Work Text:
David knew very little about sports, but he knew a whole lot about Patrick.
Patrick loved baseball, which David did not understand. But Patrick loved it like breathing, like a sunny day, and David loved Patrick. He knew his favorite team was the Toronto Blue Jays. David knew very little about Toronto, but in September the Blue Jays were playing the New York Yankees, and David knew a lot about New York. And Patrick had never been to New York, and David had never been to a Major League Baseball game, and so a few months after their engagement, for Patrick’s birthday, David handed him two tickets in an envelope.
Patrick’s eyebrows shot towards his hairline when he opened it, smile blooming wide and bright across his face. “These are really good seats.”
David did not know anything about baseball stadiums. The only games he’d ever attended were the ones Patrick played on a dirt field behind the café, where David would lay a clean, locally woven blanket down on the right hand side of the second row of bleachers, just close enough for Patrick to hear him from the dugout.
“My dad helped,” David said, waving a hand dismissively at the tickets.
Patrick beamed at him. “This is a really thoughtful gift, David.”
David shimmied up to him and let his hands fall on his hips, leaning in for a kiss. “It’s been known to happen.”
Patrick drove them to the city on a beautiful fall day. David sat in the passenger seat and scrolled aggressively through Patrick’s iPod, changing the song on a whim whether it was finished or not.
“You know, the ends of songs are nice, too,” Patrick said eventually, somewhere in rural New York.
David didn’t like the end. He tolerated beginnings. He loved middles. Endings, he found, usually came too soon and were very rarely satisfying. Better to choose for yourself, he thought. Better to control when a thing was finished.
They parked in southern Connecticut and took the train the rest of the way into the city. David had found them a hotel room they could barely afford in Koreatown, at a Hampton Inn, of all places. When his mother had asked, he’d just told her they were staying at the Hilton.
She’d also asked David if he’d be bringing Patrick to any of his old haunts, but David had thought about the galleries his mother had bankrolled, and the restaurants where the waiters knew his father’s name but not his, or the clubs where the cover was more than a day of sales at the Apothecary, and shrugged.
Instead, David and Patrick went out that first night and got dumplings. They ate them on a bench in Bryant Park and David laughed as Patrick got accosted by that particular city breed of pigeon that will come for your car and your wife and your children and definitely also your dumplings. They walked back to their hotel in the dark. After passing the third street light buzzing with moths, Patrick reached down to take David’s hand.
“I’ll protect you,” he said, joking, but David knew he would.
The next morning, he took Patrick to the Lower East Side to pop in and out of bagel shops and Jewish bakeries, carryout bag becoming steadily heavier along the way. David walked him by Russ and Daughters, where he used to eat breakfast every Monday, then to Katz’s, where Meg Ryan had faked an orgasm for Billy Crystal. He took him across Houston and into Alphabet City, Patrick whining as they lugged their bakery burden up Avenue A.
“We’re almost there,” David promised, and led him into Tompkins Square Park.
“You know, for someone who hates the outdoors, you sure do have a thing for parks,” Patrick said as David carefully brushed leaves and used napkins off one of the benches. “I know I said we should be frugal, but we can afford to eat in a restaurant.”
David sat down and began to sort through their purchases. “Maybe I prefer to dine al fresco."
Patrick took a seat next to him, a little closer than necessary, and David leaned into it. “I know for a fact that is not true.” Patrick elbowed him gently. “Are you ashamed to be seen with me in New York high society, is that it?”
“Yes, you’re an embarrassment,” David said, deadpan. “They would never let you in dressed like that, and then where would we be?” He took a pointed bite of bialy and chewed loudly in Patrick’s direction.
“Charming,” Patrick said, grabbing the bialy from him to try it. “I’m still not sure I understand what makes this better than a bagel.”
“Ugh, you don’t deserve that bialy,” David said, and snatched it back. He rifled through the bag with his free hand and shoved a small pastry bag at Patrick instead. “There, try that.”
“What is it?”
“Rugelach.” At Patrick’s mystified look David just rolled his eyes and flapped a hand at him. “It’s like a cookie. Just eat it, you’ll like it.”
Patrick looked skeptical, and David squirmed as he took the smallest possible bite, chewing far, far too slowly.
“Oh my god!” David said.
Patrick finally swallowed, and shrugged at David. “It’s good.”
“No. Give it to me,” David said, reaching for it, and Patrick handed it over, laughing.
“Was any of this food for me or should I just go and get breakfast somewhere else?”
“I just don’t feel like you’re fully appreciating all this,” David said, mouth full of rugelach, and Patrick’s expression softened.
“I am,” he said. “I love this.” He pressed a kiss into David’s shoulder. “Trying new things with you.”
“It’s not new for me,” David said, and realized as he said it that it wasn’t true. Because he’d spent years eating bialys on benches, and even longer judging rugelach by its filling or its roll or its bake, but he’d never done those things with someone else. He’d never wanted to share before, and now all he wanted to do was feed Patrick his favorite foods and walk him through his favorite parks and rewrite all his lonely years of city living with this, something new.
“I know,” Patrick said. He picked a bagel out of the bag. “Tell me about your first time.”
“Um, I feel like we’ve probably been over that,” David said.
Patrick flushed and shook his head. “Your first time in the city,” he clarified. “Your first time eating… arugula?”
David hid his twisting smile behind the pastry bag. “Rugelach.”
“That’s what I said.” Patrick chewed on his bagel and raised his eyebrows and David loved him so, so much. He leaned back, and remembered.
“My grandma took us.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about her."
“She died when I was eleven.”
“I’m sorry,” Patrick said, placing a warm hand on David’s thigh, his thumb rubbing small circles into the fabric.
“We’d spend a week with her every summer,” he said, hands picking at the cookie he was holding. “She used to force feed us kugel and baked goods. Alexis hated it.”
Patrick smiled. “I bet you loved it.”
David nodded. “She made the best rugelach.” The piece in David’s lap had turned to crumb, and Patrick reached over to tug his hand away. David had loved his grandmother’s house for all the reasons it was different from his own. It was small, and simple, and welcoming, and warm in a way he hadn’t realized he’d missed. Until Patrick.
They took the train uptown to Yankee stadium. It was hot and crowded and David remembered why he’d always taken cabs. But he was squeezed close to Patrick, who was holding onto the overhead rail and staring at the people around them like a kid in a museum. And David wanted to explain about how parks were like museums, full of people who paid him no mind, exhibits of lives so different from his own. But instead of observation at a distance, the subway was up close examination, and David was already having trouble breathing, so he focused on in and then out, and decided he’d tell Patrick later.
“You didn’t want to go to a Mets game?” Patrick asked after they found their seats in the stadium, one tier up, behind the first base line. And honestly, David had not known that New York had a baseball team besides the Yankees one until he’d looked up how to buy tickets. But then he had also looked at the stadiums on a map and made an executive decision.
“I didn’t want to go to Queens,” he said, face wrinkling, and Patrick laughed, and maybe this would be okay.
After all, the seats here were more comfortable than the bleachers in Schitt’s Creek, but there were also a lot more of them, which meant a lot more people, and David was still recovering from the packed car on the D train. There was a large man in head-to-toe Yankees memorabilia sitting next to him, beer in hand, and David pressed himself closer to Patrick.
“Don’t worry,” Patrick said, gleeful. “I’ll protect you from any foul balls.”
David had not been thinking of rogue baseballs, but he also didn’t have words to explain the tense grip in his chest, so instead he said, “How gallant of you.” Then, understanding coalescing slightly in his brain, “Is that a thing I should be worried about?”
Patrick chuckled, pressing a kiss to David’s hair. “Maybe the Jays will let you borrow a helmet.”
David turned his head to squint up at him, considering. “Would they?”
Patrick blinked back at him. “No.”
David made a face, but tangled their fingers together anyway.
In the fourth inning, the Yankees were at bat, and a man on second slid into third and missed the bag. Patrick shouted in delight while the crowd around him booed. The player dusted himself off and jogged back towards the dugout.
David nudged his shoulder against Patrick’s. “Don’t they get a mulligan or something?” he asked.
“That’s golf, but honestly I’m impressed you even know what a mulligan is.”
“I know things!” David protested.
“About golf?”
“Mm-hmm,” David said with a grimace. “My dad used to let me drive the cart. The clothes are tragic.”
“Says the man wearing a wool sweater to a baseball game. In September.”
“I’ll have you know, this is a very breathable cashmere.”
Patrick smiled, fond. “Of course it is.”
In the sixth inning, after the third batter stepped up to home plate to the heavy bass beat of a rap song, David frowned dramatically at Patrick. “Who picked this playlist?”
“The players pick their own walk-up music.”
“I don’t know what that is, ” David said, feeling dumb.
“Their walk-up music.” Patrick gestured patiently to home plate. “Like their intro song as they walk up to bat.”
A Jays’ batter sauntered up to home plate, country song blasting out over the stands, and David’s mouth turned in disgust. “Do all baseball players have such appalling taste in music?”
“Mariah’s not as popular with this crowd as one might think,” Patrick said.
David pursed his lips. “Too Canadian?”
“Yep,” Patrick replied, nodding. “I’m sorry, but baseball is the all-American sport. There’s just no room for Mariah.”
“A tragedy,” David sighed, and leaned back into Patrick. “So what was yours?”
Patrick’s face did a surprised and lovely little twitch, and David poked his arm.
“What? You played baseball! What was your song?”
Patrick’s mouth quirked up just a little at the corner, the way it did when he found David amusing, or when he was teasing. “What do you think it is?”
“Stacy’s Mom,” David said, not missing a beat, and Patrick snorted, shaking his head. “Wonderwall. Free Bird. My Heart Will Go On!” David could have kept going, but Patrick slapped a hand over his mouth. David licked it.
“Very mature.” Patrick said.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“I’ll lick you again.”
Patrick raised an eyebrow, but pulled his hand out of reach. “It’s All Star, by Smash Mouth.”
There was a beat of silence.
“I want a divorce,” David said.
Patrick laughed then, loud and fast, and people turned to stare. It hit David suddenly, the way it did sometimes, that he was marrying this man, and he felt his heart ballooning in his chest. And it suddenly didn’t matter that he wasn’t invisible, that he was surrounded by people who were probably watching. He leaned over the armrest to press his lips against Patrick’s. He tasted salty, and a little bit like beer, and David knew that he would never love baseball the way Patrick did, but he thought he could probably love the way it tasted on his tongue, hot and thrilling and public.
The Jays lost, and David clung to Patrick’s hand as they fought their way out of the stadium amongst elated New York crowds. He let Patrick wrap his arms around him on the subway platform, too warm for comfort but unable to let him go, and conjured up a world where they didn’t go back to Schitt’s Creek. Where they opened a little storefront in SoHo and rented a too-small apartment in a six-story walk-up and went to the farmer’s market on Saturday’s and chased the pigeons in the park and swayed together on busy subway platforms, invisible and content.
“You miss it,” Patrick said in his ear, and David hummed quietly back, shaking his head. There were things he missed: good restaurants, quiet parks, the anonymity of one man among millions. But he also knew that home in that moment had nothing to do with Manhattan and everything to do with Patrick’s heart beating solid and steady against his back.
They left the next morning, David suddenly taking a renewed interest in Patrick’s music. He ignored the jibes and raised eyebrows from Patrick, and put the iPod on shuffle. Something folksy and unfamiliar started playing, and Patrick sang along.
“What is this?” David asked, nose wrinkling.
“It’s Great Big Sea,” Patrick said, and David squinted at him.
“Is that, like, a geography thing?”
“No, David, it’s a band.”
David listened for another beat, then turned to Patrick. “Is this your walk-up song?”
Patrick laughed, shaking his head. “Nope.”
The next song came on, and the next, and David asked every time, studying Patrick’s face for any reaction, any inkling that he might be on the right track.
“I told you my song!” Patrick said, an hour later when David showed no signs of giving up the game.
“Your taste is boring, to be sure,” David explained. “But it’s not catastrophic.” Patrick just shrugged, smirking, and David stared back at him, wild-eyed. “There’s no way you chose Smash Mouth as your hype music. There just isn’t!”
They got back to Schitt’s Creek and David was no closer to finding Patrick’s song, so the game went on. Patrick began playing ever-weirder music and David began making more and more obscure guesses until the soundtrack of the Apothecary was delving into musical depths yet unseen in Schitt’s Creek.
“You have to stop,” Stevie told him, several weeks in, splaying her hands dramatically on the counter. “I can’t take it.”
“You’re not enjoying this?” David asked, deadpan.
Stevie looked manic. “You’ve been playing the blue dab a dee dab a dai song for three days straight and honestly, I think I’m dying. In fact, I may be dead already.” She held out a wrist to David. “Quick, check if I have a pulse.”
“I’m not playing anything!” David argued. “He changed our iPad password! None of this is my fault!”
“Um, you started this dumb quest, so I one hundred percent blame you.”
“Well excuse me for wanting to know what my fiancé’s favorite song is!”
Stevie threw her hands in the air. “He’s never gonna play it, you moron! You will never know. No one will ever know. Patrick will remain a musical mystery to us all and you need to end this.” She punctuated each word with a smack to the counter, and David took a step back, frowning.
“Someone has to know!” he wailed. “He did the baseball for actual years, and people, like, watched him, right?”
Stevie shrugged helplessly.
“Someone has to know,” David said again, sure.
“Who do we know who hung out with pre-Schitt’s Creek Patrick?”
He blinked at Stevie, who stared back at him, slightly crazed. “Oh.”
“What?”
“I may have an idea.”
“What?!"
David pulled out his phone, scrolling through his contact list until he found the name. Stevie leaned over the counter to see it.
“Oooohhh,” She said slowly. “Yeah, you definitely should have thought of that, like, weeks ago. Way before now.”
“Yeah, okay, I get it,” David said, hitting the button to place the call and pressing the phone to his ear.
“I could have been spared so much trauma.”
David waved a hand to shush her. “And this is all about you, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Stevie agreed.
“Sh!” David whispered, and Stevie mimed zipping her lips, throwing an invisible key at his face.
David stuck his tongue out at her, then startled when the ringing in his ear turned suddenly into talking.
“Oh! Um yes, hi, Clint.” He ignored Stevie, who was winking, hand folded into a thumbs up. “I have a quick question for you about Patrick.”
They had a spring wedding. The whole town came. It was loud and public and his mother cried the entire time and David had never had a happier day. And the best moment, the one David had dreamed up back in Yankee Stadium with peanut shells and beer cups under his feet and Patrick’s fingers twined hot and steady around his own, well, it was even better than David had imagined.
Patrick’s parents were walking him up, arms linked together, matching smiles on their faces. David held his breath as they got to the first row of seats, but Stevie, as promised, did not miss her cue, and the opening notes of “Jackie Wilson Said” burst out of the sound system. David watched Patrick’s face light up in shocked delight, Van Morrison’s timbre chasing him up the aisle, and David could not contain himself. He grinned back at Patrick while his heart threatened to beat out of his ribcage. Patrick hugged his dad, kissed his mom on the cheek, then turned to David, beaming, like a sunrise, and David was in heaven.
“That was a really good guess,” Patrick said, as the last notes faded out.
“Your dad helped,” David said, giving a little wave to Mr. Brewer in the front row.
“That was really thoughtful, David.” Patrick said, reaching down to grasp David’s hand in his own, and David was grateful for it, because he felt like he might float away otherwise.
“It’s been known to happen.”
The reception was riotous. His dad gave a teary-eyed toast, followed by his mom, who recited a monologue from Sunrise Bay. Then Alexis, who told one embarrassing story after another until Ted pulled her back down into her seat. Stevie said a few awkward, stumbling words, and then Patrick’s parents, and by the time they finally finished dinner David was exhausted and elated and very much in need of a slice of cake. The photographer followed them to the dessert table where an understated, two-tier chocolate cake was set up next to a platter of what David realized was rugelach. He whipped around to Patrick, who leaned in quickly for a kiss.
“You’re not the only one with surprises,” he said against David’s lips.
David kissed him back, delighted, and picked up a cookie. He was just about to take a bite when the thought occurred to him, and he turned wildly to Patrick. “Please tell me you did not let Twyla make this.”
Patrick chuckled, soft and besotted, but shook his head. “Your dad helped.”
David’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “You put my father in a kitchen?”
“He helped with the recipe!” Patrick clarified, still laughing. “Don’t worry, my mom baked them.”
And David didn’t think it was possible to love Patrick any more than he already did, but he took a bite of perfectly baked rugelach and held Patrick’s hand and was happy to believe in the impossible.
The band started up in earnest after dessert, and David lost track of Patrick completely. He danced with everyone, linen suit coat unbuttoned and just tipsy enough to not care about the way his stomach stuck out of his pants or how his feet fumbled through the steps. When things finally slowed down around midnight, David let himself be pulled, giddy, away from Stevie and into Patrick’s arms, slow song warbling along behind them.
“You’re beautiful,” Patrick said into his ear.
“Mmm,” David replied, eloquent.
The music swelled behind them, and David let it fill him up, pressing off the ground and closer to Patrick.
“You never told me what your song would be,” Patrick said, soft.
David closed his eyes. “For what?”
“Your walk up.”
And David leaned back then to look at him, dumbstruck, because Patrick had to know. Anyone could look at David and know that the only song he’d ever needed was standing in front of him. Patrick, with heavy eyes and soft fingers on a makeshift stage in the store that they built. Patrick, loud and silly in the car, or in the shower, voice humid and off-key. Patrick, in the kitchen, banging a wooden spoon on the counter to the beat. Patrick, in their bed, humming hot and purposeful into David’s skin.
David still knew very little about sports, but he knew a lot about Patrick. And if his song was about what made him feel revved up, supported, ready to take on the world, or the pitch, or whatever, then it was Patrick.
“What?” Patrick asked.
“Nothing,” David replied, familiar smile pushing helplessly onto his face. “I love you.”
Patrick snorted. “Well, I would hope so.”
David grinned into Patrick’s shoulder, teeth pressed against his once-pristine cotton shirt, the one David had picked out for him because it fit just right. Soon, he knew, the song would end. They’d have to stop dancing. People would get tired and go home and the morning would dawn the same time it always did and life would go on as it always had. And David wanted to wait for it. He wanted to hear every note, wanted to get every second of this that he could. The walk-up was a great beginning, but David wanted to stay to the end.
“So,” Patrick whispered, “You gonna tell me?”
David shook his head. “Mm-mm.” He pressed his lips to Patrick’s in a firm, toothy kiss. “Nope.”