary, special ordered by Patrick because he knew it was David’s favorite and that he could no longer afford to drink it regularly. 

“This is much better than any hotel I’d find,” he manages as he leans his elbows on the marble countertop, pressing his clammy palms to the cool surface and willing his beating heart to calm. 

“Told you,” David says teasingly. Flirtatiously. Patrick can’t help the way his stomach flips. It’s a feeling that’s never gone away, really. 

Cork removed and wine poured, David gestures to the sofa, but it’s window dressing at best. There’s a reason Patrick hasn’t been shown his room yet, even just to drop his bag. Three years in and David still sometimes pretends that they’re going to do something mundane or ordinary when, not five minutes later, they’re naked in each other’s arms. 

David must see something in his face then: the hunger, the want - but Patrick can’t help it, that’s just the way that he looks at David Rose. David’s breath catches and he pauses on his way to the sofa, taking a slow sip of his wine, eyes never straying from Patrick over the rim. He places the glass on the side table and saunters over. Patrick watches him shimmy his shoulders a little, though he may just be imagining it - a phantom move done so often, he can’t even pinpoint the specific memory. 

David stands in front of him, vulnerable but putting up a formidable front. No one would be able to tell that inside he was nervous. No one could see he was hurting. 

No one but Patrick.  

David carefully takes his wine glass out of his hand and places it on the table behind the couch next to some coffee table books about art. At least Patrick assumes they’re about art. He honestly can’t stop staring at the man in front of him. Then David leans in, eyes flicking up because consent is his bedrock, even if he isn’t always shown the same courtesy. 

“David,” Patrick whispers and that does it. 

David devours him. 

It’s a dance they’ve done before, one well-worn where nobody needs to lead, but it still never fails to send a wow zinging through his body. Patrick whimpers because he hasn’t kissed David since yesterday evening five years from now, before the fight but after he sang Harry Styles for him, and he feels like he’s lived a lifetime in the interim. He takes hold of the velvet lapels he’s been wanting to touch all evening and pulls him closer, and David makes a startled noise into his mouth that quickly turns into a groan as he nips at Patrick’s lower lip. 

Despite the fact that Patrick knows every inch of David’s body, every trick, every weakness - like how kissing the spot behind his ear could buckle his knees if Patrick didn’t have a good hold on him - he still feels in over his head. But then David is kissing along his jaw, lips brushing the shell of his ear, and whispering, “You don’t have to use the spare bedroom.”

Patrick gasps and moans, fingers digging into David’s hips as he pulls him tighter to him, and David cups his neck, rings cool against Patrick’s flushed skin. It’s the same move he made in a car on a birthday so long ago, when David was the brave one.

But the rings are on the wrong hand in the wrong color, and Patrick realizes that sleeping with him tonight would feel like cheating on his David. And the thought barely has time to land in his mind before he’s pulling back for a breath so the rational part of his brain that hasn’t moved south to his dick yet can focus for a second. 

God, he misses him. He misses him so much he aches. He thinks he might be shaking - in fact, he knows he is - but it takes a moment to realize he’s not the only one. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, pulling away further. “We don’t have to do this.” Shouldn’t do this, Stevie-in-his-head says. 

“What if I want to?” David asks, eyebrow raised in coy challenge, but Patrick knows that look. It’s not real. 

“What if I don’t?” 

David’s swollen lips part and he steps back as if slapped. “Oh.” 

Fuck. “Sorry, that’s not what I - I didn’t mean that.” He crowds into his space and takes hold of his lapels again, closing his eyes and pressing their foreheads together. “Trust me, I want.” Oh, he wants. More than David knows. 

But he refuses to be a random to the man who should be his husband. 

He sighs and wraps his arms around David, pulling him into a hug and pressing his face into his shoulder. 

“Oh,” David blurts, arms hanging limp at his sides before coming up and awkwardly patting him on the back. It’s the same hug he once gave when Patrick suggested they focus on the business after quite possibly the worst week of Patrick’s life. 

“You don’t need to do this,” Patrick murmurs and David stiffens in his embrace. 

“I know,” he says, but it’s small. Defensive. Something a little kid says when pushing back against a parent. 

“We shouldn’t do this,” he tries instead and, after a moment, David sighs deeply, his ribs expanding and contracting against Patrick’s. “You’re in a vulnerable place and I have my own baggage, and we just met. We shouldn’t…” 

“I know,” David says again, and this time, it’s resigned. 

“Is it okay if I keep hugging you?” He feels David nod against his shoulder and lean more of his weight on him. It’s so intimate that Patrick feels like someone has cracked his chest cavity wide open and exposed his vulnerable organs to the elements. “You deserve better, David Rose,” he murmurs, and David’s resulting gasp is wet and ragged against his neck. 

So Patrick does the only thing he can: he holds David tight, running his palms up and down David’s back and gently swaying with him to music only the two of them can hear. 

He’s not sure how long they stay like that, listening to the occasional siren pass by outside. It’s long enough for David to go nearly boneless in his arms, and Patrick takes great comfort in knowing that the space where David’s neck meets his shoulder is still made just for him. He presses a kiss there for good measure, because it’s a comfort that he so desperately needs in this moment; a move as familiar and reflexive as breathing.

Maybe David needs it, too. 

“Are you a therapist?” David asks as he pulls away, surreptitiously wiping at his eyes. 

Patrick smiles softly, reaching up to thumb away a tear that David missed. “Small business owner.” And the response is so unexpected that David laughs - a short, loud, beautiful thing. “No, I had a… friend who had his own Sebastien Raine, you could say,” he admits, clearing his throat around yet another swell of emotion. 

David narrows his eyes before they soften in understanding. “Sounds like more than a friend.” 

“Yeah,” he whispers, breath hitching. “He was.” 

“Ah,” David murmurs, as if Patrick’s metaphorical baggage has just been revealed.

They stare at each for a drawn out moment, both silently acknowledging that this is for the best, even if there’s no shortage of desire there. Patrick remembers what David said about his feelings around this time, in the months after Sebastien walked into his life, lit the fuse, and moved a safe distance away from the explosion. He had just wanted someone to show him some kindness. Some compassion. He wanted someone to tell him he was worthy of love. 

Well, Patrick has already sworn to make that his life’s mission. And he has a marriage license back home in a drawer to prove it. 

“How about a movie?” he suggests. “Seems like we both could use one.” 

David smiles shyly, and Patrick didn’t realize how much he missed that expression until this very moment. Three years in, and David is hardly ever shy with him anymore. 

“A movie sounds good. But only if we can order food because the crudites at the party were not nearly enough to hold me over.”

“Sure, David,” he says warmly. “My treat for letting me crash.” He gets his phone out of his pocket, ignoring another text from Ben: 

[Ben]
Yo, are you dead? 

He pulls up Seamless and does a cursory search for Thai restaurants in the area that deliver. The options are, unsurprisingly, far more impressive than those in Schitt’s Creek. “Galanga Thai Cooking okay?” 

“The best, in fact,” David says. “I’m just going to change, if that’s all right.” 

Patrick raises an eyebrow as he adds shrimp to his order of drunken noodles. “It’s your house, David. I don’t think you have to ask my permission.”  

“So I see Blake isn’t the only one with a mouth,” he snarks back, and there’s definitely a joke there, but given how close they just came to making a mistake, neither acknowledges it. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room.” 

“You don’t have to use the spare bedroom.”

As if they both hear the echo of those words, they smile at each other softly, if a little sadly. Patrick nods and continues tapping away on his phone as he picks up his bag and follows David up the spiral staircase. He pauses, though, when he gets to the top because it’s like he’s walked into a replica of their store - if their store had morphed from a general but very specific store into a library/sitting room complete with old wooden furniture, plush leather chairs, and sand and stone aesthetics. A bedroom is off to the right behind a wall of glass and steel with a large curtain pulled to the side for privacy. 

“Wow.” 

“That’s you,” David says, gesturing to the bedroom as he continues up the spiral staircase because apparently this apartment is even larger than Patrick anticipated. “Towels are in the linen closet in the bathroom which is there.” He points to a door just inside the bedroom before disappearing to the third floor. Jesus. 

Patrick takes a minute to look around, before dropping his bag on the bench at the foot of the bed. He didn’t expect to be spending the night at David’s this evening, and he’s really glad he packed appropriate pajamas. He pulls the curtain closed and strips out of his jeans and his button down, leaving the white undershirt on and pulling on his plaid flannel pants. It almost feels too intimate to wander around with bare feet, so he pulls on a pair of grey socks as well, before heading to the bathroom and splashing water on his face. 

He gets a good look at himself for the first time since waking that morning. He looks wrecked, honestly. He can’t believe David Rose wanted to sleep with him tonight. Shaking his head, he opens the curtain and is immediately greeted by the sight of David pacing back and forth outside. He’s changed into black joggers and the white shirt that says DON'T. Patrick wonders if David is trying to tell him something. 

“Okay?” he tentatively asks. 

David hums. “I’m just really hungry and I want to make sure you get my order right.” 

Patrick grins as he holds out his phone for inspection. “You tell me.” 

In addition to his drunken noodles, he put in pad see-lew with chicken for David, along with the spring rolls for them to share. 

“That’s…” David frowns. “Did I tell you what I wanted?” 

Patrick shrugs as he submits the order. “Lucky guess. So, a movie?” He’s hoping the change in topic will keep David from overthinking Patrick’s apparent mind-reading capabilities, and it works because he nods rigorously as he turns and leads them both down the stairs again. 

“As heir to Rose Video’s thriving empire, I can tell you that your options are plentiful.” 

Patrick laughs as they settle on the couch, hoping that the space between them is a respectable distance for two strangers who met today but already shared a pretty thorough make-out session. Had he been home, with his David, there would hardly be any part of their bodies that wasn’t touching. David becomes an octopus when they spread out on the couch together. Not that Patrick has ever complained. 

He’s almost tempted to suggest Bridget Jones, but rom coms seem like a bad idea at the moment. For both of them. Instead, what he says is: 

“How about Miss Congeniality?” 

David’s jaw drops. Again. “I love Sandra Bullock.” 

I know, he almost replies. 

And, as he watches David giddily bounce on the cushion, fiddling with the remote in the same fussily annoyed manner he does at Patrick’s because technology is beyond him, Patrick makes a decision. 

Be brave. 

He’s going to fight for him, because this may be the only version of David Rose he gets to have. He doesn’t know how this works and that thought is terrifying, but if it means doing it all over again, he will. He’ll relive every tentative text, every lingering hug, every crashed first date, and every miscommunication if it means getting this David back to what they had. He’d walk to the ends of the earth for him. 

And if it’s a little unfair that he has an advantage this time around, that he knows the ins and outs, the eccentricities and passions, the foibles and strengths that make up David Rose, then so be it.

This is the love of his goddamn life.

He’ll fight dirty if he has to. 

xxxxxx

They ended up watching both Miss Congenialities before heading to bed, not that Patrick found much in the way of sleep apart from a brief snooze during Armed and Fabulous. The bed was too big, the sheets were too cold. David was too far away to fix either of the first two problems. 

He thinks he manages a couple of hours of rest, because when he next rolls over, the bedside clock suddenly reads 6:32. He doubts he’ll find much to hike in the middle of Manhattan so he'll settle for a walk, having left even his sneakers back in his car at the airport.

His lower back doesn’t twinge when he swings his legs out of bed, and he marvels at the aches he gained just between his late twenties and early thirties. Granted, he’s not standing on a store floor for 9 hours a day anymore (yet?) either. It may be the only upside to this situation so far.

Throwing on his jeans and a hoodie over his t-shirt, he pads downstairs, marveling at the sheer size of the apartment now that early morning light is just beginning to come through the large windows. He knows the gallery doesn’t open until noon on Sundays and that David likely won’t be conscious before 10am. It gives him plenty of time to grab the keys from the dish that David keeps by the door and start heading south in the cool spring air. 

He grabs a coffee from a place around the corner and thumbs out a text to Ben as he walks, trying to sound, well, like himself. And yet he’s not. He’s not the same man he was. 2015 Patrick saw Ben yesterday. 2020 Patrick hasn’t seen him in almost four years. 

I’m alive.  

Thinking that’s a rather curt response for his best friend (former best friend?), he elaborates: 

Sorry. Crazy time. Had to make a last minute trip.

Thinking of Ben, though, makes him think of Evan, and how Patrick could kill him for being such an idiot. Sure, if he ponders it hard enough, he could probably admit that he found Ben attractive, but he was a handsome guy. Everyone could see that. Nice, too, though frequently goofy and occasionally obnoxious. Even if Patrick had been wise enough to discern his feelings on the matter back then (back now), his relationship with him would have been more important than a superficial crush. Ben was like his brother. Granted, so was Evan until about 36 hours ago. 

He passes Trinity Church and tries to remember why he stopped talking to Ben. It hadn’t been him specifically; Patrick stopped talking to everyone from his old life when he moved, his parents included, save for the occasional text to let them know he was okay. He thinks of them with a sigh, and then a fond smile as he remembers the conversation he had with them the day before. He knows he has to call them today. Otherwise, they really might jump on the next flight to come find him. 

They’ve been incredible. He owes them that. 

He walks for about a half hour or so until he can’t go any further, hitting the railing overlooking the harbor in Battery Park, inhaling the salt air and watching the tug boats and ferries carry commuters on a Sunday morning. He forgets, sometimes, that Manhattan is an island. 

He stays until his phone reads 8:03am, before beginning the trek back, grabbing a bagel on the way. He lets himself back into David’s apartment, quietly going up to the second floor and showering. It’s odd to be in a space that’s so distinctly David and yet not. Yes, his David lives in the motel, but he had a significant hand in decorating Patrick's apartment. His budget certainly wasn't on par with whatever it cost to outfit this loft, but he can see David's influence on his furnishings reflected in the bedside table and the lamp in the corner. 

Shortly after 10am, he heads back to the coffee shop with the colored tile behind the till and picks up a coffee for David. He gets a tea for himself as well as a couple of blueberry scones and heads back, opening the door as David pads down the stairs in his pajamas with a blanket wrapped around him. He looks like a very expensive, very adorable burrito. 

“Where did you go?” he croaks, voice rough from disuse, just the way Patrick likes it. It reminds him of lazy mornings away from the store and borrowed coffee mugs and secrets whispered under covers, before clothes come off, gasps escape, and showers are eventually shared. 

“Coffee shop. Borrowed your keys. Hope you don’t mind.”

David shakes his head slowly, eyeing Patrick as if there’s a catch. It breaks Patrick’s heart a little. He hands the cup over and physically restrains himself from placing a kiss on his cheek. 

“What’s this?” 

“Caramel macchiato, skim milk, two sweeteners, with a dash of cocoa powder.” 

David opens his mouth, closes his eyes, and shakes his head. He might have been a little too under caffeinated for Patrick to spring that on him, now that he thinks about it. 

“How the fuck…? Mkay, you knew my Thai order last night and now my not-uncomplicated coffee order this morning? It’s getting a little creepy.” Patrick opens his mouth, but David cuts him off. “If you say ‘lucky guess,’ so help me God.” 

Patrick laughs at that, but inside he’s squirming. He should have gotten it wrong on purpose. Just one sweetener or maybe no cocoa powder. What was he thinking? He can’t explain this away - 

“Blake had it written down on a post-it in the office,” he blurts out, semi-casually, miracle of miracles. "Only yours could be so convoluted." 

David raises a skeptical eyebrow, but takes a sip of his coffee and groans anyway. “Okay, Sherlock.” He shuffles to the counter and cranes his neck over the brown paper bag Patrick had set down, poking it with a finger like a dog would with his nose. 

“Blueberry scone,” Patrick says. 

David groans again. “Where did you come from?” 

“I told you - ”

“Toronto, yeah yeah.” He breaks off a piece of the baked good, and Patrick watches in delight as David’s eyes roll back into his head. “Still warm,” he says, words muffled around the bite. After a minute, he swallows and takes another sip of coffee, letting the blanket fall a bit down his back as he clears his throat. “Um, you were very, uh… kind to me last night.”

Even without knowing his history as he does, Patrick could guess from his hesitant tone that not many people have been kind to David Rose. He starts to argue, but David waves away his words, refusing to meet his eyes, thumb going back to picking at the sleeve on his to-go cup. 

“I don’t think I realized what kind of headspace Sebastien showing up put me in. You didn’t have to…” he makes a vague gesture at the area behind the couch where Patrick held David while he cried. “I mean - I honestly wouldn’t have held it against you had you bolted first thing this morning so...”

“Well, you opened your home to a complete stranger,” he says quietly. “You were very kind to me, too.” 

“You’re a good person.” 

“That’s not nice.” 

“Nice, even.” 

David finally looks at him. 

“Mkay, I can count on one finger the number of people who’ve said that. Actually, no. Claudia said I had a nice ass, so no fingers. I don’t need any fingers.”

“Shame,” Patrick says and oh my God his mouth needs to stop. 

“Wow.” David shakes his head. “You know, I’m trying to behave and you’re making it very difficult.”  

“Sorry,” he says, in a way that doesn’t sound like he’s sorry at all. 

David narrows his eyes and hums. “I have to get ready to open the gallery. What are - do you have plans for today?”

Inviting a relative stranger to spend the night is one thing. Leaving them alone in your apartment all day is quite another. 

“Um, I’ve never actually been here before, so look around, I guess?” he replies. That sounds like a normal thing to do, right?

David stops pawing at the bag where the second scone is. “So let me get this straight: you flew to New York from another country - ”

“Canada doesn’t count - ”

“ - didn’t bother booking a hotel, somehow ended up in Soho, wandered into a random art gallery, all on a whim? You don’t have anything planned beyond that? Do you even have a return flight?” 

Patrick winces. “No?” 

“Oh my God,” he breathes, pressing his thumbs into his eyebrows. “You don’t look like a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of girl.” 

He doesn't even know what that means. “Thank you?” 

“How do you not have a detailed itinerary?" David continues, almost sounding offended. "You’re like a walking Excel spreadsheet.” 

Patrick’s jaw drops. “So you have heard of an Excel spreadsheet.” That is news indeed. 

David looks sheepish. “Blake taught me.” He gives up the pretense and takes the second scone from the bag. “So what are you doing here?” 

Oh hell. A loaded question if there ever was one. 

“Finding myself,” he replies. “I guess.” But he did. He’s so interwoven into the very fabric of David Rose that he’s not sure how to be just Patrick Brewer anymore. He’s not sure how to function in a world where David Rose doesn’t know who he is. 

“Deep,” David replies, but it’s soft, not sarcastic. Like he understands, sort of.  He wipes his hands on a paper towel and pulls out his phone from a pocket beneath the blanket. “You can leave your bag here so you’re not carrying it around with you. Here, give me your number. I’ll text you from mine.”

Patrick can’t tell him that David’s is one of only six numbers other than his own that he has memorized, along with his parents’ cells, his childhood home, Rachel’s cell, and the store. 

He rattles off his number and his phone buzzes in his pocket a moment later. It shatters something deep within him when a string of numbers comes up instead of David ❤️, the way he’s been listed in Patrick’s phone since just after he slid on the floor in his entirely too expensive pants and gave Tina Turner his all. Patrick hates that an emoji, of all things, has that kind of power. 

He stares at the numbers for a second that stretches, thumb hovering to tap the message open. He tries to remember what this feels like - this second first text from a boy he likes. 

Loves. 

Thanks for the scones. 

He smiles softly and lifts his head, but David has already disappeared upstairs. 

xxxxxx

Patrick takes comfort in knowing that David’s get-ready-for-the-day routine hasn’t changed much in the intervening years. If the average hour and twenty-three minutes it takes him to complete it is any barometer. He had waited until David descended once more before saying goodbye for, well, the day, he supposed. Forever? Jesus, he hoped not. 

He wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t have an agenda. Now he’s wondering why he didn’t pick up one of those travel books at the airport. 

Because the internet exists, you idiot.

David suggested the High Line, because “it’s a beautiful day for a walk,” and Patrick didn’t have the heart to tell him he’d already clocked a couple of miles that morning. But walking again sounds like a good plan, given how much energy he has vibrating through every limb in his body, so he heads north out of the apartment instead of south, winding his way through the cobblestoned streets, just going with the streetlights. 

When he hits the Village and Bleecker Street, he pauses, pulling out his phone and looking up the address of another location he and David were going to visit when they came here. It’s how he finds himself standing outside of The Stonewall Inn, looking up at her neon sign and copious Pride flags peppered in the plant holders beneath the second floor windows, stuck there as if to say, this is ours. It’s not open. According to the door, it won’t be open until 12pm, but he sticks his hands in his pockets and stares because this is where he was meant to be today. 

He inhales deeply, working on suppressing the feelings of imposter syndrome he sometimes gets, feelings that David has always been so good at dispelling. He pulls up the website and reads the history, paying his respects, before heading into Christopher Park across the way and taking a seat next to the ‘Gay Liberation’ statues. 

He pulls out his phone again and looks at his Favourites list, which is a few names short these days. He hits Mom and barely gets the phone to his ear before she’s answering with a high-pitched, “Patrick?” 

“Hi,” he says somewhat sheepishly. He can hear her ragged breathing, hear the panic even through the silence on the line. Oh, he’s the worst son in the world. “I’m sorry, I’m safe.” 

“I know,” she says, and her voice is wobbly. It echoes a bit; he can tell she’s put him on speakerphone. 

“Hi, Dad.” 

“Hey, bud,” his father replies from the background. Luckily, he sounds more put together than his mom. Had they both lost it, he would have been one of those New Yorkers who just cries in public and no one acknowledges it. David used to say it was one of the best things about the city. 

“I swear I’m not crazy,” he manages, tearing up anyway.  

“We never thought you were, sweet boy.” 

He inhales sharply and watches as the Stonewall Inn opens. 

“What’s in New York, son?” his dad asks and Patrick laughs at the myriad of ways he could answer that question: my life, my love, your son-in-law, your skincare guru, my other half, the man I can’t live without. The man who has no idea who I am and it’s killing me slowly, but sufficiently. 

Instead, he settles for the one word that sums up what David is to him: 

“Everything.” His breathing is now as ragged as his mom’s. He watches as an old man enters the bar. Patrick wonders how often he comes. 

“Does this have to do with David Rose?” his mother asks, and the question floors him. 

He’s always known his mother sees more than she lets on. Being the only child, she let him get away with more than he should have, but he followed the rules - possibly too much. So to get called out on something he thought he’d been playing close to the vest is - well, it’s earth tilting. 

David Rose leaving his mother’s lips in this time, in this place. It gives him hope. 

“Yeah,” he croaks, the word lodging itself in his throat. 

“Honey, what’s going on?”  

He rubs his forehead, feeling sweat bead despite the cool day. “You’re going to have me committed.” 

“Only if we catch you first,” his dad jokes, and God, he loves him for it. He laughs and it’s a hollow thing, but it’s something. 

Another old man goes into the bar, and he idly wonders if he’s a friend of the first guy. Or maybe a partner. A husband. 

The word makes his breath hitch. 

“Patrick?” his mom prompts, and he clears his throat and wipes his eyes. 

“Yeah.” He wishes he was with them, even if only to see how skeptical their expressions are. “I’m not kidding when I say this sounds insane.” 

“Try me, sweet boy.” His mother’s words from yesterday come back to him, fill him with the kind of strength he needs to get what he needs to say out. Sometimes he has to remind himself that these people made him, raised him, know everything about him - now. They trust him, when he gives them the chance. The last year-and-a-half has seen the best relationship he’s ever had with his parents, which is why he closes his eyes and exhales slowly. 

“We’re listening,” his dad murmurs, much closer to the phone now, all joking gone. 

“Um…” He looks up and squints into the sky. 

Be brave. 

“When I woke up yesterday… It was May 16, 2015.” His parents don’t make a sound. They just wait patiently. He licks his lips and stares across the park at the Pride flags waving in the breeze. “When I went to sleep the night before, it was May 15, 2020.” 

He hears someone inhale, probably his mother, but again, they don’t say a word. He wishes he could see their faces. 

“It was my bachelor party. I’m - where I’m from, I’m getting married.” The tears come freely now, tracking down his face unchecked. Passersby pay him no mind, and David was right. The ability to cry openly in public really is one of the best things about New York.

“To David Rose,” his mothers whispers. It’s not a question.

“Yeah,” he says, voice cracking. 

“Oh, Patrick,” she breathes. 

He exhales a sob and rests his elbow on his knee, dropping his head into his hand. The words pour out of him now, things he hasn’t been able to say in too long. It’s only been 24 hours, but even one hour is long enough when his rings are not on David’s fingers.

“I know. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. I live in Schitt’s Creek with David. We opened a store. A really, really successful store selling products from local vendors on consignment. David sends you gift baskets when he thinks I’m not paying attention and takes me out for date nights forty minutes away just because he knows I like the Italian place in Elm Valley. You spent last Christmas with us and we came to you for Thanksgiving. You love him so much. And I found him yesterday, but he doesn’t know who I am, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to be in a world where I’m not marrying David Rose tomorrow.” 

He’s weeping now, not even trying to muffle his sobs. It’s cathartic to let it out. His muscles have felt pulled as tight as his guitar strings just trying to keep everything in, and as he cries in a park next to George Segal’s statues, he feels them slowly release.

“I know it’s crazy - ” he starts to say again, but his father interrupts him. 

“What do you need?”  

He pauses. “What?” 

“How can we help, sweetheart?” His mom, this time.  

He wipes his hand across his face again and groans through his stuffy nose. He’s never loved his parents more than he does in this moment. And that includes the night of his birthday. “I don’t think you can. But... you believe me?” 

“Patrick, you’ve been sensible since you were a toddler,” his dad says. “If this is what you say happened, then it happened.”  

He sniffs and wipes his face again. “Mom?” 

“You were different yesterday, and I couldn’t put my finger on it - ”

He chuckles wryly, glad to reach the point where he can do so. “Yeah, well, emotional breakdowns will do that to you.” 

His mother hums and continues. “I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I can now: you were you.” 

So simple. So earth-shattering. He was not prepared for three little words to wind him like that. Then again, three little words have been kneecapping him for quite some time, now that he thinks about it: 

A bold claim. 

I love you. 

It’s a Yes. 

You were you.

“If you need anything,” his dad says, interrupting his rather axis-tilting realization, “money or a place to stay - just anything, let us know. We’re here for you.” 

“I will,” he murmurs, feeling his ears heat a little. “David, uh, David actually let me crash in his spare bedroom last night.” 

“That’s… progress?” His mom says, far too casually. It reminds him of the first time she walked in on them half-dressed and making out in his childhood bedroom, and then had to face them over lasagna that night. 

“Yeah, we’ll see,” he quietly replies. He can’t afford to get his hopes up. Not if this journey is just starting. 

“What are you going to do?” his dad asks, and he shrugs. It takes him a second to remember they can’t see him. 

“I don’t know. I don’t know how this works. Or how long it lasts. It could be - it could be forever.” His voice cracks again and he blows out a breath. 

“What happened to the old you?" his dad follows up. "I mean - the Patrick of 2015.” 

He swallows. “I proposed to Rachel.” 

His mom huffs out a breath, and he remembers that apprehensive look on her face. Both then and now. “Oh.” 

“I called it off before the wedding, though. Ran away to Schitt’s Creek. A few weeks later, I met David.” 

“How?” 

One word is all it takes to open the floodgates, because if this is forever and he says it out loud, maybe he won't forget. So he tells them everything - how David walked into his office having no idea what he was doing and yet knowing exactly what he wanted. He talks about the voicemails but omits the fact that David was as high as the Green Monster at Fenway. He talks about the business license frame and Alexis flirting and getting the money. Soft openings versus hard launches (minus the sexual innuendo), tricky wiring and Youtube videos, Stevie’s tab for wine and Mrs. Rose’s tab for shoplifting. He tells them about forgotten birthdays and crashed dates and defrosted mozzarella sticks. Of car rides home and how David was brave when Patrick couldn’t be. 

Be brave. 

He tells them about open mic nights and barbecues and Rachel and Tina Turner. About how, in their language, Mariah Carey means I love you. How ropes courses are a mistake, but not as much as spin the bottle. He doesn’t tell them about Ken, but he does tell them about how David was the MVP (or the VIP, depending on whom you ask). 

He talks about how he waited over a year to let them know he had met the most important person in his life. To explain why he couldn’t marry Rachel. Why he ran away. He can hear his mother crying on the other end of the line, and he really doesn’t mean to make her upset, but they should know. They need to know it wasn’t anything they did. Not really. 

He tells them about Cabaret and a hike gone wrong and then oh so right.  

They were the first phone call that night (after they had ascertained that Mr. Rose was not dying). They were the first people who knew and he tells them that, too. 

By the time he finishes, it’s late afternoon and his ass is numb from sitting on a hard bench for the past couple of hours. It’s quiet for a few moments, and then his mother speaks:

“I want that life for you, Patrick.”

And he’s crying all over again.

“I want it, too,” he whispers. He wants it back so badly. 

“You deserve it,” his father says, and his throat goes tight. What did he do to deserve to be loved so well by so many people? 

“It’s a good life,” he promises. “The kind you only ever hope to get.” 

His phone beeps at him, telling him his battery is low. He says as much to his parents and they try to shoo him off the line, but he’s reluctant to let go of this tether to sanity they’ve provided, this hand they’ve offered to pull him back from the brink.

“We love you so much, sweet boy.” 

He smiles. “I know. I love you, too.” 

His phone chimes in his hand, but it’s a different sound from a low battery alarm. He pulls it away from his cheek to see David’s name on the screen, and his heart lurches in his chest. 

[David]
You can spend the night again. If you want.

And because his mother is a goddamn mind-reader, she says, “Go get him.” 

Be brave. 

He thinks of rash business investments and on-the-fly auditions and gone-awry marriage proposals and realizes something absolutely life-altering: 

“I know how to do that now.” 

He says goodbye and hangs up, typing out a message with thumbs that almost don’t shake. 

Only if you let me buy you dinner first.

xxxxxx

He swings by the gallery to pick up David’s keys so he can shower and get changed and also charge his phone. When he arrives, David is speaking to a customer at the far end about a piece on the wall that might be a naked woman? Patrick frowns at it for a second until David catches his eye. Then he’s sure he looks like a Christmas tree that just got plugged in.  

Blake gives him another coy look as she holds up the ring of keys and jingles them, before leaning in conspiratorially. “Need restaurant recommendations? I have an alphabetized file of his favorites.” 

“No, I remember,” he replies with a smile that falters at her confused look. Right. He’s not supposed to know David’s favorites. He just met him yesterday. 

Still, she hands the keys over with another loaded look that manages to convey both the you’re a button of Alexis and the you’re not nearly as smooth as you think you are of Stevie. It's... impressive, honestly. 

He clears his throat and thanks her with a nod, shuffling his feet awkwardly as he watches David out of the corner of his eye. He’s nodding at the woman who’s speaking to him with careful attention, but Patrick knows that look. It’s the same one David gets when he’s talking toner with a customer who will not stop asking him mundane questions about a product that does not fit her skin type. 

“Yeah, that’s Mrs. Gunderson,” Blake says. “Comes in every Sunday. He’ll be there for at least another hour.” 

“Ah,” Patrick murmurs, only slightly disappointed. “Well, thanks for the keys.” 

“Thanks for making him slightly more bearable today,” she chirps back, and he can’t help but snort as he waves goodbye to David. The warm smile he gets in return keeps him company on the short walk back. 

He makes a reservation on his phone at the Waverly Inn for 8pm that night and remembers the way David talked about its high end comfort food and cozy ambiance. It wasn’t a place to be seen in - the lighting was too low for that - but it was old school all the same. David promised to take him there one day, and Patrick only feels slightly guilty for beating him to the punch. The gallery closes at 6pm and an 8pm reservation will give David time to shut down and do whatever he needs to do for this… date? Not date? 

It’s a question he hasn’t had to worry about in three years and one he didn’t miss one bit. He contemplates it as he showers again, resolving to just treat this as a ‘thank you’ for letting him crash. It doesn’t need to have the added pressure of, say, a birthday dinner. That he hopes is a date. That gets crashed. By an ex. 

Because this could be the only David he gets, and he’s going to have to make peace with that. 

He hates that he didn’t think to bring his blazer. What’s a first date/not-date without it? 

He changes into a pair of charcoal pants and a black button down, the only nice outfit he owns that isn’t jeans. Given how quickly he packed, he’s shocked it made it into the bag. His David has never seen it, considering he’d stained the shirt with bleach and ruined the pants with a dry cleaning mishap well before he moved. He’d like to think he’d appreciate it though. Patrick dressing in his color palate. (In fact, he knows he would and had the bruises on his thighs for days to prove it.)

He flips on a baseball game, just for some background noise. Something to hold his attention so he doesn’t start pacing. The Yankees are playing the Royals and getting spanked. He’s not sure how time works now, but he wishes he could pull a Back to the Future and bet on a few matches. 

The game ends, and he stares at the clock until it moves molasses-slow from 5:16pm to 6:03pm. And, yes, he takes a moment to acknowledge that he has reached a new low. Luckily, he can’t wallow in it for long because the buzzer rings, and he nearly jumps out of his skin, jogging over to the intercom and hitting what he hopes is the button for the front door. 

His phone chimes over on the coffee table, and he jogs back over to get it. The text just reads: 

[David]
Next button. 😊

“Dammit,” he mutters as he runs over again and hits the one on the right. He opens the door separating the apartment from the small foyer and patiently waits until the elevator slides open. “So what does the first button do?” he asks without waiting for a greeting, and David grins, raising an eyebrow.

“Gives elevator access to this floor. Obviously.” 

“Obviously. They should switch the buttons, then,” he says almost petulantly. “It makes no sense.” 

“Alexis was right. He’s a button.” 

They need to stop talking about buttons. 

David hums and walks up to him, close enough that Patrick can smell his aftershave, and gives him a blatant up and down. “Someone’s looking spiffy. Where are we going?” 

Patrick licks his lips and wills his eyes not to stray south. “The Waverly Inn.” 

“Huh. Good choice.” 

He smirks, going for confident, but probably falling in the vicinity of preening. “I made the reservation for 8pm. Gives you about 90 minutes to get ready. I know that’s cutting it close, but it was all they had.” That’s a lie, and David knows it. 

“And how do you know how long I take to get ready?” He’s teasing, little shoulder shimmy making an appearance. Patrick expects David’s fingers to go dancing up his arms in a minute, but they’re not there yet. That’s not what they do. 

It’s amazing, the things he never realized he would miss.

“Go on,” he says, voice a little rough. “Clock’s ticking.”  

David gives him a saucily-arched eyebrow as he passes by him towards the stairs. He doesn’t look back, because he probably doesn’t need to to know that Patrick is watching him go. 

He waits a little more calmly while David gets ready, as if his mere presence is its own kind of weighted blanket. He wants to wrap himself up in David for the rest of his days. 

You almost did. 

“Stop it,” he growls. 

“Um, stop what?” 

Patrick stands and turns, ready to assure that he’s not actually a psychopath, but his mouth betrays him, hanging open, utterly silent at the sight of David in black jeans and a black sweater - 

With a white lightning bolt cutting a jagged edge through his torso. 

He grabs the edge of the couch and tries to stay standing. He wasn’t ready for this. 

“Ready?” David asks.

He swallows, but it does nothing for him. “Yeah,” he rasps, forcing a smile through muscles that just don’t want to work.  

Fight for him. 

The smile turns a bit more genuine as he passes by, finger hooking in the sleeve of the sweater he’s gotten to know intimately over the last few years. 

“I like this.” 

“You better. It’s Neil Barrett.” 

“I know,” he murmurs, and that pulls David up short. 

“You do?” 

He hits the button for the elevator and shoves his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching again. Seeing David in the outfit he wore on their first date has crushed him in a way he wasn't expecting. Blue blazers have nothing on this. “You’d be surprised by what I know about fashion. For instance, this must be hand washed cold and line dried.” 

David stares at him as the elevator doors open. “You’re… unexpected, Patrick Brewer.” 

You’re not in the slightest, David Rose. 

They hail a cab when they get to the street and ride the ten minutes to the restaurant, making small talk about family members Patrick pretends not to know. He lets David lead when they arrive, despite the fact that the reservation is under his name. He can see why David likes the place, with its low ceilings and dim lighting and fireplace and history. 

They’re led to a table towards the back, a red booth on one side and a chair on the other, white tablecloth stretched between. David lets Patrick take the booth so he can watch the room, as if Patrick’s gaze would be on anyone but him. 

His hands are clammy as he studies the menu, feeling like so much more is at stake than a potential first kiss. The rest of Patrick’s life is on the line, his happiness, his livelihood, his fucking sanity. One wrong move could send his future down a road from which it might never recover. 

So much for treating this as just a ‘thanks for letting me crash’ dinner. 

He feels slightly better once David orders a bottle of wine, and he gets his first gulp in him. He has no idea how he’s going to pay for this, but his job pre-Schitt’s Creek made decent money. Still, the idea of $12 onion rings is a little painful. 

They split the burrata and David forces him to try grilled octopus. It’s not… the worst thing he’s ever eaten, and he marvels at how David had adapted from menus like this one to the bible-length hodgepodge of questionable choices at Cafe Tropical. 

He settles on the duck breast while David gets the $26 cheeseburger, and he takes comfort in the fact that some things never change. They keep the topics relatively benign: families, friends, work. They swap stories of parental punishment, most of which Patrick had heard before, but some he hadn’t. They were the darker ones, told now with laughter and flippancy. Tales of Moira being passed out on the sofa and missing the fact that David nearly burned the house down or Johnny forgetting to send his driver to pick David up from Hebrew camp. Needless to say, the Roses and the Brewers had different methods of childrearing. 

"Have you ever been in love?" is the next question, asked casually like it's a normal thing to do, and Patrick has heard about heart-stopping moments, but he never truly believed in them. Never knew how such a vital organ could just... abandon him like this. 

"Yeah," he manages, sounding like he's swallowed his tongue. "Twice." 

"Oh?" David leans forward like Patrick is about to divulge the juiciest of details, but he's too busy trying to ascertain if he needs a paramedic or not.

"You know what they say," he chuckles after a second that takes a decade. "Better to have loved and lost..."

David hums. "I wouldn't know."

But you would. You show me what love is every damn day.

Patrick doesn’t bring up Rachel, even if he could make his mouth work. He doesn’t want to frighten David off, which he knows is just history repeating itself, but in his mind, in his heart, he and Rachel ended things almost four years ago. The most recent relationship he’s still hung up on, the one that he lives and breathes in his dreams and nightmares and the waking hours in between is with the man sitting across the table from him. 

"Have you ever been in love?"  Jesus, he could write sonnets.

"Well," David begins, "at least your significant other didn’t splash naked photos of you in compromising positions all over The Whitney and then sell barely censored copies to the highest online bidder for everyone to see.” 

“I haven’t,” Patrick says, adamant and vehement, and when David asks him why, he gives the most honest answer he can: “You wouldn’t have wanted me to.” 

David leans back heavily in his chair, clutching his spoon in his hand, and his face goes on a journey that Patrick wishes he could track. He looks lost and amazed and so utterly floored that all Patrick can do his put his hand over David's clenched fist and try to convey everything he wants to in a single touch.

The moment is broken when the waiter returns to hand over dessert menus, and David seems to gather himself at the thought of refined sugar. 

"What's good here?" Patrick asks, clearing his throat and letting go of his hand as he surveys the dessert menu.

"Everything," David replies, and it sounds like he's talking about more than just the after-dinner options. 

Decision made, they hand their menus back to the waiter with their choice ordered (chocolate mousse, naturally), and David clears his throat, looking like he hasn't quite shaken whatever moment he had earlier. 

“How long are you planning on staying?” he asks, and Patrick's heart does that thing again.

“Oh,” he chuckles. It sounds false to his own ears. “I’ll be out of your hair in no time.” Unless you ask me to stay. Please ask me to stay. 

David flaps his hands in the way that makes Patrick want to grab them and kiss his knuckles. “I was merely inquiring because I’m heading to my parents’ next weekend. The LA house. They’re hosting a - ”

“Memorial Day party,” Patrick blurts, and David stills. 

“How - Did I already tell you?” 

Patrick shakes his head, ears ringing, because he knows that this is the weekend the IRS comes to knock on their door. It’s why David and Alexis were home. They were - they were there for the party. His stomach plummets to his heels. 

He has to warn him. 

“David, I have to tell you something.” And the minute the words are out, he can practically see David’s walls go back up. 

“Uh oh.” He grimaces. “Don’t like the sound of that.” 

Oh God, this is a terrible idea. 

“Maybe we should wait until we get home,” he says, shifting in his seat, but David rapidly shakes his head.

“No, out with it. You can’t say those words in that tone and then renege.” He’s started pulling at a loose thread on the cloth napkin. 

This is a truly terrible idea. 

At least that’s what the rational part of his brain tells himself. The other part, the reckless part that dove head first into a business relationship with a boy he liked puts his hand on top of David’s and tells the rational side to shut the fuck up. 

“Do you trust me?” 

“You stood in front of me and told me to trust people.” 

David’s eyes widen. “I don’t know you.” Because of course he doesn't - it's been 24 hours. 

“I know,” Patrick starts to say, but David cuts him off:

“Yes.” 

Inhale. Exhale. “What?” 

“I trust you. Yes.” 

Patrick stares at him, trying to figure out what the world did to deserve David Rose; what he did to let this beautiful man's path cross with his own. He licks his lips and swallows, giving himself a mental pep talk before quite possibly the most important conversation of his life. Okay.

Okay. 

“What I’m going to tell you is going to sound insane. You’re going to think I’m insane.” 

“Patrick - ” he starts, but Patrick holds his hand tighter. 

“I need you to know that, whatever happens in the next few minutes, whatever - whatever I say, every word out of my mouth is the truth. Okay? I need you to know that.”

David nods, but remains silent.  

Patrick licks his lips and focuses on the scar on David’s knuckle he says he got at a rave in Amsterdam, but Patrick knows he got falling off a ladder trying to hang a Happy Birthday banner for Alexis’ 14th. 

“I woke up yesterday morning and it was May 16, 2015.” 

David nods like That’s correct, yes, when do things get weird? 

“When I went to bed the night before... it was May 15, 2020.”  

His face now says Oh, okay. Things have gotten weird. 

Patrick barrels onwards, fingers gripping tighter to David’s hand as if that alone is enough to tether him to the table. “I come from a place called Schitt’s Creek - ”

But David barks out a laugh, interrupting him. “That’s not a real place. Please. My dad faked the deed.” 

The piece of tape holding Patrick's heart together peels back a bit. “I guarantee you it is.” He inhales deeply. “We live there.” 

David stares at him, uncomprehending. “We live there," he repeats. 

Patrick nods. 

Then David's laughing again, but it's not nearly as boisterous as the first time. “Bullshit.”

“You do, you live in Schitt’s Creek," he says, desperation rising. "This weekend, before the party, Revenue knocks on your door. Your dad’s business manager - Eli, right?” 

David nods and, for the first time since Patrick asked Do you trust me? the blood is starting to drain from his face. 

“He isn’t paying taxes. The government is about to take everything from you. You get a very small amount of money set aside and a single asset you’re allowed to retain.” 

“The town,” he murmurs. 

“The town,” Patrick confirms. 

David’s face is one of the most expressive Patrick has ever seen, but in this moment, he’s unreadable. It’s quite possibly more terrifying than waking up in a bedroom he hasn’t slept in in years  

“That can’t be true,” he says, but Patrick heads him off.

“Why would I lie to you?” 

“Because everyone does,” he snaps, the first crack in his cool veneer. 

Patrick feels tears prick his eyes, but he continues to hold on tight to David’s hand. “You said you trusted me.” 

“I can take it back,” he threatens. 

And he can. But he didn’t say he had.

“You were born on July 2nd, 1983,” he whispers, and David stills.  

“Okay, rude to bring up a person’s age. Also, Google can tell you that, despite my lawyer’s interventions.” 

Patrick nods in concession. “I knew to bring you here.”

David shrugs. “Any decent list of restaurants in the area could tell you to do that.”

”You have a twelve step skincare routine that, if done in its entirety, takes 43 minutes.” 

David pauses, eyes narrowing slightly. “You could have seen that in the bathroom.” 

“I haven’t been in your bathroom here," he argues, pulling at any straw - every straw. "You have a sweater no one knows you sleep in. It’s L.L. Bean, which is why you refuse to tell anyone you own it, but it’s the most comfortable thing you’ve ever worn. You save it for really cold nights. It’s May, you haven’t worn it. How would I know that?” 

“Are you a reporter?”

“David, I’m serious,” he begs. “I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

“Did Sebastien put you up to this?” He’s panicking now, brain searching for anything to make sense out of the incomprehensible. The impossible. 

So Patrick says the one thing that only someone who loves David as much as she did would know:  

“You had a nanny named Adelina.” His voice cracks on her name. 

David pulls his hand away, sits back, and just blinks.  

“How do you know that?” he whispers. 

“Because, David…” and this time, a tear does fall. “In that life, four years from now in Schitt’s Creek, you invited her to our wedding.” 

The words sit there, hovering over the white tablecloth where Patrick’s hand still rests, empty and bereft. 

“Ah, see. There’s your mistake,” David says, forcing a smile even as his lower lips wobbles. Bravado on display until the very last. “No one would agree to marry me. Now I know you’re lying.” 

Patrick looks down, because he can’t bear to see the skepticism in David’s eyes anymore. Clasping his hands together, he starts to talk, feeling like a convict pleading his own case. 

“You came into my office looking to file incorporation papers for an idea you had. You were wearing a Rick Owens sweater, black with white lines down the front. You wanted to start a store named Rose Apothecary, selling products from local vendors on consignment. I loved your idea so much that I joined you. I got you grants for the startup money you needed. We debated about a hard launch or a soft opening. You won, naturally.” He huffs out a laugh, staring at a red wine stain on the table. “And one day, after I worked up enough courage, I asked you out for dinner. It was your birthday. July 2nd. Your family had forgotten.” 

David exhales harshly, as if that’s the most damning evidence that what Patrick’s been saying is true. 

“We’ve been together for three years, engaged one. We don’t live together yet, but you spend most of your time at my place anyway. Your moisturizer is on my counter, your toothbrush is next to mine, and your L.L. Bean sweater is on my shelf." He's barely keeping it together, but it's the bottom of the 9th and the bases are loaded. David would hate that analogy, which just makes Patrick love it all the more. "And I don’t know how I got here or why. All I know is that I woke up in a bed that didn’t have you in it in a home that wasn’t ours and I had to find you.” 

David doesn't say a word. Patrick has heard about silence being deafening, but the concept had always seemed a little too hyperbolic - until now. 

He chances a glance up to find David’s eyes red and cheeks wet. His lips are swollen from biting them, but Patrick can’t define the look on his face. He was always his favorite book to read, but now, Patrick is at a loss. 

David suddenly inhales, blinking rapidly, as if breaking through the water’s surface. “I can’t - I can’t be here. I have to go.” He stands so abruptly, the chair tips over, bringing all eyes on them. 

“David, please,” he tries but David is already halfway across the restaurant. He wants to run after him, but this David is still his David. 

“I think I need some time with it.” 

So he lets him go and drops his head into his hands, but it isn’t until the dessert is placed in front of him a moment later that he remembers it’s Sunday. 

He should have married him today. 

xxxxxx

The mousse sits on the table uneaten as Patrick pays the bill, the back of his neck heating under the judgmental gaze of every patron in the restaurant. 

What did you think was going to happen? 

He offers a tight smile to the waiter as he stands and slowly makes his way out, staggering when he hits the cool night air and bending forward, placing his hands on his knees. He can’t breathe, and despite being outside, it feels as if the walls are closing in on him. He pats his pocket to pull out his phone, hoping for a text from David, yet knowing it’s been silent all evening -

And finds David’s keys instead. 

“Shit.” He glances around for an open cab, but none of their lights are on, so he takes off in the direction of the apartment at a jog, nice outfit and uncomfortable shoes be damned. 

He wants to give David space, sure, but he also doesn’t want him to be locked out of his own home. He makes it to his street in less than twenty minutes, but David isn’t hanging out on the stoop as Patrick had hoped. Not that he actually expected him to be there. David is a proud man. It’s one of the many things Patrick loves most about him.

He lets himself into the building, wondering if there’s perhaps another secret way in, but the apartment is empty as well. Overwhelmingly so. Patrick can feel every square inch of the space now - cold and unforgiving in a way it never was before. He looks around to see if there’s evidence David has been there; jumped in a cab, arrived and gone just as quickly, but everything is as they left it. 

It’s late now, almost 10:30pm. He can’t contemplate sleep, but he doesn’t dare go looking for David in case he comes back. Besides, Patrick is in a city that David knows intimately and that he doesn’t know at all. If David doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be. 

If his disappearance stretches, Patrick doesn’t know what he’ll do. The gallery is closed on Mondays. He won’t know where to find him. He desperately wants to call Stevie or Alexis - the only two people who are able to talk him down from a David-centered catastrophe. The two who know him - know them - the best. They tried to intervene two nights ago, but apparently he and David were beyond help. And he’ll never drink a polar bear shot as long as he lives because of it. 

Now, he assumes Stevie is behind the desk in Schitt’s Creek and Alexis is… God knows where. In some sultan’s palace, probably. He’s always known he loved them. Wanted them in his life. But until now, he never knew how badly he needed them. 

With nothing but his thoughts for company, he pulls out his phone again and stares at his Favourites. He hasn’t returned David to his rightful place at the top because God forbid the nosy man break in and see it. His mom occupies that spot now, and he so desperately wants to talk to her that he’s heedless of the time as he presses her name. 

She answers on the third ring, voice a little groggy, but alert. “Patrick? Are you all right?” 

But he can’t find the words. He’s so far from all right, he cannot even begin to quantify it. So instead, he does what any sane, thirty-three-turned-twenty-eight-year old does when they’ve lost the love of their life: 

He sobs. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmurs as he lets it all out - the pain, the confusion, the panic, the hope, the grief of the last 36 hours. She whispers nonsense in his ear, comforting platitudes that can’t guarantee anything, but he clings to them, bathes in them, because they’re the only form of comfort he has. 

In this moment, at the end of his world, he just wants his mom. 

“I told him,” he finally manages when he gets himself under control. “I didn’t realize that this weekend is the weekend they lose their money so I told him and he ran away and it’s my fault.” 

“Honey, you can’t blame yourself for that. You were telling the truth - ”

“Was I?” he asks bitterly. “Maybe I am crazy.” 

“Patrick Matthew Brewer,” she reprimands sharply. “You are not crazy.” 

He breathes wetly through the receiver, hanging his head. “You should have seen his face. It was like - like I had just shattered his world. He’s only ever looked at me like that once before.” 

And she knows the story now, so she's able to reason, “But he came back then." 

“Yeah, after a week,” he replies sourly.  

“He’s not going to leave you alone in his apartment for a week, sweetheart.” 

He laughs at that, and she hums at her success. He doesn't know how he ever let himself drift so far apart from them. “I’m sorry to call so late.” 

“It’s okay. Didn’t even wake your father. He’s still snoring away.” 

“So that’s what that sound is," he drawls. "I thought someone was doing yard work.” 

She laughs loudly and freely, and he can’t remember if the actual Patrick of 2015 ever made her laugh like that. “I love you, Mom,” he murmurs, and she sighs. He can hear her smile.  

“I love you, too, sweet boy. Now,” she says conspiratorially, “tell me about this date.” 

And so he does. 

He spends the next hour or so detailing every minute - the food, the drink, the stories, the expressions on David’s face. The way he nearly upended a tray of martinis when he gestured indignantly about the state of artist representation and the way he seemed genuinely interested in the answer when he asked Have you ever been in love?  

He’s about to explain the gloriousness that is The Number when the intercom loudly buzzes, halting the words on his tongue and the breath in his chest.

No one else would ring the bell this late. 

“What was that?” his mom asks, but Patrick is already standing. 

“I think…”

He goes over to the wall where the panel is and lifts a shaking finger to the right button. He tries to recall every patron saint his Catholic upbringing taught him as he presses down. He follows quickly with the left button to activate the elevator, makes sure the door is unlocked, and goes to stand rigidly by the back of the sofa. As if she can sense how significant this moment is, his mom remains silent in his ear. 

He can hear the ding of the elevator in the foyer and, a moment later, the front door opens. David stands there looking beautiful and wrecked and a thousand other adjectives that haven’t been invented yet. 

“Mom? I gotta go.” 

“Go get him” she whispers again before ending the call. 

His arm drops to his side and he lets David look at him, gaze slowly tracking over every inch of his body. As if truly seeing him for the first time. He doesn’t move from the doorway and Patrick doesn’t get closer. They are two souls trying to recognize each in the other. 

Of all the words he tried to find and phrases he practiced in his head for this moment, he never expected silence to be the answer. 

He drops his phone on the couch as David takes a step forward, blindly shutting the door behind him. 

“So when you said you’d had a friend who’d gone through this before," he begins. "Who'd had their own Sebastien. The one that was… more than a friend… That was me.”

“Yeah,” he whispers.

David nods in that rapid way he does, forehead creasing, lips pulled between his teeth. “You didn’t get off a plane, not book a hotel, and just decide to go to a gallery.” 

Patrick slowly shakes his head, inadvertently shuffling forward, as if a magnet in his chest is trying to find one in David’s. 

“You weren’t looking for art.” He pauses, meeting his eyes once more. “You were looking for me.” 

“They’re not mutually exclusive.” 

David blushes the way Patrick loves, and he can’t help himself, he closes the distance between them, but keeps enough space that David would have to consciously make the choice for them to be touching.

“We’re together,” David clarifies again, and of all of the bombs Patrick dropped on him that evening, he’s not sure why this fact is the most shocking. Surely the loss of the family’s money is the more pressing concern. 

“In the future, yes.” 

“You... proposed to me.” 

“Yes.”  

“You married me.” 

Patrick closes his eyes and swallows hard. “Today,” he rasps. “I was supposed to marry you today.” He was prepared for a lot of life's curveballs, but life never prepared him for this. 

“And where am I?” David continues, just as softly, as if well aware of the pain this is causing Patrick. “I mean - the other David.” 

“I don’t know. He’s not here.” 

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, as if ashamed that, once more, he’s not what someone needs or wants him to be. Patrick can smell vodka on his breath.

He opens his eyes then to find David even closer, red eyes looking down, flitting across his face as if trying to memorize him. “Don’t be.”  

“You chose me,” he says almost wondrously. And Patrick could kill the person who somehow convinced David Rose he’s not a wonder to behold. 

“Every damn day,” he whispers fiercely, and then David is in his arms, pressing their bodies together, arms wrapped tightly. Patrick breathes raggedly into David’s neck, into the spot that is his, so he presses a light kiss there, which makes David only hold him tighter. He can feel tears on his collar, and he traces the notches of David’s spine, occasionally kneading the tight muscles there until David is practically dead weight in his arms. 

“You are so loved, David Rose,” he whispers and a sob is muffled against his shoulder. He presses another chaste kiss to his neck before reaching up and cupping the back of his head, gently swaying with him back and forth the way they did just the night before. 

Minutes (hours?) later, David steps back and resolve seems to wash over his stunning features. 

“Take me there,” he breathes and Patrick freezes, sure he didn't hear right.

“What?”

“Where we met," he says, self-consciousness disguised as confidence. "The town, with the terrible name. Take me there.”

xxxxxx

The 11:05am flight was the earliest David would even consider, which is pretty impressive given what Patrick knows about David's morning routines. 

After he had asked Patrick to take him to Schitt’s Creek, they booked their tickets and started to get ready for bed. Patrick hadn’t known what David’s endgame was; he should probably have been focusing on letting his dad know about Eli, but this was David’s journey of self-discovery. Patrick was just along for the ride. 

They changed and washed and came back together for a cursory goodnight, staring at each other for a second, each taking the other in. Patrick could only imagine what was going through David’s head, looking at a stranger and knowing this is the man he’s going to marry. How odd that must feel. And not for the first time, Patrick wondered if David was perhaps disappointed in his future self's decisions. In his tastes. 

In his commitments.

But David disappeared back upstairs with a little wave, the same one he greeted Patrick with while walking across Cafe Tropical, and emotional exhaustion dragged Patrick down deep, surrounded by comfortable but expensive linens he only lets David splurge on when there's a sale. Minutes later (or what feels like minutes), his bed dips and a weight presses against his leg. 

He blinks blurry eyes open and smooths a palm across the sheets. “David?”

He doesn’t get a response at first, but he can clearly see his outline through the darkness. A hand reaches out and hovers over Patrick’s chest, before pressing down on his thundering heart. 

“I’m afraid you’re not real," he murmurs, voice wavering like he's scared of what's hiding under the bed.

“David,” he whispers, “I’ve been saying that about you for the last three years.”

David laughs wetly and shakes his head, but Patrick won’t hear otherwise.

“Do you want to stay?”

“No. I don’t think I’m ready for that yet,” he admits, which is a huge step for a guy who was ready to jump his bones not 24 hours ago. 

Intimacy is a far scarier thing than sex. 

“I won’t leave, David,” Patrick says, because he’s heard enough stories. He knows David is used to seeing people's backs as they walk out the door. “I’ll still be here in the morning. I promise.”

David nods, rocking back a bit on the bed. “You knew I needed to hear that.” 

“I know you, David.” He places his hand on top of David's, tucking his fingers under his palm. “What I said tonight was the truth, but I also know you. Every hidden fear, every secret you think you have, you don’t have it from me.” 

David tries to laugh, but it manifests as a sob/snort. “I feel like I’m at a disadvantage.” 

Truer words were never spoken. 

“You are," he says, thumb rubbing gently on David's knuckles. "But that’s not how we usually are. And I promise to never exploit it until we’re on equal footing.” 

David nods and leans forward, close enough for Patrick to hold his breath, to question where exactly it is that he's heading. David stares at him for a moment before moving up and kissing Patrick’s forehead, lips lingering like he's trying to brand him. Patrick exhales shakily.  

“Go back to sleep,” David whispers, and Patrick nods, closing his eyes and bringing their clasped hands to his mouth so he can place a kiss on David’s knuckles. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he mumbles. 

“I know,” David replies. “Me neither.” 

“Good,” he says as he drifts off, dreaming of disaster hikes leading to the Stonewall Inn and proposals by the bar where the answer is who are you?  instead of it's a yes - 

And when Patrick wakes in the morning, David is gone. 

Sort of. 

He’s passed out on the leather couch in the library outside of Patrick’s room. 

Idiot, he thinks fondly as he looks at him through the glass door. He won’t be able to move once he gets up.

Personally, Patrick feels like he’s been hit by a truck, exhaustion manifesting itself in the form of a pounding headache, aching joints, and swollen eyes. He checks his phone to find it’s only just after 7:30am. He’s not sure what time they actually went to bed, or what time David visited his room in the middle of the night, but he thinks that four hours of sleep total is a very generous estimation. 

He pads out to the library and watches David for a minute, clocking the steady rise and fall of his chest. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, gently placing a hand on his firm shoulder. He only gets a grunt in response. “Hey, we have to leave for the airport in less than an hour.” 

That rouses David enough to crack one eye open. He sees Patrick and offers a sleepy, sheepish smile. “You’re here.” 

Patrick can’t help but mirror it. “I said I would be.” 

“People say a lot of things,” David mumbles, rolling over and pushing himself up to sitting. 

“I’m not people,” Patrick simply replies, offering him a hand to haul him to his feet. “Come on. Like I said, that skincare routine takes 43 minutes if done in its entirety.” 

David whines. “I can’t believe you timed me.” 

“It’s what bored fiances do," he says as he heads back to his bedroom and into the adjoining bathroom. He can tell David remains standing exactly where he is, and though he desperately wants to, Patrick refuses to turn and see whatever expression might be on his face. 

They'd definitely miss their flight then.

They shower and dress, leaving the apartment only ten minutes later than originally intended, which is frankly a miracle. Newark International Airport is less than a thirty minute car ride away and the SUV they hired gets them there in record time. Security is easy enough - despite his propensity for overpacking, David reined himself in this time, not having to forfeit any bottles over the designated three ounces. Patrick texts his parents to let them know he’s on his way back - not to home, but at least to Canada. 

They get breakfast and bloody marys at the airport - Patrick’s treat since David paid for the tickets. Patrick wants to remind him that he might want to start hoarding his money, but David’s eyes are soft and sleepy, the way they are when he surprises Patrick by actually showing up at the store on time, and Patrick doesn’t want to say anything that might make them hard and wary once more. 

The vodka helps them sleep on the plane, not that they needed much assistance. Patrick wakes before David as the landing gear descends, and he smiles softly at the familiar weight of David’s head on his shoulder. He allows himself the indulgence of pressing his nose into his hair, breathing deeply. He doesn’t smell the same - he’s not using the shampoo and conditioner from the store - but it’s still David beneath it all. 

But Patrick knows how much David hates landings, so he wakes him before the wheels can touch the ground, not flinching or even commenting when David grips his hand tight. They deplane and head towards customs, but the press of David’s palm lingers long after he’s let go. 

They split to head to separate immigration officers, and Patrick waits for David on the other side when he’s finished. He pulls his phone out of his pocket to find a text from his mom, and he smiles as he swipes it open. 

[Mom]
You're going to Schitt's Creek?!

David wanted to see it. he replies, and he hopes she can guess how much hinges on the next 24 hours. 

"Everything."  The same answer he gave when his dad asked him what was in New York.  

[Mom]
Good luck, sweet boy. 🤞🏻💖

Yeah, she can guess, he thinks with a smile. She can also use emojis, apparently.

“Oh, Canada,” David mutters after getting his passport back and joining him.

“Been here before?” he asks, though he knows the answer. David was born in Toronto. 

“Not if I can help it,” he replies flippantly as he leads the way towards baggage claim. Then he stops. "Don't you know?" It's a tease, definitely, but there's an edge of a challenge there. One his David still carries with him to this day.

"I know," Patrick replies quietly. "But I'm trying to let you tell me."

David stares at him for a moment, the wall of hesitation he had briefly erected crumbling just as quickly, before leading the way towards ground transportation, Patrick following in his wake. As is his wont. Both of them carried on, so they head straight past the carousels and into the parking lot for what Patrick presumes will be one of the stranger road trips he’s ever taken. 

“How far away is this place?” David asks, pausing to let Patrick take the lead.

“A few hours,” he replies, and David groans. 

“Snacks. We need snacks.” 

“I know,” Patrick laughs as he unlocks the car. “We’ll get licorice and cheetos at the first rest stop I see.”

David pauses and stares at him over the roof of the car. “I’m still not used to that.” 

“What?” 

“You knowing me the way you do,” he says quietly, and Patrick ducks his head. 

“Sorry.” 

“I didn’t say I minded.” He opens the door and slides into the passenger seat before Patrick can reply. 

It’s a long drive from the airport, and David silently yet loudly judges the state of Patrick’s car, boxes and bags piled high in the back. Patrick can't blame him, honestly. The mess is making him twitchy.

“Um, there’s something else I haven’t told you,” he says as he grips the wheel. 

“Oh fucking great,” David mutters.  

“Just keep in mind that the you of five years from now knows this. Has known it for a while. I mean - I did screw it up in the beginning but we’re good now.” 

“Oh my God, spit it out!” David’s hands roll over themselves in a get the fuck on with it gesture. 

“All of this is in the car because - well…” There really is no easy way to say this. “I just broke up with my girlfriend.” 

David eyebrows hit his hairline. “Girlfriend?” 

“At least I did it before I proposed to her this time,” he says lightly.  

“What? ” 

And that’s apparently how they find a way to spend the ride.  

Telling David about the ins and outs of their relationship is more cathartic than he expects it to be. Tough and sometimes devastating to be sure, but needed. And catching glances of disbelief and wonder on David’s face as he hears about a future he actually gets to have makes Patrick’s heart do things that he should probably see a cardiologist about.  

“Wait - I lip-synced for you?!” 

Patrick grins. “You did.”

“I must really love you then,” he marvels, and Patrick’s grin falters as he shifts his hands on the wheel. 

“You do,” he says quietly. 

Silence descends and Patrick has to consciously tell himself not to hyperventilate. They’re going to keep stepping into these emotional minefields the closer they get to town. There will be no stopping it, seeing all of the places that benchmark their life together. 

“I’m sorry I’m not him,” David whispers, and Patrick can’t help the wounded sound he makes. 

“Hey. You are him,” he says, reaching over to take his hand. “You don’t have our memories, but you’re still the man I love.” 

David swallows and nods, clearing his throat and glancing out the window. Patrick can see him surreptitiously wipe a tear in the reflection of the glass, but he doesn’t let go of his hand. And Patrick will hold it as long as he lets him. 

"Nearly there," he murmurs.

They’re coming up on the outskirts of the town, and Patrick bites his lip to hide his smile, knowing what’s just up ahead. They drive past, and David does a double-take, letting go of Patrick’s hand so he can practically throw himself up against the glass. 

“Um, did that sign just show two people fucking in a river?” 

And Patrick can’t help it, he snorts. “Don’t worry. It’s his sister.” 

David whips back around so quickly, looking so horrified, Patrick is genuinely concerned he’ll have to take him to a chiropractor before they hit the motel. “What the fuck kind of backwards podunk town have you brought me to?!” 

“David Rose,” he begins, glancing over and smiling softly. Seriously. “Welcome to Schitt’s Creek.” 

David stares back, probably trying to reconcile how the major romantic moments of his life have had a backdrop in a town that apparently promotes incest. Patrick stays quiet, letting him take everything in (not that there’s much to), before turning into the parking lot of the Schitt’s Creek Motel. He misses the bright red signage of the Rosebud. It tried to be cheery when there really wasn’t much to be cheery about. 

“I lived here?” 

“Still do, actually,” he says as he parks the car. “You don’t move in with me permanently until after the wedding.” 

David scoffs. “That’s old-fashioned of me.” 

Patrick hums. “You didn’t want to leave Alexis alone.” 

“Oh,” he breathes, a soft, surprised thing, as if it hadn’t even occurred to him to have the thought. “So she - we’re…” 

Patrick knows what he’s trying to ask, so he tries to put it in the plainest terms he can: 

“David, you’d walk through fire for her.” 

He opens his door and lets David have a moment in the silence of the car before he joins Patrick by the office door. He goes to turn the knob, but pauses, looking back at David. 

“She would, too, you know.” 

He frowns. “What?” 

“Alexis. Walk through fire for you.” 

He scoffs. “Yeah, in six-inch, rubber-soled platform wedges.” 

Patrick tilts his head and smiles sadly. “Barefoot, David.” 

The door opens with a squeak and the office is dark and musty as he steps through the entrance, eyes trying to adjust but just blinking rapidly in the dust mites hovering in the air. It takes him a second longer than it should to notice someone is actually behind the counter. He knows it's her, it has to be, and yet he’s never seen this Stevie. 

The pre-Roses Stevie. 

“It’s, um, bleak,” David says, and Patrick wants to ask which: the room or the woman in it. 

“Can I help you?” she asks, voice flat, not even bothering to look up from the book on the counter, and David jumps about a foot in the air, grabbing his elbow and hissing, "Holy fuck," under his breath. Patrick can't even laugh.

“Uh, we’re looking for a room," he replies, ignoring the adorable man pawing at his shirt only because he can't quite believe the sight before his eyes. He's heard David talk about Stevie when they first arrived, but Patrick just thought he was exaggerating. 

“Well, you came to the right and only place,” she says, finally glancing up at them. He stops mid-step when they lock gazes. Her eyes are harder than he’s ever seen, and she exudes a level of disinterest that he hasn't heard outside of whenever David brings up Fashion Week. 

“Room 7, if it’s free,” he murmurs once he’s recovered. 

She raises an eyebrow at that, but just mutters a “Whatever” in return, taking his credit card and handing over the key in return. 

David remains quiet, watching the exchange closely. 

Business clearly accomplished, Stevie drops her gaze back to the book, not even offering a faked ‘Thank you’ or ‘Goodbye.’ Patrick clenches the key so hard in his fist that the sharp grooves dig into the tender skin of his palm. 

“Do you know her?” David asks after they exit and walk down the path to the room.  

Stevie next to him on the couch, heads tipping back in uncontrollable laughter, wine sloshing in their glasses as they belt along with Singing in the Rain while David yells at them from the corner. 

He clears his throat and shakes the memory away. “I do.” 

“Do I know her?” 

Patrick stops in front of room 7 and looks at him then. “She’s your best friend.” 

David's lips part, as if the concept of a best friend is entirely foreign to him. And Patrick knows it is, but he also knows that David is probably having more trouble reconciling with the fact that his best friend wears plaid unironically. 

“Is she always like that?” he finally asks, and Patrick shakes his head. 

“Not anymore. Well, not really." She does so love to egg David on wherever possible. "She runs this place with your Dad. They take pride in it.” 

He slides the key into the lock and turns it, pushing the door back without pomp or circumstance. 

“Welcome home,” he murmurs, letting David go in first. He waits in the door frame and shoves his hands into his pockets as David moves past him. It should be momentous, but David just looks around, disdain etched on every curve of his face. 

“Oh you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” 

Patrick smirks, feeling oddly defensive of this space that helped shape David Rose. That gave him a roof and a place to lay his head and shelter from the proverbial and sometimes literal storm. “You get used to it.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah. This is - it’s your home,” he says. 

David looks like he doesn’t want to touch anything, which is fair all things considered. This is before Stevie’s aunt’s death lit a fire under her ass and Mr. Rose offered her a hand to hold. The Schitt’s Creek Motel is currently a Yelp reviewer’s nightmare. 

David puts his bag on the bed furthest from the door, and Patrick makes an inadvertent sound. 

“What now?” he snaps. 

“That one’s yours,” Patrick murmurs, and David glances between the two beds. 

“What?”

“The one closest to the door,” Patrick clarifies, body remembering months of stolen moments and hidden touches and muffled orgasms. “That one belongs to Alexis,” he says, gesturing to the bed further into the room. 

“Oh my God,” David gasps. “Why does she get that one?”

Patrick shrugs and tries to keep his shoulders from shaking with laughter. “Something about murder? I never actually got the full story.”

David groans and drops his bag by the end of the right bed. “She fucking would,” he mutters, and Patrick assumes it has to do with his almost sister-in-law, but he certainly doesn’t press for details. “So I live here," David says, and it's not a question. His voice is high and tight, like he's still trying to process and failing spectacularly.  

Patrick lets his bag slide down from his shoulder onto the bed furthest from the door and smiles. “Not for much longer.” 

He dreams. He hopes. He has a line in the monthly budget earmarked for a house. 

There are so many stories he could tell - of love and loathing and lust; of wine and cake and zhampagne, of love rooms and driving tests and barn parties. Patrick wasn't even there for them all, but he knows. There are so many truths he could urge them both to face, but this isn’t his epiphany.

David doesn’t utter a word. He merely glances around, taking everything in as if weighing his future against his past and trying to find out which one is wanting.

But then he utters five words that Patrick isn’t prepared for in the least: 

“Take me to our store.”

He wishes he had the vocabulary to explain just what this building means to him, what every building in this town means to him, but he’d rather watch it through David’s eyes. 

“Sure,” he says, leading them out of the motel parking lot and down the road. David doesn't ask why they aren't driving nor does he complain about the walk. Patrick almost wishes he would - at least then he'd know they'd stopped being quite so careful with each other. He's aware that there won’t be much to see when they get there, before the Roses came and upended everything in the best way imaginable. He’s heard the stories, but Patrick truly wishes he’d been around for the beginning. 

Still. 

Patrick can sense David's panic rising, so he takes his hand - because it’s the only thing Patrick Brewer knows how to do - and gently tugs him towards the town’s center. It's strange that the townsfolk don’t know David or Patrick or what they’ll end up being and meaning to these people, but it’s a pleasant walk all the same. Sure, Patrick wants to grab everyone and yell about the motel and the store and town council and Cabaret and everything that the Roses have touched that has somehow blossomed, but that’s not his job. Not here. Not now. 

“There she is,” he breathes as he stands across the street from the general store with its dilapidated sign and questionable cereal choices. 

“That’s Rose Apothecary?” David asks, and Patrick nods. 

“It will be.” 

David sighs, as if trying to see the raw potential before him and coming up a little short. Patrick feels the need to protect it - to say, yes, we made this together, but then David is crossing the street, strides long and sure, and Patrick has no choice but to follow. 

“Yes,” David breathes as he presses his face to the window. “This could be - this could be something.” Then he turns to Patrick. “Do we make it something?” 

“David,” he starts, unsure how to quantify all they accomplish, “we make it everything.” 

David stares at him, his partner in every sense of the word, and Patrick lets his gaze linger a bit longer, giving David all the time he needs. 

“A general store, but also a very specific store,” Patrick murmurs after a moment. “David, you have no idea what you’re capable of.” His breath catches and his voice hitches. He swallows hard as he says, "Christ, I can’t wait for you to find out.” 

David’s face does a thing he hasn’t seen it do in entirely too long; it crumples and yet rebuilds itself. A monolith formed from a ruin. 

“Is that the cafe?” he asks, once he manages to tear his eyes away from the storefront. “The site of the infamous mozzarella sticks?” 

Patrick nearly chokes. “Yeah. Do you - do you want to go in?” he asks, but David shakes his head. 

“I can see the promise from afar.” 

“You’ve said that about a lot of things,” Patrick murmurs, thinking of the building in front of them, but also of himself. "You're usually right." 

"Well, there's a first time for everything," he mutters, but his eyes dance. 

“Takeout?" Patrick asks. "It’s the only food joint in town so it’s this or we try our luck with whatever microwaveable meals they have in there." He points to the general store innocently, but he knows those meals have been thawed and refrozen at least ten times since stocked. “I promise you can wait outside."

“Fine,” David acquiesces. “I do not even cross the threshold.” 

“Fair enough,” he chuckles.  

They get a to-go order of cheeseburgers, no meatloaf special for them, though Patrick can vouch that it doesn’t actually cause food poisoning. Not that David would believe him. He contemplates getting mozzarella sticks, just for old time’s sake, but it kind of sucks the humor out of it when only one of you is truly in on the joke. Sucks out the humor and the heart. And Patrick’s wouldn’t be able to take it.

They eat quietly at the little round table in the motel room where Patrick helped Alexis with her homework. Where David got a cake after he kissed Patrick in a car. The man across from him hasn't experienced that yet, though. He hasn't been the brave one when Patrick couldn't be. 

Be brave. 

It’s late now, though; far too late to be contemplating the greater questions of the universe. Patrick isn’t sure why he’s been sent here, or what he’s meant to do. Maybe nothing and it’s just a cruel twist of fate. A dagger in the heart of those that are - were - happy. He’s not sure what savage joke destiny is playing on him, but he’d like to tap out now. He’d like to go home - to his home, his David. His husband. 

“It’s, uh, it’s been a long day,” he starts, nodding at the bed. “I may...” But the weight of the unknown presses into his shoulders as he toes off his shoes and starts to unbutton his shirt. He catches David looking and pauses, so used to stripping down in front of him that he doesn't even realize he probably shouldn't. "Sorry," he says. He could cry. "Habit." 

David shakes his head and there's a joke there, a teasing I don't mind, but he doesn't say it.  

"I'll just - " He makes an aborted gesture to the bathroom and turns to go when David’s voice rings out: 

“You fell in love with me here?” His tone is soft, but incredulous, as if he can’t quite believe it. 

Patrick freezes, a bundle of cotton in his hand in the middle of the room that the love of his life found himself in. He turns slowly, taking in the gorgeous man before him, making sure he sees him seeing all of him - every nuance, every highlight, every blemish.

“David,” he starts, voice breaking, “I’ll fall in love with you anywhere.” 

He doesn’t wait to see what David’s reaction to that is. Instead, he slips into the bathroom and takes his time changing, trying to come to terms with the fact that, if this is the only David Rose he gets, then perhaps he should be less focused on the future and be more tuned in to the present. After all, his present is his future. And his future could be his forever. If he learns not to fuck it all up.

He opens the bathroom door in time to see David abruptly stand, and Patrick offers him a small smile as he moves toward his bed, letting David take his turn. The gentle grip David gets around his wrist as he passes halts him cold, though, and Patrick looks up into a face that looks like it wants to say so many things.

“You okay?” he asks, and David nods. “I know today was a lot.”

“Not just for me,” David replies, squeezing his wrist, letting Patrick know with that one gesture that he's not alone. That they're in this together. Maybe even that David could love him if Patrick just gives him time. 

And what a gift that is. The promise of possibility.

“Thank you, David.”

He nods and disappears into the bathroom as Patrick slides into the bed that will forever be known as Alexis’. He tries to wait for David to finish, but he wasn't wrong about the skincare routine, and it’s a losing battle. He rouses enough sometime later to hear David getting into bed, a shapeless lump under the covers that are pulled up to his chin. He’s nearly asleep again when David’s asks:

“Have we ever shared this bed?” 

Patrick squeezes his eyes tight against the memory of the first night they spent here, when Alexis was at Twyla's and Johnny and Moira were out and they seemed to have all the time in the world. 

“Yeah,” he rasps. “We have.” 

Patrick blinks and stares at a stain on the ceiling - one he’s never noticed before - as tears prick his eyes. He's so worried he'll forget something. No one is around to remind him.

But then David is tossing his comforter back and scooting to the edge of the bed, offering an olive branch that wasn't owed to begin with. 

“I still don’t think you’re real,” he whispers, and Patrick laughs through a sob.

He kicks back his own covers and stands, padding across the short distance before sitting on the edge of David’s bed and tucking himself into David’s side, knee to knee. 

“I don’t know what I have to say to you to get you to believe me - ” he starts, but David’s finger promptly presses against his lips. Patrick wants to nip at it, an old habit he's not sure he'll ever shake. 

“Who says I never believed you?” he asks. 

Patrick nearly laughs, wanting to lay out the evidence, provide spreadsheets and powerpoints complete with visual aids, but David cuts him off, uttering four words that could be a beginning, if he let it: 

“Tell me about him,” he whispers. Patrick doesn’t need to ask which ‘him’ he’s referring to. 

He merely smiles as a tear spills unwillingly down his cheek, thumb caressing a carefully groomed eyebrow. “He’s you,” he replies. Simply. Sagely. 

David's gaze flicks down to his lips, and Patrick feels like he's been lit on fire. 

"Please," he whispers, getting his fingers tangled in David's shirt, but letting him close the distance. The press of their lips is familiar but new, both comforting and igniting him in ways he didn't think it was possible to miss in a scant 48 hours. Forty-eight hours that have been an eternity.

They break apart, panting, and Patrick closes his eyes, rubbing his nose against David's, trying to memorize everything about this moment - everything about every moment, before it slips away.

He feels David pick up his right hand, and when he opens his eyes, he can't help but zero in on those unadorned fingers, on the missing rings he can still feel the phantom press of between his own.

David notices, because he asks, “What did you propose with?” 

But Patrick just shakes his head. “Nah. Not telling,” he whispers.

“Why not?” His pout is amusing, and Patrick wants to kiss it off his face, but first: 

“Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

He watches the words hit and land; watches understanding dawn across David's features. It's a wonder to behold. A privilege to witness.  

The promise of possibility.

“Oh fuck off,” David blurts, laughing but crying, and Patrick gives in, capturing his lips and trying pour I may need them again, I will need them again, why should I tell you? into every breath they share.

There are so many more things he could say, so much proof he could give, but getting the man he loves to believe he’s worthy of it seems like a noble enough task. 

He stays in the bed until David’s breathing evens out, pressing their foreheads together as their legs tangle one over the other. He doesn’t know what being back here in Schitt's Creek will do. If this is the switch that will flick it all back. Was this the universe’s way of yelling at him for fighting with the most amazing man he’s ever known two days before his wedding? Will she right herself now that he’s returned? 

If she doesn't, well - he thinks he just might be okay.

He's not sure where the idea comes from - it silly and dramatic, not to mention kind of illegal - but he slides from the small twin bed anyway, careful to not jostle David, and pulls a pocket knife from the keychain his father told him he should always carry. His body is screaming at him to return to the man in his bed, but there’s something he has to do. It’s ridiculous, but he needs to leave his mark. Make his brand. Stake his claim. 

So he pulls the drawer open in the bedside table and starts carving. He’s not sure if it makes any sense or if it’s even legible, but the sentiment remains the same. 

He’ll scream it from the roof of Town Hall if he has to: 

I’ll find you, David Rose.

He crawls back into bed, dropping the pocket knife on the carpet, content in the knowledge that he’ll wait for the man he loves as long as it takes. 

Even if it takes forever.

xxxxxx

He can’t be certain, but he’s 99.57% sure he’s dead. His head is pounding, and he's questioning pretty much every life choice he’s ever made up until this point, groaning into what he hopes is a pillow as he vows never to touch a drop of alcohol ever again. 

Polar bear shots are never a good idea, particularly when facilitated - nay, encouraged - by Stevie Budd and Ray Butani. 

Wait - 

His brain lurches in an effort function at the bare minimum, trying to ascertain if he even has the capacity to open his eyes. Last he could recall (which admittedly isn't much), polar bear shots where the least of his worries. He shoots up in bed and immediately regrets everything, gripping his head and moaning aloud, cursing everyone and everything as he tries to catalogue his surroundings. 

He’s at the motel. Great. Good. Makes sense considering he's pretty sure that’s where he went to bed. But - he didn’t go to bed alone…

Did he? 

“Have we ever shared this bed?” 

“I still don’t think you’re real."

“Who says I never believed you?”

"Tell me about him." 

David. New York. David. Schitt's Creek. David. David. David. 

"Oh my God," he whispers, stumbling to standing as his legs get caught in the sheets. Egyptian cotton sheets that were definitely not on the bed last night. His pocket knife isn't on the floor where he knows he left it and his beat up bag that should still have the luggage tag from YTZ is nowhere to be found.

It couldn't have been a dream. It was too real to have been a dream. And yet - 

He scrubs his hands over his face, but the room remains the same. The Mr. t-shirt Rachel had gotten him (Oh God, Rachel) is draped over the back of the chair at the table and the shoes David purchased for him last year, in 2019, have been neatly lined up in front of the dresser. He still feels like he has one foot back where he came from, wherever (or whenever) that is, facing down a future of convincing David that what they had was worth the effort -

But then the door crashes open, spilling sunlight onto the carpet, and none of it matters because David is standing there, sun against his back, wind beneath his fucking wings. 

“Patrick,” he hiccups. “I’m so sorry, honey.” He’s across the room before Patrick can blink, tumbling into him and sending them sprawling onto the bed, pressing his face into Patrick’s neck, arms wrapped tight around his shoulders. Why on earth is he sorry? 

"I'm sorry I'm not him."

“David?” His arms slowly rise, hovering above a Rick Owens sweater he’s seen before. “David, is it you?” 

“Of course it’s me, you idiot,” he snaps, burrowing further into Patrick’s chest. “And by the way we are never having another bachelor party ever again.”

Bachelor party. 

David. 

He makes a noise that sounds like he’s being strangled but he honestly doesn’t care. He clasps his wrists behind David’s back and holds on tight, muffling what he thinks (hopes) are reassuring sounds against David’s sternum, but he’s rapidly realizing they’re sounding more and more like sobs. 

“Honey, what’s going on?” David asks, but Patrick merely shakes his head and cries harder. 

He thinks of art galleries and Soho apartments and cross-border road trips, wondering if he’d have to live his life hoping David Rose would take the time to learn him again. 

“Jesus, Patrick,” David mutters worriedly, holding him tighter as he cries harder, burying his nose into his hair. “Okay… okay now. You’re okay. I’ve got you. We’re okay.” 

We’re okay.

“Why am I here?” he manages, and David pulls away long enough to cup his cheek and press a kiss to his nose.

“You came looking for me, apparently. Last night. Alexis wouldn’t let you leave again, given the state you were in.” 

“And where were you?” he sniffs. 

He sheepishly ducks his head. “I had already snuck out to find you. I was in our apartment.”

Our apartment. 

He’s never heard two words more beautiful in the English language. “I’m so sorry,” he says, but David is already shaking his head and pressing him back against the pillows so he can tuck his face into Patrick’s neck. 

“I mean - your cousin is an idiot - but we’re bigger ones for letting him get to us.”

“Yeah,” Patrick replies trying to reconcile the David in his arms now with the one he went to sleep with. Was that all a dream? His brain tells him it was, but his heart tells him another story. 

“You found me,” David murmurs, fingers tangling in Patrick’s shirt, and something about the words - those words - feels familiar. It's a tug in his gut that won't let him ignore them.

“Why did you say that?” he asks quietly, and David hums, snuffling down into the pillow and pressing his nose into Patrick’s chest. 

“I don’t know.” 

You found me. 

“I want to go home,” David breathes after a moment, and Patrick can’t help but agree. They may not technically live together but Patrick’s home is David’s to anyone who asks.

“Let’s never do this again,” he mutters, still unable to dispel the sense of disquiet, of uneasiness that’s settled in him; taken hold somewhere deep inside.

“What, have a bachelor party?” 

“Fight,” Patrick replies, and David snorts. 

“We’re going to fight, honey. That’s just life.”

Just life. Yeah, but what if you get to live two?

“I know,” he says instead, sitting up and turning to face the man he’s set to marry in a day’s time. If time can be believed. “But the fact that we keep coming back? Well, that makes it all worthwhile, doesn’t it.” 

He knows that now. He'll know that until his dying breath.

“It does,” David whispers, and there’s no shred of the David of before. The one who’d been loved so insufficiently. Whom Patrick supposedly saw across a crowded room and recognized himself in him immediately. 

He misses him. Even if he wasn't real.

“Let’s go home,” he whispers, allowing David to stand first, though he’s reluctant to let go. It’s early yet - the rehearsal dinner is the only item on their carefully detailed agenda - so they have an entire day to themselves. 

And yet - 

Patrick can’t shake the dream he had. It was so real, so vivid, he can still feel the press of the motel key in his hand, marked like a brand on the tender skin of his palm. Can still hear the waves of New York Harbor, can still taste the shared meal over a red wine-stained tablecloth.

David is already up and in the doorway, but Patrick moves a bit more sluggishly, stumbling over his feet as he tries to keep up. He starts to walk away, to take David home, to let David take him home, but then he stops. 

“You found me.” That’s what David had said. 

He just has to see. 

Going over to the drawer beside the bed, he hesitates for a moment, hand hovering over the knob like he’s about to step off a precipice. 

“Honey? What’s going on?” David asks. 

The promise of possibility. 

With a small tug, the drawer gives way, revealing the detritus that’s accumulated over the years, despite the fact that David spends more nights away than home. Barely breathing, Patrick sifts through it until he reaches the bare wooden side, a canvas upon which he once carved a truth that, this morning, he could have sworn up and down happened only inside his head. Only inside his heart.

He holds his breath as he ducks his head low enough to see -  

“Patrick?” David asks, voice high and reedy. Worried.

Patrick removes the final piece of paper, a prototype for their vendor agreement, and inhales sharply, staring at five words that were oath and dare, promise and fear. A whim in the middle of the night.  

I’ll find you, David Rose. 

He looks up and meets David's eyes in the doorway. A tear falls onto his cheek that he doesn’t bother to try and wipe off. 

“I found you," he whispers.

David smiles. It’s the same smile he wore when Patrick walked into an art gallery knowing nothing about art and everything about David Rose.

“Oh, Patrick Brewer. What makes you think you ever lost me?”