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Other than the inherent weirdness of living in the hell of late capitalism, Pat's led a pretty normal life. Grew up, moved out, went to school, met a girl—met a lot of girls, actually. Married the best one in the world.
Moved to New York, chasing a job making weird little videos for the internet. Made some weird little videos. Got divorced from the girl, while burning out pretty publicly and self-medicating by making even weirder videos. Broke ten thousand followers on Twitter. Fell in love with his cat. Contemplated eternity. Streamed videos with other people who could absorb the fact that he was so fucking tired all the time. Downloaded Tinder. Got drunk, just, like, so many times. Regretted it, because he'd turned thirty during all that.
Somewhere in there, during one of the lowest points in his life, Brian appeared. Brian, who'd cited Pat's weird videos as a source of joy in his life, and who quickly learned his coffee order, and never complained when Pat got kind of snappy without meaning it.
When he'd started streaming with Brian, he hadn't known then how Brian would get under the armor of his grief. Brian, still new; Pat, still raw and hurting; somehow they stumbled into something incredible, fitting together like two puzzle pieces from different boxes but cut from the same die.
It's normal, of course, to fixate on the first new people you meet after you've gone through a huge life change. They never knew you before, when you were different—when you were happy—so they don't expect anything from you other than what you are in that moment.
Brian is the kind of person who only comes around once in a generation: kind, funny, hard-working, a musical genius, a master of comedic timing… an impossibly deep well of talent, wrapped up in all the potential of youth. Spontaneous, and irreverent in a way that Pat hadn't felt in himself in at least a decade, and yearned for with every beat of his heart, the way a man would ache for the sight of water in a desert.
They had a good relationship, especially on camera. Good chemistry, people would say, and every day Pat considered himself lucky to have found a friend like Brian exactly when he needed him. And it was easy, then, to start aligning himself with Brian. Lunches together, and sometimes dinners when they both had to work late. Coordinating their days so they’d both be working on something at the same time. Pitching more and more ideas as a joint team. Then: sending each other stupid memes and ideas for videos, even after hours. Meeting up at twenty-four-hour sushi bars, ostensibly to talk about work but instead riffing off of each other late into the night, long past when the waitress would've liked them to clear their bill. Eventually: dropping the pretense altogether, and going over to each others' apartments just to be in each others' company.
One time, they'd gone out onto the fire escape to smoke a joint Brian'd produced from his wallet, no, trust me, this is the good kind, Patrick, and Pat's a lightweight and had gotten so toasted off of just that, and he'd woken up the next morning in Brian's bed with the vague impression of Brian putting him there. But Brian had been on the couch, still asleep, fully buried in a comforter with one fine-boned foot thrown over the armrest. So Pat had just sat himself down at the kitchen table to wait, and Laura made some extra pancakes for him, and they ate them together in a contemplative post-high morning silence broken only once by Laura fixing him with a serious face and saying, you're good for him, Pat.
He can't remember what he'd said—something dumb like, yeah, we get along really well, maybe, because it was hard to articulate to her in that moment that she'd had it all wrong: that it was Brian who had been good for Patrick, in a way he couldn't describe.
See, a normal life.
Which is why it's a surprise when, one morning, when Simone's stepped away for a second, Brian swings by and sets a mug of black coffee onto Pat's desk—on top of Pat's expense reports for the E3 trip—and says, "Hey, Pat? Do you wanna go out with me, sometime?"
Pat's already halfway to picking up the coffee and just… stops. "Pardon?"
Brian picks at his tortured cuticle, though the rest of his body projects calm in its entirety. "Do you wanna go out with me," he repeats. "And I mean, to be clear, in the dating sense. A date date."
Pat must look shellshocked. He's sure his mouth is hanging open. He tries to speak, but the only thing that comes out is a soft huh.
Brian shifts, and the bit of skin he'd been worrying under his nail tears up to reveal a sliver of skin that goes white, then red. "If you're into it," Brian adds, a little quieter.
He knows he owes Brian an answer, and quickly, but the highway of his brain feels like an eighteen-car pileup, just total chaos, and only one nimble thought slips through the wreckage: "Really?"
Brian runs his hand through his hair—he's been growing it out, and it's so fluffy—and smiles. "Well, yeah," he says, "don't you think so?"
Pat doesn't know what he thinks. He's certainly not… look, he's a modern guy, right, he knows people, and he can accept—he can accept he's been wrong about some things about himself, before. It's not like there haven't been some times where he's seen a guy and been like, yeah, I guess he's pretty attractive.
And he likes Brian—has probably said he's loved him at some point before, the way you love all of your beautiful, talented friends; the way the streetlights illuminate their faces at two in the morning while waiting for your rideshare to come, and the feelings just pour out of you like two-dollar pitchers at a happy hour that never ended. Brian's always pulled that out of him. He's never taken Pat anywhere he didn't end up happy to have gone.
So Pat says, "Yeah, I guess I do. What's the plan?"
——
It's not until later, at home, he looks at himself long and hard in the mirror and thinks, what the fuck is this, Pat Gill.
It's a little late in his life for these kinds of realizations. He's just surprised, is all.
But not really as surprised as he should be, maybe.
——
It's a gorgeous day when he meets up with Brian in Central Park. He'd been worried that Brian's idea of a good first date with a coworker would be, like, mid-day sober karaoke, or the kind of dinner theatre where the audience is part of the show. But Brian's apparently been paying attention, because Pat's been told the plan is to rent some bikes and lay in the sun for a while, which suits him just fine.
"Hey," Brian greets him, when he walks up. "You look nice, Pat."
He doesn't, really; just a white v-neck and black jeans. He literally wore the same thing on Thursday, and probably the Monday before that, too, but he appreciates that that's simply what you say to the person you've invited out on a date, when they show up for said date. "Thanks, you too," he replies, because Brian's the only person in the world who can pull off jean shorts.
They set off at a leisurely pace, just fast enough to not require in-depth conversation. And it's interesting, because even though Patrick's lived here a few years, he hasn't done this sort of touristy stuff. Or, he supposes, this date stuff. He teaches Brian how to hop down stairs on his back wheel—because Brian's got moves, but Pat's got stunts—and it's nice to be able to teach Brian something. It's nice, to put that look of concentration on his face, and to hear the whoop of celebration when Brian starts getting it consistently.
They stop at Cherry Hill and Brian produces a blanket and a flat tupperware container from his backpack, and they set up a spot under a grove of trees overlooking the lake. Pat's contribution is two bottles of craft root beer, which Brian admires as they sit down on the blanket, side-by-side.
The tupperware, when Brian reveals its contents with a flourish, contains some of the weirdest doughnuts Pat's ever seen. "They've got one of those bougie places that calls itself a donuterie near my place," Brian says, by way of explanation. "I hope you like weird shit."
"I love weird shit," Pat replies, and reaches for one.
"Wait, wait, don't touch them yet," Brian says, waving away Pat's hand. He puts two napkins down on the blanket and arranges the most outlandish doughnuts on them—a pink-frosted one with fruity cereal and marshmallows on top, and one with a savory-looking glaze dotted with seaweed and sesame seeds. He takes his shoes off, then his socks—his toes are painted blue—and pulls out his phone to arrange everything in the frame of his camera. "Sorry," he mutters as he lines up the shot, "I know this is ghastly, but it'll be so fucking good. No, no, don't, you don't have to take your shoes off; your weird expensive shoes are way more iconic than your feet."
Pat stays still and watches Brian take a few carefully angled shots, throw a filter on one, and toss it up on Instagram. The whole process takes less than a minute, which is usually how long it takes Patrick just to pick out a filter. "You're really good at all that engagement garbage," he says, as Brian puts his phone down.
"You merely adopted the hustle life, Patrick,” Brian intones. "I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see a paycheck until I was already a man." He gestures to the doughnuts. "Which one do you want?"
Pat looks at the photogenic doughnuts, then at the two still in the tupperware, which look more his speed. Brian laughs under his breath as Pat picks out one that's just chocolate and crushed nuts on top, and Pat realizes that he's been played.
"Yeah, I see you, Pat Gill," Brian says, grinning as he picks up the weird seaweed confection. "I got you."
"Dead to rights," Pat replies, feeling a rush of affection wash over him.
They shoot the breeze for probably a half hour, moving as easily from topic to topic as they always have. Pat had worried if, maybe, the mantle of this being a date would introduce some sort of weird awkwardness between them, but it never comes. There are a few times, though, that he has to ask Brian to repeat himself, because Brian would be talking and Pat would be wondering things like I wonder if this is the kind of date where we kiss at the end and what am I gonna do if this is the kind of date where we kiss at the end.
Normal date thoughts.
He doesn't think he's going to get to the end of the date at all without confessing to Brian that, though he's enjoying himself, he's essentially following Brian into uncharted waters here. You should tell someone that, right? So they don't… so they don't assume you know what you're doing. So you don't come off weird. It's not like Brian would hold it against him, after all.
You would tell someone if it was your first time eating oysters, even if you really wanted to eat the oysters, wouldn't you?
Why, then, is it so hard to say?
Eventually, there's a lull in the conversation. Pat's reclined on one elbow, picking the label off his empty bottle of root beer, and Brian's partway into his second doughnut and too occupied by its strange geometry to carry the conversation.
It's the perfect time. Or, if it's not, it's a least a place to start. Pat steels himself. "Brian, can I ask you a... personal question?"
Brian puts down his doughnut and licks a lingering smear of custard from his thumb without breaking eye contact. "I think that's what people do on dates, Patrick."
Courage, then. "When did you… know? That you liked guys, I mean."
Brian makes a soft, considering sound. "Since always, I guess. I mean, look at all this," he laughs, gesturing to all of himself with an expressive hand wave. "The only thing was coming out to my parents. Everyone else… well, the only people I care about knowing, I usually just ask them out on a date? Which is fine, because… having to come out is bullshit, you know? Just like who you like, whatever."
Brian's hand is so close to his on the blanket, so close that he doesn't even have to move to stroke his pinky down the side of Pat's, then link them. It does something to Pat that makes him feel like a teenager again, holding hands with his crush in homeroom for the first time. "Your turn," Brian says. "When did you know?"
Pat's stomach drops, cold with a flush of shame. "I don't know," he answers.
Brian tilts his head and levels Pat with a curious look. "Like, you don't remember?"
"No, I…" Pat pauses and takes a steadying breath. Time to give Brian a chance to bounce, when he realizes he doesn't have the patience to deal with a thirty-something divorcee's gay awakening. "I don't know… if I like guys."
Brian lifts his hand away from Pat's—not quickly, but deliberately—and puts it back on the blanket. The side of Pat's hand tingles with the loss. Worse, though, is the way Brian's warm expression falters, slipping from his face and coming back as something different. A little less sure. "Oh," he replies, after a beat.
"Yeah, I…" Pat starts, then has to look away from Brian to continue. He squints into the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees. "I've… actually never dated a guy before."
Brian's quiet beside him for a little while, digesting this information. Or deciding how to end the date, maybe. Finally, he clicks his tongue. "That can't be right. You went to college, didn't you?"
The non-sequitur makes Patrick huff, despite the way his stomach is in knots. "Yeah, smartass. I just… dated women while I was there." He spreads his hands, palms up, defensive. "I like women! Women are great! Women are..."
He searches for the right word. It's agony, the way Brian hangs on his silence as no few long seconds tick by. "...women were easy," he finishes, gamely.
Brian pulls his knees up and wraps his arms around them, then rests his head on his knees to look at Pat. His eyes crinkle up at the corners. "It's cute you don't think I'm easy, Pat Gill."
Patrick blows out a lungful of breath and runs his hand through his hair. "Yeah, no; I don't think you're easy at all."
In his peripheral vision, Brian's bare painted toes curl into the grass, matching in spirit the curl of the smile creeping onto his lips. "That's good," he replies, "because I can get really hard."
That does startle a real laugh from Patrick, even as his stomach lurches into his gut with a rush of terrified—thrilled—adrenaline. "Jesus Christ, Brian," he gasps, hiding his face in both hands as his body valiantly tries to send blood north and south at the same time. North wins—mostly—and under his hands he feels his face go up in flames like a struck match.
"Too much?" Brian asks, all innocence.
Pat rubs his hands down his face, groaning. "No. No, it's fine. I just have to get used to, like, a whole new world of innuendo, it's fine."
"Unbelievable sights… indescribable feelings," Brian croons, sitting up straighter. He turns his body so he's facing Patrick again, legs folded underneath him, and Pat's never been happier for body language in his life. "It's pretty much the same, Pat," he says, gesturing airily with the hand not propping himself up. "The innuendo, and… everything else. You can pick it up, no problem."
Brian pauses, hesitation passing over his features for a moment as he looks down at the blanket, then back up at Pat. When he continues, his voice is soft and sincere. "I mean... if you want to."
It's hard for Pat to describe the surge of emotion that courses through him at the thought. It's all at once overwhelming and something terribly desired, but the urge to wrestle it down and cover it with six feet of concrete is deeply ingrained. He—he can't, because it can't be that easy. It can't be as easy as Brian says it is: Brian, who by his own admission has never doubted this about himself, who hasn't happily laboured for decades under a yoke that'd felt just fine, most of the time. If it was easy, wouldn't he already know? What if he's wrong? What if he's just… bored?
Brian is—Brian is captivating. That's his whole thing: he has that energy pouring out of him, the kind where you just want to be close to him, because you feel better just being in his presence. Like getting closer to a space heater on a cold night, or turning your face to the sun on the first day of spring. He is tireless passion and bottomless creativity and incredible physicality, and Patrick—well, he's not immune, is all. You'd have to be dead to not be a little bit in love with Brian.
He just doesn't want to love Brian like the rest of the world imagines they love him. If Brian's guiding metaphor is light and warmth, Pat doesn't want to be the fly banging against the glass: helplessly desiring the idea of Brian, and never being able to consummate that desire because of some obvious barrier he can't see from where he's starting.
Pat can't stomach the thought of hurting him, if he's wrong. He cares a lot for Brian, independent of what his body thinks about the whole situation. Independent of whether Pat has the emotional fortitude to actually address that he might like guys—because he does, clearly—or if he just tamps it down, stays perfectly happy dating women, and doesn't let his dating life get complicated by... what? Curiosity?
If he hurt Brian... if he fucked it up because he wasn't sure... because he was just a fucking tourist...
Brian's still looking at him, chewing a little bit on his bottom lip but clearly trying his hardest to let Pat continue to struggle for the words. His knuckles stroking down Pat's forearm force Pat to collect himself. "Is it…" he tries, then swallows, and tries again, "Is it okay if my answer is… that I don't know?"
The gentle stroking up and down his forearm pauses for a moment. "Any answer is okay, Pat," Brian says, dropping his gaze to where his fingertips slip under the hem of Pat's sleeve. "But I think it'd be nice if… you wanted to find out."
Pat's mouth is dry. "I don't know how," he admits, "I don't know how to do something without just trying it, and I don't…" he sighs again, deeply, running his hand through his hair. "I don't want to be the straight sack of shit who leads you on because he can't tell the difference between liking someone and… liking someone."
Brian's smile twists, and he shoots Pat a coy look before pulling away. "So what I'm hearing is, you like me," he says, retreating into the abstract safety of theatre.
Sent in by at-pizza-suplex, this is a segment called: project a facade of buoyant confidence when your crush insinuates he might not be that into you.
"It's very high school, Pat, I'm into it. Let's lean into it. Let's run an experiment," Brian continues, pulling out his phone. Pat cranes his head to take a look, but Brian angles it away with a tsk. "Gimme a sec. I don't have any notebook paper, or this would be way more authentic."
Brian taps away for about thirty seconds, during which Pat finds himself compulsively smoothing out the picnic blanket. When Brian turns the phone over to Pat, it's warm from his hands. Pat's almost nervous of what he'll find, but it's just the notes app and one simple message:
Do you LIKE-like me?
[ ] yes
[ ] no
Patrick snorts, looking up to find Brian studying him with an expression that's half hopeful and half expectant. "It's that easy to you, huh?"
Brian doesn't look away. "It really should be," he says, and though his voice is soft, Pat can hear the bite right underneath it.
Segment complete.
"I'm not saying the rest of it can't be hard sometimes," Brian continues, "because there's some real fuckers out there and they've sure got my number, Pat, but…" he gestures between them, "this is the part you should already know."
Pat stares down at the phone in his hands, at the million-dollar question. "Yes or no," he mutters. "Just like that."
"Yep," Brian replies. "Are you in, or out."
Pat laughs. "The ol' in and out, huh."
He could live forever, just for the way Brian's eyes crinkle at the corners when Pat gets him. "Not a requirement, trust me," Brian says, smoothly, in that voice that makes Pat feel warm all the way down to his toes.
It feels like it should be momentous, like he should think about it longer, but Brian's right: everything else might eventually be complicated but this… this should be simple. The bellwether.
And as he looks down at the phone in his hand—as he listens, hyperaware, to Brian shifting beside him, to the leaves rustling in the trees, to the footfalls of a passing jogger, to the world continuing on around him as if to remind him that he's not the center of the goddamn universe just because he's having a profound moment of personal growth—he realizes, it is.
He likes Brian. That part's… that part's so obvious that even Pat knows it. And if Brian's willing to put up with him while he tries to figure out what the fuck that means—sexually, emotionally, socially—who is he to resist?
He taps the screen and gives it back to Brian, who exhales a long, relieved sigh as he scans the screen. "Well," he says, then sniffles suspiciously. "That's that, then. Welcome to the other side of your bisexual awakening, Pat Gill." He sniffs again as he goes through the motions of clicking his phone off and leaning over to put it down, then he's angling himself back into Pat's space. "As the newest member of our team, your card'll be in the mail, but… you can have your welcome basket now, if you want."
"Oh yeah? What's in the welcome basket?"
Brian's gaze darts down to Pat's mouth, where it lingers before coming back up. Pat finds himself licking his lips, reflexively. "The usual," Brian murmurs, "Starbucks gift card, scented candle... a kiss from the man of your choosing..."
Pat sits up straighter. "No shit, Hiroshi Tanahashi's here?!"
"Patrick!" Brian exclaims, scandalized and clearly loving it, from the smile that explodes across his face. "Heck, Pat, I'm trying to craft a moment for you!"
Brian pushes Patrick over in mock-affront and Pat just… goes, lying down on the blanket as Brian clambers up next to him, bracing himself with one hand on either side of Pat's shoulders. "Do you wanna kiss me or not, Pat," Brian demands. His hair falls straight down around his face, and Pat is hit with a wicked precognition of how it'll feel brushing against his cheeks when their lips finally meet. "What do you say, big guy?"
"Yeah," Pat says, smiling. "Hit me."
Pat catches a glimpse of his radiant smile before Brian closes the gap between them. The wild thudding of his heart against his ribcage is almost enough to distract him from the rush of sheer adrenaline sparked from the feeling of Brian's lips on his. Almost.
Pat's old enough to have a few first kisses under his belt, enough to appreciate that though they vary in execution, they're fundamentally the same in principle: incredible, but fleeting. So he devotes himself to experiencing it—how Brian's lips are warm and a little chapped; the scrape of his stubble; the foreshadowed brush of Brian's hair on his face. And, under it, the tremble of nerves, usually buried deep under Brian's indomitable confidence, making his breath skitter across Pat's cheeks as he kisses him, so gently.
It’s—it's like an orchestra tuning their instruments in fragments of something like a melody, until Pat opens his lips, and Brian exhales and surges forward, pressing them even closer together, and the entire song bursts into joyous existence, complete with the percussion of their teeth clinking together. Brian pulls back to laugh, long enough for Pat to twine his hands up to cup Brian's cheeks and pull him down for more.
Brian kisses like he does everything else: with full commitment to the bit. He meets Pat's lips again, this time open to each other. He makes a soft noise of delight—or surprise—when their tongues touch, as if he hadn't hoped to believe that Pat would take to it as quickly as he had, and then just goes for it, darting his tongue into Pat's mouth and deepening the kiss even more, turning it messy and hot and breathless.
It's good. It's so fucking good that Pat struggles to think of how he could possibly have worried it wouldn't be, that he wouldn't respond like a goddamn flower opening up toward Brian, because kissing Brian is so good it scours out every hesitation, every fear. Like, oh, yeah, of course. Of course.
Eventually, they have to part—the alternative being full-on grinding in Central Park, and despite the way the need for more simmers in Pat, he doesn't want to end up the subject of a viral tweet thread about these two horny motherfuckers, smh. Brian—fucking—bites Pat's lip as he goes, pulling it lightly in his teeth.
Pat gives into the desire he's buried for months to run his hand through Brian's hair, and, yeah, it's just as silky soft as he'd imagined. Brian tilts his head at the end to press a kiss to Pat's palm, then puts his cheek in Pat's hand and looks down at him with an expression that's so happy, so tender, that the sound that bubbles out of Patrick feels a little choked, like he doesn't know if he's gonna laugh, or cry, or both.
Brian shifts his weight to one hand, bringing the other up to wipe away a cooling smear of wetness on Pat's lips. "What's the verdict, Pat Gill?"
Pat swallows back the lump in his throat that seems to pulse in time with his racing heart. "Ten out of ten. Kiss of the year," he says, rubbing his thumb over the soft skin of Brian's cheek. "Can't wait for the sequel. Heard the DLC's gonna be wild."
"Oh, yeah, you should definitely pick up the season pass," Brian murmurs, leaning in as if to sneak one more kiss. "The boyfriend pack is not to be missed."
Pat's intake of breath must startle Brian, because he pulls back quickly before their lips meet. "No to boyfriends?" Brian asks, concerned.
"N-no," Pat stammers, not missing the tiny crease that forms between Brian's eyebrows. "No, I mean—yes, yes to boyfriends, yeah, of course. I'm just… in the middle of realizing some shit right now. Reorganizing."
Pat pulls Brian back in, kissing him with what he hopes is all the sincerity in his body. "I'm sorry," he says when they part again, "I'm definitely going to fuck up and act weird. But I… I'm crazy into you, Brian. I want you to be my—Christ," he pauses to laugh, incredulously, "...my boyfriend, okay?"
I put that expression on his face, is the last coherent thing Pat thinks before Brian kisses him again, chasing away any thoughts other than how fucking right it feels, after all.