Chapter Text
David realized that he was in love with Patrick on Sunday, July 22nd at 11:36 pm.
Contrary to what Alexis and Stevie might tell people, David knew that he was in love with Patrick well before the events of singles week. The way he had reacted to Patrick’s declaration might have not shown this, but it was true. At the time it had been more about the influx of emotions that David had been feeling; his fears and anxieties clouding out the love he obviously felt for Patrick. But he did know that it was love that he felt in return. He had just been scared to admit it to anyone other than himself.
He remembered the moment exactly when he realized he was in love with Patrick. Down to the fucking minute.
It was a Sunday. Sundays were normally David’s favorite day of the week. The store was closed, on Sundays which meant he got to sleep in and, if he was lucky, spend the entire day in bed. (And he was even luckier if he got to spend the entire day in bed with Patrick.) On this particular Sunday, however, this had not been the case.
Alexis had woken him up at the ass-crack of dawn to helpher re-organize her closet. He didn’t really remember actually promising to help her with that and he was just going to ignore her and let it go, but then she started to put her Zara jumpers in the closet next to her Chanel scarves and David just couldn’t allow that kind of crime against humanity to continue under the roof where he lived.
Which is how he found himself here, standing on the doorstep at Ray’s just about ready to start knocking on the door with his head rather than his hand because he had texted Patrick six times now and he still hadn’t answered. Ray was out of town for some sort of business thing (David had kind of stopped listening after Patrick told him that he would have the house to himself on Sunday, he didn’t really care about the reason why.), and Patrick was supposed to be here to open the door and kiss David hello so that they could make out on Ray’s couch like civilized human beings.
But no. He was just standing here, waiting for Patrick to open the door. Even though he had texted him six times! They were really going to have to have a conversation about Patrick’s texting etiquette. When your boyfriend says “I'm outside,” you don’t just meander your way downstairs at your own leisurely pace, you open the goddamn door.
Normally, David wouldn’t have been too excessively whiny about the situation. It’s just that he hadn’t seen Patrick in like 28 hours and he kinda sorta missed him? It was an odd feeling for David. One that sat uneasily in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t used to missing people like this. Not really. Sure, he had missed his parents when he was a little kid or even Alexis when they were both younger but this was different. It felt different. David didn’t like it. It made him feel kinda sweaty and anxious.
He thought about just bailing altogether. Maybe he was just getting sick? But then the door in front of him swung open, revealing a smirking Patrick.
“Hey,” he said, smiling at David, “Sorry. My phone was on silent. I didn’t see your text.”
“Texts,” David corrected him, trying his best to look annoyed.“I texted you six times. I could have been dead or dying out here.”
Patrick raised an eyebrow at him. “You mean if you were dying you would have spent your last moments texting me about how annoying your sister is instead of, oh I don’t know, calling the police?”
“Maybe I was identifying my killer,” David said, as he pushed past Patrick into the house.
Patrick hummed behind him, “She does have the correct motivation for wanting to kill you. Although she doesn’t really strike me as the kind of person who would want to get her hands dirty like that.”
David turned to him, unceremoniously dropping his bag on the floor next to him with a thud.
“Okay, as fun as this is I’d rather not talk about my sister right now.”
Patrick smirked at him. That stupid, charming little smirk that made David want to pull Patrick in by his stupid blue button ups and kiss him senseless.
“Oh yeah?” Patrick asked, his voice teasing as he closed the distance between the two of them, wrapping his arms around David’s waist in the process. “Why not? Was there something in particular that you wanted to...discuss?”
David hummed, nodding his head up and down.
“Yes, your phone etiquette is terrible and it needs to be addressed.”
Patrick pulled back from him slightly and raised an eyebrow, “My phone etiquette is terrible? I’m sorry, who was the one that left 15 messages while high on their business consultant’s voicemail?”
David tried not to cringe at the memory.
“Okay,” he said, “it was hardly 15 messages. And that is not the point. The point is that you shouldn’t leave your phone on silent.”
“Oh,” Patrick said, fighting a smile, “Okay then.”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone, hitting the screen so that his lock screen (a candid black and white photo of the two of them, the sight of which made David blush a little), so that David could see the ringer switched to on as Patrick flipped the switch on the side of his phone.
“Better?” he asked, tucking the phone back into his pocket.
“Yes,” David said, “It’s really not that hard. I really don’t think I’m asking for too much…”
He trailed off, his smile at Patrick’s face breaking his concentration on the bit. Patrick had rewound his hands around David’s waist and was pulling him in flush against his chest. David draped both of his arms around Patrick’s neck. Patrick leaned into him and pressed his lips against David’s softly. It was a nice kiss. A soft, welcoming, teasing kiss. The kind of kiss that David hadn’t really experienced much of before he met Patrick. Usually kisses were just a precursor to somebody putting their cock somewhere. They were never meant to be anything more than a kind of foreplay, a social lubricant if you will. David kissed his exes because that’s what you were supposed to do. He remembered telling Patrick that their first kiss felt like his first time too. This is what he had meant. He had never really kissed anyone without there being some kind of further intent. But he liked it. He liked the way that Patrick kissed him, soft and warm and full of respect. That, for sure, was something he had never had before in any of his other partners.
David felt Patrick slide his hands down to the hem of David’s sweater until they rested on his hips, Patrick’s fingers gripping against the waistband of his jeans. Carefully, Patrick pressed him backwards, until the backs of David’s knees collided with the couch. David did his best to climb onto the couch without breaking their kiss. He shifted so that he could grab onto the lapels of Patrick’s button up (God, even on his days off he still wore those stupid blue button ups.), pulling Patrick down on top of him. David arched his back against the back of the couch, Patrick hovering above him. He was in a semi-standing position, with one leg bent up against David’s thigh on the cushion, while the other was slotted inbetween David’s open legs. He had one arm braced against the back of the couch by David’s head to hold him steady, while the other was roaming up and down David’s chest.
David closed his eyes, allowing himself to be taken over by the pleasure of Patrick’s lips on his, of feeling Patrick’s fingers splayed across his chest, his own hands gripping at Patrick’s hips, wondering if he moved his hands a little further down if he would be able to feel Patrick’s big, throbbing--
Ding.
David pulled away from the kiss abruptly, startled by the sudden noise.
Ding. Ding.
It took him a moment to recognize the sound as texts coming through on a phone.
Ding, ding, ding.
Patrick looked at him sheepishly as he pulled his phone out his back pocket. Right, David reminded himself, he’d turned the ringer on for the stupid bit earlier.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
Patrick nodded, as he scrolled through the messages, his phone continuing to ping with new ones.
“Yeah,” he said absentmindedly, as he moved to sit next to David on the couch. “It’s a groupchat of my friends back home. They want me to turn on the game.”
“The game?” David asked
Patrick smirked at him, “Baseball. My team is playing tonight. Apparently it’s crazy.”
David peered over Patrick’s shoulder to look at the messages that were still flooding in. Someone named Matt was communicating in what seemed to be a sort of new morse code comprised totally of numbers and expletives. Another person, Jake, was just repeating Patrick’s name in all caps. But it was one message at the bottom from someone named Alec that caught David’s eye.
“‘Patrick, oh my god,’” he read aloud, with a forced enthusiasm. “‘This game is insane. What could you possibly be doing that is more important than baseball?’”
He smirked at Patrick, raising an eyebrow and shimmying his shoulders suggestively.
Patrick just rolled his eyes. “Don’t say you.”
David bit down a smile as Patrick continued to scroll through his incoming messages. He watched as Patrick’s eyes flickered up to the TV in front of them and then back down to his phone. David held in a sigh.
“Do you...um, want to turn on the game?” He tried to keep his face looking neutral, but he obviously hadn’t done that great of a job considering the look on Patrick’s face.
“No, David, it’s alright,” he said, setting his phone down next to him, “I know you don’t like sports.”
“It’s not that I don’t like sports,” David said cautiously, “I just think that given today’s political climate, there’s no need to further divide ourselves.”
Patrick smiled at him, huffing out a half chuckle, “Right.”
“So….” David said slyly, reaching forward to settle his hands on Patrick’s chest, “where were we?”
Patrick smiled and leaned into David. David leaned forward so that Patrick was sitting with his back fully against the back of the couch. Moving slowly, deliberately, he shifted so that he was moving into Patrick’s lap, pressing wet, warm kisses along his boyfriend’s jaw and down his neck. He heard Patrick let out a little gasp as David shifted so that he was fully straddling him, he felt Patrick’s hands move from his arms down his body to grip onto his the outside of his thighs. David moved to nibble at the spot just behind Patrick’s ear that always made him make the most delectable little sound, the same sound that he always made whenever David was kneeling in front of him, face pressed into his inner thighs, tongue wrapped around his--
Ding.
Motherfucker.
David pulled away and glared at the offending object.
“Just ignore it,” Patrick murmured, guiding David’s face back towards him by gently putting his thumb and forefinger on his chin. David leaned back into the kiss, trying to ignore the continuing ping of Patrick’s phone. Patrick seemed to be having a similarly hard time keeping his focus, as his kisses slowed on David’s skin, and they seemed slightly more distracted. David opened his eyes to see that Patrick too had his open, and was trying to glance at his phone screen between pressing half-hearted kisses to David’s jaw.
“Okay,” David said, pulling away and placing both his hands on Patrick’s chest, “If this is how the rest of the night’s gonna be, I think you should just turn on the game now.”
“What?” Patrick asked, looking slightly dazed, “I’m sorry. I’ll turn it off, I was just...distracted.”
David hummed and nodded, “And you’re gonna be distracted all night if you don’t turn it on. Which is really too bad, because what I had planned for us requires your full attention.”
David watched Patrick gulp, and for a minute he thought maybe he could persuade him that the baseball could wait, but then his stupid phone fucking dinged again and David knew he’d lost him. He bit down a smile at the ridiculous, distracted look on Patrick’s face. He looked like a little kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar, knowingly doing something that he knew he wasn’t supposed to, and yet here he was.
David shifted so that he was sitting leaned up against Patrick instead of straddling him.
“Are you sure?” he asked, looking at David hesitantly.
David just shrugged, “It’s fine,” he said, and then added in a low voice, “Just be sure to remember how thoughtful, and, uh, generous I’m being right now. You know. For later.”
Patrick smiled and him and nodded, “Oh, of course. Because that’s usually something generous people do. Ask to be rewarded for their generosity.”
“Okay,” David said indignantly, ready to fully defend himself, but Patrick was smiling at him and holding back laughter as he flipped through the channels on the TV, trying to find the right one and David couldn’t help but smile back.
Which was... weird. He hadn’t even really thought about his offer to delay sex for a baseball game while he was giving it. But now, it felt... strange. He had come over here tonight with the sole purpose of completely defiling his wholesome button up wearing boyfriend in every single consensually dirty way that he could imagine. Instead, he was sitting on Ray’s couch, watching baseball. And he wasn’t upset about it. That was the weirdest part. He didn’t feel bad about it at all, because Patrick was so happy about it.
“So Alec was saying that this is team is coming close to pitching a perfect inning, which is crazy,” Patrick said to him.
David hummed, not really sure how to respond to that.
“A perfect inning means that nobody gets on the bases,” Patrick explained, pointing at the screen. “The white things on the ground,”
David squinted at the field displayed on the screen. Sure enough there where four white marks on the outside of the field, which was shaped more or less like a diamond. He vaguely remembered people talking about bases and runs from his days in Little League, but he had stopped paying attention to whatever his coach had been saying to him at the time because Kaden Watkins had chosen that specific moment to throw a ball right at the back of David’s head. After that, most of what David knew of baseball served more as a metaphor for sex, something he was far better at (and was arguably far more fun) than standing in a field letting people throw hard chunks of rubber at him.
“Sorry,” Patrick said suddenly, pulling David out of the more cursed memories of his days on a Little League team, “I know you don’t care about this. And it’s really nice of you to let me turn on the game. You can just go home if you want, I can pick you up after the game ends.”
For a second David thought about it; he really didn’t want to spend his whole evening watching baseball. But he did want to spend the rest of his evening with Patrick. He had missed him. Besides, going back to the motel would mean going back to his room with Alexis and his parents. Sitting here with Patrick, curled up against one another, even if it was while watching baseball, was far better than spending any more time with his family.
“No, no, it’s alright.” David said, his voice coming out suddenly softer, “I’ll stay. If that’s alright. You can even explain the game. You know. If that’s something that you want to do.”
And then Patrick’s eyes lit up and David felt like his heart was turning to mush. Patrick leaned further into David and pressed two quick kisses to his temple, before wrapping an arm around his shoulders and settling David next to him.
They spent the next several hours like this, David curled into Patrick’s side as Patrick excitedly explained the so-called action unfolding on the screen. Occasionally David would interject with a question or a judgement about a certain player’s hair style and Patrick would laugh and kiss him sweetly. He would also tell David stories from when he was younger, from college and high school when he played on his school’s teams, and even before that when he would play catch with his dad and have to use a tee to hit the ball. David found himself liking these parts the best. He loved the idea of a little baby Patrick carrying a bat bigger than himself around his backyard, chasing his dad around with it. The same mischievous little look in his eyes that he got when he teased David.
He liked that about Patrick. He liked seeing that little look in his eyes when he teased David. He liked the way he smiled when he kissed him, he liked the way he said his name, the way he knew David’s complicated coffee order at the cafe. He even so much as--
Oh. Oh.
Oh shit.
He loved it. David loved all those things about Patrick. He loved Patrick.
Oh shit.
The realization knocked the wind out of David, hitting him like a ton of bricks. Or like he had been the one hit in the stomach with a baseball and not Patrick (a story that had made him laugh only moments before). He didn’t know how he missed it. Surely there had been signs?
He glanced around at his surroundings. Nothing around him seemed different. Not even Patrick. He was just sitting there, talking about batting averages or something equally boring and he had no idea that David was having an actual stroke while he sat there watching stupid baseball.
Oh right. Baseball. That should have been his number one clue. David Rose was sitting here on a Sunday night at 11:36 pm, watching baseball. He didn’t even like baseball. And yet, here he was. Never in his life would he have allowed the person he was dating to pull him into something that he didn’t want to do. David might have been a bit of pushover, but he still had standards. Hell, three years ago he wouldn’t have even Ubered to Brooklyn for sex with Matt Bomer. And that was for sex. With Matt Bomer. But that was also three years ago. Before Schitt’s Creek. Before he had to live in a motel room where his sister was always just a few feet away, instead of halfway around the world.,. It was before he had his store, when a hard day’s work was flying to SoCal on his family’s private jet for lunch with an artist.
It was before Patrick.
Patrick and his stupid blue button ups and his soft, teasing smile and clean, neat, totally not sloppy mouth. Patrick who was nice to him, and kind to him, and respected him, and gave up things for David all the time. He would have completely skipped watching this game tonight for David, without even giving it a second thought. Something that clearly made him so happy, he would have given up. For David. That idea confounded him. No one he had ever used to fuck, let alone dated, would have done that for him.
David chanced a glance at Patrick. He had that delighted, happy, content look on his face that made David’s heart turn to mush. David would have let Patrick drag him to a thousand baseball games (with only minimal complaining) if only he could get to see the way that Patrick’s face lit up as it was right now.
And that’s what love was, right? That’s what it was supposed to be. It’s what his parents did for each other, and after that horrible incident in the motel 2 years ago, David was keenly aware of how much they loved each other. This was the kind of thing that the people in Notting Hill and Jerry Maguire and Downton Abbey talked about when they talked about love. Give and take. Respect and admiration. Never having to say you’re sorry. Well, maybe not that last one, but surely all the others?
“Hey, you alright?”
David was pulled from his reverie by Patrick looking at him quizzically. David realized he must have been staring, or had completely zoned out when Patrick had been talking to him and gave himself away as no longer paying attention. He blinked a few times, as if by doing so he would be able to erase the last minute of his life, and go back to a time before emotions and feelings had complicated his judgement.
He looked over at Patrick. Beautiful, sweet, amazing, brilliant Patrick. David could feel the words sitting there, right on the edge of tongue, barley being held back behind his lips. He could say it. Let him know. Tell him. Declare it.
But he didn’t.
It was too much. Too fast. He was scared. Scared that Patrick wouldn’t say it back. Scared that it would change things. David liked the happy little bubble that they lived in right now. He was afraid that by uttering those three, dangerous little words, that he would burst it. That things would change beyond what he was ready for. Beyond what he was capable of, that Patrick would suddenly need things from David that he couldn’t possibly provide. That he would lose him.
The thought made him feel sick to his stomach. David had only just realized that he what he was holding onto so tightly was, in fact, love. There was no way he was going to let it go so soon, not when he had just gotten it. Not when it made him so incredibly happy.
“Nothing,” he said finally, his voice coming out as no more than a whisper. “Just tired.”
He patted Patrick’s thigh and made to stand up. “Think I’m gonna go on up to bed.”
“Alright,” Patrick said, and then suddenly he reached out and caught David’s hand in his. “I’ll join you. The guys’ll tell me how it ends.”
David shook his head. “No, no. You should stay if you want.”
Patrick’s lips quirked up into a smile. “Well, what I really want to do is thank my boyfriend for being so nice tonight by letting me watch baseball, even though i know that he hates it.”
David bit back a smile, “Well…” he drawled out, “if you were looking for a way to thank me, you know, for being so generous... I’m sure that we could come up with something... appropriate.”
“Oh really?”
And then Patrick was pulling David down to him, smiling into their kiss. And David was smiling back. And for a moment, a brief, wonderful moment, David envisioned a world where this was how he could end every single day for the rest of his life. Here, with Patrick. Smiling into kisses and teasing and flirting with each other. If there had been any doubt in his mind before, he surely knew now. That this, this right here with Patrick, leaned up against Ray’s ratty old couch, with a baseball game playing in the background, this was a moment of true love. And that the man sharing this moment with him, was the absolute love of his life. And in that brief, wonderful moment, David wasn’t scared. He was exhilarated. He was excited. He was in love.