Chapter Text
By mid-afternoon, David had absolutely no idea what to make of Patrick Brewer.
Any other man, David would assume he was flirting. He took any opportunity to tease David, a knowing glint in his eye and a smirk on his lips. He dropped innuendo into the conversation so often it was as if he’d already had drag queen training. He complimented David’s sewing, and design, and ideas. Quite honestly, David wasn’t used to so much positive reinforcement in such a condensed period of time, and he wasn’t sure what to do with it.
But David couldn’t bring himself to actually believe that Patrick was flirting with him. Or doing it intentionally, at least.
The man was an accountant , a business major. He wore mid-range denim and a shirt that looked like it’d been pulled off the rack at some big box store. He had a haircut that screamed straight white boy. He played baseball on the weekend.
There was no way he was actually into David. If it seemed like flirting, it was just David’s imagination… or, probably more likely, the man was just a troll.
A very self-confident, unfortunately sexy troll who had clearly worked out how to push David’s buttons.
And so, when it was eventually time for Ru’s walk-through, David was feeling decidedly flustered and trying very hard not to show it. He wasn't sure how well he was succeeding.
David was about ready to do another fitting of Patrick’s gown, but the producers announced the walk-through was about to happen, and so David stayed where he was at the table, putting finishing touches on the rhinestone embellishments so Patrick didn’t have to have a conversation with Ru while wearing nothing but his underwear and some padding. .
“What happens now?” Patrick asked him quietly, as the cameras and crew all repositioned themselves for Ru’s entrance.
“Ru will come round and talk to all of us in turn about what we’re planning, how it’s going, etcetera,” David told him. He cocked his head to one side. “I thought you watched the show?”
Patrick smiled. “It’s pretty different experiencing it in person,” he said, and David had to agree with that.
Ru entered the room with a cheery “hello hello hello!”, and began to make his way from table to table. David kept working on the dresses, but he kept an ear open for what the other queens were saying. It sounded like Jaida was on it, and Gigi sounded confident as well, which was hardly a surprise in a fashion challenge. Sebastien gave Ru some bullshit about bringing out his partner’s ‘inner dereliction of self’ which had David fighting not to roll his eyes - he saw a look of confusion on Patrick’s face next to him and smirked.
At least he wasn’t the only one who thought Sebastien sounded like a moron.
Soon enough, Ru was making his way over to them, and David gave Patrick an encouraging smile before putting down his sewing and sitting up straighter.
“Hi you two,” Ru said, approaching their table. Suddenly there were three cameras capturing the moment instead of just the one.
“Hi Ru,” David and Patrick chorused together.
Ru asked David a couple of standard questions about his plans, and how he was going to ensure there was a resemblance, that kind of thing - the Ru conversations were always a lot longer than was shown in the episode; they would just pick the best twenty seconds for the final edit. David was pretty used to the walk-throughs by now, and just concentrated on not saying anything too controversial, or coming across like a complete asshole like Sebastien seemed to go out of his way to do.
Ru eventually turned to Patrick.
“So Patrick, how are you finding working with Cary?”
Patrick smiled, and it might have only been half a day, but David already knew that smile well enough to know that someone was about to get roasted. He didn’t think it would be Ru.
“Great,” Patrick said. “She’s bossy, but I’m used to being put to work by the Rose family.” Patrick’s smile widened as he paused, presumably for effect. “My first job in high school was at a Rose Video.”
Ru gasped. “You’re kidding!”
David had frozen. Okay, this wasn’t too bad. Yet. But Patrick looked way too pleased with himself still, and was pointedly not looking at him.
“Nope,” Patrick said, grinning. “That’s how I recognised Cary actually - you see, there were these employee training videos -”
David groaned and covered his face with his hands. “Oh dear god -”
“-and I remember one about recommending appropriate material to teens, and Cary here played a customer who-”
David shook his head, his face still covered. “Stop, please, I am begging you,” he said, peeking out between his fingers.
Patrick blinked at him, the picture of innocence. “You were inspiring in that video, Cary - the world needs to know.”
David dropped his hands. “I know you think you’re funny, but they’re gonna find that video now. They’ll put it in the episode.”
“Don’t be silly Cary, we won’t have time to show an employee trainee video in the episode,” Ru said. A beat. “We’ll play it in the reunion episode.”
He laughed. Patrick laughed. David faceplanted on the table and stayed there as Ru said his goodbyes and left. There was a lot of laughter around him.
After a few moments, David took a deep breath and sat back up. Patrick had turned to look at David, looking so smug that David just wanted to… to… well, he didn’t know exactly, but he really wanted to do something about it.
He settled for glaring. “You’re a menace.”
Patrick just laughed again, and then winked. Well, he tried to wink, but his winking game was about as good as Alexis’, and the ridiculousness of it had David twisting his lips to the side to hide his smile. Patrick glanced down at David’s mouth and then away at the wigs on the table, and David noted that the back of his neck was kind of pink.
Well.
Huh.
Patrick looked back at him, and the grin had faded a bit. “Sorry, I’ll be good,” he said. “I promise - you have my word as a four-time Rose Video Employee of the Month.”
David rolled his eyes and couldn’t help but huff out a little laugh.
Yep - he was definitely a menace
***
David was exceptionally relieved to get back to his hotel room that evening. This wasn't exactly unusual given how stressful the competition could get, but recently, as the weeks had worn on, the hotel room had also felt like something akin to a jail cell.
At that moment, though, it felt like a sanctuary. Somewhere he could relax and breathe and just have two seconds away from that smirk and those eyes and those forearms and urgh .
It had been bad enough that morning, but manageable, and then of course Ru had had to go and announce that as well as their runway presentations they also had to do a lip sync performance. Which wasn't exactly unexpected , but it meant that a good chunk of the afternoon had been given over to rehearsing. So David had had to come up with a routine and teach it to Patrick, which had involved touching his shoulders to position him and holding his arm to steady him as he got used to the heels, and Patrick had been funny and cocky and yet somehow bashful too? and he’d been teasing and blushing and breathing heavily and generally just making David feel... things.
Despite all the… everything… David had thought that he’d actually done a pretty good job of hiding how flustered he was in Patrick’s company. He had a long history of having to hide his feelings, and while, in the past, therapists had told him that this wasn’t generally a Good Thing, it had certainly been helpful that day. They’d got to the end of the day, and Patrick and the others had gone back to the hotel. Patrick had left David with a wide smile and a sincere thank you which, who does that? But it was fine.
The contestants finished each day with their confessionals, which involved needing to get changed into their talking head outfit and then sit in a small booth under hot lights with no air con, trying to give entertaining answers to probing questions for up to an hour. David had known the second he’d walked into the booth that he definitely hadn’t done as good a job at hiding his feelings as he’d thought.
David’s segment producer, Ronnie, had looked positively gleeful .
“So, Cary ,” she’d drawled once he’d been mic'd up, “how has your day been?”
David flopped facedown onto his bed and groaned into his pillow.
This whole situation was just ridiculous. He’d known how difficult the competition was going to be - he knew enough queens who’d competed before to expect very specific hardships, and he’d done his best to prepare for them all. You’d think having his asshole ex competing with him would be enough of a trial to deal with, but no . No, he also had to go and… and...
David sighed and rolled onto his back, forcing himself to properly think it.
He’d had to go and develop a crush on his makeover partner.
David had had many inconvenient crushes in the past. The thing is, he hadn’t had cameras recording his every facial expression ready to broadcast to the world those times. God knows how much of an idiot he was going to look when the episode aired. The over-the-top and laughable David Rose lusting after a business major with the most boring haircut the world has ever seen. He didn’t even know Patrick’s preferences for heaven’s sake - he’d overheard Gigi’s partner talking about his wife that afternoon, so it wasn’t as if they’d gone out of their way to find queer volunteers.
Of course, just because the man was with a woman didn’t mean he wasn’t queer, as David well knew himself, so he shouldn’t make assumptions…
Urgh , in any case, David had no idea whether Patrick was even into men, and so he wasn’t going to read too much into Patrick’s flirty behaviour. If nothing else, the man was a born tease, and not to be taken seriously.
But that look on his face when he’d said “I’ll bet”, his eyes intense and his voice pitched so low, and the way he’d held onto David’s hand during practice and the way he’d pressed against his side on the runway…
Fuck . David had been fighting to keep his dick under control all afternoon (and had been mainly successful due to sheer willpower and anxiety) but alone in his hotel room with his mind full of Patrick, he found himself painfully hard in his skinny jeans.
He hugged a pillow over his face and groaned into it. It felt so… skeevy … to jerk off to thoughts of his makeover partner, who he would have to face mere hours from now and dress and paint and tuck and okay this was not helping .
David threw the pillow aside and sat up, wincing.
Right. He was going to have a shower. And if he indulged in a bit of self-care while he was in there, then, well… it was like Ru always said.
If you can’t love yourself …